Tag: asks

When my salazzle and I travel salandit flock to her and follow us. Why is this? How do I get them to stop?

As you might have seen from the salazzle entry posted shortly after we received this ask (and I do apologize for the delay!), salazzle excrete powerful hormones that attract every male salandit in the vicinity. This is an unconscious act, and it’s basically a survival mechanism. Because female salandit (and by extension, all salazzle) are extremely rare, it’s necessary for a salazzle to be able to make herself as appealing as possible to ensure she breeds and thus perpetuates the species. The fact that males obey her and form a harem around her is part of this survival mechanism as well (not to mention it also explains their behavior towards yours).

Unfortunately, because all of this is inherent in the salandit line, it’s extremely difficult to stop it from happening. You can, however, apply synthetic scents (that is, perfume) to your salazzle to mask her scent and mix with her pheromones in ways that are unpleasant to salandit, but this may be uncomfortable to your salazzle herself. It may be worth trying, however, if her harem is interfering with her day-to-day life with you.

Alternatively, having her lay a nest of eggs typically causes the males to flock towards the nest, rather than towards the mother, as they become far more interested in fertilizing and protecting the eggs at all costs. So, quite literally, allowing her to breed may be another method.

Best of luck, anonymous!

I was wondering, if I ever notice a typo if the mun would like to be notified about it? Typos are rare on this blog so I wasn’t sure if I should just ignore them since they don’t really effect the post. Thank you for keeping up this blog, I really do enjoy reading the entries.

{Go for it! 🙂 I don’t mind corrections or comments on any of the entries, so long as the readers are polite about it. (So “hey, just as a heads up, but I think ______ might work better” or “quick note, but you missed ______” or something along those lines, not “ugh, this thing you do really sucks, and it’s really bringing down the blog.” Which you’d think would go without saying, but you’d be surprised.)

Usually, I’ll have one of the characters respond to those kinds of asks, and it ends up being short because I never know what to say in response besides “hey, thanks for pointing that out.” Sorry in advance if earlier posts like that came off as curt, by the way! D: In the meantime, if you want to skip over “hey, I got your ask and the thing has been corrected” responses, feel free to block the from the editor tag. I might come up with a tag for it later if need be, and if that happens, I’ll let you all know.

In the meantime, thanks for the offer, as well ask the ask! :)}

If a pokemon has a branched evolution family and has not yet decided what to evolve into, is it a bad idea to lead them in one direction? Eg. If I had an eevee and wanted a flareon, is it wrong to try and encourage it to take that path by training it in certain ways and having it meet with other flareon?

Not at all! It’s only really inconsiderate to force your pokémon to adopt an evolution that it doesn’t want to assume. For example, if your eevee absolutely did not want to be flareon, it would be wrong of you to force it to be one. However, if your eevee is indecisive, there’s nothing wrong with giving it information about flareon and offering your advice and opinion.

Just be sure to sit down with your eevee and let it know first that you think it would be a good idea if it evolved into a flareon. Then, be on the lookout for any signs that it may be experiencing doubts as you train it. If at any point it doesn’t seem comfortable about evolving into a flareon, stop training it and ask it what it wants instead.

In other words, absolutely, it’s fine to educate your pokémon about one branch of its evolutionary tree, and it’s certainly fine to encourage your pokémon to choose a certain path. It’s your right as a trainer to channel your pokémon onto the path you think would be best for them. What’s not within your right is forcing your pokémon to choose a path it doesn’t wish to take, which is why it’s very important to be sensitive about your pokémon’s wants and needs.

Best of luck, anonymous!

Hey Bill, I was wondering if you would do dex entries of the PC Developers? You should probably not do your own entry since biases might occur.

Seeing as many of the other developers are close friends of mine with whom I speak on a near-daily basis, I feel like this could become a terrible idea very quickly. However, many of the other developers have also consented and submitted encouragement for me to do this, and my editor kindly pointed out that the threat of physical harm or public embarrassment did not stop me from doing an entry on one of the Elite Four rosters. So for those reasons, I present to you my fellow developers.

Lanette
The Technical Expert
Type: Normal
Region: Hoenn
Entry: A brilliant graphics designer, mechanical engineer, digital physicist, computer technician, pokémon biologist, and all-around genius. There is absolutely nothing funny whatsoever about her, and the author does not say this because he knows she has full access to his administration panel. Also, the author would like to go on to state that she is quite possibly the rock that holds all of us together and that this statement is being made of his own free will.

Brigette
The Kind-Hearted Administrator
Type: Normal/Fairy
Region: Bank
Entry: The older sister of Lanette and administrator of the Pokémon Bank. Although actually rather quiet and reserved in real life, Brigette enjoys immense popularity on the internet, where she’s known for two things. First, she’s popular among collectors for her penchant for giving away rare and valuable pokémon (even legendaries, much to both the author’s confusion and his chagrin). Second, she’s popular among those attracted to female-identifying people, due to her rather physically attractive appearance (much to both her and the editor’s chagrin).

Celio
The Star Student
Type: Grass
Region: Sevii Islands
Entry: A brilliant rising computer technician responsible for the network machine that links Kanto’s storage system to Hoenn’s. In addition to being brilliant, Celio is also sweet but rather easily excitable and eager to please. Strangely, both the excitability and the eagerness to please are, apparently, traits Celio only displays around the author. While the author’s theorizes this is because Celio is also the president of his fan club, the Sinnohan administrator had once tried to explain that it’s because Celio “is thirsty” and “wishes to deposit a palkia in the storage system” and “for Mesprit’s sake, Bill, wants to jump you” … whatever those mean.

Bebe
The World’s Greatest Party Girl
Type: Fighting/Normal
Region: Sinnoh
Entry: To understand the personality and entire character of the Sinnohan administrator, one only needs to be aware of the fact that the author did not give her the title “world’s greatest party girl”; that was entirely the subject’s own creation.

Amanita
The Adorable Administrator
Type: Psychic/Normal
Region: Unova
Entry: Amanita is the fully capable, extremely creative, and fantastically shrewd eight-year-old administrator of the Unovan storage system. Of course, it should be noted that because many of her fellow administrators were themselves former child prodigies, few of them take into account her age when dealing with her … except when her older sister and research partner, Professor Plutea Fennel, is within earshot and fully capable of reprimanding us severely for inadvertently teaching Amanita about adult subjects such as sex, drugs, or how to hot wire a car.

Cassius
The Lovable Ruffian
Type: Ghost/Grass
Region: Kalos
Entry: As the Kalosean administrator and a punk rocker with a slightly checkered past, Cassius is, as this social media platform would put it, someone who “looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll.” Easily swayed by eight-year-old system administrators from Unova.

Molayne
The Battle-Ready Administrator
Type: Steel
Region: Alola
Entry: Due to unusual circumstances regarding the tapu, Molayne is the newly appointed administrator of the Alolan storage system, despite being a strong enough trainer to become a kahuna. Although the responsibilities of a storage system administrator should keep him busy, Molayne nonetheless still finds time to exercise his skills as a trainer by routinely taking on Alola’s first champion and maintaining his level 100 warlock in the MMORPG Realm of Rivalries. The author is both impressed and a little annoyed that he can do this.

I just found out Pangoro can learn the TM for Infestation. Let me repeat that: My overweight muscle bear can infest other pokemon. How can you be INFESTED by a BEAR?!? Bill, could you please tell me how this works before morbid curiosity kicks in and I teach it to him? Or before I go and catch a Mr. Mine to teach this TM to instead. (Turns out you can also be infested by clowns.) Please stop me Bill. Help.

Editorial note: Bill, this question is not to be answered with bear puns. —LH

Oh, Infestation from a pangoro is quite unbearable, anonymous.

Bill, I swear to literally all the gods. —LH

In all seriousness, the pokémon themselves don’t do the infestation. Rather, they summon swarms of bugs that overwhelm their opponents. This is why it’s difficult to escape while the infestation is active: there are so many bugs swarming your pokémon that you simply can’t withdraw them.

Happy battling, anonymous!

A few months ago I nursed a wild murkrow with a broken wing, and let it back into the wild after it had recovered. After a few weeks some murkrow started hanging around the forest near my house. I fed them for a while, and then they started to follow me around when I go out. Even a honckrow! They keep wild pokemon away, I’ve had problems with a hypno before this started but not anymore. Even attacked a burglar that broke in my house a month ago. Am I under the protection of a mafia of birds now?

Congratulations, but yes, you are.

Murkrow aren’t entirely unusual in this, but they’re notorious for it. If you save a murkrow’s life—and, given its reliance on its ability to fly, you very likely did in your eyes—it enters into a life debt with you. What that means is you saved this murkrow, so no matter what, unless you consciously attempt to anger it, harm it, or do wrong to it, then it will consider you to be a good person it needs to protect and reward until either it saves your life or until it dies.

The rest of a murkrow’s murder automatically shares its opinion of you due to the strong bonds between murkrow, and you’ve encouraged this sentiment to develop by feeding them.

For these reasons, the murkrow and honchkrow now feel the need to do good things for you, so you can expect to be protected by them for some time. They may even give you gifts they find, particularly shiny objects.

As a preemptive warning, don’t attempt to capture any of them without their consent, as this may be taken as an attack on their flock, which in turn will result in them switching from protecting you wherever you go to attacking you on sight. If you wish to catch any of them, approach the honchkrow and ask for permission first, then allow it to convey its message of consent to the rest of the flock. Catch only the members of the murder that approach you; do not catch just any murkrow or honchkrow.

Best of luck, anonymous, and enjoy your company!

I recently caught a Pontya. She has indicated that she would like to be ridden (like a horse) but I am scared of getting burned. Is this a baseless fear?

Not at all! If anything, it’s perfectly understandable, not only because ponyta is perpetually on fire but also because whether or not that fire would burn a human depends entirely on that human’s bond with them. So it’s actually quite natural to be hesitant about that.

However, rest assured that if your ponyta wants you to ride her, she’s very likely harmless. Always be sure to touch her first to ensure that she’s warm but not burning, then mount her carefully. If you’re worried about whether or not she’ll burn you if she’s startled, so long as you keep her calm and guide her gently but firmly, she should be able to keep her flames under control.

unova college anon here. my friend sent me a picture of a large green bird dismembering something (or someone) near driftveil. what the fuck is that bird and is it truly a threat to the average unovian

That sounds like a pidove to me, anonymous.

They’re generally harmless except during mating season.

Bill. —LH

Edit: Oh, all right.

Anonymous, I admit I’m not entirely certain what you were seeing and can’t be completely certain unless I see a picture of it myself. However, I can tell you that there are a number of things it may be, including legendary pokémon. Generally speaking, however, pokémon are harmless unless you pose a threat to them or wander into their territories—the latter especially if you do so during mating season. For the average Unovan, the native bird populations are actually quite harmless.