#all this for my ribbons... my shiny luxray needs to have them all ^^

[hearthomelesbian]

theyre executing me today due to my misunderstanding of pokemon breeding mechanics in gen 4 causing me to waste 3 days of my real life time hatching a dozen eggs and evolving 4 different baby pokemon that i didnt need to instead of just getting a smeargle to sketch both moves and then breeding it w a clefairy

[nervocat]

rambling abt my mons from legends arceus to just do smth

there's my starter cyn-dy, a typhlosion. she likes to mess w me sometimes but also likes to stay by my side to kind of protect me. she's independent tho so she sometimes goes off to do things in her own but never goes too far away from me incase smth happens. after battles she looks to me for praise and it's smth I find silly abt her. very prideful

then there's my shiny rapidash. she's been with me for pretty much as long as cyn-dy. she likes to stay by my side even more than cyn-dy does and just give quiet affection like little head bumps etc. I love her a lot. sometimes she makes me run w her for fun but she just likes to be around me to get attention

luxury is my luxray. she's been w me for a while too. she was a small shinx. she does impulsive things sometimes but never gets hurt, she's very strong. she helped combat my water weakness when I needed it. she likes to lay in the sun and when I hang out w her, she likes so lick me as if to clean me, though I have to stop her after a few licks bc her tongue is too rough for my skin so it hurts after a bit

staraptor. it didn't stay in my active battle team for long, but I still rlly like to hang out w it when I can. I preen staraptor occasionally when it needs it. It hangs out w luxury and bibarel when I'm not around bc I caught them all together as a shinx, bidoof and a starly, so they're all closer w each other than the other mons

my shiny bibarel. had it since it was a bidoof as previously mentioned. I caught it right after I accidentally didn't get a shiny drifloon. It actually did a lot for me in battles, I just took it out bc I had others I wanted in the team, but still love bibarel and sometimes take naps w it and luxury and staraptor when I'm able

driftblim. helped me through earlier battles and is a little mischievous. likes to just be chill tho and not mess around to much, just blowing some wind at me and my mons. hangs out w bibarel a lot too and my other ghost types

arcanine. hangs out w kae-kae and ninetails a lot. he sits behind me when I'm grooming the two as if standing guard of us. He's got this older-brother role it seems w the two. he was a growlithe for a while and got rlly excited to see that I finally managed to find another firestone for him. ninetails got to evolve first, able to be more of a protector, but now that he's an arcanine, he seems to have taken over that role. ninetails seems to like that he did

kae-kae my alolan vulpix I got from someone from alola. they're calling keakea there or smth like that so I named her after that. she likes to follow me around wherever w ninetails and sometimes likes to cuddle up in ninetails tails. she rlly wants to be a ninetails, I can tell, but I don't have an ice stone yet to evolve her. she's a very sweet mon.

ninetails. best friends w kae-kae. ninetails likes to rest its head on my lap w kae-kae. also very sweet. It lets me ruffle it's fur up just a bit and then fix I again. I sometimes brush its fur and switch between it and kae-kae. also very warm which kae-kae either loves or hates, I can't rlly tell

overqwil. very nice despite her mean look. I have to be careful of her huge spikes, but she seems to know that and is also careful around me and other mons. was a very useful team member when I had her in my team and was hesitant to take her out of it. she didn't mine tho, and likes to hang out w the other water mons I've caught

floppy my sylveon. she's selectively vocal. very vocal around me when alone, quiet when other ppl or mons around. very close w my vaporeon and super helpful and seog in battle. when were just walking around she lets me hold a ribbon of hers. I named her floppy bc when she was an eevee, she had a lopsided ear (she still does as a sylveon, it's very cute, and the tip of her ear is folded over a little bit)

vaporeon. my saving grace in battles. I love him dearly, very vocal. I like to cup his face and squish him, and he likes it. he closes his eyes in what seem like bliss and makes little happy noises. very fierce in battles, he put his all into them and it's smth I rlly like abt him

jolteon. likes to run a lot. admittedly, I still have to bond w it, but it doesn't seem to hate me at all and just had neutral feelings towards me

palkia and dialga. the sibling-like dynamic they have going is funny to watch. dialga is the sassier one of the two and palkia is the more careful one. they both like me tho, and like to hang out w me and battle w me and are maybe a little too protective of me.. (it's like the one thing they can agree on) I'm working on it w them

mespirit, azzy the azelf, and uxie. I haven't rlly bonded w them, but they don't seem to mind. they watch everything from a distance usually

heatran, creselia, regigigas. I haven't rlly bonded w them yet either. I'm getting there slowly

[sunsetzer]

Right now Edgar and Setzer's endgame teams look like this (I had abundant shinies from pokemon go and other games so I gave them shinies). I limited myself to one eeveelution per team because I wanted some diversity. Setzer in particular has a team deliberately comprised almost of all shinies, except for Meowscarada because he's not shallow enough to breed a shiny sprigatito and abandon his starter. Under a cut because this is kinda long.

Ed:

Quaquaval - I figured a desert king would choose a water starter logically. It's practical and as a bonus quaquaval just has this extra, flirty, bi energy I associate with Edgar.

Sylveon - His sylveon is shiny, actually. Sylveon's colours, frilly ribbon aesthetic, and empathetic nature just fit him really well I think. He'd get along well with a sylveon.

Armarouge - Ceruledge might be the violet exclusive, but armarouge just fit him better. I picture him catching a charcadet and being quite fond of the cute little dude, and then eventually figuring out it needs a special item to evolve and manages to get his hands on the auspicious armor instead.

Luxray - Also a shiny! Luxray, being a lion, just has a regal energy to it. Also having an electric type would be great for his tinkering hobby, it could give his inventions a zap to get them working.

Dragapult - It launches two baby dreepy at high speeds at its foes. You know what launches two projectiles simultaneously at high speeds at his foes? The auto crossbow. His dragapult is the pokemon equivalent of the auto crossbow.

Noivern - It's a wyvern that attacks with loud sounds, like his noise blaster! Except actually effective at causing damage and not just... really loud.

Additional pokemon:

Arcanine (a shiny, it reminds him of Sabin so he's very fond of it)

Coalossal (another shiny, it's the first one he found himself and he's proud of it)

Lucario (also reminds him of Sabin, plus he needed a fighting and a steel type for coverage in certain scenarios)

Clodsire (one of the first pokemon he caught, it's just a little guy, a dude, a friend shaped poisonous fish, and he loves it)

Zangoose (this is also shiny, Edgar's main goal is to actually Catch 'Em All, and zangoose can learn false swipe)

Leafeon (when he needs a grass type, he goes for the little grass cat/fox, because he just likes it very much, and he's valid)

---

Setz:

Meowscarada - Setzer and his Meowscarada are kindred spirits. Its flashy, guaranteed crit move Flower Trick is so very much like his weirdly consistent good luck. It's the only pokemon on his team that isn't shiny, because it was his starter and he's loyal.

Vaporeon - It's shiny, and he's very fond of his adorable purple mermaid cat. His vaporeon has a habit of liquifying itself and popping up out of nowhere to startle friends. He scolds him but really he thinks it's hilarious.

Delphox - He was drawn visually to the shiny fennekin that was gifted to him by a mysterious boy known as "Auto" (my main violet character haha) and actually had no idea what its evolutions looked like. He also wasn't aware of the psychic/fire typing, but he really likes it.

Hisuian Zoroark - Setzer loves to have unique and interesting pokemon. What better pokemon for that than the only known normal/ghost type in the world? Plus, his is also purple instead of red, so it's extra special.

Corviknight - He loves his big shiny silver metal bird very much. He especially loves that she's big enough to carry him across the skies, as long as they're careful to avoid places where tinkatuff congregate.

Frosmoth - Setzer was not expecting to have any bug types on his team, but the snom he found delighted him with its adorable little face. When it evolved, he was stunned by its shimmering icy wings, and it remained a permanent member of his party.

Additional pokemon he swaps in:

Gardevoir - For situations where he needs a fairy type, he has a gardevoir. She's elegant and powerful and he loves her.

Pyroar - He found a shiny litleo and although he had a fire type already, sometimes the fire/normal typing comes in very handy.

Lycanroc - He knew he wanted a rock type on his team, but which one? The decision was made for him when he was gifted a shiny rockruff by another mysterious boy, Amias. It evolved during the day, into a stalwart companion. Unfortunately, Nemona also has a midday form lycanroc, and although Setzer's is blue and therefore different, it's not different enough for his liking (he can't share a thing with anyone ever, obviously, except for Penny and her eevees because he's very attached to his vaporeon). He still gives his lycanroc lots of attention and had it with him for taking on Grusha, though.

I tried to pick pokemon that either reminded me of their abilities or had their energy, also wanted at least one flying type on Setzer's team and one steel type for Edgar but I can't figure out which one he'd use, partially because there's not a lot of steel types available in gen 9 I personally like lmao. If I could I'd give him a metagross or an empoleon, but alas. I did consider tinkaton but he has sylveon already as his fairy type so I'm???

[kafus]

please let me introduce you to NeverHappy, my most beloved pokemon ever.

i found her as a budew on someone else’s save file after buying a used copy of pokemon platinum. the name “NeverHappy” was a pretty obvious joke about how budew evolves from happiness, and since the previous owner was going to keep her in a box forever, never use her, and never evolve her, she would never be happy. this activated some feral response in my brain and i decided no. she WOULD be happy. i was still replaying through all my old gen 4 games at the time but i traded her off to my other gen 4 files for safekeeping until i could do stuff with her.

oh trust me game. i would.

so you might have thought my plans were to simply evolve her and beat the game with her, get her to level 100, maybe even EV train her - but i had much bigger plans. i was going to ribbon master her. the ribbon master challenge, or the process of “ribbon mastering” a pokemon, is getting every single ribbon possible on a pokemon from the game it was caught in to the most recent game it can be transferred to. if you weren’t aware, that’s a LOT of ribbons. there are 40 in gen 4 alone. i had a lot to do.

(the above clean screenshot was taken by backing up my cartridge save and screenshotting a battle video in emulator. however, i did all of this on my actual DS! i don’t like playing on emulator. not as fun)

i had to beat every contest (normal-master rank in all 5 categories) and do a bunch of other random stuff but my favorite part of the process was defeating the battle tower... 6 times. the battle frontier contains the most challenging battles in gen 4 by far, as opponents have good stats and competitive movesets. there’s 6 battle tower ribbons in gen 4 - two for singles at different points in the win streak, one for doubles, one for multis /w NPCs, one for multis /w another player (i just played with myself on two dses), and one for ranking up in the wi-fi room, which is now accessible again due to fan servers restoring internet functionality for gens 4 and 5.

NeverHappy was randomly caught in the wild and did not have a competitive nature or stats, so i figured that she would just be tagging along in the back while i took out all the win streaks with 2 good pokemon, but she ended up clutching out wins in times of dire need... multiple times. she even ended up being necessary in the wi-fi room to stall out prevalent hacked pokemon like no guard sheer cold machamp, which hits 1 hit KO moves every time, with a gimmicky and convoluted leech seed + substitute strategy.

i could go into all of my team members and the excessive lengths i went to get them all (don’t even get me started on my shiny competitive latias from pokemon emerald) but that’s a story for another day.

by the end of gen 4 i was extremely emotionally attached and she was already becoming one of my favorite pokemon, now with 40 whole ribbons after days and weeks of effort.

i have ribbon mastered pokemon before, so all of my save files in gens 6, 7, and 8 were already set up to transfer neverhappy into and grab all of the ribbons. i had a lot more battling and little tasks ahead of me. it’s really cool how ribbon mastering forces you to interact with pretty much every feature of every pokemon game.

and so i transferred her! gen 5 doesn’t have any ribbons, so it was just an intermediary to transfer into gen 6. at this point, i had also acquired a shiny luxray from pokeradar chaining in platinum named Nightlight, and i was ribbon mastering them together, but once again, a story for another day.

first into gen 6... getting the super training ribbon was really annoying but the battle maison was pretty easy. i had a team in multis with terrakion and a whimsicott with beat up that could 1 hit KO all of the boss battle’s legendaries in one hit LOL

then gen 7... this one went by pretty quickly but i opted to get the best friends ribbon here instead of in XY or ORAS because it was really simple to get with rainbow pokebeans, since all you have to do is max out affection and it only takes a couple rainbow beans to do that in USUM.

and gen 8! you can see nightlight to the left in this picture. by far the hardest part of gen 8 was getting the ribbon awarded for winning a battle in master rank in online VGC against other players. i definitely had to grind that one for a while.

then, she even got an award in BDSP for being a pokemon originating from the original diamond/pearl/platinum games, which was really cool.

oh, and since i had cloned neverhappy back in gen 4 with a glitch so that i would always have a copy of her in her origin games, i was able to take this neat picture! how the times have changed LMAO

luckily she was even a part of PLA’s roster and i was able to take a picture with her there, too... which actually might end up being important since there’s an invisible flag somewhere in the game’s code that gets turned on when you take a picture with your pokemon in the photo studio, which could potentially become a ribbon in the future in another game.

so, trainer Platina from 2016, you were wrong! NeverHappy is in fact happy now and has done more than most people’s pokemon have seen in their entire lifetime. she is my most cherished pokemon and i love her more than i love myself. i think i would die for her

i abbreviated this story a lot because i didn’t want to make this post longer than it already was but i was randomly inspired to talk about this today since SV is coming out soon and there will be more ribbons to collect for any of my ribbon masters that can be transferred into SV, which got me thinking about her. my journey with ribbon mastering has taught me more about pokemon games than any normal person should ever know and if you were interested in any details i left out or how i accomplished certain ribbons (including battle frontier strategies) feel free to shoot me an ask! :D i love talking about pokemon at any time any day of the week.

[aservantnamedketchup]

so I was playing Alpha Sapphire and I decided that I wanted to find out how much the ribbons at that ribbon shop cost. To get 1 of each ribbon for 6 Pokemon would cost 6,659,994 pokedollars. I'm re-creating my Platinum mono-electric team as shinies in Alpha Sapphire, and so far have 4 of them. I bought 4 of the cheapest ribbons, so I just need 6,619,994 to get the rest of the ribbons. (1/?)

(2) I then battled the E4 with the amulet coin and got roughly 125,000. So I ran the numbers, and I would have to beat them 52.9 times to get to that 6,619,994 I need for those ribbons on this team, so about 53 times. I need to go beat up the Hoenn E4 53 times and take over 6 million from them, all for these ribbons. The gorgeous ribbon is 10,000. The Royal ribbon is 100,000. The gorgeous royal ribbon is 999,999. again, I'm 2 shinies away from the full team. Save me.

(3?) in other news I finally got a shiny Shinx after looking for 4 years! I had played Platinum with a mono-electric team while taking a break from that hunt, with a Luxray. It took 4 years of on and off hunting, and now I have 3 beautiful Luxray. And I am happy. Not happy that my Masuda + Shiny Charm luck was so awful... hopefully Rotom works with me...

Anon I don’t know who you are or why you came to tell me this, but I wish you the best of luck