#i don't see a lot of old / middle-aged submas parents even though their sons are adults (though it might just be my fandom circles oops)

[pillowbugs]

"you lost to the subway bosses? well! great job, boys! though, if you're challenging us now, trainer... let's just say, our sons had to have learnt their skills from somewhere."

submas' parents won the poll! here's a quick drawing of them. if they make eye contact with you, as a trainer, you're probably screwed.

+ some alternate outfits for laylea

had some headcanons but lost steam to draw them out so i'll just dump them here under the cut:

Laylea

a (currently retired) top battler in the pokémon tournament circuit. has high placings in a lot of regional championships under her belt. after retirement, now mostly helps others work with more aggressive pokémon.

a passionate and affectionate woman. some may underestimate her, thinking her a kindly old lady to take advantage of... before she utterly decimates them, with or without her pokémon involved.

speaking of which, she loves battling. she isn't particularly fond of all the usual fragile 'gifts for mom' usually found in stores. so, every mother's day, ingo & emmet give her something she actually enjoys: a good, tough battle. and other things, of course, like a nice dinner, or coming home to help with all the housework, but the battle is the Big Thing. a tradition at this point.

her husband is a short king with a brilliant mind and she loves him a lot.

her kids inherited at least some of her height, so they aren't short, but she's still taller and stronger physically than them. and she loves them to bits too.

youngest of four siblings, the eldest being gym leader / mayor drayden of opelucid city. everyone in this family is super tall and/or super buff, and she's no exception.

a tradition in her family is for the firstborn child to receive an axew egg from their parents... but laylea was indignant about not getting anything special, so she went out to catch an axew herself - her first pokémon, astrid. she does continue the tradition later on with ingo receiving an egg of astrid's as the slightly elder son.

while prodigial son drayden focuses exclusively on dragons, laylea also raises various vaguely draconic / reptiliean pokémon outside her family's type.

she cut her blood family off years ago, however, because... well, let's just say the scars on her body aren't all from pokémon or strangers, and neither are those on her kids'.

in terms of battling, her skill lies in being able to adapt on the fly in the midst of battle; knowing when to go on the offence or defence, when a powerful strategy just won't work and switching tracks to counter the counter, etc.

her design is slightly based off the bw/2 female veteran sprite.

Akito

a former travelling trainer and top battler. like his wife, he has quite a few tournament wins to his name. now tutors others in battling techniques.

while certainly a kindly, reasonable person, he also definitely leans more pragmatic, to the point of being considered, by those who know him, as a bit of a sly trickster, who gets his fun from catching others by surprise.

in fact, in his youth, he was considered quite a polite sweet-talker, except he used his charm mostly to convince people to battle him, so he could win and take their money, which is essentially how he covered all his living costs on the road. it's how he met laylea, in fact, deciding that this rich girl was going to help him top up his funds for the next few weeks... only to get his ass whooped hard.

they became friends, and eventually a couple, after that, though. laylea was moping over people underestimating her as a lady and hence not wanting to battle her, and suddenly this handsome guy around her age shows up asking for a battle? hell yes.

his right leg was severely injured in a run-in with team plasma a few years before bw1; now needs a walking frame to move around by himself, or otherwise the support of his pokémon. or, he can just ride his pokémon around. or just let laylea carry him - she can easily lift him, even considers it good weight training to maintain her strength. he still makes it a point to walk by himself sometimes, though.

he really loves his wife who can beat the stuffing out of everyone (including him) in multiple ways. he also loves his weird wonderful kids.

his mother was from a small town in kitakami, but fell in love with and married a foreigner. the happy couple still stays in kitakami, and akito brings his wife and kids to visit them every year. however, growing up mixed-race in a small, rural, conservative town wasn't a very happy experience for akito, which is why he decided on the life of a wanderering trainer to get out of there.

in fact, akito's mother descends from hisuian immigrants from the pearl clan, forced out of their home by the galaxy team's annexation of the region. so, akito and his parents can speak the old hisuian language relatively fluently, and i&e picked it up at their grandparents' behest to not let the language die out. (which comes in very, very handy later for one of them...)

akito is the strategist to laylea's general; his skill lies in laying out battle plans and combinations to be used in battles, e.g. beat up + justified, consistent speed control via tailwind, hazards + force-switching opponents etc. they make a good pair: akito charts the course, laylea pilots the team.

his design takes cues from the dppt veteran sprite. also, he's bald. ingo had to have gotten it from somewhere.

Some other assorted notes

mom has grey hair turning white, dad has black hair turning grey. mom has golden eyes, dad has silver.

yes, one parent having a krookodile and the other having a togekiss is an intentional reference to the glitch submas mons from a bw beta build.

in fact, this is how i realise that krookodile (ground) + togekiss (flying) = gliscor (ground/flying). it's most likely a coincidence given we were never meant to know about the krookodile and togekiss, and gliscor has a whole other list of genius reasons for it being ingo's ace, but it's still cute.

absol was chosen over lucario as the justified pokémon on akito's team (krookodile can provide the beat up) to 1) not copy cynthia / volo and 2) additional yin-yang theming.

ingo really takes after both his parents (haxorus from mom, probopass from dad + considering giving laylea a flygon as well so ground types also from mom). the way i draw his hairstyle hatless is also swept back similarly to his mom's.

meanwhile, emmet, uh... i'm considering giving akito some bugs to better play into the "seemingly weak but terrifying with the right strategy and direction" theme, but don't have any solid ideas for which ones yet. any suggestions are appreciated. was also considering switching probopass with magnezone (also part of ingo's l:a team and adds electric typing for emmet), but imo the latter is too popular and i'd rather give probopass a chance to shine.