Corinne's Adventure

[Talon87]

I meant to post this when I beat the game, but I beat the game the morning of the day I headed home for the holidays and so it ended up being delayed until now. What it is is a list of all of my items that I acquired up until I beat the game up until now, which is almost identical to the same list as when I beat the game but for a small handful of items.

Backpack - Items Pocket:

Spoiler: show

PokéBall x119
Premier Ball x53 (note: zero Lumiose Ball Shop purchases)
Great Ball x 1
X Attack x 7
X Defense x 8
Honey x 10
Escape Rope x 10
Poison Barb x 1
Net Ball x 11
Luxury Ball x 6
Quick Claw x 1
Quick Ball x 5
Timer Ball x 7
Ultra Ball x 38
Miracle Seed x 1
Heal Ball x 2
X Sp. Atk x 4
Guard Spec. x 2
Super Repel x 43
Sharp Beak x 1
Star Piece x 5
X Sp. Def x 2
Silver Powder x 1
Tiny Mushroom x 20
Stardust x 9
Thunder Stone x 3
Leaf Stone x 2
Dive Ball x 2
Rocky Helmet x 1
Fire Stone x 1
Dusk Ball x 5
Hard Stone x 7
Jaw Fossil x 1
Aerodactylite x 1
Pearl x 6
Heart Scale x 5
Sachet x 2
Destiny Knot x 2
Mind Plate x 1
X Accuracy x 3
Soft Sand x 2
Nest Ball x 2
Moon Stone x 3
Black Belt x 1
Earth Plate x 1
Shiny Stone x 1
Soothe Bell x 1
X Speed x 1
Water Stone x 1
Whipped Dream x 1
Leftovers x 1
Silk Scarf x 1
Metronome x 1
Repeat Ball x 14
Sky Plate x 1
Poké Toy x 1
Black Sludge x 2
Heat Rock x 2
Flame Plate x 1
Smooth Rock x 2
Sun Stone x 4
Zap Plate x 1
Eviolite x 1
Magnet x 1
King's Rock x 1
Prism Scale x 2
Big Mushroom x 22
Cleanse Tag x 1
Damp Rock x 2
Spell Tag x 1
Poké Doll x 5
Repel x 3 (note: clearly had to have run out and then been rediscovered in the wild)
Metal Coat x 1
Master Ball x 1
Big Nugget x 1
Dire Hit x 3
Pretty Wing x 7
Macho Brace x 1
Smoke Ball x 1
Big Root x 1
Nugget x 2
Dusk Stone x 2
Icy Rock x 1
Max Repel x 3
Dread Plate x 1
Protector x 1
Fist Plate x 1
Twisted Spoon x 1
Abomasite x 1
Icicle Plate x 1
Everstone x 2 (note: fell down the list when I traded Boue to Kuno to evolve her)
Normal Gem x 1
Dragon Scale x 1
Iron Plate x 1
Reaper Cloth x 1
Charcoal x 1
Rare Bone x 1
Toxic Plate x 1
Pearl String x 1
Meadow Plate x 1
Mental Herb x 1
Balm Mushroom x 1
Pixie Plate x 1
Spooky Plate x 1
Draco Plate x 1
Dragon Fang x 1
Amulet Coin x 1 (note: clearly removed from team for Battle Maison purposes)
Absolite x 1
Power Anklet x 1
Power Lens x 1

It seems probable that the Dragon Fang was the last item in this pocket that I acquired during Story Mode. The Amulet Coin would've been on Shiina during the Elite Four challenge but would have been removed when I entered her, Feather, and Boue into the Singles tournament at the Battle Maison in Kiloude City. The Absolite is obviously not received until you fight your rival in Kiloude City, so we know that the few items which follow are all 100% acquired post-E4. (Not that their identities conceal this fact. lol)

A few things will show up further down the list than when they were truly acquired as a result of having been withdrawn from the backpack early on but then returned to the backpack later on. Some good examples of this are the Eviolite (which I placed on Nagi the moment I got it, back when she was a Wartortle, but removed from her once she evolved into a Blastoise) and the Everstone (which was originally higher in the list but plummeted to the then-bottom because of Everstone-related shenanigans when I traded Boue to Kuno).

Aside from these few discrepancies, this list has otherwise been untouched since the day I started playing Pokémon Y and is thus a pretty accurate time capsule which details my adventure of discovery as I played through the game. Some items I may have discovered earlier than you did; others later; and still others not at all. But it's all there to see.

Backpack - Medicine Pocket:

Spoiler: show

Super Potion x 14
Hyper Potion x 20
Max Potion x 2
Full Restore x 10
Revive x 31
Max Revive x 7
Berry Juice x 1
Sweet Heart x 1
Soda Pop x 1
Moomoo Milk x 37
Antidote x 8
Paralyze Heal x 1
Burn Heal x 4
Ice Heal x 4
Awakening x 1
Full Heal x 24
Lumiose Galette x 14
Ether x 8
Max Ether x 5
Elixir x 5
Max Elixir x 1
HP Up x 3
Protein x 3
Iron x 2
Calcium x 1
Zinc x 2
Carbos x 1
Health Wing x 3
Clever Wing x 1
PP Up x 10
Rare Candy x 10

This list is less special since it is one of two that has been ordered while playing. I guess the things of note are how many of the various irreplaceable items I have. Since I never use irreplaceable items (owing to their irreplaceability, duh ), you can match up the number you see with how many I've found so far in the game. Max Revives, Max Elixirs, etc. Obviously the more recent generations have been kinder about these so-called "irreplaceables" -- for instance, I'm pretty sure I got a Max Revive from smashing up some rocks on Cyllage City's beach one time, though I ended up having to soft reset so that one didn't get saved -- but anyway, it's a fun little list all the same. If you assume that I've found every single Rare Candy that there is to find between the start of the game and the Elite Four's cathedral-castle, take the difference between my number and that number and you'll see how many candies Ziggy III managed to pick up during the course of the game. (Far fewer than his predecessors, but oh well. ^^; )

Backpack - TMs Pocket:

Spoiler: show

TM83 Infestation
TM27 Return
TM54 False Swipe
TM01 Hone Claws
TM46 Thief
HM01 Cut
TM17 Protect
TM94 Rock Smash
TM96 Nature Power
TM65 Shadow Claw
TM09 Venoshock
TM44 Rest
TM88 Sleep Talk
HM04 Strength
TM39 Rock Tomb
TM40 Aerial Ace
TM21 Frustration
TM73 Thunder Wave
TM66 Payback
TM70 Flash
TM74 Gyro Ball
TM28 Dig
TM84 Poison Jab
TM98 Power-Up Punch
TM47 Low Sweep
HM03 Surf
TM45 Attract
TM92 Trick Room
HM02 Fly
TM86 Grass Knot
TM57 Charge Beam
TM43 Flame Charge
TM24 Thunderbolt
TM82 Dragon Tail
TM49 Echoed Voice
TM06 Toxic
TM61 Will-o-Wisp
TM41 Torment
TM19 Roost
TM99 Dazzling Gleam
TM42 Facade
TM69 Rock Polish
TM78 Bulldoze
TM76 Struggle Bug
TM75 Swords Dance
TM56 Fling
TM95 Snarl
TM79 Frost Breath
TM90 Substitute
TM10 Hidden Power
TM32 Double Team
TM04 Calm Mind
TM12 Taunt
TM30 Shadow Ball
TM31 Brick Break
TM89 U-Turn
TM55 Scald
TM35 Flamethrower
TM36 Sludge Bomb
HM05 Waterfall
TM08 Bulk Up
TM22 Solar Beam
TM53 Energy Ball
TM13 Ice Beam
TM26 Earthquake
TM03 Psyshock
TM02 Dragon Claw
TM80 Rock Slide
TM91 Flash Cannon
TM58 Sky Drop

Note that not every discovered purchaseable TM is here as I don't purchase every single purchaseable TM initially. (More hassle when scrolling through TM backpack pocket looking for the right TM, drains money that is in limited supply and I'd rather put towards other purchases first, etc.) For example, you don't see Rain Dance or Sunny Day here even though those were purchaseable ages ago.

Please don't indicate missed TMs, particularly those that are in the game's geographical first 25%. Still enjoying scouring the land for stuff, including accessing previously-inaccessible areas in older routes and towns. Thanks.

Backpack - Berries Pocket:

Spoiler: show

Chesto Berry x 101
Pecha Berry x 99
Aspear Berry x 79
Leppa Berry x 163
Oran Berry x 200
Persim Berry x 53
Lum Berry x 62
Sitrus Berry x 109
Figy Berry x 20
Mago Berry x 49
Aguav Berry x 73
Iapapa Berry x 58
Kelpsy Berry x 11
Qualot Berry x 87
Tamato Berry x 45
Wacan Berry x 18
Yache Berry x 21
Chople Berry x 14
Tanga Berry x 14
Charti Berry x 31
Kasib Berry x 15
Roseli Berry x 27

This is the other list that has been ordered as I've played, so you can't really infer from it when I got various berries.

Note that six Hondew Berries and six Kelpsy Berries were planted in the garden before I drew up this list and are growing as we speak, so you could arguably augment those two berries' counts by 6 if you wanted, not to mention the net gain of berries in those departments that is incoming.

Also note that over the course of the game I have figured out four of the six EV-reducing berries on my own. Fuck yeah! Just have two more to go and I'll have the entire set. I imagine they hinge on Cheri and Rawst though, so until I get those berries I may have to wait. NO SPOILERS PLEASE! Thanks. Have been having fun figuring these out on my own; if ever that ceases, I'll look things up on my own. Thanks.

Backpack - Key Items Pocket:

Spoiler: show

Town Map
Holo Caster
Adventure Rules
Roller Skates
Exp. Share
Sprinklotad
Lens Case
Old Rod
Dowsing Machine
Bicycle
Intriguing Stone
Mega Ring
Good Rod
Power Plant Pass
Super Rod
Elevator Key
Honor of Kalos
TMV Pass
Vs. Recorder
Poké Radar
Looker Ticket

The order is completely pristine, and like the TMs it's 100% accurate as a representation of which items I got when. Obviously the cutoff between pre- and post-E4 is the Honor of Kalos, received once you beat the game.

Items on Team Members:

Spoiler: show

Expert Belt (Shiina, for Battle Maison)
Sitrus Berry (Feather, for Battle Maison)
Lucky Egg (Trixie, just to help her catch up to Shiina and Feather)
Blastoisinite (Nagi's power-up item)
Gengarite (Boue's power-up item)

Not much else to say here.

Items on Pokémon in the PC:

Spoiler: show

Lucarionite (on the Lucario received from Korrina)
Poison Barb (on a Skorupi)
Quick Powder (on a Ditto)
Big Mushroom (on a Paras)
Gardevoirite (on the Ralts received from Diantha)
Power Band (on a male Ralts with 31 SpAtk 31 SpDef 30 Speed)

Not much else to say here either. Now that the full list has been posted to UPN, I'll likely go ahead and withdraw all of these items save the Power Band.

And with no Pokémon currently in the Daycare, I think that about covers it! Those are all the items I've gotten so far -- and for the most part is an accurate representation of all the items I'd gotten when I beat the game. So now I'll go ahead and rearrange my backpack's contents -- long overdue! -- and see if Gen 6's auto-arrange feature is any better than Gen 5's rather crappy one.

[Marion Ette]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Croagunk Breeding: So, I've got an awful lot of frogs now. I'll probably be in the market to trade eventually. (To trade rejects of mine who would be good seeds for you if you're after a Toxicroak of your very own.) But for now, I'm putting my Croagunk breeding on hold. The reason being this: I've only been breeding them for the purpose of giving Jynx a male to bed so I can get a Smoochum with Nasty Plot. I'm not actually gunning for Croagunk/Toxicroak myself. He's only ever been a means to an end for me. And the thing is, until Pokémon Bank comes out, I'm not going to be able to have a Dry Skin Jynx be the mother. Sure: I could raise an Oblivious/Forewarn Jynx right now and then raise a second Jynx later. But I think I'd rather wait. It's only a few days/weeks away at this point. Hopefully. ¬¬;

I actually was attempting to breed the ideal Toxicroak a couple weeks ago in honor of Mafia, and managed to get the one I wanted. I still have a bunch left, though. They'd need to be leveled up to learn Nasty Plot.

These are the stats of the ones I have:

Spoiler: show

Male, Lv. 24, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Taunt/Drain Punch/Revenge/Swagger
31/31/31/X/X/31

Female, Lv.29, Impish, Dry Skin:
Feint Attack/Revenge/Swagger/Mud Bomb
31/X/31/X/31/31

Male, Lv.1, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Astonish/Taunt/Drain Punch
31/X/31/X/31/31

Female, Lv.1, Adamant, Anticipation:
Astonish/Taunt/Drain Punch
31/31/31/31/X/31

Female, Lv.19, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Taunt/Drain Punch/Pursuit/Feint Attack
X/31/31/X/31/31

Let me know if any of these would help you and if you're interested~

[Talon87]

A bit delayed on a status update 'cause I've got so much to share! But I don't want to be rude by making Marion wait any longer, so I'll go ahead and reply to this first and then post the status update maybe some time tomorrow. Originally I'd planned to post it first and then reply to Marion at the bottom of the post (to minimize double posting) but it looks like that isn't going to happen tonight, so ...

Originally Posted by Marion Ette

I actually was attempting to breed the ideal Toxicroak a couple weeks ago in honor of Mafia, and managed to get the one I wanted. I still have a bunch left, though. They'd need to be leveled up to learn Nasty Plot.

These are the stats of the ones I have:

Spoiler: show

Male, Lv. 24, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Taunt/Drain Punch/Revenge/Swagger
31/31/31/X/X/31

Female, Lv.29, Impish, Dry Skin:
Feint Attack/Revenge/Swagger/Mud Bomb
31/X/31/X/31/31

Male, Lv.1, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Astonish/Taunt/Drain Punch
31/X/31/X/31/31

Female, Lv.1, Adamant, Anticipation:
Astonish/Taunt/Drain Punch
31/31/31/31/X/31

Female, Lv.19, Adamant, Dry Skin:
Taunt/Drain Punch/Pursuit/Feint Attack
X/31/31/X/31/31

Let me know if any of these would help you and if you're interested~

I happen to have a 31 Atk / 31 SpAtk / 31 Speed Timid female Croagunk, but that was the result of luck + a crapton of breeding frogs. Given the figures you're posting, it's pretty clear that one of two things is the case: either a) you're a much more prolific Pokémon breeder than I am or b) they've gone and done something to make it quite easy to get straight 31s (or near-straight 31s) in Gen 6. Obviously this probably has something to do with the breeding hold item hinted at earlier, so ...

First, I guess I'll go ahead and let you guys share, share away on that one. I didn't end up experimenting with any items and I don't think I shall: it's just too daunting given the sheer volume of items you could have a Pokémon hold. Never mind the exponential figure that results when you combine both mother's and father's items into one two-item combo.

Second, that's kind of you to offer, Marion, but on the one hand I'd feel bad asking you to give me a 31/31/31/31/31/x if it's hard to get and on the other hand I feel like I'd be up for the challenge of doing it myself -- at least the first time -- if it's rather easy. So I'll probably hold off on your offer for now. But that doesn't mean I'm flat out rejecting it. I'd like to see what this new breeding mechanic is first.

[Princess Ana]

It's the Destiny Knot. It passes down 5 of the parent's IVs. Basically makes breeding incredibly viable.

[Schala]

To clarify, it passes down 5 random IVs from both parents, not just the one holding it.

[jolteonjak]

Originally Posted by Schala

To clarify, it passes down 5 random IVs from both parents, not just the one holding it.

I can attest to this tidbit. I learned the hard way.

[Talon87]

The Looker Files: Okay, so ... I've really gotta thank you guys. I can't believe that not a single person spoiled me on this segment of the story once I started to talk about it. Nobody corrected me when I said (what ultimately prove to be) some incorrect things about Looker. Nobody gave away the plot. And so I was pretty much able to enjoy this even more unspoiled than I was able to enjoy the main plot of the game. I finished up the case files several nights ago, and I've gotta hand it to 'em ... while the climax of {BW2 subplot} still gets my award for the single darkest or most adult moment in the history of the franchise, the finale of the Looker Case Files comes damn close. Man oh man. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? Let's start back at the beginning ... (Skip the spoiler box first and read from everything below it onward. Come back to it later if you want.)

Spoiler: show

Looker Bureau Chapter 1: I mentioned this one several updates ago. It was great to see Looker show up since he's become one of my favorite recurring characters in the franchise but I was bummed out by some inconsistencies with what I knew about his character from DPPt and BW. Why was he behaving like some private eye detective rather than like a member of the International Police? Where was the badassery I had witnessed in the Unova series? Nonetheless, it was an acceptable start to what would ultimately prove to be an amazing bonus story.

Looker Bureau Chapter 2: This is the chapter where Looker asks us to investigate Lumiose City's alleys because of reports that the urban youth are beginning to congregate there and their parents are concerned. So, being the diligent JRPG player I am, I do everything by the book and proceed to tackle the alleys in the order they were presented to me by Looker. And so I head off for the sole alley in the southern half of the city that Looker has indicated I should inspect. And there I discover the rumored alley children.

I backed out immediately, went to the PC, and got a bunch of unevolved Pokémon who I wanted to evolve for Dex completion purposes. Verified that their IVs were suboptimal and away I went! Shiina, Feather, and four ragamuffins. Some of them evolved so quickly that I had to go back to the Pokémon Center on the southern street, drop them off, and pick up some new ones. Bit by bit I made my way into the belly of the alley, and there I discovered ...

Emma and Mimi. Well this was certainly a turn for the interesting. It's not like Pokémon to depict the harshness of reality, particularly not where it concerns children. But sure enough, the games give us Emma, a street urchin whose appearance betrays the hard life she's had to live. Looker feels so strongly about rescuing the girl from the slums that, despite having hardly any money to speak of himself, he invites Emma to live at the Looker Bureau. By day, he'll ask her to work as his assistant. By night, she's free to consider the bureau her home. Sheltered from the cold and the rain, she and Mimi will never again have to live on the streets, he promises.

I thought this was pretty impressive for a Pokémon game. Boy did I have no idea what was to come ...

Looker Bureau Chapter 3: This is the chapter with the Japanese tourist's stolen Pokémon. The moment I got to this chapter, I couldn't help but to constantly wonder, "IS THIS WHAT KIND SPOKE OF? IS THIS WHAT HE MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE COULDN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW I'D REACT?" Obviously I'm much less sure of that now ^^; , but at the time I was pretty enthused & amused at all of the Japanese dialogue. I took photos by cell phone of nearly every single screen from the moment the woman first spoke up to the moment it looked like the game was moving forward (and I was tired of taking photos ^^; ). Here, let me go get them and I may as well transcribe the text here for posterity's sake:

Spoiler: show

Woman: おねがいです！　たすけてください！ (Please! Help me!)

たいせつな　ぽけもんたちが　(My precious Pokémon)
ぬすまれて　しまったんです！ (have been stolen!)

Looker: Oho! What have we here?
One of our fair city's famous tourists!

From your manner of speaking, madame,
I deduce that you have traveled far indeed!

I am...Looker. What may I do for you?

Woman: わたしの　ことばが　わかるんですね (You understand what I'm saying, don't you?)
ああ　よかった！　たすかります！ (Oh, thank goodness! I'm saved!)

わたし　このくにの　ことばは (I can only understand this country's words!)
ヒアリングしか　できなくて！ (I can't speak them!) *reversed clause order for English

じつは　えきで　わたしの　たいせつな (The truth is, at the station my precious)
ポケモンちゃんたちが　ぬすまれて！ (Pokémon-chans were stolen!)

それで　ここが　たんていじむしょ　だって (And then I heard that this place was a detective agency,)
きいたから　うかがったんですよ！ (so I came to take a look!)

どうか　おねがいします！ (Please! Help me!) *translated for English common equivalent, not translated literally

いますぐ　わたしの　ポケモンちゃんを (Can you please retrieve)
とりかえして　いただけませんか？(my Pokémon-chan for me immediately?)

Looker: Ahem...

My dear lady... I am so terribly sorry,
but could you speak a bit less quickly?

Woman: すっ　すいません... (S-Sorry ...)
でも　いそいでるんですよ！ (But I'm in a rush!)

たいせつな　ポケモンちゃんを (If I don't get my precious)
とりかえさないと　そこく　に (Pokémon-chan back, I won't)
かえることも　できません！ (be able to return home either!) *translated for English clausal order

ひこうきの　じかん　だって (The departure time for my flight)
せまって　きているんですよ！(is drawing near!)

Looker: Ahem...

From what I can gather, it seems that
this lady has been given sore offense.

And do you know why that would be,
Corinne, my friend?

Well, thanks to my gift for languages...
I've traveled all over the world, you know...

It seems she is highly offended that she has come
as a guest and not yet been offered tea!

Yes! Case closed!

Which means, my friend, I must make
haste to obtain the requisite tea!

Corinne, please keep our guest
company until my return from this vital mission.

Woman: ちょっと　なんなのよ！　あの　ひと！！ (Hey, wait a minute! What the heck is up with that guy!?)
ぜんぜん　わかってないじゃない！ (He hasn't understood a word I've said, has he!?)

Okay, I think this is a good enough sample for those of you who were wondering what the lady was saying. Forgive me for not continuing to the part where she and Emma begin to go at it, but I'd really rather move on with my post. ^^; I have the pictures still, so if there's voiced interest, I can always circle back around and transcribe those for you as well. For what it's worth, the game accurately (though super-succinctly) sums up what the tourist said to both Looker and Emma, so you don't have to worry about the game's translation being bad or something. Though it does skimp on some details. (For example, early on there's a pretty funny bit where the tourist gets huffy that Emma refers to her as an "おばさん" i.e. an "auntie" or in English an "old woman", and then as she rudely talks about both Emma and Looker behind their backs, Emma pipes up in Japanese and doubles down on referring to the tourist as an おばさん / old woman. ^^; Shows the meaner, street-tougher side of Emma. haha)

Anyway, this was a pretty welcome treat. It's always fun when a foreign language is implemented in some medium (be it film, literature, whatever) but you happen to speak the language and so you know exactly what is being said. It's kind of like having backstage passes to a concert or something.

But perhaps the bigger treat was seeing Emma really puff out her chest at the Japanese woman and tell her off for badmouthing Looker. At the end of the previous case, I'd kinda sorta felt like Emma was this subplot's equivalent of a Maggie Byrde. But by the end of this conversation, it was becoming increasingly clear that she was more akin to a Maya Fey.

Looker takes off for the train station the moment it becomes clear to him what has happened to the Japanese tourist, but Emma panics: she knows the gang that hangs out there and worries that Looker, who has no Pokémon of his own, is going to get his ass handed to him. And this is where the plot starts to thicken. "Huuuuuuh? " I say. "'Looker has no Pokémon'!? What happened to his Pokémon he had in Sinnoh and Unova? I'm sure he had a Pokémon!" Looking back over his article right now on Bulbapedia reveals no such Pokémon in the anime. (Startling! ) But it also reveals that he had ... a Croagunk in Pokémon Platinum. (Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuun!) Obviously this comes up again later, though I have to confess I don't remember whether it's in Chapter 3, 4, or 5. (We'll say 4. ) So anyway, since Looker has no Pokémon, Emma implores me to rush to the train station and save him before it's too late.

So I arrive and ... the plot thickens yet again! It turns out that the gang at the train station responsible for stealing the tourist's Pokémon ... is none other than Emma's old gang! (Or, as it's later revealed, a gang which greatly admired Emma after she kicked their butts.) Man, this game just keeps getting plot twisty and adulty, doesn't it? Not much else to say here -- I kicked all three of their butts, Looker gives them permission to continue to visit his ward, you know the drill -- and so on to Chapter Four!

Looker Bureau Chapter 4: This is the chapter where we first get reports of a strange trainer who is stealing people's Pokémon after battling them in the alleys of Lumiose City. It's also the chapter which opens with news of the art museum vandalism.

But first first, the chapter opens with the explanation that Emma has sought out part-time work, using the knowledge she's gained from Looker in how to read and write, and hasn't been around the office as much lately since she's been busy with her new part-time job. Looker is concerned, but for the time being he wants us to check out the museum.

So we do. And we discover that that one open wall on the third floor...? The one where they said they were going to put a painting that I would get to see later? Yeah, it's the painting that got targeted by the vandal. And what pray tell was this painting? A painting of AZ and his Floette OH NO YOU DI'N'T! It's payback time, vandal!

But with no other leads on the museum vandalism, it's now off to the alleys as we try a sting operation in which I play the hapless trainer and Looker stakes the scene out and will come to my rescue once it looks like I'm about to be robbed by the thief. Sure enough we find our thief, but ...

Looker Bureau Chapter 4 Metal Gear Solid:



Uhhhhh ...



Uhhhhhhhhhhhh ...



Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... is it just me? Or does the whole Emma / Essentia plot thread give off major, major Gray Fox vibes? Because I got major Gray Fox vibes from Essentia. Not saying it's necessarily a bad thing. Though I will say that it is a weird thing! Weird! Very weird! Would not expect a "lol cyborg warrior who now does my bidding"-exoskeleton plot device in friggin' Pokémon.

Okay, something to note now. I wrote most of the above a few nights ago (right around the time I completed the last case) but, unhappy with what I'd written, I decided to put it on hold for a few days. Looking back over it now, I'm loathe to delete it all. So I'll actually go ahead and provide it to you guys inside of a spoiler tag. (Tagging only because of size.) However, I'm going to take a different approach with sharing my thoughts on the Looker portion of the story in the paragraphs below. I think it will be more enjoyable to read and easier to follow. Instead of tackling things purely chronologically, I'll be going for them more topically instead. So with that stated, here we go at Take 2 of this post.

Emma: When Emma was first introduced, I didn't think she would prove to be much of a main character. How wrong I was! By the end of this story, you really find yourself feeling sorry for this girl and wanting to see Ken Sugimori official artwork of her.

I have to admit -- I was not a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid direction the plot went in with her. (See spoiler boxed text above where I begin to broach this topic.) I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing, but it just felt ... very out of place to me. We've never really seen anything quite like this in Pokémon before. Humans being controlled in both body and mind by high-tech bodysuits? Humans losing their humanity and identifying as robots? Society's unprivileged -- the orphaned, the disabled, the destitute -- being enticed by lucrative offers to partake in experimental research? It's all so weird to see happening in my Pokémon franchise that I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that this is canon now.

But I also think it's kind of cool that Emma's character continues to break down the floodgates which have for many years held the main series games back from embracing their older fans' maturer tastes. It's not every day that a Pokémon game flat-out establishes that there is such a thing as poverty and abandonment in this world. Emma, the girl of the streets, with no parents nor penny to her name. Emma, a girl wearing raggedy clothes and looking like she hasn't had a bath in months, possibly even years. Emma, a girl of sixteen who knew neither how to read nor write until Looker taught her how. This is a character whose existence I appreciate even if I'm not sure how to feel about the more bizarre elements of her story. Because Emma represents a transition within Game Freak's walls -- a transition from writing the Pokémon world as an idyllic one to writing the Pokémon world as pretty much ours just in an alternate dimension where the magical animals happen to exist.

Mimi: I think Mimi is what finally pushed me over the edge and made me really want to raise a Meowstic of my very own. I think the female Meowstic looks really chic and I think the unevolved Espurr is a pretty cute take on Munchkins and Scottish Folds and the like, cat breeds that Japan has been pretty obsessed with over the past five to ten years. I liked the development that happened with Mimi and Looker: while it may have been obvious, I'm a sucker for this sort of thing and I was pretty damn sad by the end of the story when Mimi was practically begging Looker not to go. I also loved how Mimi so cared for Emma that even when things got really bad and Emma was in deep, hot water with Dr. Xerosic, Mimi didn't give up. She tried her best to get people to help rescue Emma, and eventually Corinne and Looker were able to do just that.

Malva: This was a pretty incredible plot twist. What else is there to really say? Malva is to canon what Blaine is to fanon: an E4/GL who was a part of the criminal organization in that game. That's pretty crazy. This is another delightful example of the moral complexity Game Freak has been injecting into their games over the past couple generations. Malva is, I think I speak for many, the coolest member of the Elite Four. She's the one we want to like. Yeah, the dopey knight's okay and so is the artsy water guy and Miura Azusa the Dragon Lady is fine too, but it's Malva we look at and say, "I'd like to get to know this chick. " So how crazy is that, then, that she turns out to have been a member of Team Flare. And how crazy is it for the future of the League? Just think on that for a second: you've got a member of Team Flare (who by all accounts doesn't sound like she regrets her involvement) serving as an Elite Four member underneath a Champion who is none other than the girl that took Team Flare down. This would be like if Douglas MacArthur were the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but one of the other generals on the council were a Japanese-American general who was a sympathizer with Japan during the war. It's kinda nuts.

What I also really love about Malva's role during this story is how she's helping us out but it's deliciously vague which of her motivations is her primary one. Is it that she's concerned for the girl Xerosic is experimenting on? Is it that she's concerned Xerosic is sullying the name of Team Flare? Is it a personal grudge held against Xerosic? It's also not exactly clear why Malva doesn't join us in battle against Xerosic. Is it because she doesn't want Xerosic to know that she's the one who ratted him out to the cops? Is it because she has some sense of honor as a member of Team Flare and believes that ratting him out is one thing but actively assisting in his arrest is quite another? Is it something else? Regardless, she gives us the tip about where we can find Emma and Xerosic, she even goes so far as to accompany us to the basement of the facility, but beyond that she goes no further.

Really, though, I just love the idea that Malva is a member of the Elite Four serving a Champion who helped bring about the demise of her organization. It is so rife for potential within fan fiction and official fiction that it's not even funny. Interactions between Malva and the other members of the Elite Four. (Surely they must have known of her membership. What did they each think of it?) Interactions between Malva and Corinne. (Will Malva ever be able to respect Corinne? Will they even become friends? Likewise, can Corinne ever trust Malva again?)

Xerosic: This is another excellent example of Game Freak playing around with morally complex characters. And I absolutely love it. When we first meet Xerosic during the main story, he doesn't seem to stand out too too much. Sure, he looks weird -- almost alien, really -- but beyond that he's sort of a staple "LOL TEE HEE TEE LOL!" gleeful mad scientist type. Then we run into him again with Emma in the basement of Lysandre Café and he morphs into a pretty despicable villain. With each howling scream of Emma's, with each tortuous convulsion, Xerosic seems to delight in cranking the knob up another notch and having her fight on. "It's okay!" he reasons. "She doesn't feel any pain!" This despite the fact that he's about to snap the girl in body and in mind. This despite the fact that she's clearly distressed. We see this Xerosic and we can think nothing but, "What a monster. "

And then something happens. Something amazing happens. Dr. Xerosic ... turns off the body suit. We think he's going to push it up from 90 to 100. We think he's going to break Emma. But no. He disables the suit and calmly, kindly tells Emma that the experiment is over. And from this moment forward, the game has us explore a side of Xerosic I never expected to see: his compassionate side. It turns out that he really didn't want to hurt Emma. And that he really did care about her well-being. Well, to at least some degree. Obviously he's no saint. Obviously he's still the monster who lured her with offers of money to partake in an experiment where, unbeknownst to her, she'd lose control over her body and he'd use her body to break into museums, rob people of their Pokémon, and more. But he's a monster ... with a soul? A monster with a sense of morality? It becomes difficult even to think of Xerosic as a monster. More like ... a really eccentric man whose eccentric views on morality result in an irreconcilable schism between socially acceptable and unacceptable behaviors? Whatever Dr. Xerosic is, one thing is clear: he hands himself into Interpol and lets Emma go rather than trying to use her, to her last dying breath, to overpower the Champion and Looker and hightail it out of there.

What I found even more incredible about Xerosic -- and delightfully, delightfully complex for a cartoon villain -- was how Looker showed a sign of weakness by not handing Xerosic over to the authorities immediately, citing that he wanted to give Xerosic and Emma one last chance to be together, and what does Xerosic do? If he were a typical cartoon villain -- if he were a Dr. Eggman or a Mojo Jojo -- he would've been all, "Oh thank you, Looker! ;D", promised Looker that he'd go along with the plan and then report in for jail the next day, only to TROLOLOL run away that very same night, breaking Emma's heart like the bad man he is and taking advantage of Looker's naivety. But instead what does Dr. Xerosic do? He goes through with Looker's plan. He actually agrees to have one last meal with Emma, to tell her the truth about what's happened and what's about to happen, and to then go with Looker to Interpol HQ. That's insane. And that's what I love about villains like Dr. Xerosic: they challenge children's views of morality. Far too often, morality in children's media is black and white. The villains are Skeletor evil and the heroes are Optimus Prime good. It's rare to get a character like Xerosic who commits a crime against humanity with his experiments on Emma yet who had noble intentions all along with the experiment he was conducting, who never once wanted actual harm to come to the girl, and who ended the experiment the moment he felt that pressing any further really would cause her (and not her Essentia alter ego) lasting psychological or physical harm. This is Game Freak at their finest, giving us villains in Team Flare -- Lysandre, Malva, Xerosic, all three of them -- who we both like and abhor, who we can both sympathize with and condemn. It's not all black and it's not all white either: it's a delicious gray mocha frappe and I'm loving every sip of it.

Looker: So I've saved the best for last. Looker. Man oh man am I glad you guys didn't spoil me on this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The other day, it would've been far too easy for any one of you, be it deliberately or be it a goof-up, to go and tell me, "But Talon: he is a serious member of Interpol. He's just playing a stereotypical private eye right now because it's his cover. Don't worry, you'll see! " But none of you did. Whether by sheer dumb luck or whether by all of your collective efforts, I managed to make the complaints I made about Looker's behavior the other day without anyone spoiling the ending for me. So for that, I thank you all.

So let's talk about that ending. Looker reveals to the protagonist that he's not really a private eye setting up shop in Lumiose City: he's actually a cop, a member of the International Police, and he came here on assignment to investigate reports that Dr. Xerosic had been sighted in the area. It was Looker's job, from Day One, to apprehend Dr. Xerosic and bring him to justice. The "Looker Bureau" was all just a means to an end. Nothing more.

Or that was the plan, anyway. But something went wrong. He met Corinne. And then he met Emma and Mimi. And along the way, Looker fell in love with these girls like they were his own daughters. And that made it so tough even for him to say good-bye that he felt he could only do it in writing. He couldn't bring himself to say good-bye to them in person. Because he knew that if he saw Emma or Corinne again, it might weaken his resolve. And a hard-boiled detective must not have a weak resolve!

So Dr. Xerosic arranges a plan. Telling Looker a lie about needing or wanting to see Lysandre Café one last time (and Looker being naive enough to grant Xerosic's request ^^; ), the doctor sends Emma a message, beckoning her to Lysandre Café. What I feared would happen was that Xerosic would prove to be a typical cartoon villain and would be all "MWA HA HA! You fools! You've all walked right into my trap!" and make his escape. What I got instead was a sweetheart Xerosic risking his own standing with Looker and the International Police to grant this girl, Emma, one last chance to say good-bye to Looker before he possibly walked out of her life forever. And so Emma gets her chance to say good-bye. And it's great.

I love that, by the end of the story, Looker was just as badass as I'd remembered. Yeah, he had his goof-ups here and there (like the time with the Japanese tourist), but for the most part it's revealed that, sure enough, he was playing a part to try and conceal his true identity and competence. I also love how Looker had such an amazing positive impact on Emma's life. For one of my favorite characters in the franchise, it was a much-needed booster shot after his actions in BW1 and BW2 which, arguably, may have put him on all of the N fangirls' shit lists. ("You've made N-sama's life a living Hell over the past two years! LEAVE N-SAMA ALONE! ") It shows that Looker isn't about ruining people's lives in his pursuit of justice: sometimes he's about making them too.

[Talon87]

Destiny Knot: Game Freak definitely gave this item a new leash on life. Utterly worthless in battles, it now finds second life as one of the most important breeding items of them all. After doing some research and some trial experiments, I set to work doing the following ...

Breeding Litwick: I went to Daisy's Friend Safari since everything she has is an eligible breeding partner with Ralts. I caught a whole bunch of Spiritomb, Phantump, and Lampent, with my preference being for Lampent since I figured that if I happened to get some good Lampent or Litwick breeding stock along the way it would be useful for any future attempts to breed my competitive Chandelure into life. (I ran a Chandelure on my OU team from 2010 to 2011. She ended up being replaced by Hydreigon.)

"Shadow Tag Chandelure? What Shadow Tag Chandelure? " Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Oh my God, I can't believe they did this. hahaha On the one hand, it makes perfect sense. Everyone realized as early as the games' Japanese release in 2010 just how broken Shadow Tag Chandelure was going to be. With that Special Attack stat and that ability, all it would need is a decent opponent to switch in on, set up, and once preparations are complete just start demolishing the other guy's entire team. So I'm not too surprised to learn that Shadow Tag Chandelure never saw the light of day by the time Gen 5 came to a close, nor am I surprised to discover that Game Freak thought the ability too good and thus decided to demote Chandelure from Shadow Tag to Infiltrator. (And I say "demote", but it didn't take long for me to discover that Infiltrator received an upgrade this generation which allows it to bypass substitutes. Nifty.) But what I am surprised by, and what I can't believe, is that they demoted Chandelure like this ... while giving the same exact gift to Mega Gengar. That is what blows my mind. That someone in charge at Game Freak thought, "Y'know, Shadow Tag Chandelure is too good. We can't release this thing to the public. Let's just never release it, and then let's demote its ability to something different next generation" but that that same person also thought, "Y'know what Gengar needs? 40 extra base SpAtk points and 20 extra base Speed points. Y'know what else that Gengar needs? Shadow Tag." Un-frickin'-believable. You decide that 145 SpAtk / 80 Speed is too lethal with Shadow Tag (defenses are 60 / 90 / 90) yet you decide that 170 SpAtk / 130 Speed is just right (defenses are 60 / 80 / 95, so pretty much identical).

Breeding Ralts: After several hours spent breeding Lampent and Litwick, I eventually got two male Litwick with four 31s -- one had HP, Def, SpAtk, and SpDef while the other had Def, SpAtk, SpDef, and Speed. (If you want to think of the stats like letters, it would be ACDE and CDEF.) This made him a pretty ideal partner for a female Ralts I had who had 31s in SpAtk, SpDef, and Speed (or in alphabet terms DEF). This was where I crossed over from breeding Litwicks to breeding Raltses. I knew that I needed to jump over soon if I wanted to save myself the misery of having Raltses with five 31s but the wrong nature and/or ability. So I knew it'd be smarter to start the Ralts side of the equation sooner so that I bought myself time to spontaneously generate a Modest, Timid, or Bold female with Trace.

I got a Timid 4 31s male and a Bold 4 31s female on the same turn. Pursuing my crazy dream, I decided to go with the female. Several hours later, I finally had several Bold Raltses with five 31s, all in HP, Def, SpDef, SpAtk, and Speed. Most unfortunately have Synchronize (although Synchronize really isn't a bad ability! It's just that Trace is a lot more useful where I plan to take Gardevoir) but I did end up being lucky enough to get a female with Trace. And so that's who I went with.

Meet Irisviel: I haven't decided what all I will be naming the various Gardevoirs I decide to raise (at least one each of Bold, Modest, and Timid so that I never have to worry about having raised "the wrong Gardevoir" ), but if the Bold one turns out to be a huge success, then I'll be only too happy to let her keep this name I've gifted her with. I feel like, of the three natures mentioned, Bold is the one that best fits Iri. (It doesn't hurt that this particular Ralts's characeristic is "Takes lots of siestas," which also sort of fits Irisviel. ^^; ) If the Bold experiment ends up proving to be a huge disaster, then I may recycle the Irisviel name. But I'm optimistic that that won't be the case. So welcome aboard, Irisviel!

[Marion Ette]

The Destiny Knot is my best friend. No worries about the Croagunk! I just figured I´d offer given that I have a bunch of 'em, and now that you know my little secret, you can start breeding competitive 'mons yourself much more easily. I´ll particularly be interested to see how bold-natured Gardevoir works out!

[Slash]

As a side note, there's an IV judge in these games, too, and if you have more than one perfect IV, he'll tell you every single one that is, like the judge in BW2 did. I'll put where to find him in a spoiler so you can easily ignore the info if you want.

Spoiler: show

Kiloude City PokeCentre

[Talon87]

A Girl's Gotta Shop!: One thing I did during Story Mode was to periodically battle in the Battle Chateau to ensure that I had enough money to sponsor my clothes shopping sprees. Once I saw that Lumiose City's clothes cost ¥100,000, ¥180,000, ¥300,000 apiece, that was when I knew that I could never have enough money in this game. At least not until I owned every purchaseable there is.

So post-E4, that's been one of the things I've done: frequented the Battle Chateau a lot. I take one of my Story Mode team members and then a handful of low-level Pokémon, issue a Golden Writ after midnight, have the Story Mode guy hold the Amulet Coin, fight the full circuit once, go to bed, and then fight it again a couple of times the next day. With my O-Power for battle payouts now maxed out to Level 3, I can expect to see something like ¥98,000 each time I beat Siebold, something like ¥60,000 to ¥70,000 each time I beat the Earls, Dukes, and Duchesses, and even ¥30,000 if I accidentally waste the O-Power on a low-ranking Marchioness or Countess. (Barons still give crap. Something like ¥7,500 to ¥15,000.)

The Pokémon I bring along for the levels have thus far fallen into only two camps. The majority have been Pokémon I've verified have crap IVs and I'm just leveling up to evolve for Dex completion purposes because why not. I'm here already grinding for cash: I may as well not let the experience go to waste. The minority of the low-level Pokémon have been future team members. In fact, so far I've only had one fit this bill -- Irisviel, the Bold Gardevoir currently somewhere between Level 45 and Level 50 -- but I'll have a couple of others shortly, discussed below.

My record cash total has been something like ¥1.3 million. I was pretty amused to break the ¥999,999 threshold since I've never done it in any games where it's been allowed. (Is this the first? It seems like it to me, but I won't be surprised if it's not.) Right now I have "only" ¥600,000, but that's because in addition to buying some clothes I also went and bought twenty of all six vitamins while activating the Level 3 O-Power for bargains. So I basically bought 120 vitamins for the price of 60. Still cost me roughly ¥600,000 to do though.

Meet ???: My experiments with Irisviel (Bold Gardevoir) haven't been quite what I had hoped, but as I've never used Gardevoir competitively before, it's hard for me to tell how much of this is a failure of the Bold experiment and how much of this is just shortcomings of the creature herself. She's failed to secure a lot of unassisted (no Gardevoirite, no Calm Mind) 2HKOs where I think she ought to have been able to. She's also failed to secure a lot of singly assisted (either Gardevoirite or 1x Calm Mind) OHKOs where I think she ought to have been able to. I'll give you an example. Level 47(?) Bold Mega Gardevoir @ 0 SpAtk EVs using Psychic against Ramos's Level 50 Victreebel failed to OHKO it. Now I know that the lack of SpAtk EVs is going to mean she isn't quite the cannon that her Modest and Timid cousins are, but I really feel like a base SpAtk of 165 coupled with a base attack power of 90 in Psychic and STAB and a 2x weakness to top it off really ought to have meant that an NPC Victreebel should've died in one hit.

So, in order to get to the bottom of this mystery and sort out a) which Gardevoir is the best Gardevoir in my personal opinion and b) whether Bold Gardevoir is failing in ways her sisters would not or whether she's failing in ways that all Gardevoirs fail, I've gone ahead and bred a Modest Ralts with Trace and with five 31s (all minus Attack). Meet ...

... well, I don't know what to call her yet. I wrote a bit of a tl;dr here but I'll spare you guys it. Suffice to say, I've had a few ideas for names but none feel right; and I've debated migrating the Irisviel name over but am not sure I'll do that either.

Even More Ralts Breeding: In addition to the Modest Ralts I bred for myself, I also bred a couple for other people. (Here, the Internet, who knows.) And my current Ralts breeding project is for a five 31 Timid female Ralts with Trace. I've gotten a female with 5 31s and who was Timid, but she unfortunately had Synchronize. I also got a male, but Timid is one of the few natures where I just feel like I flat out do not want a male Gardevoir. Bold, great. Modest, fine. But Timid, no thanks. Anyway, I have that very male breeding with the Modest Ralts from before (so a five 31 male @ Everstone breeding with a five 31 female @ Destiny Knot), so hopefully I will get my desired female Timid Trace Ralts with the five 31s soon enough. Once I do, I'll be able to start raising her and her Modest mother alongside the Bold Irisviel while I gain lots of cash from the Battle Chateau. Once they're all around the same level and I use them in-game and/or once they're auto-leveled to 50 and I take them to the Battle Maison in Kiloude City, I should be better able to assess factors like how well Bold Gardevoir takes physical hits, how well Modest Gardevoir OHKOs or 2HKOs things that the others do not, how critical Timid Gardevoir's outspeeding of things in her speed neighborhood is, etc.

But because of all this breeding, I am up to my eyeballs in four 31 Raltses. @_@ Too much of a packrat to just throw them away but with Pokémon Bank absolutely nowhere in sight, the time finally came to give one of the game's quirkier features a whirl.

Wonder Trades: I decided to try out my very first Wonder Trade today, trading a four IV female Ralts with a Bold nature to some lucky stranger. What did I get in return? A Spanish fruitcake. No, seriously: the guy I traded with was a Missourian named George but the Pokémon he gave me was a Spanish Floatzel from some OT named JUAN (all caps). This was my first foreign Pokémon, so -- great -_-; -- my PokéDex's second listed language now is "SPA" right next to "ENG" on the top-left corner. It annoys me that they constantly flash in green. Wish they wouldn't do that. Oh well. OCD-wise, I'm now hoping to get a French Pokémon before I get a Japanese Pokémon. While I would've probably preferred ENG JPN FRA SPA as the order had I had a say in the matter, I'll settle for ENG SPA FRA since that's a pretty common order to find in North American products and then JPN can round out the list in fourth since it's obvious why it'd show up ahead of other foreign languages like German or Korean in a Pokémon game. Anyway, I call it a fruitcake because not only is it a bit of a shitmon (sorry, Floatzel fans ^^; ) but this one in particular is pretty crappy: bad nature, Ultra Ball capture from Victory Road, zero 31s. It's not even shiny, not that that matters much to me. So yeah: it's a fruitcake. Nobody wanted him, the most recent example being George from Missouri, and so he's been passed around the Internet until winding up on my cartridge.

Initially unsure whether to pass the fruitcake on to someone else or keep him, I ended up deciding to hold onto him if for no other reason than that he should theoretically help to boost my odds of winning stuff from Lumiose City's lottery shop. But I was intrigued to see what I might get next. Would it be another fruitcake? I withdrew another four 31 IV Bold Ralts from my PC and set it up for a Wonder Trade. Around the world it went and ... I got a Level 1 Rotom. Well this trainer was clearly feeling a bit more philanthropic like myself and wasn't just trying to pawn trash off onto me. Except it was still pretty trashy. ^^; A Naughty nature with only one 31 IV (I think it was in Defense?) and with one of the worst HP IVs the IV Checker'd ever seen. Noting that it was originally met on Route 7 and received from the Daycare couple, it was clear to me what this Rotom was: my benefactor's utter, utter garbage. ^^; Not that the Ralts I gifted him wasn't my garbage! But at least I gave him a four 31! Not some POS reject! ^^;

That's one thing this Wonder Trade experiment has shown me: that little has changed since 2007, when we first got the GTS, and that the vast majority of humanity has no scruples about trying to pass their trash off to others in the hopes of gaining riches beyond their wildest dreams. The Gen 6 GTS is littered with this filth -- so many idiot children offering ordinary Espurrs or Raltses and requesting shiny Celebis or spare copies of Charizardite or Mewtwonite in exchange -- and it seems like most people have the cynical attitude with the Wonder Trades of, "Well, since I know the other guy is 99% likely to give me his garbage, I'm going to give him my garbage." That's too cynical though. C'mon, people. If you're going to trade away your trash, at least make sure it's awesome trash. Like a four or a five 31 IV Pokémon. Well, maybe I expect too much of humanity. And maybe I expect far too much of ignorant children who don't mean ill by their actions and are just happily having fun with the roulette nature of Wonder Trading. ^^; Anyway ...

I decided to give it a third try, but I don't even remember what I got from the third Wonder Trade. O.o It was that forgettable. ^^; So the only one that really stood out was Rotom. It's a shame that Rotom is genderless since that means it's going to be an utter nightmare trying to breed a five 31 IV version of one. Not even remotely feasible until I somehow get my hands on a five 31 IV or a six 31 IV Ditto. And that's more likely to happen with the help of PokéSav Dittos via Pokémon Bank than it is to happen legitimately through some in-game capture in someone's Friend Safari.

Greetings from France: A French player contacted me when I went online. He offered to trade, and I said, "Sure, why not," and decided I would offer him a four 31 IV Ralts. We go into our respective PCs and begin to make our way over to what we plan to trade. He shows me a Snivy, which I thought was pretty cool, and hovers over it for the longest time. "Uh oh, ^^;" I think to myself. "He's going to be pretty insulted and/or disappointed when he sees me match his offer with a Ralts, not knowing that it's good breeding stock." Sure enough, I show him Ralts and he immediately de-selects Snivy and begins to pick a new Pokémon. "Great," I worry. "I've upset him. And now he's going to offer me dogshit in exchange for my honestly pretty nice gift. -.-" But what does he land on -- and offer me -- but ...

... his Level 30 Gardevoir. And not just any Level 30 Gardevoir. Two things stand out about it to me. First, it was a box on the top-left corner I've never seen before it. It looks sort of like a gift-wrapped present. I conclude (perhaps erroneously) that this means it's the Ralts he received from Diantha only now it's grown up. Second, I notice what item it's holding. Gardevoirite. Oh no. This poor kid either doesn't realize what he's doing or else does realize what he's doing and is stupid. Either way, he's about to trade me his Diantha's Gardevoir, with Gardevoirite, in exchange for some now-seemingly-shabby Bold Ralts reject with four 31s. That's not cool. I don't want to steal this poor kid's Diantha's Ralts. And I certainly don't want to steal his only copy of Gardevoirite!

So I give him like two minutes to realize I won't accept that trade. When nothing happens, I lose my patience and cancel the trade myself. At which point the game tells me, "The other party is no longer interested in trading with you. Canceling trade ..." So I think to myself, "Well, good! I didn't want to steal his only copies of those two things. If someone else wants to do it, I can't stop them, but that doesn't mean that I should be the one to steal them instead."

As I exit out of the trade menu tree and return to the homepage for the PSS, I get a message from the French player in the form of an O-Power gift. So I gift him back an O-Power to show that there are no hard feelings. He gets the message and then does something I've never noticed players doing before now: by editing his greeting message once every ten seconds or so and poking me every time he does it, he tries to circumvent Nintendo's policy of no communication between strangers and attempts to open dialogue with me. :o

At first, his messages just say "CELEBI PLEASE" and similar things. I figure he's just asking people in general and haven't quite caught on to what he's doing yet. But he eventually changes his greeting to say "TU AS POKEBANK?", which is French for "Do you have PokéBank?" And that's when it dawns on me: my custom greeting was in French! Because of the theme of the game, I decided to make my greeting French flavored. So I edited it to say "Salut!", a French casual way of saying hello to somebody that I learned years ago in middle school. He must have seen that and figured that I speak French! That's why he reached out to me and asked to trade! Now it all makes sense. And now I understand why my PSS kept *ding!*ing every ten seconds or so and showing a "" face in a speech bubble near his name. It was because he was trying to communicate to me what he wanted.

So I figure, since he's been a nice kid, that the least I can do is to edit my greeting for him, send him another O-Power, and hope he notices. "Non. Pas de PB," I write in my broken-ass French. ^^; I send him the O-Power. He totally understands what's going on and writes back, pinging me. "OH! DOMMAGE," he says. French for "Oh! Too bad." And so ends our little communication. But it was an interesting experience for me and I figured it might be interesting enough of a story to share with you guys here.

If nothing else, I hope that you guys take away from this that it's never alright to steal some idiot's great items or creatures. Don't be so jaded and think, "Well, everybody else does it, so why shouldn't I? " Show some moral backbone, resist the greed, and do the right thing. While I have little to no doubt that this kid is going to lose his one and only Gardevoirite in exchange for some Pokémon, at least I know it wasn't me who robbed him of it.

The Mystery of the Missing O-Power: One of my remaining scavenger hunts in the game is the hunt for the Egg Hatching O-Power. When Kuno used his on me weeks ago, I was certain that I had that very same O-Power myself. But when I looked at my list of O-Powers later, I didn't see it there. While I have successfully avoided spoilers on how/where to get it, I have confirmed that it's the only O-Power I'm missing. I've also observed from strangers' pleas online that it's something a lot of people are after, not just me.

I've a lot of theories, none of them I want you to confirm. I'd like to try and discover the O-Power for myself, not through acquaintances or Serebii or whatever. But here are the theories I have so far ...

1. The only way to get the Egg Hatching O-Power is to max out every single one of your other O-Powers to Level 3. This is why one sees so many people asking you to use an O-Power on them or offering to use an O-Power on you if you use one of yours on them. This is also why the power seems to still be rare and thus in demand: because it takes time and effort to get every single O-Power to Level 3.
2. The only way to get the Egg Hatching O-Power is to find Mr. Bonding's final location. Where that is, I have no idea. I don't think it's somewhere yet undiscovered since I think I've been pretty much everywhere the map says I can go. I think it's more likely that he's waiting somewhere I've already visited. But where?
   • I know it isn't the League's Pokémon Center.
   • I know it's not the luxury hotel in Lumiose City.
   • I know it's not my home town.
   • I know it's not the town north of my home town.
   • I know it's not in a variety of other hotels and Pokémon Centers I've rechecked. (Not all. Just some.)
   But where he could be, if he is indeed anywhere at all, I don't yet know.
3. The only way to get the Egg Hatching O-Power is to have somebody else who already has the power use their copy on you enough times to unlock Egg Hatching Level 1 for you.
   • This could explain why Kuno used his on me. Not because he was trying to be nice helping me hatch things quickly for three minutes, but instead because he was trying to be super nice and help me to unlock the power for myself.
4. Last but not least, perhaps the only way you can get the Egg Hatching O-Power is to sign in on your birthday and do something to unlock it.

Hopefully it's not the last one since I have no intention of changing my 2DS's clock and ... yeaaaah. We'll just have to wait and see though, I guess. And heck: it might not be any of these theories! It might be something completely different.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Marion Ette

The Destiny Knot is my best friend. No worries about the Croagunk! I just figured I´d offer given that I have a bunch of 'em, and now that you know my little secret, you can start breeding competitive 'mons yourself much more easily. I´ll particularly be interested to see how bold-natured Gardevoir works out!

If you want a spare four IV or five IV Ralts, I can trade for an equivalent Croagunk. If you don't need the Ralts, then that's fine. I have a 3 IV Croagunk (Atk, SpAtk, Speed) with which I can get the ball rolling; but unfortunately, there's no easy way to cross over from the Amorphous egg group (Gardevoir, Gengar, et al) to the Humanshape egg group (Croagunk, Jynx, et al); and so it would probably be pretty helpful for me if I could start off with a four IV or five IV seed of yours, especially if it has the three missing stats (HP, Def, SpDef) and is the opposite gender of the three IV one (which I think is female).

Originally Posted by Kairne

As a side note, there's an IV judge in these games, too, and if you have more than one perfect IV, he'll tell you every single one that is, like the judge in BW2 did. I'll put where to find him in a spoiler so you can easily ignore the info if you want.

Spoiler: show

Kiloude City PokeCentre

I know. I've been using him for a while now. Thanks for your concern though.

Understandable why you'd feel compelled to share since he beats the pants off having to level up and Veekun everything. Especially since -- as I discovered when first I used him -- the characteristics for multi-31s no longer work the way they used to. In the past, there was a pecking order of HP > Atk > Def > Speed > SpAtk > SpDef in case of IV ties. Now, though, it seems like it's a roll of the die to determine which characteristic shows up. Will it be Takes Lots of Siestas for HP? Will it be Mischievous for SpAtk? Will it be Alert to Sounds for Speed? ONLY THE DIE KNOWS! The first time I used the IV Checker in Gen VI, I was honestly surprised when he reported that a Pokémon I'd Veekun verified as being a two 31er was in fact a three 31er. It turned out that I had ruled out the possibility for a 31 in one of the categories because of the characteristic that that Pokémon had -- but that sure enough it had a 31 there after all.

[Deebs]

Re: Wonder Trade

While you are generally right that 4 times out of 5 you are going to get garbage, I have also received some excellent breeding fodder from it, including a quintuple-flawless Rotom like you were talking about. I've probably only spent at max 4 or 5 hours of in-game time trading through it and I've got two boxes of potential parents with either 4 or 5 IVs or prepackaged egg moves. I think with only 3 trades under your belt you should give it some more time before you write it off.

[Jerichi]

I recently got a 4 IV Japanese HA Adamant Swirlix with an Egg Move that I've been using for Masuda Method.

The rest of the box was utter shit, but I at least got that.

[Slash]

I've received Hidden Ability Starters and Eevee from Wonder Trade.

[Talon87]

Meet ??? #2: It took quite a bit more effort than the Bold and Modest ones did, but I finally did get myself a Timid female Ralts with 31/**/31/31/31/31 IVs and Trace for her ability. The one time I wasn't willing to accept a male, I hatched three perfectly acceptable males before I hatched the female. Three of them. Timid, Trace, all the right 31s ... just male instead of female.

Like the Modest Ralts from the other day, I haven't decided what to nickname this Timid Ralts. No suggestions, please. I'll think of something on my own. Just relaying that I haven't been able to think of a nickname that I like and it's vexing. ^^;

Litwick Breeding & Meet ???: We've got another nicknameless Pokémon on our hands! Originally I'd been planning to dive into either Meowstic breeding or Jynx breeding once I got my Timid Ralts, but as I set about trying to clear my PC as best I could of breeding rejects, I rediscovered my three rows of Litwicks and was like, "Hey ... I'm so close to breeding a perfect Chandelure, why not do that too!? " And so I did.

This one took an insanely huge amount of time given the favorable head start I had. I have no idea why I was so unlucky, but despite pairing a 5 IV father Ralts with a 4 IV mother Litwick right from the get go, I didn't manage to get one single 5 IV Litwick with Infiltrator (either gender!) until three to five hours later. Ridiculous. Also pretty damning proof that the people who say that Destiny Knot makes it so you now go from zero 31s to six 31s in just one hour are full of horse shit. (Possible, maybe, but highly improbable.) Anyway, I eventually did get a male, but while I don't mind male Chandelure, I have an ever so slight preference for female on this line (it's what I opted for on P-O years ago) and so I decided to try my luck for a female and ... bullseye. Haven't given any thought to what to nickname her yet. Will figure it out soon.

PSS Communication Complaints: It's incredibly frustrating that Nintendo doesn't allow us to communicate with other players. I understand that they're worried about child predators and whatnot, and that's honestly something I'm glad they take seriously, but ... goddammit if it doesn't frustrate me just how limited communication is in the PSS.

First off, I hate the character limit. It's way too short. Most of my GTS messages have had to look something like this:

• 4V,same please
• 4V.Hddn abl please
• R's4V. Hddn abl plz
• 4V.HA only please
• Hidden Abil ONLY

It's a wreck. I don't even have space to write the words out fully, let alone space to tell people that I'm giving them a Timid Ralts (very nice) in addition to the fact that I'm also giving them a Ralts with four 31s and that I would like it if they traded me something with four 31s or a Hidden Ability. Seriously: when I say "4V.HA only please," how the hell is anyone supposed to read my mind that a period in between 4V and HA means that what's to the left describes Ralts while what's to the right describes my request? How in the blue blazes is a Japanese player supposed to know what "Trace" or "HA" mean? And speaking of the Japanese: I really, really resent how the character limits are designed with Japanese needs in mind. The Japanese can say exactly what they need to say with room to spare. So many times I go on the GTS and I'll see written, in brief but non-abbreviated Japanese, messages that translate into English like:

• 5V in {these five stats}. Hidden Ability. Timid. Please help me out!
• I know it may be a long shot, but ...

The second one I specifically remember because I was so flummoxed by how she could take her sweet time space to write out a perfectly normal sentence in a way we could only dream of doing. It said むりかもしれないですが…, which if I were to transliterate it into English would become (without any spaces) murikamoshirenaidesuga... Now you try typing that into our GTS and see how far you get. It pisses me off, this double standard. If they want to give the Japanese a character limit of only twelve or sixteen characters, FINE, but fucking give us 32 or something.

Second! (Yes, all of that was just the first complaint. ) Second, I hate how we can't communicate with people who we are engaged in trading with. If Nintendo wants to prevent creepers from talking to little kids, fine, but at least make it so that if Player A asks Player B to trade and Player B accepts then both players have the opportunity to send each other a message no less lengthy or explicit than the messages currently allowed in PSS greetings. Because you're letting the creepers contact kids via that portion of the app anyway, so you may as well give the rest of us room to fucking breathe. I'll give you a good example. There was this one Japanese boy earlier tonight. His greeting message said that he was collecting Ghosts who had three to five 31 IVs. So I figure I might be able to help him out and send him an invitation to trade. I plan on trading him one of my 4 IV Litwicks. Problem 1: I have no means of asking him whether he even wants the Litwick or not, whether he prefers a male to a female, whether he prefers a Bold nature to a Timid nature to a Modest nature, etc. Problem 2: he has no way of asking me which of his many ghosts I'd like. Problem 3: I have no way of telling him either. Thankfully, he sends me a male Gastly with four beneficial 31s, so that was good. I can definitely put that guy to work if I end up deciding to breed a Gengar 2.0. But it was frustrating that neither of us could communicate and only because of Nintendo's stupidly obtuse setup.

Third, I hate how even when we can communicate with each other -- via the greeting messages -- it's limited to so, so few characters and there's no reliable way of pinging your targets to see your new message. You just have to hope that they have half a brain and can piece together that if you keep showering them with O-Powers then maybe they ought to look at your profile again.

Fourth, I hate how the censorship isn't doing its job anyway. -_-; All of us innocent players have to suffer, but in the meantime I've seen player greetings like "Wanna buy some drugs?" and "BLACKS SUCK". That and other racist remarks pop up on the PSS roughly one out of every four times I connect. That may not seem like much (one hit out of roughly 400) but when I connect four times in, say, maybe just one hour of playing ... yeah, it adds up pretty fast. So if little shit-punks are just going to have fun dancing circles around your pathetic censorship anyway -- if by putting the censorship model in place you are essentially goading them into finding ways to cheat profanity and racist remarks into their greetings -- then why even bother with it? Either take the entire service down (which is what Nintendo would do -_-; , but this is not the answer!) or else just accept that kids today, from the moment they can set foot on the Internet, get exposed to all sorts of stuff 1,000,000 times worse than this and that you may as well let us have 30 to 40 characters instead of just twelve to sixteen.

Finally, fifth: I hate how limited the English keyboard options appear to be. I've noticed that some users are able to create a boxed-in smilie face. I've noticed that Japanese users are able to type with both kana and the Latin alphabet. Yet Americans only have access to English and some Cyrillic and Greek characters. That's it. We don't even fucking have access to carats or backslashes (as I found out when I tried to make a "<--" arrow today), let alone the ability to reach out to Japanese players in Japanese the same way they get to reach out to us in English.

Status Update: Haven't bothered to catch any of my game's legendaries yet (besides Yveltal). Not really in any rush. In fact, part of me kind of doesn't want to catch them yet -- because that'll only make it worse when I tell the GTS to only show trade requests for Pokémon I own. (Bad enough I have to sift through so many Yveltal requests. I don't want to add Zapdos on top of that.)

Haven't really gone around looking for too many mega stones yet. I'll have to try and do that.

Still no Egg Hatching O-Power. Still no knowledge of how it's obtained either. Still trying to figure it out on my own. Still got those theories I shared with you guys earlier. Bit by bit I'm maxing out all of my O-Power levels, so if it's the theory about getting everything to Level 3 that proves correct, well, I'm making progress. If it's the one about getting people to gift you theirs a bunch, I've been gifted it randomly I want to say two times since the last post. If it's the the theory about finding Mr. Bonding again, well, I haven't honestly bothered in a while. I should try again, starting with the church in Shalour City. Maybe he's in one of those rooms. *shrug* If not there, I may want to try some of the areas of the game I have yet to explore. (The Unknown Dungeon? That one Azure Bay thingamajig near Coumarine City. Stuff. )

No noticed developments with the mysterious Hex Maniac in Lumiose City. She doesn't appear whenever I visit her floor, sadly. I hope I haven't glitched the game or cheated myself out of my one shot at a legendary encounter or something. Hopefully Game Freak will come forward and confirm soon whether it was just meant to be an eerie Easter egg or whether it is indeed the preface to some sort of bonus quest or legendary encounter.

[Talon87]

Concordia, Aruru, and Nephesha: I deliberately saved inside of the Pokémon Center in Camphrier Town so that I would be forced to come up with nicknames for my Modest Ralts, Timid Ralts, and Litwick before I could play on. The consequence of this was that I haven't really played or done much since last time. ^^; It's been difficult to think of satisfying nicknames that I feel fit the creature (species, nature, etc).

Concordia's was the easiest. I'd actually had this epiphany several days ago but completely forgotten about it until today -- that it'd make perfect sense to name a Gardevoir after the Goddess of Peace given that a Gardevoir was her partner Pokémon in the anime. I felt like Concordia (the character) was a good fit not only for Gardevoir but for a Modest nature, and so there it was: one down, two to go.

Aruru's is a placeholder until I can think of a better name. ^^; Namesake is Aruru (bottom right) from Utawarerumono. Thing is, Aruru isn't really old enough to work. Everything else might be a neat fit, but the age is a huge mismatch with the mature-looking Gardevoir. Also, the name is alternately romanized as Arle ... as in Arle Nadja of Puyo Puyo fame. And if I were to name any Pokémon after Arle, it wouldn't be Gardevoir. So we'll see. I do love Aruru though, so I might want to recycle the name onto someone else if not keep it here.

Finally we have Nephesha. I struggled to come up with a nickname that fit any of the following:

• combines "fire", "soul", and "erasure" into one name (Latin, Greek, Japanese, etc.)
• sounds like a name a demoness might have (e.g. FF8's Ultimecia or Othello's Desdemona, except not those names :p)

When I went for the Japanese, what came out sounded really, really weeabooish. The onyomi for "soul" is kon, that for "erase" is shou, and that for fire is ka, so no matter how I tried to arrange them, I had a phonetically overloaded word which just didn't sound authentically Japanese nor like a girl's name. I considered going for Shoukon, dropping the ka (fire) out altogether since it'd at least preserve the meaning of soul erasure ... but unfortunately shoukon is already a word in Japanese (several, actually) with a completely unrelated meaning, and I just don't like the sound of the name. :\ I dunno why, something about it just doesn't feel right.

So then I tried to say "Forget the etymology! Let's just try to imagine a name that sounds like a demoness would have it! " But that proved incredibly difficult -- everything I came up with on my own didn't satisfy me while the names I pulled from literature or film, well, felt too borrowed from those sources.

That was when I hit pay dirt -- or so I thought. I was looking up how the Greeks say soul (psyche) and the Romans (anima) when, as luck would have it, I spotted how the Jews say it: nephesh. Or at least, that's the Hebrew word that's found in the Old Testament and was translated into psyche when the text went from Hebrew to Greek, so sayeth Wikipedia. *shrug* This word sounded great. It sounded like the sort of root I could expect to find in a she-devil's name. I dunno, maybe it's because it sounds sort of like nephilim, but something about it just sounds very Bible-ey and thus a great fit for a Pokémon who immolates men's souls.

There was just one problem ... Google Translate didn't want to play nice. It didn't want to tell me what "soul burner" sounds like in Hebrew, though it was more than happy to offer up the Hebrew characters for the phrase. So I had to dig up a transliteration portal for Hebrew-->English ... only to be reminded that Hebrew, like many languages, uses an abjad. And so I had absolutely no idea how to decode "burner".

Anyway, I don't think it matters: the result I got, even when I plugged in imagined vowel sounds, didn't sound terribly feminine to me. So ... until I think of something suitable, Nephesha is there as another placeholder. (It didn't feel right naming her simply "Nephesh" since that just means "Soul". ^^; So I tacked on a feminizing -a to the end. lol)

Training Aruru and Nephesha: What I'm doing right now. Not much else to say. ^^; Once I get them fully EV trained, I should be able to go back to the Battle Chateau to kill two birds with one stone. Once they hit Level ~40 to 50 (along with Concordia who's already in the 30s thanks to Daycare levels), I guess I'll either a) begin the Meowstic breeding project or else b) see if I can't find other things to do in the game post-story besides the aforementioned. Maybe there's some huge post-game stuff I have yet to discover. I mean, I can think of quite a few NPCs who haven't shown up yet (AZ, Lysandre, gym leaders or Champions from previous generations) as well as a few plot-relevant locations I have yet to visit since beating the game (Shalour's temple, for example). Anyway, for now, it's just training up Concordia, Aruru, and Nephesha.

Oh! But one last thing before I go ...

Scumbag GTSers: It's to be expected. Most people on the GTS are either greedy children, stupid children, greedy and stupid children, or -- worst of all -- adults who act like them. Given this, it's to be expected that when you try to ask people to be respectful and to only trade with you if they have something of equal or greater value, they are *going* to spring at the opportunity to fuck you over and trade you their rags for your riches given the game allows them to.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about how I have traded some fifteen or more Raltses away, all of them with four 31s and good natures, asking in return for nothing more than a female Eevee with its Hidden Ability, Anticipation. And what have I gotten? Nothing but Run Away and Adaptability Eevees. Oh sure! Some of them have had nice IVs. Some of them have had great IVs! (I got one female with four 31s -- HP, Def, SpDef, and Speed! Perfect for allowing you to create any build you like since it's not wasting a slot on either attack stat just yet.) But none of these are useful to me. If it doesn't have Anticipation, I can't use it to produce a near-flawless Magic Bounce Espeon, Guts Flareon, or Hydration Vaporeon. You'd think at least one of these trading partners would've had some fucking courtesy, but no! All fifteen plus of 'em have been little shitbags! Ugh. It's gotten to the point where I've given up, at least for now, on trying to get an Anticipation Eevee off of the GTS. I'll redouble my efforts trying to get a Dry Skin Jynx / Hydration Smoochum for now instead. I think I'll be likelier to find mature adults over there rather than in the Eevee playpen.

[Toyo]

Talon, why have you not asked us for an Eevee instead of dealing with completely random internet strangers?

[Talon87]

Because I didn't think it'd be this hard! And because no one's stepped forward offering a 5 IV or a 4 IV female Eevee with a good nature and Anticipation.

But yeah, I should seriously stop setting these poor Litwick and Ralts on fire. 'Cause that's pretty much what's happening: burning up perfectly good breeding stock -- breeding stock that I no longer need but maybe one of you might, *shrug* -- in exchange for little more than +1 Loto ID number and +1 Italiano PokéDex entry. (No joke: about a quarter of the ripoffs have been Italian Pokémon, even though the vast majority of these have been from non-Italian trainers.)

[Emp]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Because I didn't think it'd be this hard! And because no one's stepped forward offering a 5 IV or a 4 IV female Eevee with a good nature and Anticipation.

Uh, I offered my Eevee farm

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by empoleon dynamite

Uh, I offered my Eevee farm

Please read the text you just quoted more carefully. I said that no one had come forward offering me a 4 IV or a 5 IV female with Anticipation. This is a fact. You've offered me the opportunity for one but at the cost of immense hypocrisy. It's because of that cost that I'm leaning towards "No, but thank you so much"; it's because of the inability to get the Eevee any other way that I hadn't yet replied.

I do appreciate your offer, but I really, really do not agree with exchanging Friend Codes just to unlock safaris. It's been tempting on several occasions but in the end I just don't think it's right or satisfying to do. I'm happy to trade. I'm happy to battle. I'm not happy to give away my code just so people can farm my Friend Safari -- and thus I'd be an awful hypocrite if I were to take advantage of your generous offer.

Spoiler: if you have a 4 IV or 5 IV parent I can use as Egg Group breeding stock and need an Amorphous male or female, then we're in business. I trade you a Ralts or Litwick, you trade me that.

[Emp]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I do appreciate your offer, but I really, really do not agree with exchanging Friend Codes just to unlock safaris. It's been tempting on several occasions but in the end I just don't think it's right or satisfying to do. I'm happy to trade. I'm happy to battle. I'm not happy to give away my code just so people can farm my Friend Safari -- and thus I'd be an awful hypocrite if I were to take advantage of your generous offer.

I thought that just applied to strangers. I’ve known you (passively) for what now, 5 years? :P

But nah that's cool, I just thought I could help you out. I already have all of your safari Pokémon - although I do need a HA Eevee eventually and was hoping someone could trade me one from my safari. I have a stock of 4+IV Dratini, Riolu, Solosis, Honedge and Rotom if you eventually get your hands on one.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by empoleon dynamite

I thought that just applied to strangers. I’ve known you (passively) for what now, 5 years? :P

But nah that's cool, I just thought I could help you out. I already have all of your safari Pokémon - although I do need a HA Eevee eventually and was hoping someone could trade me one from my safari. I have a stock of 4+IV Dratini, Riolu, Solosis, Honedge and Rotom if you eventually get your hands on one.

I'd be happy to trade you surplus 4/5 IV Eevee for a 4/5 IV thing of your own. I'd be unhappy to start things off with the specific intent of getting my paws on your safari. It's hypocritical in the extreme and so I'd just rather not do it, even if it's an inconvenience to the both of us. Call it what you will.

Seriously, you have no need for nor interest in a 4 IV / 5 IV Ralts or Litwick? Well, whatever. I'll just keep Go Fishing on the GTS then I guess. Bound to find someone who speaks English and who has a thread of moral fiber to them eventually. ^^;; *eyes three rows of non-HA Eevees* ¬_¬;

I'll probably be beginning Espurr breeding here shortly since Concordia's about to hit Level 40 and both Aruru and Nephesha are about to hit the mid-30s. It won't be long before all three of them join Irisviel (currently in the PC at Level 49). And then I'll be interested to do comparison tests with the three ladies in white. But not any time horribly soon ^^; , which means I'll probably hop right back on over to breeding.

[Schala]

I would have offered you one of mine, Talon, but I've been breeding Timid, and I swore you said Modest in your request. If you're fine with a Timid female, then I can certainly shoot for one. Unfortunately, the only Anticipation female that I hatched so far was not only the only one to not inherit at least 4 perfect IVs, but also managed to get a zero in Speed. I think my females are cursed. Regardless, I've now got a 6IV and 5IV parent, so the next female I get should have at least 5 perfect IVs. Though with my luck, it'll be missing Sp.Attack, and that one will be zero.

Emp, if you want one, send me a PM. I've got a 4IV male and the above female, either of which I'm happy to part with.

[Talon87]

Sophia and Nephira: Aruru (Timid Gardevoir) was renamed to Sophia. It's a pretty name and, I dunno, it just feels like it fits, I guess. *shrug* Nephesha (Timid Litwick) was renamed to Nephira. Sort of a portmanteau of nephesh, Hebrew for "soul", and fira ... Squaresoft for "fire", I guess. Hey, I like the sound of it. Nephira sounds like a name you might expect to find on a female demon. Kind of. Meh, we're rolling with it!

No Meowstic Just Yet: I know I said I was most eager to breed Espurrs, but for whatever reason it only just clicked that the Modest Infiltrator 4 IV female Espurr I have inside of a Luxury Ball (thanks, GTS!) ... isn't going to be able to divorce her ability from her ball. I don't know why, as I've understood this perfectly well for every other case, but for some reason I kept thinking that I could breed the IVs onto a male Espurr, have him breed with a female Espurr I caught on Route 6 in a PokéBall, and voilà: female Espurr breeding stock once again. For some reason it didn't register in my head that I would permanently lose the Infiltrator ability if I tried to do things this way. Soooooooooooo ... yeah. While I could go ahead and at least set up a breeding partner for my future female, for the time being I'm tabling this project. I'll need to get my hands on a female Espurr with Infiltrator and who was caught in a PokéBall first. Only once I've done that can I then make use of the gift I got off of the GTS ... or reinvent the wheel from scratch, whichever would work better.

So if I'm not breeding Espurrs, then what exactly am I breeding?

Togepi Breeding: ... surprise. ^^; Yeah, I decided to go ahead and take the female Togepi I have with Nasty Plot, the male Togepi I have with 3 IVs (technically he's got four but one is Atk), and start breeding for awesome Togekisses. I'd like to recreate Glide, my EV-trained Togekiss in HGSS, only now with a gender switch (possibly) and of course 31/**/31/31/31/31 IVs. I'd also like to give the textbook Togekiss a try, maybe. We'll see. Anyway, Glide 2.0's a certainty, and so with that goal in mind, I'm breeding away.

I actually happened to get really lucky in the third generation. First generation was the de facto 3V father paired with the 1V Nasty Plot mother. They produced a daughter who was de facto 2V, so she replaced mom. Second generation was 3V dad and 2V daughter mom ... and they just so happened to produce a de facto 4V son amongst their first batch of seven children. (And if you want to count the Atk 31 he inherited as well, then he's technically a 5 IV!) Once I get him evolved, I'll begin breeding the fourth generation of baby Togepis. And given the annoying characteristic of Togepi and all other Gen 2 babies -- that they can't breed until they evolve -- I'll probably just try and brute force this pairing of parents until I get lucky and produce a 4V female who can serve as the final or second-to-last mother.

Happiness-based Evolution: At least with these Togepis that I've been working with, it's never been easier than it is here in Generation 6. I'm not sure how much of it is the Soothe Bell, how much of it is the O-Power for helping Pokémon to become more friendly, and how much of it is the gained levels, but all I can tell you is that after fighting only two higher-level trainers in the Battle Chateau, every single Togepi I've evolved so far (four? going on five?) has evolved. That's anywhere between 3 minutes and 6 minutes per Togepi. Very nice. A huge, huge improvement over what I remember things being like in previous generations.

Togepi's Speedy Hatching: Something else I feel I should point out to my fellow breeders or would-be breeders is how quickly the Togepi line seems to hatch in Gen 6. Again, I don't remember it being this way in the past (although I don't remember Togepi being particularly slow either), but in Gen 6 it seems like Togepi hatches almost as quickly as Croagunk. So if Togepi is something you were thinking about breeding (because TO-GE-KISS! TO-GE-KISS! ) but you were scared off by its icky Gen 2 babyness, I would say don't be scared. Breed, breed away. They're easy to get to evolve and even easier to get to hatch in the first place.

Newly Acquired Items: I promised myself I'd post this here so that I could resort my bags, so here I go! It'll be much briefer than last time though. In fact, I'll just list them all here:

• Items: Power Weight, Power Bracer, Power Belt, Dawn Stone x1, Scope Lens, Wide Lens
• Medicine: no new categories
• TMs: TM71 Stone Edge, TM20 Safeguard, TM07 Hail, TM37 Sandstorm, TM11 Sunny Day, TM18 Rain Dance, TM50 Overheat, TM93 Wild Charge, TM68 Giga Impact, TM33 Reflect, TM16 Light Screen
• Berries: Cheri x64, Rawst x51, and some previous categories have gained more as well
• Key Items: nothing new
• Items on Team Members or on Pokémon in the PC: nothing new, I believe, although someone on the GTS gave me a Pokémon of theirs with an Expert Belt and was offline when I got it so I couldn't try to trade it back to him. Hopefully they're farmable or purchasable.

As you can see, not too many new items. Mostly new TMs, the two basic berries, and the three remaining Power Items.