Pokémon: Ninetales
Nov. 19th, 2025 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightberriesThe following is all collected information pertaining to my personal kintype memories as a wild Johtonian ninetales. There is some explaining of biological, cultural, and behavioral facts here, too, but only so what I'm telling you makes sense. This is constantly having new stuff added to it as things comes to me over time, so do stick around!
Please do comment if you have anything in mind!
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What is the difference between a Kantonian and Johtonian vulpix and ninetales? You could compare it to a Siberian and Bengal tiger in this world, the same species in alternate environments. It wasn’t enough to remake us into something like an Alolan vulpix/ninetales, which are Ice-Types; those are more extreme examples of this phenomenon. Kanto/Johto are both purely Fire-Types with obvious Psychic ancestry in us from somewhere (Alolans also have the Psychic stuff). The nuances between a native population Kantonian versus a native population Johtonian were subtle, but not impossible to find; when side-by-side there are distinct details such as slight variations in size ranges, morphology, markings and coloration characteristics. The “traditional/stereotypical” idea of what a ninetales should look like comes from domesticated show-line ninetales primarily from Kanto, the solid pale-gold hue with soft-orange-y tail-tips and scarlet eyes appearance. This is the popularized phenotype most people picture. It does not apply to the wildborn.
As a wild vulpix (female? Male? Still figuring this out), hatched and raised in the Johto region, alongside a handful of clutchmates, our vulpix parents resembled the typical coloration for that evo-stage in that Region, and so did we. There came a time in my life when I tentatively decided I’d spent too long as a vulpix and needed to at least try to get my mitts on a Fire Stone so I could become a bigger, wizened, intimidatingly beautiful ninetales. That was how I saw every ninetales, even if their personality was shit when interacting with mine. Some were arrogant pricks about themselves, you see. I didn’t want to be a jerk, and to this day I still hope I wasn’t, but pretty much all vulpix are loyal to a fault and scrappily “spiteful” by nature, so…anyway, I deeply envied a ninetales’ grace, all their insidious scorching power. That probably means I hastily made my evolution occur at least a bit too quickly, but I was deliriously pleased with the results once it happened, regardless.
Among most pokémon species, evolution is not regarded as a strictly necessary thing. It just…happens, and if it does, then it’s natural, a positive progression of your life; it feels “right” in the way that it is correct to look back upon the years wherein you were inexperienced, grimace a little, and then move on with your current, stronger, wiser self—the more seasoned version of you being the next stage of your evolutionary line, if you were a species even capable of doing so, that is. Normally it takes a certain amount of life experience, and thus emotional maturity and growth, to reach the point you’re finally able to evolve on your own terms. “Friendship-evolution” is similar, except it’s more based on a bond with someone else strengthening you than it is internal.
There are of course cases where you impatiently and foolishly rush into it (for species that require outside things like a Stone to make it happen) while you’re young and dumb, unprepared for the consequences of your own body getting so drastically wracked in a transforming, brief burst of bioluminescence. Evolution truly does change a pokémon in a way that cannot ever be revoked. It often alters the way one thinks and sees the world. You have memories of being something else, and you understand the unshakeable fact that that was once you, and in a way, you are still it, but it was a premature you, leading to this new one. Metamorphosis. Or perhaps you’re a domestic or tame ‘mon forced to evolve via intense battle training drilled into your skull by a likely selfish and-or ignorant human (whether you agreed to it or not). If you’re something like vulpix, as I was/am, who all literally require a semi-organic shining-from-the-inside (a sort of…radiation-energy) “rock” (not a true crystal like say, quartz or obsidian, for examples; it is a somewhat alive mineral-like thing, just about as scientifically-proven yet still “mysteriously magical” as anything else, in-universe) which is specifically attuned to Fire-Types such as we.
Deliberately seeking out a Fire Stone when fully wild by birth is no joke. It’s a journey, sometimes a perilous one. Some are fortunate enough to somehow come across a Fire Stone sourced from human ownership, but those are intended for the domesticated subspecies of our wild kind (having differences from us much akin to a selectively bred dog compared to a gray wolf); they’re not meant for our use, but they’d work all the same. I didn’t manage to snatch one of those, though, I had to go scouring a local cave system with natural deposits of raw Evolution Stones that developed in it. It was kind of like a cultural pilgrimage for vulpix raised in that area of the Johto Region, passed down diligently through generations of mated pairs, physically mature ninetales or vulpix alike, bringing up clutches of hatchlings typically with not much help from anyone else. If a mom-and-pop didn’t teach their offspring about these locations where Fire Stones could be found, then they were judged as negligent and lazy by conspecific peers.
I said “not ‘much’ help” because on rare occasion, neighboring vulpix/ninetales could gather with their clutches (if they had any) and interact. This could be especially observable during times of food scarcity, but not every one of us opted to generously share with our kin. Some would grow even more hostile and isolationist, preserving everything they could get. This was viewed as a choice one could make when desperate, though it was an unpleasant one for the rest of us to see. Our evo-line is loyal, as said before, and that includes aiding each other when we really needed it, so watching one of ours go down such a lonely road…it is not heartening.
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[more to come]
Please do comment if you have anything in mind!
--------
What is the difference between a Kantonian and Johtonian vulpix and ninetales? You could compare it to a Siberian and Bengal tiger in this world, the same species in alternate environments. It wasn’t enough to remake us into something like an Alolan vulpix/ninetales, which are Ice-Types; those are more extreme examples of this phenomenon. Kanto/Johto are both purely Fire-Types with obvious Psychic ancestry in us from somewhere (Alolans also have the Psychic stuff). The nuances between a native population Kantonian versus a native population Johtonian were subtle, but not impossible to find; when side-by-side there are distinct details such as slight variations in size ranges, morphology, markings and coloration characteristics. The “traditional/stereotypical” idea of what a ninetales should look like comes from domesticated show-line ninetales primarily from Kanto, the solid pale-gold hue with soft-orange-y tail-tips and scarlet eyes appearance. This is the popularized phenotype most people picture. It does not apply to the wildborn.
As a wild vulpix (female? Male? Still figuring this out), hatched and raised in the Johto region, alongside a handful of clutchmates, our vulpix parents resembled the typical coloration for that evo-stage in that Region, and so did we. There came a time in my life when I tentatively decided I’d spent too long as a vulpix and needed to at least try to get my mitts on a Fire Stone so I could become a bigger, wizened, intimidatingly beautiful ninetales. That was how I saw every ninetales, even if their personality was shit when interacting with mine. Some were arrogant pricks about themselves, you see. I didn’t want to be a jerk, and to this day I still hope I wasn’t, but pretty much all vulpix are loyal to a fault and scrappily “spiteful” by nature, so…anyway, I deeply envied a ninetales’ grace, all their insidious scorching power. That probably means I hastily made my evolution occur at least a bit too quickly, but I was deliriously pleased with the results once it happened, regardless.
Among most pokémon species, evolution is not regarded as a strictly necessary thing. It just…happens, and if it does, then it’s natural, a positive progression of your life; it feels “right” in the way that it is correct to look back upon the years wherein you were inexperienced, grimace a little, and then move on with your current, stronger, wiser self—the more seasoned version of you being the next stage of your evolutionary line, if you were a species even capable of doing so, that is. Normally it takes a certain amount of life experience, and thus emotional maturity and growth, to reach the point you’re finally able to evolve on your own terms. “Friendship-evolution” is similar, except it’s more based on a bond with someone else strengthening you than it is internal.
There are of course cases where you impatiently and foolishly rush into it (for species that require outside things like a Stone to make it happen) while you’re young and dumb, unprepared for the consequences of your own body getting so drastically wracked in a transforming, brief burst of bioluminescence. Evolution truly does change a pokémon in a way that cannot ever be revoked. It often alters the way one thinks and sees the world. You have memories of being something else, and you understand the unshakeable fact that that was once you, and in a way, you are still it, but it was a premature you, leading to this new one. Metamorphosis. Or perhaps you’re a domestic or tame ‘mon forced to evolve via intense battle training drilled into your skull by a likely selfish and-or ignorant human (whether you agreed to it or not). If you’re something like vulpix, as I was/am, who all literally require a semi-organic shining-from-the-inside (a sort of…radiation-energy) “rock” (not a true crystal like say, quartz or obsidian, for examples; it is a somewhat alive mineral-like thing, just about as scientifically-proven yet still “mysteriously magical” as anything else, in-universe) which is specifically attuned to Fire-Types such as we.
Deliberately seeking out a Fire Stone when fully wild by birth is no joke. It’s a journey, sometimes a perilous one. Some are fortunate enough to somehow come across a Fire Stone sourced from human ownership, but those are intended for the domesticated subspecies of our wild kind (having differences from us much akin to a selectively bred dog compared to a gray wolf); they’re not meant for our use, but they’d work all the same. I didn’t manage to snatch one of those, though, I had to go scouring a local cave system with natural deposits of raw Evolution Stones that developed in it. It was kind of like a cultural pilgrimage for vulpix raised in that area of the Johto Region, passed down diligently through generations of mated pairs, physically mature ninetales or vulpix alike, bringing up clutches of hatchlings typically with not much help from anyone else. If a mom-and-pop didn’t teach their offspring about these locations where Fire Stones could be found, then they were judged as negligent and lazy by conspecific peers.
I said “not ‘much’ help” because on rare occasion, neighboring vulpix/ninetales could gather with their clutches (if they had any) and interact. This could be especially observable during times of food scarcity, but not every one of us opted to generously share with our kin. Some would grow even more hostile and isolationist, preserving everything they could get. This was viewed as a choice one could make when desperate, though it was an unpleasant one for the rest of us to see. Our evo-line is loyal, as said before, and that includes aiding each other when we really needed it, so watching one of ours go down such a lonely road…it is not heartening.
--------
[more to come]
