Category: Reader Questions

Random Access asks:

Have you been watching teamfourstar’s Final Fantasy VII: Machinabriged?

I have, but to be honest I’m not terribly enthused by it.  I think the somewhat more freeform nature of the story after the characters leave Midgar City, with less interaction between the members of Cloud’s party, makes it difficult to abridge, because it’s very much a plot-driven story with a couple of nice character moments, not a character-driven story that also has a decent plot.  It’s an RPG; it’s intentionally designed to give you space to interpret the characters yourself, which is great in its way, but doesn’t give you that much material for parody in the way that Team Four Star’s flagship abridgement, Dragonball Z, does.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

What if Ability capsules were expanded to be more like TMs? E.g., there’s ACs for Static, Guts, Chlorophyll, etc. and any pokémon that’s compatible with that ability will learn it. There might need to be some “base” or “blank” capsule to get their original ability back in that system, ‘cuz we can’t be giving out Wonder Guard, Water Bubble, or Levitate ACs… maybe those pokémon will just be unable to use ACs.

I’m a little iffy on this, purely because abilities are able to define how Pokémon work much more completely than moves (usually) can.  Like, you raise Pokémon with abilities that are too overpowered to give out indiscriminately, but what about the Pokémon that originally had those abilities?  There’s no point in a Furfrou without Fur Coat, or a Darmanitan without Zen Mode, let alone some of the really mad stuff like a Wishiwashi without Schooling or a Shedinja without Wonder Guard.  A bunch of Pokémon have abilities that don’t particularly matter or aren’t very interesting, but I’m not convinced the implementation of a TM-like system that would be basically unusable by a pretty large fraction of all Pokémon is the way to fix that.

Anonymous asks:

Do you know why “wh” is pronounced like “f” in Maori? Is it an evolution in the language that happened since it was first transcribed with the Latin alphabet? Did linguists think they were hearing something else?

You know, I’ve wondered that myself, but I actually have no idea.  As I understand it, the sound was originally supposed to be a bilabial and not a labiodental like an English f, but when that sound turns up in other languages it normally gets transcribed as f or ph, so I’m not sure what made the Pakeha linguists decide to write it as wh.  I gather the pronunciation varies a lot between dialects, and probably sounds quite different in modern Maori than it did in the early 19th century.

Anonymous asks:

I miss those FMKs!! So here’s another one… Cyrus, Cheren or Hugh?

oh god

uh

marry Cheren because honestly both of the other two kind of scare me and he seems like the sort of guy who’d grow up to get a steady well-paying job as an accountant or something

kill Cyrus because… I mean… he’s basically some kind of death cultist and he tried to unmake the universe so he could become a god, so…

so I guess that leaves fuck Hugh, which… I mean… yaaaaay?

Anonymous asks:

Hey apparently I can’t post links here so if you click on the reddit page for Pokémon conspiracies, there’s a great read called “Pokémon Cults, Infinite Energy, and how it shaped the Pokémon world”. There’s part one and two. I hope you enjoy the read!

(oh god there’s been a third part in the time since you sent this question in; that one deals with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, which I haven’t played yet, so I’ll stay away from that for now)

Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3

I feel like this is going to be one of those things where a detailed response/discussion would take me hours, so let’s… try and just see what I think of the main points, shall we? Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

For moves like Hyper Beam, Giga Impact, Frenzy Plant, etc… How do you like the sound of them being changed so that, rather than forcing the user to recharge and waste a turn after use, they simply fail if used in succession?

Hmm.  I rather like this one.  Probably the most important thing is that it all but prohibits using these moves with Choice items, which presents a trade-off in min-maxing potential that strikes me as an interesting choice.  The moves will still force you into awkward situations quite often, so their power comes with a cost, but they’ll no longer f$#& you over so consistently as to make them unusable.

Anonymous asks:

If they made a region based on New Zealand, would you be a harsher critic, or an excited one? How would you feel? Especially if (no..if they did New Zealand, they will do it)if they design Auckland. Do you have a house/apartment there? Because if you did, wouldnt it be funny if there was a trainer named Chris in the Pokemon version of Auckland. Oh my goodness, what if they designed you as the archeology champion of New Zealand (first they’d have to contact you…of course..), Archaeology Champion Chris of the new zealand region: A moa pokemon, a thylacine pokemon, a LOTR Orc pokemon, Claydol, Sigilyph, and an Ancient version of Vileplume. The ancient version of Vileplume would be similar to the modern one, except it would be three times bigger, a more wilted looking version of the “body”, with ivy all over, and for the piece de resistance, perhaps instead of the rafflesia arnoldii, it would be a gingko biloba looking plant, or ferns, or other ancient plants…

I feel like I would probably be a harsher critic than I usually am, just because the rest of the world (including Japan) tends to have a very idealised vision of New Zealand as very pure and peaceful and enlightened that kind of feeds into our own denial of the real problems the country has, while also missing a lot of what makes our history and culture really interesting.  So I think it would be very easy for a Pokémon region based on New Zealand to fail to meet my expectations.

I don’t think I need to be a Champion; I’m not that impressive, or that good a mascot for New Zealand, to be honest (and I should point out here that thylacines are Australian – New Zealand has no native land mammals except for bats).  Wouldn’t mind having a Grass-type gym though.

Heavymetalloser1 asks:

Do you think the daycare REALLY doesn’t know where the eggs came from, or are they just saying that because they don’t wanna have to tell the protagonist about the Pidgeys and the Beedrills?

Unclear.  In the original Gold and Silver, when eggs were introduced, a Pokémon egg was such a bizarre curiosity that Professor Elm was shocked and elated to be given the chance to study one, which suggests that the writers originally had in mind a world where most people honestly know almost nothing about Pokémon reproduction, but Heart Gold and Soul Silver seem to retcon that to some extent.  And then there’s a guy in X and Y who tells the player that Pokémon eggs “aren’t really eggs,” which I suspect is Game Freak winking at us and saying “yeah, whatever you think you know about this is wrong.”  I think there really is supposed to be a degree of mystery about how this stuff works even in-universe.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

What would you think of a grass/dragon line that starts as a wisteria, then evolves into a anthropomorphized snapdragon, and its final stage is a titan arum? I even came up with names: Mysteria, Dragunia, and Titatunia. It could be the first non-poison type to have stench as an ability. Grass type seal of approval?

Sounds reasonable to me; probably some good reasons to do over-the-top grotesqueness that might be fun, and lets you do a traditional support-oriented Grass-type with a twist.  So sure.