I'M CAPTAIN KIRK

i was going to make a whole post about her backstory and role and so on but trying to decide where she grew up/trained/currently hangs out just led me down the route of how much i hate Stow-on-Side for being so aggressively unbritish in general design, so i'll have to wait for that to pass

 

Do you have any Torterra HC's? (I caught a shiny Turtwig in PoGo and shiny Torterra looks a bit like it might be leucistic, hmm)

 

[fingerguns] I CAN PROBABLY PRODUCE SOME

not right now because it's late and i have the brainpower of a potato battery but i didn't want you to think i was ignoring you or something so i thought i'd acknowledge

but soon

 

okay in the interests of honesty i have seen Prof. Peach on Tumblr's comic about Torterra many times so this may be a little influenced by that... but turtwig's probably my favourite of the Sinnoh starters anyway.

-Rather than leucism, a shiny Torterra is actually exhibiting something more along the lines of chimerical variegation in plants, where two different chromosomal make-ups are presented at once, one able to produce chlorophyll and the other not. The best-known Torterra shinies are the ones where the difference isn't enormous, and this is quite simply because any Turtwig born with a high concentration of pale, non-photosynthesizing pigment is likely to be sickly and struggle to thrive, as photosynthesis is an important part of the Turtwig line's energy intake.
-Yes this means that you can get Torterra shinies that are patchy and streaked and blotchy like variegated plants; they're very popular in contests, but require more specialised care than a 'normal' shiny or a standard Torterra.
-the tree on Torterra's back is a natural outgrowth of their body that started with the leaves on their head as a Turtwig, and therefore is much more 'part of them' than any other greenery that grows there. Severe damage to it can badly hurt the whole creature. It's a good idea to keep it pruned and so forth, but generally speaking it shouldn't develop any diseases or pests if the Torterra as a whole is healthy, as it benefits from the Torterra's general immune system. It does not have to be a deciduous tree; Torterras raised in different climates will grow trees suited to that climate.
-It is perfectly possible and indeed often beneficial to plant extra plants on Torterra's shell; they are not as integrated into the entire body system as the tree, but the host Torterra can still benefit from their photosynthesis and enable them to grow big and strong. Putting too many on however can drain them to an unhealthy level, especially if the plants are left to grow out of control. Putting a plant with a disease or a bad pest infestation on a Torterra can help it recover, but it must be watched carefully lest it spread and affect the tree or the rest of the body.
-Because the tree is undergoing a form of natural bonsai- it never grows bigger than the Torterra's shell can handle- some people have experimented with other, man-made bonsai methods. It doesn't work well if done on a fully evolved Torterra, but can have some success if one starts with a Turtwig. It doesn't seem to hurt them provided proper methods are used, much as bonsai doesn't hurt normal plants if done correctly, but attempting to curtail growth too far seems to also limit the growth of the pokemon as a whole, and can lead to problems with joints and issues with properly evolving. Bonsai Torterra enthusiasts recommended not trying to curtail growth beyond 3/4 of the normal size, and stopping immediately should the pokemon show the slightest bit of distress or health issues.
-There is a famous Torterra breeder who has a big old Torterra with a whole-ass zen garden on its back, it's very impressive.
-Torterras can live to be extremely old, and do, to an extent, never quite stop growing, but they do it so slowly that one trainer will rarely see theirs get too obscenely large in their lifetime. Torterras are also likely to leave human settlements and disappear into the wilderness if they feel they are too large or too old to live among them any more; it's said that some hills and mountains are really ancient Torterra, sleeping under the earth.
-If a Torterra grows a fruiting tree, the fruit is perfectly safe to eat and to all intents apparently identical to fruit from a normal version of that tree, though more likely to be larger and less prone to pests. Fruit grown from Torterra trees is often sold at a premium and used in very fancy restaurants, because people naturally like to swear that the flavour is So Much Better and it has Greater Health Benefits. Grotle that show signs of developing fruiting trees are likewise sought after; it's not as common as people might like, though, and there are no commonly agreed-upon ways to ensure your Turtwig grows to bear fruit.
- Wild pokemon can and do live on Torterra backs quite happily, and it doesn't seem to hurt anyone involved unless the resident begins to do undue damage to the tree. Wild pokemon will even come and live on trained Torterra on occasion, although this happens FAR less with trainers who move around a lot or keep their Torterras in pokeballs a lot of the time, because of the obvious difficulties with continual trainer presence and the wild pokemon not being able to go into the pokeball with the Torterra. There are plenty enough stories about trainers who got startled Pachirisu to the face after letting their Torterra sleep outside overnight and then returning them to their balls in the morning, however.

 

(oh, this makes me so happy, I love the walking garden dino so much this is just making me do happy hand-flapping motions IRL)

Do Torterra have some dietary restrictions? (I always thought they were omnivorous.) Also, are Torterra limited to loamy soils or are there subtypes that grow, say, succulents?

Edit: A word, b/c ESL brain blepped

 

You're very welcome! I'm glad I can brighten your day some. I'm not a biologist or anything ftr, I just pull this stuff out my ass mostly, so any 'weird shit' can be explained by that and also It's Pokemon I Do What I Want.

Torterra are generally speaking photosynthesizing herbivores, in that they require both photosynthesis and intake of plant matter to really thrive, though in very extreme circumstances they can survive on photosynthesis alone. This can only sustain them for a limited amount of time, however, and they must have a decent amount of plant cover over their shells to attempt it and a very healthy tree.
As for restrictions, they certainly couldn't live on a carnivorous diet and it's not recommended to feed them meat, but some Torterra have been reported eating small mammals and reptiles before- mostly under unideal circumstances where they were clearly just trying to access nutrients any way they could, but once or twice apparently just because they felt like it. Nature is weird. There is a photo going around the internet of a Torterra whose tree is actually a giant pitcher plant and that one apparently eats a fully omnivorous diet, but nobody's been able to verify it.
As for plants, they can apparently eat whatever they damn well please when it comes to those, even some that would poison other pokemon or even unevolved Turtwig or Grotle. A diet high in poison can cause their tree to secrete toxins, however, and is therefore highly un-reccommended. They don't tend to go in the water much though so they don't naturally eat very much water vegetation, and too much seaweed can quickly lead to unwanted salt buildup.

They aren't limited to loamy soils, no! Desert subtypes are much less common because the conditions are less friendly overall, but they do exist, albeit usually more around desert scrublands than true deserts. Succulent Torterra also do not tend to cope well with being taken into more humid environments, and if you don't live somewhere they're native they really need a habitat all of their own to not be constantly over-watered.
No verified reports have ever observed aquatic Torterra growing aquatic plants (this is theorised to be too outside their usual typing and environment), and nobody has ever seen them living natively in places where the weather is cold/windy enough there are no significant trees, either. They do appear to need some kind of major 'tree' to survive, be that an actual tree or a large cactus; they could not live with just, say, a covering of lichen.

 

Can I get headcanons for Espurr and/or Mismagius?

 

yes!

tomorrow, most likely, because my brain has hung up a large 'Closed' sign for the night, but yes!

 

Espurr is... an excellent little pokemon honestly.

-Despite their eternally blank stares, Espurr are capable of the full range of emotions and are perfectly intelligent. They're just really, really easy to distract, because of the effort required to keep their psychic power under wraps. Training can help them settle it down and stop them being so distractable, but they never do lose the blank face.
-Most people consider Espurr a pokemon for advanced trainers only because of the sheer potential for destruction should they lose control, but it's also a notable point that the expression makes them hard to read, and therefore it is unfortunately easy for an inexperienced trainer to go down the wrong road with them behaviour or training-wise. For younger or less experienced trainers who are determined to take on the challenge, it is usually recommended they start with a male Meowstic; Meowstics in general also tend to maintain flat affects, but they make their feelings much clearer through vocalisation and actions- and males are less likely to lash out if a trainer missteps and offends them.
- Despite the gender differences in appearance and behaviour when they evolve, it's very hard to gender an unevolved Espurr, because their reproductive organs are small and hard to differentiate and they show no marked gender differences at all in behaviour. Espurrs in general tend to be shy, trending to actively nervous, and do not really appreciate the company of other Espurr: it is thought this is because one Espurr losing control over its physic power could snowball into the entire group doing it quite easily. Meowstic are more tolerant of living in groups, but it tends to be one female with a group of males rather than more evenly mixed or swayed the other way.
-Espurr make great lap-pets, because they are often extremely happy to just cuddle up and do fuckall all day, to the extent that they often need to be gently encouraged to exercise both mentally and physically for their health. Mental exercise is just as important, as an Espurr who fails to train their mind is more at risk of leaking power and it interferes with evolution.
-Meditation is a fantastic mental exercise for them, but so are things like manipulating objects through mazes with telekinesis (start crude, work your way up as their fine control develops), and many Espurr find it surprisingly fun to develop Contest or Multi-Battle moves that involve moving other Pokemon around (provided their teammates are okay with it, anyway).
-They often love to be brushed, provided one avoids the ears, and are extremely tolerant of being dressed up, although many of them have design and/or texture preferences in clothing and decorations; it seems many of them find certain styles or textures or materials to be distracting or uncomfortable. This is one of the places where the flat affect can trip up well-meaning but ignorant trainers.
-Some Espurr have subtle stripes in their coat; they are known as tabby espurr and are very popular, although the markings don't breed true as often as breeders would like. It seems to be a harmless mutation, perhaps an early expression of the stripe genes in Meowstics.

 

...i should probably go into more detail about my attitudes to pokemon worldbuilding and hcs shouldn't i

-i prefer to set things up as a mixture of anime/movie and game mechanics, skewed heavily towards anime because it's more freeform and better for Dramatics. the game mechanics tend to come in when i decide the anime is being unnecessarily stupid or removing aspects i enjoy from the games.
-that said, i get my basic inspo for the pokemon hc posts i've done so far from rereading the games' pokedex entries
-pokemon is my happy place, so I generally refuse to bring in anything too Real World Issues; I don't hold that the pokemon universe has man-made climate change, and the various -phobias and -isms aren't things. While there is obviously crime and so forth, we're definitely operating under the assumption that Friendship And Love Wins The Day here. Which is not to say I can't make it dark if I wanna. Basically I just refuse to make it hopeless.
-the legendaries are real, though often have essentially cryptid status, and you can catch them (though some places have laws around it), but if they agree to stay in the pokeballs they're humouring you because they like you (bar Master Ball, but that's its own issue). There are only one of some, but multiples of others depending on power level, role, general abilities, etc etc etc. pulling one out in the middle of the Pokemon League Tournament is going to cause it to screech to a halt while there's a long rules and laws debate.
-while i'm as fond as anyone else of ascribing more real-life biological behaviours/attributes to pokemon, i do try and remember that they're magic elemental data monsters and at the end of the day i do what i want
-i like to say that the ghost pokemon supposed to be developed from human spirits really are, because that's nifty, and see above wrt: doing what i want
-the pokemon world is essentially benevolent in its politics and social structure, or at least is now. related to it being my happy place.

 

Now I wanna hear more of your legendary Pokémon headcanons.

 

additional:

-i'm cool with pokephilia, though in a wider worldbuilding context where not all pokemon are of equal intelligence i apply a bit of nuance to it, and it isn't something i'll talk about unless directly asked.
-almost all pokemon are smarter than regular real-world animals, but not all are quite as smart as your average human, and some are much smarter. i try to remember that they wouldn't think like humans, though.

 

eyebrow waggles.

-i'm hazy on the differences between mythicals and legendaries sometimes but as a general rule there's almost always going to be more than one of a mythical but there may not be more than one of a legendary unless there's a really good reason, or what passes in my brain for a really good reason.
-i developed the theory that there are more than one groudon and kyogre because the Sunmoon anime showed a kyogre being nearly caught by a fucking. one-episode basic-ass pokemon poacher dude and i had to assume it was a baby who didn't know what it was doing or my brain would have leaked out of my ears. That prrrobably means there's more than one rayquaza too.
-there's definitely only one mew, mewtwo, arceus, dialga, palkia, giratina, reshiram, zekrom, kyurem, yveltal, xerneas, the tapus, zacian, zamazenta and eternatus. There is technically only one celebi but time bullshit means there's multiples of it running around at any one time. If there's more than one of the Regis, they're very well hidden.
-admittedly some of the... lesser? mythicals/legendaries i don't know much about and cannot be assed to look up right now, like Hoopa and Genesect and so on; feel free to ask me about them specifically if you really want.
-any legendary who has some kind of really important role like overseeing time and space or whatever is perfectly powerful enough to keep doing that while riding around with a fourteen-year-old they took a liking to. if something really requires their presence, they are also perfectly capable of getting out their ball, fucking off, and coming back later. anyone who tries to say they're not allowed to is not the kind of person they'd generally elect to hang out with in the first place.
-single-entity legendaries are sex/genderless in the sense that animal kingdom notions of sex and gender don't really apply to them; if they wanted babies they could get them, some might try out sex, but they're still not males or females in any meaningful sense; they might adopt a pronoun based on personal preference, though. Mythicals or multiple-entity legendaries usually have some kind of sex/gender, but in some cases it doesn't match any other pokemon's so they can't interbreed, and in other cases they could interbreed but it's considered not a fantastic notion to make that common knowledge so breeders don't get bright ideas.
-while it is accepted that if a kid turns up with a straight-up Dialga hanging out on their belt, Dialga is there of its own will, it is highly unlikely said kid would be permitted to use said dialga in any official competition, for obvious fairness reasons. some of the mythicals and lesser legendaries may be permitted, though, so long as you can prove you obtained them legally/by their own will.
-Master Balls... can trap most legendaries bar Mew, Arceus, and Dialga/Palkia level ones. If someone is touting a Moltres they caught in a Master Ball though they're going to be questioned on a) how did you get that ball, those are Highly Controlled Items supposed to be used only in the gravest of emergencies, and b) Is Moltres Actually Happy To Be With You, Buddy. The pc in the games being awarded a Master Ball is probably, in a wider worldbuilt context, a recognition of their ability to deal with high-level crises and that they are trusted not to mistreat any pokemon they might be forced to catch in said ball.

 

So how do lesser legendaries like the weather trio members or the legendary dogs breed if there's multiple of them? Are they just summoned into existence by stronger legendaries? Parthenogenesis?

 

Mammals like the legendary dogs probably just breed like normal; when a mummy suicine loves a daddy suicine very much-
They were one of the ones I was thinking of that probably could interbreed with other pokemon, actually, it's just absurdly rare. Even though they do breed with each other, they live a long time and have very slow, spaced-out mating cycles, not even getting into egg groups and how they work and if they even apply to legendaries (the legendaries/mythicals that do breed fairly normally are probably basically in an egg group of their own, and would therefore have an easier time breeding with each other than any normal pokemon- and who's to say they don't, tbh? I doubt in-universe knowledge of legendary breeding is very advanced, and if their breeding works like a normal pokemon's then the infant would still be just the same species as the mother).

For more abstract legendaries like the weather trio (yes i know they have other formes, but those seem to be more like ones they just wear occasionally, whereas the angry man-clouds appear to be their more 'base' forme?) i feel like they have... kind of like 'rituals' where they draw energies in to a focus and produce a new version of themselves out of it, which probably happens a lot less often than standard-breeding legendaries do it and only when there is a Need to replace one of them or spread out the metaphysical load each one is handling a little more.

 

.............anyway now I have to curse myself with another wip and draw fusions/mixes of the legendary dogs in all directions

 

whispers........
do chikorita.....

 

tiny leaf pokemon

-Chikorita is often used as a starter Pokemon because they are super docile, gentle, expressive and easy to get along with in general, making them ideal for young trainers just starting out- and, as a bonus, they are perfectly capable of using the scents wafted from their leaf to defuse potentially dangerous situations.
-this doesn't, however, mean that they're completely untroublesome in every way as there is an occasional unfortunate tendency to assume. They are highly picky eaters who are not above going on hunger strike and trying to survive solely on photosynthesis if they don't like their meals (like many more animalistic grass-types, photosynthesis is a required part of their diet but they cannot survive on it solely long-term, especially not first evolution stages like Chikorita who require greater energy intake for development); they are not particularly natural hardcore battlers and default to using status moves, needing more training to take to attack moves and the hurlyburly of battle in general; ironically for a grass-type they are prone to suffering the effects of overwatering if too-often bathed or not dried out fast enough after battling water types; and it is not uncommon for them to develop over-dependent relationships with their trainers and suffer separation anxiety or become jealous of other pokemon in the team.
-although like most 'starter' pokemon there is no longer a significant population of chikorita in the wild, the type usually handed out to new trainers is basically the wild type, as they are the hardiest, least likely to have physical issues, and most likely to take to battling. In other arenas, however, especially contests, there is a huge and varied collection of different morphs, in both colour and shape. There are variegated chikorita, and variegated-with-shiny-colour chikorita, and 'succulent' chikorita (not true succulents, as unlike the Turtwig line Chikorita cannot grow different kinds of plant matter, but their leaves are thicker and resemble cacti pads; they are even more prone to overwatering than normal Chikorita), and ruffled chikorita, and a whole host of others, often developed through careful breeding with other grass-types. Most of these morphs are perfectly healthy, but unfortunately some, especially extreme variegation or deliberate albinism, can cause problems with evolution. This is often due to the fact that, as Bayleef's leaf is smaller and their colouration is in general duller, Chikorita need to stock up on extra photosynthesis energy before evolution, and lack of chloroplasts interferes with this.
-There is also, sadly, something of a market in smuggling fancy chikorita to places where the restrictions on breeding are tighter, or to Galar where entry to non-native species is tightly controlled.
-One of the reasons Chikorita is so popular on the contest circuit, beyond their ability to be bred into fancy shapes, is that despite their stumpy little legs and general chubbiness they are surprisingly nimble and athletic and can be taught a much wider range of gymnastics than one might expect.
-the chemical they use to emit the calming scent from their leaves is often used in perfumes and other scented products, and humanely-harvested Chikorita leaf is a common ingredient in potpourri. Some people are allergic, but the scent remains popular enough that there are at least two types of synthetic chikorita extract out there.
-Despite their pretty smell, it is not recommended to ingest any part of a Chikorita, as they produce minor toxins to deter predators and to use as part of moves that do not agree with the human digestive system.

 

Do you have thoughts on Eevees perchance?

 

cries softly i love my dumb little plant baby even more now...... chikorita is so good..... thank u