Tag: Anonymous

Hi Bill it’s me again, the anon whose town is experiencing a sudden Clefairy infestation. Supposing Miltank *were* to start going missing, what would be the wisest course of action in that situation? Just, you know, asking out of curiosity

That depends. If there are just a lot of clefairy, I would advise calling in a professional poison- or steel-type specialist, just to discourage the colony from making contact with the miltank. If there are a lot of clefairy and strange lights in the sky at night, I would advise calling your local equivalent of the FBI. I’ve been told that they have agents who may or may not be interested in that sort of thing. Usually paired with agents who are decidedly not.

What about Drampa? It’s kind of serpentine sort of. I bet they’re good cuddles.

Drampa are excellent cuddlers, yes! But drampa technically has arms, so there’s a debate as to whether or not it counts as a serpent. Some say, yes, of course, as its body is serpentine, and in any case, if one counts dunsparce (which has wings), then one can merry well count drampa. Others say no because dunsparce is literally classified as a snake, and in any case, it doesn’t do much with its appendages except float, whereas drampa actually does use its arms for cuddling.

This is also a matter of heated debate in the pokémon scientific community.

Hi, Bill. I really want to become a trainer, it’s been my dream since I was little kid, but… this is embarassing… I’m really scared of ghost type pokemon. The stories surrounding them, where they come from, it all gives me chills. Do you have any advice?

For the most part, it’s likely you won’t have to worry too much. Ghost-types dwell in very specific, very distinct habitats: abandoned buildings (typically the older the better), dark forests, very occasionally caves. The basic rule is that if you hear rumors that a place is haunted, it’s actually home to ghost-type pokémon.

Or in other words, ghost-types are easier to avoid than you might believe, so don’t worry.

Should you encounter one, though, stay calm. Most ghost-types feed on fear, and in any case, the more you panic, the less you’ll be able to navigate out of the situation. I realize that this may be difficult, especially if you’re dealing with a phobia, but doing everything you can to keep yourself from panicking is absolutely vital. Take a deep breath and find your center. Think of your body right where it is and concentrate more on feeling your weight than on the ghost-type in front of you.

Once you do this, identify an exit and make your way towards it. Try not to summon any additional pokémon, as that might provoke the ghost-type to engage with you.

If you’re cornered, however, try to remember that most ghost-types don’t actually want to kill humans unless you’ve invaded what’s very clearly their inner territory. Ghost-types are ultimately like any other pokémon in that the ones you’re more likely to see actually want to be around humans and form a bond with us in order to be trained. It’s just that some of them might be mischievous or liable to feed off your fear (which is less dangerous than it sounds, as the consumption of fear actually leaves you in a rather euphoric state or a state of mind in which you feel empty—the latter of which will fade and give way to other emotions over time). Just keep this in mind and, if you absolutely have to engage, try to form some kind of friendship. Rather than show fear, show interest. This may confuse a ghost-type enough to allow you to escape or to get it to leave you alone.

As a note, normally, I respond to asks about fear with advocating exposure therapy, and if you want to get over your fear of ghost-types, I wholeheartedly encourage you to try it too. Find a trainer you can trust who owns a ghost-type and ask them to help you by setting up times to meet their ghosts and spend time with/help take care of them. Start off with a little bit of time of exposure, then gradually increase your time until you can tolerate being around that ghost-type for long periods. This is also a great way to meet a potential traveling companion.

Best of luck, and congratulations on the beginning of your journey!

Hi Bill! So, strange question here, but something seems to be wrong with my Espeon. He is somehow no longer able to use his psychic moves. Do you think he may be sick? How can I help him?

There’s a chance he might actually be exhausted, anonymous, which is good because that is perhaps the easiest problem to fix for a pokémon. The unfortunate side of it, though, is that you’ll need to give him some rest. That means no battling, limited use of his abilities, and plenty of sleep until he recovers. Also, monitor his diet and make sure he’s eating right. With this combined care, it may take a few days to a week before he’s capable of using psychic techniques again.

If he doesn’t improve, definitely consider taking him to a pokémon center for a stress test, to check his heart, and perhaps to test for parasites or bugs that may interfere with psychic abilities. Nurse Joy may also suggest other tests if none of these solutions seem to work.

Best of luck, and may your espeon get well soon!

How come humans can’t see the items Pokemon hold during battle?

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Usually, trainers will give their pokémon special pouches to hold their items in (unless the item can be held or worn in-battle). Sometimes, these pouches are designed to match the color of the pokémon in question. Custom orders of such pouches are incredibly popular, especially on independent artists’ Shuppetsy storefronts.

Alternatively, some pokémon actually have thick enough fur or rolls of fat (it sounds disgusting, I know) to hide smaller items, particularly everstones.

Is it true that some pokemon like darmanitan and oranguru can learn sign language?

Absolutely. Actually, any ape-like pokémon—even those only marginally apes, such as slaking—are capable of learning sign language. All of them have strikingly human intelligences … as well as the appropriately shaped hands to use with most forms of human signing. It’s quite interesting, actually, and the subject of ape pokémon communication has been the focal point of pokémon behavior and intelligence studies for the past five decades. There was even a rather famous darmanitan named Koko who was known for having lengthy, meaningful conversations with her trainers completely in ASL. I would highly recommend doing a bit of research into Koko to learn more about ape pokémon communication, should you be interested.

To politely ask- How much trouble would you get in for say, knocking a crime syndicate member unconscious with a right hook? Also how do you stop a furret from trying to imitate said punch…

To your first question: That depends. Which crime syndicate? If it’s Rocket, Plasma, Flare, Aqua, Magma, or Galactic, then simply make sure no police officer’s looking and then do it. If it’s the Goldenrod yakuza, I would highly advise against doing that, as they punch back—by which I mean they will immediately break your knees with steel pipes. And if it’s Team Skull, while I don’t know a lot about that syndicate, I’ve been told that this would be “mean” and that “they’re mostly harmless; how dare you.” (Or at least those were the words Molayne passed to me, courtesy of the Alolan champion, just now.)

To your second: In all seriousness, the only way to stop your furret from imitating you is to not do it in the first place; by doing it, you’re broadcasting to your pokémon that it’s okay to use excessive violence. Although really, if you’re punching a Rocket grunt in the first place, do you really want to stop your furret?

I never thought I’d say “please don’t encourage our readers to commit acts of violence” to anyone but Cassius… —LH

Bill are you sure you’re exclusively human in the first place? It shouldn’t be so easy to fuse with Pokémon like that, even by accident

Originally? Yes. Contrary to Sinnohan folklore, it was never possible for a human to mate with a pokémon, so I can say with the utmost certainty that I don’t have any sort of pokémon heritage deep down my family tree.

The problem lies in the fact that the teleporter isn’t actually designed to transport more than one living being per session. Putting it another way, think of the teleporter as having a Point A and a Point B. You can activate the pad on Point A as a sending pod to Point B, or you can activate the pad on Point B as a sending pod to Point A. Even if you’re sending objects nearly at the same time, so long as there’s even a percentile of a second of difference, the teleporter can safely transport objects from Point A to Point B and vice versa.

However, if both Point A and Point B are activated at the exact same time, within the same session, the computer gets confused. It thinks there’s only one subject when there really are two, and thus, in an effort to rectify this, it will merge both subjects together and call it a day. It’s a flaw, yes, and highly dangerous at that, which is why I keep experimenting on the teleporter—literally to fix the exact problem that keeps happening so that trans-regional teleportation can be made both perfectly safe and possible.

In other words, as I’ve been asked more than once, yes, what I’m working on is a new method of transportation that should hopefully be safer and quicker than even taking an airplane or ferry between regions. You may think this is outside of my area of expertise, but if it helps you better understand my motivations, rest assured I’m building this for trainers. And because I hate flying that much. The unfortunate downside is that this won’t be possible until I work out that nasty bug, and, well, it’s a work in progress, to put it lightly.

As for currently (or at least after the first incident of this occurring), though, that’s a bit of a complicated question. My cell separation system, as effective as it is, was a bit of a rush job, I’m afraid. It’s mostly accurate, of course, but it would be more accurate to call me something along the lines of, oh, about 98.99% human. It’s not enough to mean anything, really. I don’t have special powers or odd internal organs. Just about the only noticeable differences are that I recover slightly more quickly from pokémon attacks than the average human (of course I’ve tested this) and that pokémon are slightly more eager to befriend me than they had before (which I haven’t yet discovered the reason for).