>>27593817Pinnister (Ballio was more a pet name from /vp/, not sure, I heard it was supposedly a name that came along with the design) was mostly thought of at first as something terrifying and insane first time it came about, unsettling if you will. People kept associating it with Pennywise, of course and other kind of bad clowns. Others also thought he would be some sort of killer/rapist clown. It was mostly the face that gave off such impressions and possibly the water ball he held. Shitposting about that started to emerge.
Among those who thought that, there were the few who thought he might actually have been a monster design that could have worked as the "misunderstood" pokemon. Absolutely terrifying on the outside and mostly thought of more as creepy, but ultimately a gentle creature that means no harm and possibly with the same personality as Popplio, playful, frivolous and tends to get carried away. Fan art emerged focusing on that and people probably got used to the idea of that.
Then D.I came (supposedly the true artist behind these, Huntshoot (Owltair) and Juarfare (Cannonther) included) and reveals that while he did use bad clowns as inspiration (even including Pennywise itself, Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter too), he also pointed out that Pinnister was indeed a nice pokemon, which confirmed the latter and later said he did like clowns. Not sure if this artist is a load of bull or not and who knows if he didn't came up with that part just to appease that smaller part of Pinnister's fanbase. The thing is, it doesn't deny the fact from the thread existing and it being pretty much a big fat deconfirmation thread, with plenty of concept art. Some concept art even shows Pinnister not even having that much of a human face, but more resembling a actual male sea lion face.
Needless to say, while this big shit didn't manage to get that much attention at the beginning, mostly scaring the crap out of those with clown phobia, people kind of got used to him.
