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.

Stipax was promptly confronted by his horrified and somewhat angered parents, who had absolutely no idea as to why Stipax would try to dig up the body of his grandfather. In response, Stipax broke down into tears, profusely apologizing to his parents and explained that he thought that the fossil center could revive his dead grandfather, because he believed that in order for all to be right with the world, both of them had to exist. His parents promptly comforted him, explaining that death was a very difficult process, and that they were all still grieving the death of his grandfather in multiple ways. They explained to Stipax that even though his grandfather was gone, they could still remember him in spirit. Eventually, however, they sent him back to bed-- but not before ordering him to re-bury his grandfather and punishing him with a week's worth of grounding for sneaking out of his bed at night. After re-burying his grandfather as he was told, Stipax marked his grave with an electric pole; said pole still remains to this very day. The next week's worth of grounding was actually not that bad for Stipax; even if he couldn't go outside and was confined to his home, it didn't mean he still couldn't learn about the world. He read countless amounts of books, discovered what would ultimately become his two favorite shows in the world-- Doctor Who and Murder, She Wrote, and, of course, tried to find another answer to his grandfather's riddle now that he knew that reviving both of them wasn't the answer. It was during his week-long punishment that the second event outlined in "The Riddle" occurred: his father picked his son up after school, and upon asking him if he had learned anything, Stipax confessed that he felt lonely, admitting that he felt as though he and his family didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Even so, however, he begged for his father to play with him, to which said father agreed. At the same time, he reminded his son of his grandfather's riddle, causing a young Stipax (who still didn't fully understand the answer to said riddle) to promptly ask the second question that would forever change his life: "who am I, really, in the grand scheme of things?" (realized, in "The Riddle", as the lyric "When you get right down to the/Reason for the world/Who am I?"). To this, his father had no answer, other than "well, I'm sure you'll find out one day". Naturally, this left Stipax unsatisfied.

After the week-long punishment was over, Stipax spent the next 3 years of his life with his parents trying to find out what to do with his life. He tried out tons of things, all the while helping as many people as he could with their problems via his detective agency and showing as much love for his family as he could. He also found numerous treasures and fossils and took an interest in game shows. All the while, he found himself greatly enjoying it all, especially when he hung out with his parents- not realizing, at the time, that he was inching ever closer to finding out the true answer to his grandfather's riddle. Eventually, Stipax's tenth birthday arrived, and it was the day when his parents decided to emancipate him, and let him out into the world so he could find a Trainer. Stipax was extremely grateful, thanking his parents for all they had done. While his parents were clearing out Stipax's section of his cave, they found a note that had been left behind by his grandfather, presumably a few minutes before his death. Stipax took the note and read it over, and it read two things. The first was the line outlined in the bridge of "The Riddle"- "I love you free"- and the second thing was a link to a YouTube video. As Stipax would later find out, this was the video for Five for Fighting's "The Riddle". However, since Stipax did not have a computer or did not know anyone with a phone, he couldn't look it up. Regardless, however, the phrase "I love you free" intrigued Stipax, and he decided to keep the note. One goodbye party later (complete with cake and presents, including tons of informative books), Stipax finally left his parents' house and went out on his own.

In the next few months, Stipax traveled around the Pokemon world, making note of the things around him and subsequently making friends with a ton of Pokemon. He eventually got to the Kanto region on the back of a Lapras, and on September 29th, he made it to Pewter City, where he eventually ran into paleontologist Owen Edmundson, who at the time was on a search to find a Helix Fossil. Stipax offered to dig up said fossil, but Owen couldn't understand him. Regardless, Owen liked the Galvantula and thought he was cute, and asked Stipax if he wanted to help. Stipax agreed, and what happened next impressed Owen to no end. One day later, on September 30th, Stipax had come up big, having dug up not just a Helix Fossil, but also a Root, Armor, and Plume Fossil. Owen was overjoyed, and told the curator of the Pewter Museum about Stipax. The curator suggested he catch him, and eventually Owen agreed, catching- and naming- Stipax, much to the latter's delight. A week after that, Owen caught the four fossil Pokemon that had been revived from the fossils, completed his internship, and was offered a job at the Pewter Museum. However, he declined, having realized the value of love and deciding instead to go off on his journey and become a Trainer. The museum wished him luck, and Owen promptly took his new friends to the Kanto region, with Stipax naturally being the most excited to learn about all of the Pokemon there. Ultimately, however, having a Trainer ended up doing something else to him-- something fairly important. During the Kanto League, Stipax forged friendships with every other mon on the original team. He enjoyed learning about the 13th century from Nautilu, who was always there to answer his questions; he enjoyed Crina's pranks and jokes; he absolutely loved listening to Chasmo's stories and thought Chasmo reminded him a lot of his grandfather, and he had a very close relationship with Teryx, who he helped to comfort through (what at the time were unbeknowst to him) PTSD-induced nightmares and panic attacks. He also helped encourage Teryx to battle a bit in the League, and enjoyed watching game shows with him.

During the League itself, Stipax was used against every member of the Kanto League. His Grass-type moves helped immensely against Brock and Misty, he resisted Lt. Surge, his Bug-type moves helped against Erika, Sabrina (which would prove to be a huge help), and several of Blue's Pokemon, and he took neutral damage against Janine's Pokemon, but helped to defeat her Flying-type Crobat. The only member of the first 8 Gym Leaders that he had trouble with was (naturally) Blaine, so for that battle, he was only used against Blaine's Houndoom (who he demolished; he also similarly demolished Blaine's quiz). After the Gym Leaders were all defeated, however, the major moment arrived. During a night training montage, and as detailed in the last verse of "The Riddle", Stipax took Owen's phone and finally typed in the YouTube link that his grandfather's note had contained; instantly, Five for Fighting's "The Riddle" began to play. Stipax was taken aback by the lyrics of the song, noting their striking similarity to his life, but really got hit with a bombshell when the words "there's a reason for the world/you and I" were sung. Recognizing it as the riddle proposed by his grandfather, he realized that said grandfather had been referencing "The Riddle" this whole time. He looked back on his life, and slowly began to realize that he had gotten more enjoyment from finding out about the world and forming relationships with other mons and people than he had ever gotten otherwise. One glance up at his Trainer later, while flashbacks played in his mind, he finally realized the answer to the riddle: that the meaning of life was what you did with it. The relationships you formed. The experiences you made. So long as you had fun with your life, and had people you cared about, it was worth living. At that moment, Stipax finally realized the true meaning of the words "there's a reason for the world/you and I", and the true answer of his grandfather's riddle-- the meaning of life. After the song ended, Stipax proceeded to snuggle up against his Trainer and told him he loved him. Owen didn't quite understand why, but snuggled up against him anyways.

A few days later, it was time for the Elite Four. Against the Elite Four, Stipax proved to be extremely well-matched against Will and Karen (for obvious reasons), Bruno (due to Flying-type moves), and Koga's Crobat (again). Against Lance, he put up an even more impressive showing, and knocked out all three of Lance's Dragonites with multiple powerful Electric-type moves. Ultimately, it resulted in Owen winning against Lance and entering into the Hall of Fame. Once this happened, Owen decided to see if he could find more fossils, and eventually went back to Pewter City, where Stipax dug up a Sail Fossil. Said Sail Fossil was promptly revived into Saura, who Stipax got along fairly well with. Shortly afterwards, Owen decided to head off to another region to take on their League, and picked Sinnoh due to the existence of the Underground. Stipax, now knowing full well of the meaning of life and wanting to live his life to the fullest, happily joined in, and the two of them promptly made headway for Jubilife City.

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.

Relationships

• Owen Edmundson: Owen Edmundson is Stipax's Trainer, and thus serves as his closest friend. The two of them are almost always seen together, with Stipax often riding on his Trainer's shoulder. Stipax sees Owen as more of a friend and big brother-esque sort of figure than a parental one (probably in large part due to his immensely loving parents), but even so, he loves his Trainer exponentially and will always be there to protect and support him in times of need. He also serves as a bit of a teacher for Owen, as it's thanks to him that Owen knows a bit of Galvantulan Monese. Despite his love of his Trainer, however, his naturally curious, naive, and sweet demeanor also doesn't stop him from questioning some of Owen's more morally gray decisions. Most notably, he was utterly shocked upon seeing Owen smash Teryx's PokeBall, and actively asked him if he was absolutely sure about Teryx's release upon seeing Owen tell Teryx to get out.

• Mark Stroud: Stipax views Mark in more or less the same way as Owen does, enjoying his company despite the fact that Mark has a very tough-as-nails demeanor on the surface, and particularly enjoying the company of his Pokemon as well as fighting Team Lightning alongside him. He particularly enjoys talking to Chopper, due to their similarly naive and kindhearted demeanors, as well as Pyra-- when he met her for the first time he bombarded her with questions about what it was like to fight in the Kanto League and later on was the one who convinced her to try to teach Teryx to fly.

• Travis Renault: Of Owen's two main traveling companions, Stipax enjoys talking to Travis and his mons only slightly more than talking to Mark and his mons. While he enjoys Chopper far more than Tricky, he absolutely adores Haxx and especially Wingo, and finds Wingo in particular to be cute.

• Nautilu: Along with Chasmo,

• Crina:

• Chasmo:

• Teryx:

• Saura:

• Anomalo:

• Stipax's grandfather:

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.