Tapu Wooloo asks:

Now that regional variants are a thing, can you revisit your article on Beautifly and Dustox and say what more you would do with them?

ugggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

so the thing about Beautifly and Dustox

is that there’s no reason for them to exist

and I know I try not to say things like this anymore, and I try to be nice about Pokémon that are a bit dull or pointless, and I’m just a more chill and friendly persona now and try to keep my violent rage against the entire universe buried under a few thousand layers of self-loathing and cream cheese icing, and I don’t even think that article is good anymore, we’ve simply moved on, Tapu Wooloo, but my god, WHY ARE Beautifly and Dustox? What, actually, is the point?

I mean, really, there’s an argument that Beautifly and Dustox are already just Hoennese forms of Butterfree and Venomoth.

I don’t even know what you’d do with them that justifies using them and not any other butterfly or moth Pokémon. Vivillon is kinda the obviously more interesting butterfly Pokémon to work with as a regional variant because it has them already; they just weren’t called that at the time; you could retcon all its existing forms by giving them more significant cosmetic and mechanical differences and suddenly you have a whole bunch of regional variants, most of them for regions we haven’t even visited yet! I guess there must be something that makes use of Wurmple’s split evolution, right? Something sun/moon-themed might have been good, because Beautifly and Dustox have a day/night duality to them and Dustox is based on a luna moth, but we kinda missed the perfect opportunity for that with Alola (and you’d have to be careful not to step on Volcarona’s toes, because Beautifly 100% does not survive that comparison). The most interesting thing about Beautifly is it can stab you with its face and drink your blood, so I guess I would like to work more with that, but how you would actually go about it depends on the region you were building, I guess. You could flip the day/night thing on its head and have, like, a vampire Beautifly with a black and red colour scheme, then make Dustox into something vaguely day- or sun-themed, maybe imitating the colours of a monarch butterfly… that works better mechanically too, because Dustox is already support-oriented and wouldn’t be so obviously trying to compete with Volcarona. Needs more than that, of course, but it’s a start.

I know this is not a particularly satisfying answer, but this question has seriously been in my inbox for weeks, and the sincere answer is honestly “nothing, why would there be anything?” so… y’know, I’m trying, is the point.

Anonymous asks:

Finneon and Lumineon get Silver Wind via level up, being the only non-Bugs who do so. What?

Well, I think it’s because of their butterfly-wing fins. Silver Wind is an attack associated not just with bugs but specifically with butterfly and moth Pokémon, all of whom have access to it aside from Vivillon, and they account for most of the Pokémon who learn it by levelling. Lumineon is clearly meant to resemble a butterfly (for what reason I’m not sure, though Bulbapedia suggests a link to the freshwater butterflyfish). The “wings” also net Lumineon access to Gust, for what it’s worth, and are perhaps responsible for her getting U-Turn as well.

Anonymous asks:

What would be your ideal worm–>cocoon–>some kind of winged thing line?

I don’t really have an “ideal” one, in the sense that there’s something in the back of my head that would work really well for it, but if you really wanted me to do the whole caterpillar/cocoon/butterfly thing, then I guess I think it would be really neat to do something with the Atlas moth. You know, this guy:

As it’s one of the biggest moths in the world, as well as named after the titan who holds up the sky, we have an excuse to do some somewhat unconventional things with it, like allow it to learn Fly and make it a big physical bruiser instead of special attack and support. Maybe have it punch things with six arms at once. I want to do something with the false snake heads on its wing tips too, but as tempting as it is, I worry that giving it actual snake heads that bite opponents is probably a bit too weird for something that traditionally would go in an early-game slot, and probably make the design too complicated and crowded. Possibly just give it the ability to use Glare and be done with it.

Atlas caterpillars and chrysalises aren’t all that exciting to look at, so it’s probably best to take a bit of artistic license with them, and fit them in with however the final form ends up looking.