Category: Reader Questions

Anonymous asks:

If you had the power to mind control Gamefreak employees while they’re brainstorming Pokemon ideas, what would you have them come up with?

Okay, let’s be clear on one thing here; if I had the power to mind-control Game Freak employees at any time at all, I would use it to make them wire all of their company’s money into my US bank account, then high-tail it to Acapulco and never be seen again. Just so that’s clear.

But aside from that, I would probably start by temporarily blocking out all memory of Pikachu and Pikachu’s popularity, because that is the only way I’m ever going to get them to stop making more goddamn cookie-cutter electric rodents.  Then I would compel them to spend hours on end staring at Mediaeval European bestiaries.  Then again, it’s possible they do that already.  It would explain Murkrow startlingly well.

Anonymous asks:

Just how big is the Pokemon world, anyway? How long would it take to cross a region on foot?

Well if we assume one space in the game is about 1m by 1m which is probably pretty close then Viridian City is not much bigger than 1600 square metres which is, like, smaller than my university campus, so, like, you could probably walk a whole region in less than a day.  Ash is just f&%^ing lazy

Anonymous asks:

How do you get the inspiration for the Nuzlocke character’s personalities?

I had a procedure, actually.  I have ceased to follow it, because it got restrictive and I pulled better ideas out of the aether, but I used to have one.  What I used to do was every time I caught a Pokémon I would use a random number generator to roll a D&D-style alignment for them (Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic + Good/Neutral/Evil) and that combined with their nature was their personality.  Like, Ruby is Bold and Lawful Evil, which hopefully makes sense, and Spruce is Rash and Chaotic Good.  Melissa was Jolly and I had no idea what to do with her until I rolled Lawful Neutral for her and thought “well, okay, obviously she needs to be in fanatical service to a terrifying amoral entity.”  It made sense at the time.  Luna was Impish and Chaotic Evil and come on that writes itself.  Now though I mostly just do whatever works in the context of the story, because there’s enough already there that it’s a better source of inspiration than a random number generator.  Usually I pester Jim the Editor about it and we talk about it and eventually I come up with something that’s at right angles to whatever either of us originally had in mind.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

There’s a fair bit of ninja pokemon: Greninja, Ninjask, Accelgor, Toxicroak, etc. Just for fun I’m going to add a Ninja Type. The pokemon that gamefreak chooses to exude ninja-ness are mostly composed of Poison, Bug, Dark, and Fighting types, so if we put those traits together, it’s weaknesses include fire, flying, ground, fairy… oh no! Those are the worst common type weaknesses, and we should throw in a weakness to pirate type attacks, but at least it resists fighting and ghost.

While you’re at it, I have a few additional new Pokémon types to suggest:

– Light (blinds you with bright lights; Grass-types are immune)
– Sound (deafens you with loud noises; Grass-types are immune again, because f&%$ you, that’s why)
– Taste (incapacitates foes with overpowering spices; strong against Psychic)
– Steam (because we have Water and Ice)
– Science (Fairy and Science are weak against each other)
– Antimatter (using one against a Pokémon of a different type annihilates both of them)
– Human (is actually an enslaved Pokéfan in cosplay)
– Potassium (like Steel but weak against Water and strong against bananas)
– Furniture (is good to sit on)
– Scottish (strong against Rock, Steel, Dark and alcohol, weak against the English)
– Spiders (not like Ariados or whatever; actually made of millions of tiny spiders)
– Hard Cheese (should require no explanation)
– Soft Cheese (similar to Hard Cheese but obviously is softer)