I’m Luke Summerhayes and I love Swirlix.
The sweet treat we call Candy floss in the UK, or Cotton Candy in the USA, is known as Fairy Floss in Australia. To me this food is always associated with carnivals and fairs, a time which does have a certain amount of magic – coming into town with bright lights and delights, then disappearing as though it were never there.
Food plays a big role in fairy lore. One of the key tenets of any fairy myth from Europe is always that one shouldn’t eat anything the fair folk offer you. Just as eating anything in Hades can damn one’s mortal soul, eating anything in a fairy circle binds you to them and their world, forever separating you from the mortal realm.
Swirlix is a fairy type Pokemon, a pink animal with a doglike face bouncing on its tail and engulfed in fluff, looking for all the world like a cotton candy.
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To entangle its opponents in battle, it extrudes white threads as sweet and sticky as cotton candy.

In the Christmas movie Elf, we learn that Santa’s elves eat a diet of candies, sweets and syrup. This seems to apply to Swirlix, as well.
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It eats its own weight in sugar every day. If it doesn't get enough sugar, it becomes incredibly grumpy.

Swirlix is a swirl that licks things, and the Japanese name Peroppafu is a similar combination of peropero, the onomatopoeia for licking, and puff. As I have a Mexican fiancé, though, I can’t help but see the Spanish word perro in there. This is a dog, after all.
The item Whipped Dream, A soft and sweet treat made of fluffy, puffy, whipped and whirled cream, is loved by a certain Pokémon. That Pokemon is Swirlix, and when traded while holding one it will evolve into Slurpuff.
Just as cotton candy is sometimes called Fairy Floss, cupcakes were called Fairy cakes when I was a child in the UK. Slurpuff has grown into a squat little bipedal dog creature with a fluffy hairdo like frosting and a cherry on top.
While Swirlix was all about licking things, the way a dog expresses affection, Slurpuff has developed a dog’s impeccable sense of smell.
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It can distinguish the faintest of scents. It puts its sensitive sense of smell to use by helping pastry chefs in their work.
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Its sense of smell is 100 million times better than a human's, so even the faintest scent tells it about everything in the area. It's like it can see with its nose!

In a more fairy-like turn, Slurpuff also has excellent healing power.
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By taking in a person's scent, it can sniff out their mental and physical condition. It's hoped that this skill will have many medical applications.
Friend of the Show Mikey, from Pokemon Crossroads, got in touch to tell us about Slurpuff in the Trading Card Game.
Time for a tasty treat! Slurpuff never led the way into battle for any deck. Though, it provided a tasty treat for decks with some extra draw power.
Slurpuff from Phantom Forces with 90 HP. For 3 energy, it could use Light Pulse to do 60 damage and prevent all effects from your opponent’s attacks done to Slurpuff. Still, you will want to use Slurpuff for its Tasting ability. Slurpuff’s Tasting ability allows you to draw a card. If Slurpuff is your active Pokemon then you can draw two cards instead.
You could see Slurpuff used a lot in decks using Seismitoad-EX as a way to draw cards every turn. Perfect for a deck that wants to keep its opponent’s from playing the game by turning off all items while using all its own resources.
Thanks, Mikey!
In the videogame scene, though, Slurpuff is better known as an offensive monster. The Pokemon’s ability, unburden, massively boosts speed when the held item is lost or used. By using the move belly drum to half health but also massively increase attack, then swallowing a berry to recover said health and also activate the speed boost, it could be a preposterously dangerous beast, only getting more deadly when it acquired drain punch in the seventh generation to deal with steel types and add to its longevity.
Slurpuff has puffy hair and slurps things. The Japanese name is Peroream, keeping the pero and adding the cream.
I love fairy floss and fairy cakes, I have an outrageous sweet tooth. The food I consume is already ravaging my health, destroying the planet and probably exploiting workers around the world. I’d be a liar if I said would stop if you threw a fairy curse into the equation.
Music for Luke Loves Pokemon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork for the show is by Katie Groves. If you enjoy the podcast, find out about my other shows at podcastiopodcastius.org, get in touch on bluesky @podcastpodcast, or support the show at patreon.com/podcastiopodcastius.
I love hearing from Listeners! Up next are Inkay and binacle, so hit me up about those or any other Pokemon. Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much for listening.
I love Swirlix. And remember, I love you too