Primarina (Popplio, Brionne)

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Overview

Popplio is often described as the middle choice of Alola’s traditional starters. Rowlet have somewhat bizarre care requirements as a photosynthetic bird. Litten are fairly similar to common household pets. Pinnipeds are not as strange as rowlet, but not nearly as familiar as litten.

Popplio has its own strengths over the other starters. It can evolve without either permanent health consequences or pregnancy and parenthood. Primarina is also by far the most intelligent of the starter’s final stages. This intelligence has the drawback of making primarina easily bored and in need of near-constant stimulation. Trainers who want a pokémon that functions more as an equal than a loyal pet or fierce guardian may be inclined to pick popplio. Queer trainers and musicians are also often drawn to the sex-changing siren of the seas.

Physiology

Popplio and brionne are classified as pure water types. Primarina is classified as a joint water- and fairy-type. Both rulings are undisputed.

Popplio are dark blue almost everywhere on their body. Their shape is typically pinniped, with two large front flippers used for movement on land and two smaller back flippers used for movement in water. Their muzzle is colored white and ends in a pink orb. There is a pale blue frill around their neck. Popplio use this frill to help regulate their temperature. The orb on popplio's nose is used to sense and produce vibrations to view the world in echolocation. It is believed that this is their primary sense. Popplio skin is quite thick and rough, aside from the frill. The skin gets thinner as they grow and evolve.

Brionne are lighter in coloration and the tips of their flippers are white. They gain two more frills around their midsection. The most notable change is the development of two antennae on their head. These are used to produce vibrations and help with controlling the water around them.

Primarina have quite a few major external and internal differences from popplio. Their body as a whole is thinner and sleeker relative to their size, and their frills (now located on their forehead, the start of their hind flippers, the start of their tail and the area around their front flippers) are proportionally smaller. Their tail is longer and bulkier than a brionne's and dark blue in coloration. The skin on their tail is similar to a popplio’s in thickness and color. The rest of their body proper is white. Primarina and older brionne gain a thin layer of blubber under their skin to insulate them on long pelagic journeys.

The biggest difference between brionne and primarina is that the antennae are replaced with thousands of long, fine hairs. These are used to sense and modify vibrations, allowing for much more complex sounds to be created.

All three stages can emit slime from glands across their body. Their slime and acoustic capabilities combine to allow for very well controlled hydrokinesis. More complex sounds allow for more complicated water attacks and more nimble movement when submerged. More slime in an area allows for more water to be manipulated. Primarina have some of the most advanced vocal chords of any pokémon and can produce sounds several octaves above and below the range of human hearing.

Brionne can live up to fifteen years in the wild or thirty in captivity. Primarina can live up to sixty years in both the wild and captivity. Brionne typically grow to be three feet long and they weigh up to forty pounds. Primarina can reach lengths of six feet and weights of 130 pounds.

Behavior

Popplio are naturally curious and playful. They will attempt to mimic almost all sounds that they hear and will practice their attacks and singing ability constantly. In the wild they are prone to huddling together with other members of their evolutionary line. They will not do this with humans or any other species. Popplio sleep on land during the night and enjoy playing on beaches during the dusk and dawn. A small group of brionne or the choir's primarina will supervise them during this time. During the day wild popplio typically play with each other and forage around the choir's resting place.

Brionne are perhaps even more curious about sounds, but they now possess the proper anatomy to replicate them. In the wild they will frequently beach near human settlements to listen to music and urban sounds. They also frequent bird rookeries to listen to bird calls. Captive specimens are fascinated by sports and dancing. Brionne sleep during the day by hooking themselves to sea grass or rocks on the seafloor.

Wild primarina spend most of the day resting. At night they teach their songs to the choir's brionne (see Evolution) or beach on land to learn new sounds or forcefully introduce theirs to anyone in range. They are also known to forage for pearls, sea stars or anything they consider to be beautiful. They subsequently adorn their hair with these items.

Popplio hunt small birds and insects through ambush tactics. One of their favorite strategies is to sneak up on a flock of small seabirds, make a loud noise to startle them into flight and then attempt to pick off one with a well-aimed burst of water. Their diet is supplemented by shellfish, benthic fish, and and insects provided by the older members of their choir.

Brionne typically hunt in groups. They will find large schools of small fish and swim around them in a group while emitting very loud cries. Individual brionne will break out of the circle and swim into the school, picking out as many fish as they please.

Primarina hunt by stunning or killing fish. They can also use their hydrokinesis to propel themselves up to fifty feet per second for short distances. Primarina can also use one of their songs to kill almost all insects within one hundred feet. Insect kills are either done for sport or to feed their young.

Husbandry

The biggest challenge with caring for all stages of the brionne line is meeting their need for stimulation. In the wild popplio play with each other and the older members of their choir. This is hard to replicate in captivity as most humans do not have the patience to play with their popplio for several hours a day every day.

Popplio will need at least four hours a day of enrichment. Brionne require at least three. This can be done by giving the pokémon a toy such as a ball or rattle or just by putting an MP3 player on. Brionne in particular are quite fond of children's television featuring dancing, singing humans.

Television and toys will inevitably prove necessary as even humans who want to play with their popplio will quickly discover that their pokémon has more energy and stamina than they do. It is recommended to spend as much of this time as possible playing with the pokémon yourself or with your team members. Since popplio and brionne's play enhances their battling prowess, this time can be used to work on moves and strategies. Indeed, one of the biggest strengths of the line is that they never need to be cajoled or bribed into practicing.

During the remainder of the day popplio and brionne are almost always fine with resting in stasis balls. Habitat balls are not recommended as being alone in a constant environment is boring.

Food designed specifically for brionne is sold in every Pokémon Center in Alola. Trainers are encouraged to allow their pokémon to hunt and forage on their own at least once a month.

The best partners for brionne are musically inclined pokémon. Toucannon, crobat, noibat, mismagisus, and oricorio all make good teammates for brionne and can save their trainer time and energy in enrichment. It is recommended that trainers who intend to evolve their brionne get some form of musical training as it will be a good bonding tool with the pokémon and a necessity for understanding how to command one in battle (see Battling).

Wild primarina never have any relationships with an equal partner, platonic or otherwise. As such they tend to adopt a maternal attitude towards their trainers. They will frequently embrace their trainer or even fall asleep on them if allowed to. Primarina require less in the way of enrichment than their pre-evolutions, but they become quite protective of their trainer and will want to spend several hours a day in the same space as them. They also very much enjoy singing to and with their trainer.

All stages of the line are amphibious and brionne and primarina are primarily aquatic in the wild. It is important to allow them to soak in seawater whenever possible. Brionne and primarina will need to sleep in the ocean at least once a week for optimal health. Almost all large, inland Pokémon Centers have saltwater pools that can be used as a substitute when necessary.

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Primarina are long-lived, intelligent and social. Many will begin to learn human languages, although their pronunciation is often jarring due to the different structure of their vocal chords. They don't learn commands through reinforcement of behaviors and the building of trust so much as through actually reasoning through their trainer's words. This has obvious advantages. It also means that sometimes your pokémon will tell you you're making a bad decision in as many words. Primarina are frequently conversational in multiple pokémon languages and will usually be willing to translate the wishes of other team members. Of course, by the time a trainer has taught a primarina to do this they will likely have a good idea what their pokémon's behaviors mean.

A final word of caution: primarina frequently steal jewelry and other shiny objects from their trainer to adorn their hair. They will refuse to give these objects back and, if the objects are taken from them, they will scream loudly and incessantly until they are returned. Watch your valuables around primarina.

Illness

The most common illness affecting all stages of the evolutionary line are surface wounds and infections. Their frills (and, to a lesser extent, their skin) are thin, porous, and often coated in mucus. This means that attacks that would leave tiny scratches on most pokémon can become gaping wounds on them. Fortunately, they heal somewhat faster than most other pokémon when allowed to submerge in clean seawater. Make sure to watch how rough your pokémon are playing with your brionne and be willing to withdraw them from battle early in melee exchanges.

Evolution

Healthy popplio naturally progress to brionne over the course of roughly three years, although constant exposure to enrichments, clean water, battle, and food can accelerate the process. The development of the third frill is the formal demarcation point between popplio and brionne.

All popplio and brionne are male. All primarina are female. Every choir has exactly one primarina. When there is no primarina, the dominant brionne begins to evolve and changes sex in the process. They then form a reverse harem with the brionne in the choir. A solitary brionne will never evolve. Evolution requires trainining multiple brionne, which may be advisable simply due to their social needs, or loaning your brionne to a primarina collective.

In primarina collectives captive brionne on loan from other breeding programs or trainers, as well as injured wild brionne that could not be returned to the wild, are held inside a large enclosure. When a primarina evolves, they are removed. This does not stress the brionne as primarina frequently depart from their choirs in the wild and outside brionne frequently join them (see Breeding).

Primarina songs are more inherited than improvised. In order to develop properly a primarina must spend time with either another primarina after evolving or a wild-raised primarina before evolving. The wild brionne inside of breeding collectives help teach their captive counterparts the songs they learned from wild primarina.

Licensed primarina collectives are run by the Commonwealth of Alola through the Hau'oli Aquarium, Heahea Conservatory, and Malie Zoo. Privately owned collectives can be found in Brooklet Shire, Seafolk Village, Heahea City and West Beach City.

Wild primarina are often willing to teach songs to their captive counterparts. See Acquisition for the locations where they are most commonly found in Alola.

Battle

Popplio’s thick skin and watery projectiles helps them function as a tank of sorts. The weakness of their frills keeps them from living up to this potential and leaves them in an awkward place, too slow and weak to be sweepers and with too large a weakness to be walls. Their one strength is that their intelligence lets them learn tricks faster than most pokémon. Brionne, with their thinner skin but more powerful voices, are more akin to conventional glass canons.

Primarina settle into a niche of their own. They are powerful arena shapers when well trained and played. While they still might get taken out by one good serrating hit or a few blunt force attacks, they use their control of the battlefield to prevent most grounded physical attackers from ever reaching them.

Primarina use their slime and hydrokinesis to condense water from the air and fill durable slime bubbles with it. They will then either use these bubbles as projectiles, trapping moves, or a means of riding around the arena. The latter serves as both a way for them to move quickly on land and to coat the arena in a thin layer of slime that allows for more control of the water. They will then use the slime and water coating the battlefield to lock down their opponent's movements, all the while bombarding them with sonic moves, moonblasts, hydro pumps and other powerful ranged attacks.

If primarina have a drawback, it is that their trainers can almost never understand exactly how their song works. They have limitations that can sometimes seem pointless but are not easily fixed without overhauling the entire song, something that would take multiple lifetimes for them to do completely. Because primarina songs are mostly inherited, this allows opponents to come up with primarina counter-strategies that work against almost all members of the species.

Birds durable enough to take a ranged hit or two and fast enough to outpace a moving primarina can be reliable counters. Toucannon often find it difficult to fly between their beak's weight and rapidly condensing water in the air, but their bullet seeds and rock blasts are often able to knock out a primarina in one or two volleys. Vikavolt, hodad, and magnezone hard counter primarina.

Despite this, primarina have always had a niche in competitive battling. So long as they aren't too popular in a given metagame few trainers will have bothered to come up with a counter strategy. And it is rather difficult to stop a powerful, mobile, arena controller without having a plan in place at the start. This is especially true as some primarina have learned how to emit sounds that disrupt complex thoughts in humans without being readily detectable. Because primarina trainers are seldom much use themselves in the heat of battle, this almost always works to their advantage.

The discovery of this ability has led to the ban of primarina from the Pan-African and European Union leagues. The primary leagues in China, Australia and Japan allow them provided that the exact frequency they use against humans is monitored during the battle. The Global Battling Federation and United States Competitive Pokémon Association currently allow primarina with no restrictions.

Acquisition

Children between the ages of ten and twenty can obtain a popplio as a starter free of charge with a Class I certification. Children who have cleared the grand trial on at least one island and did not receive a popplio as a starter can purchase or adopt one. Brionne or primarina in licensed shelters can be adopted with a Class II license or higher.

Wild brionne are frequently found at Exeggutor Island, Kala'e Bay, Hano Beach, or the coastline of Poni Island National Park. It is illegal to capture a wild specimen at any stage of the evolutionary line without the approval of the Department of Natural Resources. However, these colonies will happily play with and teach songs to wild popplio or brionne. Wild primarina seldom interact with each other. However, if a captive and a wild primarina are allowed to bond for several days the wild one will often agree to teach her songs to the captive primarina.

Breeding

Primarina tend to mate once a year, usually in mid-September. They will select one to three brionne to mate with based on their genetic diversity, proficiency in learning songs, and the responsibilities they have taken over popplio rearing. The brionne chose to father the offspring hold no special role in parenting and do not appear to gain any status over other brionne.

After a five month pregnancy, primarina give birth to roughly six offspring. These popplio are typically only fifteen to twenty centimeters long and are under constant watch by the primarina and brionne of the choir until they reach roughly six months of age, at which point they are roughly forty centimeters long. At this point popplio are given more leeway to play and explore, albeit with a brionne or primarina always keeping a watchful eye on them. Even so, many die from illness and predation.

If conditions are not ideal to continue raising popplio, a primarina will take a few brionne and swim elsewhere to reproduce and set up a new choir. The dominant brionne that remains will evolve. Brionne frequently leave their choirs to join new ones. The impetus for this is unclear, but it serves the purpose of diversifying the gene pools of any given choir.

Primarina collectives seldom actually result in offspring given the frequent removal of the choir’s female.

Relatives

There are three major species of primarina. The primarina given out as a starter in the Alola region is the pelagic primarina.

Reef primarina (A. toxicappilus) have brightly colored hair that flows beyond the end of their tail. Their hair contains nematocysts which emit a neurotoxin. They hunt by floating slowly through coral reefs and waiting for fish to die in their hair. The primarina then eats these fish. Due to differences in jaw structure, primarina can eat a fish or pokémon up to thirty percent of their body size. This has left them mostly unable to control sonics. Popplio and brionne in these regions have similar vocal chords and hunting strategies to their pelagic counterparts. The main difference in them is an immunity to most toxins and slightly more maneuverability in the water at the cost of being slightly slower on land. Reef primarina are entirely aquatic. They still breathe air by going to the surface and taking large gulps. They have virtually no presence in the international competitive battling scene. They are a popular attraction in aquariums worldwide due to their bright colors, large size and odd movement patterns.

Mangrove primarina (A. radixincola) and brionne are roughly half the size of their reef and pelagic counterparts. They are mottled green and brown and tend to hunt insects, fish and small birds and mammals through the use of sonic attacks and traps. They rest in seagrasses off shore during the day and lie waiting in ambush between the roots of mangrove trees at night. They tend to have the fewest slime glands and smallest frills of the primarina species. Mangrove primarina are officially classified as water and ground types, as opposed to the water and fairy typing of pelagic primarina and the water and poison typing of reef primarina.