Anonymous asks:

You know what, there’s kind of a missed opportunity with Diancie. Think about it, Diancie is, canonically, a mutated Carbink, yet Carbink is not related to how it’s obtained at all. I mean, how hard would it have been to have an event-distributed item that somehow evolves Carbink into Diancie? We have a Mythical Pokemon that hatches from an egg for pete’s sake, why not have a Mythological Pokemon that evolves from a regular Pokemon?

I can’t speak for Game Freak’s decision-making process, but that direction is obvious enough and uncomplicated enough that I am inclined to think they probably have some reason for not taking it – most likely because Diancie is portrayed (e.g. in the movie in which she stars) as a special Carbink, with powers to which other Carbink cannot aspire. You might liken it to the rarity of a perfect natural diamond – you can cut and polish diamonds to make them nicer, but ultimately there are some flaws and inclusions that will be impossible to remove, and Diancie needs to be a perfect diamond.

Anonymous asks:

Actually, looking at Wishiwashi’s schooling form, maybe it’s allowed because the school seems to fuse together? With the “main” Wishiwashi serving as the “brain” of the school itself? I mean, it could just be graphical limitations, but the school does look like it fuses into a single organism.

Well, “seems” is the operative word there – the whole point of Wishiwashi’s design is that it’s based on schools of fish that are able to make it look like they’re a single organism even though they definitely aren’t. This rationale might save us from having to explain why Wishiwashi is basically allowed to cheat in Pokémon battles, but I think it does so at the expense of what makes Wishiwashi an interesting Pokémon.

Anonymous asks:

Cruising Bogleech’s pokedex reviews, I learned about the swap of Butterfree’s and Venomoth’s designs (likely by mistake) in Gen I. While I doubt the change to be highly significant, I do wonder how this mistake influenced the franchise. After all, Butterfree is the most iconic Bug pokemon (outside possibly Scyther), one of the beloved first catch of many players, the model for many latter pokemon, and played a big part in the original anime. How much do you think this change affected things?

It’s sort of obligatory for me to point out first that we don’t know this is true; to my knowledge no-one at Game Freak has ever confirmed or denied it, and they probably never will. There’s enough evidence for it that it seems plausible to me, but there are some things we probably can’t ever know for sure – heck, maybe there was a switch, and they did it on purpose, precisely because they preferred the idea of the starting Bug-type ending up as a cute butterfly. But anyway. Assuming it’s true, well… I’m not sure changing two Pokémon affects the fate of the franchise all that much. Venomoth makes just as much sense as a precursor to Beautifly, Dustox, Vivillon, etc as Butterfree does, and Caterpie is going to be your beloved first catch no matter what it evolves into (maybe I’m just saying that because I like Venomoth anyway, but presumably I’m not the only one). Butterfree’s never really been a flagship publicity Pokémon, either. The exception is the anime, where Butterfree is important as Ash’s beloved first catch. I think the biggest difference is that I don’t know if I can imagine the episode Bye Bye Butterfree, when Ash’s Butterfree falls in love and leaves him to go and start a family, being written the same way with a Venomoth, because the emotional moments between Butterfree and Ash might not resonate with a Pokémon so… un-cute. But it’s not as though Venomoth is so thoroughly hideous or alien that it’s impossible to empathise with.

Anonymous asks:

In future games, if we start finding alolan form pokemon in other regions, would they cease to be considered alolan forms? I mean it could be wiped away with an “oh i brought these pokemon from alola, and then they escaped into the wild” explanation. But still..what are your thoughts?

Well, I think probably the most likely scenario is that we just won’t find Alolan form Pokémon in other regions without a good reason for how they got there. Several of the Alolan regional variants have some sort of “backstory” for why they exist in Alola specifically, like Rattata, and Raichu’s Pokédex entry explicitly says that Pikachu evolve into Alolan Raichu only in Alola, but not all of them do, so it’s plausible that some of them could have originated in other regions with similar conditions and spread to Alola, or vice versa. Circumstances could very well be different for each species. For some of them the idea that they are regional variations, that they exist in some parts of the world and not others, is more important than the idea that they are specifically Alolan.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

I’ve seen the god set described as a “typhonian animal.” So, is Typhlosion named after Typhos?

Well, I’m not sure what Set has to do with it, but it seems plausible to me. Typhlosion’s name seems like it ought to come from “typhoon” and “explosion,” which makes some sense because typhoons are violent and destructive, like explosions and fire, but is also a weird choice given that typhoons are primarily calamities of wind and water, and don’t really fit with Typhlosion’s fire-related abilities. The monster Typhon (or Typhos, or Typhoeus, or Typhaon, or however you want to spell it) was also violent and destructive and also had wind and storm powers, but is more appropriate to a Fire-type because he’s buried under Mount Aetna and is the cause of the volcano’s eruptions. And hey, Typhlosion is one of only five Pokémon that can learn Eruption. Typhon is supposed to have had a hundred different bestial heads and voices, so I’m sure one of the bloody things resembles Typhlosion’s. What I’m slightly uncomfortable about is reaching to something from Greek mythology so early in Pokémon’s history, since Game Freak’s designers have explicitly said in the past that they don’t usually look to classical myth for design ideas. The long u-sound in the Japanese name, Bakufūn (or Bakphoon), also seems to point more strongly to “typhoon,” and this is the etymology offered by the Japanese Pokémon wiki. I suppose it could simply be a reference to both Typhon and typhoons. The etymologies are unrelated – typhoon derives from a Chinese word – but Pokémon wouldn’t be the first to notice the fortuitous similarity (Wikipedia cites a book that suggests the Chinese word ultimately comes from the Greek, via Arabic and Persian, but I am deeply sceptical).

Anonymous asks:

Lets up the Blaziken vs Infernape arms race! Mega Infernape with +50 speed (puts him faster than Pheromosa), +25 attack, +25 special attack, and Adaptability as the ability. Too broken? Not broken enough?

Uh… well, I mean, if you’re sure that’s what you want… Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Tired of Nuzlockes? Try this bull$#!t

Jim the Editor and I created a convoluted rule system loosely based on the drinking game Circle of Death (more commonly known as “Kings” in America) for a Pokémon challenge that is more forgiving than a traditional Nuzlocke but nonetheless causes all kinds of random fμ¢&ery. You need a deck of cards (or a simulation thereof) and draw one every time you enter an area where you expect to see a reasonable amount of fighting (i.e. not just routes with wild Pokémon, but also gyms, Team Evil bases, etc – some judgement calls on what counts will be necessary). Each different card instructs you to do something, as follows: Continue reading “Tired of Nuzlockes? Try this bull$#!t” →

Wishiwashi

One of my favourite sequences in the whole of the original Sun and Moon was Lana’s Water trial on Akala Island, which introduces Wishiwashi: a small, very weak and actually rather pathetic-looking fish Pokémon with apparently no special powers. Before you actually enter the trial grounds, Lana leads you through Brooklet Hill to investigate several commotions taking place in the area’s many pools. Each is apparently caused by a group of Wishiwashi, most of which flee at your approach, leaving one behind to take the rap, but if you catch one, you’ll get some hint of what’s going on by reading the text of its Schooling ability. The further you go, the larger the splashes in the pools become, slowly building a sense of menace around whatever it is you’re following, and Lana starts dropping hints about a powerful Pokémon that must be causing everything, even telling you at one point that Kyogre is said to live in Brooklet Hill. Continue reading “Wishiwashi” →

Pokémottos #746

House Wishiwashi: Pick on Someone Your Own Size