Tag: misc

YO DAWG so in my earlier question you talked about roll with it. So what about you? If you wanted to go about a fanfic or write your own journey or of a character as a trainer what you do? Would you use the show, the manga, or the games as a template? Or would you create your own and mix and match as you see fit?

Oh god it’s you again

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about writing fan fiction.  Well, I have, but not about a standard “trainer goes on a journey” kind of thing.  Still, I suppose that’s not really what you’re asking.  I think the thing about fan fiction is that it’s quite different from what I normally do here; the whole point is that it’s what you think the world should look like… so ultimately it probably wouldn’t follow either the games or the anime very closely at all.  Anything more specific than that really depends on the demands of the story, I would think.

Is this a request?

Yo Yo Yo Pokemaniacal. Has animal fighting implications made you feel awful in pokemon, for example since pokemon look like animals or if you think they are animals despite differences you may think its just animal fighting. A blog named LadyGeekgirl wrote “The Pokémon Problem” on that. Last I checked the blog didn’t have comments but last I saw it was on August lol. And also how is the X and Y plot so far?

Feel awful?  Well, not really.  I’m not sure if you’ve read it, but I have dealt with the subject in some depth in the past – it’s probably the most popular thing I’ve ever written.  Basically it all comes down to how much choice you think the Pokémon have in the matter, and I tend to think the answer is actually “quite a bit.” http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/34093585438/the-ethics-of-pokemon-training

The article you mention – here’s a link, by the way, for other readers http://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/in-brightest-dayish-the-pokemon-problem/ – well… I mean, yes, obviously, the complaints are fair, and I think it’s best if we keep those in mind.  I also think the franchise produces by far its most interesting stories when the developers keep them in mind, and the same goes for fan fiction.  It’s not exactly a clever point, though.  I mean… I don’t think people should get to say “Pokémon portrays violence involving animals” as though it’s a great insight.  Don’t just say it; work with it!

EDIT: Oh, yeah, you asked about X and Y.  Well, I’m not all that far in yet, so I don’t really know.  Still haven’t found out what Team Flare is really all about, or what Lysandre has to do with anything (I mean, I assume he’s important, and the game keeps dropping hints that he’s a bad guy and maybe the leader of Team Flare, but his ethos doesn’t really seem compatible with theirs, so eh?).  I’ll keep everyone posted, of course!

DOUBLE EDIT: People really say “yo yo yo”?

This will be my last one from me mate, first of all even if those were jokes, who knows how serious were they. After all many jokes start out as being serious. The writer, Andrew Bridgman, may be was being serious or not. You can’t tell comedic pieces of writing. I’ll tell you this, yeah it was wrong for me to assume you were American. American centric perspective sucks in this global world. I also realize there are far worse controversial games. Perhaps you can make an article on that.

“PS. To that guy who said people largely moved on, I say yes and no. Any animal abuse jokes come up his name [i.e. Michael Vick; see previous question and comments] is always revealed. Even pokemon ones his name pops out here and there. Which makes you wonder selective memory. People tend to forget a lot of terrible actions and deeds, yet they are good at remembering few of those too. Selective bias memory I tell ya. Then again the forums and youtube aint the whole world and bark much louder than its bite”

I do hope they are joking or satirical.  If they’re serious… well, they don’t stand up very well.  You don’t even need to take them point by point; just one comment to each will do it:

On the miserable Pokémon list: This list invariably takes the perspective “what would it be like for us to live this Pokémon’s life?”  It doesn’t explicitly say it, but it does.  Most animals are, in fact, quite capable of dealing with the basic facts of their own biology and having perfectly happy lives despite not being able to live like humans.  I think the most egregious is probably Slugma – why would anyone ever assume that a creature which doesn’t sleep would be tortured by inability to sleep?

On the absurdly powerful Pokémon list: The Pokédex cannot be trusted when it speaks in numbers, superlatives, or absolutes.  Alakazam proves this, because an IQ of 5000 isn’t merely impossible, it actually doesn’t make sense.  High IQs are difficult to quantify because our sample size is so small and it’s so difficult to come up with ways to differentiate between two similarly intelligent geniuses, so any IQ score above maybe 180 is little better than a guess.  ”IQ of 5000” is just a nonsense statement, and demonstrates that the in-universe authors of the Pokédex a) have limited technical knowledge and b) are prone to outlandish exaggeration.

So…Is there a certain criteria for asking questions? Do the questions have to be about Pokemon, or do you have a separate blog for those?

There is not, although I occasionally get too busy with my work out here in the real world and forget about them, or leave them to fester for a couple of weeks.  I suppose there’s no reason you couldn’t ask me about something unrelated to Pokémon, but the answer may be disappointingly dull (for instance, from time to time people ask me to compare Pokémon with other video games I’ve never heard of, and I have no option but to plead ignorance).

Monster/animal human bonding partnership fictions exist. Digimon, Zatch Bell, Monsuno, Yugioh has it too, even Persona series has something of it with demons. Dragon’s prophet, Even How to train your dragon. But what has pokemon bonding thing that stood out above the rest? Maybe you can even right an article on it, comparing relationships to other series.

Well, I haven’t actually heard of half of those… and I haven’t seen How to Train Your Dragon, or anything past the first season of Yu-Gi-Oh (how do you have a ‘partnership’ with a trading card, anyway?  I mean, sure, I can see how that was where Yugi’s ‘heart of the cards’ bull$#!t was heading, and his favourite creature is human anyway, but still, wha?).  So, to be honest, an article on that could easily stretch to several months of work.

I do know Digimon, and as far as contrasting that with Pokémon, I don’t know that Pokémon does stand out above it.  Obviously the video games are far more numerous and successful but I’m inclined to suggest this has more to do with aspects of gameplay than with anything related to their respective themes of partnership, while as far as the anime goes, Digimon is pretty highly acclaimed for its characterisation, and much as I love the Pokémon anime I have to admit that the first two seasons of Digimon are a good deal deeper, and deal at least as convincingly with the partnership thing.

So I guess my final answer to this question is “eh.”

Dear Sir, I have been deeply interested in ethics, discovered video game’s. GTA and CoD being most famous of these things and I discovered your article and read it. Also I have read opinions of others. I concluded that people easily can make simplified yet incorrect of judgments. Am I wrong? Also, is it slavery consent or not? Same with Stockholm syndrome. From me, I think its a case of what has some similarities but not specifically. However, people generalize on the surface. Y/N? Thank You Sir

Okay, I admit I’m not… totally sure exactly what you’re asking, but let’s see… You asked ‘yes or no?’ so…

Can people easily make simplified yet incorrect judgements?
Well, yes.  All the time, unfortunately, especially about subjects that aren’t matters of measurable, objective fact, like ethics.  That probably includes me, much as I might try to avoid it.

Is it still slavery if there is consent?
…hmm.  You know, I’m not sure.  If you look at a dictionary definition of slavery, I don’t think it matters – slavery is simply the state of being owned by someone, regardless of how you came to be in that state, and I suppose in theory you could become a slave willingly, if you lived in a society that permitted it, by selling yourself.  I don’t think that’s common, though, and I suspect that in practice we’d be more likely to consider that indentured servitude rather than slavery.  I think slavery is generally understood to imply lack of consent.

EDIT: I suppose there’s debt-bondage, where a person who cannot pay a large enough debt is automatically enslaved to the creditor, but I don’t know if I’d call that consent, as such, even in a society where debt-bondage is accepted as the natural consequence of defaulting on a loan.

Stockholm syndrome?
Well, Stockholm syndrome refers to developing sympathetic feelings for one’s captor, and you can’t really call someone your captor if you’re consenting, can you?  I’d say that one is a contradiction in terms.

What party members have you used throughout Final Fantasy?

I tend to swap them in and out.  Is that weird?  I sort of get the impression that the designers didn’t expect a lot of people to play like that, because the materia system makes switching party members on a regular basis a huge pain.

Oh, except for Yuffie.  I never used Yuffie much because I have irrational hatred for her.