#546 - #547: Cottonee & Whimsicott

Cottonee drifting on water.

Cottonee and Whimsicott are curious Pokémon. While these Pokémon don't look like any living being in particular, their designs and flavor revolve entirely around cotton. Being a little ball of such lightweight fluff, Cottonee is easily blown around by the wind, and the only instance in which it stays grounded is when it is soaked by rain, which weighs it down and makes it soggy. This Pokémon gathers in large groups during mating season, and when enough of them have collected, the mass resembles a cumulonimbus cloud - and let's be honest, the fact that it travels around wherever the wind carries it is more similar to clouds and dandelion seeds than cotton. But Cottonee wouldn't be as interesting as Jumpluff - or differ as much as it does from Jumpluff in the first place - if its cotton didn't have some useful applications. When attacked, Cottonee shoots cotton from its body to distract the attacker and uses the diversion to escape the dire situation it is in. However, the most useful application of its cotton can be found entirely in its Pokémon Moon Pokédex entry: "Pillows and beds stuffed with cotton exhaled by Cottonee are soft and puffy, light and airy - altogether top quality." Yeah, I can just imagine the fluffy cotton automatically causing the pillow to take on its original shape after each night it's used, which would definitely help me get rid of the annoyance I have with my own fucking pillows sometimes. I wonder if that's the reason why Cottonee and its evolution Whimsicott are apparently based on sheep, although it is not hard to combine sheep with cotton: both are fluffy, both are used to produce garments, both have origins in a legend I will elaborate on when discussing Whimsicott, and both are commonly associated with the concept of sleep (cotton that is used in pillows, counting sheep to help you falling asleep... you name it).

The shiny Whimsicott seems to be confused about why it's here.

The two leaves on the side of Cottonee's body do give it the appearance of a lamb, but Whimsicott (evolves from Cottonee by use of a Sun Stone) obviously has more physical features that make it resemble a whole-ass sheep, even though the woolly coat and ram's horns are only the beginning. Whimsicott's association with sheep is reinforced by its inclusion in the Unova horoscope, in which it represents the zodiac sign of Aries, a.k.a. the ram.* Moreover, Whimsicott may draw inspiration from the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a mythical plant that was believed to grow sheep as its fruit. Aside from the fact that this legendary zoophyte - an animal that visually resembles a plant - was used to explain the production of cotton in the Middle Ages, as the plant was unknown in Northern Europe before the Norman conquest of Sicily and travelers who saw it thought wool was growing from it, it also shows that people from 1000 years ago really were blithering morons. Goddamn. Anyway, that's roughly where the comparisons to sheep come to a halt. Whimsicott likes to sneak into houses through the tiniest cracks and cause all sorts of mischief, such as moving furniture and leaving fluffy white puffs in its wake. To quote its Pokémon Sun Pokédex entry: "After it has turned a room into a cotton-filled mess, it giggles to itself and takes off." Very mature. By any means, Whimsicott's fey appearance, trickster personality and ability to ride on whirlwinds are akin to the characteristics of an impish creature from Brazilian folklore called Saci, a one-legged, brown-skinned youngster that lives in forests, rides on the winds and is considered an annoying and incorrigible prankster in most parts of Brazil - there is literally no little harm that he won't do.

*(Personally I'm a Gemini and the corresponding Pokémon in the Unova horoscope is a Klink, which only confirms and invigorates my love for steel types, despite the fact that I really don't believe in this horoscope shit in the first place.)

Wipe that mischievous grin off your face, Whimsicott.

This trickster thing is exactly Whimsicott's shtick in competitive play as well. It's an utter pain the fucking ass if you don't have an answer for it, because its Prankster ability (how fitting!) allows it to move first when it's using any kind of status move. This means that even when your Pokémon is holding a Choice Scarf and should move before most other Pokémon, Whimsicott outspeeds your Pokémon and could paralyze it with Stun Spore (which is a bit inaccurate) in order to prevent it from moving at all. Or Whimsicott could bait your Pokémon with Taunt to prevent it from setting up on its own, use Encore to lock your Pokémon into an unfavorable move, create a Tailwind to increase its entire team's speed by 50% for a couple of turns, or use Defog to remove all entry hazards before it is hit. More uncommon is the use of Leech Seed to get a bit of health back every turn, although it's a status move and allows you catch your opponent by surprise, especially in combination with Substitute. Whimsicott is hit. Of course, Whimsicott needs an offensive move so that it isn't entirely passive, and Moonblast is the best move it gets that provides it STAB. Giga Drain could be preferred over Moonblast because of its effect to drain some of the opponent's HP while still dealing considerable damage, but Moonblast is generally better because grass-type moves aren't that great offensively. To go along with its trickster tactic, people often use a Timid-natured Whimsicott, and its fragility is oftentimes an incentive to give it a Focus Sash in order for it to live a hit at full HP.

Smogon also suggests an offensive moveset consisting of Moonblast, Energy Ball, Psychic and either U-Turn or Defog, along with the Choice Specs to bolster Whimsicott's firepower on the special side of the spectrum or a Life Orb to give a boost to its attacks in general. It's just suggested because Whimsicott has the Infiltrator ability to bypass Substitute and screens and could therefore do 'normal' damage - if you don't count the Choice Specs boost - but its base 77 special attack doesn't make it much of an offensive Pokémon, anyway. And when it comes to its hidden ability... well, Chlorophyll doubles its speed in sunny weather, but Whimsicott is pretty speedy in and of itself and it doesn't really need the boost. Just ignore Chlorophyll (and Infiltrator, while you're at it) and go with the Prankster tactic; it's what Whimsicott is made for.

Whimsicott and its counterpart Lilligant.

Whimsicott is an interesting Pokémon combat- and flavor-wise, and the sheep origins make total sense, but I'm not particularly a fan of its design. It could have been executed a lot better than it was, and if I could redesign it I'd get rid of the old-fashioned hairdo for sure - though with the tale of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary in mind, the hairdo is not illogical. My light disappointment of it mainly came with the one time I did a fairy mono-type playthrough (with Clefable, Azumarill, Mega Mawile, Togekiss, Whimsicott and Aromatisse), in which it was by far the least offensive Pokémon on my team and fell behind in every aspect except speed. Please note that I don't hate Whimsicott for it; it's just a specific Pokémon to use competitively and it should only be considered if you know exactly what you're doing, while it is just an average Pokémon to use in a normal playthrough. Whimsicott receives some points for its cuteness, as well as for its flavor and origins, and the end result is a decent rating of 4 stars.

Rating: 4/5