P-NO: APP - Alma Valencia

   
❝These things take time. Mom and dad, they have a good life. But what the hell am I gonna do with mine?❞
- AJR, The Good Part

▸NAME    Alma Berenice Valencia
▸AGE    28 | Nov 12
▸GENDER    Cis Female | She/Her
▸HEIGHT    5'6" | 168 Cm
▸WEIGHT    150 Lbs | 68 Kg
▸FACTION     Black Masques 
▸OCCUPATION    Unemployed
▸ORIENTATION    Pansexual

▸REFERENCES
▹▹Height chart
▹▹Tattoo Sleeve (Yes, you can draw her with long sleeves.)
▸IMPORTANT MEMES
▹▹n.a

▸LIKES    Concerts | Music | Grunge Style | Her Hair | Clubbing | Getting The Last Word | Bug 'Mon | Caramel
▸DISLIKES    Fakes | Veggies | Folk Music | Being Bored or Ignored | Camping | Ugly Emojis

▸FEARS
▹▹Losing her parents' support; Losing anyone's valued support is a blow to her, but her parents have always been there for her, no matter what. If she ever lost their support, she's not sure what she'd do. And she's afraid that's exactly what will happen if they find out she lost the only job she's ever had.

▹▹The future; Alma has no idea what the future holds for her. She's still desperately hoping she'll somehow become famous and end up set for life that way, but she doesn't want to think too much about it at the same time. 

▹▹Clowns;  Clowns are horrifying. Enough said.

▸POSITIVE    energetic | determined | loyal
▸NEUTRAL    bluntly honest | show off | hasty
▸NEGATIVE    vengeful | anxious | aggressive

    Alma is the type of woman who can be your best friend or worst enemy depending on how you treat her. She's ambitious and energetic, exuding confidence when completely in her element. She's a loud and proud extrovert, who knows how to get your attention and keep it. For the most part, it's easy to get along with Alma and have your relationship sail smoothly. It only requires enjoying a good time together and ignoring each other's faults (mostly her's). She has a genuinely friendly attitude and can offer cheery support when prompted. She's especially good at offering support for bad decisions because you only live once after all. Alma reaches for the stars, rarely accepting less than her ultimate desires, and she expects no less from the people surrounding her. Alma can be an intensely supportive friend and loyal to a fault - your enemies are her own and she won't stand for anyone giving the people she cares for trouble. For many, her lack of a filter is the primary fault that gives them pause. But those that can look past that rarely regret counting an entertainer like Alma among their friends.

    Though her better side is put on prominent display, it can sometimes be overshadowed once you realize she's a very selfish individual. She wants what she wants and she wants it now. She has been over praised and spoiled by her parents, leading to an inflated, yet fragile, sense of self-worth. Alma has been told by her parents that she is indeed the best, every participation trophy ever received mattered just as much as the first place gold medal. Anytime her peers threatened her self-esteem, her parents would do whatever needed to build her back up. If that meant giving her whatever material object she desired or downright smothering her with well-meaning praise, they'd make it happen. She has also never taken well to criticism of her passions because her parents have shielded her from it. Alma is determined enough to practice and perfect the things she loves, enough to have genuine skill, but any rejection hits at her very core.

    When confronted with this rejection, making her feel anxious and panicked, Alma most often reacts with arrogance and aggression. She will console herself by claiming the source of her rejection actually mattered little, whether it be because they're not smart enough to see her worth or don't actually deserve her talents. If someone tries to fight her or call her out on this viewpoint, Alma will turn attention around on their shortcomings instead. Vulnerability is something she is reluctant showing to anyone except her parents or someone who has already bent over backwards to earn her trust. That trust is just as fragile as her self-worth. People who she feels have betrayed that trust are considered the lowest in Alma's eyes and she'll hold a hateful grudge against them for a very long time afterwards.

▸HOMETOWN    Lilycove City | Hoenn
▸CURRENT RESIDENCE Opelucid City | Unova
▸FAMILY
▹▹Mother; Rashida Nadine Valencia | 51
▹▹Father; Dominic York (Bonner) Valencia | 52

▸TEAM
▹▹Leah; Mightyena | Moxie | Sassy/Likes to Thrash About
    ∙Ice Fang; Dark Pulse (TM); Howl; Thief
▹▹Clancy; Dusclops | Pressure | Docile/Nods off a Lot
    ∙Curse; Shadow Sneak; Will-O-Wisp; Astonish

▸TL;DR Grew up spoiled rotten and became so averse to criticism she spent most of her young adult life dancing in a club just so she wouldn't have to deal with rejection from casting directors. Then her boss told her to try out for more auditions and she threw a temper tantrum over "losing her job" in panic.

    When it came to family, Rashida and Dominic had a simple standard to live by - their child would be happier than they ever were. Money wouldn't be an issue, thanks to Dominic's successful training career and an inheritance on Rashida's side. But the most important thing was they never wanted to make their daughter feel as distant or unloved as they had felt growing up. Rashida and Dominic had wonderful intentions in how they raised Alma, but many would argue it hurt more than it helped. In an effort to ensure their child felt supported and happy, Alma spent her childhood being overpraised and consistently having selfish demands met. Truly sweet, her parents would insist, but greedy. Worse, these behaviors were never punished. Rashida and Dominic were still relatively young parents and it was simply so much easier to placate her instead. If a new toy could make their sweet child stop crying, then what was another twenty dollars?

    This extended to any of Alma's interests and hobbies as well. Rashida and Dominic always wished their parents had unconditionally supported their interests instead of focusing on a legacy or fame. So whatever Alma said she wanted to do, they were her loudest cheerleaders. At the age of six, Alma wanted to be a pretty ballerina like the other girls in her class and she was immediately enrolled in classes with the rest of her friends. Alma stuck with it for a few years, finding great fun in dancing and twirling with her friends as a sugar plum clefairy. But, eventually, classes became about intensive training for possible careers in dance and less about just having fun. Alma started struggling as she tried to keep up with the other girls and criticism from her teacher in the middle of class left her feeling embarrassed and vulnerable. All her parents saw was their ten year old daughter feeling hurt, so they assured her that she was a wonderful dancer, no matter what her teacher said. Alma took comfort in her parents' words, holding them up above anyone else's. She quit ballet afterwards, and her parents supported decision in this as well.

    The cycle continued. Alma would find an interest, said interest would get harder or a professional would criticize her, and Alma would go to her parents to have them confirm she was great at her chosen interest. Sometimes she would abandon the interest afterwards, like she ultimately did with piano. Ones she particularly liked, like dance, she would practice on her own time without the threat of criticism. It wasn't that Alma didn't want to improve or be great, but she had grown to view criticism as something that just made her feel bad. All she needed was to practice and set her mind to something and she would get better, she knew that! She preferred the path of silently hoping for improvement to come naturally than having her flaws pointed out.

    Rashida and Dominic never found anything wrong with her exploring interests - she was just trying to find what she liked best and what she wanted most. They refused to rush or pressure her. Eventually, she seemed to settle on becoming a pokemon trainer and went through all the steps to get her license. Dominic found pride in her following his example on her own terms and gifted her with a starter poochyena, named Leah, as a graduation present. Her journey started off great - she caught a wurmple (Silver) and duskull (Clancy) all on her own and loved them dearly. Alma trained her pokemon well, evolved them, and even won a single badge - the Mossdeep Badge on her father's advice, to be specific. And she'd done so well thanks to her type advantages, she got cocky. She made her way back through Lilycove to celebrate with her parents before challenging the Fortree city gym. She'd only meant to switch Silver in to give Leah a break and Clancy was sick. There was a type disadvantage, but her pokemon could handle it, she'd thought. She'd trained them so well. And Silver did try his best, but bug pokemon aren't known for their durability. Silver was permanently down for the count within a few moves and Alma immediately forfeited.

    The death had a profound affect on her. Her parents tried to insist this wasn't Alma's fault, that accidents happened. But she felt there was no one to blame except herself. She was the one who caught him, she trained him, she switched him in despite knowing he was at a severe type disadvantage. The worst part was that she couldn't change this. She couldn't just walk away from his death like it didn't happen and she couldn't whine or pay money to reverse it. It left her anxious about ever battling again, for fear of what might happen to Leah and Clancy. She pulled herself out of the league challenge and returned home to her parents, who then uprooted all of them from Hoenn and moved to Unova, just to get their daughter away from the memories.

    This left the question of just what was Alma going to do with her life now? She hadn't expected to fail at being a trainer, one of the most common careers in the pokemon world. College was a choice, but not one her parents were pressuring her about if she didn't have any solid plans. "Just take your time to figure things out," they told her. "We'll support you." Alma relaxed and decided to fall back onto the thing she'd always enjoyed most - showing off. Alma liked being on a stage and she liked getting praise. She considered the path of being a contest star, but her anxiety for Leah and Clancy gave her pause. Instead she just decided to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck. She tried out acting, both for film and for stage. She tried to be a dancer. She learned how to play guitar and tried to create her own music. She felt like she tried everything she could be good at, but got rejections at every turn.

    She would continue to try, practicing her guitar diligently and keeping an eye out for any open auditions, but waiting for callbacks that never came was draining. Not to mention the constant support from her parents was now a double edged sword. They had so much faith in her, but she had nothing to show for it. Pressure she had put on herself along with the growing frustration of not getting results despite actively trying brought her to an uncomfortably public meltdown where she met Lorraine Honeycutt. Lorraine was an older woman who'd gone through her own troubles growing up, leading her to open up a dance club specifically meant to give young women with nowhere else to go a safe space to earn money. Alma's prickly attitude kept her from telling the woman what exactly prompted such a loud argument with the cashier at the pokemart, but she made her own assumptions and just let her know The Orchid's doors were open.

    Eight years later and Alma was thriving on the stage Lorraine had given her. She'd picked up the art of pole dancing easily, and was given the opportunities to have fun making her own dance routines as well. The crowd was hardly picky, giving her the applause she desired. Alma had money, attention, and even her parents were proud she was able to find a place of her own and job that made her happy. They, and Lorraine, encouraged her to keep trying for the bigger stages to get some real notoriety, but Alma was comfortable in The Orchid. In truth, the thought of leaving it just made her anxious. So why would she? When the topic of future plans were brought up, she brushed it away. While her parents didn't push the topic further, Lorraine couldn't shake her own worries about Alma's complacency.

    Having known the woman for years now, Lorraine made an attempt to broach the subject gently. But the mere suggestion of losing her job sparked a panic in Alma. Alma made it clear that working at the Orchid was great, and Lorraine was glad she thought so, but insisted that Alma had the talent to go elsewhere. The sentiment didn't make Alma feel better -- she was doing good and that earned her getting fired? Her panic twisted into anger as she implied Lorraine was only trying to get rid of her because she was getting older and put all of Lorraine's intentions in creating The Orchid into question. The conversation just continued to spiral and ended with Alma no longer having her regular job at The Orchid.

    Alma stormed out of The Orchid, but the walk back to her apartment let her anger cool back down into an anxious panic again. Without her job, she wouldn't be able to keep paying her rent. That meant moving back home, and Alma was certain she'd be able to but...she desperately didn't want to. Her parents had been so proud of her getting a job, she didn't want to tell them she'd lost everything. Especially for being good at her job! It was infuriating and, worse, depressing. Instead, she kept the loss of her job a secret from them and went back to searching for any auditions that would have her.

FIRST MASK
    One walk home after yet another failed audition led her to a once familiar park. At first it was the guilty realization that she hadn't taken her pokemon out recently that made her pause. But Alma soon felt herself being drawn further into the park and then into the trees beyond it. She wasn't sure how long she walked before the sensation allowed her to stop. Alma looked around, then down, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of some kind of bunny Mask. She was unsure why it seemed to both scare and excite her. Alma bent down and lifted the Mask to her face before a bright light for no one to witness filled the area.

    And then, everything was fine. She recognized quickly what this had to be, as Mask Users of all kinds were household names by this point. Alma felt all the power she could ever need in her finger tips. No one was stronger or better than Alma, not when she was like this. She didn't need some no-talent director, or Lying Lorraine, or anyone. Karma was going to get everything she deserved, all on her own.

▸MBTI    ESTP | The Entrepreneur
▸ALIGNMENT    Chaotic Neutral
▸VOICE    Olivia Olson | Marceline Abadeer from Adventure Time
▸PLAYLIST
▹▹n.a.

▸MISC 
▹▹Alma joined the Black Masques primarily out of necessity. They had resources she didn't and wouldn't judge her thievery.
▹▹She's very proud of her sleeve tattoo of Silver, Leah, and Clancy and shows it off often.
▹▹She didn't catch any more pokemon outside of her first three, falling on her father's advice that a smaller team starting out could be a stronger and more focused one.
▹▹She takes an incredible amount of pride in her hair - the lengthy process of getting her braids done every few months is one of the few things she shows patience for.
▹▹You can tell the length of her natural hair by the color - all the color is synthetic.
▹▹The style and color of her braids also determines about 90% of her wardrobe until she gets them redone (like as they are now, she'll wear lots of blues and cool colors. If she gets red extensions, she might try red lipstick for a change).
▹▹While she didn't stick with the proper ballet lessons, she still remembers the basics and some of the terms associated with it.
▹▹Alma is ambidextrous, but prefers her left hand.
▹▹Alma could probably still play piano if she tried, but the guitar is her instrument of choice after sticking with it for over eight years.
▹▹She's also much better at music than acting - she tends to only do well in roles that align with her natural, smarmy personality and doesn't have much range.
▹▹Alma's musical and acting skills aren't nonexistent - even with avoiding proper critique, the years she spent on her passions has born obvious fruit. But there is still room for improvement. A lot of her rejections have more to do with Alma not meeting other requirements casting directors have, her unprofessional attitude than her ability alone, or there was simply someone better.
▹▹She has pretty much no contact with her grandparents - Dominic has cut ties with his family and Rashida's haven't really been a part of their lives ever since her grandfather left more to Rashida than he did to them.

▸MASK    Mask
▸SPECIES    #428 | Mega!Lopunny | The Rabbit Pokemon
▸TYPE    Type1 | Type2
▹▹Ghost 0x, Bug, Rock, and Dark ½x
▹▹Fighting, Flying, Psychic, and Fairy 2x
▸ABILITY    Scrappy
▹▹The Pokémon can hit Ghost-type Pokémon with Normal- and Fighting-type moves.
▸HELD ITEM    item
▹▹what it do

▸REFERENCES
▹▹Alma Masks
▹▹Tattoo Sleeve

▸NATURE    Adamant
▹▹+Attack / -Sp.Attack
▸CHARACTERISTIC    Quick-Tempered
▹▹+Attack

[ NORMAL ] || TEETER DANCE - Karma performs an entrancing pirouette to throw her opponent off balance.
    EGG // Status // -- // Confuses all adjacent targets.
[ FIGHTING ] || LOW SWEEP - Karma drops down and sweeps her leg underneath her opponent.
    TM // Physical // 65 //Lowers opponent's Speed one stage.
[ FIRE ] || FIRE PUNCH -  Karma lands an attack with her fist enveloped in a raging fire.
    MOVE TUTOR // Physical // 75 // 10% chance to confuse opponent.
[ FLYING ] || BOUNCE - Karma launches herself up into the air and drops onto the target with incredible force.
    LVL // Physical // 85 // 2 turn attack. 30% chance to paralyze

▸MENTAL
▹▹Gives into most of her selfish desires - she wants thing, she gets thing.
▹▹Extremely petty and salty. Getting onto her bad side as Karma ensures you're likely to stay on her bad side.
▹▹Also very stubborn, more easily defaulting to her aggressive defense mechanisms.
▹▹But also very vain and susceptible to flattery.
▹▹She lives up to her name - what goes around, comes around.
▹▹Very expressive, especially with her ears.
▸PHYSICAL
▹▹Slightly more muscular and a few inches taller.
▹▹Both sides of head are shaved with spiral patterns. Her hair is technically a mohawk, with the top sections of her locs pulled up and around to hold up the bottom sections.
▹▹She jump very high. She can jump up 70 inches (177 cm) when not using her bounce attack (bounce attack can launch her up twice that). Her horizontal jump is nearly twenty feet.
▹▹Her tattoo sleeve changes from focusing on her pokemon to a fiery tribute to Mega!Lopunny.
▹▹She's got a great sense of hearing, but it makes her sensitive to louder noises.
▹▹Don't talk about her adorable bunny tail you can't touch her bunny tail and do n o t talk abt how she's hopping down the bunny trail she will d es t ro Y YOU.

▸MASK    Mask
▸SPECIES    #571 | Zoroark | Illusion Fox Pokemon
▸TYPE    Dark
▹▹Psychic 0x, Ghost and Dark ½x
▹▹Fighting, Bug, and Fairy 2x
▸ABILITY    Illusion
▹▹Comes out disguised as the Pokémon in the party’s last spot.

▸REFERENCES
▹▹Alma Masks
▹▹Tattoo Sleeve

▸NATURE    Brave
▹▹+Attack / -Speed
▸CHARACTERISTIC    Proud of its Power
▹▹+Attack

[ DARK ] | HONE CLAWS | -- | Raises Attack + Accuracy 1 stage
[ NORMAL ] | FURY SWIPES | 18 | 2-5 attacks per turn
[ DARK ] | NIGHT SLASH | 70 | Increased critical hit ratio
[ DARK ] | FOUL PLAY | 95 | The stronger the opponents' attack stat, the stronger Ditto's attack

▸ILLUSION
▹▹Ditto, as a Zoroark, has very strong illusory powers, but they are tied closely to her own knowledge and can only go as far as her own mind can.
▹▹Ditto can disguise herself as anyone, Mask user or human, but she has to have seen them or some visual of them before and her illusion will be affected by that visual. For instance, a low-res jpeg of someone at an awkward angle from a street camera won't give her an accurate disguise in the slightest, but she can make herself a perfect copy of anybody standing in front of her. She can disguise herself from memory, but her memory will affect this as well - i.e., if she doesn't remember their eye color, she should hope no one else does either. Same goes for their voice - if she's heard it, she can mimic it, but if she hasn't, she'll just have to guess.
▹▹When she is about to use her illusion abilities to disguise herself as someone else, their appearance (or the appearance in her mind) appears in the mirror on her tattoo sleeve
▹▹While she can't copy movesets of any Mask User, Ditto can pretend she is using any move she pleases through her illusions. But these fake moves will have no actual effect on herself or on her opponents and she cannot physically harm her opponent either. The only attacks she can use are her natural moveset.
▹▹Her illusions are just that - illusions. They have no physical effect and she can't just create anything out of thin air. She can make someone think one object is another entirely (This broom? it's totally a guitar) and they can be incredibly realistic, but they're not real. If she tries to make something that's not there at all and doesn't even have a real analogue to base the illusion on (like if she tried to make it look like a canyon gap had a bridge you could use to cross) it will fail the moment anyone other than herself tries to interact with it directly.
▹▹Illusions with no analogue also have a tendency to to distort slightly or start to become transparent when studied too long - which is why Ditto likes to take your attention away from it when you get too close by talking.
▹▹Simply realizing something is an illusion gives someone the ability to see through it - if you realize the guitar you're holding is just a broom, you'll feel bristles instead of guitar strings and will no longer be able to hear the music you thought you were making.
▹▹Cameras and other recording devices can see through Ditto's illusions.
▹▹While Ditto can disguise herself with relative ease and have large groups of people and passersby see her as whoever she's being disguised as, putting effort into disguising other things around her or affecting the landscape to more than one person is a much more difficult task. She could only put up a large scale illusion to a group of five or so and it would only be able to last for short periods of time.
▹▹When disguised and the center of attention in front of very large groups of people, it becomes harder to keep her disguise up.

▸MENTAL
▹▹Alma's extroverted entertainer personality maxed out
▹▹She likes being around others and having their attention, negative or positive
▹▹Ditto's ultimate goal is "A Good Time," whatever that means at the time
▹▹Maybe it means a BnE, maybe it means chilling out under the full moon, there's no telling, though it can easily be bent towards whatever anyone else around wants
▹▹Less rash than Karma and willing to let some things go, but still certainly prefers her way
▹▹The worst trait is her envy, which can end up being suffocating. She doesn't like being showed up or told others are more talented.
▹▹But Ditto can let her anger and jealousy simmer a bit more than Karma can - Ditto prefers showing off and/or pouting until she's reached her absolute limit.
▹▹She's also often a liar by omission - she's not quite so blunt as Alma, and not so obvious as Karma. She rarely likes to give a straight answer, especially if doing so would annoy those asking.
▸PHYSICAL
▹▹Of similar build to Alma, but she's half a foot taller.
▹▹Her hair is very long and full of coarse curls, much like Alma's unbraided hair.
▹▹The eyes of the face mask emote just as Alma does, even if she lifts the mask above her eyes (without taking it off and fully demasking, of course).
▹▹All that hair is actually an intensely thick mohawk and the strap of her mask is beneath all of it
▹▹Her claws can retract when needed, but are often fully extended
▹▹The turquoise pearl at the end of her hair, like her earrings, is very light and she doesn't feel it pulling on her hair.
▹▹The toes on her boots are her actual toes, her feet are actually gray and furred like a Zoroark

---

UPDATES
▸07/17 - MY SECOND WHO WAS GOING TO BE MY THIRD BUT JESSIE AIN'T WORKIN OUT AS A CHAR RN SO LET'S SHOVE ALMA IN A LITTLE EARLY INSTEAD-
▸08/17 - LOOK OUT WORLD, ALMA'S READY TO ROCK AND ROLL
▸08/17 - okay wait karma design update first AND N O W SHE'S READY TO ROCK AND ROLL-
▸010/18 - here comes a special fox

Alma © qnerdi
pokemon © nintendo