An oldie writer. I haven't seriously collected anything and put it to words in a while. I have a few ideas nowadays. However, they are simply ideas.

On the behavioral characteristics of the Ralts evolutionary line

This story is my number one priority. As I've been writing it, the story has taken peculiar turns. The direction I initially set out on is entirely different than the path that led me to present. As it is, this is the longest story I have ever written. I make no illusions that it is indeed any real good. It's more an itch that I've been yearning to scratch, at least the meta plot was. It turns out that the plot was relatively simple in creating. The more fun parts were the actual details. Certain chapters contained moments of pure expression on my part, where a logical barrier seemed to fall away and free creativity moved the story more than me sticking to a set script. As of this moment, I am working on the final chapter more or less to get the end nailed down. As it currently stands, it will conclude at 25-26 chapters. The story line began simply as a human studying Gardevoir as pure research.

A note about naming conventions and descriptors.
A lot of inspiration for the naming conventions for the Gardevoir come from my time in Japan and other asian countries. In fact, I wanted to take a moment to break down a few descriptors:

Beh (from beh sze) is an alteration from Phillipino slang which is meant to be a contraction for baby or babe and is used as a term of endearment. In this case, using it as a beginning descriptor assigns it Beh as in Loved. Sze, the follow on portion comes from the word sze-tsung in wu chinese. In a literal sense the full word means tycoon or large bush (interestingly enough) , sze indicating the size descriptor. This was partially accidental and came from me seeing the languages based upon emotional intonations but with specific words having specific meanings that can be taken multiple different ways.

ses frau is a little easier. Frau comes from fraulein which is meant to mean unmarried woman. Ses comes from a weird particle of conversation I head in Malaysia that kind of eludes me to this day. I only ever heard it being used between two lovers. So I used ses but contracted fraulein, indicating then the notion of beloved woman.

Beh as a particle in many cases changes meaning. This is one aspect I have been negligent on. In some cases it is used as an honorific referring to men of standing or respect. So the addition of emotional indicators was added late to attempt rectification of this issue.

te ze comes from the albanian word teze which means aunt or mother. In the Gardevoir language, it means the home of mothers or home for short. It was one of those creative moments that resulted in it being made into a descriptor for home or village. I use the meaning interchangeably because its meaning is referring to a specific place. Your home can be a village, or it can be a specific heart. What matters, in that case, is what you identify more with: Your house, or the people you share a community with.

Names:

Aria as a name comes from A musical piece written typically for a solo voice with orchestral accompaniment in an opera.

Aitsu is straight Japanese to be honest. It means that guy. Unfortunately, the root Japanese word is derogatory in nature. Which is contradictory since Aitsu in the story is very much a liked person.

Rowan Gingko. Truth is, until recently, I had not played Pokemon Diamond, so I did not know that the name Rowan was the name of a pokemon professor. I picked it because of the Rowan tree itself. Since Rowan trees are northern Hemisphere specific, they have a wide range of habitats. They exist in both European and Asian countries. Since Rowan was to be walking between the two words, the name seemed appropriate. Ginkgo was kind of dropped as a hint as to what path he will take in life. It too is the name of a tree.

Hermestas (Matriarch) Her name actually comes from the product hermesetas which is a type of sweetener found in the UK. I ran with the sweet yet formal nature of her because of these attributes.

Aika: The name Aika is obviously Japanese. It means "Love song" and is something of a popular name. Given that her role in the story remained underdeveloped due to Aria taking on the role she was assigned to, I kept it more as an endearment and to keep with the music themes.

Aina: Literally means love of green or love of vegetation. The name arose primarily because Aina was the first Gardevoir whom I put thought into developing. He served as the base from which the other characters eventually came from. It was actually from him that the notion of natural homes built from living plants came into mind which served as the basis for later descriptions of their homes. Further, his name inadvertently resulted in the inspiration for certain aspects of Gardevoir culture for me. So if you think that Gardevoir in my story are a bunch of hippies, blame him.

Aura: This is actually short for Aurora or Aurora Borealis. The name is used twice, once by accident. The meaning for this one is quite clear. But I'll let you guys look into the mythology of the Aurora Borealis for a spot of enjoyable reading.

As I mentioned before, a few character names come from real persons. Maurice and Katia Krafft were actual volcanologists. In May of 1991 they were killed in a pyroclastic flow from Mount Unzen. A lot of volcano safety and education programs that exist came from them in one form or another. Further, their photos and video of volcanic eruptions helped further our understanding of volcanic eruptions. I hold them in very deep respect. When I was much younger, I used to be able to catch the occasional National Geographic documentary on them. In a very real sense, they inspired me to pursue a degree in Geology after I left the Army in 2012. It is because of them that I also understand that you can have awe of something (subjectivity) and still figure out the why and how (objectivity).

Freeman does not come from a real person, rather, it came from Freeman from the Half life series, though more specifically, Freemans mind, a long running youtube video series I still watch on occasion to have some humor. After chapter 18, I actually marathoned a number of episodes while writing the final chapter just to come down from the frustrations of constantly loosing the chapter. However, him becoming a more major character resulted in the need for someone to speak to Rowan and tell him that he is venturing too far from what he knows and to be the voice of reason. He needed to be the very representation of the best of all of us in this story. For that, he was given an expanded role rather than just a behind the scenes role. Further, his actions helped carry act 3 of this story. Without his presence, I'm not sure I would have been able to accomplish what I have so far.

Aside from them, we should perhaps turn our attention to the girl people probably love to Hate:
Amelia.

I'm not going to lie, Amelia is actually the summation of everything I find distasteful. She represents someone who worries more about the self than the others. She is hard driving, and she knows what she wants in her life. These are not bad attributes to have though. What is bad is that she is very sociopathical about them. She will literally step over dead bodies to get what she wants, as she nearly did in one chapter. While she comes off as being antagonistic, she is also the character I rather like the most aside from Aria. She is the one who slowly begins to change herself for her own reasons. Her growth in my story has actually been the 2nd most drastic. I've hinted at them with the end of chapter sections (Kept short mostly because I don't want things to be too obvious...contradictory considering the character and word notes being used here)) but the changes are more down to earth. She doesn't have the massive worldview shifts Rowan does. She doesn't see the world through her hearts desires like Aria. She is affected by her relationships that she has but embraces their flawed natures. Those relationships color her actions, but they do not lock her into something she cannot escape. I almost want to finish this story and write an Amelia centric story, where she travels to Hoenn and becomes a contest champion, having adventures with the current contest idol and other such things, but in reality, she is very much the everyman of this story. Her flaws are flaws most of us have in one form. Her changes are very real changes people can make to themselves. Her attitude is very very human. And that's the real tragedy too: She knows they are flaws, but she feels, at times, trapped by those flaws. She doesn't know what right looks like until she meets Rowan.

In time new Gardevoir will be introduced into the mix. I'm going to go ahead and say that a number of the names come from Tibetan names (Picked mostly because I'm reading a fascinating book on the Lhasa uprising. And how there were good and bad aspects on both sides of the whole Tibet issues) though there are a few which aren't:

3 names are German and reflect them coming from Hoenn which is more germanic and european in nature.

2 names are actually based on country music singers I rather liked and is based upon the weird nicknames we often give our pokemon:
Clint comes from Clint black, the country singer. Not my favorite, but for the last few games, my starter has been called Clint. Originally, I would just name the starter something I thought was cool at the time.

Garth: Comes from the singer Garth Brooks. A country singer I still like to this day.

That about covers the naming convention. I'll level here as I close this out: I originally meant to write a one shot that took place after the ending of the main story. However, as I was writing it, little details began spinning themselves into a coherent epilogue that seemed to close out the events of the main story and also give a sort of check up on their lives after everything in the story went down. So, officially, the ending is written (At 25000 words as just one chapter...) and I'm gonna have to try the whole "one shot" thing again.

When I began this story, I figured it would be a side project for the main story I wanted to write. As inspiration came more readily though, I began pouring more of myself into it. As it stands, with over 100K words, I find myself proud of what it's become. It's just a little fun I had for a month or so but represented something that beat in my heart. I'll be honest, I never understood the whole bond thing with pokemon. I liked Gardevoir originally because they reminded me of an elf. Elves are kind of my favorite mythological creature, that and fairies to be honest, so when I first ran into them, I admit that they became my favorites based upon that. However, and I'll be honest here, nuzlocke, like it had to so many writers, appeared in my life. I took a nuzlocke challenge for emerald on a rom and... well truth be told, at the end of the game, the Gardevoir I had was the only survivor of the Elite 4 and champion.

Her original name? Aria.

So that's my story. The creative process was 1 part actual directed effort, 3 parts "What is this...ugh! I'm...FEELING!(Grinch reference)" and then many parts letting that just go. It's no Gift of the Protector. But it's my own little flourish. This story, as far as I have tried to make it, is capable of existing within the X and Y mainverse only because it is unaffected by the story of the games. However, when I begin really working on the Sequel story, the events of the games will come back into play. I've laid the intellectual groundwork, but the more difficult part will be falling into that noir writing mood. So, we will see.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this. I appreciate all feedback so far. Sometimes it is nice just opening the reviews, reading over them, and gaining inspiration just from people who have enjoyed the story in a way.