THE AMAZING DIGITAL SOULS-LIKE!

Literally me fan animation by soul freeman

Why is Lusamine usually so poorly written?

Now, this isn’t hating on the character, I LOVE the concept behind a good person both literally and figuratively becoming a horrific monster due to an obsession, only coming to their senses after causing irrevocable damage to their relationships with their loved ones, but no continuity really does it right.

I personally subscribe to the theory that, without the neurotoxins, Lusamine is a decent enough person, even if she is a substandard parent. Why? Because that seems to be the idea Game Freak was trying to convey. I also subscribe to the “Neurotoxins=drug addiction metaphor” theory.

But the problem is that, of the four takes on Lusamine, none of them really do a good job of balancing Lusamine’s villainy, humanity, and tragedy. For example:

Sun and Moon: Lusamine is a horribly abusive and controlling mother, who’s obsessed with the Ultra Beasts, but does a complete 180 in personality after Nihilego is defeated without ever acknowledging her misdeeds. Type:Null’s backstory heavily implies that she at first wanted to destroy the Ultra Beasts for taking her husband away until she fell in love with Nihilego after getting a faceful of neurotoxins. She is also obsessed with beauty. However, none of her redeeming qualities are shown, and she’s hastily ushered out of the plot after coming to her senses without ever showing remorse for her crimes.

Ultra: Lusamine is now a well-intentioned extremist who DESPISES the Ultra Beasts, especially Necrozma. But now her emulation of the Ultra Beasts in her clothing, and her decision to make her children and Guzma dress up like Ultra Beasts makes no sense. Additionally, that freaky cryogenic prison is still kept in the story and basically brushed over, despite the fact that she is no longer obsessed with beauty. She also tragically decides not to reconnect with her ex-husband after realizing that he’s lost his memory and has been living happily without her, feeling that he deserves better, before getting reduced to a damsel in distress in Episode RR.

Pokémon Special/Pokémon Adventure: Lusamine’s villainy is played up, but it is explicitly stated that she’s only acting the way she is because of Nihilego’s neurotoxins. However, she has no agency in her fall to villainy, as everything from her husband’s disappearance to her brainwashing at Nihilego’s tentacles was masterminded by Faba, effectively reducing her to Faba’s brainwashed pawn and someone for our protagonists to rescue.

Now, that’s not to say that I dislike the idea of Faba manipulating Lusamine or taking advantage of her deteriorating mental state to further his own goals. In fact, I’d argue that it makes both characters more interesting when it’s done well. But none of the above continuities do that.

But, there is a continuity which does tell Lusamine’s story competently.

Pokémon Anime: Lusamine is the workaholic, single mother of Lillie and Gladion, left to raise her two children after her husband’s mysterious disappearance. Rather than obsessing over what she lost, she mourned and moved on. She’s still remarkably childish, to the point that her prepubescent daughter is more mature than she is, but you can’t deny that she loves her children. She’s also disregarded Lillie’s feelings enough times to make Lillie feel the need to vocally defend her decisions even when nobody has voiced disapproval of them. She’s also become so neglectful that her daughter’s basically been raised by the family butler for the past five years, and never questioned why her daughter who loved Pokémon suddenly developed a crushing fear of them out of the blue. She also works to atone for her neglect the second it’s spelled out for her by Gladion, with her mentally and verbally kicking herself for letting the situation escalate to the point that Lillie’s memory is in danger of being erased. After that point, she works to become more active in her children’s lives, but still has flaws. For example, when Faba summons Nihilego to get revenge for losing his job (something he wouldn’t be able to do if Lusamine had properly dealt with the situation after Lillie was first traumatized), she fangirls for a few seconds before realizing that the Ultra Beast is about to murder her daughter. After this, she sacrifices herself to save her kids, kicking off the “rescue” arc. Also, after she becomes the Motherbeast and starts attacking the heroes who are trying to rescue her, she’s still partially in control, even if her mental state has deteriorated to that of a preschooler trying to protect their favorite toy (in this case, Nihilego), with Nihilego not taking full control until Lillie talks some sense into her by calling her out for being such a terrible mother while begging her to clean up her act and ditch the glass jellyfish. From that point on in the anime, Lusamine becomes a far more active supporting character, showing up in person for Lillie’s big accomplishments (such as a school play), and generally being a far more likeable and sympathetic person.

So what makes the anime!Lusamine the best Lusamine?

Every step of her character arc is HER CHOICE!

It was Lusamine’s decision to leave her children for long periods of time that lead to Lillie developing a fear of Pokémon.

It was Lusamine’s decision to not question her daughter’s trauma that led to her having to sacrifice herself to protect her kids from Nihilego.

The class couldn’t save Lusamine at first because she let Nihilego possess her, and it was her decision to stop playing around that allowed them to defeat the Motherbeast.

Lusamine CHOSE to be a better mother after realizing just how badly she screwed up in neglecting her responsibilities to her kids.

Her morality isn’t a freaking light switch in the anime! Nothing happens that turns her into a terrible person against her will which is magically undone by a Legendary Pokémon from another dimension. The evil can’t be blasted out of her until she cooperates. From her fall from grace to her redemption, she always has some degree of agency.

Marika my little meow meow

the worst person you know is still actively obsessed with helsa (i forgot to post this on tumblr lol)

ref:

Paldean League Worldbuilding

aka how Geeta is reshaping the poke-economy and making herself the most hated woman ever in the process

I generally try to keep any sort of real world analogues out of my HCs for Pokemon bc I think it's more of a utopian society and doesn't need to operate on the same logic of economics or politics as irl, but swsh and sv seem more grounded in our reality so I've been thinking about them (especially sv) a LOT. Decided I would just dump all my musings and HCs about the paldean league here if only to organize it all. Also disclaimer that I am not an economist and will never pretend to be so it’s more than likely this system would never work irl but it’s pokemon so it’s fine

The Galarian and Paldean Leagues always struck me as relatively recent, at least in terms of their current operation, and mostly spearheaded by a super ambitious head of operations who restructured the entire place as soon as they got there. I'll talk about Galar in another post, but atm Paldea has my brain in a chokehold so this is all about them

My main HC about the Paldean League is that up until extremely recently (20 years ago give or take I'm not doing specific timelines here) the Paldean League was extremely corrupt and poorly run. When the Paldean empire collapsed, the League was formed as a way to try and maintain the status quo and keep power in the hands of those who previously held it. It was, and continued to be for the next few centuries, an oligarchy. No one in the system was elected, and those in lower positions had to be personally selected and approved by their superiors. There were no checks and balances, so the people at the top could and did maintain power indefinitely. By the time we reached 20~ years before the main story, the structure was as follows:

Chairman: The leader of the entire thing. Has absolute power over everyone else in the system. Does all the boring stuff Top Champion: A battler and figurehead for the public. The "face" of the League, but generally not in charge of anything and has no political power. Their battle with up and coming trainers determines whether they get champion rank ^ If ur thinking this is similar to the Galar League, you'd be correct. They were based off the same model for a while Elite Four: Originally called the Council of Four, they act as a council that makes decisions along with the Chairman and test trainers' worthiness. Typically in charge of a handful of gym leaders Gym Leaders: Local political leaders that operate under the Council of Four and ensure things don't get too rowdy on the town level. In charge of testing trainers, protecting the town from wild threats, keeping up appearances, and union busting (they mostly did that last one) Everyone else: Salary workers. They have not yet unionized

The system, ultimately, was corrupt as hell. There was no job security, and the hierarchical nature of the league ensured you had to suck up to and do the dirty work for your boss if you wanted to get paid at all. Unions? Idk her. Corruption and embezzlement was the name of the game, and Paldea was basically flat broke because of it, with infrastructure decades behind neighboring regions and a bevvy of shitty trainers. The champion, unlike other regions, was not decided by who unseated the current champion. It didn't matter how good someone was, they had to be selected by the chairman to be Top Champion, and the Chairman would only select someone who would work with them without question. Paldea was basically the laughingstock of the world because of their complete and utter incompetence in any and all battle tournaments and lack of advancements in literally every sector. Then shit hit the fan and we moved onto the system we see in-game

I'm not sure what the event was (a recession, investigative journalism, doesn't really matter) but the newfound understanding of just HOW corrupt the league was and the resulting scandal made the Chairman resign and shook the very foundation of the League. Luckily or unluckily, a young upstart politician named Geeta was quick to fill that void, and through a few political loopholes and charisma, she managed to secure herself as Chairwoman. She had long since hated the current Paldean system, thinking that it held her beloved region back from greatness. She had always been gunning for higher and higher positions, a dark horse of Paldean politics with undetermined motives, extreme intelligence, and frightening levels of ambition. The Chairman had always had their eye on her, personally keeping her in check, but when they were gone Geeta immediately seized the opportunity to grab as much power as physically possible. Getting the position made her effectively untouchable, and that was the ultimate goal, because her plan for Paldea was about to make her the single most hated woman in the region's history

Geeta, upon gaining a position where they legally could not get rid of her, decided to fire every single person in the upper echelons of the league. Every gym leader, elite four, and the top champion were all fired, and she withdrew Paldea from every battling tournament and public appearance until she could workshop the league into something servicable. It was the boldest move since the dissolving of the Paldean Monarchy and it did NOT make her any friends

Though her ultimate goal was to reform the entire Paldean league, her early changes were only possible because of the old system. She could and did reform the system to her liking without consequence only because of the old hierarchy system already in place. Her ability to hand select her coworkers and fire people indiscriminately was one of the greatest abuses of power Paldea had ever seen, whether for noble reasons or not, and the people she fired tried to smear her as much as they could. Though these radical steps were necessary to undo and reshape the corruption hellscape the League had become, it wasn't exactly a good look for the new chairwoman (not that she cared)

Geeta also combined the top champion position and chairwoman position, which was so shockingly unpopular and suspicious-looking that she effectively cemented her godawful reputation. She saw the top champion as an unnecessary expense and decided to take on the responsibilities herself so she could funnel the top champion salary into public projects. This is part of the reason why she’s so Bad at being champion: she’s doing it to save the league money and only needs to the absolute bare minimum. Most of her job for the first decade was analyzing the current hierarchy, finding trainers to fill positions, and trying to figure out how to fix things so that would be sustainable after she left and wouldn't fall back into old corruption. She took on a job in the academy schoolboard to keep an eye out for younger trainers, put as much money into research and economic opportunities as possible, then got to work shaping the League to her vision

Her main vision for the league was to make as many parts of the system economically self-sustaining as possible, which was vital for her gym leader choices. She picked people who had *enough* skill in battling, but who all had other careers that would generate interest in and revenue for the gym. Paldea didn't have the pure battling talent yet to make a name for itself on any kind of world stage so Geeta was completely unconcerned about the actual battling skill of her picks as long as they were good enough and making cash. In terms of gym challenges, she mandated that they had to be free or extremely cheap and somehow tied to the town itself-- the giant contraptions of other regions were NOT in the budget. She wanted the gym system to be a celebration of the towns they were in and to inspire people to visit in the same way Galar's stadiums did, all in the hopes that gyms wouldn't need money from the league itself

The gyms would maintain a similar system as before, with each town and gym operating like a smaller independent organization. Most day to day operations and decisions like numbers of workers and salaries would be handled by the gyms themselves, but with all details publicly available so interventions could take place if things got fishy. All revenue generated by the gym would stay within the town-- it would be used to pay salaries, do upkeep, etc, and anything left over could be used to make renovations / add more stuff to gym challenges / support local businesses. If the revenue generated wasn't enough to cover upkeep and salary, the league would fill in the rest

The reason the gym buildings Look Like That is because the old league funneled most of the money into the pockets of the higher-ups and very little was allocated for building gyms. Geeta kept the design bc it's cheap, Paldea is broke, and the uniformity of the gyms allows trainers to find it more easily. it's also convenient if there's a turnover of the position-- no need to build a new gym! It's mostly an administrative office anyway, only there for paperwork and to house office staff, and Geeta is under the (correct) impression that most gym leaders prefer having stages at their favorite places instead of a specific building. Only two gym leaders have strong negative opinions about the building itself: Grusha, who can't have an outdoor reception area because of the snow and hates sitting in the lobby all the time, and Brassius, who thinks it's ugly as shit (he's right) and wants to paint a mural on it

The gym system is actually run much better than it was before-- it's still hitting its stride at the time of the game but is shaping up into a system that will work long after Geeta retires. The gym leaders also like how things are run quite a bit-- they just hate Geeta as a person (but that's smth I plan on exploring in another post)

The Elite Four is something Geeta admittedly hasn't put much thought into: her main focus was on redoing the administrative side of the league and ensuring the gyms were generating enough money to function + helping the towns they were in. The Elite Four, in her mind, were an afterthought, especially since she stripped them of their political power and distributed that power amongst regular office staff. She uncoupled politics from battling in the upper spheres of the league, allowing for more concentrated and specialized attention to issues so the Elite Four could just battle

In the new league, the Elite Four isn't a council of politicians, just people who test the strength of trainers looking to be champion-- every current Elite Four member is an employee in another sector working the job for a bonus (except for Poppy-- her parents are accountants and she ended up in the position as a joke that went a liiiiittle too far). In the future, the Elite Four and Top Champion might be dedicated battlers rather than a side hustle, but Paldea doesn't have the talent nor money for that at the moment

In terms of economics, Geeta decided to set an inflation-adjusted salary rate for each position that was viewable by the public and that couldn't be changed without a public vote in the hopes this would limit corruption. She also redid the League Points system— it used to be how employees were paid, but now it’s mostly for trainers, allowing the league to subsidize common trainer goods and make things easier to buy (all employees are paid with regular money). Paldea doesn’t have designated trainer routes like other regions and cash is far easier to mug than digital currency, so trainers are encouraged to use LP as a precaution so they don’t get robbed while in the Paldean wilds. However because the LP system isn’t very popular and NOT secure, Geeta is debating phasing it out

In the new system, gyms operate mostly on their own, so the central administrative stuff (aka everything that happens in the league building by the academy as well as E4 salaries and whatnot) gets their money from returns on investments— mostly from Tera Orbs. Fees from defeating trainers also helps, but Geeta made sure not to tie it to anyone’s salaries so that they wouldn’t thrash trainers for money, as encouraging them is the whole point of the challenge. Side note about Tera Orbs: once the league got the patent, Geeta didn’t think twice about the professors, being far too busy with Everything Else to think about her old business partner. Not keeping an eye on them is one of her greatest regrets

In terms of future plans, Geeta has already implemented checks and balances on every position but her own. When she’s confident in how the League is progressing and is sure the system won’t fall back into corruption, she plans on turning her own position to an elected one. Geeta isn’t stupid, she knows that everyone hates her and will lose her position as soon as she puts proper checks and balances on it, so she’s waiting until she’s confident in the League’s system to let the rest of the league get rid of her. By that point, she hopes that the League will be organized, financially stable, and balanced enough so that it can run smoothly long after she’s gone. Also, the league is likely to enter back into international batting conferences by the end of the decade, since there’s a LOT of up and coming battling talent that can make Paldea proud (and hopefully bring enough positive attention and money back to the region so they can actually make the league profitable)

To me Paldea’s league always felt like it was in a transition period, building itself from the ground up again. We happen to see it right at the middle, just before it’s really up to a properly functioning and self-sustaining entity. I don’t really have a closer for this but if u read all the way here I’m very flattered and apologize for being a lil delusional about this :)

gaze

A strange family

I’m sure many others have pointed this out before, and this is certainly not the first time I ramble about it, BUT:

Notice how Clive’s parents look like Hershel and Claire.

Notice how they disappear to the right of the screen, which is symbolically associated with the future, while Layclaire exits stage left, remaining in the past.

Clive represents the child they could have had. Hence why he’s so smart he can rival our protagonist in a battle of wits. Hence why he’s saved by both Hershel and Claire at different points in his story. Hence why the mobile fortress is defeated by a simple pocket watch, the ultimate symbol of their love. Hence why he’s close to the Professor on the box, where Luke would typically be:

It’s him! Clive is their Lost Future.