Anonymous asks:

what do you think about sexualization of pokemon species. Some historical antecedents?

I’m afraid I don’t really know what you mean by “historical antecedents” in this context… do you mean like bestiality in mythology? I’m not by any means well-informed about world mythology generally; I would only consider myself an expert on Greco-Roman myth, and I think what’s going on there is a very different sort of phenomenon. When Pokémon are portrayed in a sexualised manner in fan art and the like, that tends to involve accentuating their human-like traits, particularly feminine ones. The most important cases in Greek mythology involve a male god in the form of an animal (or in the case of Pasiphaë a male animal and a human woman under the power of a god), and make no effort to humanise the animal form in any way. I think the point there is probably something about humans being at the mercy of nature and the divine, ’cause sex is almost always about dominance in Greek culture, and the exemption of deities from human rules and social norms.

A different sort of case again, where a non-human thing does have its human traits emphasised and sexualised, would be creatures like mermaids, and in folklore those tend to be seen as devilish temptresses who are out to kill men, like rusalkas in Slavic myth, so those are about the dangers of temptation and, essentially, a fear of female sexuality. With Pokémon the human is imagined as being emphatically in charge, and the Pokémon are probably in a position where they will habitually seek their trainers’ approval… which makes the whole thing a bit icky the way I see it, in the same way as sexual relationships with children (particularly between teachers and students) are icky.

Anonymous asks:

What would you do to fix darmanitan’s zen mode ability in a way that’s thematically appropriate?

Hmm. Well, the problems with Zen Mode as I see it are:

1) you’re forced to train one Pokémon to fill two roles, and wind up splitting EVs, nature and move sets so you get this messy hybrid (I think Game Freak did anticipate this and tried to deal with it by giving the two forms extremely high base stats in the areas they specialise in – the problem is you’re better off just piling EVs and a nature bonus on top of the high stats enjoyed by the basic form and pushing his attack into the goddamn stratosphere), and 2) Zen Darmanitan is a tank who inherently starts with less than 50% health, which compromises his usefulness. Well, and 3) the alternative, Sheer Force, is such a hugely powerful ability for a Pokémon with a stat spread as extremely specialised towards physical damage as Darmanitan’s, but there’s not much we can do about that.

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vikingboybilly

Do we need another low level grass type attack when we’ve had absorb, vine whip, and razor leaf since gen 1? Has GameFreak decided that Rowlett is incapable of any of those moves (I honestly see razor leaf as a fitting move), or did they just want a non-physical vine whip?

Well, clearly they want a starting move for Rowlet, something it can have at level 5 (just like all the starters had in generation VI), and just as clearly Razor Leaf is too strong for that. It could easily learn Razor Leaf later on. Is Vine Whip appropriate for Rowlet? Eh. Doesn’t strike me as a great match. We’ve never had a bird-like Grass-type before, so new moves that go along with that strike me as nothing more than we should expect.

Anonymous asks:

What exactly is “special defense”?

I don’t think it’s necessarily anything, really. I don’t think any of the stats are anything. Think about speed, for instance. Rapidash has a base speed of 105, and that’s clearly because she runs really fast, but then, Kadabra also has a base speed of 105 and it’s equally clear that this does not mean Kadabra can run as fast as Rapidash. In Kadabra’s case it represents something more like reaction time. So really speed is “anything that enables a Pokémon to gain a tactical advantage which can be represented by moving first.”

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Anonymous asks:

What do you think of the theory that the Rowlet line will be grass/steel, the Litten line fire/poison, and the Popplio line water/fairy, to tie into potential themes of knife-thrower, fire-breather, and clown/entertainer-seal?

Pretty much the same thing as I think of most of these predictions that people like to make in the run-up to a new generation: “It could be right; it’s probably wrong; there’s too little evidence to make a good assessment; I don’t really care.”

batabid asks:

What’s your explanation for how the move Trick-or-Treat works?

Hmm. Well, when you go Trick-or-Treat-ing, you “become” a ghost, or monster, or whatever, for a little while. You take a little journey into the spirit world, and gain new perspectives on the natural and the supernatural. Pumpkaboo is a Jack-o’-lantern, a light that guides souls through the spirit world, so it makes sense it would be able to get other Pokémon to follow it on that sort of escapade. Once you go along with that, you have some of the properties of a spirit yourself, including immunities and vulnerabilities.

vikingboybilly asks:

Timburr should learn wood hammer.

Should he, though? By the time Timburr reaches a level where a move as powerful as Wood Hammer becomes remotely reasonable, he’s not Timburr anymore. It makes sense for Timburr, sure, but in practice what we’re actually saying is “let’s give Conkeldurr Wood Hammer,” and… I don’t think there’s any good reason for that?

EDIT: Pansexualkiba adds: There are some Pokemon who have access to moves in their base form that their evolutions can’t get, though! Like, for example, Riolu and Force Palm or Nidorina and Poison Fang.
To which I would answer: absolutely true, but so what? Those are moves that still make perfect sense for Lucario and Nidoqueen.
Conkeldurr getting Wood Hammer would hardly be the stupidest thing we’ve ever seen in terms of move compatibility, but I think that not giving it to him is perfectly understandable.

Anonymous asks:

Obviously, any regular reader knows that you’re a champion of the Grass type. One thing that occurred to me recently – any thoughts on why is there only a single Grass/Ground type? Wouldn’t that seem an obvious combination to be exploited? Roots would presumably feature heavily. It seems that flavour wise, at least, this one would seem natural.

I think maybe the fact that it seems so natural is actually part of the reason. Ground is, let’s face it, a poorly thought out mess of a type. Pokémon can be assigned to the Ground type because they have powers related to earth and soil, or because they happen to live on the ground, or sometimes, it seems, just because they’re generally tough and resilient. It’s a really vague set of traits, most of which also apply to pure Grass-types. If most of the things that define Ground are also essentially inherent to Grass anyway, there’s never any need to add Ground to a Grass Pokémon, unless you come up against something like Torterra who’s associated with the earth in a much more elemental sense than most Ground Pokémon.

Anonymous asks:

Hi dear pokemaniacal, what do you think about a new “Cosmic” type added to the game? A type that would´t bother much the current metagame, given to very little pokemon in form of Megas to don´t mess too with the current types (like Solrock/Lunatone, Clefable, Sigilyph, Deoxis and the likes or few forgotten ones as Xatu) or just only to the new legendaries to add more mysticism and exclusivity to them. Anyway, what pokemon would you give this type? Match-ups? Would this type have right to exist?

I pretty much have to refer you to this recent question and answer, which is kinda my default reply to anything involving adding more types. I just don’t think it adds anything worthwhile at this point – is the fact that we don’t have a whole type dedicated to Pokémon associated with celestial phenomena really a significant limitation on design? If we want something we can give to legendary Pokémon to make them more powerful, well, sure – we’ve pretty much thrown game balance out the window with them long ago anyway, and there are good aesthetic reasons for wanting them to stand head-and-shoulders above other Pokémon. But personally I’d rather overhaul the way we interact with legendary Pokémon in the games completely.