PLAYER: Claude Anderson	CHARACTER: Alphard
PRONOUNS: he / they AGE: 28 ORIENTATION: wouldn’t you want to know? BIRTHPLACE: Taranto, Italy LOCATION: Los Angeles, California OCCUPATION: actor (part-time model)	GENDER: M AGE: Adult ENABLE PKMN SPEECH? Yes PAIN THRESHOLD: Reduced TRAINER CLASS: Gardener

OUT OF THE GAME There was… some resentment when your entire world had gotten uprooted from Taranto, and you suddenly found yourself in another country, on the opposite side of the world—you knew that it was because of your older brother getting some kind of ‘job offer’, you think it was, and it allowed him to move the entire family out of Italy and towards the United States— You definitely got homesick more than a few times after you’d all arrived in New York City. This place was… this place was definitely not the briny, breezy, summer-kissed air you were familiar with growing up! Learning another language along the way was somewhat difficult, and you… you just wanted to go back home. But see, the thing is, the chance to get a better life, away from some of your prejudiced cousins back home was something you secretly craved for. So even though you initially didn’t like being taken from home, you would adapt. And adapt you did. While it was tradition for children from Italian families to live with their parents until they had gotten married—or their spouse had moved in after marriage—you wanted… you wanted to explore this strange place yourself. You would actually be the first of you three siblings to move away. You wanted to pursue a career over where the bright lights attracted all the hopefuls who wanted to land it big; not at Broadway over in New York, but all the way across the country, in sunny California. (At least California’s weather was somewhat closer to that of Taranto’s, so. There was that going for you.) The only problem was that you were not expecting to be up against a lot of competition when you arrived in California to get started on ‘the American dream’, since finding straight-out acting work was hard! How the hell were you going to do this?! It was a good thing you’d managed to find a group of friends who were also going through the same struggles; finding the first big break was hard especially in a place where so many converged… maybe you had made a mistake? However, another kind of break would help you stay afloat in California— If not acting, why not try your hand at modeling? You knew, at least, that walking for a fashion show (in the big European houses at least) was something of an honor; especially if you were chosen to be one of the in-house models. So modeling it was. A gig here, a gig there—they would come in, it was steady work; but you still wanted to see yourself alongside the big stars of Hollywood! The road headed there was long and difficult, that much was certain. At least you could bend your good looks and use that for something until you arrived at the point where you could be easily recognized on the street and get an autograph or two. Small roles, Claude. Small roles. Start small, and you’ll eventually find your way in the big leagues in a few years! Somewhere along the way, you had a belated realization—about how. You found it strange, when you attended your older brother’s wedding across the country—how you could not see yourself at the altar with a woman, but… but with another man like yourself. (Wait, how could that be? You knew that Laurence had a girlfriend who worked for one of those big-ass power broking companies in New York City, but he ended up marrying someone else instead… wait. Wait, wait, hold up a second, was that why—) Was that why…?! Feelings are hard, okay!

INSIDE THE GAME Maybe in this virtual world… you could be someone different. Someone who doesn’t need to put up a mask (or rather, several masks) in front of most other people… someone who doesn’t have to act a certain way to be accepted by others. Maybe here you could be who you really want to be. (Which is incredibly ironic coming from you; wanting to become a famous actor.) Maybe this could be a place where you could drop the masks and be your insecure self—the true, real self that you only ever show to people you can rely on in a pinch. (That was mostly family, and then your partner. Who, by the way, is neck-deep into the game already and is waiting for your extremely slow ass to clear out all the tutorial quests and join him in exploring what the virtual world had to offer.) You remember that when the WorldScreen arrived, there was this unreadable look on your partner’s face; before the slightest hint of a smirk flashed across his lips and you turned to him with this equally-mysterious look on your own. Like maybe he had something to do with this, even though he’d mentioned that all your friends had chipped in to buy the WorldScreen just for you. Well, the delivery had already been made; and you knew it was too late to back out now, so… You remember your partner’s reassuring words; that nothing will go wrong once you’re inside the virtual world—that it wasn’t going to be like that fictional media that was all the rage years ago. You would take his word for it. (Though you would need reminders, every now and then, that the game existed. Because finding work in this economy, especially in the field you wanted to get your foot in the door at, was hard!) With a vast majority of people who purchase their WorldScreens to get a different experience with the franchise… well, you’re rather different as compared to most. While a lot of people come into the immersive ‘virtual reality’ with some knowledge of the Pokémon franchise, you… Your knowledge of the franchise—at least thanks to second-hand knowledge—extends to the fact some of your friends sling paper around like it’s nothing (competitive TCG players) while others play the one where you wander around real-life locations and poke at them on the mobile screen (Pokémon Go). So, really, you’re also limited to what the Western franchise over-popularized (Pikachu, Charizard, the talking Meowth from the animated series, the works) however you don’t want to look like an ass in front of them, so you take the challenge head-on and join them— And promptly get lost the moment the ‘character creation’ screen appears. So many available options! How long did you spend on the ‘character creation’ screen just getting the shade of hair right? Honestly, you have no idea. (Plus, wasn’t the premise of virtual-reality like… one of those series another one in your friend circle was completely obsessed over? What was that again—Sword Art Online, only without the deadly ‘if you die in the game, you die in real life’ premise? You think?) ‘Dying’ in this game was only ‘whiting out’ and respawning at the last ‘save point’, so there was that consolation at the very least, so… at least you could lean on that. Okay, wait—hold up, Pokémon can talk in this version of the game? Like the Meowth in the animated series? Alright, you’re sold. You’re going in mostly blind, so here’s to hoping you can get help you out with those ‘type match-ups’ and how the other in-game mumbo-jumbo technical stuff worked… (You also had absolutely no idea that both your older brother and father played this game; so… the revelation that would happen when you hit that realization. Well, that’s going to be one for the ages.) For now, though, it’s time to explore the entire virtual reality world and figure out how everything works! (And see what’s gotten a lot of your friends hooked on this version of the franchise.)

FACE CLAIMS IRL CHARACTER [u]HONKAI STAR RAIL[/u] Aventurine as [a href="https://unovr.boards.net/thread/3007/alphard"]Claude Gabriel Anderson[/a] PLAYER CHARACTER [u]HETALIA[/u] the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg as @claude

OOC NAME Akivili

STARTER PKMN Do you want to receive your starter in-character at the Starter Lab? YES, I CHOOSE TREECKO! START ME A THREAD!