Tag: Anonymous

@the mod: how do you feel about the really odd questions?

{Depends on what “really odd” means. 😉 A lot of the stuff that actually gets posted to the odd-questions tag is hilarious, imo, especially the stuff that ribs on Bill or the stuff that sets up a perfect witty reply from him. It’s great getting meme or crack questions because they’re a fun break from the serious ones or the ones that require a lot of research. And honestly, the more ridiculous, the better. This one dude once wrote this entire series of asks in which he invented increasingly elaborate ways to throw tea into Bill’s pond (because the Bill that I’m writing is the animeverse one, who speaks with that hilariously fake British accent we Americans keep giving our cartoon characters).

Then there’s the other definition of odd, which doesn’t really get posted (and sometimes doesn’t get posted at all). Like, if a question is a little on the fetishy side, then those get extremely uncomfortable to work with, mostly because some of these fetishes tread uncomfortable waters. For example, there was more than one ask about thumb-sucking baby pokémon, and the amount of detail spent on describing said thumb-sucking baby pokémon made it obvious that they were actually sent in by the age-regression/adult baby fandom. And I know ykinmk, but 1) please don’t put your fetishes in someone else’s ask box (unless you’re on a blog for that fetish), and 2) um……. /psa

Then of course there are the asks that kinda tread into other kinds of offensive waters, like that time someone really wanted to make Cynthia straight.

Point is, good odd? Hilarious. Keep them coming! Bad odd? Bit uncomfortable there. D:}

Hey LH, I’d like to ask: can you find pearls in Shellder/Cloyster as well as Clamperl? I ask because some divers i talk to swear they find pearls in the corpses of Shellder and CLoyster that died of natural causes, oddly in freshwater lakes, which i don’t buy for a minute. Also, I think i saw a Dratini in my local lake, and would like to befriend the little guy/gal. 1, how do i identify its sex? and 2 any tips on befriending them? If it IS a Dratini and not just a swimming ekans.

On shellder/cloyster pearls: Actually, yes! If any kind of sediment gets into a mollusk pokémon’s shell, it might create a pearl, even if the pokémon in question isn’t a clamperl. It’s just that shellder and cloyster pearls can sometimes be rarer because they’re more aggressive than clamperl, so the only way to get them is either by raising shellder to release their pearls if asked or by harvesting them from already-dead pokémon.

Also, it’s true that shellder and cloyster are normally found in salt water in most regions, but for some reason, Sinnohan shellder and cloyster can sometimes be found in fresh. So if you live in Sinnoh, those are pretty rare pokémon, but it’s not completely odd that the divers you know are finding them in freshwater ponds. If it’s anywhere else, though, that is a bit weird, yes.

On dratini: Well, like most serpentine pokémon, it’s difficult to tell at a glance, especially if you don’t have more than one specimen on hand to compare. But male serpents will normally have thicker tails that taper more dramatically than females. Or in other words, female serpents generally have thinner tails, and you don’t really notice the slope of the taper until the tail just sort of … ends.

When it comes to befriending them, start off by looking as nonthreatening as possible. Sit down if you can, and talk to the dratini in a calm, soothing manner to get its interest. Let it come to you and offer to play with it—again, in as calm and soothing a manner as you can. Dratini are highly intelligent, so they might get what you’re trying to ask them without you having to do much else. Use food and treats as a last resort; you don’t want to accidentally train this dratini to rely on people as a source of food. On the other hand, if you have a pokémon, maybe let your smallest and/or friendliest one out to show this dratini a potential playmate.

And if it’s a swimming ekans … back away from the body of water carefully but quickly.

Lanette, do you know any…. Pokémon contest gossip? I’m certainly no contest star, but I’m just…. collecting info. As advice.

I’m sorry, but unlike some people (who are just now getting through the last season of Binaclebob Trapezoidpants, which means I’ll need to find something new to show them), I don’t really gossip about others. The people in question aside, of course.

I mean, some of that is because I haven’t kept up with celebrity gossip concerning the contest circuit in a while, and anything I could possibly tell you is both outdated and common knowledge by now. I think the closest thing to real gossip I know about is the fact that Lisia doesn’t actually wear that outfit when she’s not expecting to be in the contest hall anytime soon. But we’ve all seen the photos of her in her sweatpants and tank top, so I don’t think that counts.

Mind telling us about your coordinator days? What made you want to become a coordinator, how u started and such? ^^ thanks!

Well, I always thought it would be fun to be a coordinator. In Hoenn, or at least when I was younger, you would always see contests broadcasted practically every week. Watching all of that artistry in motion made me fall in love with pokémon in the first place—the choreography, the creativity, and everything else are just magical when you put them together.

So when I turned ten, I left my hometown (Lilycove City, for those curious) with my mudkip to travel across Hoenn and put together a contest team. As you probably already know, there are two types of contest circuits: themed and general. I wanted to take on both, but knowing how challenging the themed circuit is, I was careful to catch and raise one pokémon for each theme. (My swampert is the tough specialist, medicham the smart specialist, manectric the cool, glalie the beauty, and clefairy had been for cute contests.)

From then onward, I think my journey was pretty ordinary, to be honest. I traveled on my own, but I made a lot of friends along the way who taught me plenty about contests, including everything there is to know about berries, pokéblocks, and even poffins. As for the contests themselves, they were a struggle to get used to, certainly, because appeals are like battling but with more fireworks. Still, I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and after my third or fourth loss, I was able to earn my first ribbon—in a beauty contest with my then-snorunt, actually. Once I got the ball rolling, so to speak, I was able to earn ribbons for each of the themed contests right up to the master rank. It was the general circuit I never completed, and even then, it’s less because I lost and wasn’t able to enter the Grand Festival and more because I had burnt myself out on contests altogether. Eventually, I just sort of quit, one ribbon short of the five I needed to compete in the Grand Festival.

By then, Brigette was tired of gyms too, so we met up and decided to leave Hoenn to—not to put it dramatically or anything—find ourselves somewhere else. That’s how we wound up in Kanto, registered for classes with Professor Oak at Celadon University. And you probably know the rest.