darkxthedragonknight
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So, ever since I started posting on this site more frequently with my screenshot playthrough, I’ve started perusing some of the other topics around here (very light perusing, I should add, I am still trying to remain as blind as I can while playing through this game). And from what I’ve come across, it turns out playthroughs like mine, where people implement their own story elements to create basically fanfiction, aren’t uncommon. Granted, the big difference is I discuss the fanfiction elements that I come up with as I go (in a way, the custom narrative ideas are secondary to my own personal reactions), whereas others skip the middleman and just write the stories- but like, I can respect that, I’ve written other fanfiction myself, I understand the grind.
The point is, in coming to this realization, I’ve decided to do a bit more regarding my own protagonist, Xera Borchardt. Namely: give her a unique design! I made some pixel artwork, which I inserted in the spoiler box below- an in-battle sprite, an overworld sprite (including one with her partner Pokemon, Riptide the Feraligatr), and even a challenge sprite. Admittedly, I made these sprites for the fun of it, I’m not planning on adding them into the actual game files to replace any current in-game assets or anything (less because I don’t want to, more so because I’m paranoid I’ll break something in the game’s code if I change something as significant as that- it sounds like a weird fear, but trust me, I have…prior experiences).
Spoiler
Here are a few notes I’d like to remark on, as a way of explaining my thought process when coming up with the design:
- I really like the side, over-the-shoulder ponytail my current game avatar has (the sixth option, canonically Decibel, for reference), so I wanted to utilize that in some way.
- Something I noticed with Xera’s choice for starter (Totodile) is that, when combined with the rivals’ starters (Litten, Rowlet, Nidoran ♂), they correspond to the four colors of Reborn- blue, red, green, and purple. So, I wanted to make blue a significant part of Xera’s design; figured the best places to do that would be in the jacket (primarily dark blue with brighter blue accents) and the eye color.
- The bottom of Xera’s jacket is all frayed and torn up because I wanted a- reference? connection?- to the train bombing in the game’s opening. I thought it would be a neat detail if some of Xera’s jacket got burned in the explosion (and since she’s poor, she hasn’t been able to go buy a new one), but I didn’t wanna make the damage too extensive. After all, the opening implies the protagonist’s injuries from the explosion were minor save for getting knocked out, so further damage to the jacket would be kinda pushing it.
- I wanted to make Xera’s hairstyle more on the unkempt/spiky/wild side, to connect with aspects of the personality I’ve been going with for her, like aggression and rebelliousness. As for its bluish-green color…well, obviously I wanted something to go with the blues of her jacket, but honestly I just wanted a character with greenish hair. I don’t have enough characters with greenish hair.
- As stated, some aspects of Xera’s personality are aggression and determination (for better or worse), which I wanted to reflect in the pose and facial expression in her challenge sprite. However, there’s also a level of seriousness and coldness there- which is more at the forefront with her in-battle sprite. Her back to the opponent but turning to glare at them over her shoulder, the one hand in her pocket, generally appearing closed-off to other people…y’know, something like body language. Symbolism!
