I hope I’m not being too forward but do you have anything like a disability or an ongoing thing? I’m deaf, and the idea just came to me out of curiosity. I apologize again if that was too personal of a question.
Nothing like that, no.
Tag: me
Anonymous asks:
I love your insight and your posts!!! You’ve made me think about the Pokémon world in ways I never looked at. Just one question, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by your commitment to this?
AH-HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ahahahahahahahahahahaha
ha
yes
Seriously though… yes, most of the time. But the thing is, I’m an academic, and academia has a way of trying to make itself into the only source of achievement or self-worth in your life, in a way that’s honestly kinda toxic. So even if it’s hard to find the time for it, I think it’s important for me, personally, to keep doing this. That, and it’s good to always be writing.
Anonymous asks:
Do you have a favourite animal? An extant one, that is.
That’s a tough one… I had a conversation about this with Jim the Editor, whose first reaction is that my favourite animal must be cats. My response to that was that I have friends who are cats, but that’s not the same thing as cats being my favourite animal (otherwise I’d just pick humans), and that just confused the hell out of him because Jim doesn’t really “get” pets. I think I might go with the tuatara, which is a reptile we have in New Zealand that isn’t a lizard but looks like it should be, lives for over a hundred years, and has a secret third eye (I am not making any of this up).
Anonymous asks:
Are you a superhero fan at all? Comics, movies, TV series, cartoons, games, anything?
Not particularly. I’ve watched a fair bit of Arrow and The Flash, and some movies here and there (I really enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, which… I don’t know, is that still a “superhero” movie because it’s Marvel, or is it sci-fi? What are the boundaries there?) but I don’t go out of my way to engage with superhero stuff, and I wouldn’t have called myself a fan of the genre broadly.
Vikingboybilly asks:
Why are you a misanthrope?
…I
I don’t…
I’m sorry, is there something else you can be? Like, were there other options or something?
Anonymous asks:
In a Pokémon fanfic I’m writing, my main character’s dad is a gardener/florist, and I’ve just decided to give him a Vileplume and name him Chris in your honor. He’s not a maniac, though. Is that cool with you?
This is thoroughly acceptable to me, provided he also bakes cakes.
Anonymous asks:
What would you study if not Classics/archaeology?
Well, when I was a kid I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I sort of wrote that off as unrealistic when I was in high school, but actually, now that I’m a real archaeologist and dig stuff up and do proper scholarly research, honestly I do think I probably could have pulled it off if I’d kept going with biology and geology. Evolutionary history is a fascinating rabbit hole. I’m not sure I’d have the patience for taxonomic debates, though. I mean, people can literally spend years arguing about whether a single jawbone represents a new species or not.
Anonymous asks:
Do you have a huge school debt?
Not really. In New Zealand we have something we like to call a functioning educational system, so my undergrad degree was maybe 1/5 the cost of an equivalent US qualification, and I have a full scholarship in my US PhD program.
Anonymous asks:
Are you a feminist?
Well, I don’t generally call myself one, because I don’t really know anything about the history of feminist thought and don’t have any active role in any gender equality organisations. I feel like saying “I’m a feminist” would be taking credit for something that I don’t have much to do with. But, I mean, if you’re just asking whether I think gender equality is a good thing… well, yeah.
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.
Pokémaniacal 