#bc i always work the hardest on bonding w the difficult kids

[guinevereslancelot]

slowly gaining the favor of the one child who hates everyone. i am the toddler whisperer 😌

[mikiruma]

im gonna talk abt tf2 and pokemon again bc i can.

scout of course would dig fast pokémon!!! he's probably got a jolteon he loves dearly, maybe even a crobat he was given (as a zubat) in childhood. from who? eyes emoji there are faster pokémon, sure, but a lot are legendaries or bugs- and he's still trying to warm up to bugs. when/if he did, you KNOW he'd be all over ninjask or accelgor. he usually fawns over pokémon he thinks would make him look cool or fit his fight style (ie hit ur opponents the hardest first & dont get touched) but has a weak spot for some of the "cuter" ones. probably tried to lick a vanillish. as staunch a believer i am he'd be from castelia city, i like the idea that he used to be a rocket grunt, or someone who wanted to join team rocket at one point. i was trying to decide if he'd have a type preference but i like to think he's a mixed bag, mostly because every pokémon is cool and exciting to him! if you did ask & he did have to pick, it'd definitely be electric. wait, dragon, obviously... nah, fighting is good. no wa

soldier's partner is obvious! zigzagoon! mostly bc its a raccoon-like lil dude... he probably gives nicknames to every pokémon he sees, not necessarily just the ones he tries to catch. because lets face it, his zigzagoon is the ONLY pokémon that matters to him. well, that and any that catches zhanna's eye. his zigzagoon carries an everstone and is probably stupid high levelled but nobody really keeps track. soldier does initiate a lot of battles, but they're more fun when zhanna's with him too! theyre an inseperable group who probably wreak enough havoc to be considered their own team of hooligans, but who's to stop a happy couple with their adorable op pokémon? also i kinda wrote all that down super quick buuuut zigzagoon also works as a support pokémon for him when his stability gets extra rough, laying on his lap and helping to keep him grounded. he doesnt have any desire to keep more pokémon since he's fine with just 1, but if he had more i think he might get along with loudred or chatot. (chatot would DEFINITELY take some warming up to on his end but i LOVE THE THOUGHT)

pyro loves fire types of course!!! theyre probably the only one brave enough to pet their hotter ones. engineer probably made em special gloves just so they could play with their slugma... its hard to pick favorites, but the ones theyre closest to are slugma and monferno. they also have a solosis who just loves to play! unlike other people who usually just have one pokémon walking with em at all times, pyro tends to keep all three of theirs out of their pokéballs. they worry about them getting cramped or bored, and while its good exercise, sometimes its difficult to wrangle them when solosis has someones hat and slugmas melting through the furniture and monferno found spy's disguise kit.. theyre a big happy family though!! i think pyro would also like fairy types a lot, but if they got a fourth pokémon, theyd probably keep it at a daycare for the sake of themselves and the rest of the team. just in case, they might really want a sylveon or snubbull.

demoman and any pokémon knowing any explosive moves is an obvious fit! i initially liked him and electrode for this, but since part of their biology is exploding unpredictably... maybe that ones saved for battling. or at least not kept at any of the bases. i like the idea of him keeping his battle partners & normal team separate. when he's not drunk, he's a very skilled trainer and actually took a handful of gym challenges when he was younger. of course it started getting tough to balance work and training, but he never intended to get far in gyms anyway- to him it was just a fun challenge where he got to bond with his pokémon. other than his electrode, he's probably also got a charmeleon (whos either causing mischief with pyro's monferno or keeping demo company while he works/naps) and a honedge (who he will spar with sometimes). he used to have several other pokémon, but he eventually didn't like keeping them all abandoned in pc boxes, and ended up rehoming a lot of them. scout probably has a meowth from him, but he wont tell you.

heavy never cared too much about setting up huge teams or amassing a large collection. he never carries pokéballs, but his party is made up of some impressive pokémon. unlike most of the team who catch their pokémon through normal means (trade/gift, fishing, etc), he befriended his naturally. its easy to say one is ursaring, so of course im going to say it. he wont share how they met, but i wanna say he found its egg abandoned and raised it from there. they probably wrestle a lot but theyre always careful not to seriously injure each other. he befriended his mamoswine (then swinub) shortly after, then his abomasnow much later, in between him busting his family out of the gulag & leaving to find work. he left all three in siberia in the care of his family, but has a teddiursa from his ursaring to think of them all by. probably spoils the crap out of em all every chance he gets though, he loves his pokémon as much as his human family and saves recipes for poképuffs & poffins.

engineer wasn't always on board w the idea of a partner pokémon, mainly because he was always into engineering and was sure he'd be too caught up in it to focus on.. well, anything else. sure, when he was younger, he was like most kids and dreamt of being a league champion, but it always seemed to fall through.. until he discovered steel types. he started his journey later than most, but more than anything he's thankful because they help immensely with his work and lighten the load. he has a magneton who.. isn't that bright, but he's cute and thats what matters. he's also got a rotom who occasionally helps experiment with new machines, but mostly just possesses dispensers and rubs itself on everyone and everything. yum, static cling! engie didn't get into battling as much as he thought he would, but he's essentially working his dream job with his best friends (and 8 other dorks) so things are pretty good. this doesnt mean he wont go for human help when hes stumped or burnt out, though! other partner thoughts i had were torkoal, raichu and porygon2.

sniper is probably the biggest pokémon expert out of everyone on the team (well, aside from medic probably.) he's basically a walking pokédex and can tell you all about type matchups. he's also way closer to his pokémon than people realize, and especially closer than any real people. this is especially noticeable with his baby kangaskhan- although with a heavier origin than simply "abandoned", he ended up bonding with heavy over the ordeal. even with more technical aspects memorized, raising this baby was a completely new venture- not one he hated though! he also collects bug pokémon (that he lets scout get close to,when he tries to get over his fear) & has a slakoth that just kinda.. fell asleep on him one time and just never went away. other choices include koamala or krokorok.

medic is like a pokémon professor but fucked up. while he was primarily a human doctor, after losing his medical license, he started to dedicate time to studying pokémon. he doesnt run inhumane experiments on them because i said so. he's working on filling up his pokédex more than anything, and loves listening to others talk about their partners or other species theyve seen. he has his own pokémon too of course! as the team healer its only natural he has healing pokémon like audino and blissey, but he has a soft spot for flying types, specifically the birds. he has way too many pidove. he probably has a massive aviary separate from his medical lab where he keeps more birds, namely pidgeotto, fearow and some starly. he used to travel a lot (especially after being chased out of his hometown), but he saw it as more chances to discover new pokémon. probably has a very illegal form of the pokémon boxes with no storage limit. also probably heard the stories about mew and mewtwo and actually got inspired. probably owns the most pokémon merc, specifically stationery- hey, if ur getting some unethical experiment performed on you by the german guy you tried to rob earlier that night, are you going to pay more attention to his shit eating smirk or his cool ass holographic pikachu pencils??? or perhaps the cutesy eeveelutions stickers on the back of his clipboard???? thats what i thought.

spy looks like the guy who would probably be the least into pokémon, but that couldn't be further from the truth. he's not as wild as scout or medic by any means, but back in his day he was "pretty decent" (a gym leader.) i like the idea of zoroark being his partner, but you know who else is cool??? cofagrigus. gengar. banette. probably the only one on the team to actually get into mega evolving. and the only one with a shiny, but its gengar so we dont talk about that. i wont imply he loves his pokémon over his own family, he's just had a lot on his plate. remember scouts crobat? while hes got a more methodical approach to battling, he doesnt do it nearly as often as he used to. he still keeps his gym team, and though they tend to be more serious than the other pokémon in the base, they do on occasion get into trouble with others, namely pyro's solosis and scout's jolteon. not misbehaving on purpose, just being curious :0 probably uses luxury balls to catch all his pokémon and has an unused love ball with scouts moms name engraved on the bottom. (either for the novelty, or maybe hes trying to find the right one to catch for her??)