Tag: asks

Hey there, Bill! I’m an artist, along with my partner, Smeargle. We usually end up painting together, but for my birthday, a friend got me some paints that weren’t Pokemon-safe by mistake, and I made sure to keep them separate from the ones Smeargle usually uses, but when I went to check on them, it seems my partner got to them before I did. I don’t believe he ingested any, but what safety measures should I take to make sure he’ll be fine?

First, stay calm and clean as much of the paint off your smeargle as possible. He may not like a bath, but you’ll need to make sure he doesn’t accidentally lick any of it off. You can encourage him to produce new pigments from his tail with a healthy diet later.

As you’re cleaning him, check around the mouth again, just to be sure he hasn’t eaten any. If you don’t see anything, you’re likely fine; unlike many other dog pokémon, smeargle are more interested in using paint than eating it outright.

Still, keep an eye on him for the next few hours. If he begins vomiting or displaying any other sign of digestive upset, take him to the pokémon center immediately or call your region’s pokémon poison control hotline—preferably the former, as a trained Nurse Joy will be able to handle his recovery from there.

Best of luck!

I recently caught a combee and her ability is honey gather, its creating an awful lot of honey though, I have more jars than I know what to do with, I don’t know if this is in your area of expertise but got any recipes I can use to help me and my pokemon use some of it? Also, is it okay to feed her honey back to her?

In reverse order, it is absolutely all right to feed a combee its own honey! The truth of the matter is honey is combee food, simply in a form that can be stored for long periods of time. (Some combee even store honey within their bodies during the winter.)

As for recipes … I fully admit that cooking is not at all my area of expertise. I’m actually (and unfortunately) quite useless in the kitchen. I can say, however, two things:

1. Tea with a couple teaspoons of honey alongside honey on toast is an absolutely divine breakfast.

2. Cooking is more Lanette’s expertise, so for the rest of this post, I’ll defer to her.

LH: 
Honey is a really versatile ingredient, actually, and can be a decent substitute for granulated sugar in practically every dessert recipe. You just have to remember the four basic rules if you choose to do this:

1. For every cup of sugar your recipe calls for, only use a half cup of honey. (Maybe a little bit more, if you prefer something sweeter, with a more pronounced honey taste.)

2. On the subject of taste, add a quarter to a half teaspoon of baking soda. This will help cut the natural acidity of the honey and bring out the sweetness.

3. Remember that honey is, well, a liquid. So you need to reduce all of your other liquids (or add more flour) to balance it out and get the right consistency. This typically means for every cup of sugar the recipe calls for, reduce liquids by a quarter cup or, if it’s a recipe that doesn’t call for many liquid ingredients, add two tablespoons of flour.

4. Reduce your oven’s heat. Honey browns anything it’s put in, so cooking at a lower temperature will help keep the end product from browning too much.

Of course, these are all just hard rules for making baked desserts or breads. If you’re not baking a pastry or bread, then honey can be even more versatile. You can, for example, mix honey with a few spices and coat chicken with it for an excellent baked chicken. Likewise, a few tablespoons of honey on fresh fruit with cream can either be a great breakfast or a great recipe for a smoothie. Be creative and don’t be afraid to experiment.

If you’re interested, though, here’s one of my favorite recipes:

Leppa Berry Flaugnarde

Ingredients
* 3 large eggs
* ½ cup milk
* ¼ cup honey
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
* dash vanilla extract
* dash salt
* ½ cup flour
* 2 cups leppa berries (de-stemmed, washed, and dried)
* Cinnamon (optional)

Note: If you don’t have access to leppa berries, two or three large apples—peeled, cored, and cut into chunks—will also do. I would recommend something sweet but tart, such as honeycrisp.

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (about 162 degrees C). Grease a pie tin or a cast-iron skillet and set aside. (You can use either of these things, but I like how traditional a cast-iron skillet is.)

2. Whisk the eggs until they’re just foamy. Add in milk, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt, and mix until they’re incorporated. Gradually add flour until you’ve created a smooth batter.

3. Pour half the batter into your pie tin or skillet. Spread leppa berries (or apple chunks) across the batter, then carefully add the remaining batter without shifting the fruit around. Sprinkle cinnamon on top to taste.
Helpful tip: A ladle may help you add the remaining batter without going too quickly to disrupt your fruit.

4. Bake for 40 minutes or until the center is set.

Hello Bill, my name is Blossom the Alakazam and my trainer has been feeling down lately. I was wondering if there is anything I could do to help her. We’re all worried and want to help, but I had decided it was best to seek advice first. Thank you for your time.

Speaking from experience, sometimes, the best thing a pokémon can do is simply show their trainers that they’re there and that they acknowledge their trainer’s existence. Even simply being in the same room as your trainer can go quite a long way (although physical signs of affection certainly don’t hurt). If you’d like to be more active, sometimes, small things can go a long way too. For example, if you or your teammates are capable of doing small tasks around your home (cleaning or cooking are the foremost things), this may cheer your trainer up a bit—or at least help her relax and let her know that there are others who quite literally care for her.

Another important thing to know is that humans aren’t often as open about what’s on their minds as pokémon are. It may take time before your trainer is ready to talk about what’s troubling her or even to express the exact emotion she’s feeling. Be patient with her and let her express herself in her own way. If she shares with you, all you have to do is listen.

Best of luck, Blossom! May your trainer feel better soon!

Yeah uh, my Slowpoke kind of got buried alive a few times. he got better though and now he’s too big for my Espeon to bury him quickly. I am still very, very confused. Bill, bill pls,

I would attach an image of the timestamp for this message, but I think we all know by now that this was sent in June. —LH

Thanks, Lanette. —Bill

When it comes to why your espeon has been doing this, it could have been for any number of reasons, actually. It may have been because your espeon was jealous of another psychic-type (which is a bit more likely, considering the fact that an espeon’s evolution is reliant on the strength of your bond with an eevee). It could have been from a dispute over food, toys, or any number of other things. It could even have been for your slowpoke’s benefit, as the misguided equivalent of “throwing a blanket over your sleeping friend,” as it were.

Or your espeon was simply bored.

Either way, it’s important to pay attention to potential triggers and your pokémon’s mood whenever they do something you can’t quite explain. There’s a reason for everything; you simply need to observe them to understand what that could be.

But in any case, it’s excellent to hear that your espeon has stopped this behavior on its own! Presumably, anyway.

I have a Purugly and a Delcatty that have been living with me for years. recently i adopted a young lillipup from a rescue agency, and the mon’s don’t get along with him at all. he likes to chase Delcatty into hiding, and Purugly likes to stalk and and smack him whenever she can. i’m starting to believe that these kinds of pokemon really CAN’T get along after all

Oh no, it’s possible that they all can get along, but they have to have a particular chemistry, just like humans do with each other. Sometimes, cat pokémon and dog pokémon adore one another, and sometimes, they go at it like, well, cats and dogs. And sometimes, the latter occurs for no good reason at all.

Of course, other times, there may be a particular reason, so it would be worth it to observe your pokémon and see if there is a behavior that causes them to interact this way. It’s likely that your lillipup simply needs to be trained to not chase your delcatty, while your purugly needs to be trained to use better problem resolution skills.

Hey, Bill. Recently, I was rescued from a Seviper by a wild Altaria who even went as far as to escort me home, and I want to know how to thank it properly. Any advice?

Altaria (when outside their territories, anyway) tend to be very benevolent, actually. If you see it again, it will likely not expect anything at all, and it might not fully comprehend gestures of gratitude.

On the other hand, if you look out for any swablu hatchlings or fledglings you come across, that may be enough. For example, if you see an injured or sick swablu, consider giving it a hand. If you see a predator attacking a swablu and you have the pokémon to defend it, consider doing so. Or simply construct a feeder or shelter fit for swablu in your hard if you have enough space. Even the little things can go a long way, but the important thing is to repay kindness with kindness.

But resist the urge to feed or give toys to the altaria who saved you. This might cause it to expect you to feed it regularly, and unless you want an altaria on your team, that may be a bit of a problem.

Best of luck!

Hi Bill, my slowbro keeps insiting to go mega when it wants to get comfy or go to sleep, the shellder looks somewhat fustrated with this, any advice if this is surpose to happen/ normal behaviour?

bills-pokedex:

To be perfectly honest, anonymous, it actually isn’t normal behavior, but it’s also not particularly worrying. You see, your slowbro is in want of the security of being wrapped up in a cocoon of sorts. So one way you can form a compromise between its shellder’s relative freedom and its need for security would be to wrap it up tightly at night with its tail left out. Give it extra bedding or create a sand pit it can partially bury itself in. Anything that covers its body firmly should do.

Best of luck!

[[Ask reads: “Re: the anon whose Slowbro insists on mega evolving to sleep: I recommend looking into pressure vests (also called anxiety vests)! You can get them for pokemon of all different shapes and sizes, and if you’re able and willing to shell out a bit more money, you can even get one that’s custom-made to fit your Slowbro. Also, weighted blankets!”]]

Also an excellent point! Thank you!

I have a friend who collects Unowns just so that they can spell out memes. His favourite trick at the moment is arranging them into LOSS. He regularly teaches his Unowns memes just so they can do this on the fly. And honestly it’s the funniest thing to see them try to MAN DOOR HAND HOOK CAR DOOR

When you say “LOSS,” do you mean the actual word or no? Because if it’s the latter, I might need to see pics, else it didn’t happen (as the vintage memes go).

Why … why are you encouraging them? —LH