- 1534
- #1
Character Image:
Character Name: Alain Basswood
Pronoun Choice: he/him
Age: 35
Home Region: Kanto, originally from Kalos
Personality Overview: Outgoing and charming; Alain is a people person and he shines being around others. He's upbeat and active, and it's rare to see him down. He's got an intense love of his job and his pokémon, and he's not afraid to voice his opinions about either of them - or anything else, really. He has a tendency to go overboard on things he likes, but don't we all?
Five Likes:
Five Dislikes:
Hobbies: Training and working with his pokémon, watching dramas (Kalosian and Sinnohan are the best), surprising his boyfriend with gifts, chatting/texting on his phone
Three Strengths:
Driven
Alain is not a lazy man. While he might seem as such during his rare breaks from work, most of the time he constantly has something going on - there are 'mons to train, classes to teach, and races to win. He's not content with doing nothing, and there is a drive behind him that keeps him striving to keep going.
Friendly
Perhaps enhanced by his years under his father's work with those interested in obtaining one of his fine fish, Alain is an extremely amicable person. He loves meeting new people, and there's something about him that makes him just seem approachable. It has caused a few issues with some odd parasocial relationships (thankfully only three stalkers so far!), but for the most part it benefits him in his celebrity status quite well.
Polyglot
Perhaps due to the number of researchers coming and going from the facility he worked so long in, Alain has a great love of language, and he's fairly quick to pick them up as well. Obviously being fluent in Kalosian, he's also quite strong in Galarian, Unovan, and Kantonese (including the Johtoan dialect!). He's even developed a sort of click-language to understand his scizor - something he swears he's going to write a paper on. One day.
Three Weaknesses:
Indulgent
When Alain gives in to the desire for relaxation, he really gives in. Whether it's food, drink, physical intimacy or just sleeping in, he always goes a bit hard. He'll stuff himself sick, drink himself to blackout, or exhaust himself with ahem other activities. He's also not terribly difficult to sway - normally his drive keeps him in line, but a little pushing from his friends or thinking just a little too hard about something he wants can often see him giving in to these indulgences quite easily.
Competitive
While a boon to his career, Alain's competitive streak can be a bit too deep sometimes. He takes his work extremely seriously, and no amount of friendliness can repair the relationships between him and those he considers real rivals. This has caused him problems in other ways too, with anything causing him to feel threatened driving him to work beyond his limit to his own detriment. He wants to win, and he wants to be the best, and that isn't always conductive to a healthy attitude.
Showboat
Alain is pretty, Alain is talented, and Alain is well aware of both of these facts. He can't help himself if given the opportunity to show off, even if it might be an annoyance to others or even a danger at times. While certainly in the media's eye, it's not even about them - he's been doing it since he was a nobody in a lab coat, and it seems to be a firm aspect of his personality. He's an exhibitionist at his core, and while he might get tired of fans approaching him during his own time, when he's "on" he is an absolute attention guzzler.
History:
Alain was born and raised in Kalos; his mother was - and still is - a scientist, focusing on pokémon physiology. Her passion had always lay in what made them tick, and it ensured their home was always filled with some number of creatures being brought home to study. His father, on the other hand, was a professional feebas breeder and trainer; many of his hours were spent analyzing blank-eyed fish for the most appealing color patterns, and many more were spent on the five acre training course that was their family home's grounds attempting to get those same vacant stares to pay attention to him. While both were always busy, his parents cared quite deeply about their son, and his childhood was usually quite the happy one. It did likely spring his habit of self indulgence, however, as on particularly occupied stints of work, his doting parents would often spoil him with things he desired, as though to make up for the lost time.
Alain spent a large amount of his young childhood with his father, with a small child being unsuitable to being around lab work. This ingrained in him a love of the outdoors, as well as enthusiasm for training pokémon. While the feebas they were trying to raise into milotics were always a... challenge, the necessity to customize regimens for each of them helped build his critical thinking skills and likewise ensured an appreciation for even the simplest of creatures wormed its way into his mind. As he grew into his teens, he finally grew closer to his mother as well, with her reference gaining him an only slightly unfair internship with the facility she was employed at.
While the internship didn't cause some grandiose push into the sciences, it did teach Alain quite a bit, and it did lead to his acquisition of his first partner - not, surprisingly, the sort he'd become famous for later in life, either. No, his first pokémon was an abandoned psyduck, having been chased from its team for reasons unknown and found on a field survey in a nearby wetland. This was also, coincidentally, where he met the boy who'd become one of his best friends - the young Louis Morel, tagging along with his parents in that selfsame survey.
The experience did eventually lead to his admiration of his favored steel types, not to mention several broken bones from getting a little too rowdy playing with some of the observation subjects, and the exposure to other bright, young interns and tagalongs gradually built a sense of ambition and competitiveness into the blossoming man. It was, in fact, an argument about his recently evolved scizor - from a scyther also acquired quite accidentally - that first clicked the idea of racing into his mind, and it was Zip (the scizor in question) beating the other's rapidash in a friendly competition that cemented the interest. The next years of his life would be spent working as a proper junior researcher, studying training techniques and experimenting with methods to help boost traditionally slow pokémon into skills they didn't seem fit for. It was generally considered a bit of a pet project, with the facility allowing and even granting minor funding for it on the grounds that it was providing data that likely wouldn't have been gathered anyway, even if the results were thought to be generally doomed.
That is, until Alain Basswood took home silver at the Courmarine City Circuit - not a win, but a notable accomplishment for an unknown racer, and doubly so considering his choice of ride was a lairon.
His life from that point on became a whirlwind, with the young researcher standing on the precipice of a career in athletics instead. He redoubled his efforts into his training methods while simultaneously entering for any small races he could; the thrill of the near win and the exhilaration of the race itself became somewhat of a quick addiction for him. He spent the next decade growing from an unusual upstart to a well-loved name in the Kalosian - and then international - pokémon racing circuits, both ridden and unmanned.
It wasn't until his thirty-third birthday that he finally even owned any kind of permanent home - and only due to a lucrative contract from the illustrious Viridian City Academy. Never one to turn down the opportunity to further his own techniques, Alain purchased a cliffside condo and acreage just outside of the city and has since been unashamedly using his weekly class time to experiment with new training regimes as he teaches the next generation of trainers his methods.
Only recently has he finally had to cancel classes, however, with VCA electing him to oversee their venture into Nauwill - at President Hayashi's personal request. Basswood won't give a straight answer as to how or if he actually knows the man, but he is on the record joking that perhaps he's just a big fan. Regardless, he's now packed up and joined the expedition officially - along with his personal nutritionist and partner, Alexis Willow.
Image made with this Picrew!
Character Name: Alain Basswood
Pronoun Choice: he/him
Age: 35
Home Region: Kanto, originally from Kalos
Personality Overview: Outgoing and charming; Alain is a people person and he shines being around others. He's upbeat and active, and it's rare to see him down. He's got an intense love of his job and his pokémon, and he's not afraid to voice his opinions about either of them - or anything else, really. He has a tendency to go overboard on things he likes, but don't we all?
Five Likes:
- Steel pokemon
- Delicious food and drink
- Cute guys
- Winning races
- Teasing the media about Willow's gender
Five Dislikes:
- Clashing colors and outdated fashion
- Losing races
- Unplanned interviews
- Bad publicity
- Not being allowed to order takeout for lunch even though he literally hired someone to tell him not to order takeout and he's ordered food three times this week Alain just eat the salad Willow gave you
Hobbies: Training and working with his pokémon, watching dramas (Kalosian and Sinnohan are the best), surprising his boyfriend with gifts, chatting/texting on his phone
Three Strengths:
Driven
Alain is not a lazy man. While he might seem as such during his rare breaks from work, most of the time he constantly has something going on - there are 'mons to train, classes to teach, and races to win. He's not content with doing nothing, and there is a drive behind him that keeps him striving to keep going.
Friendly
Perhaps enhanced by his years under his father's work with those interested in obtaining one of his fine fish, Alain is an extremely amicable person. He loves meeting new people, and there's something about him that makes him just seem approachable. It has caused a few issues with some odd parasocial relationships (thankfully only three stalkers so far!), but for the most part it benefits him in his celebrity status quite well.
Polyglot
Perhaps due to the number of researchers coming and going from the facility he worked so long in, Alain has a great love of language, and he's fairly quick to pick them up as well. Obviously being fluent in Kalosian, he's also quite strong in Galarian, Unovan, and Kantonese (including the Johtoan dialect!). He's even developed a sort of click-language to understand his scizor - something he swears he's going to write a paper on. One day.
Three Weaknesses:
Indulgent
When Alain gives in to the desire for relaxation, he really gives in. Whether it's food, drink, physical intimacy or just sleeping in, he always goes a bit hard. He'll stuff himself sick, drink himself to blackout, or exhaust himself with ahem other activities. He's also not terribly difficult to sway - normally his drive keeps him in line, but a little pushing from his friends or thinking just a little too hard about something he wants can often see him giving in to these indulgences quite easily.
Competitive
While a boon to his career, Alain's competitive streak can be a bit too deep sometimes. He takes his work extremely seriously, and no amount of friendliness can repair the relationships between him and those he considers real rivals. This has caused him problems in other ways too, with anything causing him to feel threatened driving him to work beyond his limit to his own detriment. He wants to win, and he wants to be the best, and that isn't always conductive to a healthy attitude.
Showboat
Alain is pretty, Alain is talented, and Alain is well aware of both of these facts. He can't help himself if given the opportunity to show off, even if it might be an annoyance to others or even a danger at times. While certainly in the media's eye, it's not even about them - he's been doing it since he was a nobody in a lab coat, and it seems to be a firm aspect of his personality. He's an exhibitionist at his core, and while he might get tired of fans approaching him during his own time, when he's "on" he is an absolute attention guzzler.
History:
Alain was born and raised in Kalos; his mother was - and still is - a scientist, focusing on pokémon physiology. Her passion had always lay in what made them tick, and it ensured their home was always filled with some number of creatures being brought home to study. His father, on the other hand, was a professional feebas breeder and trainer; many of his hours were spent analyzing blank-eyed fish for the most appealing color patterns, and many more were spent on the five acre training course that was their family home's grounds attempting to get those same vacant stares to pay attention to him. While both were always busy, his parents cared quite deeply about their son, and his childhood was usually quite the happy one. It did likely spring his habit of self indulgence, however, as on particularly occupied stints of work, his doting parents would often spoil him with things he desired, as though to make up for the lost time.
Alain spent a large amount of his young childhood with his father, with a small child being unsuitable to being around lab work. This ingrained in him a love of the outdoors, as well as enthusiasm for training pokémon. While the feebas they were trying to raise into milotics were always a... challenge, the necessity to customize regimens for each of them helped build his critical thinking skills and likewise ensured an appreciation for even the simplest of creatures wormed its way into his mind. As he grew into his teens, he finally grew closer to his mother as well, with her reference gaining him an only slightly unfair internship with the facility she was employed at.
While the internship didn't cause some grandiose push into the sciences, it did teach Alain quite a bit, and it did lead to his acquisition of his first partner - not, surprisingly, the sort he'd become famous for later in life, either. No, his first pokémon was an abandoned psyduck, having been chased from its team for reasons unknown and found on a field survey in a nearby wetland. This was also, coincidentally, where he met the boy who'd become one of his best friends - the young Louis Morel, tagging along with his parents in that selfsame survey.
The experience did eventually lead to his admiration of his favored steel types, not to mention several broken bones from getting a little too rowdy playing with some of the observation subjects, and the exposure to other bright, young interns and tagalongs gradually built a sense of ambition and competitiveness into the blossoming man. It was, in fact, an argument about his recently evolved scizor - from a scyther also acquired quite accidentally - that first clicked the idea of racing into his mind, and it was Zip (the scizor in question) beating the other's rapidash in a friendly competition that cemented the interest. The next years of his life would be spent working as a proper junior researcher, studying training techniques and experimenting with methods to help boost traditionally slow pokémon into skills they didn't seem fit for. It was generally considered a bit of a pet project, with the facility allowing and even granting minor funding for it on the grounds that it was providing data that likely wouldn't have been gathered anyway, even if the results were thought to be generally doomed.
That is, until Alain Basswood took home silver at the Courmarine City Circuit - not a win, but a notable accomplishment for an unknown racer, and doubly so considering his choice of ride was a lairon.
His life from that point on became a whirlwind, with the young researcher standing on the precipice of a career in athletics instead. He redoubled his efforts into his training methods while simultaneously entering for any small races he could; the thrill of the near win and the exhilaration of the race itself became somewhat of a quick addiction for him. He spent the next decade growing from an unusual upstart to a well-loved name in the Kalosian - and then international - pokémon racing circuits, both ridden and unmanned.
It wasn't until his thirty-third birthday that he finally even owned any kind of permanent home - and only due to a lucrative contract from the illustrious Viridian City Academy. Never one to turn down the opportunity to further his own techniques, Alain purchased a cliffside condo and acreage just outside of the city and has since been unashamedly using his weekly class time to experiment with new training regimes as he teaches the next generation of trainers his methods.
Only recently has he finally had to cancel classes, however, with VCA electing him to oversee their venture into Nauwill - at President Hayashi's personal request. Basswood won't give a straight answer as to how or if he actually knows the man, but he is on the record joking that perhaps he's just a big fan. Regardless, he's now packed up and joined the expedition officially - along with his personal nutritionist and partner, Alexis Willow.
Image made with this Picrew!
Last edited:
