Why can’t psychic types, or at least some of them, eat things that have/had emotions? What would happen?

krokorokin:

bills-pokedex:

Psychic abilities tend to be stronger when the psychic in question is in physical contact with a target. Thus, imagine putting your mouth on something, only to hear the last dying scream of a once-living entity.

That’s why psychics generally prefer vegetarian lifestyles. Or at least the ralts line does. Many other psychics tend to have less potent empathic abilities (or aren’t quite as concerned), so eating meat or the like is less of an issue with them.

Sounds like some psychic types need to stop being little bitches.

…on the other hand, those same psychic-types have no qualms about generating miniature black holes in the general vicinity of anyone who calls them “little bitches.”

Hey Bill! its me, the guy with the touchy gardevoir, thanks for the responce but i belive i have an interesting one for ya! It seems like my Gardevoir is trying to talk. Sometimes when i speak to her about something, some words get played back from her like she’s trying to use me to communicate. If this is the case, i was wondering if there was anything i can do to help her succeed in her goal. It happens often and she knows shes doing it so I want to help her get what she needs.

If you can stand it, grasp her hands or press your forehead to hers at first, then maintain physical contact through the duration of the message. This is just a temporary fix to help her sharpen her focus on you and “grasp” at your mind.

Also, there are certain exercises you can undertake to “open up” your mind a bit more. These are largely meditations where you visualize your mind pressing outwards, but really, any guided meditation designed to make you aware of yourself will do. Engage in these meditations alongside your gardevoir, and ensure that each session is at least a half an hour long. By doing this, your gardevoir will get used to your presence and thus become acquainted with the layout of your psyche (which in turn will make it easier and easier for her to enter).

Additionally, bond with her. The closer a human spends with a psychic pokémon, the stronger their psychic connection will become, even if the human doesn’t actually show psychic talent on their own. Those who spend years growing closer with their psychic pokémon and maintaining a close friendship can converse with their partners as naturally as two people speaking aloud. It’s much like how two human friends who spend years together may know each other so well they can finish each other’s sentences, only with a psychic pokémon, that’s literally true. In other words, the more time you spend with gardevoir, the easier it will be to speak with her.

In any case, though, with all of this, I highly recommend taking it slow. Never be too impatient when it comes to nurturing this kind of bond. That’s an excellent way to become plagued with agonizing migraines. (This would be why I began this post with “if you can stand it”—not many people can, especially if they’re not that strong in an emotional sense. The meditation will also help with this.)

Good luck, anonymous! It’s great to hear that your gardevoir is taking so much of an interest in you she wants you to understand her. That’s the sign of a caring trainer.

Since becoming pregnant my gardevoir will not let anyone near me, nor will let me be alone at any point. I love her but this is really hard on my husband and I. What do I do?

It’s important to understand why your gardevoir is doing this before you can reach a resolution, anonymous. As you likely know, gardevoir are highly loyal pokémon, and thus, they possess a natural instinct to protect their trainers from any danger. When their trainers are pregnant, gardevoir will be especially adamant about protecting them, as it’s no longer about protecting just the trainer. Rather, it’s also about protecting the trainer’s child, which gardevoir perceives as being too weak to survive on its own—meaning gardevoir believes your baby needs extra protection, even if it hasn’t been born yet. In other words, at the risk of putting it too bluntly, your gardevoir sees everyone around you as a potential threat or an inadequate guardian. This goes especially for your husband. Your gardevoir may be attempting to judge whether or not he’s fit to be a father—or she already has, and the answer is no. Either way, as difficult as it may be, your main task here is to convince your gardevoir that: A) you’re doing all that you can to ensure the health of both yourself and your baby on your own, and B) your husband will be a competent father.

The first point may be the easier one to prove. Show your gardevoir that you’re capable of managing your health, attending the requisite doctor’s appointments, following your usual schedules, and so forth without her assistance. This isn’t to say you should make it clear that you don’t need her. Rather, the goal is to make every effort to reassure her that you and your baby are and will be fine. Sometimes, all it takes is to ask her to step back and watch you work for a day before she understands. Other times, you may need to keep up with this for a couple of weeks and insist on doing as much as possible yourself until she finally gets the idea.

Of course, if your gardevoir’s behavior is so extreme that she prevents you from attending doctor’s appointments, then it’s fine to be firm with her from the outset. Establish that it’s necessary for the health of your baby for you to interact with others, and try to explain to her that going to the doctor is a lot like seeing a Nurse Joy for her. Emphasize your baby’s needs, and she should be able to relent at least that much.

Meanwhile, the second point will likely be more of a challenge, as getting her to allow your husband to get close to you is an entirely different story. They key is, really, allowing your husband to do little things around the house. Allow him to take over cooking, cleaning, caring for your gardevoir, shopping—as many household tasks as he can shoulder. Have him show an interest in the baby by coming up with possible names, constructing a nursery, purchasing items you’ll need when the baby is born, or simply accompanying you on your appointments (once your gardevoir is more comfortable with the idea). The more he can show that he’ll be a good father, the more likely your gardevoir will be willing to listen to you. I say “will be willing to listen to you” because when it looks like she’s warming up to him again, that’s when you should tell her firmly that your baby needs their father (and family, for that matter) as well. Again, emphasize the baby’s needs, rather than your own, to appeal to your gardevoir’s current priorities.

Best of luck and congratulations on the upcoming addition to your family!

Hey Bill, I’ve had a Kirlia for a long time, and he’s getting close to evolving, he’s been my travel partner for the longest time, and I want to give him the choice of if he evolves into a Gardevoir or a Gallade, any advice for my Kirlia and I?

As always, research is key here. Do as much research as you can into kirlia’s evolution, using the internet, opinions from trainers who own gardevoir or gallade themselves, and guidance from your pokédex or regional professor. Share all of the information you gather with your kirlia at each stage of your investigation, and let him decide what feels best for his identity, based on what you’ve told him.

I’d like to refrain from giving you too many specifics because I don’t want to sway your decision, but I will say that, of course, gardevoir is the more psychic evolution, while gallade is the more physical. Both stand on equal footing, as both fulfill their respective roles reasonably well. It’s just that gallade might be slightly more difficult to obtain due to the rarity of dawn stone, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be worthwhile to train (or that he’s more desirable than gardevoir, for that matter).

Best of luck, anonymous, but one last piece of advice: give your kirlia an everstone until he’s ready to evolve. He needs to focus on his decision, not on resisting evolution, and the effort put into resisting evolution may either put him off the idea of being a gardevoir or make him feel like he needs to give up and become one, depending on his personality.

My kirlia has just evolved into a gardevoir and her attitude has completely changed. When she was young, she was shy and usually only made physical contact with me when it was supper or bedtime. Now since she evolved, she’s become much more touchy, such as holding onto my arm, or laying down near or on me. I’m only worried because it seems like her nature did a complete 180. It’s not a bad change, but i’m worried for if something happened to her mind or not?

Evolution does funny things to a pokémon, anonymous, and behavior changes are certainly a possibility. In gardevoir’s case, their psychic abilities are boosted exponentially, and physical contact further amplifies their already potent telepathic and empathic powers. In other words, touching you feels far more intense than it had been when your gardevoir was younger. Imagine being nearsighted and going about your entire life only seeing your world as one massive blur, and all of a sudden, someone gives you a pair of glasses that sharpens every little detail. Everything seems sharper and newer, and thus, the world feels more exciting to you. This is what it feels like to be a pokémon that undergoes evolution, but it’s especially true with something as sensitive to others’ psychic energies as gardevoir.

That boost, in turn, factors into the other changes about her. All pokémon, when undergoing evolution, typically become more mature or confident, in a way. Think of evolution as being the process of growing up, with the first stage being your childhood and the last stage being adulthood. While some adults are certainly childlike, many others become wiser or otherwise more confident what they can do. This is true for pokémon that reach their final evolution as well. Just as adults grow more and more capable with interacting with the world around them, final-stage evolutions grow more comfortable with their abilities and interacting with their trainers (either in a positive or negative light). Combine this with the aforementioned power boost, and you have one of the most protective pokémon in existence.

In other words, the “touchiness” you’re describing is actually perfectly normal for a gardevoir. It’s her way of not only taking in how different you feel (now that her powers are at their best) but also of establishing a literal personal connection (as to her, being in physical contact with you is not only a sign of affection but also a nonverbal reassurance that she’s there to protect you). It should only really be a cause of concern if she takes the affection too far or if it otherwise becomes uncomfortable for you—which sometimes happens with gardevoir trainers. If that ever occurs, it’s important to establish boundaries. Tell her politely that you appreciate what she’s doing, but you’d prefer physical distance. Let her know that you still want her to protect you and to work with you in a trainer-pokémon relationship; it’s just that your bond should be strictly platonic.

Good luck, anonymous, and congratulations on the recent evolution!

How to take care of a ralts please?

I must admit, this depends on your circumstances, especially given the fact that ralts is a branched evolutionary family. While there are certainly similarities between how you would raise a ralts who will eventually be a gardevoir and a ralts who will eventually be a gallade, when you get to preparing for their evolutions, the training regimens you will need will undoubtedly be different. Likewise, as soon as your ralts evolves into a kirlia, you may need to adjust its lifestyle, depending on whether or not it wishes to evolve at all and what it wishes to evolve into. A gallade requires a diet heavy in protein (to build muscle) as well as exercises of a more physical nature (especially to build arm strength). Meanwhile, kirlia that don’t wish to evolve and kirlia that wish to evolve into gardevoir will need exercises geared more towards developing their psychokinetic abilities, including more meditation than actual physical fitness. Additionally, as they develop their psychic abilities, they’ll need to rely more on a plant-based diet to avoid consuming anything that could experience emotions upon death, as the psychic exercises may increase their empathic strength.

Speaking of which, that’s the main challenge in raising a ralts at all: the empathic factor. Young ralts especially will be a little uneasy as they get used to feeling your emotions, and thus, from an early age, they should be trained to build psychic barriers. Keeping other, older members of the ralts family (including gallade) could help, but really, any psychic pokémon capable of using telepathy will do. Younger ralts will also require a lot of meditation in order to teach them mindfulness, which in turn will help them control their own emotions and prevent themselves from projecting onto others (including you).

A lot of these exercises may consume much of your ralts’s time, so distractions for stress relief are absolutely necessary. Soft toys may be a good choice due to the comfort the ralts may derive from the way they feel, but be wary when getting anything with a face. Ralts who struggle with controlling their psychic abilities may inadvertently bond with their stuffed toys, which increases the risk of producing a shuppet if the toy ever needs to be discarded. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give a ralts a stuffed animal—just that if you do get them one, don’t let them or the rest of their team beat it up too much, and be sure to have them draw out any psychic energy when the toy is ready to be discarded. Otherwise, believe it or not, but stimming toys normally given to humans are also excellent choices. Moon sand as well, for that matter. The more a ralts’s physical senses can be engaged when playing with the toy, the better, as it allows it to focus on the physical realm, rather than the psychic. (They’re also rather fun to collect or create, but … that may simply be my own personal preference showing through.)

In terms of food, it’s a misconception that members of the ralts family are exclusively vegan. While they can’t eat meat that had been taken from a living animal, eggs and dairy are perfectly fine. Dairy, after all, is not a complex living thing in itself, and eggs have never reached the stage where they would have developed emotions. If you’re thinking of evolving your ralts into a gallade, as I’ve mentioned earlier, protein is a necessity, so eggs—along with vegetarian proteins such as nuts or soybeans—are an essential. Otherwise, ralts that you don’t wish to evolve or ralts that will eventually become gardevoir can be completely vegan—if they wish, anyway. It’s always a good idea to ask your ralts what it prefers.

Otherwise, taking care of a ralts is very much like taking care of a small child. They sleep in small beds (with blankets and a pillow, preferably), they can be toilet-trained, they bathe in similar ways to humans, and they often need the same sorts of affection we give children. It’s just that it’s very highly recommended that you avoid physical contact as much as possible with particularly young ralts until they develop the aforementioned psychic barriers, as projection from a psychic pokémon is not a particularly wondrous experience. Thus, as tempting as it may be, your ralts will really need its own bed, and you may wish to avoid hugging it as much as possible at first.

Best of luck, anonymous.

What are the red pinkish shard things on the Ralts family’s heads/bodies? What do they do

Those are their horns, actually. Every member of the ralts family has crystalline horns that act as psychic amplifiers, much in the way that kadabra and alakazam’s spoons or spoink and grumpig’s pearls do.

This is why it’s generally considered impolite to downright dangerous to touch those horns.

Without permission, anyway.

(No, this is not an opportunity to “kinkshame” the people in the notes.)

Why isn’t the Ralts family in the Human-Like egg group (other than “lol they cant breed with anything in there, silly!”)? They look a lot more human than Volbeat, Spinda, Buneary, etc. to me.

Because for whatever reason, members of the ralts line seem to be more inclined to mate with balls of gas, possessed trees, and chandeliers than things that look human.

Most researchers try not to think about it too much, frankly.

Honestly, Bill. Between the both of us, you’re the behavioral researcher, yet you give that kind of explanation.

Anonymous, it’s because members of the ralts line don’t wish to mate with things that remind them of their trainers because to them, it carries oedipal implications. The reason why ralts feel the need to protect their trainers so strongly is because they consider their trainers part of their family, so in short, other human-like creatures, even those that vaguely look human such as lopunny and spinda, don’t appeal to them.

Also, yes, this implies that the egg group system is based entirely on a pokémon’s preferences, rather than its ability to interbreed, and … it is. If you attempt to breed pokémon, you’ll notice that “compatible” pokémon will be nearly inseparable, but those that won’t produce an egg stay as far away from each other as possible. On a level, yes, these preferences are also inherent in every pokémon, but in theory, it’s possible for a male ralts and a jynx to breed. They just don’t because, well, they won’t. —LH

The Ralts Line

As an apology for our delay in both the response to the last question and our entries as a whole, please accept this special, extra entry for the day. Thank you for your patience. —LH

Ralts
The Feeling Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fairy
Official Registration #: 280
Entry: A childlike pokémon native to the quieter forests of Hoenn. Because of its ability to sense the emotions of others, it typically avoids contact with anything that is not of the ralts line and is, therefore, extremely rare and difficult to find. However, because of its timidity, its soft but cute cry, and its eagerness to please others (in order to neutralize any negativity that surrounds it), it is also a popular pokémon among children and young adults … which very likely does absolutely nothing to alleviate ralts’s aversion to drama and high doses of extreme emotion.

Kirlia
The Emotion Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fairy
Official Registration #: 281
Entry: The evolved form of ralts, by battle experience. Although kirlia possesses more mastery over its psychic abilities than its predecessor, it is still prone to being highly affected by the emotions of its trainer. For example, trainers who experience incredible emotions of joy or pride may cause their kirlia to dance with happiness. Trainers suffering through negative emotions will find that their kirlia has become lethargic and depressed. And trainers in the vicinity of other humans they find incredibly attractive will cause their kirlia to ███████

Really, Bill? Really? —LH

Gardevoir
The Embrace Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fairy
Official Registration #: 282
Entry: The evolved form of kirlia, by battle experience. Only the strongest trainers who form the closest, most loving bonds with their kirlia may see their pokémon evolve to their final, natural forms. Thus, a gardevoir is born out of strong feelings of loyalty, so it stands to reason that gardevoir in general are inherently extremely protective of their trainers. This is true; all observable tamed gardevoir have been known to go to extreme lengths to protect their trainers from any potential threat. Unfortunately for most people, “extreme lengths” may include creating a miniature black hole, and “potential threat” may include literally anyone within five feet of their trainers.

Gallade
The Blade Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fighting
Official Registration #: 475
Entry: The evolved form of male kirlia, by exposure to dawn stone. Although its sibling evolution results from the incredible bonds formed between a kirlia and another being, this does not mean gallade do not experience similarly intense urges to protect their trainers and loved ones. If anything, their ability to sense the emotions of potential foes, combined with the drive to battle inherent in all fighting-types and extreme fondness for using the swords hidden in their forearms, make them even more gung-ho about protecting the people and pokémon they value the most. Therefore, trainers should be extremely wary about teaching their gallade to attack only on command, rather than any time they sense danger. Well-meaning researchers who intend to give gallade to sisters with questionable tastes in men, however, are free to teach their pokémon whatever they wish.

They aren’t, but good try. —LH

Hey Bill, I’ve been having some trouble with my Gardevoir recently, as he seems to be very keen on throwing my sister into a wall literally every time she comes within my field of vision. He never had any problems with her before he evolved. Any advice?

Terribly sorry for the delay, anonymous!

Gardevoir are incredibly protective of their trainers. Not only do they possess powerful psychokinetic abilities which they use offensively against any potential threat (as you’ve just found out), but they also possess both precognitive and empathic abilities that allow them to sense danger in the first place. These abilities have technically existed in every member of the ralts line from birth, but they grow stronger with each subsequent evolution, as do gardevoir’s devotion to their trainers.

Thus, how you proceed from here depends entirely on the underlying cause of your gardevoir’s hostility. It could be that your sister has only recently fostered murderous feelings toward you. Alternatively, she could have been planning to murder you all along, and your gardevoir has only been able to sense that after evolution. Either that, or the mere sight of your sister drives you to foster murderous feelings that your gardevoir has begun to pick up on.

If, however, there is no murder involved, it is always prudent for the trainer to explain to their gardevoir that siblings are neither threats nor objects of their jealousy (as some gardevoir do express envy towards people who receive more affection than them from their trainers). Having your sister do something nice for the gardevoir in order to establish a bond between them might help too.

Good luck, anonymous!