#(I’m counting the Proto Beasts and Neo Swords as Paldean even though they’re in the Blueberry Dex instead. They’re only found in Paldea)

[fierykitten2]

I’ve made the unfortunate connection between Megas being available in Kanto in LGPE and Terastalisation being available in a very small part of Unova that isn’t in the Unova games and has no reason to bring the gimmick to the mainland in the SV DLC and my firm belief that they should do both Johto remakes (which will obviously include revisiting Kanto again) and Unova remakes in Gen 10, which combined with how I like to see Kalos and Paldea as a pair (especially with Z-A coming out in the same generation as SV) gives me the unfortunate idea of bringing elitism to Johto but on the plus side, sparkly crystals for everyone in Unova!

[fierykitten2]

(Tried making this post a different way but it felt like I got too needlessly hot-headed about any chance of any Paldean Pokémon being in Z-A) Passionfruit and Apple, photobombing photos of the trio I want for the Z-A starter trio isn’t going to magically grant you access to [insert time period here] Kalos, even though in this situation they are absolutely getting regional variants at least just to be fair given Blaziken already has a Mega (also I think the current general theory is regional variants of a mix-and-match starter trio plus Kalos starters with Megas and I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be too mad at us just getting the Kalos starters either. I chose both of my top 2 favourite starters his gen (Meowscarada and Quaquaval) so let me choose my third-favourite too (Delphox). That would be fun. Especially given I like to count Wake and Leaves as Mythicals so in Violet I’d have my favourite starter (Spriggie the Meowscarada) and favourite Mythical (Cherry the Iron Leaves), in Scarlet I have my second favourite starter (Quax the Quaquaval) and second favourite Mythical (Blueberry the Walking Wake) and then in Z-A I could complete the trios by having my third favourite starter (Delphox, which I think I’d call Fennec, to match the one I have in GO that follows the same name scheme as the Quaxwell and Meowscarada I have in GO who share names with my starters in Scarlet and Violet respectively) and my third favourite Mythical (Zeraora. I don’t think I’m keeping up the fruit name scheme I’ve been using for the Proto Beasts and Neo Swords I’m happy to just call it Zera))

But I think it’s a pretty good choice of starter trio (and not just because I love them all):

Meganium is pretty and can represent Kalos’s beauty theme, now with flowers. I guess it would also benefit from having a secondary type (although that doesn’t stop people from loving Sceptile, something I clearly didn’t realise until I saw someone on idk maybe Reddit say that Grass-type Starters would be more popular if Meganium and Sceptile swapped trios) but this was more supposed to be why I think individually each starter I chose has a pretty decent chance of being in Z-A if we get a mix-and-match starter trio (not that one of them being in the trio makes the other two any less likely but I’d be surprised if I somehow managed to get every single starter for Z-A right just because I was biased when I picked these)

Blaziken got its Mega early in X and Y even though the other Hoenn Starters had to wait until ORAS plus it can reference the remakes like how PLA had Cyndaquil. Just generally I think it would be a missed opportunity to forget about it

Inteleon represents last generation to match how PLA had Rowlet

Also why is it the most common pairing of a Proto Beast with any Neo Sword they’re not counterparts with is Fire and Crown? At one point I even thought the two of them were the most likely members of their trios to join UNITE. Plus my headcanons that the shiny Proto Beasts and shiny Neo Swords have different personalities to their non-shiny instances (I guess I’ve decided that there’s only two of each of them: a shiny and a non-shiny) has led to the two of them being the closest to their shiny counterparts personality-wise (and I realised in general Fire seems to be the most feral out of the six of them and Crown seems to be the most stoic out of the six of them because while their counterparts from the other trio have similar personalities to them, Boulder is more scheming and Bolt is more grumpy (it’s called Raging Bolt for a reason))

[fierykitten2]

I still firmly believe we won’t be getting any Paldean Pokémon in the base game of Z-A (probably not even Kingambit or Annihilape but that’s fine, they wouldn’t have been included if it was a remake anyway. I’m not gonna mention Farigiraf or Dudunsparce because I just think a Kalos game can forget about Girafarig and Dunsparce and no one would notice apart from their biggest fans anyway. They’re just not particularly memorable or relevant unlike the Mankey and Pawniard lines. That’s just my opinion though I could be wrong. I stand by my belief that Mythicals aren’t inherently less memorable than random wild Pokémon by default and it honestly depends on how much you remember each Pokémon. I will agree that Volcanion and Zarude are forgettable though. I thought maybe giving Hoopa and Volcanion Megas to match Diancie would make Volcanion more memorable but in practice it would probably just make Diancie more forgettable given its status as both the only Mythical that can Mega Evolve and the only Kalos Pokémon that can Mega Evolve is kinda what makes it interesting aside from its cool crystalline design. I went on a bit of a tangent here oops) but I think if we get DLC (specifically paid DLC. A random update like the Daybreak Update doesn’t count it has to be SwSh Expansion Pass/Hidden Treasure Of Area Zero style) then we could probably get a few Paldean Pokémon, even some that don’t have any specific reason to break the “No Pokémon introduced in a later Gen than the region itself without a cross-Gen evo or new special treatment” rule. I think the only Paldean Pokémon I can really see arriving in DLC though are Annihilape, Kingambit, Walking Wake, Iron Leaves, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt, Iron Boulder and Iron Crown (wow I actually learnt that Boulder comes after Bolt in National Dex order (joke)), the former two because they’re cross-Gen evos of Pokémon very likely to appear (Bryony has a Bisharp. Mankey and Primape just feel like they’re gonna appear) and the latter six because a) they’re basically Legendaries and Mythicals and b) it’s my post I get to be biased if I want. I’m restating the Wild Zone News idea here (which is probably more based on Poké Portal News than Wild Area News but I’ve played both Scarlet and Violet and haven’t played Sword or Shield) and think it would be fun to have some kind of events (plural because I don’t want them to make you pick one. It’s an easy decision for me but just because I choose the Neo Swords over the Proto Beasts doesn’t mean I don’t want the Proto Beasts too. Let me have my cool robots and my cool dinosaurs) where the Proto Beasts battle you in triple battle format and the Neo Swords battle you in rotation battle format. Not quite sure how that would work with Z-A’s battle format but I want triple and rotation battles back and think it would be cool if the Proto Beasts used triple battles while the Neo Swords used rotation battles. Oh yeah and it would be cool if Hoopa isekaied the shinies instead of Terapagos isekaiing the non-shinies. And if you need an excuse to include them then the imaginary fusions would make great Lati@s-style Megas (just maybe make them look a little closer to the Proto Beasts/Neo Swords than the Legendary Beasts/Swords of Justice)

Also just in general I want to say it would be fun if the Proto Beasts and Neo Swords get more Legendary Pokémon treatment than the rest of the Paradox Pokémon other than Koraidon and Miraidon (eg appearing in each main paired game’s DLC in the catching Legendaries sidequest and just generally being around in more games. If the UBs have taught me anything it’s that the Paradox Pokémon will be back next game and then mysteriously disappear from the core series for an undetermined amount of time). Though I do still think Wake and Leaves should be classified as Mythical