Tumblr can sometimes be its own universe of awful and awesome. Sometimes the two collide to create something so absurd it’s ingenious, and that’s the corner of the Tumbleverse that the Pokeymans Project inhabits.
The setup is simple: Artist Noelle Stevenson was homeschooled until 15 and was never allowed to partake in Nintendo’s cultural pocket-monster-catching phenomenon (or Harry Potter or anything else). So naturally, one day she decided to start drawing Pokémon based on their descriptions alone, and the Pokeymans Project was born.
You can see some of the user-submitted descriptions in the gallery below, along with the resulting imagery. I’m not sure even I could have guessed which Pokémon some of these descriptions are referring to … .
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Uxie
It has (no joke) your hairdo in like blobs form and two tails with 3 little footballs at the ends of them, with a jewel in the center. It has a ruby on it’s forehead, no mouth, & closed eyes. It has no knees, just feet (again footballs) and arms with 3 stubby fingers. And it’s floating.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Uxie
It has (no joke) your hairdo in like blobs form and two tails with 3 little footballs at the ends of them, with a jewel in the center. It has a ruby on it’s forehead, no mouth, & closed eyes. It has no knees, just feet (again footballs) and arms with 3 stubby fingers. And it’s floating.
Source: Nintendo
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Keldeo
Keldeo is an equine Pokemon with light blue ears, neck, and swishy tail. Its mane is orange and has 3 feathers sticking out of it. Its hooves are dark blue and come up to points. It has a diamond in its chest and a lumpy horn about as long as its body.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Keldeo
Keldeo is an equine Pokemon with light blue ears, neck, and swishy tail. Its mane is orange and has 3 feathers sticking out of it. Its hooves are dark blue and come up to points. It has a diamond in its chest and a lumpy horn about as long as its body.
Source: Nintendo
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Reuniclus
So Reuniclus is like a teddybear type thing suspended in a big round blob of goo. Its actual arms are stubby, but it has two much bigger arms that are a part of the goo blob. It has four little particle-looking things that lead from the actual arms to the palms of the good arms and two little egg shaped ears that float in the goo and aren't actually attached to its head.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Reuniclus
So Reuniclus is like a teddybear type thing suspended in a big round blob of goo. Its actual arms are stubby, but it has two much bigger arms that are a part of the goo blob. It has four little particle-looking things that lead from the actual arms to the palms of the good arms and two little egg shaped ears that float in the goo and aren't actually attached to its head.
Source: Nintendo
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Lugia
LUGIA, a large birdlike creature with a turtle head. Instead of wings, it has thin appendages that end in something that look like hands with 5 “fingers” each. It has two legs with three toes each, the toes are stuck to each other. On its back, it has 4 dorsel fins sticking out. and it has a tail with two blue spikes on each side.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Lugia
LUGIA, a large birdlike creature with a turtle head. Instead of wings, it has thin appendages that end in something that look like hands with 5 “fingers” each. It has two legs with three toes each, the toes are stuck to each other. On its back, it has 4 dorsel fins sticking out. and it has a tail with two blue spikes on each side.
Source: Nintendo
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Lopunny
Lopunny is a lopeared bunny lady. She is uncomfortably curvy and lady-shaped. Her long ears end in fluffy puffs of fur, and her wrists have similar puffs around them. Her eyebrows extend upward past her head. Her legs have similar puffs but look more like she’s wearing stylish boots. Her face is fairly bunny-ish, with beady eyes and a small nose, but cute.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Lopunny
Lopunny is a lopeared bunny lady. She is uncomfortably curvy and lady-shaped. Her long ears end in fluffy puffs of fur, and her wrists have similar puffs around them. Her eyebrows extend upward past her head. Her legs have similar puffs but look more like she’s wearing stylish boots. Her face is fairly bunny-ish, with beady eyes and a small nose, but cute.
Source: Nintendo
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Snivy
Snivy: He’s a short lizard-looking Pokémon. He stands on 2 legs with tiny pointy feet. His body is shaped like a wonky “s," and his nose is swoopy and pointy at the end. He has large eyes that are half-lidded and has a very smug expression on his face (his nickname is smugleaf). His short arms have short spikey fingers. His tail ends in a large leaf shape with three points. He has two collar pieces that stick out like curly dracula collars, and his belly/underchin are white, but the top of his head and back/tail/arms are green.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Snivy
Snivy: He’s a short lizard-looking Pokémon. He stands on 2 legs with tiny pointy feet. His body is shaped like a wonky “s," and his nose is swoopy and pointy at the end. He has large eyes that are half-lidded and has a very smug expression on his face (his nickname is smugleaf). His short arms have short spikey fingers. His tail ends in a large leaf shape with three points. He has two collar pieces that stick out like curly dracula collars, and his belly/underchin are white, but the top of his head and back/tail/arms are green.
Source: Nintendo
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Zweilous
Zweilous is a Pokeyman with a fat, round, four-legged body, and at the end of each feet are two claws. At the neck, it gets weird. It has 2 heads and fur covering them from the bottom of the neck up, and each head has a Ringo Star Haircut with the addition of 2 feather things made of the same hair on top of each head. Also, it has two fur-wing-thingies, one behind each head.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Zweilous
Zweilous is a Pokeyman with a fat, round, four-legged body, and at the end of each feet are two claws. At the neck, it gets weird. It has 2 heads and fur covering them from the bottom of the neck up, and each head has a Ringo Star Haircut with the addition of 2 feather things made of the same hair on top of each head. Also, it has two fur-wing-thingies, one behind each head.
Source: Nintendo
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Espeon
Try Espeon!: Espeon is pink and catlike. It has long, football-shaped ears and a jewel on its forehead. It has 2 tufts of fur on each side. The top one is bigger than the other, and they’re both ovalish. It also has a tail that splits in two about halfway through it.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Espeon
Try Espeon!: Espeon is pink and catlike. It has long, football-shaped ears and a jewel on its forehead. It has 2 tufts of fur on each side. The top one is bigger than the other, and they’re both ovalish. It also has a tail that splits in two about halfway through it.
Source: Nintendo
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Beartic
Beartic is a triangle-shaped polar bear. He has a slightly pointed face, and he always looks angry. He has a beard made of big icicles, scrawny upper arms and huge forearms, like a furry Popeye. Beartic’s dog-like paws have only 3 large, sausagey fingers with claws. His legs end abruptly without feet, and he has a lot of extra hair around his lower abdomen and between his legs, to keep his junk warm.
Source: Noelle Stevenson
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Beartic
Beartic is a triangle-shaped polar bear. He has a slightly pointed face, and he always looks angry. He has a beard made of big icicles, scrawny upper arms and huge forearms, like a furry Popeye. Beartic’s dog-like paws have only 3 large, sausagey fingers with claws. His legs end abruptly without feet, and he has a lot of extra hair around his lower abdomen and between his legs, to keep his junk warm.
Source: Nintendo
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GamesBeat spoke with Stevenson about the reaction the Pokeymans Project has received. “I think because everyone on the Internet knows more about Pokémon than I do,” she says, “they think it’s really funny, and they get to feel superior toward someone who’s clueless. It was just kind of a fun thing I’d do every now and then until it made it to the front page of Reddit, and I was completely inundated with requests. My Tumblr inbox was swamped with nothing but page after page of descriptions of Pokemon, burying all my other messages, and when I closed my inbox, I got requests through emails, Disqus, and Twitter.”
Unfortunately, not all the feedback was in the same fun spirit as the Pokeymans Project. “Not only that,” says Stevenson, “[but] I was getting accusations of faking not knowing anything about Pokémon to get attention or cheating somehow by looking up the picture before I drew it. Some people were downright angry with me for not being familiar with Pokémon. Also, there was a fair serving of sexism where the attitude was like, ‘She doesn’t know Pokémon because she’s a girl,’ which is pretty absurd. It was kind of a shitshow for a couple of days there, but as soon as I started a separate blog for the Pokeymans Project, things calmed down again. Although I think my message box is still labelled ‘Don’t Send Me a Pokémon’ on my main blog.”
Stevenson says that no one at Nintendo has noticed her work (to the best of her knowledge) but that she’s sure there are “other Pokémon fan-artists who are much more deserving of Nintendo’s attention.” She also hasn’t really seen much of an impact on her other projects, stressing that the Pokeymans are not a good indication of her artistic skill. “It’s still just a fun thing that I do sometimes,” she says. “It has taught me the difference between a sickle and scythe, though!”
