level 41, hatching twelve eggs

lv. 41 // 9.2%

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i finally did a random raid and achieved level 41 !!

why did it take me longer to do the raids than to get enough exp to level up ^^;

this transition was pretty easy though, it helps that i have a decent friend leveling system in place. but we'll see how the next levels go... since they have gradually higher exp requirements

i checked the requirements for lv 42 and they don't seem too bad. i have all my eevees ready to evolve lol i think the hardest part would be evolving with items. i don't do pvp so i don't have access to a whole lot of evolution items... also i don't wanna feel like i'm wasting them ;w;

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i also finally hatched my full collection of 12km eggs. i don't recommend doing it again though LOL it takes forever to collect the eggs (unless there's a team rocket event like recently... or is it still happening?) like i had eggs from all the way in february. and let's not talk about trying to buy the incubators.... why are they so expensive ???

anyway the results were kind of anticlimactic. i was hoping to get salandit bc that's the only one i don't have but i did not get one :')))) ugh i will have to keep collecting and hatching the 12km eggs ig

with a star piece, i got 87k stardust. pretty good amount, but idk if it was worth waiting two months for LOL also the total number of exp i got (from hatching and evolving) was a very satisfying number

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also it was exeggcute spotlight hour and i finally finished the dam research that's been sitting for months LSKFJSLF

but now i need to catch a cubone... which i haven't seen in like a year...... o(-(

shiny hunting was a mistake

lv. 40 // 103%

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yes i'm over the exp LOL the only task i have left is the 30 raids one... my progress with that is 26/30 right now

a good chunk of those have been lugia raids... i've done nine lugia raids so far and none of them have been shiny :( at least i got a good IVs one that i can keep

also the name of this one person that was in one of my lobbies..... fsljfsl

maybe the lugias helped with me getting the plat flying type medal... or maybe it's just bc there's so many bird pokemon around me LOL anyway my second type-based plat medal (first one was normal type)... the others are still on the beginning of gold tho ._.

while on the topic of raids can we discuss niantic's changes to remote raiding.... 

honestly i don't remote raid that much mainly bc i'm always broke and never have enough coins for regularly remote raiding LOL but i feel like it'll affect me as a host of remote raids... less ppl are gna be able to remote raid frequently (unless there are more dolphins and whales than i thought) and more ppl r gna wanna host so wait times for lobbies might be super long :(

at least remote raiding isn't completely gone (knock on wood) and the passes are now given for free.. sometimes.... watch it be a ridiculously low drop rate from research breakthroughs

definitely stocking up on remote passes before these changes go into effect LOL

oh also the discount for in-person raid passes is cool i guess

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ok here are some random moments to conclude this post

1. easiest rare candy task ?? pls give me more of these lol

2. my auto catcher catching three shinies in one day ??

3. this team rocket leader fight took like five tries..... might actually be a skill issue u_u

4. i finally got the 7 day streak for pokestops LOL i don't even remember the last time i got this bc some days i stay home and don't go outside and i don't live right above a pokestop so... congrats me to touching grass !!!!

vivillon, lucky shiny ditto, meltan, golden lure, lugia

lv 40 // 70.2%

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whoops i ended up not updating for a week.... there have been interesting moments i just never got the chance to sit and write down what happened :')

anyway i finally got the platinum vivillon medal *ugly sobbing*

so turns out the person i talked about before that i got two sandstorm postcards from was either on vacation or spoofing bc after two sandstorms and then like a week of afking they were back in taiwan... 

so then i did my usual desperate search of going on twitter and this site to seek sandstorm people... i even created an account and went out of my way to message everyone i tried sending a request to in hopes that they'll send me a request since their lists were always full

though one unforeseen consequence of doing this was my friend code was at the top of the recently added page or something so i now have like 40 new friends haha :'D but i wasn't ready to have more friends... i accepted them anyway i just probably will get to them very slowly u_u

but turns out one of the people who added me is from egypt! well at first they sent a gift in cairo or something and it didn't count as a sandstorm gift... but then they sent a gift from somewhere else in egypt and then it worked LOL ig they live somewhere on the border between sandstorm and another region.

anyway that's finally done.... o(-(

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my friend actually visited again recently and she had enough stardust for us to do our second lucky trade (this one didn't trigger lucky friends right away again haha) and literally the day before that, she caught a shiny ditto... now i don't think i've mentioned this before but i almost always put dittos in gyms just bc i don't really know what else to put in there LOL and i want to keep my strong pokemon out of gyms just in case i need them... and this is a running joke among my friends, so a shiny lucky ditto?? i definitely needed that

it's at a gym right now lol (duna horse statue is also an inside joke, because ig i always send postcards from it since it's near where i work lol) but it is 3* too :3 in exchange i gave her a shiny larvitar i had from the larvitar community day that she missed and it turned into a 3* as well. another good lucky trade! hopefully we reach lucky friends again before i go visit her in like a month

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i also finally learned how meltan works lol... i wasn't playing when it debuted so i didn't know this ig but i realized you use pokemon home and transfer pokemon from go to home to get some item that summons meltans around you like every 30 seconds... bruh i was wondering how people had like dozens of meltans i thought you could only get it from the special research so i was confused since there's only two meltans you can get from those LOL

so i did some meltan candy farming for the first time and now have almost 200. would've been more if i wasn't short on pinap berries lol :') also this is my best meltan so far, got this from research, i'm happy with this so far

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i also finally got my first golden lure for the gimminghoul coins... i rarely use my switch so i'm very on and off about remembering to send postcards to my game lol but i finally sent enough to get my first golden lure :) i placed it in a starbucks near where i work so hopefully others were able to get some golden coins too if they needed it

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also happy lugia raid day i think i will try shiny hunting this one just bc i like the shiny design :') i hosted one today and almost failed bc my pending friend requests list would not load for some reason... i finally got it to work with 30 seconds left until the lobby disbanded lol and invited some of my other friends

was pretty chill but lugia is soooo hard to catch... thank god shiny catch rate is like rly high bc i cannot deal with that and the added stress of a shiny potentially running away

grinding & silly moments

lv. 40 // 62.4%

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wow that experience jump >:) i did lucky egg + friendship level up exp bonus with like 15 people, a mix of good, ultra, and best friends. i have to do another one next week because i wasn't expecting more people to end up being ready to level up so soon :')

also i finally filled all my egg slots with 12km eggs. now i just have to hatch them all at once with stardust and preferably a stardust bonus effect in place. in the meantime i have to grind coins for incubators though... i might not do this often because grinding coins is so tedious :')

i just wish you could delete eggs because i always end up getting them from gifts. i'm tired of seeing 7km eggs. but someone said if ur pokemon inventory is full before opening gifts, you won't get the eggs? i might try doing that sometime

i forgot to share this last time but i put a shiny swablu in a gym and i saw that someone put in their shiny altaria in too :( <3 i love when ppl coordinate like this for gyms

also here's a photo of two ho-oh raids right next to each other. they were spinning in sync. it was kinda funny

yesterday there was a shellos nearby but i was stuck in a work meeting but once we finished the shellos was gone :( BUT THEN it came back like 15 minutes later somewhere closer ?? so i sprinted out of the office and speed walked over to the pokestop it was hanging out at and i finally caught this thing for my pokedex >:)

auto catcher / spinner (go-tcha classic)

lv. 40 // 39.3%

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first off, happy first birthday to this account! well, happy belated birthday ig, but i promise i did celebrate on the actual day

anyway, my auto catcher / spinner finally arrived in the mail and i just got the chance to try it out. i got the go-tcha classic which tbh isn't the brand that most ppl would recommend, but idk it seems like all the auto catchers suck in one way or another so i just went with the cheapest one lol

it definitely does its job at catching pokemon and spinning stops without me having to look at my phone. i went on a walk today along a trail near my workplace where there's plenty of stops, gyms, and wild pokemon and i had to clear my pokemon inventory twice lol soooo many pokemon caught! and it was cold and very windy today so i'm glad i didn't have to take out my phone other than to check every now and then that it was still connected

also i do see what others have said about its short battery life but it seems like as long as i turn off the notifications & overall reduce how many times it needs to display something on the screen, the battery lasts longer. ig the screen constantly turning on and off drains the battery a lot

i think i'll def use it whenever i go on walks and don't want to be looking at my phone all the time, or if i wanna play more discreetly :'D

also i finally caught a remoraid lol this pokemon has been missing from my dex but has been spawning around my workplace but it was either too far away, i was too busy, or it ran away so i'm glad i finally caught it.... thank god i don't have to evolve it lol (i don't remember when i caught an octillery but ok) i don't think i have the motivation to catch more of these

there was also conveniently an omastar raid near my workplace so i solo'd it since i need it for my pokedex. ik it has quad weakness to grass and i took advantage of that but i'm still proud of myself for being able to solo a 3-star raid :D

my go-tcha managed to catch one singular exeggcute! only 4 more to go for this painfully slowly progressing research task :'))))

ok one last thing i wanted to share i'm sooooo close to getting that platinum vivillon medal... one of the many sandstorm people i sent a friend request to finally got around to sending me some gifts from israel but they only sent me two so far... i just need ONE more... why would they tease me like this smh

sadness

elite raid: regidrago

lv. 40 // 35.6%

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today was elite raid day!

i missed last year's elite raids (hoopa) because i was too anxious about going to campus and being around other people irl to raid... sounds a little silly but ppl scare me u_u

i'm in a discord server for the town my university's in, so yesterday i stalked their channels to see if there were raids i could participate in... i initially planned to go to some at around 11am but i ended up waking up at 11am :' ))) bc i set up my alarm incorrectly or smth

thankfully there were some at 2pm that plenty of ppl were planning to head to so i decided to go to those. they were both at some parks that were a 5 min walk away from each other. i took the bus there and jammed out to some music to ignore my social anxiety lol

once i got to the park i settled on some bench in the neighboring block and i'm pretty sure the lady that sat across from me was also playing... she was on her phone the whole time and left when the raid finished lol but we didn't acknowledge each other... maybe we were both shy

there were also a group of guys huddled together in the park, i'm pretty sure they were also playing

anyway for this first round we had like 8 or 10 ppl in the lobby so we defeated it with ease. catching it was just as difficult as any other legendary but i was lucky and caught it within just a few tries, giving me enough time to speed-walk over to the next planned raid location

this next one was kinda awkward bc there wasn't rly a place for me to hide... i was actually in the line of sight of the group of guys playing together... just standing in the distance on my phone avoiding any sort of eye contact ;w; i wasn't sure whether or not to say hi to them but i was too shy and anxious so i didn't :(

but anyway this raid was successful as well. i think we ended up splitting into two lobbies bc some ppl joined late (a guy with two phones ran past me while i was raiding lol) but my lobby had six ppl and we took it down within half the allotted time. i also caught this one pretty easily

and then i turned and walked away without acknowledging everyone LOL

one day i'll be brave enough to say hi to them at least ;w; if my friend was able to raid with me i would've been less scared, but at the same time i wanna be able to do it just by my own strength

anyway the regidrago i caught were both good! i'm keeping the better IVs one (pictured below) and then the other one i'll trade away to someone who wants it

the only thing i regret is forgetting to pop a lucky egg before doing these raids.... they gave sm experience

also this is the team i used. idk if fairy might've been a better choice but i think i still did a decent amount of damage (poke genie calculates around 30%)

at the least i leveled up the ones that were below lv. 25 to lv. 25 since that seems to be the minimum recommended level for the raid to go smoothly. i only just started keeping track of pokemon levels since i wanna start caring about it more to be able to do substantial damage in raids

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i also finally finished the collection challenge! for some reason stunky was the hardest pokemon to catch simply bc i could never come across it for some reason... the other ones i caught on the first day LOL

lastly just wanted to share how i'm planning to get my next large batch of stardust... i've been collecting and saving a full inventory of 12km eggs from the team rocket leaders and i'm pretty much there, but now i have to save enough coins to buy enough incubators lol and then i'm gna walk them and hatch them all at once with a stardust active to get all that stardust

why are incubators so expensive though... i better start putting more pokemon into gyms

lucky trade

lv. 40 // 33.8%

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tbh i don't rly remember how i got this tornadus but i finally got it registered in my pokedex! i also caught another one, i think to help someone else catch it, but its stats are pretty similar, nothing spectacular

one of my friends visited so we finally got to do a lucky trade! it was my first ever lucky trade; i never got to do it even back on my old account. i also have like at least six lucky friends in my list lol but i'm not really close with any of them except her so...

but tbh i didn't rly have a particular pokemon that i wanted to be lucky, so i just settled for her shiny dusknoir bc it looked cool. and i gave her my extra latias which was only 2 stars but when we traded it was like 96% perfect IVs... she defiinitely got the most benefit from this trade LOL

also i have like more than 1 million stardust so cost wasn't a big deal for me, but she only had like a few thousand lol but was able to farm enough stardust to get exactly 40k lol (but then she fed berries at a gym and got more stardust flsfjsfls) idk i manage to get by just fine without spending stardust or powering up my pokemon so i rarely spend, but sometimes i do wish i could carry hard in raids... maybe after level 45 i'll consider spending more of my dust :P

after we traded that interaction actually made us become lucky friends again! which is insane bc the chances of lucky friend is like 1% per interaction i think? so getting it right after a lucky trade is wild

though there was one other person who i became lucky friends with just 1-2 days after becoming best friends xD

we walked along a trail that i usually take for exercise and passed a gym with ho-oh on the way so we decided to gather our remote friends to take on the gym. it was pretty easy especially with a team full of rock pokemon, also one of our friends carried us hard lol and one of my "best friends" that i never saw irl actually accepted my random invitation and helped us out too! and its stats were good so i can cross ho-oh off the list

it was FREEZING outside though so my fingers were nearly falling off while trying to do the raid D: i had to take a break to warm up my hands and let everyone else do the work lol i hope the weather gets warmer soon...

knowing chicago weather tho it'll probably only be like 2 days of moderately warm weather before it skyrockets to scorching 70-80 degree weather

pokedex progress, managing friends, march events

lv. 40 // 29.1%

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note: I meant to post this like last week but the images weren't uploading for some reason so I decided to try again later but then I forgot LOL but not much happened after this (other than me getting tornadus... nothing impressive tho)

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aaa I didn't get a chance to update since a few days ago :') I usually feel like updating when a lot has happened or if I'm bored at work but ig that hasn't happened lol

anyway I did hatch the hoenn event eggs and managed to get all three pokemon! and torkoal actually turned out to be shiny :O

also apparently you can get gimmighoul if you have pokemon scarlet and violet, as well as the coins for it to evolve, so I opened my violet game for the first time in months to catch it lol

side note about pokemon scarlet & violet, I do think it can be an enjoyable game, but the poor performance really kills it for me :( like when I opened the game I missed it sm and considered playing again, but then I tried moving around and riding miraidon and I remembered why I stopped playing xD

also caught my first spinda, very cool! it was part of the hoenn special research I think

also I finally caught a 3* rayquaza! idk if I mentioned this before but I joined a discord server exclusively for level 40+ trainers to form raid parties. it took a while to find rayquaza because it was the last night, but I managed to finally join one... surprisingly hosted by someone I was already friends with! they are from the same area I'm from haha what a small world....

I need to practice hosting raids through that server, I'm so scared of messing up and disappointing everyone :')

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I think I have a new way of managing my friends list, I have close to 200 and it usually got overwhelming managing them all...

currently all I did was open gifts if the days until the next level was an odd number, and send gifts if even. I'm just adding one more rule to that - only open gifts if it was sent 2+ days ago. I think this is an effective way to section off my friends list, which is especially crucial since I can only open like 30 gifts per day lol :')

as for sending gifts, the rules don't really change much...

also I'm restricting myself to do gift stuff after midnight and after I wake up only... since I don't have to be on lookout for new gifts until they're 2+ days old, and usually I would only have to send gifts the day after I open their gift, which requires waiting for the daily reset

does that make sense? idk if it does xD it makes sense in my head which is all that matters

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also I saw the new march events!

I'm gonna need to participate in all the legendary raids, since I don't have any of them in my pokedex :') but none of them like especially stand out to me other than for the pokedex so it's not something to get too excited about

same with the megas; the only one I need is mega medicham. I'm pretty sure the other ones I don't need any more mega energy, and I already have them all registered in my pokedex

idk if I'll try participating in the elite raids... I kinda got too shy to go out and do them last year for hoopa ;w; maybe if it's convenient I'll try them. I wish they were remote....

community day (slowbro) and spotlight hours aren't nothing too special for me either. they're not pokemon I need

soooo this month I can rest a bit! zzz

pokemon go tour: hoenn (day 2)

lv. 40 // 27.3%

i actually ended up catching a lot of pokemon today! i hung out at the local mall and caught groudon and since it's a populated area, i hung around at the starbucks for a bit to catch any pokemon that were around

i also learned that i got 4 incubators from leveling to 40 so i hatched all my non-12km eggs to make room for some 10km eggs. they're sitting in my inventory now and i'll hatch them soon, hopefully get all three of the pokemon that can be hatched :) i don't have any of them on this account lol

i tried to host a kyogre raid through poke genie but people just started leaving ?? ig they thought that 6 trainers wasn't enough or maybe they thought there were only 5 because one of them did have trouble joining... but we did eventually have 6 so idk :T i'm gna try using the discord server i joined lately to host raids from now on

also i managed to catch one shiny! a shiny clamperl. it looks pretty cool haha (i don't have a photo bc i'm too lazy to add one)

for the rest of this month i'm gna try to get a 3* rayquaza and catch one more latias for the mega energy

pokemon go tour: hoenn (day 1)

(i'm going to try putting in my level & exp progress at the beginning of every post for fun from now on.)

lv. 40 // 24.7%

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happy first day of hoenn tour!

tbh today hasn't been that great for me. i was excited to go out and play but it was pretty cold. the temperature was bearable until it got windy, then the wind chill was freezing my fingers off and i think it was also affecting my phone bc my phone's performance dropped significantly (or maybe i need a new phone). also there were quite a few ppl outside (i'm pretty sure some kids were playing the event too) and i just got too self-conscious and nervous... so i didn't play as much as i wanted to :(

i bought myself a gotcha to be able to play more discreetly and just focus on getting my steps in or going for a run. i hope it helps and i hope it's worth the money lol

but there have been a few highlights while playing! first off, i reached level 40! the journey begins :)

gaining like 30+ instances of exp boost from friendship leveling is always so satisfying. i think i'm gna not actively look for new friends rn since i'm still so overwhelmed by all the new friends i ended up adding the past few months

and i'm already nearly quarter of the way to the next level! i can't believe i already gained 1.5+ million exp within just today wow....

catching the unowns was fun, my goal is to eventually collect every single alphabet :D i think this event had the ones spelling out 'hoenn' and i got them all!

i also caught a few shinies! i feel like the rate has been slightly boosted during the event. i got a shiny cacnea, castform, and solrock

there were a few hoenn pokemon i didn't have registered in my pokedex, but i finally caught them! i finally registered nincada, volbeat, and zangoose. and kyogre. which brings me to talk about raids...

i did one kyogre raid and one groudon raid, both primal. thankfully the lobbies i joined had several people and some of the players were really strong, so the battle wasn't difficult. it was catching them that was the hard part... for kyogre i had like two balls left LOL thankfully i got them both :)

also the groudon i caught was shiny! but i already have a shiny groudon haha in fact i don't think i ever caught a normal colored groudon ??? i'm williing to trade this one away to someone that can afford it

i'm happy the kyogre i caught is pretty strong. i've been having terrible luck with raids lately... i still need a 3* rayquaza, the two i caught the past week are not 3* orz

oh yeah i also encountered latias like 4 times but it ran away every time ofc... but i got a free one from the research (which was 2* lol) and from a raid (which is 3*) so it doesn't bother me too much

i don't think i'm gna do more raids for kyogre and groudon for their primal energy, you don't even get much after each raid which is ridiculous. i'll just wait until future opportunities for that.

tomorrow i'm gna finish my last collection challenge (ancient shores habitat) but aside from that i don't think i'm gna play that much so maybe i won't have a lot to update :'D i was thinking about hatching all my eggs now to make room for some 10km eggs... maybe i'll do it after my phone finishes charging, or maybe i won't bc i forgot lol either way tomorrow is gna be more of a rest day zzz