Tag: asks

Hey, Bill and Lanette, I was wondering what is your guys’ favorite desserts are?

BILL
I’m not entirely fond of desserts, I admit. Quite a few of them contain milk in some form or another, and in any case, I don’t care for sweet things in general. I suppose if I had to choose, fruit with a bit of honey—particularly rawst berries.

LH
Flaugnarde. Especially warm spiced aspear berry flaugnarde with fresh cream. You would think that the sourness of an aspear berry would make the dish inedible, but adding sugar and cooking it dulls the tartness to the point where it’s wonderfully delicious. The fresh cream makes it even better. And the best part is you can have it for breakfast, too!

I will never understand why you would want a dessert for breakfast. —Bill

Bill, your definition of “breakfast” is a cup of coffee as you run down to the lab, so you’re the least qualified person among all of us to judge me. —LH

#AMA Bill (and company), do you guys ever do Developer Game Night?

Yes indeed! At least once a year, we’re able to meet in person for a proper game night, but otherwise, we hold a weekly session over video chat. Not everyone attends, but many of us make it a point. It’s a fantastic way to relieve stress, bond with one another, and talk about something other than business (or talk about business but in a relaxed setting).

For those curious, we play something different every night. Some nights, it’s a tabletop game; others, we play board games. It really depends on who’s in attendance and what everyone feels like playing.

On that note, I’d like to add that Bill is our reigning champion of Cards Against Humanity. Make of that what you will. —LH

Wait… If you never gave clearance on the creation of this book, and you’ve never heard of it’s existence before Lillie showed it to you, then how does it have so much information on your life? Did you see the author’s name on the title? If not, well, you should probably figure that out. For all you know, you could have an evil stalker that sneaks into your house at night, uses your toothbrush, steals your research notes, and takes photos of you while you sleep! Or whatever stalkers do, IDK.

Fortunately, my fans understand that my work is highly sensitive, and I encrypt practically everything anyway. Unfortunately, however, enthusiastic fans are nothing new, and the reason why they respect the secrecy of my work is because they’re often more interested in the intimate and personal details of my life. For example, there was a gentleman—Brent, I believe his name was—who often lurked about my home until he went off to Johto. I only know that he left because a good friend of mine informed me that he would often call her to share random but highly mundane information about my personal life and family. I don’t entirely know how he found out that my younger sister can’t wink, but apparently, half of Johto knows that now. (She doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, my little sister is pleased one of my fans paid attention to her.) Also luckily, the rest of my family consists of extremely talented trainers, so I’m not particularly worried about whether or not they can look after themselves.

As for the book, I do indeed know who wrote it, and he, as I’ve recently found out, is the president of my fan club. He’s also the one in charge of the Sevii Islands system, which is why I’m quite torn between being flustered over the fact that the Clefairy Incident is apparently not a secret and saying this is absolutely not a problem, no.

…especially considering the fact that I gave him permission to write and publish the book without actually reading what he was putting into it.

And congratulations on losing your privilege to complain about it. —LH

I’m not complaining! I just find it baffling that people know about that! —Bill

You wrote a paper on it. Also, you tried and failed to bribe one of the champions of Kanto into secrecy with a ticket to the SS Anne. —LH

How was I supposed to know “selectively mute” means “will tell Professor Oak’s highly talkative grandson literally everything”? —Bill

My Rowlet likes being in my head and shoulder and bag. Will be keep up this behavior when he evolves?

It depends. Usually, if a pokémon acquires a habit in one stage of their lives, they carry it through to their other stages unless it’s corrected, yes. As such, not only might your dartrix rest on your head, shoulder, or bag, but very likely, your decidueye might as well. It may be a good idea to train your dartrix not to do this—but only after it will evolve, so it will be easier to teach.

Of course, there’s also a possibility that this behavior will only exist in your rowlet. As I’ve said, the passing of behaviors from one stage to the next is what usually happens, but in some cases, behaviors drop when a pokémon’s personality shifts. It really depends on the individual.

To be honest, though, it’s not something that should be cause for alarm, I should think. It’s best to observe your rowlet before and after he evolves, but let him evolve unhindered nonetheless. Once he gains mass with his new form, he’ll be able to recognize what he can and cannot do through trial-and-error.

My tsareena has become a body guard for me when people and Pokémon get too close and doesn’t stand down until I let her know they’re friends. Why is this?

Because neither tsareena nor steenee are found in the wild, I’m going to assume that you caught yours as a bounsweet and raised her from there. If so, then the first thing to note is that the longer you’ve spent with a pokémon, the more it bonds with you. Additionally, for most pokémon, evolution is a rather big deal. For tamed pokémon, it represents the attainment of the highest amount of power they can possibly have, and because many pokémon strengthen their bonds with their human partners by fulfilling their evolutionary requirements (read: by battling), an evolution into a final stage—such as the evolution of a steenee to a tsareena—can sometimes be a symbol of the strongest possible bond between trainer and pokémon. In other words, your tsareena feels an especially strong bond with you, and as such, she wishes to express her loyalty.

The other thing to note is, of course, the fact that tsareena are regal by nature. As such, they take their duties extremely seriously and will fight to defend themselves and anyone under their care. This means that it’s actually perfectly natural for your tsareena to refuse to stand down when confronted by anything she doesn’t think is a friend right away and that it would actually mean something rather negative if she didn’t. That is to say, so long as your tsareena assumes the role of a bodyguard, this behavior means that she highly respects and values you and deems you worthy of protecting. If she chose to ignore you instead or didn’t take her relationship with you as seriously as she does, this would mean she considers you to be beneath her.

In short, this is a perfectly natural occurrence for tamed tsareena, in part because they tend to be with a trainer throughout their evolutionary process (and thus for a rather long time) and in part because it’s in their nature to defend their trainers with honor. I wouldn’t worry about your tsareena’s behavior until it gets in the way of your ability to perform day-to-day activities, such as interacting with people in your daily life (the postman, a barista, people at a grocery store, and so forth). If this happens, it would be prudent to train her to act only when there’s a clear and present threat to your well-being.

Do you know if it illegal to own legendary pokemon?

Not at all! In fact, for trainers, it’s (unfortunately) a status symbol. If you own a legendary, that broadcasts to others that you’re a strong trainer who may put up quite a bit of a challenge on the battlefield. For this reason, not only are there no laws in place stating you can’t capture a legendary, but also, the training community often encourages you to try.

Of course, “encourages you to try” is the key phrase there. It’s often difficult to capture a legendary, and many of them are innately linked to their respective elements—sometimes to the point where removing them from the wild may do catastrophic damage to the world at large. Luckily, many of these legendaries put up quite a fight, never mind the fact that they’re often extremely difficult to find in the first place.

It’s also worth it to note that, yes, in some cultures, it may also be considered taboo to do so. It will still technically be legal to capture a region’s legendaries, but the locals may not be so happy to see you do it. For example, nothing is stopping anyone from capturing Ho-oh, but to a Johtonian, attempting to do so would make you an incredibly arrogant human being unless Ho-oh itself has deemed you worthy enough to train it.

In other words, it’s not illegal, but the locals may not appreciate it, no.

Do growlithes or rockruffs make better travel companions ? What about service animals?

This is difficult to say, anonymous, because they both have fantastically similar dispositions. Both are extremely loyal, friendly, and easy to train, both require exactly the same kind of care, and both have excellent hearing and senses of smell, among other physical attributes.

As a traveling companion, it really depends on which region you’re starting in. For many regions, beginning with a fire-type is a bit more challenging than beginning with a rock-type. Additionally, in some regions, the fire stones growlithe need to evolve are rare to nonexistent, which only adds to the challenge. On the other hand, just because rockruff may pose less of a challenge when it comes to the gym circuit and evolution doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be difficult to handle overall. While it’s true that lycanroc are generally more powerful than arcanine, they’re also generally more fragile as well, and rock-types have more weaknesses than fire-types. Likewise, the midnight form of lycanroc are notoriously rowdier but also slower than either its midday counterpart or arcanine.

As a service pokémon, it’s roughly even … but there’s a footnote to this. Growlithe is slightly easier to train than rockruff when it comes to getting them to heel and work, but rockruff have the ability to sense when their trainers are in need of emotional support, which makes rockruff slightly better as an emotional support pokémon than growlithe. However, growlithe are highly difficult to evolve, so they rarely need retraining because they’ll often remain growlithe for their entire lives. Rockruff, on the other hand, evolve by field experience, which means they can evolve at any time if they’re not wearing specialized collars equipped with everstones. This is dangerous because both of its evolutionary forms may pose a risk to their human partners. Obviously, midnight lycanroc are naturally hot-blooded and must be retrained to heel. Otherwise, they have a tendency to run off and challenge practically any pokémon that wanders into their line of sight. Midday lycanroc, meanwhile, are highly obedient and loyal and thus don’t actually need retraining … it’s just that their manes contain extremely sharp and long rocks that can damage property or anyone that touches them. If these manes are trimmed and smoothed down, then they’re actually fantastic choices for service pokémon, but it’s very rare to find a lycanroc who will sit through such a procedure.

Follow up question about the sexy custom since I feel like some rewording is needed now. Have you ever brought a sexy pokemon custom on purpose? Or has anyone that you know bought one for you? And if so what custom was it? #AMA

No, of course not.

Edit: My editor has reminded me that for this month, I’m obligated to answer these sorts of questions honestly, so for that reason, allow me to give you the full answer:

It was a “sexy magikarp” costume. I was young, stupid, and under the impression that it would be the best way to get Bebe to stop inviting me to her Halloween parties.

It didn’t work.

How can I keep my bewear from crushing my spine? I would love to hug her but dying doesn’t seem like a good idea

In bewear’s case, it may be prudent to pressure train them. Begin with a large log, a boulder, or something extremely sturdy and have your bewear hug it. If she manages to do so without breaking the item, give her a reward. If she breaks it, find a replacement and try again. Keep training her in this way until it’s clear she won’t break the stone or log, then move on to something a bit softer. Continue your training in this manner until you get to the point where your bewear is embracing punching bags or training dummies. Whenever you feel comfortable, try hugging her yourself at that point, and she should be able to restrain herself just enough that her embrace will be harmless to you.

In short, getting your bewear to hug you without crushing your spine is a rather simple matter of training, but it may take time and effort on your part before it can happen.

Best of luck, anonymous!