Stipax

Stipax is Owen Edmundson's Galvantula, and the first Pokemon that he caught on his initial journey.

Appearance

In his mon form, Stipax appears as a regular Galvantula.

In his human form (prospective name Justin Patterson, seen below), Stipax appears as an approximately 11-year-old young boy with blond hair and blue eyes. He is usually seen wearing a purple undershirt with a bright yellow jacket over top of it, along with a pair of purple shorts, under which are long brown legging socks. He wears black shoes and purple goggles, and often times is seen carrying either a book or a shovel depending on what he is doing at the moment.

Personality and characteristics

If there's one thing that motivates Stipax, it's the idea of living live to the absolute fullest. If there's another thing, it's knowledge, and if there's a third, it's love. Stipax is eternally optimistic and eternally curious, motivated by a desire to discover everything he can about the world around him. He enjoys asking questions to both his Trainer and his fellow mons about how the world works, and if they can't answer the question for him, he tends to look in either a book or on the Internet to get the answers he so desires. In the wake of the revivals of Eurypedis, Anomalo, and Cephalo, he directly asked Owen how the revival machine worked, and numerous times he has asked for information regarding the backstories of his friends. While said backstories have often times horrified him, as Anomalo's did, it hasn't seemed to decrease his desire for knowledge any further. He even asks questions of his opponents in battle from time to time-- most notably, he asked Roark's Aerodactyl if he was able to Mega Evolve during Owen's Oreburgh battle, and during a Team Lightning battle he asked a Spark's Porygon-2 how their Conversion worked. Prior to being caught by Owen, the number of questions he asked his family was massive. It was from them that he learned about basic questions such as "why is the sky blue", "how does [X] work" (a question he still tends to ask to this very day), "why do Pokemon evolve," and so on, but also asked extremely meaningful questions. The most notable of which, as detailed both in his backstory and his character theme, were "what is the meaning of life" and "who am I in the grand scheme of things?", questions that, once answered, directly influenced his view of life that he has now. Despite his persistent curiosity, though, he's not by any means nosy. He will back off from asking a question of someone if they don't want to answer it at the moment, as he did when he asked about Teryx's backstory and Teryx, naturally, didn't want to tell him for fear that it would be too horrifying, both for Stipax and for himself. However, due to his extreme curiosity, Stipax has a tendency to be very naive about certain things, as a reflection of his nature. Similarly to 9-Volt (which whom he shares said nature), he has a tendency to view things as they are (he didn't even suspect that something was going wrong at the Techspo at first, and thought that Roark's Aerodactyl's item was an Aerodactylite rather than a Scope Lens). According to Goldenheart388, he also canonically would view Newspeak in the same light as Orwell and he also has a tendency to assume that certain things from a person's past led to their present state, no matter who they are (this extends to people such as the members of Team Lightning, despite his outward dislike of them).

Stipax has an immense amount of love and loyalty towards the people he cares about, and is willing to help them throughout any circumstances they might have. This tendency also spawns from his childhood, when he was still living with his kindhearted Galvantula family; his grandfather, in particular, taught him numerous things about the world around him as well as some of his moves. Most notably, he helped Stipax master his egg move, Lunge. Stipax has an immense amount of love for his grandfather in particular even after the latter's death, often mentioning him directly and reminiscing on his memories with him whenever something that reminds him of one of those memories is brought up. In the present day, he has grown to be kindhearted and loyal towards his Trainer in particular, often being seen outside of his PokeBall and protecting Owen whenever he's attacked or hurt by anyone. He extends this compassion towards his friends repeatedly-- in particular, he has been seen comforting Teryx and Anomalo, and was one of a few mons to suggest the need for adaptation regarding Hasslemon in the wake of Anomalo's capture due to Anomalo being blind. He also has a tendency to teach his friends and his Trainer about certain things; in battle he's usually the first to notice and describe the effects of a certain item or Ability, and he was the one who introduced Anomalo to the rest of Owen's team after Anomalo was caught. To Stipax (and his whole family by extension, as detailed in his backstory and "The Riddle"), the idea of finding out as much as you can about the world and putting as much love into the world as you can is the true meaning of life, and so long as you form relationships with people and live life to the fullest, your life has been fulfilled. Despite his compassion towards people, however, there are a few Trainers and organizations that Stipax despises, most notably Team Lightning, especially after Team Lightning was discovered to be the ones that killed Gwana's parents prior to her being caught by Owen.

In conjunction with Stipax's immensely curious nature, he has an immense love for riddles, puzzles, game shows and mysteries. Aside from the riddle he was given in his youth (and outlined in his character theme) that led to him discovering the meaning of life years after the death of his grandfather, according to Goldenheart388 Stipax is an avid fan of the TV shows Gamecube, Only Connect, and Jeopardy!, and enjoys watching educational television shows. Prior to Owen's debut in WAAPT he and Owen would often go to escape rooms together and Stipax would have fun solving the riddles and puzzles that awaited him there. He enjoys solving jigsaw and logic puzzles, and particularly enjoys puzzles that are particularly challenging so that he can figure out how to do them, hence his love of Only Connect (i.e. one of the hardest British game shows of all time). In his spare time, when no one is around, he enjoys digging up treasures and solving mysteries; he has not only done multiple scavenger hunts, but he also sometimes serves as a detective character within the group of mons, trying to find out how and why certain things have gone wrong. This love of his has led to a further love of crime drama shows, such as CSI, Law and Order, and Criminal Minds-- the latter especially. Stipax mainly enjoys digging up fossils, and it was in fact this trait that led to him getting noticed and ultimately caught by Owen. He was responsible for the initial digups of the fossils of Nautilu, Crina, Chasmo, and Teryx, all of which were revived on the 30th of September. Due to him being taught how to dig by his father, he's extremely useful, and is able to dig extremely fast-- Chopper in particular complimented him on his ability to dig up treasures when Owen, Mark, and Travis were in the Underground. However, despite this, he can be a bit clumsy when it comes to his digging skills, due to him not knowing Dig as an actual move.

Speaking of moves, in battle, Stipax is the strongest member of Owen's team besides Chasmo, and barring Teryx (who has not been shown battling on screen as of yet), he is also the fastest member. He is extremely agile and is able to use his knowledge of the opponent's moves to his advantage, often improvising strategies to get around supereffective attacks that would otherwise hit him (especially if he was already hit by them the first time). Besides using Bounce to avoid the opposing Pokemon's attacks (as he did against Maylene's Hitmontop), he also has a tendency to use Electroweb or String Shot to trap opponents, Thunder Wave to paralyze opponents, Gastro Acid to prevent their abilities (as he did with Roark's Tyranitar to stop the Sand Stream), and Giga Drain or Leech Life to drain opponents of their energy. His favorite move to use in battle, however, is his egg move Lunge, which he has used countless times over as a finisher move. In more friendly battles, he will often Lunge on the opponent before hugging them, which he doesn't do in Gym Battles or in battles against Team Lightning.

His favorite musical artist is Shinedown, and his favorite Gamecube game is a three-way tie between Sketch Pad, Mug Shots, and Captain Bones.

Background

Prior to being caught by Owen Edmundson, Stipax lived in a Galvantula colony in the Unova region along with the rest of his family. Unlike Ringo, however, who had a terrible childhood and was bullied by everyone he knew at every turn, Stipax had a caring and kindhearted family who taught him many things about the world around him. His mother taught him a lot about the dangers of the world around him and when to avoid them, and his father taught him most of what he knew about the world at an early age (things such as why the sky is blue and why Pokemon evolve). His father was also the one who passed down Lunge to his son and who taught him to dig up treasure in their "backyard", a skill which Stipax steadily honed. However, the family member that Stipax got the most information from- and the one who taught him the most- was his grandfather, who he absolutely loved. His grandfather would tell Stipax all about his childhood, and had a vast amount of knowledge about Pokemon. He taught Stipax about items and abilities, knowledge that Stipax has kept to this day, and also would be the one to teach Stipax life lessons whenever his parents weren't around. Stipax grew to love and respect his grandfather as a result, and developed his kindhearted and compassionate nature as a result of it. After about 5 years, however, one day everything changed.

As Stipax grew older and learned about the world around him, he began to wonder about the answers to far bigger questions: namely who he was in the world, and what the meaning of said world (and his life) was. He planned to ask his grandfather about this one day, after his parents took him to Nimbasa City for a day of fun and excitement, when all of a sudden, his life changed forever. That day, when his parents got finished with their Nimbasa City exploits, the family suddenly noticed one of Stipax's relatives running towards them in a panic. Immediately recognizing something was wrong, they asked what was happening, and they were shocked to hear that Stipax's grandfather had collapsed. They immediately ran back to their home, and as outlined in Stipax's character theme, "The Riddle", found Stipax's grandfather, collapsed on the floor and about to die. Realizing that this was his last chance to ask him, Stipax went up to his dying grandfather and asked him what the meaning of life was, as after hearing about the death of a Pokemon he absolutely loved, he was starting to wonder why he'd ever want to live in a world as cruel as this one. His grandfather, with his dying breath, told him to continue to live his life to the absolute fullest, and told him that the world wasn't cruel and that it could be better if he did something about it. Stipax promised him that he would, and then Stipax's grandfather, in response to his question about the meaning of life, gave him the riddle outlined in his character theme. Having never listened to Five for Fighting before, and not recognizing the riddle, Stipax was confused, and begged his grandfather to come back, thinking that "there's a reason for the world: you and I" meant that both of them had to exist on the earth in order to survive. His grandfather, tragically, didn't answer, soon afterwards dying at the ripe old age of 95 years old.

After the funeral, Stipax tried desperately for many years to try to find the answer to his grandfather's riddle. His parents, who were more experienced than him, already knew full well what it meant, but didn't tell him the answer, wanting him to find it out for himself. Stipax became convinced that his grandfather had to be on the Earth in order to keep it healthy, and did as much research as he possibly could into his foray. During this time, he started school, learned to invent objects, and started gaining an interest in detective books, mystery novels, and crime dramas. In the midst of his endeavors he started to grow a bit more distant from his family, and go out on his own more often, helping the mons around him solve mysteries and digging up treasures (and, eventually, fossils) for other Trainers and leaving them behind for them to find. He also tried to create multiple machines made out of batteries in order to try and bring his grandfather back that didn't work. Eventually, due to this, Stipax started to become paranoid that something would end up happening to the world unless both he and his grandfather were on it. At 7 years old, in the middle of the night, in desperation, he dug up his grandfather's bones and travelled to Nacrene City in the hopes of reviving them. Unfortunately, the curator did not speak Monese, but still got the gist of what Stipax was saying regardless. The curator promptly gave Stipax the harsh truth: the revival machine didn't work that way. It couldn't bring the bones of a non-fossilmon back from the dead (at least, not at the time), and even if it could, it wouldn't quite be the same Pokemon; there would be alterations to its body that it didn't have before that could end up causing the Pokemon to have a shorter lifespan than it did when it was still alive. Dejected, Stipax finally realized that what he thought was the answer to the riddle actually wasn't, and learned to accept that the world could exist without his grandfather in it. Now having finally accepted his grandfather's death, he returned back home to his family-- only to find, to his horror, that they had discovered that he had dug up his grandfather's body.

Details

• Met: Pewter City
• Birthday: November 23rd
• Ability: Compound Eyes
• Favorite Move: Lunge
• Nature: Naive
• Characteristic: Highly curious
• Likes: Finding out new things about the world, travelling the world, making new discoveries, digging up fossils and treasures, his family, his friends, playing games, sharing his knowledge with everyone, puzzles and riddles, the music of Five for Fighting and Shinedown, the movies History of the World, Part 1 and Jurassic Park, the TV game shows Gamecube, Jeopardy!, and Only Connect, educational TV shows and YouTube channels, nature documentaries, battling, cuddling Teryx, crime dramas
• Dislikes: Anyone who hurts his friends or Trainer, Team Lightning, getting an unsatisfying answer to a question he has, the state of the modern-day education system, seeing any of his friends sad or hurt, seeing Teryx sad, the disturbing nature of Anomalo's backstory
• Ball: Poke
• Nickname origin: Stipax triangulifer, an extinct species of spider
• Hasslemon typing quirk: =D(Every) (sentence) (begins) (with) (a) (shovel) (that) (also) (resembles) (a) (smiley) (faCe,) (representing) (Stipax's) (optimistiC) (personality.) (All) (words) (are) (sUrroUnded) (by) (parenthesis) (to) (resemble) (holes) (in) (the) (groUnd,) (and) (all) (U's) (and) (C's) (are) (Capitalized,) (as) (they) (are) (the) (two) (letters) (that) (look) (the) (most) (like) (shovels.)

A prospective fullbody Stipax gijinka, as done by Goldenheart388.

Known Moves

• : Lunge, Signal Beam, Leech Life, X-Scissor, Bug Buzz
• : Electroweb, Electro Ball
• : Giga Drain, Energy Ball
• : Gastro Acid
• : Bounce, Acrobatics

Trivia

• Stipax's name comes from the extinct spider species Stipax triangulifer. Originally, his name was going to be Gulliver- after both the species and from the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels- but the idea fell through when Stipax's general curiosity overtook his love of travel.
• According to Goldenheart388, Stipax's Hasslemon handle is jovialPaleontology (JP). Besides being a reference to both Stipax's joy and his love of paleontology and discovery, the handle's abbreviation is the same as that of the initials of the famous book-turned-movie Jurassic Park, which, according to Goldenheart388, is one of Stipax's favorite movies (his favorite movie period is History of the World, Part I).
• According to Goldenheart388, Stipax's English character theme is "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting. Originally, it was going to be "World" by the same artist, and both songs were in contention as a character theme for either Stipax or his Trainer Owen. However, "The Riddle" ultimately went to Stipax and "World" to Owen because, according to Goldenheart388, "Owen is mainly concerned with how the past and present can affect the future, and is more likely to ask questions such as 'How can we avoid making the same mistakes as we did in the past?', 'What can we do now to change the future?', and, indeed, 'What kind of world do we want to live in'? Stipax, meanwhile, is curious about things as they are, and is more likely to ask questions such as 'How does this work?', 'What does this do?', 'How did this happen?', 'Why are we here?', and 'What is the meaning of life?'". Lyrically, and similarly to that of Chasmo's theme "100 Years", Stipax's character theme details his backstory, with the roles of the father and son switched in order to make it work. Due to the song detailing Stipax's backstory, it also delves, by proxy, into his curiosity towards the world around him and his love of his family and, later on, his Trainer. His Japanese character theme, meanwhile, is "Chiisa no Bokura ni Ooki na Heart", the first opening to the Dinosaur King anime series, and his headcanon voice is that of Colleen O'Shaughnessy as Miles "Tails" Prower from the Sonic franchise.
• Stipax is the first member of Owen's team and one of three members of the Jura6 to have a Five for Fighting song as his English character theme (the other two are Chasmo and Teryx).
• Stipax's birthday, November 23rd, is shared with his author, Goldenheart388. The date also doubles as the world premiere date of Doctor Who (one of Stipax's favorite television shows) and 3 days after the release date of the original Jurassic Park book (November 20th, 1990).
• Stipax's love of crime dramas comes both from his love of mystery novels and due to the Criminal Minds episode "The Fisher King, Part 2", which famously ends with Stipax's character theme, "The Riddle" by Five for Fighting, playing in the background.