Evelyn

Evelyn is one of the shifters in the current game, and had been one for a day before arriving to Vertia.

As a human
Wavy, ear-length, bright orange hair curls about her rounded face. Her large, expressive black eyes rarely stop flicking between different things, and even more rarely make eye contact. Her skin is dark tan. She is of average height, though her tendency to fold in her arms and bend her legs makes her looks smaller than she is.

Original clothes
She woke up wear a zippered hoodie, predominately the same orange as her hair. The sleeves of the hoodie are black above the elbows and yellow below, with the border a sharp zig-zag. Underneath the hoodie is a grey t-shirt, and she wears grey leggings. She also has an above-the-knee length, black, pleated skirt. Two zigzag stripes go around the skirt, mimicking a Fletchinder’s tail feathers. On her feet are black, laced boots that reach her mid calf.

As a Pokémon
As a Fletchinder, Ev weighs far less than average. Her body is thin and light, and her feathers are thinner and longer than usual. Overall, this gives her the effect of looking almost stick like.

Backstory
Ev’s parents were both competitive battlers. Having met while gathering badges, their relationship was originally antagonistic. After a long series of battles with each other, however, they grew to have a mutual respect for each other. They agreed to help each other with their journeys, and ended up having romantic feelings. Around Oreburgh, it was revealed that Ev’s mother was pregnant. The enthusiasm for travel had long since started to fade, but being forced to settle down and get jobs put a strain upon their relationship. For about seven years they stayed in Oreburgh, raising Ev and battling anyone they could.

One night, there was an accident in the caves of Mt. Coronet. On that day, they had decided to battle each other within the cave systems. It was something they did fairly often, as the lessened light and various obstacles presented a challenge. Although they knew the cave system well and normally considered it safe, a recent earthquake had shifted some rocks. With both of them being people that hated to lose, the battle soon became heated. Between the weakened walls and the reckless attacks, the roof couldn’t stay up. They were killed by the resulting cave-in.

With no other surviving family, Ev was sent to live with her grandmother in Eterna city. After the death of her daughter and son-in-law, Ev’s grandmother was worried deeply for Ev’s safety. She was particularly worried about Ev being hurt in an accident like the one that killed her parents, and so banned her from ever battling, and limited Ev’s contact with Pokémon.

t wasn’t like Ev minded all that much. She had always preferred learning about things than actually participating, and her grandmother made no attempts to stop her from buying strategy books. Besides, her grandmother's fear had rubbed off on her. If it killed her parents, what chance would she stand? Having been orphaned when she was young, she knew of none of their flaws, and practically worshiped them. The thought that they, of all people, could die from something like that terrified her. She didn't really feel afraid of Pokémon themselves, however. She learned as much as she could about Pokémon, particularly high-level battling. It was a way for her to feel closer to her parents while avoiding ‘danger’.

Despite her passion for learning, she did poorly in school. She had little interest in maths, science, or writing, and so had difficulty in those classes. Furthermore, she eventually grew terrified of going to school. Her inability to do well in class led to heavy pressure, especially because her grandmother thought that she could do better. Her grades were high in Pokémon Studies, a class she actually understood, so her grandmother expected similar grades in her other classes. While she got along reasonably well with her classmates, she didn’t have anyone that she really considered to be a friend.

One night while she was lying sleepless and terrified for the next day, the voice spoke to her. Surely, she thought, anything would be better than getting out of bed and returning to the cycle of school, home, sleep. She made her wish - “I don’t want to be afraid anymore” - and fainted.

Since then, she’s had a day and a night of hiding in a forest, lost and afraid. She doesn’t know what to do; any plan she might think of to get out of her situation either involve stealing or asking for help, both things that she refuses to do.

Personality
Ev cares about people. She hates to see others hurt, and wishes to do anything she can to help them. Unfortunately, she has little sense of when to quit, and often gets herself hurt trying to help. It's difficult for her to tell when she should take a break and focus on herself, leading to overwork and being unable to do anything. This is made worse by her anxiety. She easily becomes frightened, and is extremely reluctant to put herself in frightening situations, in some cases including talking to people. This leads to guilt, as she worries that really, she could just ignore the fear and get things done anyway, even when she's physically unable to. She also feels bad about her inability to trust people. Logically, she thinks that people deserve second chances, and that it's often not their fault if they do something to hurt her. However, her skittishness makes her trust difficult to earn and easy to break. Furthermore, she is naturally very averse to risk taking. She’d much prefer to do things the safe, tested way instead of trying something new. Pessimistically, she often assumes that things will go as wrong as possible, particularly if her choices are involved.

Being highly emphatic, she's easily affected by the emotions of others. Stressed or angry voices in particular are very unpleasant, making her worry if she did something wrong (even if she knows that it has nothing to do with her). It's often quite easy for her to unconsciously guess at emotions through tone, body language, or facial expression.

She's very interested in learning things, particularly about Pokémon. She loves to read books and such, and memorizes as many facts as she can. Reading is calming for her, as is knowing as many things as she does. Given the chance, she’s very glad to explain things, even if she sometimes rushes her explanations and forget to mention things that most people don’t know about. Despite never battling in her life, she has a deep knowledge of different strategies used. Her inability to work well under pressure makes it difficult for her to fight well, but given time (or even the illusion of time) she's great at planning.

Team
None.