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Description
This is my submission for Smogon's 23 Create-a-Pokemon Project, which placed third overall. The CAP concept is a Dragon/Ghost Pokemon with Comatose that uses trapping moves.

I landed on the idea of a tapeworm after looking back at CAP 21 scrapped concepts . I originally drew out a spooky chameleon as my first concept, but the art concept of "spooky chameleon" didn't click for me. That's when I looked back and realized that a literal tape-worm works really well for CAP 23! The design came together a lot quicker and more cohesively.

This is what I had written in explaining the design in the art thread:
This design is based on the pun of tape, tapeworms, and worms (or "wyrms") referring to dragons. Its long, flat, segmented body and a round head come from the tapeworm, and its two front limbs come from a lindworm. The flat, pale, translucent body and zigzag sheared edges tie the "tape" part of the design together, while simultaneously enforcing Ghost-type design characteristics.
I originally had no eyes on the design, but after getting feedback from the Smogon CAP Discord server, I added swirly eyes. I didn't want "real" eyes on the design because I wanted to make it less natural-looking, but I didn't want to stick on closed eyes just for Comatose. The user Deck Knight suggested the idea of swirly eyes, I went with it, and people liked it. I like swirly eyes, too, since they suggest eyes but aren't real eyes. The user Golurkyourself pointed out to me later that real nematodes have spiral-shaped chemical sensors where eyes would be! I thought that was a brilliant coincidence, so my headcanon now is that the swirly eyes aren't really eyes but sensors.

In addition, I can see a few more outside inspirations that made it into the design. The pale white colors and concavity were probably inspired from Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts (in particular, the Dragoon), and the jagged mouth and lack of real eyes are traits corrupted gems in Steven Universe have.

As for the name? "Tapewyrm" was my nickname for it, but it could've been taken as a real Pokemon name. I thought of it like "Snake Oil " or "Loch Ness Shower " in nickname. A lot of people like the nickname, though. 😅 I had a hard time coming up with a name I liked, but I stumbled into "Phantastik" after burning through my normal portmanteau vocabulary. Originally, I ended up with "fantastic" because it was the only word that I could corrupt into "stik", but then I realized the corruption is quite brilliant. "Phantom" refers to ghostliness, "phantasm" can refer to either ghosts or dreams (as in sleep), and "stick" can either mean "stick-like" as in thin and narrow or "adhere". In short, it's "phantom" + "phantasm" + "stick"^2 + "fantastic", which is five uses of wordplay in one! I also had "Trancerpent" as another name I liked, being a corruption of "transparent", "trance", and "serpent". I chose "Phantastik" due to the better wordplay and funner composition.

Edit (4/20/18): And apparently, it's the German term for the speculative fiction genre! I can see it working for a creature that's both a ghost and dragon.

Here are some of the other art I drew during the space of the art thread.
Chameleon concept
Supporting art 1
Supporting art 2
Fanart of other designs

Description
This is my submission for Smogon's 23 Create-a-Pokemon Project, which placed third overall. The CAP concept is a Dragon/Ghost Pokemon with Comatose that uses trapping moves.

I landed on the idea of a tapeworm after looking back at CAP 21 scrapped concepts . I originally drew out a spooky chameleon as my first concept, but the art concept of "spooky chameleon" didn't click for me. That's when I looked back and realized that a literal tape-worm works really well for CAP 23! The design came together a lot quicker and more cohesively.

This is what I had written in explaining the design in the art thread:
This design is based on the pun of tape, tapeworms, and worms (or "wyrms") referring to dragons. Its long, flat, segmented body and a round head come from the tapeworm, and its two front limbs come from a lindworm. The flat, pale, translucent body and zigzag sheared edges tie the "tape" part of the design together, while simultaneously enforcing Ghost-type design characteristics.
I originally had no eyes on the design, but after getting feedback from the Smogon CAP Discord server, I added swirly eyes. I didn't want "real" eyes on the design because I wanted to make it less natural-looking, but I didn't want to stick on closed eyes just for Comatose. The user Deck Knight suggested the idea of swirly eyes, I went with it, and people liked it. I like swirly eyes, too, since they suggest eyes but aren't real eyes. The user Golurkyourself pointed out to me later that real nematodes have spiral-shaped chemical sensors where eyes would be! I thought that was a brilliant coincidence, so my headcanon now is that the swirly eyes aren't really eyes but sensors.

In addition, I can see a few more outside inspirations that made it into the design. The pale white colors and concavity were probably inspired from Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts (in particular, the Dragoon), and the jagged mouth and lack of real eyes are traits corrupted gems in Steven Universe have.

As for the name? "Tapewyrm" was my nickname for it, but it could've been taken as a real Pokemon name. I thought of it like "Snake Oil " or "Loch Ness Shower " in nickname. A lot of people like the nickname, though. 😅 I had a hard time coming up with a name I liked, but I stumbled into "Phantastik" after burning through my normal portmanteau vocabulary. Originally, I ended up with "fantastic" because it was the only word that I could corrupt into "stik", but then I realized the corruption is quite brilliant. "Phantom" refers to ghostliness, "phantasm" can refer to either ghosts or dreams (as in sleep), and "stick" can either mean "stick-like" as in thin and narrow or "adhere". In short, it's "phantom" + "phantasm" + "stick"^2 + "fantastic", which is five uses of wordplay in one! I also had "Trancerpent" as another name I liked, being a corruption of "transparent", "trance", and "serpent". I chose "Phantastik" due to the better wordplay and funner composition.

Edit (4/20/18): And apparently, it's the German term for the speculative fiction genre! I can see it working for a creature that's both a ghost and dragon.

Here are some of the other art I drew during the space of the art thread.
Chameleon concept
Supporting art 1
Supporting art 2
Fanart of other designs