[Gen 6] A Naturalist's adventure through the land of Shiny Sapphires

Hey everybody, it's your friendly neighnorhood Alolan naturalist. I've decided to start this journal because I'm beginning a pretty special (to me) playthrough. Some 6 months ago I became kind of obsessed with shiny hunting, doing most of it in Sun and Ultra Moon where I've had some fun (and frustration) breeding, SOS-chaining and Soft Resetting. Last week, I decided to try to take my hunting to Gen 6, where I had heard, but never experienced, how chain fishing shinies is a breeze. I also did a few horde hunts, and before long I realized that it would be more fun to hunt while playing through the story. So this is an account of my new journey, an adventure with Hoenn Shinies in Alpha Sapphire! This is not a Shiny badge Quest because I want to have more freedom and fewer rules, and also because I didnt want to lose my momentum with soft resetting for a shiny starter. The few shinies I've already hunted in gen 6 are quite low level, and they're sitting in my Bank and will probably become part of my team, but I will try to only add them when I reach the route where they were captured in a previous save. However, part of the fun of shiny playthroughs is the element of surprise and uncertainty, so I'm looking forward to figuring out the remaining members of my team as I play along!
Without further ado, let's begin our tale!
In this playthrough, my name is Pardal (it means sparrow in portuguese, and there's an IRL reason for this name), and I'm about to begin my story. I moved in to Littleroot town and pretty immediately saved a researcher from a little doggo/hyena with a borrowed Treecko (my fave!!!) that he later gave me and which I called Ficus (like the tree). I also fought his daughter and her adorable little chicken, and then I caught a Pooch with thunder fang. None of my pokemon so far are shiny, so you can probably guess they won't last long on my team. I then realised that I was gonna need a Sweet scent pokemon to get hunting (I'm NOT about that full odds encounters lyfe!) and lo and behold, one of my shinies I was saving for later DOES know the move! So, I decided to break the rule I just gave myself and imported to the game a little green plant boi aka oddish aka Bok Choi who is therefore my unofficial grass starter! After all, ORAS Hoenn is when the pokemon multiverse theory originated, so it's only fitting that Bok Choi came to me from an alternate timeline!
Before I go, and because I'm a nerd and a wannabe naturalist, here's a few tidbits about the pokemon I've caught so far:
-Poochyena is of course based on a hyenna and also a dog. However, IRL Hyennas are more closely related to cats than to dogs!
-Bulbapedia says Oddish is probably based on a mandrake plant. Medieval times people believed mandrake roots were little people, because they look really gnarly.
All righty, I'm out hunting! If anybody reads this, thank you!

Day 2 of my romp through Hoenn, and what a fruitful day it has been! After importing Bok Choi the Oddish last I started horde hunting on the first route, secretely hoping for a shiny poochy (such a nice color!) but expecting a zigzagoon. And indeed, after 582 hordes, a beautiful burnt sienna zigzag boi appeared! I caught him rather easily and named him Tanuki, after the japanese raccoon dogs. After leaving Oldale I did a few sweet scent checks to see what was available. Lots o' Lotads, which are adorable (this naturalist has a soft spot for aquatic ecosystems and plants) and have an amazing shiny coloration, but if I managed to find a shiny lotad I knew I couldn't evolve him because I also hunt in USUM, where shiny lombres and ludicolos are a dime a dozen. So I decided this was a hunt best left for the postgame. I continued on to Petalburg, and then moved on to the woods where I decided to try to catch a Purple Wurmple (hehe Purmple) but after only seven hordes in the forest, ANOTHER ZIGZAGOON shines!!!! This is amazing luck and a bit of a bummer rolled into one. I caught him, of course, and tried to think up a good name for it. Reading through the wikipedia page for raccoon dogs I saw that they are called Marhund in Denmark, so I decided to call mine that. I boxed him, but I guess I aint mad because that way I can have both a shiny zigzagoon and a shiny Linoone

I did start a second phase of the wurmple hunt, but after 60 hordes I realised that Zigzagoons are still way too common and I didn't want to risk grinding for hours to find another one. How nice it would be to catch a wurmple or shroomish though! I got to Rustboro and, surprise! My pokemon caught the Pokerus (better that than another virus heh). I already had pokerus carriers in my Pokemon Bank, but it's still nice and lucky to have gotten it again. I made my way to Rustboro and challenged the gym, which btw I absolutely love the design with all the fossils. I've been trying to use Bok Choi as little as possible since he's technically not supposed to be here, I probably used him for like 2-3 battles (I couldnt resist sending both Bok Choi and Tanuki out to battle against the twins in my first double battle, and see those simultaneous sparkles!). Tanuki took on Roxanne by himself and fought like a champ! such a good boy! Sand Attack/Tail Whip/Headbutt and the rest was history! I boxed Grey the nonshiny Poochyenna but kept Ficus the treecko, as a cut user. I never thought I would have an oddish (cut/flash user) and a zigzagoon (do I even need to say it?) but give the move to a starter instead (*Michael Scott voice* well well, how the turntables...)

I had to help the devon scientist. again (smh I am the backbone of this company). Realizing that everywhere I spammed sweet scent zigzagoons were popping up left and right, and worried that I might run into yet another one, I decided not to horde hunt in the grass until later in the game. Good thing the Rusturf tunnel is home only to whismur! It's definitely not a pokemon I've ever cared much about (I think the whole line is kind of unsightly) but hey, why not? I was prepared for a super long hunt (especially after getting two zigzagoons basically one after the other) but, surprise! Only 17 hordes in the cave and pop! goes the green-eared...uh... thing. Whismur hordes put up a surprisingly good fight, and after whittling the horde down to the shiny, he proved unexpectedly hard to capture (took me a bunch of pokeballs) so I actually broke a sweat but I got him in the end! I decided to call him Reverb (as in reverberation), and then to call it a day
Nerd fact of the day: I kind of gave it away, but Zigzagoon is not only based on a raccoon but also on a Japanese Raccoon dog, or Tanuki, which are relatives of the fox but look just like Raccoons. They're all relatives anyways. the order of Carnivorans can be separated in the caniformes (dog-like) including dogs, wolves, foxes, raccoons, weasels, bears, and seals and the feliformes (cat-like) inclusing cats, hyenas, mongooses and meerkats

Day 3 of my journey, which was very long. I now had three shinies in my party, Tanuki, Reverb and Bok Choi, and I made my way to Dewford. Beat Brawly and met Steven, and then I started horde hunting in the Granite Cave. I went 400 hordes without seeing a shiny, which was kind of expected given yesterday's luck. No matter, it turns out Granite cave was one of the locations I had hunted in before starting this save file, so I just imported my second shiny after Bok Choi, another green one, this time a Zubat! This lovely gal is called Nocturne (french for, you guessed it, nocturnal). I was actually worried I would get another zubat instead of a Makuhita or Geodude. We made our way to Slateport and I started training Nocturne. I defeated the Team Aqua pirate goons in the museum and headed North to Mauville.
At that point I knew I wasn't gonna take on Wattson because I wanted to get a shiny first. I could have considered Zubat my post-Brawly shiny (I mean, I DID grind for it full odds) but at this point I'm basically doing a badge quest. I decided to go all the way to Mauville and indeed to the road to Verdanturf because that is where I had caught Bok Choi (therefore allowing me to really start training him and using him in battles). I was actually looking for Roselia when I caught Bok Choi so I hoped to get one this time. Well, after 276 hordes (plus the 400 in Granite cave for a total of 676), I'm pleased to announce I caught...another oddish lol. A girl this time, called Flora. I had originally decided to evolve Bok Choi into a Bellossom but now I'm thinking Vileplume. I'll probably do a playthrough of X next, and use Flora there (since it is part of the Kalos dex anyways and more aesthetically suited to that region anyways). I'm not mad I got another Oddish because if you're gonna get repeat shinies, it might as well be one with branching evolutions!
Well, my eyes are burning from so much hunting! Time to rest!
Nerd fact of the day: The Rafflesia flower, which Vileplume and even bellossom to some extent are based on, is a parasitic plant that grows on vines and basically consists of a big flower that smells like rotting flesh to attract flies for pollination. So even though I am using Oddish for its Sweet Scent, the foul smelling Gloom is a more accurate representation of its IRL inspiration

Day 4. Now that I had finally reached the point where I caught Bok Choi, I started training him and Nocturne and explored/cleared the areas around Verdantuf and Mauville. During that time, I also finally evolved Tanuki into a beautiful brown-eyed weasel, and evolved Reverb into a not so beautiful but fearsome beast. We went to take on Wattson, which was easier than I thought (His magnemite and magneton resisted every move in my party but we still beat them). I did more grinding (I'm doing this run without exp. share. I find that it allows me to spend more time with each of my pokemon individually and therefore enjoy them more) and then decided it was time for the post-Wattson hunt. Since both of my roselia hunts yielded shiny oddishes and my first two in-game hunts both yielded shiny zigzagoons, I figured a repeat was unlikely to happen again (which any shiny hunter knows is not true, but I had to hope!) so I went back to granite cave and started shiny hunting for an Aron (which is what I was doing when I caught Nocturne). I was extra lucky, since not only did a get the red-eyed nugget, but I did so in only 246 hordes (although I was also horde hunting in X at the same time and didn't catch anything so I did see almost twice as many hordes for a shiny.He was adamant on top of it! I named him Hematite after the iron ore. I would have loved to use him on my team but I decided to box him because one of the pre-hunted pokemon I had in store was a numel and I really wanted to use him. Numel is so iconic to the Hoenn region. I can always use Aron for my upcoming playthrough of X since it's in the kalos dex.
Fun (and not so fun) fact: Numel is a dromedary (one hump) but Camerupt is a bactrian camel (two humps). Both species are domesticated; but there is a third: the wild bactrian camel, which is not. The latter is actually critically endangered while the former two are pretty common, since they are livestock

Day 5. So after the belated day 4 update, here's today! After catching Hematite the aron and adding Gobi the numel to my team, I explored Granite cave to get my everstone and Steelixite (not that I'll be needing it), and then I made it back to mainland. Gobi proved incredibly easy to train thanks to learning multi-target moves like magnitude and lava plume: just go look for a hunt of plusles/minuns and beat them with one move for a LOT of exp! I think he's going to be the MVP of my team, even though everybody is pulling their weight just fine (maybe Reverb is the weak link but he still does his part!). I explored the fiery path and made my way to Fallarbor. Nocturned evolved into a lovely green golbat along the way. I played through the Cozmo meteorite episode and then made my way to Lavaridge where I made short work of Flannery.
I wasn't sure what to hunt next. In USUM (I also play UM), it is extremely easy to catch the evolved form of several pokemon that can be horde-hunted in Hoenn grumpig, altaria, lombre (but not nuzleaf for me), Magcargo... Therefore theseI figured any of these hunts would be okay, since I have 5/6 members of my team and the next one has to be a water type. Not being able to choose, I decided to do a roulette game where I would hunt 40 hordes between fallarbor and meteor falls, 40 in fiery path, 40 in the desert and 40 in jagged path and then repeat until I found a shiny. Turns out today's shiny was in jagged path: a beautiful spoink in only 141 encounters (although I was again also horde hunting in X simultaneously and didn't catch anything so double the hordes seen). I'm happy because this is a great and beautiful shiny. I really wish grumpig kept that color scheme. I would have also loved a lotad or slugma since they also have incredible shinies that look better than their evolved forms. Just like that, I'm halfway done with my badge quest! Time to go fight dad now!
Fun fact that I think is already pretty common knowlede, but Spoink and Grumpig are based on the Biblical expression "giving pearls to swine", which means wasting something good on people who don't deserve or can't appreciate it.
Also, this is more of a random thought, but isn't it weird how the zubat line are technically mammals and therefore probably have fur? I always envisioned them as smooth and plasticky but they are probably covered in short, smooth fur!

I'm so glad to see someone shiny hunting here. I love trivia in your posts, even though some is pretty scary and/or brutal. Good luck with your hunting. If you don't know what to hunt, I think Tauros and Miltank are available as Horde encounters, but I think they are only in XY.

Firstly, Yay! A reply to my thread! Thanks for your kind words and suggestion. I think at some point a shiny X playthrough is going to happen for sure!
Updates for days 6 and 7 (already!!) will probably not be that exciting ahah but I'm having a mini giveaway!

Day 6. I challenged my father's gym and made short work of it thanks to little Bok Choi the oddish and Nocturne the golbat! Afterwards I biked up to the desert road and explored it, getting the root fossil and beating pretty much every trainer with Bok Choi until he got to level 40, at which point I figured I should probably evolve him! I quite like shiny Gloom's earthy colors but I miss the vibrant greens on oddish! Afterwards I did a couple horde checks outside of fallarbor (hoping for a shiny lotad but not too serious about it) and then decided that since I could surf, it'd be easier to chain fish. I went below cycling road and started chaining with the old rod (my only rod at this point), really, really hoping for a tentacool. And, well, after 66 encounters, I bagged a shiny magikarp. I was glad to get a shiny because I realized I've been catching at least one shiny every day for the past 6 days, which is pretty neat, but I was disappointed it was magikarp because I already had some and because red gyarados is like the most common shiny ever (still a great shiny, just a common one). I decided to try again and my word, it took me freaking FOREVER! A whopping 167 reels for... another shiny magikarp. Ugh.

Day 7. I decided today I was mostly going to focus on getting a shiny tentacool. At this point I just really want it! But, instead, I got not one, not two but THREE shiny magikarps (after like 3 hours of hunting). So disappointing but kind of funny. So I guess that while I continue my streak of getting a shiny a day, I ended my streak of getting a different one each day... If anyone wants a shiny magikarp, in gen 6 or transferred to gen 7, shoot me a PM and I'll give it to you "for free" (aka for whatever random pokemon you have lying around). I'll be checking my messages daily for as long as this playthrough continues. I have a couple of them available. Hope it'll brighten someone's confinement period.

Nerd fact of the day: Magikarp and Gyarados are based on a Chinese legend about a waterfall with golden carp at its base trying to get over it. If a carp managed to climb the waterfall, it would be transformed into a dragon and ascend to the sky. This explain magikarp's affinity for jumping (e.g. in the game magikarp jump!), Gyarados being found in the Kanto/Johto border falls in GSC and HGSS, and why Gyarados is a flying type, something that many people think makes no sense.
Here's some pictures of my recent pokedex entries!

Day 8: I spent most of that day trying to haul a shiny tentacool, but instead got three more shiny magikarp. UGH!! It's annoying because no matter where you fish in Hoenne with the old or good rod like half of your hauls will be magikarps. So then I decided to go do some more horde hunting after fallarbor and, only 15 hordes in, I got a shiny Lotad!! So awesome! I love Lotad's deep purple body. I won't evolve it, it's a trophy pokemon, same as spoink.

I'm reiterating that if anybody wants a shiny carp in gen 6 or 7 they should hit me up!

Nerd fact of the day: the name lotad comes from lotus+ pad (as in water lily pad) or tadpole. Lotus and water lilies look somewhat similar, but actually these two plants are not that closely related, they just converged in appearance because they live in similar habitats. the leaves on Lotad's line specifically look likethose of giant water lilies of the genus Victoria, which are so big they can even hold a small child without sinking! Water lilies belong to one of the oldest lineages of flowering plants. The lotad line is also based on the kappa, an aquatic japanese yokai

Entry for day 9 will be short and sweet! I went to try my hand at fishing again, half-expecting a disappointment, but under 10 encounters a beautiful female green and purple tentacool shone! So happy! I named her Tourmaline, after the gemstone which can be green (and other colors). Afterwards I finally crossed the narrow sea! Reached the second part of Hoenn, which I've always loved: the rainy, grassy scenery, the large river...I obtained the good rod from the fisherman on the beach and I made my way to the river. However, I wasn't keen on catching yet more magikarps so instead I imported the very last shiny I had pre-planned for my team: a gorgeous little Carvanha called Bullet. I love this line's shinies, they're both so different yet so striking. I definitely prefer carvanah's shiny to sharpedo's, but at the same time I'm not sure shiny sharpedo would look good in green and blue... I started training him, and that's basically it!

Fun facts: carvanha evolves into sharpedo, but of course IRL piranhas and sharks are not closely related at all! In fact, believe it or not we humans are more closely related to piranhas than piranhas are to sharks! That's because both humans and piranhas are part of the lineage that evolved bones with sharks only have cartilage. tentacool, which is based on a jellyfish (but also kind of a squid, or legendary kraken, especially after evolving), is mostly found in the sea but can be found in freshwater ponds as well, just like in real life most jellyfish are marine but there are a few species that live in freshwater.

Day 10 of this playthrough (technically day 11 as I didn't play at all on friday) was a longer, more eventful day, but it didn't yield any shinies.
I needed to train Bullet the Carvanha, and I also wanted to complete the water routes between Slateport and Petalburg since I usually never bother with them (this is a shiny badge quest so it's kind of an ultimate playthrough!). However Carvanha was too fragile to be the sole pokemon fighting, but my others were kind of overleveled already and it's no fun when it's too easy. So I decided to select one of my many magikarps ahah and use it as a sort of semi-benched team player that I could call upon from time to time. I wasn't super excited for red Gyarados since, despite being absolutely iconic, I've used it before (and caught several in multiple playthroughs of Gold). However, I figured since I had never used or seen on in gen 6, and since my VC red gyarados are often male and always HA, it would still be kind of fun to have a female with intimidate. I nicknamed my chosen magikarps Carmine and evolved it as soon as it hit level 20. I had a lot of fun using Carmine and Bullet through the water routes. Afterwards I got my usual team back, and evolved Reverb the loudred into a fearsome exploud! and did the weather institute thing, then I challenged Wynona's gym (easy peasy) and then made my way down to Mount Pyre, where I started horde-hunting for a spooky blue shuppet. I called it a night before finding one.
I gotta say, despite what I just said about red gyarados being too common, it's such a great shiny! Gyarados is already a really well designed pokemon and that red color is just striking! I can appreciate how some shinies are really, really good looking despite not changing the color palettes too dramaticammy (like umbreon, glaceon, ludicolo, etc.) but I'm a big fan of the complete 180 shinies like Gyarados. That's why I've even grown to love most atomic green shinies like espeon (and ursaring is high on my wanted list). Compare this to Exploud: it's a pretty good looking shiny that is noticeably different, but it's still just a lighter shade of the same color. On top of that Loudred and Exploud are pretty forgettable/not often seen, so it's not like you're familiar enough with them to identify their shiny as such immediately.
Don't necessarily have a fun fact for today, so I'll talk about nicknames. I love researching nicknames for my pokemon! I get to learn so much! For instance I was looking up things that are red to name my Gyarados and I decided on carmine, which is a red dye made from crushed insects. While hunting shuppet I also turned on my game of X on a borrowed DS and horde hunted for durant, but I found a shiny geodude instead and, by googling around, I settled on the nickname Skarn, which is the name (of scandinavian origins) of a rock/ore.

Day 11: a great day! I continued hunting shuppet and eventually found a shiny female! I called her Marion, a common french name for women that also looks like Marionette. Afterwards I completed the Mount pyre episode, and evolved Gobi the numel and Nocturne the golbat! Two absolutely beautiful shinies! I'm especially glad to add Camerupt to my collection of black shinies. Afterwards I went to get the Gyaradosite on route 123. Then I spent a good chunk of time in super training, mostly because I wanted to win a leaf stone. It literally took completing the whole thing (up to the mega tyranitar balloon) to earn that leaf stone, but it was worth it. Bok Choi is now a big orange and green flower whose name is no longer relevant to it as it might have been when it was an oddish lol. Bellossom is a much prettier shiny IMO and Bok Choi was originally supposed to turn into one, but then I caught that female oddish in this playthrough so I decided to make the male a vileplume instead.
Fun fact, which I'm repeating from bulbapedia so kind of lame but oh well! Shuppet and Banette are mostly based on Japanese legends about discarding items becoming alive and vengeful, but Banette has some elements of voodoo dolls to it as well. The voodoo dolls that you stick a pin in are actually an invention of pop culture, not a true part of voodoo as a religion.

Days 12 and 13
Yesterday was all about putting a wrench in team aqua's plans, and then beating the mystic duo of Tate and Lisa aka the easiest gym leaders ever lol. I can't believe they only have 2 pokemon and wish they also had, maybe, medicham and gardevoir or something. Anyhow, in the process I finally evolved bullet the Carvanah into a gorgeous purple shark! And then for the post-gym shiny hunt, I decided to chain fish. At first I forgot to switch in the super rod for the good rod so at some point I got a chain going and I didn't want to stop it, so I really, really hoped for a wailmer. Upon reaching a chain of 60 I told myself I would stop there, but then I was like ehh maybe one more and that ONE more was... another freakin shiny magikarp. AHHHH!!!! But then I switched to the super rod and I started a new chain and, after 103 encounters, finally got a purple ball boi!! Very happy. I called him Neptune.
Then today, I did the whole seafloor cavern/cave of origin thing. Decided not to SR for Kyogre because I can do that in Ultra Moon which should be much faster and better odds (i have the charm there). For that part of the playthrough I benched Tanuki the linoone and used Carmine the Gyarados, especially since she could now mega-evolve. However afterwards I challenged the Sootopolis gym with Tanuki instead of Carmine. Bok Choi the vileplume and Bullet were the two MVP of this fight, though Reverb and Tanuki also put in work! Afterwards, I collected a few shiny stones and then I went up the waterfall outside of Fallarbor where I chain-fished and got a lovely yellow female barboach at just under 40 encounters. I called her Namazu, after the earthquake-causing catfish of japanese legend that inspired Whiscash.
Fun fact: This one could be about how blue whales are the largest animal to have ever existed, much larger than any dinosaur ever got, or perhaps it could be about how some loaches (the IRL version of barboach) such as the weather loach can sense changes in the atmosphere and behave differently according to the weather, but let's make this about sharks! Sharks are mostly marine species, but some like bull sharks can and do often enter freshwaters, such as rivers. In fact, Central America's biggest lake, lake Nicaragua, has a population of bull sharks! Scientists determined they can enter the lake by jumping over rapids like salmon do (relevant to me since I just taught sharpedo waterfall). Imagine hanging out by a small waterfall or rapids and seeing a full grown bull shark casually jumping over! I would flip

Wow it's literally been over two weeks since my last post (not that this thread is gettign that much engagement lol), all because after Wallace I decided that a quick chain fish hunt for Barboach was probably a little underwhelming. At first I decided to do another horde hunt, this time just outside of route 123 where you can get electrike (my main target), wingull and occasionally kecleons (I would have been fine with any of these too). I did over 400 hordes and still no shiny, and at that point I sort of got bored and also decided to try my hand at dexnav hunting. I had never gotten a dexnav shiny so I figured it's be a nice thing to do before the league! I wanted a female Ralts (I hatched a male in gen 7) so I got to it, painstakingly getting my numbers up from around 10-15, where I started. I didnt want to horde hunt it because the other, more common hordes were zigzagoon and lotad, and I have already caught every stage of these lines, so I didnt want to get duplicates. It was one of the most painstaking hunts I've ever done, and it took until 910 encounters (in at least 2 weeks) but I finally got a ralts, and it was a female! Unfortunately it had trace, but that's ok. I love my blue girl, named Andromeda.
Afterwards I went to challenge the league and I actually broke a sweat! I lost to Glacia and her mean (and not so lean) fighting machine, Walreign, so I SR'd and took on the league again, and while it wasn't easy, I won! Usually the first league challenge is a breeze for me, but this was my first time playing without exp share, and because I did so much grinding for shinies, I didnt do level grinding before the league. I think it was the first time I was underlevelled for a 3DS game, but I had fun. I only beat Glacia the second time because Tanuki the linoone was outstanding! to think I always thought of him as the weak link! He held on after a big hit, I think from a glalie, with his affection for me (which isnt even maxed out), and then he avoided like 4 freeze dries in a row to allow me to win. He was my first shiny of this save file and therefore my unofficial starter and he proved it 😍 Steven was actually pretty easy to beat though, with my team's makeup, only Cradily gave me some trouble.
Here's a recap of my journey so far:
-started the game, didnt SR for shiny starter
-Imported shiny oddish (Bok Choi) from Bank but didnt use him in battle
-Hunted and got shiny zigzagoon (Tanuki), my first official team member
-Got another shiny zigzagoon (Marhund)
-After Roxane, got a shiny Whismur (Reverb)
-After Brawly, imported a shiny zubat (Nocturne) from bank. got another Shiny oddish (Flora)
-After Wattson, got a shiny aron (Hematite), imported a shiny Numel (Gobi) from Bank
-After Flannery, got a shiny Spoink (Boing)
-After Norman, got a shiny Lotad (Nelumbo), as well as fishing chain tentacool (Tourmaline) and SO MANY magikarps, including Carmine, which I evolved into Gyarados. Imported a shiny carvanah (Bullet) from Bank.
-After Winnona, got a shiny Shuppet (Marion)
-After Tate and Liza, got a shiny Wailmer (Neptune)
-After Wallace, fished up a shiny barboach (Namazu), then got a shiny Ralts (Andromeda)

And then, after the league, I went back to route 123 to shiny hunt and after 720 hordes, and on the literal LAST horde I was going to fight before calling it a day, I got a beautiful blue pupper (my original target, Elektrike!). Now, i already own a Manectric in gen 7 so I wasn't going to evolve this blue pup, so instead of looking for a super deep name I called him Doge Charger, and I love it!