trashguts has feelings about pokemon

the webpage

as is clear to anyone who's followed me for any amount of time, pokemon is my Comfort Media Of Choice. to be honest, i've played at least one game of each generation, but that's not really what i even like about the series.. i just love these little creatures! i love drawing them... thinking about them... positioning them in an ecosystem.... making variations of their designs......

clearly, i have feelings about this. but they're kind of different from most other pokemon fans i've met! for instance, one of my favorite things about pokemon is that you can find something to love about each and every one. as a result, even the "ugly" ones that most people hate, are my friends in a way. it legitimately upsets me when people bash on Any of them! and this makes it really hard for me when people ask who my "favorite" pokemon are. i love them all! how could i choose a favorite!

that being said... like a stereotypical parent of many, i do truly have some favorites if i look into my heart of hearts.

if you're curious, here they are, listed by dex order, as well as specifically what i like about it!

	bulbasaur! the og! its soft little face has always captured my heart. and venusaur's big tree plant is so cool! i love its froggy little gait and general soft anatomy. and its claws!
	it's butterfree! this little guy got me through so many playthroughs as a kid haha. sleep powder got me through pretty much every gym, it was my ultimate cheese strat lmao
	rattata is so everywhere it's annoyed many. but look at how cute this little guy is! PURPLE! its little TEETH! its curly tail! cute..
	rattata is already cute, but alolan rattata gives it a run for its money. take this mouse and make it even fluffer.. not to mention its silly lil mustache!
	i'm biased towards snakes, i am a snake lover. arbok is so cool though! its face pattern lore is also really cool, i love when they actually incorporate that kind of thing into sprites.
	KAIJU TIME... i love the 'mons that actually look like big formidable monsters, and the nido lines are no exception. not to mention, he was my star in my run of blue, and he just. looks so cool!
	gloom is relatable little flower... i love the drool detail, too. little guy with sad face. whats not to love
	vileplume takes gloom's aesthetic and pushes it to be straight-up cool! the spooky red eyes covered by shadow have always been so neat to me. not to mention its inspiration is also a very cool plant!
	venonat has been a favorite for a looong time. i love bug-types to begin with, but this little guy is the cutest little fluffball of a bug! plus, i always liked how big it was compared to what you'd expect!
	combining all of the meowths into one for this one, because its regional variants are precisly what i like about it! i think it would be really cool if they continue to add regional variants to meowth... it would be perfect for a cat-inspired pokemon, to adapt to every region humans take it to! regional variants as a concept are so cool, and i love meowth for exemplifying exactly why.
	i am.. frog guy... frog :) love the little polliwog love the glass frog love it its so cute
	this entire line is so good. i love them all! i think it's kind of funny how, in the inital branch of the poli tree, it appears to remain tadpole-like its entire life despite its limbs.
	doduo is so cute!! i love flightless birds, and the two-headed (and eventually, three-headed) design is just so fun and playful haha. it almost reminds me of dr. seuss trees, especially when shiny! this pokemon and its evolution can apparently be ridden, but i feel bad because my first instinct for riding position is to hold onto the necks... i don't think it'd like that very much!!
	voltorb! its mimic-like nature is fun... but mostly, it makes the list because of how much i loved voltorb flip as a kid!
	i love the hitmons! they're so fun! hitmonlee in particular has a scary face, and i think it's really cool how it balances being humanoid with being monsterous.
	i've always kind of thought of the rhyhorn family as related to nidos-- a sort of, nongendered version? rhydon in particular fits right in with nidoking and nidoqueen in its kaiju-like feel!
	seahorses are SO cool. and i associate them kind of metaphorically with transmasculinity in some ways as well. so i'm kinda biased.. but seadra and its whole family are so fun, and i love their trumpety faces! i've also drawn a seadra not long ago and had a lot of fun with it.
	BIG BUG! BIG BEETLEY BUG!! i remember its appearance in the anime when it fought metapod, too, even though i've barely seen any of the anime... it seemed so brutal!
	an early favorite eeveelution, vaporeon looks so sleek and majestic! i love its catlike traits :)
	who DOESN'T love the porygon line? they're so popular for good reason.. who wouldn't love this weird low-poly duck!
	i've already mentioned how much i love regional variants, but galarian zapdos might just be my favorite one of all time. its colors! its big thick legs! its expression! it's sooo cool. imagine how powerful its kicks are! i mean, i already think ostriches and roadrunners and the like are awesome..
	the chikorita line gets some flack, but they're my favorite gen 2 starters. precisly because they're on the plainer side, i think they're really cute! bayleef's cool attitude especially has always really resonated with me.
	special shoutout to meganium! one of the simplest starters design-wise, even simpler than venusaur and blastoise, but it really works for it. i love its sauropodal anatomy, and it was really beautiful in the new pokemon snap!
	quilava is probably, to be honest, my favorite second-stage starter pokemon of all time. it reminds me so much of a little ferret or weasel.. i just wanna pick it up around its armpits and waggle it around, though i think it'd bite or burn me!
	first off: there isn't an official menusprite for hisuian typhlosion, so i borrowed one by arclart on deviantart, who kindly created a full free-to-use batch! hisuian typhlosion's floppy ears and laid-back attitude were enough to make me pick a fire-type starter instead of a grass-type in legends: arceus... i'm typically 100% a grass starter kinda person!! its purple markings and cool ghostly fire are also really neat. but mostly its floppy ears and drowsy expression are what sold me. i love it so much
	i guess i really love the gen 2 starters! totodile is so bouyant and joyful and cute, i couldn't not add it. plus, i've often gotten it as my starter when playing mystery dungeon games through the personality test at the beginning! it's great in those games thanks to ice fang :]
	i love bugs!! i love bug-types!! i love ladybugs!! ledyba was also the main character of a pokemon: mystery dungeon comic i drew in a sketchbook as a kid. it was the only ledyba to know hyper beam, which it'd learned from a super-powerful rescue team leader it admired. i still think a ledyba would make a fun main character to a comic!
	when asked what pokemon would be my partner pokemon if they were real, spinarak has often been my go-to choice (though not always; it fluctuates)! love this little sad-face spider guy ^__^ its evolution is also very cool!
	my favorite final evo of the poli line! ...dont tell poliwrath. sorry, buddy, i still love you too. politoed is so playful and cute, though, and i love that the spiral motif is added to a cute little antennae as well!
	i've really been on a skiploom kick recently. it's so underrated, and so cute! its dopey, blank smile! its stubby little legs! its big flopy ears! its GREEN! i love this Weird Plant Dog so much
	MONKEE... i love normal-types in general, and i especially love aipom. when i was little, i had a "how to draw sinnoh superstars" book, and aipom and ambipom were two i drew from it a lot! i think ambipom was technically the one listed, but i thought it looked too difficult so i made it into an aipom instead :) my furona even has an aipom/ambipom form!
	dragonflies are, just, extremely cool. obviously. a yanma in legends: arceus is also the first shiny pokemon i ever encountered in the wild! his name was baja blast and he stayed on my team the whole playthrough.
	big. dopey. smile. hug shaped. what more do i need to say
	chain chomp giraffe!!! this pokemon is how i learned the word palindrome as a kid, lol. its beta design where it's perfectly symmetrical is cool, too, but i wouldn't trade that adorable little chain chomp tail for anything. its typing is also neat!
	another underrated one! this one reminds me of cloyster, but less... yonic. i love the "eyes peeping out from a protective cover" look, and its "canons"! it took me forever to remember what this guy was strong or weak to, there aren't a lot of steel/bug types!
	another really popular one!! dunsparce is soooo fun. i do hope it gets a cool tsuchinoko evolution someday, but i like how it is now. ^__^ my very first pokesona was a dunsparce, as well!
	PUPY.. i love this small pink dog with its grumpy little face and its tiny little legs and its FLOPY EARS! i guess i'm a big floppy ears fan haha. it getting the fairy type was also really cool!
	another BIG! BUGGY! BEETLE!! i always forget that heracross isn't a gen 1 pokemon, because its position as a pinsir-counterpart is really strong in my brain. it kind of looks like a hero-type to pinsir's villian-type-- i could see them having that kind of dynamic! shiny heracross is one of my favorite shinies as well! pink beetle!
	this little carebear has always been cute, but alpha teddiursa is probably what got it a spot on this list for sure. giant teddy bear!! i also thought its behavior in general in legends: arceus was really cool-- it's the first pokemon you encounter that calls out to its friends when it gets scared by you, and it often has an alpha ursaluna nearby... so you have to be really careful around it lest you anger mama bear, just like in real life! that seemed like such a cool little detail to me that really added a lot to the feeling of exploring hisui.
	i was just having a conversation earlier today about phanpy with a friend, and how terrible it is in pokemon: mystery dungeon (which endeared said friend to phanpy haha)! a few years ago (~2017, it is currently 2022), i tried drawing some pokemon from memory, and phanpy was absolutely the worst off of the bunch. i felt really bad about that, because it's so cute, how could i not know it well enough to draw? so i very purposefully committed phanpy's design to memory, and i can still draw it without a reference pretty well!
	weird duck, 2!! this one looks rubbery, like you could squeeze it and it'd HONK. it's a perfect evolution for the og porygon, and it's a delight to use, too!
	STANTLER! i LOVE this weird deer, with its doggy face and irritated, bored expression and.. floppy ears again, i guess. i also really love its shiny form, it looks like somebody just dipped it in green paint haha it rules! green deer FTW!! i remember getting really frustrated with these guys in HGSS trying to level grind, because they always seemed to be the highest-level pokemon in any patch of grass they occurred in, and fleeing from them was always so difficult!
	as an artist, and a monkey lover, i'm basically obligated to love smeargle haha. weird drawy dog! i've used it as a stand-in for myself before in artwork as well, as "the artist pokemon" it seemed like the obvious choice. plus, i love its face! and its tail!!
	another hitmon! hitmontop is so cool. in games where it has animation, it's got the most transfixing little dance-- i'm thinking SWSH in particular, where i used one for a while! its hairstyle and the third-leg-tail-thing are cool, and i love the shape of its feet with the little claws on!
	i know jynx Has Its Issues... but smoochum is innocent! it's just a cute little creachure hehe. at least, i think it's one of the cutest of the baby pokemon!
	weird duck... fire edition!! magby's little trumpet beak and half-covered eyes are so cute. its weirdly lizardly appearance is also neat-- it really seems like a Monster Creature rather than "animal but elemental," which i really like!
	i loved drawing pokemon as a kid (as many kids do), and i remember raikou being a particular challenge. its got so much going on! figuring it out took a lot of time and effort, and in the process i learned an appreciation for it that i still have to this day! wahoo, weird thunder cat!
	my second-favorite legendary beast, haha. entei looks so strange, but regal; almost otherworldly. it absolutely looks at home roaring from a mountaintop, but it's not exactly a cat or a dog or any creature, really-- it's an entei! i love that about it. its soulful, human-like eyes and lack of animal ears kind of make it look like it'd be at home in princess mononoke, i think!
	zigzagoon! don't you wanna pick it up and bury your face in that fluff? this is another one that i struggled to draw as a kid, despite how simple it is, haha! its galarian form is also extremely cool, but i have a soft spot for the OG, to be honest. look at its racoony face mask!
	caterpie and weedle's cooler cousin.. wurmple! i love the entire wurmple family; both beautifuly and dustox have always been favorites of mine. wurmple itself is my favorite of them, though! finding a caterpillar like it would be so neat, and it really reminds you of the serieses simple bug-catching roots!
	yet another.. weird duck? or, i guess, kappa! i love the direction this kinda-froglike line goes.. it's weird! it's fun! it's got lily pads as hats! i love it! to be honest, i don't know a ton about kappas outside this line and the kappa characters in animal crossing. i love that lotad has 6 nubby legs though! it's one of the most fun pokemon to absent-mindedly doodle, in my opinion-- try it sometime!
	lombre is different enuogh from lotad that i figured it deserved its own entry. it's actually probably my favorite of this line-- the lanky arms and the tired expression speak to me. i'm glad it cheers up significantly when it evolves, but it's very relatable in its current form :')
	shiftry is so cool! as with lotad, i'm not super familiar with the yokai it's based on, but i think it's really neat looking regardless. the pokey nose outside the fluffy body with angry eyes! the fan leafs! i even love its ears!
	a difficult one to spell, haha... i love masquerain and surskit, though, they're so pretty! the bugs they're based on are also some of my favorites, watching the ripples on the water as they move around is almost hypnotising.
	god breloom is a great design. it's got a friendly face, that mushroom theme, that classic "big claw feet and tiny stubby arm" look i've always really loved! it's also got a really cool typing-- it was the only of its kind for a while, and it's so fun to use in gameplay!
	i've always been a fan of shedinja, thinking it was really cool.. and i still do, but more and more, i appreciate nincada itself! cicadas are such a beautiful, nostalgic creature to so many, and even though people complain about how loud they are, i really love their call. nincada definitely captures a lot of their larvae's coolest traits, imo, it's definitely a really good-looking pokemon overall!
	whismur is such a cute little thing!! how could you not love this nervous little creature! i really love its eye shape, in particular. they're really unique! the whole line is a really neat concept, overall, with really neat body structures.
	little guy!!! he kind of looks like an onion! a few years ago, i drew a flower-themed makuhita OC design that i gave out for free. then, just recently, somebody drew me.. another flower-themed makuhita design! it's so neat to me that, despite not having anything really flower-themed about it, we both came up with such similar designs by complete coincidence!
	i'm a cat person, of course, so it's not surprising that i like skitty... but wow is it a cute little critter. its tail reminds me of a cat toy, so the picture of it chasing its own tail always comes to mind when i think about skitty! its legs seem too nubby to even reach it very well, though, so it'd have to maybe try and catch it in its mouth... what a cute image!
	cool! dress pants!! things!!! also the hair mouth. haha. fairy/steel is such a cool typing, and mawile also has such a cool mega form!! i love this little guy!! its hairmouth also reminds me a lot of the tailmouth adopts i used to see around deviantart/etc :)
	i love this cute creature.. obviously, nubby legs are a plus for me, i guess, but it's just got such a solid design! i also have an OC that's basically just aron but iridescent, and he's one of my favorites!
	of COURSE i love minun. it's me! when me and my partner first started dating, for whatever reason, i enjoyed comparing us to plusle and minun. they're definitely a lot more generally positive and optimistic than me, haha! and so i've drawn them together quite a lot, including making OCs of each that.. kind of, loosely, sorta represent us. clown! and! frog!
	SUCH an underrated buggy duo. actually, i think the gender thing is kind of weird about them, but that's because of my general opinions on gender and dimorphism never being as cut and dry in real life as it is in video game representations like this. that aside, though, they're so cute! volbeat in particular reminds me of a design you'd see in a children's PC game in the early aughts, or something. fireflies are so magical, i'm always glad to see them!
	swalot!!! this guy is so silly!! giant mouth creature... it really would make such a good design for a haunted house entrance doorframe, or a bouncy house, i think. they're so funny in the new pokemon snap, too!
	a pokemon near and dear to my heart! numeloid was an alternative username i used for a long time, since trashguts was taken on some platforms i used. its sad, dopey little eyes and round features really drew me to it :') i'd love a numel plushie someday!
	spinda is such a cool pokemon, i loved reading about how its spots were calculated and seeing all of the different combos as a kid! what a cool idea! i think that it's also extremely cute is often overlooked, though, aside from it being technically very interesting. what a fun concept and design!!
	TRAPINCH!! who DOESNT love trapinch. it's got such an enthusiastic personality just eminating from its design, it looks so determined! like an anime protaganist! i think what's not appreciated about it often enough is that its inspiration is also one of the coolest bugs out there, imo, both in appearance and behavior!
	this whole line gets on this list because i love it that much. i didn't know that antlions most famous form was its larval stage until reading about this pokemon, actually! adult ones don't have such unique behavior, i guess, but they're still really cool, like a kind of alternate dragonfly! fun fact about antlions... they don't eat at all as adults, since their lifespan after metamorphosing isn't very long. but as larvae, they don't have anuses! they just store all of the waste, and use some of it to spin the cocoon... so it kind of has a, shit cocoon! i'm glad they didn't incorporate that in this line, though... :')
	one of The Coolest pokemon, imo. its design is just so strong-- from the goggle-like eye covers to protect it from the dust and the grit, to the cool wings and tail, to the charismatic limbs added this stage to make it look almost reptillian! what a cool creature!
	ehhehehe barrel cactus pokemon.. i love cacnea, half because i really love barrel cactuses! growing up, i only got to see them at a botanical garden near me, and i'd always pet their needles and try to pet the soft cottony material they produce without getting jabbed. a few years ago, and a few times since then, i've actually been able to visit the desert they actually live! it's so cool to see them in their natural habitat, i love them!!
	as soon as gen 4 was released and i learned about the whole zangoose vs seviper thing, i have been solidly Team Seviper. unfortunately, i think this puts me in the minority, haha! having read rikki-tikki-tavi, i guess zangoose is easier to root for of the two (not to mention it's also fluffy and cool), but i just really like snakes and seviper is no exception! i love its weird zig-zaggy shape it takes, too.
	this line reminds me of catching crayfish in the creek during the summers as a kid... they're so fun! they'll grab anything you put near them, so it was funny to hand them weird random things to hold onto. in hindsight, that was probably kind of mean, but it's fun to imagine kids in the pokemon universe doing the same with corphish! the difference being, i guess, that a corphish can counterattack with BUBBLE BEAM even if you tie its claw haha
	imo, one of the coolest fossil pokemon. the creature it's based on is so interesting, and lileep really turns it into an unusual pokemon! it looks so inanimate, even compared to many pokemon based on actual inanimate objects, like a kind of ornamental vase that a strange tentacle-creature found a home in!
	it's funny that the weirdly static-looking lileep evolves into such a dynamic creature, but it also makes perfect sense! cradily almost reminds me of a mix between chuchus and deku plants from zelda, haha. its eye markings are really neat!
	lileep is a favorite fossil pokemon of mine.. but so is anorith!! another one with really cool inspirations, i looove reading about animals from this time period. and it's cool to give it the bug typing, despite bugs as such not really existing at the time-- it seems like a really apt interpretation of how they'd exist in the pokemon world!
	of course, i've mentioned that thinking about the pokemon world as a setting is something i really enjoy, and that includes how people and pokemon would work together in various professions. i think castform is a perfect example! it's found outside the weather institute, which immediately makes you imagine a castform as a kind of mascot for a weather news channel... cute!!!
	there's so much to love about kecleon!! i think most notable are the near-invincible kecleon shopkeepers in the mystery dungeon series, but it's just got a really solid design overall imo! it's silly, but i felt really clever in the new pokemon snap figuring out to throw an illuma orb at one right away, haha...
	the first time i learned tropius could FLY, i lost my got damn MIND. i mean, i knew it was a flying type, but i never really actually gave it much thought... but those were WINGS?! that giant monster can FLY?! it's amazing! i also love its generous spirit, sharing its extra fruit with other pokemon (presumably, haha)!
	there's an episode of the anime called something like, "why? wynaut!" and i think that was the first time i realized just how cheesy this series is sometimes :'D regardless, wynaut is a cute little guy! i enjoy that it hasn't quite yet developed a complex about its tail, since its tail is really quite neat.
	what a cool pokemon!!! i remember as a kid watching a PBS special or some such on coelacanth and their rediscovery, and being soooo amazed by them. so of course i love their pokemon form as well!! in this form, they look especially ancient and mysterious, i think.
	deoxys has such a cool, streamlined design, even just in its normal state! it really does look like an alien, but so human at the same time. i think its defense form is my favorite, though. it looks like an evil martian from a kid's cartoon to me!
	turtwig definitely takes the cake for Cutest Starter Pokemon, imo, even if i love all of them!! its whole line is really cool, and torterra absolutely rules to use ingame, but turtwig's adorable determined attitude, chompy mouth, and little sprout really win my heart!!
	another monkey!! this is my favorite of the chimchar line, design-wise and personality-wise. it looks so playful, like a teenager with too much energy! in the new pokemon snap you can see it jumping all around and teasing other pokemon, it's so cute. chimchar is cute, too, but it doesn't have the long tail or the lanky limbed look yet that i really love haha! and infernape is very cool, but it's also so serious!
	i have some nostalgic love for all of the regional birds, but starly definitely takes the cake. when i was young, i had a starly plushie i brought EVERYWHERE with me! unfortunately, this means it did eventually get lost during one of my adventures... :'( i still miss it! but as a result, starly has also always been a top choice for "IRL partner pokemon," and it's always got a special place in my heart!
	surprised kritetot won out over its DELELELEWHOOOOOOP evolution? sorry about that, kriketune! but i love how round and silly this little one is, and it has a pretty cool call of its own! i also really like how it appears to be wearing a collared shirt that's a bit too big.. reminds me of myself in choral attire as a kid!
	unsurprisingly, the burmy line is another favorite bug type! i also really like trash coat wormadam, by the way, but mothim wins out if only because finding a menusprite of it was easier lol. it's always been one i really liked, though, along with the other moth-like pokemon! in fact, one of the very first css projects i ever did was on the pokefarm forums, making a post template themed after mothim!
	what cute little buggies! i love these guys' teamwork, and they always seem so cheerful! it makes me kinda said that almost 90% of them will never evolve... but i guess that's kinda true of real bees as well? one of my favorite pokemon fanart ideas i've had was to draw these guys arranging themselves in a heart shape!
	of course, i already talked about this line in the aipom entry, but ambipom deserves a spot too!! their fun and playful nature is really cute, and i love that they took the "hand-tail" explanation of prehensile tails so literally! i never quite figured out why ambipom has two tails, actually, but it's always made me think of the hand-balloons from that one spongebob episode.
	god, i've done a lot of writing, and i'm only maybe halfway through... that's okay, though, this is fun ^__^ glameow was the first pokemon that i could really think of primarily as being a housepet, i guess because it's so much like just a regular cat! i really like its personality, too, you can really see how hard it would be to live with ahhaha.
	the tiger cat pokemon! what an evocative name! purugly is far from ugly, though i understand why it's called that. its behavior makes me think it'd be the boss of a gang of streetcats, or something... it can definitely talk the talk, but it can also walk the walk! i bet a verison of warrior cats based on pokemon would feature quite a few of these!
	along with skiploom, stunky is another one that's been on my mind a lot lately. its cute little triangle ears... its funny doggy jowls... its fluff! fluff! if i didn't have a sense of smell, i'd love to give it a big hug-- even with one, i'd be tempted! i love its cranky attitude contrasted with its silly appearance. and its whiskers!!
	clowny clowny little baby clownyyy! this one is actually one of my partner's favorite, so it makes it onto the list because it makes me think of them ^__^ but it's got such a cute big nose and soft-serve head, and its shape in general is so fun!! i have so much love and respect for Clowning, The Profession, and this lil guy is such a cute little tribute to it!
	i love the little nubby landshark baby. you love the little nubby landshark baby. it looks like you could throw it such a far distance... though i don't think it would appreciate it very much, it's got such tough skin i think it'd be fine...
	Little Guy Alert!! munchlax is another one that i love in part because it reminds me of someone-- it's one of my close friends' favorite pokemon! it's really a great creature, though, i love its little triangle ears and its feet style!!
	obviously i love a lot of bug types, and skorupi is no exception. this line reminds me a lot of scorpions, but they're so strange looking and interesting! skorupi's extremely cute, with its little claw hands, but drapion has such a neat thing going on with its arms-- its category, the ogre scorpion pokemon, is so neat!
	i've drawn "myself as a pokemon" sooo many different ways with sooo many different pokemon, and croagunk is one of them! along with bulbasaur, it's a rare froggy-pokemon that's not actually a water type, though i think it looks considerably more froglike! interestingly, it's also the only case of the pokedex explicitly stating that two seperate species are related (besides intentional counterpart pokemon or rivals/predator-pray relations)-- this line and the tympole line are apparently very close! i love croagunk's laid-back attitude and its eye shape and face design in general.
	i love this giant hug-beast! it's like tangela evolved into tangrowth because it was sad it didn't have arms with which to hug... i guess probably not, but it's fun to imagine. i always thought tangela looked like it was wearing red shoes, but i guess since they're still on tangrowth, they were actually its feet all along!
	i love all of the "monster" final evolutions gen 4 added, but to be honest, electivire is my favorite. i really love its fuzz, and its head shape, and its weird antennae, and its wires! it looks like it could be a monster in a cartoon or something. ...wait, i guess it is that, actually. lol. one of my pokemon trainer OCs lives in castiella city, and has an electivire named coronet! they'd love to visit sinnoh someday to see the real mountain!
	of this group, i feel like magmortar gets the most flak for its design. i get it, it's kinda weird and silly! but i also think it's really charming, in a way, precisely because it's (in my opinion) one of the silliest-looking pokemon. look, it's trying so hard to look serious and intimidating! but it's got flame patterns all over its body, like guy fieri designed it... i just can't take it seriously, haha! its duck bill is also fun, and it's got a funny bird-leg look to it as well!
	i already talked about it a bit in the yanma entry, but i really think these guys are so cool!! especially yanmega just looks so serious and almost, ancient... my favorite insects in nausicaa are the royal yanma, and these guys have a really similar vibe to them!!
	my other favorite eeveelution! leafeon is so cute... it's already very popular, so it's hard to think of a unique thing to say about it. i really enjoy the different variants that people come up with for this pokemon in particular! fall leaves, cherry blossoms, even pine tree versions and other kinds of leaves, i've seen some really cool designs!
	this line is so fun, i'm so glad gligar got such a cool evolution!! gligar was already a really cute little guy, and they really did it justice imo! gliscor was also in the "how to draw sinnoh superstars" book, as one of the more complicated designs featured-- i'm sure you can see why, it's clearly made of those basic shapes despite its complexity!
	at least, we reach the tragic end of the porygon line. :') what a cool concept... it doesn't actually change that much from porygon-2 except for its eyes, but its pose and behavior is so neat! poor little guy, though! it's legitimately kind of scary to see animated in 3d, actually, it looks kind of like it's in pain. as a result, even though i love porygon-z's concept and design, i never evolve my porygon-2s!
	probopass came up in a server i'm in recently and someone said something like, EW! or something, and that made me really sad... i love probopass, of course! it's got a huge nose and a funny mustache, and its little mini-noses are really cute too hehe. the mustache makes me think of those drawing pads i had as a kid, with a magneti stylus and grains of magnetic sand inside that'd be attracted to it... so you could erase it, somehow, with a button on it! i never quite learned how they worked exactly, but they were really fun to play with! actually, i enjoyed all kinds of magnetic toys growing up-- they were like magic to me, and still kind of are :') probopass makes me think of all of that! plus, again, i really like its big huge nose.
	of legendary pokemon, i think heatran is my favorite. it's such a weird little lava frog creature! and it's so understated compared to most legendary pokemon, it almost doesn't look like a legendary at all-- and rather than being the lord of time or the ruler of the oceans or anything grand like that, it just likes to hang out in a volcano all day. isn't that relatable!
	speaking of relatable, how about this sleepy giant? the convoluted method to obtain it aside, i always thought this one was so cool looking. it reminds me of the giant robots in laputa/castle in the sky, complete with the plant growth and weird beeps! i bet other people have drawn the connection, and maybe drawn it with an eevee fox-squirrel friend as well :)
	i guess it's fair to be tired of fire/fighting starters after they did it so many generations in a row, but i really don't think this line deserved the hate it got. i love these little fire piggies! tepig especially is really cute, but i love the entire line. emboar in particular's arm shape is a motif i really like, and i love the swirls on its stomach! i got a shiny emboar in a trade once, and it was the first shiny pokemon i ever got besides the story gyrados in HGSS!
	starters that go from quadrupedal to bipedal always seem to make people upset, but here's a line where they did the opposite! though to be honest, i like dewott's bipedal stance more... that's okay, samurott would probably look weird on two legs!
	i know the regional rodents are, like, meant to be cute-- they're some of the first pokemon you encounter in a game, so of course you want them to be memorable. but patrat in particular stands out to me for some reason! i love its face! it's moveset was also really fun for me, all of the fang moves and being fairly strategy-based for an early game pokemon!
	another line where each member gets its own entry, because i love them each individually that much!! lillipup is SUCH a good little puppy. its abilities are both so good for early gameplay, and it's so cute and fluffy! it's another one that's really fun to absent-mindedly doodle as well, all that fluff!
	herdier might lose some points for being so similar to just a Grown Up Lillipup, but it gains those points back and then some for doing it sooo well... one of my favorite pokemon OCs ive designed is a herdier/centiskorch fusion, also! maybe it's because i was a kid, but when i first played pokemon black, lenora's herdier really wrecked me! it's the first time a gym took me multiple tries to beat, though if i'd gone ahead and gotten a fighting-type from near pinwheel forest, it probably wouldn't have been so tough haha. i really underestimated work up at the time, though!
	design-wise, i love all three in this line, but stoutland is my FAVORITE. it's got the wise old dog look down PERFECT. i love everything about this ol mophead! also, in new pokemon snap, it has some really cute moments that i had to look up to figure out how to activate.. haha
	is my gen 5 bias showing? 😅 they were the games i played the most, so of course i'm especially fond of the pokemon from them, i guess! purrloin is another kitty pokemon, but it's a dark-type this time! nothing explicitly says it, but i imagine it and glameow are pretty closely related... if regional variants existed yet, i think that relationship would have been made explicit like that! they even have similar personalities, seemingly. unrelatedly, assist being such a prominent move in this pokemon's early game movepool makes me really wish that double battles were The Default in pokemon games... temtem does this, and it really adds a lot of strategies that aren't as viable in singles!
	the elemental monkies! i mean, i like monkies in general, so maybe i'm biased, but i never understood how they became so widley disliked. they aren't even all that silly looking, to be honest! the basic stages in particular are really cute, in my opinion. the first time i played black and they just handed me one for free i was so blown away, and felt that i had to show my gratitude for the gift so i kept it in my party the entire playthrough haha!
	simisear gets a special shoutout because i've seen it get the most hate of the three. how! look at how chillaxed it looks... those droopy eyes, fluffy collar, and. it's even got the funny t-rex arm pose in its official art... like that one frog anime girl? i love holding my arms like that too, it's so relaxing on the wrists haha!
	writing has never reeeaally been the pokemon games' strongest point, but the scene in the dreamyard with munna really upset me as a kid. they KICKED it! it's such a cute pokemon, too, with its little snouty snoot... another one i'd love a plushie of! the whole dream world thing with musharna's stuff was cool, too, though i never really got into it very much.
	i really could have put this whole line here, too, but i'm showing some self-restraint and only putting pidove on the list!! i love starly, but pidove is probably a very close second for favorite regional bird. i love pigeons so much... i want to draw a bunch of pidove variants based on different breeds of pigeon! and maybe even based on different feral pigeons i've seen around my city haha, there are some really beautiful ones! the pokemon trainer i mentioned earlier, who has an electivire? their main partner pokemon is actually a pidove named scruff, who is missing a toe on one foot!
	woobat and swoobat are so cute... i know gen 5 gets flack for just copying a lot of gen 1, like having a regional cave bat and a regional pink healer and a regional cave rock pokemon and all that... but i'm glad they did, because it's really cool to see different iterations on the same concept. i'm so glad to have both the zubat line and the woobat line!
	drilbur is SO CUTE. its got the pointy snoot with the red nose, the big ol claw arms... its belly markings remind me of magmortar's, but a bit less silly. maybe they're related species, they both have similar overall shapes!
	another pokemon that i came to love precisely because i saw so much hate for it online... but i love Strong Grandpa and his concrete blocks lmao. unfortunately, i never had anyone i saw very often to trade with, so i never actually got to get any trade evolutions... which is a shame because i really like this guy! his big red nose is also funny, but i can never decide if it makes him look like an alchoholic or a clown! i guess both, since apparently the clown nose was originally a joke about drunkards? either way, don't mix drinking with construction work, kids!! very bad idea!! probably don't mix it with clown behavior either...
	another kind of "mirror universe," the unova tadpole to kanto's tadpole! i have two ocs who are brothers who are a tympole and a poliwag, actually: bit, and rib. not the most original names... but they're really cute! i love how it looks like tympole has big ol headphones on, it's perfect for the cool sound direction they took the line!
	i gotta include the big lumpy toad!! i love this big guy... i also really enjoyed using him in-game! you can really see the croagunk resemblance here, with the thingymabobs on his head making his eyes the same shape, and having such similar colorations. it almost looks like a giant, monstrous version of that line! despite that, it has its own charm as well!
	leaf baby bug leaf baby bug! another addition to the wormie family of caterpier, weedle, wurmple, it definitely wins the "cutest wormy-bug" award. i especially love its little fangs!
	arguably also a member of the aforementioned wormie family, this line's a breakout star of the unova region it seems. it makes sense, since its evolution is one of the best bugs in the series, but even in this form it's awfully cute!! again, it's got the style of eyes that always win my heart, but i also love how truly insectoid and beetle-y it looks!
	and here it is, one of the pokemon of all time! the horsebug! the star of the show! we all love venipede! for good reason, it's got one of the best designs in the entire series, let alone of bug types, in my opinion. its face shape! its tail! its color scheme! can you believe they made a centipede so popular? haha! i'd love to ride one of these around... it also reminds me of the insect horse from samurai jack, in a way!
	this is one that i love on its own, but the love fans have for it is what truly got it onto this list. i've seen so much beautiful fanart of the cottonball-sheep, including things like fusions and variants that are always so cool! one of my friends when i was younger even had a shiny whimsicott MLP OC that was so gorgeous; this pokemon always makes me think of it!
	unfortunately, not a lot of fishie pokemon ended up making it onto this list! i kind of feel bad about that, because i do like them, but i've never really been fishing or anything so they just don't stand out to me as much i guess haha. these guys, though, always make me smile! they're kind of like piranhas-- a place near me actually has some piranhas on display, which blew my mind as a kid because i thought of them as scary cartoon creatures first and actual animals second! but they're also kind of like sea bass... like from animal crossing :) these guys have such an irritating, jarring call, it's awful to hear, so in a weird way i can't help but love them haha!
	this line is so fun!! the cute little crocodile grows into such a hardcore kind of character... but for now, it's so cute and unassuming! i love the picture of it moving through the sand and dirt how crocodiles of this world move through water!
	i like unovan darmanitan, too, but the galarian form is so fun! especially its zen form-- i always wanted to see a fire/ice pokemon, so i'm so glad we got one at last!! not a ton to say on this guy i guess, i just think it has a really solid design in all forms :)
	another cactus pokemon! i think that this one could have been a branching evolution of cacnea, but for some reason they seem to have abandoned that concept with gen five onwards u__u that being said, i think it's so fun how playful and cute this one is! it really takes "bunny ear" almost literally, and i love it. i wonder if it produces fruit, too! yum, maractus candy, haha
	this line is so charming, they look like such little punks! they're so cool! i really like the personality in their designs, especially scrafty's mohawk. scrafty's "hood" being a shed skin is also a REALLY cute little detail-- a lot of lizard owners also talk about this stage of shedding looking like a hoodie or wearing a hoodie, because it really does look like that!!
	i love both fossil lines this gen, but archen takes the cake for me personally! it's so colorful and fun, i love these little guys. also, archeops apperas to be based partially on a microraptor with its four wings, which i cited as my favorite dinosaur pretty consistently growing up! so i feel kind of obligated to give these guys a spot on the list hehe
	of COURSE trubbish gets a spot. no surprise here, by anyone. surprisingly, i've never actully used one in a sona design, but other people have comapred me to a trubbish many times because of my username haha! it's the absolute cutest a bag of trash can possibly get, so i don't mind. in fact, coincidentally, i have more than one trubbish OC!
	i think public opinion finally turned around on trubbish, but a lot of people still didn't seem to really come around on garbodor. that always makes me so sad! he's like a huge trash monster... i guess that's not actually the most flattering description, but it really is meant with love! i hope its g-max form helped its image a lot, because i think it did the best of any g-max at really turning an already-cool design into a true mega-behemoth, by exaggerating exactly what made its original form so cool!
	zorua is a very cute little fox pokemon, with a cool gimmick. i also, at the time, had a crush on N, and so zorua being his partner pokemon also made me like it quite a lot. but actually, none of that is why it's on the list! see, it was a fairly rare pokemon to encounter in BW... until BW2, it was event exclusive! so if you missed that event, the only way to get one was to trade for one. as a result, as a kid, i spent quite a lot of time breeding them to trade for cool stuff like shinies or level 100 pokemon, haha. i felt so devious and clever!
	solosis is a fun one! it's one of the most popular pokemon for sprite artists to make fusions with, i think, because it's very simple: shroud your pokemon in light green goo! because of this, it's pretty nostalgic for me to see around, and i always think of those fusions whenever i see it. solosis in particular is my favorite of this line because of its strange little golden poop crown... i guess that's actually supposed to be part of a cell, but i wasn't really paying attention to that part of biology class haha!
	ducklett! my partner's favorite birds are ducks, and so they also quite like ducklett, i suppose. it definitely makes me think of them, anyway! they also make me think of that rhythm heaven game, with the ducks in boot camp... blue birds, or something? i really liked the song in that one! i guess none of that really had anything to do with ducklett itself, though...
	as mentioned, i never really did any trade evolutions, so pokemon with that kind of evolution requirement were always kind of disappointing to me. karrablast makes the list regardless, though, because i really like its design! it's so simple and small, and kind of underrated it seems, but i think it works really well!
	my descriptions keep getting longer... please forgive me! i seem to have a lot to say about these guys haha. joltik is another Extremely Cute Bug-- unova really knocked it out of the park with its bugs imo! i thought it was so cool how tiny it was, it's about the size i imagined most bug pokemon really should have been anyway haha!
	another line so cool i ended up including the whole thing! galvantula really is that cool, though! the color scheme of this line is fun, as well as the electricit-sucking lore about joltik, and i love tarantulas as well! this line has such a straightforward design, which i really like.
	i love eelectrik, and i can finally say that i also love electric eels! when i was young, i was really scared of them... i had nightmares about them getting into our house and zapping me and my family, despite the fact that they couldn't be on dry land and they didn't really work like that anyway! unfortunately, that kind of logic doesn't really work in dreams, haha. but i saw one in real life at the aquarium and it was so cute and, honestly, kind of dopey looking, i couldnt really be scared of it anymore! eelectrik is honestly much scarier than a real electric eel, since it also seems to have some design elements from leeches, but those too are just creatures living their lives so you cant dislike them for that!
	the absolute cutest little alien creature in the series. including cleffa, sorry cleffa... !! it goes beep boop and has sci-fi lights on its hands, after all! i like to imagine that, maybe all of the alien pokemon are related somehow... if not from the same planet, maybe they work together on starships like in star trek! though they seem to lose that intelligence when they reach the planet of pokemon, haha.
	i love this whole line, but i think fraxure is my favorite design of the three! they're fairly straightforward, and i don't really have any personal stories about them, but i think they're just cool little dragons.
	i don't really do any competitive play, but i at least know enough to appreciate their love of stunfisk haha! it makes me happy to see such a strange little guy be so loved, even if some of it probably started ironically. or maybe it's a beast in competitive! i would't really know... its galarian form is also really fun, i love the footprints on it!!
	haxorus and druddigon are kind of interesting to compare, both being dragon-types released in the same region. haxorus is definitely a lot more dinosaur-like, and is sleeker and more "cool-looking"; druddigon is definitely a lot more traditionally draconic, and looks a lot more cartoony, as well! i love both in different ways; while i think fraxure is really cool, especially how its behavior is apparently based on real dinosaurs' behavior, i think druddigon looks so fun! it has such bright colors, it looks like a colorful gargoyle of sorts!
	i think the first time i saw a bouffalant was along victory road, and i remember being really mad they kept such a cool pokemon until the way end of the game like that haha! buffalo in general are such amazing animals, and this one really packs a punch. it's another case where it's a kind of echo of a gen 1 design, this time tauros! i really feel like if they'd come up with regional variants earlier, unova would have been absolutely full of them!
	i loove this particular snout shape.. have you noticed? it also has such a fun expression! i've drawn a couple of heatmor fusions and variants recently for various people, and so i've really come to appreciate it even more. its overall design also reminds me a lot of heatran, including their names! maybe they have some connection?
	i felt bad including heatmor and not durant, so here you go, buddy, a spot on the list! if i remember correctly, though it's been a while, i think this is another one with a really grating call, haha! maybe it uses that to deter predators? i love watching real ants work; it'd be so cool to see what ants this large could accomplish! also, i wonder if there is a durant queen? she must be very large if so! if you've ever looked into the size difference between worker, soldier, and queen ants, it's a pretty huge difference in some species!
	deino's line is very popular, because it evolves into such a cool-looking dragon! but i like this form of it best. the hair covering the eyes... the muppety mouth... its legs and feet! they're all so cute! i have a deino OC that a friend designed for me that's covered in a kind of retro arcade pattern, haha.
	to wrap up the Gen Five Good Bugs, we have larvesta! it evolves so late, it's such a challenge to train all the way up to volcarona, but wow is it worth it. such a beautiful pokemon! but since you spend so much time with it in its base form, i thought i'd include that one here! i really like how interesting its design is, since it seems to have many elements to it that all work together quite well. its eye shape is really cute, and its strange horn protrusions resemble sunbeams to hint at its evolution's theme! it's also very cute and fluffy ^__^
	i already mentioned it, but volcarona is really one of the most beautiful bug-types in my opinion! i initially trained up a larvesta as a kid not knowing what it evolved into, and then eventually i just assumed it didn't evolve at all, so when it finally did i was blown away by it! not to mention that it can apparently literally take the sun's role, according to legend. it really is such a cool pokemon, one of the best designs out there in my opinion!!
	kyurem is such a cool pokemon! it's canonically just an empty husk of what was left behind when the original dragon legendary split into zekrom and reshiram, but i didn't like that when i was a kid and thought that seemed like a mean thing to say about it. i was so excited to find and catch it in the chasm, i challenged the E4 with it over and over until it became my first level 100 pokemon i trained by myself! i was very proud of that, haha
	to be honest, i didn't actually like keldeo when it was first released. i thought it was too colorful, or cartoony, or something, and didn't look serious enough to fit with the trio it was added to. boy has my opinion on it changed! i think partially because MLP OCs are so nostalgic to me now, and keldeo very much reminds me of those ponies, haha. if you're an MLP artist and you want to try drawing pokemon, i suggest you try keldeo to start! maybe a galarian ponyta, as well.
	i love the proportions of this design so much, and i love its protective guardian nature! it is such a cool design... i think the entire line is cute, even quilladin! but chesnaught really goes in the knightly direction with it, which is so fun!
	of course i had to include the frog starter! to be honest... i talk about loving all pokemon, but after the whole deal with ash-greninja, i'm not so sure about greninja anymore. i wasn't really sold on that whole plotline to begin with, let alone it being added to the games in such a way! but it's not like greninja did anything wrong, i guess. i still love froakie more, though! i love its frothy bubble scarf :)
	this is probably my favorite of the "cocoon pokemon"! it's so fun, i love its animations! its "fuzz" spikes out and sends its confetti flying everywhere, haha. a spewpa-themed confetti blower or party popper would probably be really cute!
	it's like litten's wild cousin, but it also looks like a stuffed animal, haha! i think it's cool that both evolutions get manes, even if the male's is still a lot bigger. litleo being part normal type is also interesting, i guess they're mostly just regular animals after all!
	when gen 6 came out, skiddo was the pokemon i was definitely the most excited about!! it's so cute and joyful, and you can even ride its evolution which was so cool to me! at the time, my sona was a goat, because my mom also had a kind of goat "online persona" haha. so i was excited to have a goat pokemon so cute come out!
	despite its unoptimal typing, i absolutely had this guy on my team through my entire gen 6 playthrough. i really love it!! its general attitude is so cute, and the way it chews on a leaf! that doesn't make you look tough, it makes you look like a farmer, haha! though i guess out in the forests where it lives, it doesn't have much else to use to look cooler?
	the evolution method of pancham is also very cute-- it learns how to be tough from another pokemon! though i think it still looks like it could be pretty cuddly. the cape reminds me of how some cool characters will wear long coats around their shoulders. maybe it grows its fur like this intentionally to look cooler? i also like that its pokedex entries go out of their way to assert that despite its appearance, it's really a nice pokemon inside!
	me and my partner have been thinking about getting a dog lately, and since they always had one growing up they know how to care for and train them (i don't, i've never had one haha)! based on our living situation, level of dog experience (low) and the fact that our cat hates around her size so we would have to get one that's at least medium-sized, we figure maybe a poodle would be a good choice for us. that really surprised me, since i always thought of them as posh, high-class dogs! but apparently they're really popular and sweet. i guess none of this had much to do with furfrou... i like furfrou's natural haircut best, to be honest! though, we went to a dog show once and there were a lot of cool competitions like weight-pulling, distance jumping... and poodle grooming! it was really neat to see all of the different styles people had when it came to styling the different poodles, but i was even more amazed at how patient the dogs were, haha!
	i think the honege line is really cool. and they're some of my partner's favorites, as well! gen 6 came out when i was in high school, and i really cared about things like having cool handles online or that kind of thing... and since it was such a recent pokemon, i was able to score the fairly cool handle "aegislashing" on twitter! it was close enough to its canon name that i felt super lucky to get it, and i think i still have that account to this day probably, though i haven't checked it in a very long time now.
	i always thought "realistic pokemon" art was so super cool when i was growing up! i still do, but i did even moreso then. i even tried my hand at a few myself, in some of my first attempts at realism! the one that turned out best, in my opinion at the time, was a clawitzer that was essentially just a copy of a stock lobster photo, but blue, haha. i feel bad now for not having done the design more justice! maybe someday!
	another half-normal type! i always think those are so neat, they really illuminate what defines a pokemon as normal-type or not. helioptile has those cute floppy ears i always love, but it also has such a funny little lizard gait when it walks on its hind legs! also, this panel featuring a helioptile from a manga is. really really cute
	heliolisk is so cool!! the way it opens up its frill to resemble a sun, genius! being an electric-type, i wonder if it basks in the sun to generate its power like a solar-powered battery? that would explain its frill being so large, and black (to absorb more light)! it's never been mentioned in its pokedex entries, but i think it's a fun idea.
	i know i sound like a broken record, but tyrunt is really a cute little guy. it's very similar in some ways to cranidos, but they clearly have very different inspirations! it's a pokemon that is very finicky, but also throws such destructive tantrums when it doesn't get its way, i definitely wouldn't want to have one in real life, unfortunately. but as a fictional character, it's very fun!
	what a regal looking pokemon! king of reptiles, indeed! but its name kind of implies that it still has that childish, tantruming side... i wouldn't be surprised if it were the type of leader to take its anger out on its subjects! that being said, it really has such a cool design. the orange crest turning into a crown of sorts, and the white frills around the neck, give it an appearance that is simultaniously commanding and explosive!
	i'm not sure if i could actually pick a favorite between vaporeon, leafeon, and sylveon... but sylveon is transgender, so..... that does help its case, lol! i maintain that it seems kind of overdesigned compared to the rest of the eeveelutions, both in its markings and in its silhouette. ever since the move to 3d sprites they have a lot more space to work with as far as designs go, though, so i guess it isn't surprising that they tend towards more complicated now.
	goomy is one of those pokemon that, whenever you see it, you can't help buy say "goooooomy!!" out of delight! its gumdrop shape and huge friendly smile give it incredible charisma, on top of having such a fun name to say. gooooomy goo goooomy goomy!
	zubat and woobat's distant cousin... noibat! there's a clear design trend of more complexity, i guess, haha-- noibat is about as, if not more, complicated than swoobat in design! it's extremely cute, though, and i love drawing its ears!
	noivern is probably one of the coolest designs pokemon has ever come out with. i mean, what else is there to say. it's SO cool, especially when in flight!! even its shiny coloration is cool, if kinda unusual.
	a water/fire type! we got one! well, i never got one, because i didn't play any of the games until after all of their events were over, haha. but still, it's very cool that it exists now! and it's another pokemon like heatran: an "i like volcanos!" legendary, though this one is more steam-based like geysers than lava-y! very cool!
	ROUND! OWL! i remember when gen 7 was introduced, immediately losing my mind over all three designs. but this one was definitely the most popular overall-- ROUND! OWL!!! it's so ROUND! O R B !
	again, thanks to arclart for the hisuian sprite! i was already a fan of regular decidueye, but i LOVE hisuian decidueye!! it's so cool... i mean, based on my reaction to galarian zapdos, i guess it's predictable, but i love birds that are this shape!! it looks so cool, with its big huge claws!!
	another pokemon that i half enjoy so much because others complained about it nonstop for so long, haha!! though, i do also just legitimately like it. it's got attitude, and its tiger stripes are so fun! also, i think that its shiny form looks like a candy cane... i don't think it'd like being told that, though!
	when the gen 7 starters were introduced, i made a lot of fanart of popplio and declared myself part of the "popplio defense squad," since it seemed to be the least popular of the three initially, haha. i admit i was hoping it would evolve into something more clowny, but the direction it ended up going is very cool! i think people who are upset it looks too girly are silly, lol-- if there can be female incineroar, there can be male primarina!
	grub! baby! baby! grub! i love this little guy it looks like you could just squish it and itd be like, totally fine, haha. it kind of reminds me of those grubs in the lion king, that they eat... i mean, edible pokemon has come up a few times in canon!
	this line changes enough that every entry needed its own description! charjabug really seemed to capture people's hearts early on in gen 7, which is awesome! it's so square and rectangular, like a bug-bus... i love its entire design motif!
	another Extremely Strong Bug Design, vikavolt!! i think the thing i see people say about it most often is that it looks so so cool, they wish it were more viable haha. that's okay, though, i don't care about that kind of thing personally! this is one pokemon where i think that it looks even better in motion than in its official art. the wing position and mandibles are actually a lot more dynamic and flexible than they look!
	i wonder what made them decide to turn the abominable snowman into a (snow?) crab, lmao! what a fun concept! they really pull it off, too, turning the crab claws into big punchy arms! i like crabrawler a lot, too, but i really didn't expect this to be what it evolved into haha. for how playful the design is, i think it still looks really good!
	another tiny bug, like joltik! maybe they're related somehow? i really like this pokemon a lot. you can imagine a whole swarm of them, dancing and floating along cheerfully! their limbs remind me of drifloon's, too, but like an itty bitty fairy version. they're just so cute!
	clydesdale horses are soooo cool looking, imo. from the big brother MLP toys i had as a kid, i've always thought they were my favorite horse! so this line was really exciting for me. i had one on my team! i really love mudbray's donkey traits, too, and its eyes!
	BIG! HORSE! POKEMON! mudsdale really looks, to me, like it could be from the samurai jack universe haha. the big mud-caked hooves also remind me of art styles where the feet are really big and stylized-- i've always loved those! mudsdale in general just looks so reliable and cool, you can really imagine it being quite strong!
	i think the concept for this line is REALLY cool, and the virus/spider/bubble concepts were meshed really well in this design. primarily, though, dewpider is my cousin's favorite pokemon! she really likes it, since she tends to often gravitate towards virusy or alien forms like this, so it always makes me think of her :)
	woww what a pretty pokemon. ive seen so much fanart of this one that is so cute, too!! a fun detail i really like about it is its stripey pants, haha. i think this pokemon is neat because while the real life orchid mantis is a bug pretending to be a plant, lurantis is more like a plant pretending to be a bug!
	i'm very much a stuffed animal kind of guy. even after cutting down my collection every time i've moved, i still have about 2 bins full of plushies! my favorites are my pokemon plushies, of course, haha. this little guy is yet another one i'd really love to have someday! it even has the tag placement already canon, and it's really cute.. i love its stripey tail!
	this line in general is really fun, i like them a lot! somehow, the design of tsareena reminds me of utena, in a way. i think steenee is my favorite of the three, though! i love designs that are this cheerful, and the leaf pigtails are really cute! it also looks like it'd be super fun to draw.
	i love passimian! it's got such a sleek design, and i love the bandanna look on its head! it's also so fluffy... i bet it's really soft to pet, haha. i think this is the monkey that looks the most like a real-world monkey so far, and i think that's so fun!
	horseshoe crab!!! pokemon!!! real!!! i love wimpod and i love its skittery personality, haha. i always imagine the picture of it frantically fleeing across a beach! it's got a really cool design, too, making a horseshoe crab so expressive must have been difficult!
	i can't believe they pulled off making a bipedal isopod, let alone one that's so COOL!! everything about golisopod's anatomy and shape is perfect, it's my favorite bipedal bug design i've ever seen!! the placement of the middle set of legs in particular is so clever, in my opinion. and its head and face are really well done!!
	another one whose name is really fun to say! pyukumuku pyukumuku pyukumuku!! the tidbits about throwing it back into the ocean is so funny. you really see exactly how it fits in with human culture through its pokedex entries, which i always really love to see! plus, it has a really fun design. the little * mouth!!
	when i first saw turtonator, i thought it would be a legendary, or a mythical maybe. but no, you can just catch it! yipeee!! i think this guy really looks like he could be a zelda boss. it even has an explicit weakpoint, according to the pokedex-- i could definitely see a fight where you have to throw bombs in it stomach or something! at the same time, i think it looks too heroic and wise to be a character you'd want to fight.
	bruxish is so UGLY! i love it!! it reminds me of the sparkledog ocs of early deviantart, lmao, and i mean that with love. i feel like a lot of pokemon fans don't think about how not all pokemon can be necessarily cute, or cool-- some of them have to be kind of odd, too, or even ugly! it really balances the whole game out, and makes the setting feel more alive to have a whole assortment of different creatures. after all, there are so many fish on this earth that people think are ugly! that being said, i think bruxish's garish appearance has legitimately really grown on me, haha.
	remember when drampa was first revealed and everyone was theorizing it'd be a dunsparce evolution? i have no idea why anyone thought that, the two don't look very alike at all! drampa is an excellently designed pokemon, though, and i love its typing a lot! it reminds me of the dragon from the never-ending story in a way, it has that wisened, nostalgic look to it. by the way, have you ever seen a drampa fly? in the new pokemon snap, i was so shocked to see it! they look so funny in the air!
	dhelmise is so cool! it's so spooky, and the way the algea forms a mouth is really cool! it truly doesn't look like a living creature at all, which makes perfect sense for a ghost type. when i was a kid, i made a fakemon that was meant to be the first tri-typed pokemon-- so i'm really glad to that idea somewhat come to fruition with dhelmise's ability, steelworker!
	i think the tapus are all really cool designs-- they're all fairly similar, and i love their motif in general. if i had to pick a favorite, though, it'd be the peaceful plant bull tapu bulu! :) i think its personality in general is interesting, and i love its horns!
	we're in ultrabeast territory now baybee! get comfortable, because i REALLY like a lot these guys. not being of the main world, they really got to go some weird directions with the UBs, and i think they turned out so cool!! buzzwole is first up on this list. it and pheromosa are interesting because despite having the same typing, they go completely opposite directions with it! buzzwole looks like a superhero, with those comical pecs and cape-like wings. it's cool to see them go the hero route with a mosquito-like pokemon, such a widely hated bug!
	this one is also sooo cool to me: they turned a cockroach into a beautiful fussy monarch! two bugs that are generally thought of as pests, and they really designed them with love as UBs. i love that so much!! pheromosa's crown antennae and hair-wings in particular are such cool design elements to me, as well as how they turned those strange insect-feet into heels for it! this is kind of tangential, but i also enjoy how as UBs these pokemon are actually genderless, despite having such strongly gendered designs. tagline about nonbinary people not owing you gender nonconformity here, i guess! you go, nonbinary bug creatures!!
	xurkitree is SO cool, and it has a really cool name, too!! i know it's based on electrical wiring, but it also reminds me of fuzzies from mario a lot. it'd be really funny to put such a face on it in its sleep... would it even notice? like i said, i like how out there they were able to go with the UBs, including not giving some of them faces at all! it really makes them feel so strange and otherworldly!
	celesteela has SUUUCH a cool, evocative design. it looks like ruins you'd see in a zelda game, maybe... but it's actually a spaceship!! that's so cool!! there's a particular fanart of this pokemon that really captured my imagination, by hanadehanaya on tumblr; i think i reblogged this one every time it came across my dashboard!! it's so cool...
	a break from the UBs to visit this adorable little creature! marshadow has a cool typing, and a cool category, but it's mostly just really cute! i love how, in its zenith form, it looks like it has a colorful hood. it's like a little imp, like kuromi! of course, i can't really comment on the origins of most alolan legendaries because i'm not very familiar with it, unfortunately. but i think it's cool that they incorporated these into the inspirations for these designs! it seems, from what i've seen online, that they were pretty well recieved by people from the area as well, though of course i'm not the one to ask about that :')
	the second wave of UBs! i never actually played USUM, but i was thrilled to get more UB designs from them nontheless. it seemed when they were first released that it wasn't entirely clear whether or not we should categorize the ultra beasts as legendaries or not, so it was really cool to see one that actually evolved! they seem to have been pretty conclusively determined to be seperate categories at this point, especially since the official legendary/mythical split in the english localizations, but it's still cool to me that there's a UB that evolves, haha. i wonder if its evolution works the same way as pokemons', or if it's a case of convergent evolution!
	STAKATAKA! you have to say it out loud, it's so satisfying, haha! this one is such a strange creature, again really pushing the boundaries of how inanimate-like you can make a pokemon before it stops being a creature altogether! i like that though we see it as a single organism, each brick seems to be its own life-form. like ants or bees, it's hard to distinguish whether the singular or the hive is truly the individual!
	this one is, to be honest, my FAVORITE ub. blacephalon the clown!! it's got such a playful and fun appearance, but it's apparently actually pretty scary, haha. that's okay, though, because i love its design so much! i especially really like how its shiny form looks like you shined a black light on it and the colorful parts are made of UV-reactant paint!
	when zeraora was released, i lost my MIND. it's FURRY! in REAL!! i mean, pokemon has had a lot of furry OC lookin designs, but zeraora really takes the cake imo. it looks like almost like a sonic OC, even!! i love its arm shape, and its coloration in general. it also looks like an anime or video game protaganist in a lot of ways-- maybe it could be friends with klonoa! i haven't actually seen any of the pokemon movies, though, so i don't know exactly what its personality is like!
	we've reached gen 8! grookey is, obviously, my favorite base form of the starters this generation. all three of them are really cute!! grookey in particular i have a plushie of, though... my fursona also being a little green monkey, i just had to, haha.
	raboot is so cool, hehe. it looks like the cool teenager i wish i was as a kid, haha! its floppy ears and uninterested gaze!
	poor little baby sobble!! it's so cute, though... i really like the comparisons between these three starters and the powerpuff girls' designs, even if it's a coincidence! bubbles was my favorite powerpuff girl, and she seems similar to sobble in some ways, haha. i wonder if it ever gets tired of being babied, too!
	special mention to the teenage emo phase of the sad lizard! i think they did a really good job with middle evolutions this gen in general, but drizzile is my favorite. all it needs is some rainbow bangs and neon bracelets, haha! the bright colors on both its default and shiny coloration do remind me of some scenedogs i've seen around :')
	this gen's take on the wormy bug! this one's really funny looking, and it evolving into a UFO is really cool. have you ever seen a ladybug larvae? they don't look like the same species at all, and they're actually larger than adult ladybugs in many cases! the first time i found one as a kid, i had no idea what it was, and i thought maybe i'd discovered a new species haha. i didn't actually find out what they were until much later!
	wooloooo... everyone loves wooloo!! how could you not!! it looks so soft and cute... i've seen some pokemon fans complain that newer generations don't realy "look like pokemon" anymore, and that older pokemon looked more like real creatures, and you just have to point to wooloo to prove them wrong on that-- it looks far more like a real sheep than the much older mareep, for example haha. the way its wool forms little braids is also very cute!
	a stern reminder that sheep aren't all fluff and cute! the horn situation of dubwool reminds me of those goats and sheep that have grown extra horns and get compared to satanic imagery online, lol, but it's still really cute... it's not unique to this pokemon, but i think Y-shaped noses are really the cutest kind. i've been drawing my own sona this way lately and it's been really enjoyable!
	kind of like turtwig's weird cousin, chewtle takes the Fun Chomy Mouth Turtle bit even further! i love its cranky expression and cute little nubbin-spoke on its head. i also like in SWSH how varied the early game pokemon are-- unlike most pokemon games, even after just a couple of routes i imagine teams varied quite a lot! to be honest, i found the selection almost too overwhelming at times. but i was glad to get a chewtle so early regardless!
	i love this entire line, they're so cool!! i admired them since gen 8 first came out, so when i finally played it (i've been renting pokemon games from the library to play, so it takes quite a while sometimes), i was so excited that you were just gifted one for free! it's interesting that they finally released another baby pokemon after so long, but it seems like toxel was made for the role, being Literally So Baby! its horns and tails are super cute, too.
	actually, the low-key form is my favorite, but the high-key one was easier to find a menu sprite of unfortunately haha. i really love the relaxed vibe they both have, but especially the low-key form, and i think bassists are cooler than guitarists in general... sorry!!
	this line is really cool, but i found its introduction in the fire gym really annoying, haha. i'm again really impressed that they managed to make a centipede design that so many people love so much! fire bacon bug!!
	centiskorch, and especially its g-max design, are SOooo cool. another of the Coolest Bugs Out There!! it again reminds me of nausicaa, haha! i'd love to ride one around through the sky, though i guess the fire would be an issue...
	this family kind of reminds me of the crabrawler family, in a way. i can imagine them being rivals if they met under the sea! grapploct, like incineroar, seems to take more of a heel approach... it definitely has the type advantage over crabominable, at least!
	hatenna was the first gen 8 poemon i actually made fanart of, and is one i've even animated a couple times! this pokemon reminds me of jigglypuff, and in turn, kirby... maybe they're all secretly the same species in different hats, haha! i love how cute hatenna is, though, and definitely relate to its difficulty handling riled-up people :') i have a hatenna oc named bink, also, and i love her a lot!
	hattrem gets its own entry for how much i love the direction they take hatenna's design. using the hair as feet with the actual small body dangling is so cute! it sounds like it should look kind of creepy, but it really works well for this pokemon!! the hat also reminds me somewhat of a traditional princess hat, like the kind you might find at a little girl's birthday party.
	i LOVE the impidimp line. they're SO fun!!! impidimp's actually probably my favorite design of the family, with its comical expression and bat wing ponytail! i was sad that the one i caught was a high enough level that it evolved almost right away, haha.
	this one i kind of automatically had to love because its name is so similar to "morgan" (my partners name) lol... but i really do like it a lot!! the long hair look gives it an edgy flair without being too overboard with it, and the way it also turns into a tail is really fun. it's kind of similar to zoroark in that way, come to think of it! i love its lanky limbs, too!
	the big guy itself!! this one's almost comical in the direction it goes, using its overgrown hair as muscle and arms-- and going even further in its g-max form! i imagine upkeep on grooming these guys can get pretty intense, because i'm sure the hair gets super oily if you don't wash it enough, lmao! i love its face, though, the ear-horns look really good here.
	i love the punky lookin pokemon, and obstagoon is no exception! i like the whole galarian zigzagoon line, but it getting a third form in obstagoon is really cool! even if they seem to have moved away from giving older pokemon direct evolutions or pre-evolutions, i'm glad that families can still get expanded via regional variants now. also, shoutout to this line for having one of the absolute coolest shiny colorations!!
	i was so surprised falinks wasn't a bug-type, or a steel-type! it definitely looks like a bug/steel, doesn't it? regardless, i had one on my team for my playthrough of SWSH, and it ruled. it was fun to use, but also, its animations were so fun! even though it often wasn't the best choice, it was my favorite pokemon to d-max, because seeing it so large was really fun!!
	pyukumuku and snom's oft-forgotten cousin, pincurchin is an underrated new pokemon in my opinion. it has such a simple design, but it's really effective! its sleepy little triangle eyes... i guess pokemon that don't evolve are often overlooked, especially ones as small and understated as this one, but i think that's a real shame!
	i was so surprised to see new regis come to pokemon, after so long! and i was even more surprised that they were electric and dragon, since it seemed to have so little to do with the original trio's fighting-weakness theme! they're really cool additions, though; i like how these new two seem like the original trio's younger siblings in design, almost, being a lot rounder and cuter. if the original trio represented the stone, iron, and dark ages, than i guess regieleki could represent the digital era, in a way! blast to the future!
	regidrago, then, would represent the far past-- maybe even the time of dinosaurs! its draconic arms are SO cool, probably my favorite design trait of any of the regis. now that there are six regis, i kind of want to see them assemble into a great super-regi voltron-style... regidrago could be the face, regieleki could be the brain, regigigas could be the heart or core, one of the original trio (maybe regirock?) could be the legs and the other two could form the arms! i don't know that i'd necessarily call it "cool," but i'd definitely really like to see it at least as a gag, haha.
	once again, both this and the next sprite are by arclart on deviantart! i hope these guys get canonical menusprites someday, but in the meantime, i'm so glad that these can help keep my page consistant, haha. i actually managed to go into legends: arceus almost fully blind, so i didn't know what new pokemon or regional forms there would be at all besides vague hints at the starters! so when i got to the section where you meet sneasler, i was PSYCHED!! not only is there a sonic OC in this game, that is exactly the style many of my friends dig, but because of its unique ride style you essentially feel like the sonic OC is the player character for a while haha!! i spent a lot of the time in this game as sneasler until i unlocked flying, it's so fun to walk around as!
	though some others had speculated about it, i seriously doubted P:LA was going to get any free content updates, if any at all... idk, maybe i'm just stuck in the mindset of at least console games shipping complete with no DLC or anything. that seems to be the way of the past, though, and for pokemon like enamorus, i don't mind it at all! this is such a funny pokemon, it's the perfect addition to the already-kinda-silly weather trio. i especially love its therian form, though! despite how terribly it ended, i really enjoyed the first half of the anime wonder egg priority, and this pokemon reminds me a lot of the companion creatures the main characters are given before the anime kinda went off the rails. it's so fun!! i love it a lot!!

...and there you have it, folks! to be honest, i'll probably end up adding to this over time as i look closer at a particular pokemon and think, "hey wait, i really love this one! why didn't i put it on that list?? how cruel of me!", haha!! i don't actually expect anyone to read all that anyway, though-- it's the most writing i've done in a very long time, though it's a subject that's very easy for me to talk about at length so it was nice to get it off my chest!

i might add styling to this page to make it nicer-looking and maybe even easier to read someday, but for now, i'm calling it quits! bye for now!