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:” →

Pokémon Moon, Episode 18: In Which I Reluctantly Embrace My Alleged Destiny

Four islands, seven trials, four Kahunas, all behind me. In the old days, I’m told, that would have basically been it. I mean, there’s supposed to be a rematch against all four Kahunas up on Mount Lanakila. As far as I can tell, though, that’s traditionally less about the battles themselves and more about getting absolutely plastered on the beach afterwards. The after-party for Professor Kukui’s Final Trial is said to have been the stuff of legends, and saw the genesis of three new cocktails, twenty-four herbal hangover remedies, the Alolan form of Grimer, the character of the Masked Royal, and a devastating new Rock-type move that was instantly banned by sixteen different Pokémon Leagues. Continue reading “Pokémon Moon, Episode 18: In Which I Reluctantly Embrace My Alleged Destiny” →

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.

Anonymous asks:

What is the typical day like for a trainer like youngster Joey?

Joey gets up bright and early every day at 7:00 sharp, devours some toast and a bowl of cereal, and rushes out to try and fit in some training with Rattata before school. He’s not really supposed to bring Rattata to school ever since the infamous Cheese Curds Debacle in the school music room, but he just can’t bear to be separated from his special little guy, so he reminds Rattata every day to stay curled up quietly inside his Pokéball while he’s in class (Joey doesn’t really understand how Pokéballs work, but he assumes Rattata is curled up in there). Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →