Tag: asks

Dear LH, I was Wondering if you would know of the Best way to groom a Dragonair for optimum health? And how to make certain my Dragonair doesn’t lose her Everstone? She really doesn’t want to evolve because she feels more comfortable as a Dragonair. Also, a Milotic of mine keeps making advances on her, but can’t take a hint that she’s not interested, even with my toxicroak Poison jabbing him and carting his stunned body away. any advice to deal with the wannabe Brock?

On Grooming: Everything starts with a good diet. Feed your dragonair a healthy mix of vegetables and fresh seafood, and if recommended by your local Nurse Joy, consider supplements as well. This will help keep her color vivid and her scales glossy. Also, make sure her environment is moist and humid so her skin doesn’t dry out. There’s not much else you really need to do; your dragonair will keep herself clean and shed her skin once a month anyway. You only really need to keep a close watch on her whenever she sheds, and if she looks like she’s having trouble, give her something, such as a rock, to rub up against to help herself along.

On Everstones: This is always tricky for a serpentine pokémon, but luckily, dragonair have a nice space between their pearl and their cheekbones and horn that would be a perfect fit for a collar satchel. Bill might have mentioned this in an earlier ask, but collar satchels are special collars with a pouch on the front specially designed to hold items. Just fix one on between your dragonair’s head and pearl, insert the everstone, and close the pouch. The placement between her pearl and cheeks will keep it from sliding off, and the pouch will be close enough to her body for the everstone to work.

On Milotic: Have you tried neutering him?

Lanette … that’s a bit extreme for a first course of action, isn’t it? —Bill

On the contrary. Sometimes, it’s the only way to deal with men who can’t take no for an answer. —LH

…remind me to never make you angry. —Bill

Dear LH, I have a Question Regarding RUmors of Nidoking and Rhydon being able to learn Surf. Is this utter fiction, or can these ground types actually swim, and if so, why isn’t it more well known? and are there OTHER non-water types that are surprisingly good swimmers?

[The following is the chat transcript between Bill and LH concerning the above two asks. Text has been edited only to correct typos. —Brigette]

Bill: ….

Bill: I suppose that’s one way of skipping the queue.

LH: As you always say, fortune favors the bold? I don’t think you can fault our audience for being creative. Or audacious.

Bill: True. 

Bill: As much as I’d hate to admit it.

LH: In any case, should we answer this one together?

Bill: Together? As I recall, I’m still banned.

LH: Oh. Right.

LH: Well, okay. I can just have Brigette post this log.

Bill: Or you can lift my ban.

LH: First off, yes, it’s true that nidoking and rhydon can swim. Although you’d think they wouldn’t considering their typing and mass, they can actually withstand exposure to water for short periods of time. It’s not recommended that you have them swim entire oceans, of course, but they can at least hold their own in pools or slow rivers.

Bill: It’s really their hides that do it. Both nidoking and rhydon have thicker hides than a lot of rock- or ground-types, and they aren’t literal boulders like the geodude line or the roggenrola line. As such, water by and large stays out and can’t erode their inner plating, and the experience doesn’t sap their energy the way it would for a pokémon made of solid rock or earth. Well, that and they don’t simply sink to the bottom like stones.

LH: …was that a pun?

Bill: In any case, it’s not particularly well-known because it’s not a practice that’s encouraged. Even though they can swim, it’s still a risk for pokémon of their typing. Only particularly well-trained nidoking or rhydon can swim for long periods of time, and once they begin to sink, water can seep through their outer armor, reach the sensitive skin underneath, and consequently begin to react to their respective elements. Experienced trainers will only teach these pokémon Surf if and only if it becomes a focus of their routine, to the point where they dedicate a lot of training time to ensuring their pokémon can stay afloat; otherwise, most trainers will actively avoid these moves in favor of something that would better suit either species’ natural battle style.

LH: As for which pokémon are surprisingly good swimmers, there’s a long list, actually! On it are things like aggron, tyranitar, nidoqueen (of course), and even garchomp.

Bill: But arguably the most shocking is pikachu.

LH: Okay, that was definitely a pun.

Bill: …my ban is being extended, isn’t it?

LH: As we speak.

Bill: Worth it.

ooooooo, sounds like Lanette might have a bit of a crush on a Certain Someone

Mirroring that other ask about Steven, to be fair, most people have a crush on that Certain Someone. Or most of us in the administrator circle, as well as half if not all his fans. It’s almost like a rite of passage at this point. At some point, you have a crush on our not-so-fearless leader, and you either get over it and realize he’s just really effortlessly charismatic, or you never really do.

Luckily, either way, he seems completely uninterested in even dealing with that sort of thing, so it’s pretty easy to operate around him without making things awkward. Unless you’re … like someone else who shall remain nameless but is very obvious about his ongoing crush.

As for me, maybe I’m in that group. But mostly, I just think it’s cute that this Certain Someone can make mistakes now and then, because it’s a nice reminder that he’s just as human as the rest of us, and fairies are a nice reminder of that.

{Please….. tell us the Forbidden Asks.}

{Haha, I haven’t gotten any in a while, and I generally delete them when I recognize them, so I don’t entirely remember the exact contents of all of them. But I do know that:

1. The one that was most memorable involved someone asking about whether or not their thumb-sucking riolu was valid, and this would have been an innocuous ask if it wasn’t preceded by literally three other asks about thumb-sucking. Or didn’t go on about how cute their riolu was when he sucked his thumb, so is it okay to just let him suck his thumb and be babied?

2. So many asks detailing people’s romantic lives with the gardevoir that they’ve caught (which of course means that the gardevoir is either eternally grateful to them or highly obedient). So many asks. Especially whenever another post about gardevoir makes it through.

3. And then there was that ask about what pokémon farts are like. I … I don’t know, guys.

So, uh, the moral of the story is, if you’re asking about how to take care of baby pokémon, please make your ask short, simple, and as generic as possible, and even then, Bill might just point you to the tags. If you’re asking about gardevoir, probably don’t go into how ready and willing she is. And if you’re asking about pokémon farts … they … they smell exactly as you’d imagine.}

@the mod: how do you feel about the really odd questions?

{Depends on what “really odd” means. 😉 A lot of the stuff that actually gets posted to the odd-questions tag is hilarious, imo, especially the stuff that ribs on Bill or the stuff that sets up a perfect witty reply from him. It’s great getting meme or crack questions because they’re a fun break from the serious ones or the ones that require a lot of research. And honestly, the more ridiculous, the better. This one dude once wrote this entire series of asks in which he invented increasingly elaborate ways to throw tea into Bill’s pond (because the Bill that I’m writing is the animeverse one, who speaks with that hilariously fake British accent we Americans keep giving our cartoon characters).

Then there’s the other definition of odd, which doesn’t really get posted (and sometimes doesn’t get posted at all). Like, if a question is a little on the fetishy side, then those get extremely uncomfortable to work with, mostly because some of these fetishes tread uncomfortable waters. For example, there was more than one ask about thumb-sucking baby pokémon, and the amount of detail spent on describing said thumb-sucking baby pokémon made it obvious that they were actually sent in by the age-regression/adult baby fandom. And I know ykinmk, but 1) please don’t put your fetishes in someone else’s ask box (unless you’re on a blog for that fetish), and 2) um……. /psa

Then of course there are the asks that kinda tread into other kinds of offensive waters, like that time someone really wanted to make Cynthia straight.

Point is, good odd? Hilarious. Keep them coming! Bad odd? Bit uncomfortable there. D:}

Hey LH, I’d like to ask: can you find pearls in Shellder/Cloyster as well as Clamperl? I ask because some divers i talk to swear they find pearls in the corpses of Shellder and CLoyster that died of natural causes, oddly in freshwater lakes, which i don’t buy for a minute. Also, I think i saw a Dratini in my local lake, and would like to befriend the little guy/gal. 1, how do i identify its sex? and 2 any tips on befriending them? If it IS a Dratini and not just a swimming ekans.

On shellder/cloyster pearls: Actually, yes! If any kind of sediment gets into a mollusk pokémon’s shell, it might create a pearl, even if the pokémon in question isn’t a clamperl. It’s just that shellder and cloyster pearls can sometimes be rarer because they’re more aggressive than clamperl, so the only way to get them is either by raising shellder to release their pearls if asked or by harvesting them from already-dead pokémon.

Also, it’s true that shellder and cloyster are normally found in salt water in most regions, but for some reason, Sinnohan shellder and cloyster can sometimes be found in fresh. So if you live in Sinnoh, those are pretty rare pokémon, but it’s not completely odd that the divers you know are finding them in freshwater ponds. If it’s anywhere else, though, that is a bit weird, yes.

On dratini: Well, like most serpentine pokémon, it’s difficult to tell at a glance, especially if you don’t have more than one specimen on hand to compare. But male serpents will normally have thicker tails that taper more dramatically than females. Or in other words, female serpents generally have thinner tails, and you don’t really notice the slope of the taper until the tail just sort of … ends.

When it comes to befriending them, start off by looking as nonthreatening as possible. Sit down if you can, and talk to the dratini in a calm, soothing manner to get its interest. Let it come to you and offer to play with it—again, in as calm and soothing a manner as you can. Dratini are highly intelligent, so they might get what you’re trying to ask them without you having to do much else. Use food and treats as a last resort; you don’t want to accidentally train this dratini to rely on people as a source of food. On the other hand, if you have a pokémon, maybe let your smallest and/or friendliest one out to show this dratini a potential playmate.

And if it’s a swimming ekans … back away from the body of water carefully but quickly.