This is hands down one of the best questions I have ever been asked in the nearly 13 years that I have been on tumblr. Thank you so much for my life.

Okay, so! There are technically three answers for my favorite pokémon, because I love them all in different ways and so they all qualify. Those answers are:

Charizard: Charmander was my very first partner pokémon way back in 1998, and so the bond that I have with that species -- and in my particular with my main charizard partner, Nova -- is really special. Whenever I step outside on a sunny spring day with a nice breeze, I can't help but be filled with this intense feeling in my chest that it's a perfect day to go flying on a charizard's back. And I know that's silly, but I think it's because I used to pretend I was doing just that when playing at recess way back in the spring of 1998 (and 1999 and 2000 tbh, lol). I actually have a stylized Charizard tattoo to represent my love for Pokémon as a whole, but especially that one, because it'll always be special to me.

Mimikyu: If I picked a pokémon purely on its lore / design alone though, with no prior attachment involved, it would be Mimikyu! I adore absolutely everything about Mimikyu. I love how simultaneously goofy yet unsettling its disguise is. I love that it's an eldritch abomination that causes anyone who looks under its disguise to die a painful death. I love that despite looking like it was just going to be a gimmick pokémon at first, it is actually incredibly viable in competitive play. My favorite memory with my own mimikyu, Lilith, was when she used the Let's Snuggle Forever Z-Move on Archie's Kyogre during the Rainbow Rocket segment in Ultra Sun, and just YEETED that entire Kyogre hundreds of feet away. Truly magnificent. I love her.

Dreepy Line: But my favorite evolutionary line is the Dreepy line, because I love how Dreepy is involved at every single stage. I love how Dreepy looks as though they have no thoughts behind their eyes. I love how Drakloak panic if the Dreepy on their head goes missing and they frantically try to find some other pokémon to put there. And I love how Dragapult shoot babies at mach speed at their opponents. The entire line is just fantastic. 10/10 pokémon for sure. My Dragapult is named Mercury, and she's an angel.

As for my dream teams, you bet I do!! I have both my main six, as well as my Ghost-specialist team. (There is a bit of overlap because I do love those ghosts.) Those teams are:

Main Six: 1.) Nova the Charizard -- Adamant nature. She can mega evolve into Mega Charizard X, she can Gigantamax, and she has a Dragon Tera Type. Her current attacks are Dragon Claw, Thunder Punch, Flare Blitz, and Roost.

2.) Lilith the Mimikyu -- Naughty nature. She has a Ghost Tera Type. Her current attacks are Shadow Claw, Swords Dance, Play Rough, and Shadow Sneak.

3.) Luneth the Umbreon -- Sassy nature. He has a Dark Tera Type. His current attacks are Wish, Swift, Crunch, and Moonlight.

4.) Mercury the Dragapult -- Jolly nature. She has a Dragon Tera Type. Her current attacks are Phantom Force, Dragon Dance, Dragon Darts, and Psychic Fangs. (That last one is temporary until I find something better.)

5.) Artemis the Corviknight -- Quirky nature. She can Gigantamax, and has a Steel Tera Type. Her current attacks are Drill Peck, Iron Head, Bulk Up, and Roost.

6.) Rachel the Ursaluna -- Adamant nature. She's an Alpha Ursaluna and has a Ground Tera Type. Her current attacks are Rest, Swords Dance, High Horsepower, and Hammer Arm.

Ghost Team:

1.) Lilith the Mimikyu -- Same as above

2.) Mercury the Dragapult -- Same as above

3.) Hinoki the Hisuian Typhlosion -- Modest nature. She has a Ghost Tera Type. Her current attacks are Flamethrower, Will-O-Wisp, Calm Mind, and Infernal parade.

4.) Superman the Golurk -- Rash nature. They're shiny! Their current attacks are Dynamic Punch, Earthquake, Shadow Punch, and Stealth Rock.

5.) Nightshade the Gengar -- Lax nature. He's shiny! His current attacks are Venoshock, Dark Pulse, Hypnosis, and Shadow Ball.

6.) Fi the Aegislash -- Brave nature. Her current attacks are King's Shield, Swords Dance, Shadow Claw, and Iron Head.

Sorry . . . I've been an Ash/Misty truther since 1998, so Ash/May never stood a chance with me alas 😔 but I do think that their friendship is cute! Especially when they bickered in the dub, because that was always just Veronica Taylor yelling at herself lmfao (there was this one scene where Ash was losing his shit because of how long May took to get ready that was VT yelling at herself and it was great.)

Sorry for the late reply! I totally meant to reply to this and got distracted orz

I think im pretty good coverage wise actually! tbh I wanted galarian slowbro who I think should have been poison/water imo and I would have switched Weavile since I could slow count it as Gen 1/2/8 lol and would have had garchomp or flygon bc I love my pseudo dragon children

that's....true what the hell how did I not realize that wtf nintendo!!!! that's so weird!? watch, if they did give us another eveelution, it'll be a mimikyuu type evee and a ghost type lol

Oh, gotcha! Yeah, I do remember finding a Riolu in the wild right off the bat in BW2. I'm pretty sure BW2 were also the games that introduced the ability to catch Eevee in the wild as well; I remember being really surprised by that at the time, because Eevee was such a rare pokémon in all the games before that.

I think it would be neat if you did your idea, I'd definitely tune in especially for the games i haven't played!

my current dream team is Alolan Golem, Weaville, Gardevior, Lucario, and Ceruledge!

Gardevior and Lucario have been my two ones I don't change in my line up, while everyone shifts. I'd be a dual type gym leader for sure and trainers would hate me bc I wouldn't have a set type really and could switch up my main six for Bisharp, Tinkaton, Flygon, Swampert, Breeloom, and Frostlass 😈 my theme would be Always Prepared and focus on the importance of having at least some typing diversity!

I actually have like a whole thing where I want a pokemon from every gen, and i have this personal theory that helps with that where pokemon can be categorized into two things: first there's their introductory generation and their home generation.

so like Gardevior is a Gen 3 and Gen 6 pokemon while Lucario is Gen 4 and 5. I do realize that my plan for team under that requirement along with being a dual type and not overlapping type wise is flawed bc I don't have a Gen 8 pokemon on my team though 😅

oh I did want to ask your thoughts bc I didn't play Gen 8 but I'm kinda of disappointed we didn't get a steel or dragon type eveelution to finish off a slyveon trio and was wondering do you think if they had that those two eveelutions would have fit into the games themes?

Oh, I might do that! Thank you for the recommendation! And for the support if I ever decide to stream myself 💜 honestly I feel like being a streamer would be the perfect job for me, since it's video games and would enable me to stay in my house 99% of the time like I truly want to . . . but we'll see how things go.

Oh, those are all such good pokémon!! Weavile is honestly a pokémon I have always loved, yet somehow have never trained. I do have a Weavile EX deck in TCG Pocket though (it's a Darkrai EX + Weavile EX deck) and it's what's gotten me to Ultra Ball in the current ranked season. Weavile is just so good, but all the rest of your choices are, too! Ceruledge is an absolutely fantastic pokémon as well, and I'd use mine on my Ghost team if I didn't already have Hisuian Typhlosion. Although, I still have my Ceruledge in my "Other Beloveds" box just in case.

Haha, honestly, I think we should have more Gym Leaders (and Elite Four members) who use multiple types. To date, Blue is the only Gym Leader who has not had a set type, and I think that's because his Gym team is based on the team he had as a Trainer / temporary Champion in the previous games. (Which still frustrates me about Cheren in BW2; what happened to his other pokémon? Why is he a Normal specialist now? Why did they have to replace Lenora?! Gahhh.) As fun as it is to build mono-type teams, or to steamroller through a Gym with one pokémon, I like the challenge that strong opponents having multiple different types provides and I wish we saw more of that in the series!

I understand your theory! It's kind of like how, yes, Sneasel was introduced in Gen 2, but Weavile was introduced in Gen 4. And I can see why you associate Gardevoir strongly with Gen 6, because of her mega evolution. Although, I'm curious about Lucario and Gen 5 . . . did Lucario get something special in Gen 5 that I'm not remembering? (This is a gen question btw, it's completely possible I forgot something.)

For Gen 8 pokémon, my personal favorites are the Cinderace, Dragapult, and Corviknight, but ones like Frosmoth, Toxtricity, Dubwool, and Hatterene are really good, too! If you tell me what kind of type coverage you're looking for, I might be able to suggest a Gen 8 pokémon for you. :)

I'm not sure about introducing a Steel or Dragon eeveelution in Gen 8, but I will always be disappointed and frustrated that Sylveon was the only eeveelution introduced in Gen 6 when we didn't yet have a Dragon, Poison, or Steel eeveelution. Previously, new eeveelutions came in pairs, with one having the advantage over the other's type. Umbreon has the advantage over Espeon, and Glaceon has the advantage over Leafeon. So it stands to reason that either they should have introduced a Dragon eeveelution for Sylveon to have the advantage over (which would make a lot of sense considering Fairy was the new type at the time and Sylveon was showing that off), or a Poison or Steel eeveelution that Sylveon would be weak against.

Unfortunately, though, that wasn't the case, and at this point I don't see us ever getting another one because of how much work The Pokémon Company has put into making Eevee (and by extension its evolutions) into a secondary mascot for the franchise. There has been so much merchandise centered around The Eeveelutions™️with all eight of them on it that if they introduced another eeveelution now, all of the merchandise that was previously marketed as having all eight eeveelutions would be rendered moot. Not to mention things like Eevee's signature Z-Move, although I don't know that they'll ever bring Z-Moves back as a mechanic. (We're getting mega evolution back, though, finally, so it's always possible that we could see Z-Moves again as well.)

I haven't played a pokemon since og sumo but I do keep up with adjusting my dream/gym team with every new generation, though i have a few mainstays! (thank arceus for regional variants) my love for the games got rekindled recently bc I found a streamer in in 30s who has never played and started with leaf green with no backseating! it's been a joy to see her learn and discover pokemon and I even learned a few things despite playing since yellow, like the Natures, I didn't know they impacted your Pokemons stats!

Oh, that's so lovely to hear!! I'm so happy whenever anyone new discovers and gets into Pokémon 🥰 I've actually thought about doing streaming myself, going from Gen 1 through to Gen 9 on new files, in order to maybe introduce people who might not otherwise be familiar with the games to the games in a way that is hopefully a little less intimidating since they wouldn't be the ones playing . . . (Since like, yes these are games that are accessible for kids, but when you talk to an older fan who is familiar with the deeper mechanics, it can seem like a lot, and the fact that we now have over 1000 pokémon doesn't help that either. And I love Pokémon so much, I want to share that with people!) But I've never streamed anything before in my life, and I'm not sure that people would be interested in that anyway, hahaha.

If you ever do get a chance to play some of the games beyond og SuMo, I really recommend both Legends Arceus and Sword/Shield! Legends Arceus plays quite a bit differently than the standard games, although it is considered to be a main line game by Game Freak rather than a spinoff. While the different play style might seem like a Lot at first, the game really eases you into it and it has so many cool features. As someone who never liked Sinnoh or the Sinnoh games, I can safely say that I absolutely love Hisui (the region Sinnoh used to be) and just about everything else in that game. It's super great! (It also spawned this video, which is one of the greatest videos the Pokémon fandom has ever produced.)

For Sword/Shield, they are indeed your standard Pokémon games, but while they got a lot of backlash from the fandom, I honestly think they are excellent. The characters are fantastic, I think the personality of the Galar region is rich, it has some great new pokémon, the music slaps (the Battle Tower, Gym Leader, and Marnie's battle theme are all bangers, and I also love the second Wild Area theme), the character customization is great, and best of all, the games run really smoothly without bugs! Which you might think should be expected, and you are correct, but their successors . . . don't. 🙃 Though the Switch 2 hardware might fix that, it shouldn't be needed to run games that were developed for Switch 1.

If you ever get the chance to play those games, I hope that you enjoy them!

Natures do in fact influence the stat growth of your pokémon! And in the older games it used to be that you had to breed if you wanted the ideal nature for your pokémon. There are ways to shorten this process, such as by finding a male pokémon with the correct nature and breeding it with a female of the species you want, and having the male pokémon hold an Everstone (which will pass down the nature guaranteed) . . . but the newer games have made it even easier with something known as Nature Mints. If you give your pokémon a Nature Mint, their stat growth will reflect the nature on the mint. (So for instance, if you give them an Adamant Mint, their ATK Stat will get the boost while their SpA Stat will get the decrease.) The nature listed on their status page won't change, but you'll see the change in stat boost / decrease by the little arrows next to each of their stat values.

There are also the Individual Values (IVs), which are your pokémon's innate stats. So like, if you breed a handful of Charmander, you'll notice that in addition to the different natures giving them different increased / decreased stat growth, they all still have different stats regardless, varying by a few digits here or there. Even ones with the same Natures can have different stats when they're first born. This is due to the IVs. Each stat has an IV tied to it, and the numbers in these IVs range from terrible to perfect. (I'm not sure of the exact number needed for perfect, since this info isn't shown in the games; however, there is a way to "judge" your pokémon's stats to show what the IVs look like, and the lowest judgment for a given stat is "No Good" while the highest is "Best".) If you ever hear of a pokémon having "six IVs," that means that all of their stats have perfect IVs. This makes them stronger in battle!

Now, to this day there is no way to easily breed a six IV pokémon. The closest you can get is giving one of the parents a Destiny Knot, which guarantees that five IVs between both parents will be carried down to the child. The problem is, you don't get to select which five are carried down; so even if you have one parent with 5 perfect IVs, they may only donate two of them, while the parent with the worse IVs donates the remaining three (and then the sixth stat is always rolled random). This means that it can take days, or even months of breeding to create a perfect IV pokémon, particularly since even if both parents have perfect IVs, that final stat is always going to be random rolled. (Although, that would still speed up the process.) When I bred for a perfect IV Charizard . . . listen, my Poké Pelago is OVERFLOWING with Charmander, lmfao.

With all that said though, while IV breeding hasn't been sped up, you may recall Hyper Training from the og SuMo games! Hyper Training is indeed the IV shortcut, albeit with a little catch. With Hyper Training, you can change your pokémon's stats so that they get the same stat boost they would get from having perfect IVs for use in battle. Hyper Training also carries between games, so even if you Hyper Train in SuMo and then pass that pokémon through Home to Sword, your pokémon will still have the Hyper Trained IVs for battling. However, Hyper Training does not count toward breeding. If you breed your Hyper Trained pokémon, the IVs they pass down will be their original ones, not the Hyper Trained ones. (And tbh I think this is is the same for Nature Mints, though that's more speculation on my part as I haven't researched that.)

So like, there still is a lot to know and learn with Pokémon! But also, Game Freak has made getting into the competitive scene less grindy. There are some fans who complain about this, who think shortcuts like Nature Mints or Hyper Training aren't "real" or don't "count" . . . but I disagree with that. I think instead they make it so that you can make the pokémon you bonded with through your adventure competitively viable if you want, rather than having to breed (sometimes for days or weeks or months at a time) a replacement just because your in-game starter had bad IVs or the wrong Nature.