victory_road | Come alive come alive

Who: Everyone attending the Contest Spectacular! (For more information about this event, check out the info post here!)
Where: Celadon City
When: February 15th-17th
Log:

Valentine’s day may be just past and most cities are relaxing back to normal after all the romance. But in Celadon City, the holiday hype wound up as a lead-in to the month’s main event: the return of the Contest Spectacular!

After Olivine had the honor of hosting in the summer, Kanto’s rainbow city has been eager to draw the event back and truly establish the new tradition. Not that it took much convincing to get Hoenn’s Contest runners back on board—not to mention the Aether Foundation’s assistance as well. They’d heard the city had had an on-and-off issue with pollution, so of course they’re here to supervise and ensure Pokemon safety!

Lusamine having the opportunity to judge more beautiful Pokemon is simply a perk to coming, of course.

Anne and Liz have returned as well, wouldn’t miss it for the world. They’re growing very fond of hosting for this new and interesting region, not to mention getting to meet all the people from entirely different worlds! Whenever they can grab a moment of downtime, they can be spotted out and about with their Plusle and Minun, and are eager to chat people up and hear their otherworldly stories. Just no questions about results!

As for the city itself... Celadon is always flashy, but they really pulled out all the stops this time.

Pink, red, and white tents and booths fill the streets between the towering green-glassed buildings. The fashion center of Kanto apparently didn't get the memo that the fourteenth was over and instead decided on having more hearts, more Luvdisc-themed decorations, and MORE cherry lollipops.

The Aether tents blend right in with the other lovey-dovey colors-- this time they're there to pass out hand-warmers and sanitizer, pamphlets about PokeRus and how to best avoid passing around germs. They're friendly as always (although there seem to be even more of them this time than there were back in August), but Celadon City made sure that there's far more to see than some geeks in white. Now that the Contest Spectacular has two massive successes under its belt, more people than ever want to get in on it.

It seems that every bakery in town came together to outdo each other, and extravagant sweets and pastries are being sold and sampled out at every turn. The usual photobooths and costume-rental stands (that, cough, are definitely not advertising from local fashion companies that want you to stop in and BUY the outfits from their boutiques later...) are present as always-- and the mini-games from last summer are back too!

One booth is surrounded by a near-constant crowd-- manned by a shiny Decidueye and his nervous-looking Trainer-- the regal owl Pokemon is signing copies of his newly-published self-help book-slash-autobi"owl"graphy ("Owl I Want Is You: Memoirs of a Hopeless Romantic") with one of his own quills.
And of course there's the official Contest stalls bursting with merch from the previous contests-- including (but not limited to) colorful additions like:

a sparkling necklace whose beads form the shape of an Onix (EXPENSIVE... but so stylin'!)
a clunky (but very popular with the Youngsters) action figure that transforms into a lumpy Tyrantrum if you follow a bunch of complicated steps
a short newsstrip-style graphic novel about the action-packed adventures of a crime-fighting Wailmer
a VERY dapper line of Joltik-themed bowties and cuff-links
a dainty music box containing a tiny ballerina Eevee figurine that spins when opened
a set of "Ink Blasterz (tm)"-- Octillery-themed squirt guns that come with packets of (nontoxic) black dye so that you and your friends can ruin your neighbor's drying laundry even more once summer rolls back around
a set of gleaming opalescent d20's in a Sableye-shaped box, complete with two hollow holes on the lid where the eyes should be where you can stick two of them!
a floppy green Deino doll that, when switched on, tumbles chaotically around the floor and emits growling noises.

But for those worn out on ~~capitalism~~ the shameless merchandizing, this year the real centerpiece of the outdoor attractions is a temporary but still impressive greenhouse erected in the plaza outside of the main tent. Gym Leader Erika and her underlings have worked throughout the month to feature the fruits of their labor (no pun intended) in the Celadon Gym, and the Greenhouse is a great place for a relaxing respite from the cold, slushy February streets outside. Visitors can learn all about exotic flora and even purchase potted Berry trees, houseplants and bonsais raised by the Celadon gym trainers themselves!

~*~

[IMPORTANT: Please submit your contest entries here! For all other activities, feel free to make your own top-levels!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's fine.

[His life has a lot of, and that time period was terrible. Anyway...pressing onwards.]

Have you ever entered into one of these contests?

[Harry gets a long look at the word "fine". If only because of how often Shiro tends to say it... when nothing is fine.]

No, I haven't. The only one I've got who'd be into that kind of thing is Blue.

And Blue's... well. He's Blue.

[He's....mostly fine. At least in that he doesn't blame Shiro for bringing it up and he's accepted the fact that things sometimes get brought up that make him think of his past. So, better then he would have been before at least.]

I think Dally might have liked it when she was younger.....but I got lucky and we didn't have them around. I don't think I could go on stage like that.

[Better....but still doesn't like to be the center of attention...ever. The gym battle he fought was harder in that people were watching him.]

Yeah, it's not my starter's favorite, either. I don't think I could convince him to try, even if I wanted to.

Good thing they're optional, huh?

[It's okay, Harry. He's not going to judge your unease. Everyone's got their own hangups, in some way or another.]

[Yeah, gear posts are one thing that he's actually managed to be able to do now. But live performances.... Still too much paranoia for that.]

I have a few like that. It's a good thing it's left to the people who are interested.

Besides I don't think I have a skill that would work its way into a performance with a pokemon. Even if I was comfortable up there.

Yeah -- a lot of things here are like that, aren't they? You don't have to battle, either, if you don't want it.

[Shiro's Aggron, ever his shadow, noses his head under his trainer's arm while they speak. Yeah, Kuro knows they're talking about him.]

Not even poetry reading?

Nope. And it's a nice change of pace.

[Aw, Kuro.]

I'm not sure how you'd fit a pokemon move into that. Also I wouldn't say it's a skill of mine.

Makes me wonder why they don't have battle events like this. Since that's such a popular thing.

[He'd be more interested in getting involved, too.]

Hah -- right, that's fair. I don't know how you'd manage it either.

You know that's a good point.. ....Maybe the gyms would object or something. They might hold some sort of rights to competition battling? ...I'm really not sure how that would even work here.

[He chuckles.]

It would have to be very inventive.

I'm not either. All I know is the League runs the gyms. But... you know, someday? If I'm still around... maybe that's an option.

[His own gym...]

Some kind of voice boosting move?

Come alive come alive

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