skinstealer journal- a misc collection of postings

[skinstealer]

dazzle mortis

uh, hi- i'm a new system member here! i've got the collective memory thing going so no need to reintroduce yourselves, but i guess it's my turn on the xbox to update this log. we've spent the past week or two working on a new emerald run + associated petz quest, and we're all caught up to badge 2...so why not write about it?

first off, though- our birthday was 5 days ago, and oh jesus christ we have gotten so many wonderful little guy-styled gifts to turn into petz hexes. rest assured they will all be hexed and featured here- we're considering doing a MASSIVE birthday party update once they're all done...the whole pile....but three are done so far so we're doing it we're doing it and it's gonna be so fucking awesome, we love them all and we want to celebrate with a big ass event with them. expect some streams advertised on the discord, perhaps? thank you so much for showering us with little guys!

we were also spoiled by rime, ace, and como, when it comes to IRL plushes...while ace's gift is coming later this month and will definitely be featured when it does, rime's happened to uh- serve as a catalyst for me showing up, actually. consider this both a plush reveal and a face reveal for me specifically?


[image description: a jointed style teddy bear with long rainbow fur, kind looking eyes, and a yellow neck ribbon.]

rime scooped up our first ever Charlie Bear, a brand that we've been super interested in ever since coming across their 2024 releases video... and i guess i latched onto her as soon as she got here, so she's me and i'm her now. i guess! we've got toy style introjects up in this and that's just how it is. eventually i'll do a proper ref of how i look in headspace, but it's basically just this. this brand is super cool due to being handmade, based on that lovely jointed art bear style- but the real selling point for us was that a good portion of their collection is child-friendly, which means they're safe to have in a bed and cuddled. congrats to me, i am hug-safe. this is pretty important to us when buying plushes! thank you huge to rime for making this happen!



[image description: a drawing of the same bear pictured above, now standing up and proudly displaying a large caught fish.]

cheet also drew this art of me after a really fucking funny conversation while i was high off of two microdose edibles. thank you cheet!

como also picked us up two new plushes for the collection recently- one deliberately for our birthday, and another while out shopping because it was a damn good price and we didn't have any plushes of this pokemon yet, despite it being our first ever favorite. let's see them...



[image description: a photo of a jester plague doctor squishable, specifically the purple and black spencer's exclusive color. it is the mini size, but still pretty huge.]

no idea what to name this guy yet, but our first ever squishable! we've kind of observed the plague doctor squishables longingly from afar, but it was never a very good time to pick one up. como found this guy while out shopping on the morning of our birthday, and brought him home- he said that this plush was the last one in the store, and it was simply meant to be. if you shake him, his jester cap rattles!



[image description: a photo of a large mew plush, its paws sewn to its face in a cheery expression.]

and then...mew. our first ever favorite pokemon was mew, and yet we haven't had any goddamn merch of it! it's crazy to think about. iris has already laid claim to this thing, which comes as no surprise to those who have been around a while and know his whole deal. the sphynx cat wants a mew, a huge surprise. it's really big in person though, and a nice quality! we kind of wish the paws and back of the tail weren't sewn onto the head, because iris is longing to dress it up...we might carefully cut those threads if we're feeling brave, because we think build a bear clothes might fit it...

thank you to como for our new goobers!


[image description: a photo of the micheal, relic, and phong plushes posed to look like they're playing in a circle.]

one last plush update: trying to get more into taking casual photos of our plushes hanging out and doing things together, in an effort to dispel any shame over "playing pretend" and really engage with our hobby. have the fusion boys hanging out! como actually established the other day that the three are in a gay polycule together, which both felt entirely correct and makes us thrilled that he's engaging with that and playing With us. it's really good for our mental health to have people we care about support our weird object sentience and play thing! congrats to relic, phong, and micheal, for being established gayboys.


onto the run, though...

okay, so: the conceit of this run is that all caught pokemon must be evolved to their "ideal" form (whatever we like best/is hexable), and hex them, as usual...but this one additionally has the clause of the hexes must all resemble a "pokedoll" style! the pokemon doll line of plushes is well known for being cute, chibi versions of many (but sadly not all) pokemon designs, and are considered highly collectible. we have a good few IRL, but we have a lot of fond memories of browing the official Pokemon Center website during gen 4's peak and fantasizing about owning some someday...and now we will make a million digital ones. yeehaw. 

as mentioned, not all designs have pokedoll equivalents...and these will have to be made mostly-quadrupedal, so we're winging it a bit with what these things will look like. still, i think we've got the spirit. let's see the results of the first two gyms, before we get out of hand and speed ahead to the third one...





[image description: a petz image collage with two rows: one row displaying the boulder badge, featuring emmy the wurmple, applique the zangoose, and jiggle the slowpoke. the second row has the knuckle badge, with felt the skiploom and marschino the ampharos. all of these pokemon will be described in more detail in following collages...]

so we actually have a fair bit more pokemon in-game than these guys- but these are the hexable ones we're working with. emmy the wurmple and jiggle the slowpoke were caught specifically because they're cute and stuff we've wanted to hex for a good while now, but never really made it onto the team and likely won't. they're just funny little guys. applique the zangoose was our party member for the first badge, though he's been swapped out for a dratini named green bean since. don't expect good ol' gb to show up for a long while in petz form, seeing as it needs to be evolved into a fucking dragonite first...

felt the skiploom is another "pet" one that just got picked up because rin really likes skiploom, lmao. since this is a hex just based off of the head ball, we'll probably just scale it up a bit for a normal skiploom file- which means we'll have our first full line of evolutions done! wow! marschino the ampharos came fully evolved and is a proper team member- we honestly just scrunched our normal ampharos file down and did some small tweaks, nothing dramatic hugely necessary here. quick and easy! and ampharos is a favorite, so we're really happy about it...

we're going to keep the other team members secret aside from screencaps shared on discord...we'd rather figure out their characters and introduce them as they're finally made up in petz.

before we go onto the individual descriptions of each mon's personality and characterization- what is our trainer character for this run like? we really wanted to do something different for this run with the pokedoll theme, so i'm leaning more along the lines of a psychic plush collector who animates their plushes and Swears that they're good for pokemon battling just like any "real" mons. in this sense, these designs are the canon appearances, even when quadrupedal- that's just how this trainer designs them, and we might do some proper art later.

any other details are a mystery...but we will get there!


[image description: a petz collage of emmy, a magenta, green, and pale yellow wurmple pokedoll hex. she seems attentive and friendly.]

according to our random generator rolls, emmy (short for embroidery), is most content being a partner pokemon. i like to think that the trainer made emmy early on in their plush making career, and loves her dearly, even if she never gets to see the battlefield directly. even if she's not really in The Party, she still rides around on her trainer's shoulder, and is a well-loved member of the team. she has a hard time trusting people, but does love being held and cuddled. complex concepts go over her head easily, and prefers familiar, safe places- going out anywhere requires her trainer very much present.


[image description: a petz collage of jiggle, a purple and white slowpoke pokedoll hex. she seems proud and excitable.]

jiggle is a gentle and relaxed pokedoll that enjoys playing dressup- we'll definitely have to actually go about doing that at some point. she prefers sleeping outside and in the wild, so i imagine she's frequently on the trainer character's patio or backyard. imagining stuff like how we used to play with our "warrior cat" plushes in the woods, playing with them among the leaves...that sort of thing. she likes fresh air and dreams of going to magical places someday, though she doesn't have particularly strong feelings in any direction towards her trainer...as long as she's pampered, she's cool with whatever.



[image description: a petz collage of applique, a white and light pink zangoose pokedoll hex with yellow claws. he seems irritable and aggravated.]

applique is the Big Bitch around here. he is the Motherfucker. i think the big reason why he's kept around despite being outright mean and a bastard is because emmy loves him dearly (more on that later) and his trainer can't bear the idea of rehoming him and separating them. he gets worked up easily, but does love to snuggle- you just have to catch him in the right mood. even with everything, he does love his trainer, even if he also bites the shit out of them regularly and causes trouble. his biggest secret is that he wants to be treated cutely, like the other plushes...


[image description: a petz collage of marschino, a red, black and white ampharos pokedoll hex. she seems content.]

marschino....they're a quietly spiteful soul that looks down on non-doll pokemon. they desire to be shown in pokemon contests (and we may figure out doing so later! it'd be fun to try and show the ones that roll wanting to do that, seeing as we're in emerald and ready to go.) their biggest desire in life is to be spoiled and pampered, covered in cute accessories and shown off. with that said, they don't care much for their trainer, and despite currently being an active party member, remain distant...maybe they wish they weren't made to battle so much?



[image description: a petz collage of felt, a pink and yellow skiploom pokedoll hex with purple eyes. she seems pleased, but it's hard to tell when she's just based on a head ball.]

felt is a pleasant little friend to many, but oscillates between being quiet and moody with others. it likes to get into scraps when let out of its house a bit too much, and is kind of oppositional to its trainer. as such, it doesn't leave the house much- but i think it doesn't mind. it just wants to do its own thing.

onto relationships...let's see how these guys interact!


[image description: a collage of applique and emmy interacting- the two are clearly in love.]

right off the bat, applique and emmy fell madly in love. such a funny fucking pairing, i love it. applique and his little worm gf. they care for each other deeply, and i get the feeling that emmy is one of the few people that truly understands him...maybe she helps him pick out cute accessories, even!

[image description: a collage of multiple pokedoll interactions. felt and emmy seem neutral, as are marschino and emmy. jiggle and emmy seem hesitant, but not super notable otherwise.]

emmy gets along with the rest of the crew fine, nothing super notable. i think emmy wanted to be casual friends with some due to her reaction when they were put away, but didn't really show any active interest otherwise. quietly longing from afar...

[image description: a collage of multiple interactions again. jiggle and applique seem tense, applique and marschino seem neutral, and applique ignores felt entirely.]

applique interactions! completely neutral with everybody, though it's hard to tell whether he dislikes jiggle or if it's just his alley-cat-personality-resting-bitch-face.

[image description: a collage of multiple interactions. marschino and felt seem to be friends, while felt and jiggle are neutral.]

felt interactions- marschino and felt get along great! the two probably enjoy being moody bitches together. they gossip. you know they do. jiggle and felt kind of just exist peacefully together, content to parallel play and nothing more.

[image description: a collage of marschino and jiggle interacting. the two of them absolutely hate each other.]

and then, to end it off...marschino and jiggle hate each other, with jiggle terrorizing marschino pretty readily. marschino, in all of their haughtiness, doesn't get along with a pokemon that also enjoys dressup and vanity...maybe they have squabbles about appearances and outfits? who knows!

that's all for now...now that this entry is done, we're going to get right back into the quest. we also have been continuing our infinite fusion hex quest with knux- maybe we'll post about that soon too, considering we havent tested any fusion relationships in petz yet!