#volo's not evil he just needs a lot of therapy

[grismavessel]

Inktober: Week 3

"Need not worry your small mind."

Volo's one of my most favorite characters and I don't draw him that often, only when inspiration strikes me right can I actually draw him.

In the canon pla story line and in the vessel au, Volo's basically responsible for the distortions going on with Giratina's help. He's the puppeteer holding most of the strings. He wants the plates, he wants to see Arceus, he's doing all of this for greater things but it's destructive.

In the au Gris is the star of the show, but Volo hates the fact Gris gets to do everything. Volo's delighted to have someone new to talk to, but Gris is also just another stepping stone to get what he wants.

[jadienjaystoriesandart]

I think the reason for this is because Volo seems to not be as bad as previous god complexed villains. They used mostly dark type teams and ghost. They had Pokemon on their team that told of how horrible they are.

Volo’s? He was a Togikiss, which aren’t Pokemon known for choosing evil people. They evolved with kindness. Even its pre evolved forms speak of how Kind and Caring it is. Only able to be with a trainer that is like it. It’s second evolved form states that it gets upset and sad if with a trainer that isn’t kind hearted.

Oddly enough a lot of Volo’s Team need kindness and friendship to evolve. Comparative to past villains who admitted to seeing Pokemon as a tool, even mid treating. Volo is by far much kinder in comparisons.

This indicates that Volo isn’t as evil as we think he is. To be fair the Commander also indirectly tried to kill a child too. We aren’t sure if Beni was actually going to kill us! Because all we know is he was sent to stop is by whatever means necessary. At the commanders request. Ninjas were known to assassinate people. But is heavily assumed Beni as killed for the commander in the past.

There is however a key difference in the Commander and Volo, we know more after the first one’s past. To explain a bit of why he’s so afraid, we have a reason to be sympathetic with him.

We know nothing about Volo to make the same assumption.

Still though, despite knowing his past, Kamando still exiled a freaking child, possibly tried to assassinate them, made them work their tail off at his request, and when things turned bad blamed them for the actions they wanted the protagonist to take! He ranted for ever interaction to prove ourselves and when we did, he still didn’t trust us. Even when everyone else did. Everyone pointed out he was crazy. AND rather than let one of the clans help a child who could DIE alone, he’d wage war with them if they dared give the protagonist shelter! (Not saying is trauma isn’t valid, but I’m saying trauma is a reason not an excuse. The same can be said about Volo.)

This man needs therapy and to never have children.

Volo by comparison tried to kill us to, or rather ‘destroy us’ with Giratina. He felt if he did God or Arceus would come down to him, and I don’t think he was wrong. We have everything he wanted. And rightfully he was mad, doesn’t make it okay to kill a child, but I get why he was upset. (I barely understand why Kamando was. Tbh his project reminds me too much of people who have hurt me in the past.) Volo seems less hellbent than Kamando does canonically too.

So when asked why one gets more favor than the other, I don’t think it’s just because of pretty privilege. But rather we know the past of one, the other, we don’t. But the context we can get of Volo, is that he’s not as evil as we’re making him out to be he certainly not compared to Cyrus. It’s to be believed that Cynthia is his ancestor, she’s able to generational trauma then there must be something more. Something that we don’t know because Game Freak didn’t give us the answers.

I’m not saying the commander deserves hate, but I am saying he deserves some too. To be fair I don’t like either characters, but that’s just me. I think both of them are shitheads. :3

Hot take: Kamado gets treated by the fandom the way Volo should’ve, and Volo gets treated waaaay too kindly than he ever deserves.

There’s evidence that shows Kamado was a genuinely good guy who made one misguided mistake and then tries anything to make up for it, and there’s evidence that Volo’s is a predatory psychopath without any evidence suggesting otherwise.

Sure Volo’s hotter, but pokemon fans genuinely need to stop acting like Kamado kills babies in his spare time and Volo was being quirky and “just having a silly moment lol”.

Kamado had a wife. It’s implied she died due to Pokemon. He lost his entire hometown due to Pokemon. Then when he tries to keep his new town (family) safe from creatures that ruined his life, some kid comes along and acts like his trauma isn’t valid or reasonable. But when he realizes that exiling that child was a bad thing to do, he apologizes, regrets his actions, and tries to do anything to make up for it (and even gives them a plate which is partially a key to going back home).

Volo is, from what we know, a guy with a god complex who had stated he would kill a child for a chance to meet god, let alone attempt to kill it. Not to mention the fact that, if he existed in the modern day, a LOT of his behavior would be seen as predatory since he’s acting this way towards a character who is confirmed to be underage.

So sure, you can hate Kamado and think Volo’s hot, but Kamado is definitely the better person of the two, and I’m tired of people saying how horrible he is when he’s an extremely justified man.

[epicspheal]

I was debating on whether or not I should ask about this via messages or ask, but decided to go with asks cause why not.

I feel like I've asked something super similar to this in the past, but how do you handle the villains of the series in your cactuverse? Cause I've actually been having some difficulties with how I want to share them in the legendverse. Guzma and Ghetsis are fairly easy for me to know what to do with them, but others are difficult, especially in relation to my ocs. Cyrus seems the most difficult for me. He caused Danica a lot of trauma, despite her chill demeanor. She literally had to defeat him at a young age with little to no help outside of her friends, Looker( kinda) and Cynthia ( kinda. Still working on that part). Oh and Rowan, but he's the grandpa moral support. But she still did a lot of the work, you know? She was still the one that got dragged into that mess.

My main difficulty is trying that balance of " this man is literally evil" and " he can learn to be better if he legitimately tries" and that's so confusing with someone like Cyrus. He got the implied sad backstory that makes me go " ah. He needs therapy" but that doesn't excuse for what he did. Sorry if I'm talking in circles here( and for that rant) just. Cyrus. Villains. Author problems? Yeah.

Hi, there @ihopethisendswell! Ah yes, author problems! How do we handle the villains of Pokemon? You've asked me about how I felt about the villains in general which more or less goes to I really don't care for most of the villain teams. As I've mentioned before Cactusverse tends to be rather painfully accurate to the game canon for the various main series game events. Now what happens after the credit rolls varies between the villains/antagonists I'll start with Legends Arceus. Even though Kamado still retains his position as commander there is a quite noticeable dip in faith in his leadership after what he pulls on Rei (cactusverse legends protag). Over time as Jubilife Village continues to grow Kamado will eventually step down handing the reins to Cyllene and it's Rei who becomes the captain of the survey corps in his adult years. Now with Volo, there's a bit more of an emotional pull. The one thing I do change in canon for Legends is that Rei is not an isekai'd protagonist. Rather he's someone from that time period who happens to be of the Celestica people much like Cogita and Volo. So the betrayal and everything hits a lot different since there are just so few Celestica people left in Hisui at the time. I'm admittedly still ironing out the details for cactusverse!Hisui so I don't have much more to say here. Now for Team Rocket. After the events in Johto the Rocket admins all get arrested by the G-men (with the charge mainly led by Silver and Yellow with Lance in the background now that he's no longer champion after being dethroned by Ethan). Giovanni of course makes his escape as he does appear in BW2 over a decade later only to get Hyperbeamed by Lance on-sight (sorry Giovanni, Lance is Silver's new dad), and Looker arrests Giovanni. I do include the Let's Go Kanto Trio in cactusverse but I give them their own unique villain plot with the Team Rocket Trio since they are the last remaining members of Team Rocket who eventually realize they're better at being good than being bad and so they officially disband Team Rocket in Kanto. Then there's Team Aqua and Team Magma. Hoenn is one of the regions where there's some heavy meshing of canons. The climax of the plot ends up like Emerald where they both summon their respective legendaries and shit hits the fan. But this is more or less ORAS Hoenn so they have their ORAS designs and Megas and Zinnia are involved. Steven is still champion here but I do include him and May tag-teaming in the main game like Emerald because that was the coolest thing ever to me as a kid (and I had the biggest crush on Steven and at some point, I need to gush about him because he's still bae). Since Maxie and Archie are more misguided than anything they do get rehabilitated over time, with Zinnia and Wallace (who becomes champion after May decides to not be a standing champion) who help them get better.

Alright so for Team Galactic. Cactusverse follows Platinum for its events. Cyrus stays in the distortion world and dies. It's only after Dawn and Cynthia hear the story of him in Sunyshore that they realize he was more misguided but by the time they try to rescue him it's too late. The admins are arrested through a combination of Looker and the aura guardians of Sinnoh (mobilized by Riley). For Team Plasma well Neo Team Plasma largely gets arrested over time through the combined efforts of Good Team Plasma, the G-men, the international police, and the Village of Dragons (who contain the few remaining full-fledged aura guardians in Unova). Ghetsis and the Shadow Triad die in the Giant Chasm though. For Team Flare, Lysandre dies. Xerosic and Malva go to jail after the Emma events. For Alola, I've mentioned this before but I do mix up a bit of SM and USUM. The SM part is Lusamine being evil AF to her children. Lusamine also dies here but right now I'm torn if Marsha and Lillie bring her back to their world and she succumbs to the poisoning there OR if Lillie and Marsha decide to leave her in Ultra Space. Last but not least is Galar...chairman Rose goes to jail and because he is genuinely remorseful he doesn't take the lighter punishment given (because of his wealth as the courts in Galar are rather corrupt) and serves his entire sentence. The Royal Twins get off easy mainly because of their royal connections.

So that's pretty much how I handle cactusverse villains. I'll be down to talk more about legendsverse in DMs if you want to throw some ideas around!