boyfrillish

Amazing choices all around! I absolutely agree about N, and I appreciate that you picked the artwork from B2W2 because his smile is everything 😭 I'm fond of Bugsy, and I enjoyed how Brassius and Burgh got to interact in the recent Pokémon Masters EX event! Jacinthe was so funny in L:Z-A and for me too, Corbeau was immediately a new favourite! I have yet to play the DLC but it's gonna be fun to see more of them I really really love about Pokémon how "everyone is someone's favourite" can apply to both the critters and the humans with how wide a range the cast has 😺

There are many characters all across the franchise, from the games to anime and other media, from player characters to battle facility bosses, but the question is — who's your favourite? For me, my main focus lies with the male player characters and rivals. They're all beloved to me in their own ways, but above all, my favourites are Nate and Hugh, who have been big comfort characters for me since 2013/14 and everything loops back to them, they're everything to me and I could gush forever and flail and cry. Close second being Victor and Hop, who kind of rewired my brain chemistry when I played Sword for the first time exactly 3 years ago 😹 As so often though, I have so many other characters I love a ton that I can't list them all here (and sometimes only remember in context 😹) but shoutout to N and Colress, who are. blorbos. I'm curious to hear your answers! 😸

That's a good question — feels like it just kind of happened 😹 I guess I'd say it's a mix of the aesthetic and how rare/hard to get they were (so thankful for the eventual QoL feature that you actually get multiple when buying multiples of 10 & bulk buying)

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF THEM. Special shoutout to the premier ball that I have been attached to since forever (and I love the Poké Ball Boutique for letting me buy them and still get the freebies on top), but yes — I just love Poké Balls of all types as a whole! I wouldn't know how to pick a singular one and only favourite, as with so many things 😹

I haven't made any order yet, but sadly I agree with you about Pikachu's face... Lego Eevee looks cute and is also not as expensive. My big gripe personally is the badge set not being sold separate :') but yes, here's to hoping for more varied 'mons in the future!

I wish the badge set was available separately (and not totally expensive) 😔 would love for each region too... (I've wanted to have irl badges merch in some shape for forever)

I used to give nicknames a lot more freely (or so it feels) when I was younger, sadly in recent years the brainfog and stuff got really strong so halfway through Sword I made use of the setting for turning off nicknames (though I already felt like I draw a blank every time I tried to nickname a Pokémon in UltraMoon)... but I'll go on a bit of a ramble to come up with an answer (it is a trend that I cannot come up with a One Clear Answer because so many things go and I have trouble deciding and a lot is moods and vibes lol I hope this is okay 😅) For example, in my teens I was super interested in chemistry and history as two favourite subjects in school (and later also Latin, though languages in general are my stronger suite lol) so I'd use chemical elements or names based from ancient greek/roman gods etc/historical figures. Most prominent example I can think of is how in Gen4 I would nickname my Ghosts after noble gases (and I always needed to have at the very least one Ghost on my team in every game) I also started using names based on other fandoms I was into at the time, and eventually started using more "normal" names too and sometimes just random words or terms of affection ... and there's a few clear trends for very specific mons that would repeat every time, for example: Kiwi for a male Espurr named after a beloved cat I used to have, Pika when I had a Pikachu on my team (though in Moon, I chose that nickname for Mimikyu because I thought it was funny and I already had my Alolan Raichu named Sweetie ... I reversed it in UltraMoon because when I came back to finish Moon after years, I kept confusing myself lmao) and at some point I decided to change my Skeledirge's nickname to Croco City (a reference to Owl City) after I'd went the whole game & DLCs of Violet without any nicknames. PLZA the only nickname I actually gave at this point is Obelix for my Emboar (which got a giggle out of me when I had him on the first spot and Team MZ referenced him by nickname) I have no idea if any of these even count as "original" nicknames and I really wouldn't know how to pick one as "most original" 😅 still though, the question had me thinking about the topic and I really hope that eventually my brain's less foggy again so I can get wild again with nicknames. But for now I'll stop the wordy tangent lol

Happy Holidays and a wonderful rest of the year & year ahead! 🌠

My memory is hazy, so the best I can remember now for earlier in life would be vague things like my siblings letting me play on their consoles until I finally had my own gameboy colour complete with yellow, or later when i was again behind after the generation change to GBA, my brother helped me emulate ruby on my PC and also let me train up his pokemon in Sapphire to level 100 by grinding the league rematches lol and maybe my utter hyperfixation with crystal counts (i replayed it so many times over) my teens were... not the best time, and pokémon was one of the good things I had, but also, similar to what others told, I was a trans boy without the tools to know it, so I couldn't enjoy Gen 4/specifically Diamond and Platinum to the fullest. I did get to visit one official event though, the shaymin distribution because one of the cities it stopped at was where my sister lived at the time. so I got to make a train trip alone to visit for the weekend, we went to the event together and had a fun time but I also had to study for a chemistry test the next week LOL generation 5 again was when I fell behind for about 2 years, and in hindsight it's probably for the best because when I bought myself copies of Black and Black 2 along with a 3ds, I could finally allow myself to play as a boy again, and things clicked into place from there (ironically when I didn't play as Nate lol I still regret that I didn't start a replay back then, especially with the imminent end of online play). I've been happily playing as the male protagonist ever since (except when choosing deliberately like sometimes in XY replays when I wanted to see Calem as the rival ... PLZA not counting, since the open customisation lets me still appear like the boy albeit with mismatched pronouns) and my inner teen could find comfort with BDSP so, while I technically don't have a "most cherished pokemon memory", mostly vibes, the games were extremely formative for me on the personal level so it still fits the theme I'd say ^_^;

I think I've seen others who didn't realise the rivals were genderlocked XD choose wasn't maybe the right word to use in my initial post haha I was disappointed that you can't actually "choose" them, only by deciding which player character you play as. I immediately loved Urbain's design when the protagonists and rivals were revealed and knew he was lining right up with my other favourite rivals personality wise and, well, I am also a shipper at heart 😅 but the freerange customisation really makes up for it since it lets you style the female protagonist to look like the male (like I did) and vice versa

I have to agree with you both about the missing options to choose a different hair style or even just a different fringe in the character selection screen (and a personal gripe for me, that you can't select eyelashes just for the bottom lid separately, like you can do in SV) 🥲 though it wouldn't be as bad if we were allowed to access the salon sooner. I always play as the male protagonist, but I also wanted to choose Urbain (in fact, not having him in my initial game was a big reason for restarting before even completing the whole postgame + all side quests) so it was a bit off for me in the beginning because of that. But the complete removal of genderlocked customisation really is a a blessing not just so that I could have Urbain while still being Paxton, but also it's just really nice to have! (I really wished I could've dressed Victor in knit jackets back in SwSh lol) I don't have screenshots on my computer so copypasting from my bluesky was the quickest I can do right now, and I guess I pretty much didn't yet post anything from earlier in the story there LOL so I hope this works I may share more thoughts another time too haha

Hopefully they will ship to you in the new year! 🙏 I haven't even had a chance to order yet, but I still can't believe they really made the online Pokémon Center available here... I'd been wishing for so long for shipping to EU addresses

For me, it was Tepig, both in my first playthrough and in my current replay and I'm pretty sure every future replay <3 before release, I was torn a bit thinking maybe Totodile instead... but in the end, my heart had decided the moment Tepig was there. He's best boy and so is the whole evolution family 😭 I love Mega Emboar too

All this years, I've been waiting and hoping for a Ghost-type Eeveelution 😭 I also second the other suggestions (a bug Eevee could be super cute and we're really missing the dragon to form a duo with Sylveon...), just any new evolution to add to the family would be so loved. I just have a big love for the Ghost-type (with my other two most favourites, Water and Fairy, already present) so I would be especially excited for it

For the longest part of my life pretty much all I ever played was Pokémon, so I feel the line about Nintendo consoles being Pokémon machines 😅 I'm not very good at most games, especially real time combat/action things and the like (so I had a lot of anxiety going into the Legends games, but lucky for me, they're still Pokémon!) I did play Animal Crossing New Leaf, Fire Emblem Awakening (and Bravely Default & Second if it counts?) on the 3ds though, and Fire Emblem Engage on the switch (I really need to finish one of these days ... it's been over a year because I got overwhelmed catching up to every emblem paralogue ever instead of doing them as they unlocked in the story lol) — absolutely loved all of them! I also have fondness by proxy for Mario games because I watched my siblings play and played Mario Kart together with family; plus having friends who love all things Mario.