Scarlet/Violet model gifs ripped by Twitter user adamsb0303!

So it's here that we finally arrive at this generation's... I guess if I were to coin a term for all of the Pokemon of this sorta-Legendary status, it'd be "Anomaly" Pokemon. Much like Gen 7 brought us a group of interdimensional monsters, the "Ultra Beasts", Gen 9 brings us a hefty handful of "Paradox" Pokemon. That is to say, Pokemon that have been displaced in time, ergo are a walking "Time Paradox". Or at least as so the game suggests.

These Pokemon are almost entirely contained within the fabled Area Zero, the big crater in the center of the region that houses dangerous Pokemon, including these Paradox Pokemon that arrived here by use of your version's professor's time machine, which they used and started pumping out these beasts on-masse due to some obsessive infatuation with either the past or the future. Again, depending on your version's professor.

There's also a big hub-bub between these Paradox Pokemon and "The Violet Book" and "The Scarlet Book", an expedition journal stated to chronicle the adventures of a group of brave researchers that traversed Area Zero.

These books are canonically debated on whether or not the events are sensationalized, having both skeptics and a community that spawned a whole cryptozoology circling around the creatures described in the book.

We'll speculate on the very nature of Paradox Pokemon later, but for now we'll take a whack at each one individually, which we don't mind since a decent chunk of them, while not as outright exciting as the Ultra Beasts, are still interesting to talk about.

Great! I'll grab my tusk!

984: Great Tusk

First in line is Great Tusk, one half of what is more or less the "mascot" of the entire concept of Paradox Pokemon. And two things very much of notice right off the bat is how this Pokemon doesn't have a funny wordplay name. No puns, just bluntly referred to as "Great Tusk", as if this were a much more traditional RPG monster. Seemingly named this way as if to emphasize how not of-this-time these Pokemon are.

Second and arguably WAY harder to notice, but good thing I'm here to tell you these things, is that Great Tusk here bares a striking resemblance to Donphan, despite being not related to the family at all. And that's the whole rub with all these Paradox Pokemon; they're "Past" and "Future" versions of Pokemon we're already familiar with. And Scarlet's "Past" Paradoxes are allegedly prehistoric ancestors to modern-day Pokemon.

As such, Great Tusk here is a version of Donphan that is much more dinosaurian, largely combining aspects of a woolly mammoth, perhaps a bit of stegosaurus, or some other ridge-backed dinosaur, and of course, using Donphan as a base.

It picks up a lot of fur into its design, especially around its ankles and ears. Though this is seemingly before Donphan was capable of rolling up into a wheel as a form of quick travel, especially with those massive tusks it has being in the way. It's part of what really sells the "prehistoric" look of the beast, with such a cool curve to it.

It also amps up the menace with a yellow eye, including some red "bagging" under it. As well as much sharper, zig-zaggy teeth. It is easy to look at this design and just think "It's just Donphan with some spikes", but there's clearly more thought put into it than just that. It makes for a pretty convincing ancient ancestor of a Pokemon we're familiar with, if at least taken from the standpoint of "Goofy fictional animals." I've seen a lot of comparisons to Monster Hunter, and I can definitely say I see it a bit.