Scottish Pokémon Trainer — Angry female Pokemon Sword and Shield trainer pointing and yelling at a startled boy in a red shirt.

Scottish Pokémon Trainer

2019character parody / catchphraseclassic

Published September 26, 2026

Scottish Pokémon Trainer is a February 2019 Twitter joke that reimagined Gloria, the new female player character from Pokémon Sword and Shield, as a foul-mouthed woman with a thick Scottish accent. Sparked by the game's UK-inspired Galar region, the gag turned into a week of viral tweets, fan art, and voiced dub videos that briefly dominated Pokémon Twitter.

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Overview

Scottish Pokémon Trainer refers to a wave of Twitter posts that dressed up Gloria, the female protagonist of Pokémon Sword and Shield, in phonetic Scots dialect and blistering Glaswegian attitude. The joke leans on the fact that the game's Galar region is openly modeled on the United Kingdom, so fans imagined the player character sounding like she stepped out of Trainspotting rather than a children's RPG1.

The format is mostly text-based: a screenshot or drawing of Gloria paired with a caption written in exaggerated Scottish spelling, often profane, often about her Pokémon or a rival trainer. Fan artists then built on it with comics and character redesigns2, and voice actors, most notably Elsie Lovelock, gave the tweets a spoken performance that pushed the bit onto YouTube and TikTok compilations3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
@puritikuma and @CaptainHanyuu
Date
2019

Nintendo revealed Pokémon Sword and Shield in a Pokémon Direct on February 27, 2019, introducing the UK-inspired Galar region4. Within hours, Twitter users joked that if the setting was Britain, the trainer had to be Scottish. Two tweets that afternoon set the template. User @puritikuma parodied an older @_lMWE tweet by rewriting it as Gloria yelling at another trainer in heavy Scots, pulling in more than 14,000 retweets and 39,000 likes1. A few hours later, @CaptainHanyuu ran the same swap on a @Lookin4Serenity tweet, hitting over 19,000 retweets and 54,000 likes5.

Both posts riffed on the already-established Merida's Scottish Slang tweet format from 2018, which had users translating everyday complaints into Brave-style dialect1. Nintendo and Game Freak developed the game itself; the meme was fan-made and did not originate with the publisher.

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How It Spread

Over the week following the Direct, the joke moved from one-off tweets into full fan-art comics and voiced dubs. A comic by @Merryweatherey collected more than 18,000 retweets and 65,000 likes, and illustrator @yucno posted a redesign that cleared 5,000 retweets and 19,000 likes1. Shippers paired the Scottish Gloria with Serena from Pokémon X&Y, casting Serena as the composed straight woman to Gloria's volatile Scot1.

The biggest boost came from voice actress Elsie Lovelock, who recorded readings of @puritikuma's tweet and several follow-ups. Her March 2019 clips pulled tens of thousands of retweets apiece and turned the written gag into an audible one3. Fellow voice actor Penni Smith (@PenPhiVA) built on that momentum with a March 2 mash-up video setting Lovelock's Galarish slang against the in-game language selection screen7.

Know Your Meme catalogued the parodies under the Scottish Pokémon Trainer entry, noting the format's roots in the older Merida Scottish Slang jokes6. The bit tapered off after Sword and Shield's November 2019 launch revealed Gloria's canon design and lack of spoken dialogue, though the accent headcanon stuck around in Galar fan art.

Timeline

2019-02-27

Nintendo Direct reveals Pokémon Sword and Shield and the UK-inspired Galar region.

2019-02-27

@puritikuma posts the first viral Scottish Gloria tweet, adapting a @_lMWE post.

2019-02-27

@CaptainHanyuu posts a second viral Scottish Gloria tweet, riffing on @Lookin4Serenity.

2019-03-01

Voice actress Elsie Lovelock uploads voiced readings of the Scottish Gloria tweets.

2019-03-02

Penni Smith (@PenPhiVA) releases a Galarish-slang video featuring Lovelock as the Gen 8 trainer.

2019-03-05

Voiced compilations of Scottish Gloria tweets continue circulating on Twitter.

2019-11-15

Pokémon Sword and Shield launches; Gloria's canonical (silent) portrayal ends the peak joke cycle.

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How to Use This Meme

The typical Scottish Pokémon Trainer post pairs an image of Gloria (screenshot, official art, or fan drawing) with a caption written phonetically in a broad Scottish accent, often about battling, catching, or insulting other characters. Common conventions include swapping standard spelling for 'ken,' 'wee,' 'dinnae,' and heavy use of 'ye,' and framing Gloria as short-tempered opposite calmer trainers like Serena from Pokémon X&Y6.

Frequently Asked Questions