Shawn The Ampharos - Tumblr Posts
Nothing like a good glass of orange juice after wallowing in the mud!
A soothing song, and a soothing sauna stay! (Though, depending on who you ask, one might be more soothing than the other...)
Today is a wonderful and special day—Ampharos Day! I made this for Twitter last year, hopefully I can get something else out for one of my favorite Pokemon team members before the end of the day. But for now, let's let Shawn here have her nap.
Nothing like a good massage after a long day... Or, judging by the time this is being posted, a long afternoon? These two are some of my old SoulSilver Pokemon, Toasty the Typhlosion and Shawn the Ampharos. I've always characterized the latter as being head over heels for the former, though Toasty wouldn't fully appreciate her affection for a while. Below the cut is a collection of little sketches of the two, surrounding this piece in the original sketchbook! Happy Pokemon Day!
An old drawing of a Mareep to celebrate this year's Mareep day!
Fortunately, I found the time to make some new Mareep art for Mareep Day (the fact that said time was from midnight to 3AM is irrelevant 🙃), so here we have the moment I caught the Mareep on my in-game team—one of the first characterization moments I made for any of my Pokemon:
This is Shawn the Mareep, whose monotonous life on Route 32 was turned upside-down when she laid her eyes upon Toasty the Cyndaquil, leaping out of the tall grass to pounce and cuddle him! And, much to the poor echidna's dismay, his trainer (me!) decided to catch her and bring her along on the journey, instead of chasing her off or something. So now he has to deal with an admirer through my journey through Johto. Fun! For a continued writeup of the two's relationship, plus a timelapse of the art, click below!
During the whole journey, I picture the two of them being mostly at odds with each other—with Shawn continually trying to impress Toasty, while the poor Cyndaquil/Quilava/Typhlosion wants nothing to do with her beyond her being "that one teammate who keeps getting on my nerves." Given the Mystery Egg in Pokemon SoulSilver, I can even see her trying to place herself and Toasty in the role of the Togepi's parents... only for her to be embarrassed when it latches onto my Noctowl as a mom, instead. Then, things change during the Lake of Rage portion: Shawn, now an Ampharos, gets kidnapped via sleight of hand, one of many pilfered electric-types Team Rocket is using to power their evolution wave plan. David (still me!) doesn't learn about this until he's about to battle the red Gyarados, and after they fail to find her... Toasty is furious, rushing right into the Souvenir Shop and threatening any grunts who get in his way. He even defeats Ariana's Arbok effortlessly when it taunts him about Shawn's fate! Afterwards, Shawn and the other electric-types are rescued, and for once, the Ampharos sees her Typhlosion beloved finally returning the love she had for him since they met. And so, one short cuddle later, the two are on much friendlier terms for the remainder of the Johto and Kanto trips. She still tries to impress him, sure... but now, her attempts work. So, there's that. And now, here's that timelapse I promised at the start!
...Yeah, don't mind the lack of stripes on her ears compared to above, despite a visual reference I completely forgot to add them until I began typing out this Tumblr post, at which point I had removed the timelapse from the file. Whoops!