#i usually dont get malasadas just because the closest place is really out of the way

[mimikinyuu]

woke up to fresh malasadas. alola rotomblr

[sage-nebula]

honestly i love hearing ur headcanons and tidbits about champion alan and how he goes about his duties with the other champs n stuff. since he's such a reserved guy how do you reckon he bonds with the other champions when they're all together doing work n stuff? like he already is on good terms with steven and ash, yes, but what about the others. i like trying to imagine these dynamics dont mind me

I, too, love imagining these dynamics, so I will absolutely mind you in the sense that I will happily engage in this discussion, thank you for asking. :D

Anyway, as you said, Alan is already on good terms with Ash and Steven from the get-go, even before he becomes Champion. Honestly, Ash is probably his best human friend; I know some people might want to protest about Manon, but Manon is his little sister, not his best friend—there’s a difference in the type of relationship dynamic there. The bond between Alan and Ash was pretty much immediate from the time they met, and Ash is the only human whose company we’ve seen Alan seek out just because he knew that spending time (and battling) with Ash would make him happy (and it did, to the point where Manon herself thinks “I’ve never seen Alan smile like that” when she sees how he smiles at Ash during their battle, and to the point where Alan thanks Ash three separate times during that battle for letting him feel such happiness). With that being the case, I feel confident in saying that Ash is his best human friend.

With that said, yeah, Alan is closest to Ash out of all the other Champions, and probably closest to Steven after that. As such, whenever it comes to fun (but important!) partnerships and things that happen between the regions, Alan usually partners with one of them first. For instance, in that Champion Messenger post, Alan brings up a tournament agreement to Steven. That tournament is a tournament that is going to be held between Kalos and Hoenn, League-style. It’s not an official League—the winners don’t get Champion challenges—but anyone can participate so long as they qualify for at least one of the regional Leagues, and the tournament ends in a double battle against Steven and Alan both. (RIP to whoever faces them, tbh.) The idea is to foster more unity between Kalos and Hoenn, and the other Champions are carrying it out between their regions as well. Ash and Iris are doing one for Kanto and Unova, Hau and Casey are doing one for Alola and Johto, and so on and so forth. (The next ones will be Steven and Cynthia for Hoenn and Sinnoh, Ash and Alan for Kanto and Kalos, Casey and Iris for Johto and Unova, and on like that until all the regions team up at some point.) 

But even though that’s the case, he’s still on good terms with all the others! Part of it might be due to the fact that Ash already knew everyone else and thus could introduce Alan if necessary, and part of it might also be due to any big international meetings between the Champions (and one of their most trusted Elite) that take place. However, I think those meetings are probably rarer; they typically only need all of them to come together in the event of an international crisis, which I would hope wouldn’t happen too frequently. (Though I have a story idea for one that does, but that’s another story for another time. ;D) So what really helps, I think, is that Champion Messenger that Steven develops so that they all have a fast and (most importantly) secure way to communicate in case they need to. It is supposed to be for work; the idea is that it’s a private messenger that only they (not even their Elite!) know about and have access to, which means that it’s a much, much more secure method than e-mail or phone calls to pass information between them. Additionally, it’s instant and accessible via whatever mobile device they have, which means that they don’t have to worry about massive time delays, either. So it honestly was developed for responsible, serious reasons, and it was supposed to be for work … but, as that post shows, a lot of shenanigans happen as well. And the thing is, when you’re in a messenger room with six other people, it’s rather easy to get to know and bond with them in a way that doesn’t infringe on your own personal comfort or boundaries or anything like that. Provided it’s just shenanigans, Alan can always just sign out of the messenger for a while and go do something else if he wants. It’s perfect for an introvert like him. So with that in mind, even setting aside official business, the messenger has really helped foster his relationships with the rest of the Champions as well. I like to imagine that they really are a #squad.

So with that said, a bit more in-depth?

Ash: 

As I said, Ash is Alan’s best human friend. He’s someone that we’ve seen in canon that Alan feels comfortable confiding in, someone he feels comfortable relying on, someone who has helped Alan in the darkest times in his life. And you can trust me when I say that this bond does not diminish as they grow older. Rather, it grows stronger. Not only are Alan and Ash always more than ready to help each other out, team up, and rely on each other in times of crisis, but they enjoy spending time with and talking to each other as well. I like to think that they began exchanging letters pretty regularly after Ash left Kalos to return to Kanto (and then went on to Unova), and once Ash finally upgrades his life and gets a mobile device, they exchange numbers to keep in touch through calls and text messages as well (and of course the Champion Messenger, but that has everyone in it). They do eventually cash in on their promise to battle again someday years later at the Charicific Valley, but Ash immediately makes Alan promise to battle him again at a later date. (Alan’s doing much better by that point, and Ash can tell, and that’s why he allowed the battle to happen—but still. Better safe than sorry.) 

There’s not too much more to say here that isn’t immediately obvious, but the last thing I’ll add is that while it’s obvious that Ash is Alan’s best human friend, rest assured that Alan is one of Ash’s best human friends as well. I mean, to be honest, Ash has about six thousand people he’d call his best friend (well, not that many, but it’s a lot considering all the traveling companions and now classmates he has had in his life), but the special bond they have is definitely felt on Ash’s side as well. (I imagine that Alan meets Gary at some point and the two hit it off, and this makes Ash feel some kind of way, because even though his relationship with Gary improves drastically over the course of the OS, as we see in DP he can still get rather fired up over Gary sometimes, because old rivalries die hard. He starts feeling jealous over Alan because of a bit of insecurity he has over the fact that Alan and Gary can talk about scientific research things / bond over growing up homes that are half house, half lab, and that’s not a thing he can really share with Alan, and … well. Just trust me when I say that this best friendship goes both ways. They’re both immensely important to each other.)

Casey:

Casey is probably the fellow Champion that … well, one of the fellow Champions that Alan has the weakest bond with (there are two), simply because they don’t have very much in common. He likes Casey all right; their personalities aren’t incompatible or anything, particularly since there are times when Casey reminds him of both Ash and Manon are equal measure. But their interests are at very opposite ends of the scale, generally. Casey’s primary interest outside of battling is baseball (and specifically the Electabuzz team), and Alan just … doesn’t care about baseball, honestly, haha. He has pretty much no interest in that whatsoever. Casey doesn’t see how this is possible—how could someone not realize how amazing baseball (and especially the Electabuzz, despite how Ash’s horrible (in Casey’s opinion) taste in teams makes him blaspheme and say otherwise) is?! But Alan’s just not very interested, and likewise Casey doesn’t tend to be very interested in the books or research that captures Alan’s interest. As such, they don’t often have too many shared interests to talk about, even though they still get along well enough in the Messenger / when they’re working on official business.

(“This is what happens when a jock meets a nerd,” says Iris.)

All of that said, for her birthday one year Alan gives her Beedrillite so that she can mega evolve her beedrill. To say that she’s thrilled is an understatement.

Steven:

Like with Ash, we already know a lot about Alan’s relationship with Steven. To be honest, the two bicker-banter back and forth at least half the time, given how snarky and sassy they can both be—but it’s all in good humor, never serious. It’s just how they communicate / have fun with each other. Their relationship, as we know, was forged in the midst of TSME, when Steven witnessed firsthand what Lysandre was doing to Alan and then almost immediately tattled on Lysandre to Alan’s father. We see throughout TSME just how much Steven cares about him (and how gleeful he is to enact vengeance for him once the Flare arc hits—Steven went to the Fleur-De-Lis labs to attack people and he had such a good time), and that is part of what motivates Steven to encourage Alan to take the Champion challenge in the first place (despite how Steven truly likes Diantha a whole lot as well—they become good friends in my headcanon, #fashion buddies). I say “part” because Steven does earnestly believe everything he says. He genuinely believes that Alan would be an excellent Champion. But he also cares about Alan and wants him to do well and be okay, and in the Champion Messenger post I made, his little press of “just fine?” was actually his way of checking on Alan, versus continuing to rib him as he had before (“Not now, we’re discussing the merits of malasada cannibalism”). There’s a lot of care under all the teasing, just as Alan truly does care about and appreciate Steven under all the snark he tosses right back.

(That said, they do sometimes have escalating prank wars, which are usually instigated by Steven, and most often by Alan being teased about the big ol’ crush Steven has on Sycamore. Like, Steven is in a happy monogamous relationship with Wallace, and he knows that Sycamore is with Meyer, and so obviously it’s not going anywhere, but I felt some chemistry between them in the anime, and in my brain that translated into Steven thinking Sycamore is damn fine. So Steven will see fit to troll Alan about this sometimes, by asking him if Sycamore is single yet or mentioning about how Sycamore is a DILF (and how he wouldn’t mind being Alan’s stepdad, it’s not like they can’t both still work together as Champions et cetera), and of course Alan isn’t going to just take that lying down, so he finds some other way to strike back at him. Like, for instance, playing a game of telephone with Manon and her friends, which ends in Manon presenting Steven with a nice stone as a going-away present, at which point she announces to the entire airport that it’s because she heard about how much pleasure his rock fetish brings him and though that he’d be even more pleased than usual if he had a new rock for his fetish. This happens when Manon is still ten, and so honestly she has no idea what a fetish is, particularly since she heard about this from Bonnie, who heard about it from Serena, who heard about it from Shauna, who heard about it from Tierno and Trevor, who heard about it from Ash, who came up with the interpretation that “fetish” is just “cool thing I like a lot” because although he heard about this from Alan, Alan didn’t explain to him what that word meant. So then Steven has to stand there, kind of mortified, with Diantha, Sycamore, Bonnie, Manon, and a smirking Alan all watching him, and all he knows is that even though Manon says that she and Bonnie came up with the idea (and that Bonnie says it was Serena and Shauna that helped them), Alan has to be behind this somehow and Steven will get him back.

So sometimes they have escalating prank wars like that. It’s all in good fun, though. ;) )

Cynthia:

Once Alan and Cynthia hit it off, they end up getting along very well. To begin with, Cynthia kind of has a Cool Big Sis thing going on; she’s a very, sincerely nice person who cares about those around her, and likes to guide and offer advice to those around her when the situation arises. This is particularly true with those she can see a bit of herself in, and I think she would with Alan. In the anime, Cynthia mentions at one point that she always aimed to be the strongest when she was younger, and in the games, Cynthia’s entire team has perfect IVs and significant EV training. Cynthia takes training quite seriously and loves battling, and these are two things that she absolutely has in common with Alan. So I think that Cynthia would pick up on that, and would be interested and talking more with him, particularly when she learns that he was raised by Professor Sycamore and is a scholar like her …

… and that’s when they’d hit it off, because they’re both massive nerds. 

While Alan’s research into mega evolution tends to seem more scientific, it’s important to remember that his search for Key Stones and Mega Stones took him to a ton of ruins, and that he and Sycamore also spend a lot of time poring over ancient tablets and examining ancient scripts, et cetera. Meanwhile, Cynthia’s secondary job is as a researcher / archaeologist / myth/legend hunter. She, too, spends so much time spelunking in ruins, going over ancient texts, writing books about the various myths and legends about the world. There’s no way their research wouldn’t overlap at times, to the point where I’m sure there have been multiple times in the Champion Messenger where one of them brings up a new discovery and the two of them end up dominating the messenger nerding out about it until someone complains. So really, they have a ton in common and have a good relationship. They’re both Cool Older Sibling types to those around them (Cool Big Bro, Cool Big Sis), they’re both nerds with similar nerdy interests, and they both love battling and take training very seriously. The only additional thing to note about their dynamic is that Cynthia is decently older than Alan (I’d say she’s in her mid-to-late 20s), so she ends up being like a Cool Big Sis to him, at least from time to time. It’s a good relationship.

Iris:

Iris and Alan also get along pretty well! While Iris can be pretty energetic sometimes, she can also be pretty savvy and knows when to tone it down a notch (I mean, remember, she was the one always teasing Cilan about being a pain because of how Extra™ he is), so I don’t think that would cause many problems. Aside from that, once again, I think that Iris and Alan would find some pretty good common ground between them. They both love and have an affinity for dragons (Iris’ face when Alan tells her that charizard, in addition to being a dragon by species, can be a dragon-type when it mega evolves into its X form, after the brief Discourse™ she had with Ash about that very typing in BW); they were both orphaned at a young age and originally come from a far out village in the woods (though Iris’ time in the Dragon Village was far better than Alan’s time in Isolé); they’re both happily adopted, even if unofficially for a time (or at least Iris is in the games—I think Drayden also looks after her to an extent in the anime?); they both have a tendency to be rather blunt and honest (even if Iris actually voices her thoughts more than Alan does); they’ve both had difficulties socializing in the past (though they’re getting better!), and so on and so forth. (They’re also both unjustly despised by the vast majority of the fandom, but hEY …)

 I actually like to imagine that these two meet prior to either of them becoming Champions of their respective regions, and I really want to write this fic at some point. My thought is, well, the PokéAni writers denied Iris her cameo in Kalos, so what if I write one for her post-series? I’m still deciding on things, but my basic idea is that she ends up traveling to Kalos after her time in Hoenn, and runs into Alan in Lumiose City. They get to talking for some reason or another—it’s possible that Iris sees Lizardon and gets super excited over how cute he is (and let’s be honest, he’s adorable), or maybe Alan is out with both Lizardon and Gabrielle and, well, Iris can’t resist saying hi to even one dragon, much less two. So they get to talking, Alan tells Iris about how charizard can be dragon-types whey they mega evolve with Charizardite X (and Iris is all, “ooh, that kid! I should have known he didn’t have all the facts!!” though she means it all in good fun—she’s still going to write Ash a letter in short order to give him a teasing what-for, though), and it’s a good time.

But then some conflict happens (as it always does in these specials), and these two have to solve it together. At some point Alan offers to give her a ride on Lizardon, but Iris is just like, “Nah, I’ve got this” and calls out her dragonite, which Alan is quite impressed by, and they go and kick ass together, and that’s a good time, too.

By the end of it, Alan has seen that Iris has a bagon, because she caught a shelgon while in Hoenn (because remember, she went there chasing Rayquaza—and when Iris goes on about how she chased Rayquaza there, but yet lost track of it and thus missed the huge event that happened off Rustboro Bay and she’s super disappointed about it, Alan gets real quiet and his eyes go distant and she wonders at what’s wrong, but he won’t tell her … only for her to remember later that waIT, HE WAS THAT GUY ON TV, WASN’T HE?? and that’s a whole thing). Back at the lab he has used the machine Sycamore has to deduce that one of the Mega Stones he has is Salamencite, and so he gives that to her, and their bond is forged #forever.

(And honestly, I really waffled over this, because Mega Salamence is Zinnia’s signature ‘mon, and I really do not like to double-up on signatures like that. However, Iris has to have a dragon to mega evolve, she has a salamence as Champion in the games, and while she does have a gible in the anime, Mega Garchomp is already shared between Sycamore and Cynthia. Garchomp needs a rest, we don’t need another Mega Garchomp. That said, I did debate on giving Iris Mega Altaria, but aside from that also doubling up in my mind (with an OC, but still), I feel that salamence fits her better, especially since she has one in the games. So Mega Salamence will be shared between Iris and Zinnia, and no one else, just as Sycamore and Cynthia are the only two with Mega Garchomp. It is Law™.)

But while that’s their first meeting, of course they get along really well as Champions, too. There’s also the possibility that Iris could end up dating Manon at some point, so hey—maybe Iris eventually becomes Alan’s sister-in-law. It could happen.

Hau:

Hau is the other Champion (along with Casey as mentioned before) that Alan has the weakest relationship with, although they do still get along all right. Just like with Casey, Alan doesn’t have very much in common with Hau. Their attitudes toward training are markedly different (Hau is skilled enough to be Champion, but even then, a lot of the muscle work is left to Elite Four member Gladion, to be entirely honest, due to how lackadasical Hau can be about training), and they don’t have a lot of shared interests in common. So while they can get along well enough in conversation, if it’s just the two of them the conversation is going to die off into silence pretty quickly. And that’s fine by Alan, he doesn’t mind silence, but it tends to make Hau feel a bit awkward, particularly since Alan is really hard to read for him. (A problem that neither Ash nor Iris experience, since Ash has been able to see straight through to Alan’s heart from day one, and, well … Iris is the girl who knows the hearts of dragons, so. ;D) That said, again, their relationship is far from bad, especially when Hau wants to make sure that Alan doesn’t dislike him and so he makes him sweet malasadas as a “peace offering” (Gladion thinks that Hau should not waste his time baking anything for Alan, because even if To Devour the Sun isn’t canon in the prime universe I still cannot fucking help but imagining Alan’s and Gladion’s relationship as it is in that fic, which means that Gladion is always tsuntsun toward Alan in the extreme), and Alan, given his massive sweet tooth, appreciates this immensely even though it really wasn’t necessary to begin with. So there is that, at least, even if the two still aren’t very close.

(I do imagine that a conversation like this happens in the messenger at one point, though:

HAU: “btw alan gladion told me to tell u to tell manon to stop hitting on lillie”

CASEY: “don’t U want manon to stop hitting on lillie? aren’t u 2 dating or engaged or smth?”

HAU: “ya but i dont mind, lillie-bean would never cheat on me lol”

IRIS: “‘Lillie-bean’???”

ALAN: “Tell Gladion he can tell Manon himself. I’m not involved.”

CASEY: “omfg”

ALAN: “She doesn’t listen when I tell her not to do things anyway, so it isn’t like it’d do any good.”

HAU: “ok will do lol”

IRIS: “u gave up easily”

HAU: “like i said, i dont care either way”

HAU: “besides, alan is going to be the one getting all the angry messages from gladion lol so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

CASEY: “srsly????”

ALAN: “Yeah. I’m used to it by now. I have a filter on his messages anyway, so I don’t even see them until I specifically go check, whenever I remember to.”

HAU: “LOL”

Note: Gladion does not know about the messenger, but he finds out that Hau is contact with Alan in some way (he figures e-mail) and that’s when / why he tells Hau to pass the message along.)

General:

As a few more notes about dynamics and interactions and such:

Alan, Ash, and Iris all end up going to that tournament in Oblivia that Ash mentioned in the Champion Messenger post together. Originally Hau was going to go with them, but something came up and he couldn’t. Regardless, Alan, Ash, and Iris all travel there together and have a fantastic time. In general, whenever the three travel / do something together, it’s generally a really good time. The fact that they’re all such good friends and get along so well certainly helps.

Alan has invited Cynthia to the lab in order to go over research things. Despite the fact that Alan is an older teenager, Cynthia is an adult, and they were going over ancient stone tablets and other research, this still (from an outsider’s perspective) does end up looking very much like a playdate. Sycamore joins them, and really it’s just a nice day / night of nerdy fun.

They also go spelunking in ancient ruins together sometimes.

Steven, on Diantha’s request, was the one who picked out what Alan wore to his Champion inauguration / induction ceremony. There is going to be a short fic about this.

I just realized that Hau and Alan do have something sort of in common, which is baking. Alan picks up baking as a hobby after the Flare arc, and at the very least Hau likes to bake malasadas. So on top of Hau baking Alan sweet malasadas, Hau ends up giving Alan the recipe and they can bond a little over that.

Alan does end up giving Ash a Key Stone and Charizardite Y (oh, and he obviously gave Key Stones to Casey and Iris as well). He’s just hooking everyone up with mega evolution, what a good mega evolutionist he is.

Alan likes to share pictures of Lizardon in the messenger. Iris loves this (CUTE DRAGON♥), and sometimes she’ll share pictures of her haxorus. So then Alan will show a picture of Lizardon and Gabrielle together, and Iris will share a picture of some of her other dragons, and they end up embarking on a Dragon Spam™ that only meets a combo breaker when Ash inserts a picture of Pikachu in the middle of it all.

Sometimes Alan asks Casey about the various ruins and such around Johto, but she honestly doesn’t know because history doesn’t interest her, and while he is disappointed at that, she’s disappointed that he doesn’t see what’s so great about the brand new baseball stadium that the Electabuzz got after they finally won a World Series—ALAN: “Why is it called the World Series if teams from Kanto and Johto are the only ones participating?”ASH: “ya ive always wondered that 2 lol”CASEY: “bc baseball is tHE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD”ASH: “not more important than catching pkmn :/”CASEY: “WAT IS WRONG W/ U 2?!?!?!”

Sometimes they all get together to have friendly battles (something Cynthia actually references in one of the games). They usually also turn these informal little tournaments into potlucks and it’s a good time (and yeah, their Elite—or at least certain members of their Elite—are of course invited).

You see my icon? So at one point that was Alan’s pic in the Champion Messenger, and Ash had a matching one where he, too, was wearing sunglasses. (The pictures might have even been taken on the same day, tbh—like maybe they were together when that happened.) Hau and Casey saw these pics, though they looked awesome, and took sunglasses selfies themselves to join in. Iris (good-naturedly!) teased a bit about this at first, but then joined in herself after some cajoling from Ash and Hau. Cynthia thought it all looked like good fun and so she joined in as well, and that just left Steven, who was convinced to join so he wouldn’t be the only one left out. And that was how they all ended up wearing sunglasses in their pics in the Champion Messenger for a time. Shenanigans. 

After Ash finally gets his growth spurt, he and Alan end up pretty close in height. This does lead to them swapping clothes (or at least Ash borrowing Alan’s clothes) as a battle strategy in the midst of a crisis at least once. (Because if Ash is wearing Alan’s clothes, and he’s flying on his charizard, then with his dark hair, who could tell the difference between them from way down on the ground? No one, that’s who. The enemy would be completely bamboozled.) 

But yeah, really, I just imagine them as a real #squad. They’re all good friends with each other (even if some bonds aren’t as strong as others), they’ve got each other’s backs, et cetera. They’re a real solid squad and even if the messenger is often filled with shenanigans, it does come in handy for serious business stuff as well.

Anyway, this might have been ten books longer than what you were hoping for, but! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I liked writing it! ♥