my favorite kind of pokemon are steel types, are there any that could adapt well to living in an apartment? it wouldn’t be for battling or anything so it’s okay if i can’t evolve it

Quite a few, actually! The most popular tend to be lucario and members of the pawniard line, as these tend to be calmer and more personable than other steel-type pokémon (even though pawniard and bisharp are more social and aggressive than lucario). Togedemaru is also rather popular due to its cuteness and relative ease in care, and the next most popular after these species would be mawile, which is cute but rather mischievous and difficult at times. Rounding out the most popular choices is klefki, which is popular not only for their inability to evolve (meaning they will always be small and easy to manage) but also their ease of care and their ability to hold onto your apartment keys no matter where you go.

Of course, the more obscure choices fare just as well as apartment pets. For example, some people like to collect bronzor or honedge, not only because they’re not at all difficult to take care of (they need very little besides exercise and a place to rest) but also because they tend to double as fantastic apartment decor. (They don’t even seem to mind all that much. Bronzor in particular prefer to literally hang about an apartment and will be perfectly happy being a conversational piece.) The only danger in keeping these two is that they must never evolve. Bronzong, for one, are large and heavy, which causes trouble in small apartments. Doublade and aegislash, meanwhile, aren’t that much larger than a person, but they can be rather aggressive towards anyone who isn’t their trainer. If you live alone, you might still be able to keep a doublade or aegislash, especially if you’re rather introverted, as they make excellent watch pokémon. However, I would not recommend keeping them otherwise.

Aron, meanwhile, are very much like armored puppies, but unlike honedge and bronzor, they can’t simply lie about the apartment. Rather, they must be cared for like any other active pokémon, with food, water, frequent shining, and exercise. Still, if you can manage this list, then they’re wonderful companions … so long as they never evolve, either. lairon and aggron are even worse apartment pets than bronzong, doublade, and aegislash and should never be kept in any home that doesn’t have enough room for a literal tank. Shieldon is much in the same, except it’s extremely difficult to obtain one, so it’s less popular a choice than aron.

Finally, there’s durant. Durant are manageable, but they come with two setbacks. First, durant are highly social pokémon and fare best when placed in a nest with other durant. Unless you’re willing to raise a full team of six durant, it may be difficult to maintain the psychological health of one. Second and more importantly, they have a tendency to utterly destroy wood, so if your apartment has wooden floors or walls (or furniture), durant is extremely difficult to control.

The others, unfortunately, are often too big, too unwieldy (in the case of ferroseed), or possess strong magnetic abilities that may interfere with your neighbors’ electronics (klink, beldum, and magnemite), so they aren’t pokémon I would particularly recommend for small, shared spaces.

About banette size. since it’s an animated doll dose the size of the toy matter. Like one of those comically big ten foot bears, would that make a ten foot banette. And would it look diffrent from the standard.

It does indeed! While the size mentioned in the pokédex is often the average size, based on some of the most popular lines of teddy bears and plush teddiursa throughout history, banette actually adapt to the size of the toy they had been. This results in, yes, giant banette.

On the positive side, this very rarely happens, as children (from what I understand) bond more with smaller, child-sized toys than things far too big to play with.

Meanwhile, no, banette generally don’t vary in appearance from toy to toy. Occasionally, one may feel different if their source material had been different (plush banette will feel like plush dolls, while banette that had been porcelain dolls will be porcelain, and so forth), but their actual physical appearance is more dependent on genetics than source.

Are you thankful that there is a charater limit

Unfortunately, there’s also the submissions box.

I got both Ninetales, regular and the alola kind, they are male and female so if I breed them would they be mix breeds, or they be same as one of their parents and could use some of their other parents typing?

Ah, as I’ve said in another ask (which I admit is in queue as of this writing), it depends on the environment in which the egg is laid and whether or not either parent is holding an everstone. If the egg is laid in Alola, then the specific environmental conditions unique to Alola will cause the genes inherited from the Alolan parent to express themselves, resulting in an Alolan vulpix, whereas if the couple lays an egg anywhere else, the standard-form parent’s genes will be expressed instead, which will result in a standard-form vulpix. However, if one parent holds an everstone, then the genes of that parent will express themselves over the ones inherited from the other parent, regardless of where the nest is located. For example, if you give a standard-form ninetales an everstone and allow your pokémon to mate in Alola, then the resulting hatchling will be a fire-type, rather than an ice-type.

Incidentally, should anyone be curious, this phenomenon does not occur if both parents are of the same variation, likely due to the lack of variant genetics in the combination. For example, if both of a trainer’s ninetales are of the Alolan breed, then the resulting hatchling will be an Alolan vulpix, even if the nest is located in Kanto.

What age do pokemon reach maturity? Are they like humans and reach maturity in their teens or more like animals and much earlier?

It really depends on the pokémon and your definition of “maturity,” anonymous. Assuming you mean “adulthood” or “age at which pokémon are ready to breed,” some pokémon, such as caterpie, can reach this point within months after birth. Others, such as members of the dratini family, may take years to reach that point, and rock-types such as geodude may take decades. Still others—namely the traditionally classed “baby” pokémon—never reach that point at all unless they undergo evolution first.

Generally speaking, though, the shorter the life span, the quicker a pokémon matures, and only a handful really reach maturity in their teens like humans do.

I recently found a Mimikyu with a faded grey Pikachu disguise. Is it possible for Mimikyu to be colorblind? From what I read in my Pokedex, it’s clear that Mimikyu take good care of their disguises and I can’t imagine something so drastic as discoloration could be overlooked otherwise.

It is indeed possible, anonymous, but it’s extremely rare. This is why monochrome mimikyu are considered “shiny,” even though their shininess isn’t technically a genetic trait. Consequently, though, this mimikyu had attempted to capture a pikachu’s colors, but to that mimikyu, those colors just happened to be various muted shades of gray.

You are, in other words, fantastically fortunate to have come across this particular mimikyu, but I wouldn’t suggest pointing out that they got their costume’s colors wrong.

My eevee is certain that she wants to evolve as she loves to battle and wants to get stronger, but is not sure which evolution she wants to become. I don’t want to decide for her I want it to be HER decision, but I want to help out any way I can in choosing which would fit her. What can I do?

Ah, the one question that plagues the minds of both eevee and eeveemaniacs alike.

If you know anyone who trains eeveelutions, consider allowing your eevee to speak with them—the eeveelutions, I mean. Think of it like a mentoring relationship, wherein the eeveelution offers advice on their branch and why they chose what they did. If you can connect with all eight known eeveelutions, this would be ideal, but the more you can have your eevee speak to, the better. After all, no one knows what it’s like to be each eeveelution better than another eeveelution.

If this isn’t feasible, then communication between you and your eevee will be of the utmost importance. Try to teach her about each eeveelution yourself. Explain to her what each element can do and show her information about each possible branch. You can certainly do this without influencing her decision; it’s simply a matter of providing objective facts on each branch. For example, you can tell your eevee about how flareon can breathe fire and how its fur coat keeps it warm even in the coldest temperatures, even if you’re not fond of flareon yourself. By providing her with information, you can help her become informed.

Beyond that, I would also suggest allowing her to battle against pokémon that share elements with her evolutions. For example, allow her to battle against a vulpix, pikachu, and staryu. While these aren’t eeveelutions (or even remotely related to eevee), they’re adept at using the same elements flareon, jolteon, and vaporeon wield, and thus, your eevee has plenty of opportunity to see her future elements in action. (You can do the same with pokémon that share elements with her other evolutions as well. For example, try battling girafarig to expose her to the psychic element, poochyena to expose her to dark, roselia for grass, swinub for ice, and clefairy for fairy. Also note that you don’t have to battle these specifically; these are just examples. Any pokémon of these eight elements will do.)

If, after all of this, she still can’t quite decide, let her know that there’s no rush to make a decision at all. Offer her an everstone and continue to expose her to information about her evolutions until, one way or another, something resonates with her.

Best of luck, anonymous! May this help your eevee do what feels right to her.

What is a good pokemon to help my daughter get to school during the winter months? My family raises rock types, so they don’t keep her warm. Accessibility to fire types is limited here (sinnoh, so ponyta is all we got.)

Believe it or not, abomasnow are actually popular choices for this exact issue. While one would think they would be cold (what with being not only ice-types but also ice-types that strongly resemble sentient snow-covered trees), its actual body is covered with a thick layer of fur. Additionally, abomasnow often carry their young (or young trainers) in their arms, close to or just beneath their first layer of fur, thus keeping them out of the harshness of the Sinnohan mountain winters.

Piloswine and mamoswine are likewise covered in thick fur (or, in mamoswine’s case, thick layers of fat that result in it practically radiating heat); the only difference is that your daughter will have to ride her piloswine or mamoswine, rather than allow herself to be carried by one. For smaller, more nimble alternatives that work in similar fashions, you may wish to consider giving her an altaria or an absol, depending on her age and stature.

If, however, it’s imperative to get her a rock-type, consider a bastiodon. Bastiodon are warm-blooded and thus actually warm to the touch (despite its rock/steel typing), and at the very least, it’s less uncomfortable to ride one than any other rock-type in Sinnoh.

Good luck, anonymous!

I was comparing my Sinnoh pokedex to my Alolan friend’s pokedex, and it looks like a lot of the Alolan entries are really horrifying compared to other pokedexes! Drifloon’s body can burst with a screaming sound? Primape gets so angry that it dies? Why is the Alolan pokedex so scary?

There are a couple of reasons behind this, anonymous.

First and foremost, there are cultural differences at play. In comparison to Sinnohans, Alolans are blunter and gifted with a slightly darker sense of humor. Perhaps it has something to do with the capricious and often violent nature of their island guardians or perhaps it has to do with the fact that every island except Poni features a major site for the dead, but death is just a part of life to Alolans. They celebrate it as being an honorable or otherwise inevitable state of being, the final end to what had hopefully been a fruitful and adventurous life. As such, they talk about death in frank terms; it’s both important to talk about and a subject that one can make light of. So when you see an Alolan entry refer to death, it’s not meant to be morbid but rather a statement that death can and will happen to even the best of us. This is in stark contrast with the Sinnohan viewpoint of death, as Sinnohans have a tendency to avoid the concept altogether, likely due to its own (rather negative) folklore on the subject. Likewise, the Alolan pokédex may be gorier than any other regional index, simply because Alolans in general are a lot more open about discussing topics that are considered taboo or otherwise impolite to cover in other cultures. Even Unovans tend to be rather prudish concerning violence in comparison with Alolans—or at least, Unovans are when it comes to showing violence to their ten-year-old trainers.

In short, a lot of it has to do with the fact that the writers of these entries tend to write according to their culture, and the Alolan dex, while it had help from a Kantonian, was primarily edited by an Alolan.

The second reason, of course, is the fact that it was also edited by the ghost-type rotom, but it’s important to note that not all of the morbidity is because of the rotom by itself.

Do people from different regions have different accents? What do they sound like?

Speaking from experience, yes, we do indeed, anonymous. I must admit it’s rather difficult to describe because there are so many possible accents in the world. Some regions even have multiple possible accents, depending on which part you’re talking about. For example, people from Goldenrod City don’t actually sound like people from Ecruteak City, and even fellow Kinjin may sound different, depending on which district you come from. As an example within an example, both Bebe and I are from the same city, but she comes from the newer Northeast Side, which is close enough to Violet City to experience a sort of blending of the two populations. By contrast, I come from a far older neighborhood in the southwest, which itself has a unique accent due to the high number of rather ambitious immigrants, many of whom have given Goldenrod its reputation as a melting pot and center of art, business, and modern culture. Consequently, my accent is commonly thought to be the typical Goldenrod accent, whereas Bebe’s is far lighter and more mixed with a Violet City accent.

Ultimately, the divisions of accents depends completely on regional and personal history as well as general culture. Specifically, although we all speak the same language, one of the reasons we all have different accents due to the fact that prior to the introduction of Common, our languages were extremely varied. English sounds different from Japanese, after all, so when both speakers made the transition to Common, one could still tell what a person’s original language had been. Additionally, accents can vary from people to people, even if the native language had been the same. For example, Kinjin once spoke Japanese, as did many other people in the Kanto and Johto areas, but they emphasize their vowels, leading to longer, softer-sounding words. This lines up with Goldenrod’s history as a center of commerce: it’s easier to do business if you speak slowly and soften your voice, as you come off as more personable than the stiff and quick-speaking people of Kanto. And of course, there is also the fact that Goldenrod was a major entry point for immigrants, which in turn contributes to how different it sounds compared to the dialects of Kanto and the rest of Johto (what with assimilation and all).

Of course, this overly simplifies linguistics, but these tend to be the primary reasons why we still have accents despite, well, the fact that the majority of us speak the same language.

As for what we sound like specifically, that I can’t answer because it would take far too long to detail every single accent possible. I suppose I can describe my own accent in comparison to my colleagues’ and leave it at that. In which case, yes, I speak a bit slower than the others, and my voice largely comes from the back of the throat, rather than the palate or the front. As a result, my vowels tend to sound longer, and it’s been noted that I have “trouble” pronouncing H and R and that any word wherein R is the predominant sound becomes muddled (although quite honestly, all of you should be able to figure out what I’m talking about from context).

Well, to be fair, you were talking about a charizard’s breath that one time. —LH

Why would I be talking about how far it breathes?! —Bill