#i also depicted her with waardenburgs syndrome from what i remember. im gonna have to read up on it again though if i revisit her

[snailfen]

what pokemon are you planning on giving callie since you said audino doesnt quite work for sign?

still dont quite have it down! my only criteria rn is it has to have 5 fingers, and while hand size isn't necessarily criteria if a pokemons hands/fingers are significantly small it might impede their ability to be understood on certain signs (like fingerspelling). i also have a (somewhat) optional criteria on how well i think that pokemon species would be suited for the role of a service pokemon. whether or not it does might not disqualify it as a choice, but its a thought i had regardless!

not necessarily criteria but a final note: service pokemon ideally aren't considered a "team member", and aren't qualified or trained for official pokemon battles. i say this because callie IS a trainer on a journey (more specifically shes travelled region-to-region). originally when i made callie, her service pokemon would battle, which is why i chose audino since it has mega evolution. but after giving this more thought i realized its just not a good idea LMAO. they can battle if it comes down to it but ideally their job is to accommodate and accompany their trainer first and foremost.

my first thought was machamp/machoke since it fits that criteria pretty well, but i wasnt sold on it cus like. it was the only pokemon off the top of my head that i Knew had five fingers. plus since its gimmick is being a wrestling champion i feel like machamp is better trained for battling or otherwise physical activity (like the movers machamps in ruby and sapphire) rather than accompanying someone and accomodating them. still tho. its a cool pokemon. i like how it just walks up to you to show off its sick gains in pl:a

golurk is another choice i considered in the past, but standing at 9 feet tall means you're not gonna be able to follow your trainer into most buildings and i feel like that pretty obviously disqualifies it as a choice. callie does have a golurk on her team though, and she's taught it to understand sign, but thats it.

theres also the chimchar line, all 3 have five fingers but im not sure its a good idea. while pokemon are allowed anywhere and everywhere, i feel like realistically, pokemon with open flames wouldn't be allowed in certain buildings and again, thats inconvenient for a service pokemon who needs to accompany their trainer! i think at this point you can tell im overthinking it a little LMAO

this last choice is a little more self indulgent: simisear. it fits the hand criteria perfectly! but also, i like the idea of giving a role that stands out like this to a more obscure pokemon, it feels unique, yknow? and simisear is a very, very unpopular pokemon (even compared to the other 2 elemental monkeys, which is why I've only listed simisear specifically tho the other two would also work) to the point where i don't think we're gonna see it on the switch even though it was avaliable in XY. plus, its only dex entries make it seem like a very chill pokemon. i feel like it could be trained for a role of sign translation and service particularly well!

that all being said the last time i had any lessons on ASL was when i was like, 4, ive done some reading up on grammar, and differences between sign languages (i havent decided if i want her to be from an english-speaking region or not, but im going off of what i do know about ASL for now), so if there's any blindspots here please do tell me!!! not to mention all of this comes from my last revision on callie which was... about a year ago? i dont even think ive got every five-fingered pokemon here. hell, callie is a placeholder name. when i first made her in 2020, i named her "calliope" because i thought it sounded nice as a name. i wanna give her a name with real meaning but still haven't figured it out yet.

anyways thats about it. god i should work on pokemon ocs again