>>57172000Anyway, all this feel good posting almost distracted me from putting a bookend on the recurring saga throughout the year.
>>57171966KOANON! Nice dubs. Time to conclude our cultural exchange (that's a little callback to an earlier conversation, lurkers):
After a very tense year for us with a lot of highs and a lot of lows, my hometown actually ended up scoring the lowest homicide rate it's seen in five years, with only 609 murders and 2,444 reported shot & wounded. We are on a downward trend and I expect nothing but good things to continue if the power grid makes it through the freezing January temperatures.
For the sake of staying on-topic, we're going to staple an addendum here to discuss some real street filth: the ever-expanding population of [Stunky] roaming the city.
In real life, skunks are omnivorous mesopredators; scavenging trash, eating plant matter, and preying on bugs, rodents, and nesting birds. Chicago's unique layered infrastructure surrounded by hundreds of miles of farmland and untamed wilderness provides a perfect beacon for infinite giant rats that feed skunks and cats that feed those goddamn coyotes.
Unlike skunks, Stunky has the unique benefit of being able to use its noxious spray offensively via Poison Gas, Acid Spray, and if trained or cross-bred, detonating their gases in fiery explosions. No need to waste energy digging through the earth to reach a Rattata nest if you just gas or burn them out and force your meals to come to you.
True to this observation, we can see Stunky's territory overlap with exactly the kind of prey you'd expect a mesopredator to indulge in (bonus points for Route 214 including fellow mesopredators Houndoom and Mightyena): Kricketot, primarily, but also mons like Wingull, Dedenne, Starly, Rookiedee, Pawmi, Applin, and Shroodle, to name a few.
The lattermost is almost tailor-made to be prey for Stunky, as Shroodle's foul-smelling territory displays rings a dinner bell for an undeterred Skunk Pokemon.
