Anonymous asks:

I’ve always wondered about the peculiarities of Techno Blast; one, why did Team Plasma use CASSETTES, of all formats, to work with it? Two, how exactly does one use a cassette to change a laser’s properties? Three, how the heck do you give a laser the properties of water of all things?

Well, (2) is probably the easiest part of this question – the cassettes record predefined settings for Genesect’s laser cannon that change various properties of the beam (frequency, amplitude, etc). Those settings could be changed manually, but doing so without knowing exactly what you’re doing would be extremely dangerous. To (1), if you want an in-universe answer, it could be that Team Plasma has kinda retro aesthetic sensibilities (they dress as knights, they have a king and a castle, and just look at Ghetsis), and heck, maybe something to do with the length of the development time on the Genesect project. The out-of-universe answer… well, believe it or not, cassettes tapes aren’t obsolete in Japan. Despite having access to plenty of much newer technology, people still use them for recording dictations and notes in office settings, and you can still buy recent albums on cassettes in music stores. It probably doesn’t seem incongruous at all to the hometown audience. (3)… oh, I don’t bloody know; magic. The laser delivers a concussive force like that of a breaking wave. It resonates with water molecules in the air in such a way that it draws them into a pulsing beam. I need someone to write better technobabble for me…

Anonymous asks:

Why do you think there hasn’t been a Dark-type gym yet?

Difficult to be sure, but I suspect that it’s because Dark is the “evil” type (literally, in Japanese) – their strongest and most distinctive powers are all pretty much the antithesis of good sportsmanship, relying on trickery, subversion and malice. Although I don’t think any characters in the games have ever actually said it, that’s a pretty good reason not to have a Dark-type specialist be front-and-centre in your sporting organisation’s public relations, education and outreach programs (and just look at the Dark-type Kahuna in Sun and Moon… the results sorta speak for themselves). Of course, anyone who actually trains Dark Pokémon knows that they aren’t really evil, just pragmatic, and trainers who are already skilled can do wonderful things with them, but, well, their optics just aren’t good, put it that way. You also probably don’t want to encourage new trainers to pick them as a speciality.

Anonymous asks:

ARE YOU DEAD?

YES

I recently chose to spend some time dead, for tax reasons

Accordingly, I booked a few weeks at a luxury resort in the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell, concealed my treasures within a hermetic vault beneath the Southern Alps, and arranged my own murder at the hands of an international cabal of mystic assassins

My remaining agents on the mortal plane have now established a psychic link to allow me to answer reader questions, as well as orchestrate terrible vengeance against all those who have abandoned my service or otherwise wronged me during my absence, in preparation for my inevitable resurrection

The ritual will commence shortly; please do not be alarmed if you are struck by falling frogs while outside, and if you have pets, try to keep a qualified translator of Old Babylonian on hand to record any instructions they may give you

Anonymous asks:

F*ck, Marry, Kill: James from Team Rocket in the anime, Silver, Grunt B from Team Skull.

Okay so

gotta marry B because let’s be honest I’ve invested way too much quality writing into that relationship for it to end in a one-night stand

James has old money and shows kindness to Pokémon and all, but he’s also really annoying and would probably be the most fun to kill, maybe by lowering into a pit of snakes or something

Silver’s daddy issues might make things a little uncomfortable but he also seems like he’d be into really rough sex which, let’s be real here, is worth experimentation, and I do kinda have a thing for redheaded guys, so…

Anonymous asks:

While playing Black, I encountered a Youngster near the Cold Storage who claims to be a gym leader’s son and fights with Bug types. Is that Clay’s kid? I mean Burgh doesnt seem to be old enough to have a kid who is a trainer….

I feel you should know that this question resulted in a deeply uncomfortable conversation between me and Jim the Editor about whether Bugsy, from the generation II games, could possibly be old enough to have fathered a child, including a line about whether he is able to “produce the… requisite… y’know.” The answer, for the record, is “OF COURSE NOT HE’S F&$#ING TWELVE”

And then I went and searched for a Let’s Play video of the relevant bit of the game from Youtube in order to look for the asshole in question and find his word-for-word dialogue, and all he actually says is “My dad is working in a Gym! I am receiving special training there!“ So his dad isn’t necessarily a Gym Leader at all; he’s probably just some random trainer on a Gym Leader’s payroll who hangs out and helps people train, just like we see in most Gyms.

Jim: so this whole conversation was for nothing?
Me: Gonna be honest
Me: seems like

Anonymous asks:

If you could choose to give a group of older, competitively irrelevant Pokemon the Ninetales/Politoed treatment with Electric/Grassy/Psychic/Misty Terrain setting abilities, then which would you choose? BONUS: What about auto-Trick, Magic and Wonder Rooms, and auto-Gravity?

Hmmm… good question…

Well, for Grassy Terrain the first thing that comes to mind is Florges because it fits her flavour perfectly, but Florges doesn’t really suck enough to deserve that kind of buff; likewise Torterra… Bellossom or Sunflora, I would rather give something that emphasised their solar connections… I feel like it kind of makes sense for Wormadam but would interact weirdly with her alternate forms… what about Leafeon? Yeah… yeah I think Leafeon is a good pick for this. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Alex-Littleboots asks:

Assuming you’ve met every new pokemon of alola, what do you think of the addition of signature move/ability for each pokemon(evo line) ? I think it’s very cool since it’s a good way to make them more unique

I think I’ve met almost all of them now (I’m further through than my write-up suggests; I’ve actually finished the Elite Four now). I hadn’t realised they all had something like that, but yeah, I like it – I’ve kinda always had a habit of wanting to give signature moves to everything, and I think there is a point at which you just plain run out of unique ideas. One of my old mantras, though, is that Pokémon “should be good at the things they’re good at” – that is, if we’re told a Pokémon has a certain lifestyle and fighting strategy, then those things should actually be a part of what it can do, and do well, and signature moves/abilities are usually a good way of doing that.

Anonymous asks:

Mimikyu’s become the fan favorite breakout star of this batch of Pokemon and I just don’t know why. Also, are you aware it has an official rap? Just google “Mimikyu’s song.”

Mimikyu is also one of Jim the Editor’s favourite Pokémon, and he thinks it is adorable. I… confess the appeal of a horrifying undead Pikachu is a little lost on me, but I can appreciate the concept. Its true form is so viscerally hideous that, in the anime, Meowth literally dies when he catches a glimpse of it, so it dresses up as Pikachu, the most popular Pokémon, because it just wants to be loved, and you can give it that love. It’s a pretty compelling narrative!

Pokémon Moon, Episode 13: In Which I Assist A Known Criminal In Raiding A Reputable Organisation of Conservationists

Where were we?

Oh yes. I had just returned to Aether House in what I thought was triumph, only to find Gladion there, screaming at everyone in the vicinity.

Something tells me this is not going to be the low point of my day.

After a rage-fuelled battle in which my Raichu and Toucannon narrowly manage to overcome Gladion’s powerful Golbat, Sneasel, and whatever the hell “Type: Null” is, Gladion calms down enough for me to figure out what the hell is going on. In perhaps the single cleverest feint ever executed by a Pokémon villain in the history of time, it turns out that Plumeria’s abduction of Yungoos was a ruse, intended mostly to draw me and Acerola away to Po Town. In our absence, Lillie and her adorable little cosmic nuke were left with no one to protect them but Hau. Now, Hau is admittedly not without his strengths. Indeed, if anyone ever finds a way to convert optimism and doughnuts into a sort of tactical high explosive, Hau will overnight become the foremost military power in the known universe. However, given the way reality has currently chosen to manifest itself, he couldn’t win a battle against the Rotomdex, much less Plumeria, and she was able to double back as soon as no one was watching and kidnap Lillie and Nebby. Gladion is decidedly unimpressed, both at the fact that Cosmog was with Lillie all along (he apparently knows her), and at Hau’s failure to protect both of them. If nothing else, his desire to keep Nebby out of the hands of his own employers seems to have been sincere. Luckily, he not only seems to know where they’ve gone, but actually has a way to get there: he has a boat waiting in Malie City, and orders me and Hau to meet him there posthaste. I momentarily consider the possibility that this is all some kind of complex bluff on his part – perhaps Gladion has been working with Lillie all along and is now luring me into a trap? By this point I’m about 90% sure they’re brother and sister, so he could well be involved in her treacherous plot to rule Alola… but I also don’t really have a better plan than “spring the trap and use Hau as a human shield,” so I agree to go along.

Continue reading →

VikingBoyBilly asks:

If you watch Treesicle’s What Are Pokemon – The Story You Never Knew the archaeologist and pokémon nerd inside of you will die a little. (spoilers: did you know mammals evovled from trilobites? Did you know the earth was once populated by typeless Mews who eventually became all the pokémon we have now? Just a reminder, Mew is the ‘New Species’ pokémon)

…it’s 14 minutes long, do I have to watch it?

Ugh, whatever…

Continue reading →