Hi, you can call me Moonvale. Welcome to my blog! It used to be strictly Animal Crossing themed, but I think it's nice to have somewhere were I can talk about all the video games and things I love!
One day, a pangolin saw a porcupine’s quills and thought to
itself “My scales should do that” and thus Sandslash was born. I
imagine long-lived Sandshrew plates get very rough and ragged due to rolling
around their native arid environments and as a result become these long spikes
upon evolution. It seems to have lost the plating everywhere but on its back
and the back spikes are a dark brown now, probably due to age. I imagine these feel tough like animal
hooves. I imagine the yellow areas of flesh that match sandshrew’s plate
coloration are naturally thicker areas of skin and the creamy belly and muzzle
area are still soft and unprotected. And squishy. Its ears resemble its spikes now, and it
has a yellow colored horn in the middle of its head laying back like its
spikes. Or, as my asshole brain likes to see sometimes, it could have a third
ear in the middle of its forehead. Thanks, brain.
Its shiny form doesn’t have any green like its prior
evolution did. Instead, its skin is a much more sandy color while the
underbelly and muzzle stay a similar cream color. Its spines, however. Are now
a bright slightly less saturated red. Kind of like how blood is colored. It’s
very metal. Shiny sandslash is coated in the blood of pokemon who can’t move out of the way fast enough when it gotta go fast.
Alolan Sandslash’s back spines are just large ice
crystals. Its front claws are also a bit longer and have a slight hook at the
end of them. I imagine they’re like ice picks. Its soft belly and muzzle are
white, while its harder skin is a vary pale blue. It’s shiny form replaces the
white with the color of the harder skin, and the harder skin is instead a
darker shade of blue, much like the underbelly was for Alolan Sandshrew’s shiny
form. The ice doesn’t seem to change color at all so I would suspect that this
really is just super hard ice and not a natural growth of the creature.
What’s in the Name:
Its English name is Sand + slash. It’s Japanese name,
Sandpan, is probably Sand + the first part of ‘pangolin’. Y'know the critter
the line’s based on. Cuz it doesn’t really look like a pan you’d find in the kitchen.
The 'Dex Says:
Like its previous form, Sandslash is able to curl up in a
ball. Though I imagine it can really only roll forward as those spikes would
probably dig into the ground if it attempted a backwards roll. Apparently it
also curls into a ball to save itself from heatstroke in the desert sun…
though I can’t imagine that actually helps? I feel like it’d only get hotter
inside its curled up form with those darker spikes absorbing heat. Once a year
these spikes will fall out, but are replaced by new ones that grow under the
older spikes. In Alola they apparently use shed spikes and broken claws to make
farming equipment to plow fields. That’s actually pretty neat.
These spikes obviously make a pretty good defense mechanism,
but they also are known to quickly run around and stir up clouds of dirt and
sand to protect themselves. They also have their long front claws to attack
with, and dig with. These claws are known to break when digging at fast speeds,
but they can grow back within a day’s time. The common breed of Sandslash
apparently become good at climbing in Alola and will climb trees and wait to
drop on prey. Pretty impressive considering their usual environment probably
doesn’t have a lot of trees. Forget drop bears. In Alola you gotta worry about
hell pinecones left behind by careless foreigners. No wonder Galar doesn’t
allow foreign pokemon in the region.
Alolan Sandslash apparently emit very cold air from their
bodies. Those ice spikes on their backs apparently coat spikes made of steel
and are formed from and sharpened by that cold air. Not sure how it naturally has
steel spikes growing out its head, neck and back but the dex is written in-game
by kids after all. Being stabbed by these spikes cause deep wounds and
frostbite. Those front claws also allow it to plow through snow quickly
enough to spray snow around them as they run. They can even quickly climb
icebergs due to their shape. Though I’m pretty sure whatever kid wrote that one
didn’t know the correct word for glacier or something because I doubt they
brought their Alolan Sandslash onto the ocean to find a floating chunk of ice
to test its climbing skills.
Wait.
…This entry was written by Gary, wasn’t it. I can totally see that idiot
doing just that. I at least hope he wore warm clothes while testing Alolan sandslash’s skills otherwise he won’t be smelling anyone later with that cold he got.
It’s Rating Time!
4/5 for both! Pokey ball critter is pretty
cute, even after it evolved. The goofy ice spikes on Alolan Sandslash aren’t as cute as Sandshrew’s igloo body.