Idea: Blisseys should decline to battle the babies or wounded pokémon! This would be in-universe in-character, would help enormously with the newly blissey-clogged gyms in urban areas, and wouldn't be a nerf if it's been there, undiscovered, since Gen 2 released last Thursday.

(Not gonna happen. But it would be neat.)

By virtue of the double-candy mechanic in Pokémon Go's current Valentine's event (which runs into the morning of February 15, Pacific Time), I got to evolve togepi into togetic today!

Of togetic's possible movesets, mine got the one that's best for attacking (zen headbutt & dazzling gleam), with the psychic-type quick move (the steel-type quick move is togetic's best for defending). Should I spend stardust powering up my togetic? Probably not, I'm thinking (togetic's GamePress entry). Togetic is every bit a middle-stage evolution, with limited movesets and stats. On the one hand, this implies that Niantic is designing with togepi's final stage, togekiss, properly in mind, which is right and just. On the other hand, with no Gen2 yet, Gen4 is forever if ever away.

This leaves me exactly 2 pokémon short of completing my regional pokedex (for today's available pokemon): dragonite and kabutops.

I hatched an 89% IVs snorlax with the best available defensive moveset today, and also an 89% hitmonlee with two fighting-type moves (just right for using against snorlaxes).

I picked up their eggs from unknown pokéstops an hour distant, Saturday morning, helping a friend with a chore. (I must admit that I spring for an incubator each time that I spin a 10K egg.)

There's been some chatter around TrainerTips lately regarding 100% IV pokémon, because TrainerTipsNick caught a wild 100% IV omastar (wow). They're fun to have! I happen to have 5 (listed below). Yet it's important to understand that unless we're powering them all the way up, "100% perfect" is only a vanity license plate. It confers no advantage in gym bouts. It plays no role in moveset distribution. It's just kinda neat. ;-)

( What are IVs? )

My own 5 100%s are: beedrill, rapidash, starmie, tauros, and arbok. ( blithering about my 100% pokémon )

How about you, fellow trainers? Any 100% IV pokemon on your squads? Or do you have much better things to do than feed data into PokeAssistant? :-D

I've "won" the New Year's event! :-) That is, I achieved my personal game goal for PokéGo's "increased starter spawns" period. As of this evening, with only 4 ultraballs left (after hoarding them for ages), I have enough candies and enough high-IV pokémon to evolve and keep one each of every stage of the 3 starters: the complete bulbasaur, charmander, and squirtle families!

I even have enough bulbasaur candies to evolve a second venusaur, if the first one gets a poor moveset. But I don't have enough for a second charizard or blastoise; whatever moves they learn will be the moves I'll bring to gyms.

I'll do the evolutions after the event ends — with a lucky egg on! — just in case I catch or hatch any with higher IVs and/or CP.

On a separate note, the GPS drift has been dire at my home lately. If my avatar has to stand around in the next neighborhood, I keep thinking, couldn't she go just a little to the side and stand at their pokéstop? ;-) Alas, no...

I haven't yet read any, but I see that Yuletide 2016 yielded:

• 3 new D&DC stories (and there's 1 that posted independently in October, since the last time I checked)
• 3 new FK stories (and there's 1 that posted independently on Christmas Day)
• 0 new BSG78 stories (although 3 posted independently in November and December)
• 0 new YB stories (although someone included it in a mass crossover in October; otherwise, it last had a story of any kind in 2013)
• 14 new Galavant stories
• 13 new Pokémon Go stories (I didn't know PokéGo fanfic was a thing. But OF COURSE it is.)

And many, many more. Including 4 stories for A Ladies' Guide to Collecting Mermaid Love Songs by Aimee Picchi, which I'd never heard of, but will be looking up on the strength of that title!

I'm particularly looking forward to the D&DC tales. Falling prey to prejudging a fanfic by its tags and summary, I think they look congenial. I shall see... :-)

I hatched a Pichu today! 87% IVs (11, 14, 14). Plain normal-type Quick Attack, so no STAB, but the babies aren't really for battling, anyway.

He's adorable!

And he's opened up all these mysterious slots in my pokédex for future filling. ;-)

How are you guys doing? Any lucky hatches of eggs picked up since Monday? Any sponsored pokéstops usefully placed for you? Any hat-wearing pikachus? Oh, and apparently there was another migration yesterday or today.

I enjoyed the recent Pokémon Go events, both Halloween's spooky spawns and the "introducing daily bonuses" hauls. I hope that you all had fun! It seems likely that Niantic'll hold similar events again. There are rampant Thanksgiving rumors, which seems odd, as the game is global and US Thanksgiving is... US. (It'd be easy to twin the Halloween candy event at Eastertime, with the victreebel, vileplume, venomoth, and beedrill families. I haven't imagined anything good for the December holidays, not only because there's so little ice in first generation, but because... fair's fair southern hemisphere summer!)

Have you heard about the Japanese lapras event? To hopefully economically help the region harmed by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. (I contributed a mite to the gofundme to send TrainerTipsNick there to get a lapras and a farfetched, report back to us, and carry our good wishes to those still affected.) There's speculation that it's a try-out for introducing the legendaries.

While enjoying the events when I could, I'm also glad to have the game back to normal. There was a franticness to taking good advantage of the events in time. We adults can't play much during our workweeks, obviously, and while I really do enjoy long weekend walks listening to thoughtful news analysis podcasts or awesome Great Courses lectures, it does get dark so early at this end of the year in the northern hemisphere... and, frankly, I personally need a breather from even the most thoughtful news analysis, I think.

This past week was very busy. While I remembered to spin the pokéstops on the way in and out of my workplace — and to regularly nab the pidgies, rattatas, and parases that spawned at my apartment at 28 minutes past the hour until the latest migration — I was paying so little attention overall that I was taken by surprise on Friday to realize that I'd somehow accumulated 4 10K eggs! I've never before had more than one 10K egg at a time.

The weather was kind over the weekend, and I didn't scruple to shell out for incubators, so I did hatch all 4 by Monday: 2 magmars, 1 chansey, and 1 dratini. None were new types to me, but all are exceedingly rare here (I had exactly 2 of each before these hatches).

Lots of stardust, lots of candy, but mostly the great fun of anticipation. Would they be any of the 34 pokémon that I don't yet have? Not this time. But next time...!

Tired of seeing the same pokémon in every gym? I am! Want to do something about it? Let's diversify! The next time that you take a gym, consider popping in your cool, weird, cute, rare, well-loved pokémon, instead of always those with the very highest CP. Everyone has memorized the type advantages for arcanine and exeggutor by now. But do they know what to field against your awesome starmie?

Yesterday, after work, the gym across the street belonged to my team, so I trained it up and installed my wigglytuft! On Sunday, the gym near my church hosted my porygon! I've put my golem and machamp in gyms. Next, I'm looking for an opportunity to show off my hitmonchan!

Of course everyone plays PokéGo in different ways, finding amusement in different aspects; I'm not suggesting abandoning any gameplay that's bringing happiness! But I am a bit tired of all the arcanines and snorlaxes stacked five deep around here. And with the recent update by which pokémon that you see in gyms get added to your "Seen" count, it's more fun than ever to exhibit your rare catches (and hatches) in gyms, knowing you're contributing to pokédexes! Also, of course, though I haven't gotten this update yet, myself, the imminent change to training, where you field a squad and the defenders normalize to match your trainer level, makes having the highest CP in the gym slightly less relevant? Or perhaps I think that only because I live in an urban area where gyms change hands often, so I get in, collect my defender bonus, and wait to welcome my fainted pokémon home. To hold a gym for more than an hour or two, even with my strongest, I need to go hiking...

Credit: I picked up this idea from Trainer Tips Nick, one of my favorite YouTubers (and definitely my favorite pokéYouTuber). So far, it is indeed amusing me. :-) If it might amuse you, too, give it a try!