[PKMN FULL] The International Idol Star Festival/Tournament! [T]

26 yrs Hearthome, Sinnoh aka "Little" Marjorie Deeds

One for October 31st.

There was an audible creak coming from several of the chairs in the audience; a couple of which immediately croaked again when their inhabitants realized the disturbance they had made when they unconsciously leaned forward. Their eyes were set curiously on what laid before them on stage: Koestler had walked on buried within a large black suitcoat and matching hat; careful to disallow any onlookers to catch a glimpse of her face. Her back was turned away from them, and the sound of a released Pokeball and a hushed command preceded a flood of a thick black fog that engulfed the woman and sprawled out across the stage. A few watchers turned to their mates and offered ideas on what technique it could've been; its usage reminiscent of Haze or Smokescreen, but colored as if it came from a Ghost-Type move: some even correctly assumed it was Night Shade.
A shot of shimmering green light burst through the oppressive ebony cloud and took the shape of a small creature mid-air before shattering off its form like shards of glass. The effect created by the Seals on the Pokémon's Ball Capsule had riveted some, but others were left befuddled and surprised about what had been revealed: a Smeargle flipped through the air and landed on the stage with substantial force, a shower of lime glints accompanying it. A Normal-Type wasn't forbidden in the competition, of course, but it was an odd choice to start a Halloween theme. The Smeargle slowly got to his feet, standing firm and quiet for a moment before swaying its legs in weird indirect fashion: most certainly a Teeter Dance. The dog moved about all corners of the arena, grabbing at the gaseous shadows and whisking them over its body; at certain moments, some could see a cloak forming and spinning around with the Pokémon.
A gasp shot through the crowd; it appeared that someone finally caught a glimpse of one of the misty skeletons clattering behind the Smeargle, taking horrific steps towards the apron. Amongst them, directly behind their Pokemon, was Koestler: their face gaunt and slathered with paint as to appear as a skull. She shambled along with the leagues of the undead as a Gengar floated above the scene and straightened it posture like a musical conductor. Not a second after all the skeletons came into clear view, the Gengar clasped it hands into fists and the entire cast straightened their backs in a similar fashion. The Ghost smiled and winked at the judges, cueing a loud electronic beat to commence and all the performers to suddenly burst into coordinated dance in perfect sync; their heads and limbs flailing about as if held together by thinning ligament.


An Introduction to Nature of Arson.

An instance of arson can usually be condensed into a few elements: a troubled individual, misfortunate tenants, and writers who are eager or obligated to record such crimes. If one were to peruse case files located in a certain dusty cardboard box cooped up in the backroom of a small police department near of coast of Holon Lake, eventually they would come across a thick manila folder detailing a house fire that, at face value, appears to include all of those aspects laid out in a uncomplicated fashion: a man plagued in the mind with political idealism and - allegedly - intoxicants, the charred remains of a brilliant curator, and a swarm of film reels and speculative theories jotted down in chickenscratch illustrating a magnificent Victorian-style home engulfed in an igneous disease. The twist of the piece comes when one reads the suspect's psychological profile: being deemed completely sane meant his ideas and demeanor were no more demented than anyone's who resided near that quaint seaside town and the beautiful mansion that he set ablaze. No, the aforementioned "troubled individual" role was not held by the perpetrator; it was instead given to the curator's young daughter.


A House in Holon.

She was the product of a passionate liaison and subsequent hasty marriage that, due to an unforeseen simple tragedy, added her father to a list of widows. The curator and his then-infantile daughter found sanctuary when his family requested he take over as the caretaker of an estate in Holon. The interior of this home was only comparable to that of a vast library. The curator's ancestor, its former inhabitant, had fancied herself a hermit and in her lonely boredom decided to alter nearly every wall to act as a bookshelf. The combination of her yellowing tomes and the curator's personal assortment of literature was the only entertainment the daughter seemed to need growing up. On many nights she chose to spend her youth listening to her father's crisp voice recite a classic, cuddled up with a Smeargle puppy her father had imported from Johto.
The girl was an awkward thing and moved in quick gestures, about eight at the time of the incident; not gangly per se, but it was uncomfortably easy for visiting neighbors to imagine her tangling her appendages into inhuman forms and enticing them to sell their soul to her. But despite the circumstances of her birth and her slight aesthetic disposition towards the unnerving, the curator absolutely adored his daughter. Though, maybe not in an ideal sense of the word; since he cherished her like one cherishes a prized momento or personal project. It was a curious relationship; his treatment of her most likely derived from his deep-rooted constitution as a collector of valuable artifacts. Ever since he was a child he was like this: finding, trading, hoarding baubles and intriguing relics while simultaneously slighting the feelings of lovers and family due to an ingrown sense of objectification or materialism. It was hard for him to drift from this behavior in his approach to parenthood, but if you disregard the moderate emotional distance and his tendency to instill mental complexes, you were left with an excellent candidate to raise this girl.
It is difficult to figure how exactly the fire spread, or where it began, or why the curator had not caught on to its presence earlier and escaped. If not for that Smeargle and a quickly responsive volunteer fire-fighting service, the girl might've not made it out of the house either. If you ask her, she doesn't remember the event all that well; the puppy had dragged her out of the building half-asleep. But she does specifically recall one moment: standing, in full view of the house, and thinking of all those characters, in all those books, turning a deep black color and crinkling within the flames.

A New Artist in Hearthome.

Aunt Marjorie, her father's older sister and her namesake, was easily describable as prim, priggish, and prudish; the type of person vying for a head position on a town committee and who made weekly trips to the Foreign Building. She had a respectable residence in Hearthome, nearly small and very clean; obviously chosen with the intent of housing the woman as she lived the remainder of her life as a socially-active dignified spinster. The introduction of her little niece had only served to make the rooms feel tight and speed her aging process. Marjorie was empathetic, of course: she too had lost someone and felt that no child should have to go through trauma, but she found it difficult to summon motherly instincts within herself. She tended to overcompensate, becoming an overbearing presence on the girl's life. Especially when the girl started exhibiting strange … tendencies.
Her first notable offense was somewhere around the age of ten. She had been reading in the study, her aunt sitting rigidly in her favorite chair doing likewise, when the girl suddenly stopped and walked out of the room. She had been absent for a long period of time before Marjorie peered upwards to find the book she left sprawled open on the couch; daring time to weather the binding. The woman slapped her own read shut and saved the poor novel before the damage could set in. She cried out for the child to return and answer for her negligence. When she received no answer, she quickly trotted out into the hallway; catching the noise of a running faucet. The woman frowned at the door of the powder room as she waited for the girl to come out. But when the doorknob turned and revealed the girl, she was wearing an outfit of her father's. Everything had been haphazardly altered to her body with an unsteady pair of scissors, and her head sported a pair of his bifocals and a swath of watery, slicked-back hair. When questioned, the girl insisted that she was the "mirror reflection" of her father and was looking for "his daughter" herself. But even when provided a few harsh words and a punishment for ruining a good set of clothes, the girl continued slipping into representations of people or personas she would make up.
Her aunt conjectured this mentality stemmed from the reading material she had been feeding herself throughout her adolescence; scratchy parchment loosely strung together by withering leather binding told her daring tales of strange phenomena and old rituals, of creatures and powers that bent the wires reality was hung from. The girl was soaking herself in the confusing and terrifying and adopting its habit, and Marjorie found herself failing to curb this: when she took away books so the girl wouldn't copy the characters, the child would assign her dresses as different identities; when she forced her to wear plain clothes, the girl focused on making all her characters based off an extravagant variety of vocal qualities.
When venting to a trusted friend about the ordeal, Marjorie was gifted the idea of involving the child in theatre around the area. That way, she would have an outlet for her excessive creativity, and if the problem persisted into her adult life, at least she would have a marketable talent. The immediate thought was to take the girl to see a few shows at the local Super Contest Hall, and coordination was quickly picked up as a hobby. The girl's future pursuits in theatre, art, and coordination had not snuffed out her oddities or her compulsion to slip into other personas on a whim, but it had managed to make her incredibly busy and tire her out enough that you could often see a side of her that wasn't a mimicry or creation of someone else. The girl grew into a passable sense of beauty and social skill as she reached the crest of adulthood; that fact, which when combined with a numb layer of tolerance, satiated her aunt into a more complacent role.


The Appearance and Soul of a Multi-Faced Girl.

And perhaps the girl ended up having a good effect on her aunt in the end; due to competitions or out-of-town productions, Marjorie often had to take a train or long walk through nature with her niece to secure a place in the audience. These excursions did much to bide off the onset of post-prime body fat, but additionally gave the woman an exclusive peek into her niece's mind; as they would actively chat through such trips. A little known fact is that it was actually Marjorie who came up with the idea of one "stage name" to encompass all the personalities her niece embodied during performances, so that the girl could stop confusing the management with her sudden name changes. The next time the girl registered for a contest, her name would be "Koestler," after her father. It was a good, sturdy, and practical name, her aunt insisted; although she secretly tasted some bitterness over the fact the girl basically abandoned her real name, as if there was something wrong with the woman she was named after.
The girl's stage presence existed little as a person; her constant shift in themed costume and liberal use of make-up to create pseudo-masks had made "Koestler" feel like a brand or subgenre of coordination performance art, and some were left astonished when they discovered the girl was just that - a girl - as she often cross-dressed. There even came times when a judge insisted the artist be investigated, as they strongly believed that "Koestler" was the shared moniker of a group of actors trying to pass off as the same person. But each time, officials found the base of Koestler to be a skinny gaunt-faced woman with rich tea-toned skin and scraggly black hair down to her shoulders. The politeness ingrained into her character would soothe their suspicions, although they often left her company bewildered by her manner to treat the world around her as if it was a malleable or fictitious construct; devised in some book or other medium.
When exactly she started having faith that an unseen writer was devising her life is unknown, but she justified her position firmly in most of her personas: for, when she considered the worlds inhabiting her books and how real it was for the characters dwelling in one, what was truly the difference? She'd often indulged in expressing these thoughts and lacked subtlety outside of performances: like talking about her impressions of a person's details whilst standing right in front of them; as if testing their pride. She had a very appraising eye, and often fascinated herself with details that would normally seem mundane or trivial to others - and in most cases, actually were - like her companion's physical ticks or figuring out what kind of format and genre her life story was supposed to be in. All in all her approach could be called charming by some and less than delicate by others, but was certainly flittering and lackadaisical. There was a good amount of knowledge in her head, but it never left her mind uncolored by a weird sense of existentialism.


Into a Non-Conclusive Present.

Perhaps the fundamental essence of arson needs a review, because a few of you might not consider this girl "troubled" as much as she is "troubling" to those around her. Simply because one mixes a warm heart with a disquieting aura does not qualify one as troubled. But as I write this, I can assure you it is uncanny to detail the life of a girl as if you were her deceased father.
A train takes Aunt Marjorie and I towards the next chapter of my life, and I still have no idea who pertains to the word "I." Who is Little Marjorie Deeds?

I'm not sure.