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I'm not going to hide it - Soothark is my own friendly "take that!" to those who didn't like Soothean, which I still think is one of my best concepts. Since I'm not willing to change what I consider to be perfect (for my tastes, of course, and by the way I did polish its design a little for the NatDex) I figured that the best way to respond to criticism was to give Soothean a cool evolution... and what's cooler than a shark, as far as marine creatures go?* I didn't want to break the theme of peacefulness though, but it didn't matter because nature already had a perfect shark species for that - you guessed it, whale sharks, and that's what Soothark is. Now you'll just have to wait and see if I suceeded in creating something that's worthy of your admiration or not.

* Cephalopods, maybe, but pulling an "Octillery" would have been silly in this case, wouldn't it?

I actually tried that, but I didn't like the results (incorporating the basking shark's distinctive snout was a problem, it didn't fit the general figure I wanted the pokémon to have) Don't worry though, I was able to use a particular feature of the whale shark in a way that makes sense for the concept as well.

JDLJDL wrote:

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Soothark does look pretty much awesome. It doesn't look like Soothean in any way though... you pulled a Gyarados?

Uh? I didn't show Soothark's sketch outside of the Staff Room... maybe you are referring to this old picture? That's actually Shuttlark, one of my suggestions that was lost after the hack. It evolved from Sharpedo when traded with the Soothe Bell attached. I scrapped it to make way for Soothark, and also because, in retrospect, giving a line of vicious fish pokémon a peaceful final evo may not have been such a good idea after all (even if I still like the design itself). Anyway, the new whale shark is quite different, and actually has similarities to Soothean (that said, you'll also find elements of Shuttlark in there as well, but very few).

elementalpenguin wrote:

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Also... Antarctros, I don't think you need to worry about Soothean being unpopular - it got second in the Random Pokemon contest. xD

Yeah, I know I didn't introduce Soothark out of disappointment, resentment or anything like that, really, I only did it because I wanted to try and see if I could make Soothean evolve into something that even more people would like; in other words, to address the criticism in a creative way without having to change Soothean itself too much.

@Decku: thanks! ^^

Nope, that wasn't me: check it out, I didn't make any posts in that thread at all. In any case, I think there's a difference between making a pokémon more ferocious when it evolves and making it gentler, with the former actually being the norm. It's also easier to do, in my opinion. For the latter, you have to think about it a bit more carefully, come up with a good justification: for instance, a pokémon who learns to control itself as it matures. With that in mind, the change from vicious Sharpedo to lethargic Shuttlark looked just too abrupt in comparison.

By the way, Lanturn can be vicious when they want/need to... Just look at this dex entry from Pokémon Silver: "It blinds prey with an intense burst of light, then swallows the immobilized prey in a single gulp."