#and when i did he was just a normal ass chandelure

[gabbertrapmix]

A deceptively powerful and ancient creature... who likes sparkly bows :)

[byakuyasdarling]

Ah yes, Pokémon rivals; my favourite topic

Warning: this list is massively biased. I (kinda jokingly) rag on every ‘Awful’ tier rival, so if you don’t want to here that, feel free to skip that explanation. I am pretty harsh with Marnie, I know a lot of people like her, so if you do like her PLEASE don’t read her section because I do not want to upset anyone. 

Also, I do ramble a bit how I like SWSH but they are my personal least favourite games (which is a hot take, I know), so if that would upset you please skip. Take care of yourselves <33

I created the politically correct ranking of Pokémon rivals (/j)

Anyway, epic explanation under the cut:

*if N was on this list he would fall under “Amazing”. Breath-taking story, breath-taking development, great theme songs, awesome character, fantastic team.

Why Blue is in S rank (very long explanation compared to the rest)

You cannot tell me Blue (or Green, or Gary, whatever you want to call the main Kanto rival) isn’t THE BEST RIVAL EVER. They got it SO RIGHT. He inspires hatred, AND sympathy. Literally, his grandad, the only living relative aside from his sister we even know about, loves you (the player) more than him and it’s kind of sad. 

Blue is great, he has a crappy pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ (see Pokémon Masters), he says ‘smell ya later!’ he has class, swag, and is by no doubt the most challenging rival character. He is the only rival I never swept on a normal run. He is always demeaning you; he is always one step ahead all the way up until the champion battle where you finally beat him. AND HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OMG.

He still is arrogant and prideful, but respects people and wants to guide people to be better at Pokémon battling and thrives when he sees others succeeding - he doesn’t mind being ‘a former champion’. HECK HE’S SO COOL AND AMAZING. 

Also he has the best champion theme and encounter theme ever. Yes, he was a previous F/O so I am super biased; but so were 3 others on this list. 

Silver and Gladion

These two were my F/Os when I was much younger (around 12). They are great rivals with great development and story arcs. Plus, they have bopper encounter themes and battle themes. Gladion was my real introduction to the oc x canon community and inspired me to take drawing on as a hobby (as well as Lillie but I did not end up drawing her as much). 

Brendan, Cheren, Hugh, and Barry

When I was 10 playing Omega Ruby, I liked Brendan a lot (so... another past F/O... he’s the final one though). I dunno, he genuinely had a good friendship with that extra spice of rivalry with our character, May. I do not like friendly rivals (if my listing wasn’t obvious), but Brendan did it right. There was a lot of touching scenes with him and May *cough*cough* Delta Chapter *cough*cough* which really made me connect with him when I was 10. Now, Brendan and May are interchangeable depending on which one of them you pick to play as, so why have I ranked Bredan far above May? Better encounter and battle theme (yes, they have different instrumentation) and he gets the childhood crush pass.

Cheren is cool, I just really like his character and his attempts to create a good strategy. He is really dedicated to what he loves and becomes a gym leader (like BLUE DID. Blue has it all, really). Plus, glasses are cute :) (he is the same age as me, I can legally say that even though that was an obvious nod to Byakuya but you never know what people will take out of context). 

Hugh is cool becomes he somewhat feels like an asshole rival, but at the same time, has a really soft side. Like, his whole motivation to be a good trainer is to save his sister’s Purrloin that was stolen by Team Plasma. He is a hero y’all. Also GREAT encounter and battle theme; huge thumbs up. 

Barry! My man! Overall, cool rival with a great team. He is the second hardest rival to me (but Blue is harder than him by a landslide still). He is really funny in both the games and the anime and despite being a bit more friendly, he still sparks a lot of rivalry with you. Plus, his dad is battle frontier brain Palmer! How awesome! He was also my first rival, so that’s something special to me too. 

Average Tier

I like Hau as a character, he feels like a genuine friend and how he develops with the main character and Lillie is really wholesome. It’s just - I dislike him as a rival, a lot. Easy fights, not the best encounter theme... just kind of there. I get why people consider Gladion as ‘the true rival’ of S and M because he really is. Hau is also a rival that chooses the starter WEAK to your starter like the gen 6 rivals (who I hate with my entire being). 

Wally had a bad-ass final battle theme song and moment. That’s literally the only reason he makes the average tier. If this was a ranking disregarding ORAS he is easily down in the ‘Awful’ tier. 

I like Pokémon Sword and Shield... except I just don’t like them as much as every other game (yes. I did play Pokémon Yellow and enjoyed it more, thank you). I know you all HATE that, but that is just my opinion - I think I have earned the right to say that after my almost 12 years of playing these games and being a VGC player for a few years. It has good characters and some cool Pokémon and yeah... gameplay? Lacklustre. I really do not know what went wrong outside of story. Somehow the competitive battle scene is not the fun it used to be. Dynamax bugs me, the lack of megas bugs me, the dex cut REALLY bugs me. I know I am not the only one who thought this game lacked the charm other Pokemon games have. Graphically though, it’s very nice for the most part.

I have gone way off-topic, but anyway, yeah. SWSH rivals make average because I like their characters (especially Hop’s development). Outside of that, not the best rivals.

May is cool for a lot of the reasons I discussed with Brendan.

Lacking Tier

I like Bianca’s whole deal with her dad and how Elesa has a nice moment to shine too - and that’s it. I know the whole theme of her team is friendship but I die inside every time I watch a Chandelure uses RETURN. It was cool she returned in BW2 I guess? I like how her battle theme matches her personality, but it isn’t anything to write home about. 

I like Calem a bit more than Serena but I do not want to pull another Brendan and May (even though I had some good reason to do that) and I’m going to put them here. Bad teams and not memorable in the slightest, Calem and Serena belong in this tier. 

Awful Tier

X and Y rivals amirite??? They just suck. They are annoying and they suck. They have 3 Pokémon in all final fights, really? At least Shauna is likeable in the anime. 

I hate Trace. But, he has one funny memory I have with my dad that makes him slightly better. We both named him ‘Blue’ since Blue is the actual Kanto rival, but then Blue showed up in LGPE... And then the two ‘Blues’ talked to each other and it was mildly amusing at the time. Anyway, he didn’t deserve Blue’s champion theme (which is even used for Blue in later games outside of his champion battle (BW2), THAT IS NOT TRACE’S THEME. Anyway, he is the gross friendly rival that attempted to fulfil the best rival’s shoes. Sorry Trace, bad luck my dude. 

I just never attached to Marnie I suppose, but I can understand that she is important to those who are invested in her. I am about to fully rag on Marnie, so please skip if that makes you upset. 

 I am going to hurt a lot of people when I said I never liked Marnie. She was always just... like why do people like her so much?? I feel like most people like her because she is ‘funny haha goth gf’ which, fair I suppose. I just think she is super lacking as a rival, she makes no real impression as an actual character, and I think if you removed her from the game it wouldn’t make a difference. Don’t want to be that guy, but I AM that guy right now. I suppose she has a cute design?? and that’s it. Again, I am really biased when it comes to SWSH and rivals, so I suppose she really got the short end of the stick with me.

[awkwardnoob]

More Pokémon AU nonsense.

I’ve said it before in another post, but Therion doesn’t have any Pokémon to start, before finding a shiny, female Salandit with Alfyn. She was literally hours old when they found her, attacked and shunted from the nest for being shiny. Therion is her New Mama and that’s all she knows, completely unaware he was planning to sell her for like, an entire hour after finding her (but after that she’s his forever, even if he’s in denial for weeks/months).

Therion, for some reason, ends up with all babies. His second Pokémon is a Cubone. Alfyn befriended a female Marowak that knew how to crush berries with her bone and make medicine (She also knows strength and is a fucking power house, the two of them are kindred spirits), so when she wanted to go with him, he knew he had to catch her baby too, obviously. Except the Cubone had befriended Therion’s Salandit, and the Marowak instead encouraged her baby to be caught by Therion, because that’s what he really wanted (also since they were all clearly traveling together, she was aware there was no harm). If I wrote a fic Cubone probably wouldn’t evolve anytime within it (because it’s just too young), but it’s father was Alolan, and the travelers (or Cyrus, more accurately) realize Therion’s Cubone has that heritage because it learns a fire type move specific to Alolan Marowak. (Cubone in this au learn some more fire attacks if they’ll evolve into Alolan form, and there doesn’t need to be any everstone holding/regional breeding nonsense, having an alolan and a normal parent essentially gives the baby a 50/50 chance of being either. It is decided at birth/in the egg tho, so Therion’s Cubone is definitely evolving into the Alolan form) Both the Cubone and Salandit learn thief at some point.

Therion’s 3rd Pokémon is a Houndour. House Ravus’ guard dogs are Houndoom/Houndour, and Therion’s Houndour is a spunky little bastard pup who dreams of glorious battle. The Dog Trainer was having massive trouble getting him to behave, and said something about “breaking his spirit” in Therion’s vicinity. Therion kinda saw himself in the Houndour and snatched it up, fleeing the manor. (And Cordelia didn’t give one single fuck about it, because she has like 50 of them and this one clearly was not suited for the guard dog life anyway) The Salandit and Cubone are basically weak as shit, because Therion doesn’t need strong Pokémon, he’s done fine this long alone, so he’s content letting them be babies, but the Houndour loooooves battle and he will attack the other Traveler’s Pokémon for training so Therion ends up battling with him a lot to stop that behavior and as enrichment. One stronk puppy. It always starts its battles with howl, and knows bite and fire fang. Probably learns flame thrower or fire blast at one point from another Houndoom (not related to House Ravus, more likely related to something with Aeber)

Therion is naturally loved by fire types. At least once, Therion has come to House Ravus, only for all the Houndour to break formation and he gets the wind knocked out of him from being tackled by like 50 puppies who all want to snuggle.

Cordelia, like Therion, did not start out with a Pokémon. Unlike Therion, this is not because of massive trust issues, she just didn’t have one. Except when one of their Houndoom birthed a litter of pups, one was shiny, so the staff offered it to Cordelia to see if she wanted it first before training it as a regular guard dog. Cordelia’s Houndour and Therion’s are siblings from the same litter. Cordelia’s Houndour is sort of trained as a guard dog so it can guard her, but it’s more her companion/pet so she spoils and pampers it. Between one of Therion’s visits to the manor, his houndour replaces bite with crunch, and the two houndour end up wandering off together. Cordelia and Therion find them, Therion’s trying to tutor Cordelia’s into learning crunch, because Cordelia’s Houndour wants to protect her with all his might.

Heathcote has a Houndoom, but that’s more because most House Ravus staff have at least one of the line. (Seriously, there are so many Houndour/Houndoom around that mansion, they should just rename it to House Houndour). Heathcote normally walks around with an Indeedee. He has one other Pokémon, that was his partner as a thief. It’s fairly old and he doesn’t use it often in favor of letting it live the retired life, but it’s still very bad ass and it’s what outs him as a fellow thief to Therion. Probably a fire type, as fire types are considered Aeber’s type (Sealticge gets the dark types), but I’m not quite sure what it is.

The gods do have their own teams, and they are very strong and very weird. Their Pokémon are essentially immortal and can learn moves a regular one can not learn. (Aelfric’s Chandelure, which is used for the kindling, knows Sacred Fire, for example) But Aeber has several fire types in his possession. One is his own Salandit, that’s regular colored and male. Unlike Therion’s Salandit, that is extra smol because she’s baby, Aeber’s Salandit is extra chonky. Imagine a Totem Salandit. He’s also just fat, because Aeber overfeeds him. Aeber also has a Houndoom, who ends up battling/mentoring Therion’s Houndour at some point. Possibly several points. Since it’s Aeber, he probably does have stuff like Moltres. He’s a god, he can have as many legends as he wants. The gods aren’t entirely tied to their type, they can have anything they want (Aelfric is the god of normal types and Chandelure is neither), but they definitely have types they prefer. There is also more than 13 types, so there is some overlap. Aeber is also known as a patron of poison types, but so is Dohter, despite them being the healer. (Dohter’s main type is ice tho, while they share grass types with Alephan, who is the entire reason the concept of starters exist. The type connections tend to web)

Instead of 13 there is now 14 gods in the Pantheon, because Arceus is included. The story goes that the 13 gods took care of Arceus’ egg, and when it hatched, they all created the universe together.

[atrainernamedradish]

This is another list I have been meaning to do for a while. Glad I waited to do this one as well because this would also differ slightly due to Generation 8 being a thing. I’d like to make it clear that this is my personal list on the off-chance that anyone’s favorites might be on this list. Also, I’d like to add that I won’t be putting Pokemon on this list who have shinies that you can barely tell a change in since that has been overdone on various lists way before mine. So without further ado…

Top 10 Least Favorite Shiny Pokemon:

10) Appletun 

...really? Did we really have to go with the obvious green apple color scheme in place of the red? It wouldn’t have been so bad if, oh I dunno, the Pokemon’s body was already green! *sighs* If you’re going to change the apple to a color similar to the body then at least change the body’s! Or maybe not go with that color for the apple? I just hate how boring this shiny is as well as how all that green just sort of blends in.

9) Chandelure

What happened with this shiny? It went from this cool ghostly color scheme to… these awful warm colors. Don’t get me wrong. I LIKE warm colors, but this was just a little much. I think they should have gone with a blue or maybe a red instead of the orange so it didn’t look as silly? Also not a fan of how it’s little face/body becomes this sickly pastel green, like why? Also, I just noticed that it’s “metal bits” are actually different as well. Never noticed that… 

8) Guzzlord

My biggest issue with this shiny is the fact that you can barely see its eyes on its stark white body. The eyes are that same bright “Tron” blue which doesn’t work well with how brightly white the body is so you kind of lose it, or in my case if you can see the eyes, hurts my own eyes trying to get a good look at it. I’m also not fond of that dark orange they put in place of the yellow (and for the record I like orange before anyone says otherwise). It’s just a messy color scheme on an already messy Pokemon design. I just don’t like it.

7) Politoed 

...what were they thinking with these dark and bright cotton candy colors? Don’t get me wrong, y’all, I like cotton candy colors, but only if they are pastel shades. Not this bright shit! If they just lightened the colors I’d think I’d like this shiny more.

6) Krookodile

I don’t hate the colors on this shiny, they just don’t fit this shiny is all. The Pokemon goes from looking cool to downright silly. On the fly I can’t think of what colors would make it look better, but anything else would be better by this point (well maybe except all those ugly sickly greens most of the Generation 1 and 2 Pokemon were given, yuck)...

5) Flaaffy

I know I said I wasn’t doing barely noticeable shinies, but this one has bothered me since I was a kid, and it wouldn’t be right not having it on the list. First of all, I’d like to say that the shiny is a better shade of pink. However, you don’t notice that the pink is different since it is already pink. I also didn’t notice until years ago that the little bulb on its tail does change colors in the shiny.  Overall this shiny is just lazy. You’re telling me that it couldn’t have been, oh I dunno, yellow since its pre-evolution and evolution are those colors in their normal forms? That would have looked nice and fit with how they become pink in their shinies, but nope, we got a slightly new shade of pink and tweaked fluff and a light bulb change, if you even notice the changes. Also, when I noticed the bulb was a different color, I initially thought that was all they changed on the shiny.

4) Solgaleo

Normally out of the Sun & Moon mascots I prefer Solgaleo, but in their shiny forms Lunala is the superior one. Why is that, you may ask? Because it's the blood moon! But what does Solgaleo get? A bright ass sunburn! Why?? He looks so stupid! (I know those two are genderless in game, but in the Pokedex entry it states that Solgaleo is male and Lunala female.) I feel like there were so many other things they could have done with this shiny instead of just painting the entire body a bright ass red! I hate it.

3) Dragonite

For those who have gone through my blog (I’d say following me but if I have followers I’ve never noticed and that’s because I don’t think I’m good enough to have a following, if I’m being honest) or personally know me, know that I am not a big fan of regular Dragonite. So when we got this hideous shiny it just didn’t help its case… Shiny Dratini is so cute with that nice shade of pink and the shade isn’t even that bad on Dragonair after evolving it, but why would I evolve it further to turn such a good color into this horrid one Dragonite has? Green shinies already have a bad reputation for being too bright so why did someone think making it this… dark yet dull was a good idea? ...I guess at least the insides of the wings aren’t such a bad shade of purple. It’s just so ugly and I despise it. 

2) Mismagius

This shiny is absolutely disgusting. Why would you choose these colors?? It looks like the poor thing has been soaking in a swamp or the sewers! They could have gone with any other color. I mean, it has a witch motif, so they couldn’t have gone with black or something equally as dark? I would never want a shiny of this because it’s just horrendous! And it’s pre-evolution shiny is equally suffering. Just bad color choices.

1) Shiinotic

I’ll just come right out and say it: it’s shiny colors are piss yellow and shit brown. You could have gone with an autumn color scheme or, hell even the bright green color scheme since the Shiinotic line is supposed to have some bioluminescence thing going on, but no. They went with the “your plant looks dead” look! I already hate the Pokemon (least favorite fairy type) and then we get this poor excuse for a shiny when I thought we couldn’t do worse colors like Mismagius, but Generation 7 had to prove me wrong. It’s ugly, disgusting, and thanks I hate it.