when I run the included file i get an error that looks like:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/justin/Desktop/pkmn/main.py", line 10, in <module>
    expansion = json.load(expan_list)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/json/__init__.py", line 296, in load
    return loads(fp.read(),
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'read'
dont know what to make of it

You're passing in a filename, not a file-like object (see https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.load).  Instead, you'll want something like:

with open(filename) as f:
    json_data = json.load(f)



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