Random Access asks:

I think Macargo’s nonsensical body temperature makes a lot more sense if it’s interpreted as an internal body temperature rather than a surface temperature.

…does it, though? It’s still hot enough to vaporise tungsten. What are we supposed to imagine Magcargo’s body is even made of at that point?

EDIT [response]: Well if the heat isn’t on the outside, it would be less dangerous for macargo to, well, exist, as it wouldn’t be on the outside where it’s hot enough to vaporize the atmosphere.

Okay but even then Magcargo’s body still has to be made of something that a) won’t instantly turn into stellar plasma, and b) can actually keep all that heat in.

Anonymous asks:

Do you think Poké Rides should continue to be a thing in future games and/or remakes? I personally think it would be super neat to see different Pokémon in different regions be used for the same purposes (namely, field traversal). Like in Kalos, Rhyhorn fills in the shoes of both Tauros and Mudsdale!

Sure. I think they’re a cool little immersive feature that shows how much people depend on their Pokémon, and using different Pokémon in different regions would be a neat way of showing the uniqueness of their cultures. What’s more, now that Game Freak seem to have finally forsworn the HM system (godawful clunky relic that it was), they probably have to keep doing it. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to stop at this point.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of giving Magcargo Desolate Land as a Hidden Ability? I KNOW it’s Primal Groudon’s but come on, that “18,000 degrees Fahrenheit” line should be implemented somehow! Plus, Drought was exclusively Groudon’s until it wasn’t, so I see no reason why Desolate Land should remain exclusive to Primal Groudon. It’d get rid of Magcargo’s double weakness to Water and jack up its Fire attacks. Add Trick Room support and we might make Magcargo usable then.

I don’t think I’m wild about it. For one, I would prefer to keep Desolate Land just for Groudon. It’s true that Drought and Drizzle were exclusive to Groudon and Kyogre until they weren’t, but I also think it matters that, even in generation III, Tyranitar had Sand Stream, so auto-weather as a concept was never exclusive to them. That, and I’m inclined to take the “18,000º F” line as the Pokédex just plain making stuff up. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

I’ve been reading about monism and ancient monistic philosophers (particularly Thales), and I find it absolutely fascinating! Could you please explain the topic a little more in-depth, in your usual easy-to-read style? 🙂 I’m also wondering if our current scientific knowledge points to a neo-monistic view of the universe (in that everything is made up of atoms)? (although I understand that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) (matter and energy are the same thing, aren’t they?)

Well, pre-Socratic philosophy is not exactly my “thing” but here goes

So Thales was a Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus (modern Milet, western Turkey), probably around the early 6th century BC, who was famous for predicting eclipses, and discovering that any angle in a semicircle is always a right angle, good stuff like that. We don’t have anything written by Thales himself, but we know a fair bit about his thinking and his achievements in engineering and mathematics because he gets quoted a lot by later Greek philosophers. Apparently, one of the things that Thales believed was that everything is water. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

Do you have any feminine and masculine Pokémon designs that you’re fond of? Or not so fond of? For example, for feminine designs I really like Roselia, Froslass, and Primarina, but I’m not a fan of Jynx or Lopunny. For masculine designs, I’m very fond of all of the Gen IV Fighting-types (minus Toxicroak), but not Machamp or Diggersby. Hm. Maybe I just don’t like rabbits… What about you?

Eh, I think to some extent what counts as “masculine” or “feminine” is probably pretty subjective, and I don’t think the designers consciously intended for all of those to be strongly one or the other. Like, Lopunny or Jynx, sure, but I never thought of Toxicroak as unusually “masculine,” and Toxicroak, Diggersby and Roselia in the games actually have a 50/50 gender split (then again, so does Lopunny). Also my brain sometimes parses the masculinity/femininity of Pokémon designs in weird ways (Hawlucha and Typhlosion are definitely feminine to me) that I wouldn’t necessarily expect other people to share. So I just don’t think it’s all that useful a category for thinking about Pokémon designs unless the in-game gender ratios suggest that it’s consciously being invoked.

Nakedviolentedpenguin asks:

Best song in music history?

Fair warning: I am basically indifferent to most music and a terrible person to ask this question

So it probably depends on what your criteria are for “best” and also what your definition of “song” is. Like, if one of the components of bestness is “standing the test of time,” as it were, then we should probably just eliminate everything from the last hundred-odd years right out of the gate, and the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid were all written originally to be performed with musical accompaniment, even though that’s not how they’re usually experienced today, so they’re probably in the running. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy presumably has to be up there somewhere, and so does Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it’s Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone, which strikes me as having a slight hint of favouritism about it. Heck, by some measures the Lord’s Prayer is probably in the running; it has great spiritual meaning to an awful lot of people, and can be set to music.

On the other hand, like, it’s obviously this.

Anonymous asks:

Not sure if you’ve done this before but it strikes me that there are a number of gen 2 pokemon that are severly lacking and in need of some love. Which design out of Sunflora, Dunsparce and Delibird do you think is most worthy of being saved and how would you make the one of your choice relevant again?

Well, I actually did ramble about Sunflora and Delibird long, long ago when I did a Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever list, the point of which was mostly to bitch about Pokémon who got the short end of the stick with respect to… well, everything, but partly also to try and fix them. I actually love both Delibird and Dunsparce; my suggestion for Delibird was to rewrite Present into a sort of souped-up Fling, that would have made him into a bombardier Pokémon whose specialty was fighting with dangerous items like Iron Balls and Toxic Orbs (as well as just giving him a pile of extra attacks and better stats). Dunsparce… well, Dunsparce seems like an obvious candidate to evolve into some huge derpy dragon-thing with too many wings and cool magical powers. Dunsparce makes sense already and has a cool thing going with Serene Grace; better stats and access to Dragon attacks (especially some kind of signature move that works with Serene Grace – Dragon-type Ancient Power variant, anyone?) might just push him over into actually being useful.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of claims of pre-Colombian contact between East Asian and Indigenous American peoples?

Not something I really know a whole lot about. It doesn’t strike me as wildly implausible – we know there was probably occasional contact at some point between Polynesian and South American peoples, because (among other things) New Zealand and other Polynesian islands had potatoes before European colonisation, and the Pacific Ocean is not naturally a tenable habitat for a potato. I’m not aware of any hard evidence for, say, Imperial Chinese missions to the Americas pre-15th century, though.

Anonymous asks:

If you were an elite four member what would your type speciality and team be?

Definitely Grass – we haven’t had one of those yet (putting Grass in the company of… Normal, Electric and Fairy, I think), because Grass Pokémon Don’t Get Nice Things. Elite Four members generally get five Pokémon, so probably Whimsicott as a lead (with nasty things like Stun Spore and U-Turn), followed up with Breloom, Torterra (I think I’m allowed a starter, since Flint uses Infernape in Diamond/Pearl) and Ludicolo, then Vileplume as my strongest Pokémon.