Anonymous asks:

Pupitar and Shelgon have always fascinated me, because they’re cocoon stages for Pokémon that aren’t insectoid at all, but draconic. You’d think that if any draconic Pokémon would have a cocoon stage it’d be Flygon, the actual insectoid dragon. Why do you think Tyranitar and Salamence have to go through cocoon stages? And why not Dragonite, Hydreigon, or Goodra?

Hard to say, and to be honest I suspect the answer is just that the designers want to keep us guessing (it’s kind of just an interesting idea in itself; I’m sort of fine with it if it doesn’t come from anywhere). I had another question one time that touches on something similar, with regard to the Bug Pokémon that either have or don’t have cocoon stages, and there my attempt at an answer was that the ones with cocoon stages are the ones that evolve the fastest, and therefore need a form that is solely devoted to hoarding energy, but that doesn’t really help us with these ones. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Nakedviolentedpenguin asks:

What makes a society polytheistic or monotheistic? “When” is the point when a god is “created”? Does exist register of the specific starting of a cult to a god in a culture? Tradition has to begin at some point. Game freak is attempting to create a new generarion based in Greece. And they invite you to work in the plot/background/mythology as an expert. Would you leave your actual work to go with that (in case they are incompatible)? What things would you implement in that games? Game’s names?

1. I assume you’re not just looking for a definition of the words, but why some societies worship many gods and some worship one? No idea. I mean, the three major monotheistic world religions today (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all come from the same place, so we don’t exactly have a large sample size. Also, all of them do recognise multiple divine beings that are lesser than the supreme god, some of which can be the focus of worship – Mediaeval Christians basically worshipped saints and archangels as minor gods, and don’t even get me started on this asshole, who is either a Catholic saint, the Devil, or an ancient Maya god… possibly all three. No one is quite sure. Continue reading “Nakedviolentedpenguin asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

So today I learned that chimpanzees wage war on another. Like, legit ‘organize their social group to systematically kill another social group and take their territory and resources’ war. They also commit child infanticide. What. All of a sudden Primeape makes a lot more sense… and is infinitely more terrifying…

Yeahhhhh, us higher primates are dicks (bonobos, the other chimpanzee subspecies, are pretty chill though; they just have sex with everything instead of fighting). Dunno if Primape is specifically meant to be a chimp, though; he doesn’t seem to do the kind of complex social behaviours that characterise chimps. Bulbapedia reckons he’s actually meant to be a baboon, because of the piglike snout and species designation “Pig Monkey Pokémon” (and before someone mentions that Primeape loses his tail, yes, there are tailless monkeys), but then baboons are also highly social. I think Primeape probably stems from a general observation that “y’know what? Monkeys and apes are dicks.”

Anonymous asks:

What do you think shininess to do with Pokémon evolution, if anything? I remember in the Johto games, the shiny Gyarados was red because it was force-evolved from the naturally-red Magikarp, right? And is it a coincidence that Mega Charizard X has similar coloration to a shiny Charizard?

I’m sceptical. Like, what happens at Lake of Rage, supposedly, is that they’re forcing a whole bunch of Magikarp to evolve. The red Gyarados that you fight isn’t the only Gyarados there, it just happens to have caught everyone’s attention because… well, it’s red. Team Rocket’s original plan in Mahogany Town (aside from perfecting their radio technology for their later plot in Goldenrod City) was to turn a tidy profit converting useless Magikarp into valuable Gyarados – not just one, but several. Honestly they probably would have been better off without the extra attention drawn by the red one, but once people did start getting curious, they opportunistically started making a bit of extra money on top of that by setting up a toll booth near the lake. Or at least, that was my reading of it.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mega Charizard X and shiny Charizard are both black, but I don’t think that’s the direction of the causal relationship; I think they’re both black because of a third, unrelated factor – namely, black Charizard are super badass (also, none of the other mega evolutions have this relationship, and the only one who does, Charizard, also has another mega form that doesn’t).

Anonymous asks:

My turn for an FMK question! Lance, Steven Stone, Wallace!

oh Christ more of these

uhhh

Okay, Lance and Wallace both wear capes so both of them are clearly trying way too hard, but only Lance actually goes out of his way to act like a superhero, which is a major warning sign, so let’s kill him

As for Steven, I am on the record as saying a number of disparaging things about geology (many of them including the phrases “not real science” or “really just applied physical chemistry”) but at least he’s also interested in archaeology and mythology, which is probably the closest thing I’ve got here to a solid foundation for a relationship, so let’s marry him

So I guess fuck Wallace? I mean… sure???

Anonymous asks:

You like mythical and folkloric inspiration for Pokémon, so how come you didn’t talk about or even mention Sun Wukong in Infernape’s entry? You mentioned the ‘world turtle’ myth in Torterra’s!

Well, I don’t strictly remember, on account of because I wrote it five years ago, but in the Disqus comments on that one I said “I am aware of this, but having not read Journey to the West myself there’s very little I can say about it,” which remains true, unfortunately.