Name: Shadara “Shade” Arcafiwhed Darastrix
Gender: Female
Age: 45
Subject: Due to traveling since she was 10, whether for battles and seeking to grow in numbers and strength or for her fields of study, she has an immense knowledge on how to rough it out. She also would like to impart the advice she was given when she was taking her college classes, dumbing down the content so that teenagers may be able to understand them. Her list of subjects she is great at teaching include General Pokémon Care, Basic Pokémon Battle, Dynamax and Gigantamax, Biology and Advanced Biology, the Psychology of Humans and Pokémon, Basic and Advanced First Aid, and Genetics. What she is comfortable in teaching but wouldn’t want to teach as core classes are Mega Evolution and Z-Crystal courses. She will not teach anything that has to do with Breeding, Pokémon Performances, or Pokémon Contests, as she does not have the knowledge to impart in a successful manner.
Appearance: Her short, wavy hair that reaches down to the base of her neck is pale purple with black roots and pink tips. Her eyes have three rings from pupil to the edge of the iris - pink, pale purple, and black - and slight black circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her skin is pale, she is 5’08” (172.7 cm), and she weighs 145 lbs (65.77 kg). She is lean and toned, but almost a stick due to her age. She, at the age of 40, had gained a few wrinkles and the colors in her hair have begun to grey or lose its vibrancy.
Outfit: Her usual attire makes her look a little goth. She wears a black shirt, pale purple jeans held up with a black trainer belt, dark grey combat boots, a black trench coat (having long coats feels like armor to her due to having always stolen her brothers' large jackets), and has a dark brown satchel with ivory buckles and fasteners. She has a Z-Ring with an Aloraichium-Z on standby. She has three other Z-Crystals, but leaves them in her room or at home for her siblings to use. She also has a twine made into a choker with the charms Black Glasses, Darkness Amulet, Dread Plate, Spell Tag, Ghostly Amulet, Spooky Plate, Twisted Spoon, Psychic Amulet, and Mind Plate. When she is working in the field or in a lab or teaching, she has black khakis, dark grey combat boots, a grey dress shirt, and a white lab coat and will have her hair up in a ponytail with a black scrunchy.
Hometown: Born in Cocona Village, Oblivia; Lives north of Mt. Moon in Darastrix Ranch, Kanto.
Occupation: Genetics Researcher and a Pokémon Professor who teaches academy students.
Personality: When she was younger, she was a stuck-up little brat, who would prefer to be alone rather than have friends, having been too comfortable with homeschooling and her ranch to want to be anywhere near city kids. She would often get bullied due to this and her causing fights would end her up in detention. Despite her behavior, she was academically intelligent and was offered for many exchange student courses. She mellowed out a little as she hit her late teens, but didn't truly stop being mean until she was 17, where she met a friend who fought to stay with her despite Shade's attitude towards everyone (except their Pokemon, they were easier to predict). She slowly started to warm up to this boisterous and loud friend, and realized, through her, that city kids and people in general weren't that bad and weren't there to cause her harm like what she believed from all those high school dramas. People just did people things and her hatred became that of intrigue and she began taking more psychology courses. While she still held some of her snobbish attitude, she had began to stop antagonizing people about their knowledge and behaviors and more began to ask questions (sometimes too many) about why they do things the way they do, making her more nosey now. As she hit 23, she began to show that, while she didn't like talking to people, she showed that she was rather good at teaching, especially around kids as she found herself at an academy in Johto. Not realizing her gift, she went on developing not only her Pokemon's techniques and gathering badges to show how accomplished of a tactician she was, but also began making connections with scientists and researchers. This allowed her to find her interest in biology and, by extension, genetics, and found something to work towards in life, putting her work ethic towards something other than psychology classes and battling. Normally, she is rather sweet and kind, and would love to divulge on the information she has gathered, but sometimes does so when people don't ask, making her sound a little pretentious when she didn't intend so. She is a very helpful person, helping people with their needs, even if they didn't ask for it. Her intentions are good, she still needs to realize that not everyone wants someone to jump in to help or give advice, something that blocked her career path to becoming a counselor or a therapist. Due to her work ethic, she sometimes neglects to sleep or eat/drink, making her weak and pass out in some moments when she's sitting down. Her insomnia when stressed destroys any semblance of sleep, leaving her with a more pretentious attitude than usual. However, she tries her best to keep herself in check.
In-Depth Backstory:
She was born in Cocona Village, Oblivia, along with her three brothers before her. She is the last of the quadruplet in her family and, as such, was treated as the baby of the group until her twin sisters and her baby brother were born after her as her parents were traveling through the lesser known regions. During this time, Shade’s mother’s Alolan Raichu also gave birth to a Pichu, and she was born at the same time as Shade’s birth. Shade and the Pichu became quick friends, as they were destined to be together according to their family's culture.
Her parent’s traveling ways stopped once they had their seventh child and they headed back to their ranch north of Mt. Moon, dubbed the Darastrix Ranch. Living on the borders of Kanto, they made their living selling Moomoo Milk, raising Pokémon for others, healing them when it’s needed, selling herbs and herbal remedies to the populace, as well as sharing ideas with big-name companies, as her father was an inventor and helped to create the modern PokeBall. Since her mother, Lyria, was a retired teacher, she was more than qualified to teach her seven children about Pokémon at a young age. Starting at the age of 5, they began to have homework, responsibilities on the ranch, and learned all they could about the world around them and what creatures lived in it.
When Pyros, Miel, Stror, and Shade hit 11, they were sent off to make friends and possibly learn anymore that Lyria might have missed. They were sent to a public school in Kanto, which they excelled at academically. They graduated early and had ample time to explore the Region they were in before they returned home… Only to go to the next school. They went to a public school in Johto when they were 12, then Hoenn when they were 13, Sinnoh when they were 14, Unova when they were 15, Kalos when they were 16, Alola when they were 17, and Galar when they were 18. Each time, she was sent as a foreign exchange student, which was why she was only at these schools for a little under a year. The main reason they went to these schools was to learn the regions' cultures and garner friends, as well as keeping up-to-date on new discoveries and technologies. Of course, this was a learning experience for Shade in terms of being social, as she was bullied often for her rude demeanor. It took her until she traveled to Alola to realize why everyone hated her and she has tried to be more reasonable and likable since (with some difficulties, of course).
After her studies in Galar, she returned to Alola to complete the Island Challenge before she grew too old to do it. She completed it in a little over half a year as she was quite knowledgeable about the region she had recently explored in. After her Island Challenge, she went on more journeys collecting Gym Badges and the Psychic-, Ghost-, and Dark-Type Pokémon as she could while also taking online college courses for psychology. By the time she was 27, she began to take on-campus college classes for general studies before going to biology and genetics classes (and behavioral/psych courses as a minor) while she was in Kalos. It took her until she was 29 to finish get an Associate's, then 31 for a Bachelor's. To even be accepted to even attempt a Master's, she began her experiments in her parent’s basement with DNA and sent her findings about ancestral Pokemon DNA back to the college. After a year of looking things over, she was accepted, and she finally achieved her Master's at the age of 35. She bought a small-scale laboratory in Kanto on Cinnabar Island that, while it and the equipment were expensive, it wasn't as expensive as the Pokemon Mansion there. She travels a lot due to needing samples and teaching kids though, so she is hardly there anymore. She got three years of field experience, making her 38 by the time she started considering to get a Doctorate's and fulfill her dream.
She spent the next several years gaining an extensive portfolio on the subject matter of nature vs nurture, saying that it is a mixture of both that contribute to how a Pokemon may act despite what their instincts should say otherwise, as well as the elements of Gigantamax, Z-Crystals, and Mega Evolution. She obtained her Doctorate's at the age of 43 and continues to teach academy students and work on Pokemon genetics, now filing them and taking them back through history.
Pokemon:
Other: There is a Mega Evolution pending as of right now. Once it is accepted, I will add in the rest of her bio.