@witchfynder_finder oh i agree, i mean pokémon is a weird thing because like it exists in a world which never really had the Enlightenment and went on doing science without throwing out all existing folklore first, PLUS it maintains this twin perspectives of on the one hand, pokémon created the earth and the universe and land and seas and everything, BUT on the other hand pokémon came from space (and thus could not have created the world) and all descended from Mew (not Arceus or whatever)

pokémon media is generally very careful not to adjudicate too strongly between these perspectives and i think fans shouldn't either

@Lady That's actually a good point, I hadn't considered that one

@witchfynder_finder if you do want a canon take, at this point both the anime and the games have pretty much established that multiple of at least some of the legendaries exist so like, science is right and folklore is wrong

but despite being complicated by science pokémon still places a lot of value and importance on those sorts of traditional knowledges and i don't think it's entirely right to just dismiss them either

@Lady Really!! I didn't know that, that's fascinating!

@witchfynder_finder i mean the most obvious case is the fact that the legendary birds have galarian forms, so like, gotta be multiple of those

but i'm pretty sure there are at least multiple suicune in the anime (which contradicts the legend of the legendary beasts i feel); there definitely are multiple mewtwo (which is weird); there are both shiny and non-shiny celebi

because a lot of the legendaries have a big focus in the movies and then maybe crop up once or twice elsewhere it’s kinda hard to say whether it’s the same pokémon or not in a lot of other cases

as far as the games are concerned, i mean, you can catch most of the legendaries from other regions in galar, so like, either that isn't canon or there are a few of them

@Lady Yeah for the games I always just kind of brushed it aside as a gameplay thing, like, you can have consistent lore OR you can catch all the monsters and it felt like an unspoken agreement to just Not Think Too Hard About It. When you get into regional forms and stuff tho that def becomes more blatant.

@witchfynder_finder i mean i think the actual pokémon lore stance is that every game is an AU of every other game and they have actively exploited this in the past with like, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire very explicitly taking place in an alternate universe from the original Ruby and Sapphire

so like the handwave is "i suppose in this universe, instead of living in Sinnoh, Dialga is chilling in a cave in Galar" :P

but i also don't think the lore is supposed to be consistent. if there's one common thread between all the pokémon games it's that humans want to understand pokémon and also extremely do not. they're supposed to be mysteries

@Lady mhmm~ I see people sometimes like "Why don't the PKMN Profs work together and pool their research?" and like, that's extremely not the point of why there are PKMN Profs

@witchfynder_finder remember how before the 90s people didn't even know pokémon laid eggs

@Lady GOD you're right, I forgot that was, like, A Thing

@witchfynder_finder Elm is all like "it's amazing!! we have recently discovered pokémon fuck maybe?!"

@witchfynder_finder @Lady also they hella do don't they? like every time oak makes a cameo the professor of the region goes "hey it's my good friend and research buddy oak" i thought

and the whole GS ball thing but i don't know much about gen 2

@monorail @Lady Yeah there's nods here and there about it and honestly I don't take those kinds of takes from people too seriously in the first place, it feels like another version of "Pokemon is just like cockfighting!!" or whatever else dumbass take just trying to poke holes in the popular thing for no real reason

@witchfynder_finder @monorail @Lady why won't the anime explain how there can be 80 foot tall glaceons smh

@omni @witchfynder_finder @Lady gen 8 tried and whiffed

@monorail @omni @Lady No she's got a point

@witchfynder_finder @monorail @omni what's funny is that Pokémon Journeys still introduces like, multiple Abnormally Large Pokémon who are not gigantamax (Goh’s Golurk and Magikarp)

@witchfynder_finder @monorail @omni it does not explain them

@omni @witchfynder_finder @monorail it doesn't explain them but there sure are Giant Pokémon

just another of life's mysteries; when will they introduce the Giant Pokémon Professor

@Lady @omni @monorail Loving the ambiguity of Giant Pokemon Professor

@monorail @witchfynder_finder oh yeah in DPPt Rowan is explicitly just coming back from a trip to Johto to discuss forms and evolution with Elm and Oak

@monorail @witchfynder_finder like the whole implied deal is the Red Gyarados stuff happened and Rowan who studies pokémon forms was like damnb i gotta get on that

@Lady @witchfynder_finder my interpretation is that each cartridge of a pokemon game is an "au" in the same way that that sort of has to be true for any game with a multiplayer aspect, where you sort of shove it under the rug and don't think about it, but also the 3ds games take place in an alternate timeline that branches off in the X/Y backstory, and that's what gets elaborated on in the ORAS and SUMO postgames

@Lady @witchfynder_finder like the reveal that anabel is from the GBA/DS timeline doesn't mean she got plucked out of someone's particular emerald cartridge, it means that she was taken from the equivalent of that timeline in the "universe" of your game

@Lady @witchfynder_finder which does admittedly make her battle theme with the GBA soundfont less meaningful but i took that as more of a meta nod than anything