>>50244910The initial excuse is that she's Birch's daughter, and got too into field research, even compared to him.
The plot-twist excuse later is that as a child she was more of a girly princess kind of kid, and made friends with Ruby (Brendan), who was a stereotypical rough boy. The two nearly died after a Salamence attacked them, and she felt responsible for Ruby getting hurt protecting her, so she completely transformed herself to be tough and independent, while Ruby felt guilty because he thought he scared her by being so violent in fighting off the Salamence, so he hides his strength and acts flamboyant and fashion-obsessed.
