How often are starter pokemon given out? I assume when the professor runs out you cant just try again tomorrow. Is it like every month? Also, do they carry more of each type every time or is it strictly limited to one of each (like 3 bulbsaur, 3 charmander, 3 squirtle?)

It often depends on the source. Some sources give them out all year long, with new starters available nearly daily. These are sources who give out more common pokémon that are easily obtainable throughout a given region.

However, professors are special cases, as regional ones often give out a set of three starters (one grass, one fire, and one water) designated as “official starters” by the Pokémon Association. These may only be given out once a month, largely because it takes time for a breeder to obtain and hatch eggs of each species, as well as ensure that each hatchling is suitable for battle.

In rare cases, a professor may give out something other than their usual three starters, but usually, these are fantastically unusual circumstances. For example, Professor Oak once gave a boy from Pallet Town a pikachu that was extracted from someone’s home and scheduled to be released into Viridian Forest, but due to the rather … unique case of the boy, it was given to him as a starter instead.

How many nights can you stay at the Pokémon center? Do they kick you out after a certain period of time? Do they feed trainers? Can you have your Pokémon out within rooms? Do they have accommodations for larger Pokémon? Or Pokémon with health issues? Do they have beds designed for specific Pokémon?

All excellent questions!

To answer in order:

You can stay at a pokémon center up to a week. Because the free accommodations are for trainers, the clientele usually moves on after that period unless their pokémon are in need of more longterm care. If your pokémon are healthy, then yes, they will ask you to move on, but if you have a pokémon that isn’t yet healthy enough to continue on its journey with you, then you’re free to stay as long as you’d like. However, it’s also worth it to note that trainer culture is structured in a way that makes staying in one place a rather stigmatized concept. Most trainers don’t want to stay for longer than a week, which in turn means most Nurse Joys will sympathize with you if something prevents you from leaving. Many even give you the option of helping out around the center to earn your keep, as it were.

Additionally, you can only stay at a pokémon center if you’re a trainer. Anyone else, even researchers, are required to find other accommodations, even if their business in town is with the pokémon center.

Meals are complimentary to trainers (only) as well, but you only get two of them a day: breakfast and dinner. The cafeteria is open all day long for snacks and boxed lunches, of course, but beyond those the aforementioned two meals a day (or if you’re not a trainer), everything else requires you to pay.

Smaller pokémon—that is to say, pokémon that are no bigger than the average human—are allowed out in your room, but keep in mind the rooms are only as large as the average college dorm room. Most trainers prefer to keep their pokémon in their poké balls for this reason.

There are temporary outdoor accommodations for larger healthy pokémon such as courtyards, but because centers typically take up a finite amount of space and because of the high amount of trainers in the area, it’s highly recommended that you keep your pokémon in their poké balls unless you’re present to watch over them. Usually, you can let them out for feeding and exercise via training during the day, so it’s never really any trouble for a pokémon to stay in their devices for such a long period of time.

As for pokémon with immediate health problems (including larger pokémon), they usually stay in the clinic. The clinics take up most of a pokémon center’s grounds and interior space, and as such, there are plenty of beds for all pokémon, from the smallest to the largest. Pokémon may use these beds for as long as they need to heal.

For longer-term health issues such as pokémon diabetes, these pokémon usually stay with their trainers at all times. If the pokémon is on the larger side (such as a snorlax), then they’re typically kept in their poké balls until their trainers can use the courtyard or surrounding area for their daily care. If a pokémon has a condition that would require constant care, then these pokémon are likely not on trainer’s journeys anyway, and if they ever visit a pokémon center, it’s purely to use the clinic.

As for beds designed for specific pokémon, unfortunately, no. This is because having beds for each specific pokémon would take up far too much space, so instead, the beds are typically generic and capable of handling most pokémon that are human-sized or smaller. Larger pokémon are handled in larger observation rooms, on mats designed to handle heavy pokémon, if they aren’t simply treated in an outdoor space separate from the general courtyard.

Hi Bill! I’ve been reading through your posts on hear and feel like I’ve learned a lot but I have to say, I’m starting to worry about some of my dark types. From what you’ve been saying, most dark types are kinda nasty but all of mine are massive softies. The only time I’ve ever seen them violent or aggressive was when they thought me or my family were being threatened. Do I have to worry about them hiding something or is this sort of thing normal?

LH here, anonymous.

Normally, I let Bill answer these questions himself, but because of reasons that involve my partner’s inability to not scare readers, he’s currently distracted … by another episode of Binaclebob Trapezoidpants.

That said, don’t worry, anonymous. Most of Bill’s pokédex entries are written tongue-in-cheek and refer to either each species’ official entry in the National Dex (which are often themselves referring to wild pokémon only) or his own experiences with these pokémon (which are often harrowing because my partner is a wonderful researcher when it comes to fieldwork—this is, after all, the same man who thought grabbing a honedge by the hilt because “that old wives’ tale about honedge possession can’t possibly be real” was a brilliant idea).

Actual, tamed dark-types are surprisingly more loyal and sweet than most other pokémon. This is because in the wild, dark-types rely on their abilities to sneak or to gang up on other pokémon to survive, either because they’re not actually that strong on their own or because other pokémon would do the same to them. For that reason, they’ve garnered the reputation of being vicious, but actually, when they feel safe—such as in situations when a human is taking care of all their needs—they lose their need to be vicious and adopt more friendly and open personalities. Of course, some pokémon, such as houndoom, will always be aloof in comparison with their non-dark counterparts, but that’s just the way they are. It’s not really any indication of whether or not they’re good, evil, vicious, or friendly.

So really, you don’t have to worry about your own pokémon. They’re most likely every bit the massive softies they seem to be on the surface.

Honestly, though, it’s probably fairy-types if anything that you’d have to worry about. Those know how to use their cuteness to get what they want, but honestly, that’s not exactly dangerous. Just slightly nefarious, but only insofar as pokémon treats are concerned. And honestly, how can you argue with a face that pink and cute?

How are there still people that thinking keeping pokemon is cruel? Shouldnt the fact that battling increases happiness, and that some pokemon evolve by happiness under our care, be enough to show them that they are clearly fine with it? Pokemon are intelligent enough to let us know how thet feel about the situatin though arent they

They are indeed intelligent enough, anonymous, but it’s unfortunately the capturing part of it that confuses most people. Oftentimes, people who are of this opinion believe that trainers enslave pokémon using poké balls, then essentially treat them as objects to collect. They see the poké ball as the equivalent to chains or a leash, so they’re convinced that pokémon can’t truly voice what they do and do not want in their relationship with humans. Moreover, they see the act of ordering a pokémon what to do (on the battlefield, for example) or treating pokémon as pets as reducing their identities to mere accessories to humans.

As much as I can understand this argument, I still have to disagree with the notion. Frequently, these opinions are founded on a misunderstanding; people often forget that humans and pokémon form a necessary symbiotic relationship and that poké balls are more like houses to pokémon than cages. I suppose it should go without saying (least of all because I’m certain I’ve covered this in an earlier post), but even disobedient pokémon choose to be with us. After all, one only needs to look at pokédex entries to realize that pokémon are not only fully capable of freeing themselves if they wish to, but they’re also fully capable of killing us if we pose a threat to them or their lifestyles.

Still, as I’ve said, I can understand the argument. In many ways, we humans have done quite a bit to harm our environment and encroach on pokémon territory via developing our cities and towns, so it’s easy to see us as an invasive species, in a way. Likewise, to be fair, many pokémon are near sapient or even far more intelligent than humans, so the question of whether or not it’s ethical to keep them and treat them as pets is still a valid one. For those reasons (and because often, it’s difficult to convince someone who holds this opinion that the act of capturing pokémon is not equivalent to enslaving them), I generally feel that it’s necessary to respect the opinions of those who believe training is wrong—so long as they respect the opinions of those who see nothing wrong with training pokémon. This, I admit, is why I was never all that comfortable with that Team Plasma nonsense that went on in Unova not too long ago. It’s one thing to believe pokémon must be free or to share your opinion with others. It’s another thing entirely to impose that view on others by force. Especially if you employ a strong dose of hypocrisy while doing so.

What pokemon would be good for someone with different kinds of OCD?

Unlike other mental conditions, service pokémon associated with OCD are often more physical in nature. That is, whereas someone with depression may need a pokémon with Sweet Scent or a psychic-type to go about their daily tasks, someone with certain types of OCD may need something a bit more tangible—something that can touch them. The reason why is because many of the issues typically related to OCD—repetitive behavior, dermatillomania, and so forth—need immediate intervention and therefore can’t be solved by the less intrusive methods other service pokémon offer. For that reason, oddly enough, the traditional service growlithe and houndour tend to be the most popular, as they’re trained to recognize these behaviors as not being standard for a human (as it were) and can therefore paw at their owners when they happen to interrupt. Eevee are also popular for this, especially given that they evolve into espeon, who can detect the beginning of these behaviors before they happen.

For the less physical symptoms of OCD, such as anxiety and intrusive thoughts, pokémon with Sweet Scent and psychic-types are indeed used as well, as described in my earlier post on them. (Click here to read that, if you wish.) This would be why some people prefer to use espeon, rather than the traditional growlithe or houndour, but others prefer the comfort of a pet-like pokémon over the comfort of the aura projected by a psychic.

Finally, of course, there is also the fact that OCD is often treated with medication, at which point, many patients with OCD prefer a service pokémon that can also remind them of when to take their next dose. Service growlithe can indeed be trained to do this, but other humans may wish to pair their growlithe with a hoothoot trained to hoot certain patterns (often just loud enough to force their partners to act to get them to stop) when their internal clocks “strike” the moment their partners need to take their medication.

As always, it’s best to work with both your doctor and your local service pokémon agency to figure out what you would need out of a service pokémon. Given that OCD describes a number of different symptoms (some of which may not be solved by a pokémon alone), you may need one or more service pokémon trained to do specific tasks, so it’s best to communicate with the agency and your doctor to find out what symptoms would work with your specific case and treatment plan.

So I think a ghost Pokémon is reaching out to my friend. He says whenever he crosses a specific bridge he tastes wheat and peaches in his mouth and the wind blows really fast. What should he do about that Pokémon??

Well, anonymous, the first thing you should do is verify that your friend is encountering a ghost pokémon. It’s entirely possible that the bridge is over a windy area, and your friend just really likes peach-flavored oatmeal.

To determine whether or not this is a haunting, take a pokémon that knows Foresight to the bridge. Have that pokémon scan the area, and if a ghost pokémon appears, have your friend connect with it. If it hasn’t stolen your friend’s soul by now, then it’s likely that it’s not entirely malevolent. If your friend is willing to capture it, encourage him to do so and communicate with it later. If he isn’t willing to catch it, ask it what it wants. It may help to use a psychic-type or another ghost-type to serve as a liaison. Once you figure out why it’s haunting your friend (or the bridge, whichever the case may be), you may be able to figure out what to do from there—or whether or not you should do it.

Additionally, should you have no desire to interact with this ghost as soon as you uncover it, it would be wise to get your friend a cleanse tag to protect him as he crosses the bridge. Either that, or encourage your friend to find an alternate route to avoid the bridge altogether.

If, however, there is no ghost … talk to your friend about his love of peach-flavored oatmeal. There are just far better flavors of oatmeal out there.

Hello Bill, how often do fully aquatic Pokemon such as Seaking and Lumineon come onto land? Can wild fish Pokemon float in the air when they come onto land the way fish Pokemon owned by humans do? I’ve always been curious about how aquatic Pokemon move and battle on land.

Fully aquatic pokémon don’t often come onto land, no, and the reason why is because they don’t often need to. Their nests and primary food sources are in the water, and it’s far easier for them to travel while fully submerged. It just expends far too much energy to come up on land, especially when there’s very little payoff (in that there’s nothing much to eat).

On that note, tamed fish pokémon only “float” by way of a battlefield mod that may be extended by a trainer shortly before the battle. This is what happens if that mod is not applied. That’s also just about what a wild aquatic pokémon would look like when on land—although tamed specimens generally stay in one place and only moved when ordered, whereas wild aquatic pokémon are always hopping about in a frantic attempt to get at whatever they came ashore to obtain before heading back into the water as quickly as they can.

How is it that two dittos cannot breed, two magnemites cannot breed, but a ditto and a magnemite can? The one thing I can think of is that ditto can somehow create ‘clones’ of regular pokemon in an egg and they can reproduce alone so there’s no need to breed with each other. What is your answer?

Actually, ditto can’t breed because they lack reproductive organs in their original forms. Instead, they reproduce via budding, so technically, all ditto are really the exact same organism genetically.

However, ditto do not create clones of regular pokémon, although this is an interesting theory. What actually happens is that a ditto assumes the form of whatever pokémon they choose to mate with, but there’s an asterisk to this concept. It’s true that on the battlefield, ditto become exact copies of their chosen target, but off the battlefield, they can actually assume whatever form they want. (They simply need a visual example in order to create an accurate copy.) What this means is that ditto gain the reproductive organs of whatever pokémon they choose, but they can only do so when transformed. At the same time, while on the battlefield, ditto assume the exact form of the pokémon in front of them because it’s quicker, off the battlefield (such as in a breeding pen), they can sometimes get “creative” by assuming the form of a member of the opposite biological sex. For example, on the battlefield, a ditto may transform into a male charizard because a male charizard is the closest example and thus the quickest thing to turn into, but in the breeding pen, a ditto may attempt to create female charizard reproductive organs instead to coincide with the male’s.

On that note, pokémon such as magnemite or staryu or other so-called genderless pokémon actually employ a wide variety of reproductive methods. After all, they need some level of breeding in order to maintain their wild populations. It’s just that they don’t lay eggs in the wild—or they don’t as we know it.

Take the staryu and starmie, for example. These are actually biologically fascinating pokémon, as they are capable of breeding one of two ways, depending on how stressful of an environment they’re in. The most common method is by fission, or the act of splitting themselves neatly through their core to produce two genetically identical specimens. This tends to be quicker, as it requires no gestation time, and the resulting staryu (the children are always staryu, making this a very rare case of deevolution) are capable of fighting immediately. Unfortunately, as one can guess, this reverts the parent to a heavily weakened state. The process essentially resets its genetic code all the way back to its preevolved form, and the resulting children each need to retrain their bodies to use the most powerful attacks their parent knew. Still, it’s the preferred method because the other method, spawning, requires a gestation period and thus can only be performed in situations wherein the parent staryu or starmie are capable of defending their offspring. To summarize this method, keep in mind that staryu and starmie are actually hermaphroditic, not truly genderless. That is to say, all members of this evolutionary family possess both male and female organs, and when breeding, these organs send out clouds of both eggs and sperm to mix with another staryu or starmie’s eggs and sperm. The resulting dust settles on the ocean floor and begins its slow march towards forming new staryu … assuming no hungry magikarp stop by, anyway.

Meanwhile, voltorb reproduces by electrical sporogenesis. When in contact with either eggs laid by ditto or metal and plastic debris (empty poké balls seem to be preferable), voltorb discharges spores containing a mix of its own genetic material and electrical energy. This fertilizes and jump-starts an egg, but when in contact with debris, it draws the material together via static, melds it together, and animates the resulting object to form a new voltorb specimen.

Then, of course, you have porygon, which simply create their own offspring exactly as you think they would (that is, by copying their code and writing their own young into existence).

Hopefully, you get the idea from there.

Where ditto come in, meanwhile, is quite simple. Oftentimes, asexual reproduction is the more costly method to use, especially for trained pokémon. Imagine, for example, that your beloved starmie, who you’ve trained for years, suddenly split itself into two staryu, and you had to start all over again with two new pokémon. Trainers prevent this by pairing their pokémon off with a mate: ditto. By encouraging them to fertilize eggs ditto creates (by manifesting egg-laying organs that are capable of generating eggs that are compatible with these species, as mentioned above), genderless pokémon may relieve their natural drives to reproduce, thus preventing them from, say, splitting themselves in half to form new entities.

In other words, ditto reproduce by budding, most other “genderless” pokémon employ any of a variety of reproductive methods (that don’t use eggs as we know them), but together, they lay eggs because ditto is mimicking them on a genetic level but conceiving of an egg-laying structure that can produce something for them to fertilize.

Except porygon, anyway. It seems all ditto and porygon do is write code together to create an artificial egg. It’s quite entertaining, actually. They’re far better at quality assurance than I am, and it’s a shame the Pokémon Association won’t let me hire them as actual system administrators.

How do Ghost Type Pokemon breed? Some of them are supposed to be spirits of the dead so how do they make more dead spirits?

Think of them less like ghosts from traditional ghost stories and more like reincarnations, anonymous. While, yes, in some cases, they are spirits inhabiting tangible bodies (shuppet and banette, for example), many more have actual bodies with real organs—including, well, reproductive organs. They’re simply imbued with a spiritual energy and the memories of their most recent lives (as well as, in some cases, the ability to become intangible), so they’re not literally ghosts.

So yes, ghosts simply reproduce the way most other pokémon do. In the cases of shuppet, banette, or any other pokémon possessing a body, they do this by manifesting the organs they need to perform. Putting it another way, the bodies that shuppet and banette inhabit didn’t originally look the way they do as pokémon. Rather, the spirits that control them change them to suit their needs—including reproduction.

Should you be wondering, yes, this also means that pokémon such as yamask or phantump (those that are very clearly spirits of the dead, in other words) are indeed born from eggs that are laid by other spirits of the dead. In truth, these pokémon have … interesting reproductive cycles and social structures. Yamask, for example, hatch from eggs, masks and all. Scientists aren’t quite sure how; there are, after all, plenty of mysteries surrounding this world, including and especially what exactly happens when we die. It’s just known that yamask don’t acknowledge their yamask “parents” as their true parents. In fact, yamask tend to be independent after birth, and while they sometimes congregate into groups, they largely begin taking care of themselves after birth, save for a period in which the parent yamask console the newly reborn and help them embrace their new forms.

Phantump, meanwhile, reproduce two ways. The first occurs exactly how you’re told it occurs: when a child dies in the woods, its spirit possesses a stump and becomes a phantump. However, the other way occurs when phantump in general grow old enough to be trained or mature on a mental level. Once a phantump reaches adulthood (in this body, anyway), it becomes capable of mating. As with shuppet and banette, phantump also have the ability to change their bodies and manifest whatever they need to function so long as they remain, ultimately, spirits in a stump. This includes reproductive organs capable of laying eggs. (It’s thought that phantump choose this method of reproduction because they understand that pokémon lay eggs but might not understand … well, how humans do things.)

In other words, it’s very simple, anonymous. Ghost-types reproduce, by and large, by laying eggs just like those laid by any other type of pokémon. Some ghost-types simply need to take a few extra steps before getting to that point.

Do variant colors in Pokémon like the flebebe line mean anything?

Well, in the flabébé line, it simply indicates what flowers were available for her to choose. Remember, the flower is not actually part of flabébé’s (or floette’s) body; rather, she picks one that resonates with her and carries that with her throughout her life. It’s just that for such a tiny pokémon as flabébé, sometimes only red flowers, orange flowers, or so forth are within her reach. If she’s from a field with multiple types of flowers, however, then the blossom is definitely a specimen she feels the most drawn to.

When it comes to other color variations, however, it’s largely environmental. For example, shellos from the eastern part of Sinnoh are blue, whereas shellos from the western part are pink. This is because the waters of the eastern half of Sinnoh are mostly clear and blue (making it harder to spot shellos as it travels across the ocean bottom), whereas there are pink corals located in the western half (meaning shellos blends in with its environment far more easily if it’s pink). Alolan pokémon are generally the same way in that most of them take on different forms or colors because these alternative forms provide some kind of adaptive advantage to them.

Alternatively, as with vivillon or Alolan exeggutor (to name a couple), the environment triggers biochemical changes in the subject that results in variations of form or color. For example, the reason why the “icy snow” variation of vivillon is monochrome is because that particular vivillon was raised in a colder climate, where days are far shorter. As a result, it isn’t able to develop the pigmentation it needs to take on bright colors. By contrast, the “ocean” variation is brightly colored because it was hatched and raised in a particularly warm, sunny place. Meanwhile, the “ocean” variation and the “archipelago” variation come from similar climates, but due to differing food sources, they have vastly different colorations. Granted, it should also be noted that taking an ocean vivillon’s egg from its home region, hatching it elsewhere, and raising the resulting scatterbug in a region with a completely different climate will still result in an ocean vivillon, but this is because the form difference is genetic. The same would happen if you took the egg from Alolan pokémon and hatched it outside of Alola or took an egg from a western shellos and hatched it in East Sinnoh.

In short, when it’s not simply due to a pokémon’s conscious decision, differing colors (and forms) within a species usually indicate adaptations to vastly different environments. It’s very much like how humans may look vastly different from one another because all of us were descended from vastly different populations in vastly different environments.