[prayer circle for no more fire/fighting starters] asks:

i can’t remember (or find) if you’ve covered it before, but how do you think police and the criminal justice system works in the pokemon world works? we know there are police officers, but what do they do/what are they for when most of the populace seems to police themselves?

I’m not sure it necessarily needs to work any differently? Saying that the populace “police themselves” is something I would take with a grain of salt – the games probably give us a distorted view here, because the whole point of an adventure RPG is to let the player be the hero, even when that’s a little bit unrealistic or stretches what are supposed to be the normal rules of the setting. Just because we see preteen trainers stopping crimes and saving the world doesn’t mean that’s how they normally expect criminal justice to work! In the anime the Officers Jenny are pretty numerous and never seem to be hard-pressed to find something to do. I don’t think we ever see lawyers, and criminals tend to just get thrown in prison without a trial, but would an episode of the Pokémon anime really be improved by a five-minute scene where Jenny explains due process to Ash and his friends? Continue reading “[prayer circle for no more fire/fighting starters] asks:” →

Sandro asks:

Hello. I am working on a story right now and I need to study a historical background for it. Could you recommend me good books (in English, preferably, and yes, I am willing to actually buy them, and yes, I am willing to spend a lot of my free time studying this.) about Rome and the life of common citizen of the city of Rome? The time frame is around the year AD 20. I need information about culture and customs. What were the ways common families worshipped gods? What were the naming conventions? How strict were Romans in following traditions? Was it common for “middle class” Roman family to have a slave? There is a lot I need to know before I can write my story. I obviously started with reading Wikipedia, but while I consider that useful, I still do think that I should get a more detailed and more trustworthy source of information. Thanks for help.

Let me see… for a basic introduction you could do worse than The Romans: An Introduction by Antony Kamm and Abigail Graham, which is the textbook we use for our introductory Roman Civilisation class in my department. Everyday Life in Ancient Rome by Lionel Casson is a similar level; I haven’t read it myself, but it’s quite well thought of, and possibly better tailored to your particular needs. Themes in Roman Society and Culture by Matt Gibbs, Milorad Nikolic and Pauline Ripat is a bit pricey but covers similar sorts of things in more detail. Continue reading “Sandro asks:” →

its-showtime-synergy asks:

Pyukumuku’s “eyes” are never actually shown to blink or emote (when even Butterfree’s are, despite it having compound eyes). So… yup. That’s an anus.

…ohhhhhh good.

I mean, the distinctly un-mouth-like shape and the parallels with real sea cucumbers did give me pause, but I was willing to give Pyukumuku the benefit of the doubt. Although… what benefit there is in vomiting up your lungs as opposed to farting them out, I’m not entirely certain. In any case, that’s the last time I trust a sea cucumber.

Jeffthelinguist asks:

What is the distinction between animals and Pokémon within universe? Granted they rarely allude to real animals in recent games, but canonically animals due exist in the Pokémon universe, so what do humans use to determine the difference between the two? Some Pokémon are pretty unremarkable and there are animals that are conversely more fantastical than Pokémon. Intelligence seems to not be a defining trait either. And I’m not really referring to game mechanics like “moves” and “abilities”, as surely a real bird can do things like peck and a real elephant could do things like stomp and tackle… heck archerfish can essentially use water gun and could probably splash which is already more moves than Delibird learns.

I… don’t like that word, “canonically.” I think Pokémon has been around long enough, spread itself across enough different media and subjected itself to enough retcons that the idea of “canon” oversimplifies to the point of meaninglessness. References to real animals almost always predate the introduction of Pokémon that would be able to supply those references – cows only exist until Miltank turns up, mongooses stop being a thing when they’re superseded by Zangoose, etc. Continue reading “Jeffthelinguist asks:” →

Jeffthelinguist asks:

So (almost) all Pokémon evolved from Mew. What about the rest of life, did Arceus created humans and/or other animals separately? If humans came from Mew as well (I mean humans supposedly married Pokémon and I think there were other hints that early humans didn’t see themselves as that different from Pokémon), then what type are humans? If they have their own type… what would their weaknesses and resistances be?

This is an area where I have a few old sticking points that make me possibly the wrong person to ask. I’m on the record as not believing the standard line about Mew being the ancestor of all Pokémon and thinking that the Pokémon world’s scientists must simply be wrong about that. They believe it because Mew’s DNA has been shown to contain the genetic code of all known Pokémon – which is not something that any real-world geneticist or evolutionary biologist would expect a common ancestor to have. In fact it strikes me as basically impossible for a common ancestor to contain the genetic code of all its descendants, barring some kind of bizarre time loop in which Mew is somehow also descended from every known Pokémon. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that genetics and evolution don’t work the same way in the Pokémon world, and that the idea of Mew being the original ancestor must be correct given the unknown biological laws of that world. Or it’s literally magic, in which case, who knows? Continue reading “Jeffthelinguist asks:” →

Z-nogyroP asks:

what do you make of the move trump card? for a lot of weird, obscure attacks there’s at least something you can make of what gets them (quash is on a lot of “royal” pokemon, bestow is on pokemon that help others, etc) but i can’t for the life of me make out what trump card is supposed to say about the pokemon that learn it.

So… Trump Card is a Normal-type special attack that powers up as its PP is reduced, starting from a base power of 40 and climbing to an enormous 200 – though you only get one shot, and need to use a seriously sub-par attack at least four times to get there (it has a similar effect in Mystery Dungeon). Its attack animation shows a flurry of literal playing cards. In single-player you could exhaust all but the last PP of Trump Card on wild Pokémon before going into an important fight like a gym battle or something, but against a human opponent I can’t ever really see this move working. Continue reading “Z-nogyroP asks:” →

hugh_donnetono asks:

So Grass is your favorite type, and Vileplume is your favorite Pokemon, right? Why?

To be honest, some of it is probably buried so deep in things that I decided I liked as a 10-year-old that it’s unrecoverable. In fact, part of it is probably that my first Pokémon game was Blue, and Oddish is exclusive to Red, and kids want what they can’t have. I suppose I like Grass-types because I like plants; I grew up with a big garden, and in New Zealand we’re taught to take pride in our unspoiled, primordial forests (which, no matter what Tourism New Zealand or The Lord of the Rings try to tell you, are in decline). Plants are interesting scientifically and historically too. There’s much more to them than just pieces of scenery; plants have incredibly varied and sophisticated ways of life, chemicals derived from plants inspired many important modern medicines, and the cultivation of plants in ancient times paved the way for stable food incomes and the growth of complex civilisations. And I consider Vileplume the archetypal Grass Pokémon: beautiful, gentle, calm, but you must always look and never, ever touch, because plants are inventive in how they defend themselves, and you might never see it coming.

Z-nogyroP asks:

i feel like you’ve almost certainly answered this question before, but how do you think abilities work? some abilities seem more like physical features (tough claws, thick fat, compound eyes) whereas others are a lot more abstract (pixilate, mold breaker, cloud nine). wouldn’t a tinted lens butterfree’s eyes be just as compound as one with the compound eyes ability? what makes a gluttony snorlax have less fat than one with thick fat?

I’ve tried to answer this one before; let’s see… here.

It’s a bastard of a question, to be quite honest with you.

My natural inclination is to say that abilities have nothing in common and they all work in different ways because… why would they? As you rightly note, “abilities” covers a very wide range of traits and skills. There’s no reason to expect that the rules governing a Butterfree’s vision would be anything like the rules governing Snorlax’s rolls of fat. Continue reading “Z-nogyroP asks:” →