PLAYER: Nerea Lovely	CHARACTER: Hekate
PRONOUNS: she/they AGE: 26 ORIENTATION: Lesbian LOCATION: London, England OCCUPATION: Unemployed	GENDER: F AGE: Adult ENABLE PKMN SPEECH? Yes PAIN THRESHOLD: Realistic TRAINER CLASS: Kindler

OUT OF THE GAME Among the myriad windows of the London skyline, there are some that are permanently closed to the outside world. Curtains drawn at all hours of the day. The hint of artificial light seeping through. Perhaps, if you squint, you can see the shadows of movement from inside - but that's likely the most you'll get. Nerea lives her life as closed as she keeps her curtains. The light of day rarely sees her, but the glow of a computer screen is an ever-welcome guest. A NEET, some would call her, though her father - the man who owns the home she lives in - calls her "a future star, just finding her place". Nerea herself prefers not to talk about it at all. She certainly wouldn't identify with the half-baked dreams that litter her apartment, and she fears returning to the untravelled roads they signpost. Other people, too, she fears. She's not sure when it started. Just... just at some point, one day, it all got too much. Had she always been like this, and just not realised? Had it always felt like everyone was laughing at her? Safer inside, then. Behind closed doors, closed curtains, closed dreams. But... well. Online is different, isn't it? No need to show her face, to lay her heart bare. Easy to detach herself, and in turn keep the fear and anxiety at bay. She could hide behind new names, go to new places, and find something resembling companionship from behind the curtain of a screen. Nerea still yearned, though. Through all of her anxious walls, she could still picture the sunlight. So, when her father told her of the latest project he was investing in - "one of those Metaverse things, with the Pokémons - you remember those, right, kid?" - she couldn't help but be curious. Maybe she could... give it a try. She'd enjoyed Pokémon when she was younger, after all. And back then, she'd talked to people. Bonded in the playground over catches, battles, trades. And it was VR, too! So it would be like she was actually out there, in person, but with a distance to it, right? So... so maybe... maybe it would be worth a shot.

INSIDE THE GAME One might be forgiven for mistaking Hekate for a wannabe Gym Leader, or someone with particularly fashionable Elite 4 aspirations. When Nerea opened up the character creator she decided to pick any and all options she considered "cool", in the hopes that she'd embody that coolness in play. Hence, Hekate is tall, handsome, and better-dressed than Nerea's real-life self. And her white hair, feathery wing-like ears, eyepatch, bright red eye, layered dress, fur collar, and billowing cloak, are all quite... striking. Nerea hopes people think Hekate is cool. Whether or not they do, any illusion of "coolness" will likely dissipate as soon as they interact with her. As it turns out, simply appearing cool and confident doesn't innately grant Nerea the confidence she sorely lacks in her life. As a result, Hekate carries herself like someone with far less presence than she would appear to have. Her avoidance of eye contact, the way she stumbles over her words, and her tendency to shiver like a chihuaha whenever anyone so much as looks at her, all combine together to make it very clear that Hekate is someone out of her depth. It certainly doesn't help that she knows very little about Pokémon, either. Sure, she has vague playground memories from her childhood, but beyond that...? She barely recognises a solid 70% of the creatures she might see on any given route, and she definitely doesn't know the first thing about effective battling. On top of that, she's also not really a gamer - especially not for MMOs. So she has no experience, no knowledge, and no social skills. On the plus side, she has... well, she's determined, and slave to the whims of her curiosity. That will have to carry her through UNOVR, it seems.

FACE CLAIMS IRL CHARACTER [u]ORIGINAL ART[/u] Nerea Lovely as [a href="https://unovr.boards.net/thread/2406/ti-wip-hekate"]Nerea Lovely[/a] PLAYER CHARACTER [u]ORIGINAL ART[/u] Hekate as @Hekate

OOC NAME hannahs HANNAHPOCALYPSE on Discord

STARTER PKMN Do you want to receive your starter in-character at the Starter Lab? YES, AND RANDOMIZE MY STARTER! Choose an option above. If you select YES, a mod will start a thread for you in the Starter Lab when your character is accepted. You will be given whichever starter you selected. If you'd prefer a randomized starter, select the first option and delete the codie placeholder!