Tag: Anonymous

i’m an experienced trainer looking for a challenging new partner pokémon but i’m not sure which line would be best. i want one that’s powerful, rare, and a pain to train but there’s just so many to choose from that i’m stuck. do you have any recommendations or info on not so common species? i’m experienced with most pokémon types and have plenty of resources so i can take care of pretty much anything. i’m leaning towards fire or dragon but i’m open to anything really, as long as it’s strong.

Well, ignoring legendary, mythical, or UB pokémon (all of which are nigh unobtainable), most dragon-types are rare and strong, so the easiest way to answer this would be to simply advise you to consider quite literally any dragon-type in existence. In fact, dragon tamers are a class of trainer who set out to do specifically and explicitly exactly what you want to do; they just settle on dragon-types because those are the most notoriously rare and strong. (That is, they settle on this type for this reason, if not because of tradition or something according to their culture.)

Fire is a bit more varied in terms of what you can and can’t train according to the criteria you’ve set. In terms of rare and strong pokémon, you may wish to consider female salandit/salazzle, which are both wily and deadly but can only be found in the volcanic and tropical areas of Alola. Then you have larvesta, which evolves into volcarona (a fire/bug-type that’s so powerful legend says its heat rivals that of the sun), which is difficult to train because of the fragility of its base form, not to mention difficult to find because it’s only native to very remote spots of Unova and extremely difficult-to-find islands off the coast of mainland Hoenn. While you’re in the Unovan desert searching for volcarona nests (and thus larvesta hatchlings), you may also come across another candidate in the form of darumaka/darmanitan, who possesses potent psychic abilities under certain circumstances. 

Then you have Alolan marowak, which can evolve from practically any cubone if trained on Alola only, requiring you to brave the rugged wilderness of the island region. Finally, there are also the seven fire-type starters, although these are specifically bred to be easy to work with, so while they may be strong and rare, they might not be what you’re looking for if you want a challenge.

Personally, though, I think that if you’re an experienced trainer looking for a challenge, what you might wish to do is train a pokémon not known for being powerful or rare. Maintaining a healthy battling record is, from what I understand anyway, fairly easy if you train pokémon that are already powerful from the outset, such as charizard, volcarona, dragonite, and so forth. It’s far more impressive if you manage to succeed on the battlefield with, say, a camerupt, simisear, talonflame, or torkoal. As Karen of the Elite Four says, it’s not about strong or weak pokémon but instead which pokémon resonate with you the most. Pick a pokémon you stumble across on your journey and challenge yourself to train it until you can bring out its inner strength, even if it’s, say, a slowpoke.

Best of luck, anonymous!

Hello! I work at a small store in a mall, and my beloved Nidorino is with me almost every day! There is a popular chain store across from us that sells earrings and does piercings, and my Nidorino is absolutely ENAMORED with the idea of an ear piercing. I would happily get him one, I love it when his spunky personality shows, but I’m worried. Is piercing a Pokémon’s ear considered abuse? Being a poison type, is there a higher risk of infection? The employees are happy to do it, but I wonder!

So long as your pokémon gives you consent in this sort of situation (and most pokémon can), it’s actually not considered abuse, although admittedly, there is a bit of discussion in certain pokémon professional circles over whether or not a pokémon would fully understand what body modification entails. (Strangely, yes, this is a common enough question for there to be a debate. It’s just that I normally hear this question asked regarding fighting-type pokémon and tattoos or, bizarrely enough, pikachu and spiked fur.) Personally, I believe that so long as the pokémon and piercer or artist are fully consenting to working with one another and so long as the methods used are, well, legitimate, it’s perfectly fine to help your pokémon modify its body in whatever way it wishes. The professional body modification community evidently feels the same way, as there are plenty of people willing to modify pokémon if you know where to look. They aren’t nearly as common human-only tattoo parlors or so forth because of the above-mentioned debate, but they’re there.

As for the risk of infection, actually, no. Poison-types are generally immune to their own poisons, and if anything, their poisons can actually be a disinfectant, as, well, it can be toxic to bacteria too. Alternatively, some poison-types are symbiotic with powerful strains of bacteria (such as in the case of trubbish, one of the few such pokémon capable of being modified) and thus wouldn’t actually feel much in the way of an effect there. If anything, piercing a nidorino or any other poison-type may pose more of a danger to the piercer, as there’s a chance that the piercer could be exposed to either toxins or bacteria or both as part of the pokémon’s natural defense mechanisms. This goes doubly if your nidorino’s ability is Poison Point. However, if you take your nidorino to an experienced piercer who’s worked with pokémon before, they should know how to avoid a nidorino’s quills.

So I just found what I believe is an ultra beast. It’s small and purple and not like any Pokémon i know. It’s hurt but I’m afraid to take it to a Pokémon centre in case someone sees me with it. I know we know little about UBs, but do you have any basic Pokémon care tips? The injuries are minor cuts and bruises but I’m worried they’d get infected. Also,do you know ANYBODY trustworthy enough I can hand it to who would know how to look after it, or better, Send it back to its home?

Not to be curt, but if it’s injured, take it to a pokémon center. 

First and foremost, a pokémon nurse’s priority is on healing an injured pokémon. They won’t judge you or report you to any sort of government body or what-have-you for owning a pokémon they don’t recognize. If anything, their inability to recognize such a pokémon may present a bit of a challenge for them, but ultimately, if they don’t know what your pokémon is, they’ll treat it as best as they can anyway, based on their knowledge of your pokémon’s injury, type, and general physiological profile (i.e., mammalian, avian, or so forth). Furthermore, pokémon centers are hospitals. It’s highly unethical for anyone from any sort of authority to break in and take your pokémon away for this reason, and you’re generally protected by poachers by virtue of the fact that you’re in a highly public area with highly trained and extremely powerful nurse pokémon (as well as teams of trainers who use pokémon centers as meeting places and who don’t take well to thieves).

Second, I can’t offer care tips for legendary or mythical pokémon or the Ultra Beasts. It’s not that I don’t want to (although I’ve been very open about the fact that my policy concerning owning legendaries is “put that back where you found it or so help us all”); it’s more because these pokémon aren’t that well understood. In the cases of legendaries and mythicals, they’re so rare that there simply aren’t enough cases of human interaction with such pokémon in recorded history to know what their needs are. In other words, very, very few people have interacted with these pokémon, much less caught them, and those that caught them are generally extremely competent trainers (not that those who ask for pokémon care tips on this blog aren’t competent, of course). 

As for the Ultra Beasts, we also don’t know enough about them to understand what their specific needs are, but in their case, they’re simply too new and destructive to our world. Thus, all instances of Ultra Beasts have already been secured by the work of the International Police and the Aether Foundation, the latter of whom has only just started releasing their research on actual, captive specimens (as opposed to theoretical research based on brief sightings).

Third and related to the above, it’d be odd to jump to the conclusion that you’re dealing with an Ultra Beast, just because it’s not an easily recognizable pokémon. It’s possible (and, quite honestly, more likely) that you’re looking at a poison-type pokémon from a different region on Earth, perhaps one that isn’t yet logged in the National Dex program. “Small and purple” describes many poison-types, after all. (This, incidentally, is why I also can’t offer tips for general care. “Small, purple poison-type” covers quite a lot of ground, even if we didn’t consider any known legendaries or UBs, and how one would care for a venonat differs vastly from how one would care for a koffing.)

In short, if you’re worried about this pokémon’s minor injuries and general condition, don’t be afraid to take it to the pokémon center. The nurse there may even be able to help you positively identify what you’re dealing with, which in turn will make figuring out how to take care of it immensely easier.

Best of luck, anonymous!

{Note from the mun: Like the last ask, this one is also among the newer batch. It’s just that Bill’s been getting a lot of questions about how to care for a legendary or Ultra Beast lately, and it might be worth it to note that various asks and entries have already established that both classes of pokémon are so rare that it’s very, very unlikely that an ordinary person would encounter them. Bill likewise only knows about them via second-hand accounts, theories, and folklore for the most part. Just to clarify! Carry on!}

Please explain to me why the Pokemon Symposium decided to name it the ‘Grass’ type and not the ‘Plant’ type.

Somebody explain to me why they did this, and perhaps we can start from there.

…

Seriously, this is like calling every mammal pokémon a mouse, which I know was an actual issue with the pokédex classification system, but nonetheless…

Furthermore, while we’re on the subject, why is it called the flying type and not the wind type? Flying isn’t even an element, never mind the fact that some of these pokémon can’t actually achieve the amount of power or lift to fly on their own or for long distances to begin with! The mantyke line and hoppip line in particular, but then you have the doduo line, which, despite the fact that they can be taught to use Fly, can’t actually fly on their own. Granted, fine, the actual moves associated with this element have more to do with the act of flying than the generation of wind, but by that logic, perhaps we should rename the normal type to hitting.

Then, if we’re really going to be discussing this subject, what about the steel-type? Just because it’s metal doesn’t automatically make it steel, for Ho-oh’s sake! Half of these pokémon are made of pure iron ore or iron alloys that have only trace amounts of carbon, if any at all. Magnemite, for example? That’s pure magnetite, not steel! Honestly, this is simple chemistry and/or earth sciences!

And while we’re at it, the dark type, which [THIS MESSAGE IS TRUNCATED.]

Believe it or not, he goes on for a good twenty pages. You’re welcome. —LH

Hello! I’m one of the handful of alolan trainers lucky enough to have recieve a rotomdex. The little guy’s a sweetheart, and super helpful too. Recently though, he ended up getting sick. I took him to the pokemon center near my house already, and they looked at him and gave me some medicine to relieve the symptoms. Thing is, he wants to stay in the ‘dex while he’s resting. He says he’d prefer being able to talk to me normally, and he feels more comfortable that way. (1/2)

To him, no, as your rotom itself is technically in an incorporeal, electric state. If anything, this may be worrisome because the medication is only effective when rotom has a body—that is, when it’s not possessing something else. For this reason, his recovery may be slow going, although if you regularly coax him out to take his medicine and rest for a few moments, he should eventually recover.

To his chassis, possibly. When a rotom overheats while possessing an appliance, what’s actually happening (other than literal overheating) is that rotom is generating excess electricity. This risks overloading its borrowed body, if the heat doesn’t simply melt the wiring.

In short, as comfortable as he may be, he really should spend time outside of the pokédex until he’s feeling better.

As for your second set of questions, from what I understand, it’s more that Kukui selects rotom he’s befriended and deemed responsible enough to take care of his proteges. This may sound a little odd, but from what I also understand, this is completely typical for Professor Kukui…

Hey Bill, I might have a slight problem. My Murkrow likes to gather shiny things, as they do, and I had to leave for a trip. My sister had come by to make sure that Murkrow had food, water, and was played with while I was gone. When I returned Murkrow has taken over a room with shinies. My sister hadn’t checked on Murkrow’s nest since Murkrow doesn’t like other people near their shinies. Anyway, I have managed to remove the knives they got but any advise on working with Mirkrow to shrink nest.

Unfortunately, anonymous, your fate is completely inescapable. You will simply have to live indefinitely with your new hoard of shiny objects.

On a serious note (please don’t look at me like that, Lanette), while murkrow are intelligent creatures, they don’t exactly keep thorough inventory of what’s actually in their collection. You could very well shrink your murkrow’s collection by covertly taking items out of it, so long as you space removals out enough for them to not notice.

Alternatively, if you’d like to confront the problem a little more directly (which you may need to do in order to avoid having your murkrow add more items to their collection in the interim), approach the problem as you would any other bad habit. Clearly establish why you can’t keep large collections, and train your murkrow to resist taking new objects. Reward your murkrow every time they resist or every time they willingly give up an item (the latter especially to cement the idea that downsizing is a good thing). Perhaps also go over their collection, show them which items you wish to discard first, and reward them for allowing you to take them. (Naturally, be firm—but not intimidating—if they retaliate, either because you’ve approached their hoard or because they refuse to let you take items away.)

Best of luck, anonymous!

Hey there Bill. It’s me again, the person asking if I could make a similar blog to yours. I did it, and the url is @fennelsunovablog. I read what you reponded and really all I can say is thank you so much. I was so afraid to ask you something like that and your response honestly made me tear up I was so happy :)

{Hope you don’t mind if I publish this so others can follow too. 😉 Let me know if you’d rather I’d kept this private, and I’ll delete it.

That said, glad to help! Good luck with the blog! :D}

Hello there! I don’t exactly know how to ask this question, but I saw your blog and I was inspired to do a similar one for Unova pokemon… of course, I won’t do it if you tell me you’d feel like I was copying you, which is understandable… But I was wondering where you got all your information or how you created it, if that’s an okay question to ask.

{Hi there! The mun here!

You sure can! ;D In fact, pretty much anyone’s good to make their own ‘dexes. All I ask is that you send an ask with the blog’s url (just like, without the .tumblr.com) so I can look it up and follow. I’d love to see what people come up with. 🙂

As for that second question there, Bulbapedia tends to be my go-to starting point. I read over the canon ‘dex entries there, along with their notes about biology and trivia points, and if something funny jumps out at me, I just sit down and write. If not, I’ll google the pokémon’s basis and try to come up with something funny based on the real-world stuff I dig up.

Asks tend to be a bit more involved. Oftentimes, I don’t really use Bulbapedia and instead rely on real-world stuff, which means Google and Wikipedia are my best friends. Google especially is handy because I can just throw in a question (for example: “how do you take care of a pet bat”) in quotation marks, hit the enter key, and usually get a solid answer within a few hits. Wikipedia, meanwhile, is great for explaining more technical/less pet-oriented subjects, like how metal behaves under certain circumstances or what house sparrows do to mate. But really, because of the reliance on Google Fu, I don’t exactly have a list of resources beyond those two (and, well, Bulbapedia) that I go to more often than others, but I can tell you the following sites are pretty reliable:

Finally (for research, anyway), some of the entries in #our-world are just straight-up headcanon, haha. But even then, I like to do a little research on the areas of the world regions are based on, just to add a little more depth. (Idk, I just like overthinking stuff like that.) Google Maps is a neat way to figure out what certain areas of the world look like, which is great for helping you develop the culture of a region, and for pretty much anything else, look for blogs about living in _____. A lot of people love talking about what it’s like to live in their home countries/countries they’ve immigrated to!

As for coming up with the blog in general, it helps if you have a good grasp on the character you’re portraying. In this blog’s case, I’ve been writing about Bill and Lanette for long enough to know what their senses of humor are like, how they’d respond to questions, and how they’d respond to each other. However, while it helps to have spent years with a character or two, the truth is you don’t have to write a character for years to figure out what they’re like. If you’re starting off with a brand-new OC, my biggest tip is to take notes. Start off with a basic idea of who they are and what their personality is like, and every time you come up with something new, add to your notes so you can remember it for later. Writing it down also encourages you to keep doing that, so eventually, you end up with a fully-fledged character in no time. That’s definitely going to be vital to get a good voice going for your entries, which itself is incredibly important if you’re going to do a lot of them. (You’ll be less likely to be bored and wander away if you love working with your characters, after all!)

Not sure if this covered everything, but if I’ve left anything out or if you (or anyone else) still needs help, please don’t hesitate to send an ask!

Otherwise, good luck, anon! Can’t wait to see how your blog turns out!}

What is the relationship between sawk and throh? Were they just a case of divergent evolution, or do they fill the same niche?

It is indeed a case of divergent evolution, though not one most people would expect. While both sawk and throh fill the same niches, occupy the same territories, and generally live extremely similar lives, the only difference between them is, quite literally, their fighting styles. Fossil evidence shows that they had once been the same species millions of years ago, but somewhere along the lines, the species split into two groups: one that practiced a technique that centered around rapid, hard-hitting precision strikes and the other preferring a style centered around defenses and overall body strength.

It is perhaps the pettiest example of divergent evolution scientists have ever discovered among pokémon.