I live in Kanto, and caught a Vulpix in the wild quite a while ago, and a friend from Alola recently traded me an Alolan Vulpix. They seem to be rather jealous of each other, and keep fighting over toys and food. I’m afraid my Kantonian Vulpix might hurt my Alolan Vulpix, any tips to keep them from fighting?

You may have introduced them to one another too quickly, anonymous. It may be prudent to start over by following similar steps outlined in this post (http://bills-pokedex.tumblr.com/post/159389928380/so-i-live-in-a-house-converted-to-two-apartments, or formal supervised introductions in which you place both vulpix in the same, comfortable room a fair distance apart, then work your way to a point where they can interact comfortably in close proximity to one another). As it stands, it’s very likely that your Kantonian vulpix is experiencing jealousy due to fear that it may be replaced, whereas your Alolan vulpix may be experiencing jealous because it considers the older vulpix competition for resources. If you provide both with equal amounts of everything (food, toys, and so forth) and work to introduce them slowly and through supervised play, perhaps reinforced with team building exercises, you may be able to alleviate some of the tension between them.

Best of luck, anonymous!

There is a skarmory terrorizing my neighborhood! Whenever you go outside it’s there to attack and no one knows how to stop it! What do we do!

Usually, if you battle a pokémon, it will either calm down or allow itself to be captured, thus ending its rampage. My advice would be to obtain a fire-type pokémon, as these are particularly effective with chasing skarmory away. The most effective in this case would be a pokémon that possesses the ability Drought (most notably torkoal, charizard equipped with charizardite y, and very specific breeds of standard-form vulpix and ninetales), as they possess the inherent talent of summoning Sunny Day at the start of every battle. If you can’t find a pokémon with Drought or if you’d like to supplement your team, also obtain a fire-type that can either fly or hover (chandelure, talonflame, baile form oricorio, etc.), as these will be important for getting as close to this skarmory as possible.

If it isn’t intimidated by your fire-type choice on the outset, prepare to battle. Use distance moves but take care to keep property damage minimal. (This would be why your flying or hovering pokémon would be vital.) Try to drive away skarmory, but if necessary, weaken it enough to capture, then proceed to tame it as you would a wild pokémon.

Of course, also keep in mind that the invasion of an aggressive pokémon may indicate problems with its native habitat. Consider investigating this skarmory to determine where it came from and what sorts of environmental problems would drive it into civilization, especially given the fact that its appearance seems to have been abrupt. If there is indeed a problem, then this may be something you bring up to your local government at worst or attempt to also resolve yourself at best.

Good luck, anonymous!

My musharna seems to only eat my good dreams and leave me only remembering the bad :( what can I do to get my good dreams back?

Ensuring that you don’t go to bed while she’s hungry generally tends to be the best way to go. Try filling her kibble bowl just before you go to sleep at night so she has a food source handy. Likewise, consider setting up a bed for her outside your room and locking your door at night to discourage her from eating your dreams.

Alternatively, if you want her to eat your dreams (and, admittedly, this is a good way to supplement her diet), employ a bit of aromatherapy, meditate for at least a half an hour before you go to bed, and try to sleep as relaxed as possible in order to foster good dreams. Keep a dream journal as well to help exercise your subconscious and allow you to dream vividly. The better you get at dreaming (by placing yourself in a relaxed state before sleeping and by chronicling the dreams you can remember), the more you’ll produce good dreams, to the point where you’ll be left with something after your musharna has eaten her fill. Additionally, try to train yourself to daydream during the day to give her something to snack on.

If all else fails, I’ve always felt that dreaming of particularly bizarre things not only encourages creativity but also makes psychics far less inclined to dive into your mindscape. For example, whenever I feel the unmistakable itch of my kadabra (or any psychic, really) attempting to invade my brain, I simply think of this video, and that usually discourages them. View it enough times, and you’ll train yourself to dream about it too.

Best of luck, anonymous!

Help! My Cubchoo has an insatiable appetite for Seels and Spheals. This makes it a challenge whenever we’re just trying to do some friendly battling and someone sends out either Pokemon because my Cubchoo, while usually well-behaved, cannot seem to control himself at the presence of “food”. I don’t want to be accountable for my Pokemon eating another trainer’s Pokemon!

There are two things you can do to prevent this, and both should be done together. First, if you know you’ll be up against a seel or spheal (which you can discern by simply asking a potential opponent), feed your cubchoo before setting the battle conditions. If necessary, lead with a different pokémon to ensure that cubchoo doesn’t get sick or wracked with cramps, but feeding him beforehand will help prevent the hunger pangs that will send him after an opponent. Second and naturally, keep his poké ball on hand and withdraw him immediately if he seems like he’s losing control.

Off the field, you can help cubchoo learn self-control through more thorough training exercises—specifically ones designed to teach him to heel. As your cubchoo clearly understands commands, you may have an easier time doing this than most trainers. Begin by training him via short walks. Keep a treat in your left hand, a clicker (small device that makes clicking noises, typically used in dog pokémon training) in your right, and your cubchoo at your side. Walk forward slowly until your cubchoo begins to follow, then stop and call out “heel.” Every time he stops when you do, use your clicker and give him a treat until he begins to associate the word “heel” with stopping.

After you establish this, continue training for a week, then move on to more advanced training. Advanced training should begin with a bipedal leash (a specialized leash designed for small, bipedal pokémon) but works in a very similar way as basic training. The difference is that, first off, the walk should be longer. Second, you won’t need your clicker. Rather, give him a gentle tug if he doesn’t stop when you call “heel” and verbal praise and a treat when he does. Additionally, if he wanders too far or disobeys the “heel” command, turn around and walk back a few paces to force him back. This will teach him that when you call “heel,” he should move back towards you in addition to stopping what he’s doing.

Eventually, wean him off treats altogether, then follow up with weaning him off the leash. If you’ve done it correctly, your cubchoo should be able to walk at your side on his own and stop when he hears the word “heel.”

Once you reach that point, you can use the heel command in battle to call off your cubchoo. Whenever he hears the command, he’ll know that you want him to stop an attack and move back to your side of the field, even if facing a prey pokémon for his species.

Best of luck, anonymous!

Bill why is it that pokémon such as Rotom and Spiritomb are not considered legendary pokémon but the Cosmog line are? I used to think that a pre-requisite for legendary pokémon was not evolving, but you can’t say that there can be only one because two different Cosmogs have been identified. Is there even an official way of figuring it out?

Actual rarity and power levels, anonymous. While it’s true that it’s incredibly difficult to find spiritomb and rotom in the wild, neither are so rare that they’re considered mythical or actual cryptids. In fact, spiritomb alone is actually quite common, assuming you can find a an odd keystone (which is uncomfortably common in the highly spiritual Sinnoh).

Likewise, neither pokémon possess abilities on the same level as true legends or even mythical pokémon. While, yes, cosmog and cosmoem technically possess power levels much less potent than rotom or spiritomb on the battlefield, both members of that line possess unique, reality-warping abilities off the battlefield—abilities that rotom and spiritomb and other particularly rare species can only dream of possessing. And then, of course, there’s the fact that cosmog’s final evolutions possess power levels that are far more potent than that of most other pokémon species, so that, in combination with cosmog’s natural abilities, simply sets it apart from other pokémon.

In short, it’s not so much rarity alone, anonymous, but rather rarity and what a pokémon can do that form the litmus test of what is and isn’t a legendary.

Most ghost Pokémon can hover and fly around but can the ghost Pokémon mimikyu and dusclops?

Dusclops can, and it can do so quite well, as its body is actually hollow, which means it’s lighter than it looks. (Well, to be more accurate, it’s sixty-seven pounds, but still.)

Mimikyu, meanwhile … technically can but doesn’t. It’s a spirit like many other ghost-types, but the problem is that if it hovers and flies, it risks allowing others to view its true form beneath its disguise. Hence, it keeps itself as close to the ground as possible to avoid accidental unmaskings.

I have a 3-legged Eevee who has been a companion of mine for years. However, she recently seems to want to battle. She has never battled before, and I’m worried that she won’t be able to handle training, but on the other hand, I don’t want to crush her dreams. What should I do?

Allow her to train anyway. If she’s used to running on three legs, she should have no trouble on the battlefield. Just be aware that, yes, you will have to take into consideration the fact that she may not do things the same way as fully able-bodied eevee do. Be aware of how she uses her body normally and construct training regimens to accommodate her disability. Consider also teaching her a few distance moves (such as Shadow Ball and Swift) that she can use if she pushes herself too hard with physical moves.

If she seems like she’s struggling on just three legs, it might also be worth it to look into obtaining a prosthetic for her. There are certain companies out there—Silph, for example—that can make 3D-printed pokémon prosthetics which are actually quite inexpensive.

Best of luck to you and your eevee, anonymous!

A young relative of mine has recently informed me that she caught a spiritomb. She’s always been a bit of an odd girl but she and the spiritomb seem to get along pretty well. I’m still worried, since spiritomb’s reputation as a species is not the best. How much of this concern is valid?

While I can’t blame you for being concerned, anonymous, it may be amusing to know that as malevolent as spiritomb reportedly is, it’s actually quite harmless thanks to the odd keystone that seals its spirits together. Putting it another way, imagine a sitcom with a cast consisting of 108 people who hate each other, all of whom are trapped in the same apartment for eternity, and that is essentially spiritomb. If anything, it’s more of a danger to itself than to its trainer. And even if it had managed to coordinate together for a single attack, a pokémon’s natural compulsion to work with a human being (or else attempt an escape), which is further reinforced by the poké ball itself, will keep spiritomb from attacking your relative.

Still, your relative should be aware of any poltergeist activity that may occur around her spiritomb. It’s extremely rare—and especially unlikely in this case, given the fact that your relative and her spiritomb seem friendly with one another—but it’s still a possibility.

In short, I doubt you’ll have anything to worry about, anonymous, especially if your relative already knows the risks of training a spiritomb.

The post you did about the care of standard and Alolan Vulpixes was such an informative and great post! I was wondering if you would be able to give tips on caring for the standard and Alolan Ninetales as well. Thank you!

Thank you, anonymous, but I must admit I can’t quite offer that much more information on caring for either form of ninetales.

Consider it like this: there are two types of pokémon evolution. Category A is when a pokémon changes drastically, to the point where their bodies differ so greatly from their predecessor that it’s impossible to care for the two in exactly the same way. This would include pokémon such as octillery, dragonite, huntail and gorebyss, most bug-types that undergo a cocoon stage (as well as the larvitar and bagon families, for that matter), and so on and so forth.

Then you have Category B, which consists entirely of pokémon that undergo a change, certainly, but not enough of one that they require an entirely different set of needs. Most pokémon belong to this category, including ninetales.

That having been said, most of the tips you read about in the vulpix entry will also apply to ninetales, with a few minor changes here and there. For example, keep in mind that your ninetales will be larger and more powerful, so be sure to increase the amount of food and water it receives daily. Likewise, scale up your training methods (that is, increase both the intensity and duration of its exercises) to accommodate its new power levels. Keep an eye on Alolan ninetales as well, as its new fairy-typing may require exercises geared towards training its magical potential (that is, add meditation to its regimen). And above all else, set aside time to help your ninetales maintain its tails, but be careful when brushing, as ninetales tend to be sensitive in that area. The idea that they would curse you if you pull one is a myth, but they will use either Flamethrower or Ice Beam on you (or a similar move, anyway) if you pull too hard. This makes grooming especially tricky for owners of Alolan ninetales, as their cloud-like tails tangle easily and trap quite a bit of debris. Just … be careful, readers.

May I ask how you craft your pokedex entries? Some of the facts are not found in the canon so I was wondering what your process is like. I’m really loving your blog! It’s SO enjoyable to browse through every bit, everything is wonderfully structured and I love your sense of humor and writing style! This blog is currently getting me through a tough time haha. I really appreciate it. Thank you!

{Hey there! Sorry for taking so long! But oi, hope things are going better for you. D: If not, hang in there!

To answer your question, the dex entries usually start with me reading up on the day’s subject(s) through Bulbapedia. Sometimes, something in the biology section catches my eye, if not the actual, canon ‘dex entries or the trivia. I don’t spend too long on this step, and my focus is usually on finding something that strikes me as interesting or funny. I also always make sure to hit up the Origin section to get a sense of what each Pokémon was based on. Sometimes, the best content can be gleaned from the Pokémon’s “source material,” rather than the Pokémon itself.

After that, it’s to Google or to Wikipedia (sometimes to both) to do some extra research on the subject if I need it. Or putting it another way, after doing the above, I usually have a vague idea of what I want to write about, so I pull up Google and/or Wikipedia to develop it further. So if I want to write about Celesteela setting everything around it on fire because that’s what you do when you fire off (no pun intended) a rocket in a forest, I’d look up how hot a forest fire burns and what temperature steel melts. Or if I wanted to make a joke about Politoed and French cuisine (because for reasons I’m not gonna disclose, I already knew frog legs are a French delicacy), I’d look up a few recipes … while also perhaps the actual effects of licking frogs and toads (because for other reasons I’m not gonna disclose, I knew that was a thing too).

Of course, I also admit that some facts are just pulled straight out of thin air. The one about Clefairy having soft fur, for example. That was just something I thought would be hilarious to add to Bill’s entire Clefairy experience. Likewise, I have no idea whether or not Hitmonchan actually will respond to “Eye of the Tiger,” but if I can find a way to make pop culture references to 70s movies that were overdone in the 90s and already dated by the early 00s, I most certainly will.

Either way, once the idea feels solid enough, either through research or my own questionable sense of humor, I put pen to paper, write it out, dose it heavily with Bill’s usual dry sarcasm, hit submit, edit the thing like crap before anyone reblogs, and then, finally, leave it alone and hope to all the gods that it’s as funny as I thought it was at the time.

For those wondering, writing the ask responses operates via the same process, only it’s less jokey (for the most part) and more “I did not know you could Google pet care tips for this, but here we are.”

But! Thanks so much for reading, anonymous, and once again, hope things get better for you if they haven’t yet! :D}