"Evolution isn't just growth. It's a Pokemon carving its role in the universe!

Full Name: Jason Yew

Age: 26

Year at the Institute: Third Year

Favorite Color: Purple

Thesis Subject: Unlocking Evolution: A Study of Gender-Based Evolution and What Controls It?

Appearance: From an outsider's perspective, Jason looks like a mess. His shirts are wrinkled, his lab coat is permanently stained from toxins, and he frequently looks bored or like he's about to fall asleep. This is a side effect of his work. Behind his serious expression, Jason's mind is constantly at work. He's so driven by his research, that he's forgotten his own self-care more often than not. He keeps several extra lab coats in his dorm, but they are typically stained by the end of the work day. Despite his usually serious expression, his eyes will light up and he gets more animated if someone mentions a topic that interests him.

Personality: Jason has a distinctly dry humor. Because of his serious expression, it's often hard for other students to tell if he's joking or not. One time - during lunch - he suggested that feeding the Trubbish outside the cafeteria the school's pudding was causing the Trash Bag Pokemon to get poisoned themselves. All he got were blank stares.

He's also received an unfortunate reputation for being unintentionally intimidating. In reality, he's a bit awkward and struggles opening up to new people. When people get in his inner circle though, they discover he's surprisingly patient with his Pokemon and with kids.

Jason is also fully dedicated to his research and thesis. He's developed a taste for stale coffee thanks to long nights in the lab. Many times, he'll answer a 3AM phone call wide awake because he wasn't even aware the time had passed. His research notes are covered in burn holes from testing with Pokemon venom. It's no stretch to say his own Pokemon have kept him alive more than once.

Bio: Hailing from Fuchsia City, it was no surprise that Jason Yew loved learning about Pokemon. Fuchsia's Pokemon Zoo and Safari Zone meant there was always a new species for him to discover. When he finally turned ten, his parents paid for him to play the Safari Game for his birthday. Despite almost catching a Scyther (and getting chopped for it), Jason found his future partner in a male Nidoran. This was Doku. The duo became fast friends and Doku's unique evolutionary line would go on to become the foundation of Jason's research.

Jason and Doku would also play with their next door neighbor Janine and her Venonat. With her dad being the Fuchsia gym leader Koga, the two bonded over their mutual love of Poison-Type Pokemon; often clashing over who had the "better" partner. When they were old enough, Jason and Janine went on separate journeys to conquer the Indigo Plateau. Jason's journey would be cut short after a devastating loss to Sabrina in Saffron City. It was during this time, Jason had a chance meeting with the legendary Professor Oak! The Professor had been in Saffron on a work visit and had heard about Jason through Koga. He was surprised by Jason's knowledge of Pokemon biology and his interest in understanding evolution. On Oak's suggestion, Jason went back to school and eventually applied to the Laventon Institute.

Since arriving at the LI, Jason has become a standout student. His self-care aside, many professors find him to be a hard-working individual. There have been concerns expressed about him needing to be a bit more social with his peers though. He finished his second year at the LI with a research trip to the Alola Region. Starting his third year, he's been requested to TA for Pokemon Ecology 101 with Professor Birch. Not that he WANTS to, but he needs the credits for graduation.



Quirks:
- Despite not seeming interested, Jason does keep up with the professional battling scene. He was over the moon the night Koga joined Kanto's Elite Four.
- Due to multiple cases of being exposed to Pokemon venom (whether accidental or because of Jester), Jason's body has developed natural resistances to most common types of poison. It weirds out his fellow students when he has no reaction to poison sting.
- Jason believes poison-type Pokemon may hold the key to evolution as poison-types are among the most numerous in the Pokédex.

Full Name: Ryoka Shikimi

Age: 23

Year at the Institute: Second

Dialogue Color: Cyan-Turquoise #35FDF3

Thesis Subject: Pokémon Fusion: The Viability and Utility of Pokémon Gene-Splicing and Its Applications Within the Field of Pokémon Epigenetics

Appearance: Ryoka is a perfectionist, and it shows in her composed outward demeanor and immaculate attire. She's not one for dresses or jewelery, though she is known to wear red-rimmed glasses and the occasional colorful accessory. She tends to appear more unapproachable than she actually is, and when there are "more important matters", the last thing she'll care about is how she looks.

Personality: Ryoka is a bit intense in a lot of different ways. She isn't very good at small talk and her best customer service face just makes her look annoyed, so if you register as a distraction to her, she's likely to come off as cold and dismissive. On the other hand, if she comes to see you as a person she can bounce ideas off of, she's rather casual, uses a lot of deadpan snark, and can talk your ear off for hours about obscure pokémon biology and its highly specific niches in nature, battle, and commercial industries.

Outside of her interests, which are rather dense in content, she tends to cut straight to the heart of matters and is offputtingly forthright. Her words are sometimes as sharp as a blade, and it is very easy to end up cutting yourself on her metaphorical edges, only for her to be blissfully unaware.

She is driven, goal-oriented, and chafes at being told what she can and can't do. For her, almost every problem has a solution, and she is simultaneously humble enough to seek help and arrogant enough to keep looking when she doesn't immediately find an answer. She can be difficult to get along with, but her preferred solution to conflict resolution is to simply battle about it until it stops being a problem.

Bio: Ryoka was born and raised in Tōno City, which is North of Kanto, South of Sinnoh, and east of Sinjoh and Kitakami. It's a relatively quiet place with a lot of history, and Ryoka has always regarded it as kinda boring. Her father works at a Brewery, while her mother used to be a trainer of some renown before her Ace Typhlosion suffered an unfortunate career-ending injury. She is still a trainer, but not a particularly competitive one, and she mostly works at a local hotspring since her pokémon are good at temperature control. Ryoka decided she needed to get out of Tōno as soon as she could, and so when she was old enough and got her first pokémon, she did just that.

Although pokémon journeys were comparatively less popular in Tōno on account of the lack of local pokémon league, she had no trouble convincing her parents to let her go on one, and her goal wasn't to complete a gym circuit anyway. She mostly just wanted to see the world outside of her city full of old temples. She had already loosely planned to become a pokémon professor with a focus on epigenetics on account of the many tricks of her mother's aging Typhlosion, but it was only after going on a journey with the peculiarity of a Solosis with an atypical ability that she really began to dig into the possibilities. She learned how to battle, evolved Solosis, and even won a few gym badges, but as her plans for the future began to solidify, she began to reprioritize. She didn't need pokéballs, but she did need the money for an expensive second party member and their evolution requirements. After much toil, a Porygon was acquired, though as she got to know them, her plans for the future shifted further. Eventually, she settled on the path she is on today, and in what she would call a stroke of genius, she decided her team needed at least one more party member.

The rest is less history and more an insane hyper-fixation with world-shaking socio-political ramifications. Not that most of those ramifications are her problem anyway, at least for a while. In any case, after returning home and producing her first partial success at gene splicing and publishing the results, she made headlines, and was recommended to apply to the Laventon Institute, which offered some very attractive facilities and resources. She was accepted, and has since been slowly producing more results in her research without paying much mind to the growing controversy surrounding her work taking place behind closed doors. She was always good at arguing her way through unfair teachers anyway.

Come her second year, she realized she had missed Pokémon Ecology 101 since she had been excited about the other options in her first year, and it would only be useful to her in the latest stages of her research. Since it was a graduation requirement, she figured she might as well get it over with, and it would likely become useful eventually, if releasing Chimeras into the wild ever becomes a desirable outcome.


Quirks:

• Has an inexplicable obsession with Azumarill ears, among other specific pokémon body parts. She Insists Azumarill ears are supreme in terms of capability, versatility, and aesthetics. She moves the goal posts away from capability when Audino is brought up.
• Ryoka is the type of person to binge bulbapedia articles at 3 am.
• Despite knowing how to synthesize the exact chemicals used to light up Chinchou's bioluminescent lamps, she has a lot of inexplicable blind spots about a number of common pokémon. She could tell you the number of bones in a Pidgey (120-130ish based on age and region) but couldn't tell you the difference between a male and female Starly.

(Could not find an image of how I actually wanted her to look like - she is a member of the Officer Jenny family and shares the facial features and build of a typical Officer Jenny, but has a slightly different hair style. I'll expand more on what she looks like in "Appearance" blurb below.)

Quote: The black Mareep of the family

Full Name: Jenny Baobab

Age: 24

Year at the Institute: First

Favorite Color: Orange

Thesis Subject: Leaving Stones Unturned: Unusual Evolution Methods Exploring more unusual forms of evolutions, with a focus on measures difficult to quantify. For example, evolving an Eevee into a Vaporeon is easy - just use a Water Stone. But an Umbreon? A bit more involved. Riolu, a fighting-type Pokemon, doesn't need to be in a battle to evolve, just needs properly pampered. If a Pokemon hasn't evolved yet, maybe it simply hasn't done the right thing because nobody has thought to do that with the Pokemon?

Appearance: Jenny is, obviously a member of the Officer Jenny family, and shares many of their physical features. However, since she doesn't share the same profession as most of her relatives, she doesn't feel the need to quite present herself in the same way. While she has the hallmark green hair, she does not tie it back unless undergoing specific experiments, nor keep it quite as short. Instead, she often let's her hair flow freely, unless she's working on a specific experiment, in which case her Ditto will morph into a headband for her. Her clothing is often blue, but she often has splashes of orange, her favorite color.

Personality: Jenny's mind runs at a million miles an hour. She'll often pick up something, work frantically on it a bit, and then jump to something else. She's quite prone to dig her teeth into something for a bit, then discard it for some other fascination later.

Bio: Some parents are distraught when their ten year old child leaves to start a Pokemon journey. For Jenny, her parents were floored when she showed an interest in dentistry instead of working as a Police Officer. It's not that there was a problem with an Officer Jenny not going the routine route, it's just that it seldom happened. A year later, though, she was yet again interested in becoming an officer. She received her first Pokemon, a Growlithe, who she very much cherished; in retrospect, Milkshake the Growlithe was likely the source of her love of the color orange. It seemed, at least for a bit, she would go the traditional route, likely serving to patrol Route 216 near Snowpoint City. Then it became clear she was only interested in joining her sister so she could fiddle around with and pick apart the motorcycles. So, a mechanic, perhaps?

That stuck for a bit, but this interest in mechanics would lead to a fascination with aviation. It was settled. She would be a pilot. In fact, there was actually a decent chance she would settle with this as her career. She always did want to travel a bit. Her parents sought out for a flying pokemon, something that would glide gracefully through the air... a Starly, perhaps! But she got a Doduo. Another companion she became fast friends with. The bizarre method in which they flew changed her interests yet again. Next, it became Doduo racing. Snow skiing. Then battling. Then aviation again. Then Kayaking. Firefighting. The list continued. While most explored the world, she explored hobbies and careers. She became a cave explorer in Mt. Coronet. Then a farmer in Floaroma Town. She took up fishing for a while in Canalave city. One miniature adventure after another. That was until she met her Ditto.

It happened when traveling along route 218 when she came across a hurt Glameow. She took it back to nurse it to health at her apartment in Jubilife City and when she got back to her apartment, she had a... Spinda? She had found herself a Ditto. She was fascinated by the Ditto, capable of being both everything and nothing all at once. She began to study it, but she soon found studying Dittos was a hefty task. To understand Ditto, you sort of have to learn a bit about all sorts of Pokemon. And so that she did. One thing lead to another, and she had enough research under her belt to make a good candidate for LI. She has a love of learning, and is hoping to meet like minded people.

It is worth noting, she is sort of a jack of all trades, master of none. Jenny has learned a large variety of things many would not have, but is by no means an expert, nor some savant or genius.

The interest in her thesis comes from being exposed to the many ways she has seen Pokemon used and treated in her time. Of course, there are the obvious contests and battles a typical trainer would see. But she saw some Pokemon work along side her in warehouses and restaurants; helpful, but not exactly ones she would say she bonded closely with. Ominous Absol's with no human companion showing up to warn people of a dangerous storm, treated with more fear than anything. Certain Rare Pokemon being treated with a sort of reverence instead of as a companion. And, unfortunately, having worked briefly with Officer Jenny's, people who treated Pokemon poorly. Of course, Jenny is not going to do anything to harm a Pokemon, but her experiments often involve having Pokemon just do things nobody would likely think to ask - asking a Kriketune to learn the Violin, having a Smeargle participate in a hot dog eating contest, having pokemon that would normally herd Wooloos herd Aipoms, etc.

Pokémon:


Quirks: Someone you want on your team at trivia night, Jenny's eclectic knowledge isn't always the most useful, but it sure is impressive. She loves a good pickled slowpoke tail. Jenny does not stay awake late using coffee, but instead pitchers of lemonade and sweets to give her a sugar rush during those late nights. Despite not going down the same career path as her relatives, Jenny has a strong sense of justice and fiercely opposes anything she believes is wrong.

Quote: “If you underestimate a Pokémon because it looks cute, that’s not the Pokémon’s problem. That’s yours.”

Full Name:
Callum Hazelwood

Age:
24

Year at the Institute:
Second Year

Favorite Color:
Pink

Thesis Subject:
“More Than Adorable: The Evolutionary, Social, and Behavioral Functions of Cuteness in Pokémon.”

Callum’s research focuses on how perceived cuteness affects Pokémon survival, human bonding, trainer behavior, adoption rates, socialization, threat reduction, and battle underestimation. He wants to challenge the idea that cute Pokémon are just ornamental, beginner-friendly, or less serious than stronger-looking Pokémon. In his eyes, cuteness can be a real adaptive advantage.

Appearance:

Callum has a soft, put together look that makes him seem a little more delicate than he actually is. He is around average height with a slender build, neat features, and the kind of carefully crafted appearance that makes it obvious he spent time getting ready, even if he insists he “just threw something on.” His hair is always styled, usually a bit too neatly for someone who claims not to care that much.

His clothes tend to lean soft and pastel, with a lot of blush pink, cream, powder blue, and lavender. He usually wears things like cardigans, pressed shirts, nice trousers, and small accessories that are cute without being too over-the-top. He likes embroidered details, enamel pins, and anything that makes an outfit feel coordinated. His research bag is usually stuffed with notebooks, field journals, Pokémon treats, sticky notes, and at least one fancy pen he absolutely did not need but bought anyway. He looks like someone who belongs at a Contest Hall and a research library at the same time, which is basically the point.

Personality:

Callum is sweet, polite, and usually very put together, though he is not quite as harmless as he looks. He has a soft way of speaking and tends to come across as gentle at first, but he can get surprisingly sharp when someone dismisses him or his research. He is used to people hearing the words “cute Pokémon” and assuming he must not be doing anything serious, so he has developed a bit of a quiet competitive streak.

He genuinely loves cute things, pretty things, and soft aesthetics, which probably does not help his case when he is trying to convince people that his work is serious. Still, he refuses to pretend he is less interested in those things just to seem more academic. Callum can be fussy, a little vain, and very particular about his notes and supplies, but he is also thoughtful and observant. He tends to notice when people or Pokémon are uncomfortable, even when they are trying to hide it.

Around friends, he is warmer and a little more dramatic. He fusses over people, gives unsolicited advice, and acts like he is above being emotionally attached to his research team despite being very obviously attached to all of them. He likes being right, which is not always his best quality, but he usually means well.

Callum has a special fondness for Fairy-type Pokémon, though his research is not limited to them.

Bio:

Callum grew up in Hearthome City, so Contests were a big part of his life from a young age. His family had connections to the Contest scene, and for a while it seemed obvious that he would become a Coordinator. He liked the costumes, the performances, the dramatic appeals, and the way a well-trained Pokémon could completely hold an audience’s attention. He still likes all of that, honestly. He just realized over time that he was more interested in studying the reactions than chasing ribbons himself.

The thing that really caught his attention was how differently people treated cute Pokémon. Trainers were often more patient with them. Strangers were more likely to approach them. People were quicker to help a small, cutesy Pokémon than one that looked intimidating. Even in battle, some trainers would hesitate or get careless against a Pokémon that looked harmless. Callum started wondering if cuteness could actually serve a purpose beyond just being appealing.

When he first tried to explain that he wanted to study cuteness seriously, a lot of people did not really take it seriously. Some thought it was funny. Some acted like it was basically Contest commentary dressed up as research. Callum took that personally, even if he would never admit that. He started keeping field notes, observing Pokémon in Contest halls, Pokémon Centers, parks, shelters, and beginner trainer programs. Eventually, one of his papers on how people respond to cute and baby-like Pokémon got enough attention that a mentor encouraged him to apply to the Laventon Institute.

Now Callum is in his second year at the Institute, where his thesis has gone from “oddly specific” to “surprisingly legitimate.” He has already done fieldwork in Sinnoh and Hoenn, but because of that travel, he missed a required Ecology 101 credit. That is why he is currently stuck in Professor Birch’s class with a bunch of first-years. He is trying very hard to be mature about it. He is only somewhat succeeding.

Pokémon:


Quirks:

* Uses pastel-colored sticky notes for different categories of research and gets quietly distressed when someone uses the wrong color.
* Can identify several small Pokémon species from clues such as their pawprints, vocalizations, shed fur, or common behavioral patterns
* Keeps saying “this is not about aesthetics” while wearing an outfit that is absolutely about aesthetics.