Old Lore Dump: Throsten

Between now and Easter, I figured I'd go through some of the characters who show up in My Little Pony: When Friendship Shimmers - Reboot to let you in on how they devoloped in the old version of the lore (the version made before I decided to essentially thanos snap the Pokemon OCs to replace them with Digimon ones because of the death threats towards the Palworld CEO; still salty on that btw). For the intro to this, what better way to start then with Throsten the Umbreon?

It should be noted that yes, like any other Umbreon, Throsten began as an Eevee. In the old lore, his first appearance is in Arc 7 which I had to drop entirely in the new lore because I couldn't find a suitable replacement for it thus cutting the overall arc count down from 23 to 22. Arcs 5, 6, and 7 were basically retelling of Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Heart Gold, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky respectfully with a focus on the main OC going through the motions of each game. This means that for PMD:EoS he takes the role of the human turned Pokemon character.

Now, the thing about PMD:EoS is while you are allowed to pick an Eevee as your partner for that game, the Eevee partner is female. While the majority of the possible partners you can give yourself can change genders if you pick one, then say "no I don't want this one", there are four who don't change gender while the others have a chance to. The four in particular are Vulpix, Eevee, Riolu, and Shinx; the reason these four never change their gender is because in the Personality Quiz, Vulpix & Eevee are only possible outcomes for playing as a female, while Riolu & Shinx are only possible outcomes for playing as a male.

So yes, Throsten being the partner in Arc 7 shouldn't be possible, but I went ahead and had him be said partner anyways just because I wanted the Partner Pokemon from PMD:EoS to have involvement in later arcs. This ultimetly led to the idea of Throsten taking on all the traits of the PMD:EoS partner where they are basically a full on coward at the beginning of PMD:EoS. There were some other changes, such as an additional post-game boss fight, but that was just something to tie into the ongoing narrative of the Dark Tribe storyline.

Regardless, Throsten would become an Umbreon just before said additional post-game boss, and then in Arc 8, he would get mysteriously transported onto the ship from that arc where he would have his own story where he essentially starts to become brave and come into his own. This would ultimately lead to the fight against The Dark Core, which is a living machine capable of creating facimilies of the deepest fears of those who encounter it. This actually makes Throsten start to backpedal on his devolopment at first, because of the repressed fears of his true identity as the Prince of Starview Fields and the pressures he faced from his father when it was discovered that Throsten was too much of a coward to be a true Prince for the Umbreon Royal family.

However, it is during this backpedal, when Throsten suddenly realizes that he's already been up against far worse things then the fears he had from back home. Because of him being the partner in PMD:EoS, he's already gone up against the fake Groudon of Uxie, the crazed likeness of Primal Dialga, and even the evil of The Ultimate Darkari. Plus, there's also the Artificial Groudon that Throsten faced at the end of his storyline in Arc 8 which was very huge and easily dwarfed the fake groudon that Uxie created. Upon hitting this realization that Throsten has already gone up against such things and has lived, Throsten suddenly begins to realize that he's stood up to things much, much more threatening and stuff that makes darkness be a squeaky toy.

It is upon making this realization when Throsten suddenly decides that he's already been through things that makes his repressed fears pale in comparison to the stuff he's already been through; thus by realizing that he's been through worse since running away from home, Throsten is able to stand up to his repressed fears, and thus loses the ability to ever be able to feel fear anymore. This is because in his mind, there's nothing that can threaten him anymore. He's already been through enough that would make even a normally courageous person blush at the thought of. It is with this mental state that he's been through such terrifying ordeals, that Throsten manages to overcome his inner fears all in one fell swoop and stops being able to feel fear anymore. Because he's simply been through enough terrifying ordeals that anything he encounters from there on out will only make him braver for standing up against. Thus, with determination, Throsten starts making The Dark Core feel fear by annoucing himself as the Prince of Starview Fields, and then proceeds to taunt The Dark Core in trying to tap into Throsten's fears once more. Only for it not to work any more.

The reason why it can't work anymore, is because Throsten is unable to feel fear any more. Because his new mental state has become that strong. One cannot see the irony of this, since the machine that was made to create one's inner fears, was able to cause Throsten to no longer able to feel fear.

Of course, the motivation Throsten has for wanting to become so brave is because of Gloria the Glaceon. Yeah, that was the motivation Throsten had to become the bravest ever. Throsten only saw her as an Eevee, though Gloria did mention once that she was the Princess of the Glaceon royals. Which, Throsten would discover, did more arranged marriages then other Eeveelution Royals because they wanted the children to only marry the bravest Eeveelution Royal of the generation.

And this is what ultimately sets up one the arcs that takes place after the five year time skip, where Throsten challenges the Flareon Prince to the Bravery Test the Glaceon Royals have in place for their own children. Because the Glaceon Royals have it so all the compabitable royal children are required to climb the top of a nearby dormant volcano. A volcano whose terrain truly tests the bravery of those who dare to climb it. The test goes like this: The current Glaceon KIng or Queen and two other judges will wait at the summit of the volcano which is located at just a few yards down from the volcano's top for the contestants, and the first one to reach the top wins. Normally, the other two judges are other Eeveelution Royals, but when Throsten challenges the Flareon Prince to the Bravery Test, Throsten gets my OC self to be one of the judges and convinces General Hightop to be the other. Gloria also waits at the summit, but she isn't considered to be a judge.

Despite the Glaceon King's doubts that Throsten will win against the Flareon Prince, the Umbreon does win out in the end by a considerable margin, as he reaches the end a few minutes before the Flareon Prince. While both did reach the end; being the first time all contestants making it to the end; because Throsten got there first, he is considered the winner. This is what reveals the Flareon Prince to be an evil Shadow Pokemon and thus, ultimately reveals Throsten to be the decedent of the ancient Eeveelution Hero.

So yes, all that happened just because Throsten wanted to be the husband to Gloria. I know an Umbreon and Glaceon pairing is a little unorthodox, but it was something I thought would be a nice subversion, as since at the time of even writing out such a pairing back in the days of Gen 5, the Eeveelution I saw paired with Umbreon the most was Espeon, but there was this one video on youtube (that I believe is now no longer on there because it's outdated) that had an Umbreon & Glaceon pairing in it. And I decided to let that be the thought process behind having Throsten become an Umbreon and then want to marry a Glaceon. That then snowballed later and had Throsten ultimately have his harem.