- 1573
- #1
Picrew link
Character Name: Deirdre "Joy" Howland (How-lnd)
Pronoun Choice: She/Her
Age: 34
Home Region: Grew up in Ballonlea, Galar and basically camped all around Paldea from age 25-34 before submitting her application to Nauwill.
Character Overview: Deirdre is a hardy, strong-willed woman who firmly believes that nature has a remedy for just about everything and is willing to go the extra mile to prove it. She has no patience for anything artificial, including "fake" people, and handles much of her life with a steady hand, sharp mind, and a whole lot of elbow grease. She shows her affection for others as strongly as she holds her opinions and just doesn't understand how other people don't feel or see the world as she does.
Five Likes:
- Cat, flying, grass, psychic, ghost, fairy, and dark type Pokemon
- Cozy-cottagecore aesthetics and comfy clothes
- Hot drinks (Hot chocolate is her favorite)
- Chicken noodle soup
- Autumn and spring (She loves Halloween)
Five Dislikes:
- Electric and steel type Pokemon
- Clothes made with vinyl, spandex, or other clingy, non-breathable material
- Pre-packaged foods, drinks, and premade mixes for cakes/other baked goods
- Eggplant parmesan
- Summer (Everything about her gets all sweaty and she can't wear her cozy sweaters)
Hobbies:
- Foraging, fishing, and gardening
- Making and storing food in preserve jars
- Selling homemade potions, ethers, and other medicines for Pokemon as well as all manner of herbal teas, sachets, salves, and other remedies for humans (To treat headaches, nausea, blisters, burns, etc)
- Making homemade soups, pastas, and fresh breads/sweet treats
- Knitting, crochet, sewing, and quilting; She likes to make cloth dolls for children and Pokemon and clothes for herself or others
Three Strengths:
- Wise: Deirdre's years spent traveling in Paldea and working as a nurse taught her one very important lesson; Be prepared. As such, she never sets out on an adventure without a first aid kit, extra bottles of water and medicine, and a change of clothes. She also makes sure that she fully understands anything she has to sign and never, ever, agrees to something if it feels too good to be true. She's not one to be easily fooled by pretty eyes or won over with fancy words.
- Unflappable: There's very little in this world that Deirdre hasn't seen and what might reasonably send others to the floor is met with a calm, seasoned approach. Blood soaked clothes, full-body burns, or organs out where they definitely shouldn't be? You've just described a quarter of her nursing career. Projectile vomit covering the majority of someone's bathroom after a bad meal? That's horrific no matter how you say it, but her screaming isn't going to help them get to the hospital any faster.
- Resourceful: Even the most prepared person in the world will find themselves without something eventually and Deirdre has taught herself how to make do and adapt in those situations. A clean towel or spare tank-top can become a temporary tourniquet. A sock dipped in water makes a washcloth for a bath or for a fever-struck forehead. A broken Poke-ball tied up with shoelaces or a bandana makes a semi-reliable ladle for fresh drinking water, medicine, or soup. Deirdre's got the will, and she knows that the world around her has a way.
- Die-hard Naturalist: Deirdre has a deep-seated hatred for artificial foods/colors, plastic products, and other mass-produced, mass-marketed, or single-use goods. She openly talks down about those that rely on, use, or consume those products, and has lost friends over arguments involving their use of boxed cake mixes and has no regrets. To her, it's all-natural, homemade, and processed by human hands or it doesn't come anywhere near her. (The only line she has drawn with this is when it comes to people with disabilities that rely on these products to eat, drink, or otherwise continue existing. Healthy, able-bodied people have no excuse in her book)
- Physical: Deirdre is a hugger and has a difficult time remembering to keep herself out of other people's personal space. To her, physical contact is the truest way to bond with others and shows whoever she's spending time with that she cares about them and feels relaxed around them. Her way of reassuring, supporting, and even joking with others revolves around being able to ruffle their hair, give them a firm pat on the back, or pull them into a tight side-squeeze, and not being able to do so makes her feel like she can't get close to that person. How else is she supposed to show how happy she is for someone if she can't bear-hug them? That's so depressing!
- No-filter: Deirdre doesn't care to stifle herself for anyone. Her sentences contain casual profanity and she isn't afraid to add her two-cents in a conversation where she was never asked to begin with. If you're looking for someone who will police her language around you and let you think you're not being a dumb, stupid fuck for whatever reason, you're talking to the wrong woman. If people get mad at her for it, then it's no skin off of her back. She's not looking to keep company with people who balk and clutch their pearls at every little thing.
History:
Deirdre was born and raised in Ballonlea, Galar, by her mother, beloved grandmother, and their circle of dedicated "witch" friends. While her childhood was otherwise uneventful and typical for the average child growing up in Galar, her upbringing instilled Deirdre with an intense love for the natural world and all that it could offer her. She grew up with generations worth of Galarian herbal and homeopathic knowledge as her background, all of which she treasured, practiced, and brought along with her on her first, and only, gym challenge journey.
Her original reason for starting the gym challenge had been due to peer pressure from the children of her mother's friends. However, after a scorching defeat at Kabu's gym in Motostoke and a long stay over at the Pokemon center, Deirdre realized that her true calling was to become a Pokemon nurse. Her mother had been a "Nurse Joy" before retiring in order to raise her, as did her grandmother before her, and her mother before her, it just made sense to continue the family tradition! As soon as her Pokemon were healed, Deirdre booked it back home to Ballonlea and announced that she was going to study hard and go to Pokemon Nursing school.
After graduating from Pokemon Nursing school and spending several years as the head of Ballonlea's Pokemon Center, Deirdre set her sights on a more wild frontier; Paldea. While Galar was known for it's wild area and it's love of camping, Paldea had that and a love of picnicking on top of it. Plus, rumors of a series of special "herba mystica" that had the potential to heal and attract certain kinds of Pokemon were just too much to ignore. At 25, she said her goodbyes to her friends and family in Ballonlea and hopped on the first plane straight to Mesagoza.
Though she'd told everyone back at home that she'd be settled in a nice apartment that her job had set aside for her, Deirdre had already decided that she'd be roughing it out in Paldea as much as possible. It was easier said than done, of course, but each close encounter with a wild Pokemon, weather event, or other catastrophe made her, and the Pokemon she'd brought along with her, far stronger as a result. Within two years of moving, Deirdre was confident that she'd adapted to Paldea's landscape and only stayed overnight in a town if she were in obvious need of medical attention. Her higher ups, though at first wary to concede, eventually allowed Deirdre's allocated apartment to go to another nurse in Mesagoza and simply told Deirdre to reach out should she ever need them.
Instead of reaching out for help over the next few years, Deirdre instead sent in several, long, detailed critiques of how Paldea's Pokemon medicine was being made. She provided list after list of ingredients used in every day potions, ethers, and other products with highlighted sections bemoaning the countless preservatives, flavorings, and artificial colors she was convinced were really slow-acting poisons that weakened Pokemon overtime. If her bosses really cared about the health of Pokemon, much less humans, they'd be making their medicines the "old fashioned way" that derived from, and only from, Paldea's natural resources. This lead to several equally long meetings between her and her bosses about "proper employee behavior", "offensive language", and "not calling corporate directly outside of office hours to rant about red number 5 being put in EVERYTHING." Ultimately, Deirdre forced herself to accept the fact that "the system" wasn't going to change and she wasn't being useful to anyone by trying to fix it from the inside, so... She quit.
It didn't take long after that for the next wild frontier to offer itself to Deirdre. Instead of continuing to rough it out in Paldea or return home to Ballonlea for some RnR with her tribe, Nauwill called out to her like the beacon of a lighthouse. A land, only recently claimed for exploration, brimming with flora and fauna yet to be seen? Oh, honey, say less.
Stats:
| Strength 3 (5) | Vitality 3 (5) | Dexterity 2 (5) | Insight 2 (5) |
| Tough 3 (5) | Cool 1 (5) | Beauty 3 (5) | Clever 3 (5) | Cute 1 (5) |
Last edited:
