#[came up with this while answering that great zapdos ask]

[professor-vanad]

There are a lot of different methods that electric-type pokémon use to generate electricity... some are more effective than others.

Heliolisk is one of the absolute best, as it has evolved to take advantage of the photovoltaic effect, which allows them to transform energy from the heat and light of the sun into electrical energy – just like a solar panel! So, they can get tonnes of electrical energy stored up just by lying in the sun for a while.

One of the worst, believe it or not, is Magnemite. Though they utilise a very clean and reliable version of an electromagnetic dynamo* their small size means that the volt production is extremely low, so they often cannot produce the electricity needed to justify using their internal generators. This is why they’re drawn to places like power plants and why they can cause so much chaos in them – they have to scavenge A LOT of electrical energy for their colonies.

 (*Dynamos were once a mainstay in steam engines and small electrical devices. If you’ve ever had a clock, radio or flashlight that had to be hand cranked, it probably had a dynamo. They’ve been largely surpassed by more energy efficient generators because they are, in scientific terms, a bit crap.)

[livingwithamouse]

The Best Fanfiction of the Decade (as curated by one idiot)

Hi Friends. 

While I don’t advertise it on here much, I have been a dedicated reader and review of fanfiction for the last 15+ years. While I mostly stick to Harry Potter, I do branch out occasionally for outstanding works. So in the spirit of everyone’s “Best of the Decade” lists, I’ve put together my favorite 15 of the last 10 years. This is not representative of all fandoms, and I’m sure there’s some outstanding ones I’ve missed. Please don’t hesitate to tell me about any I’d enjoy or are particularly good. Otherwise, enjoy!

15. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

I’m adding Methods of Rationality to this list not because it is one of my favorites. It’s not. The writing, while decent, is pedantic, condescending, and messy. The plot takes second-fiddle to Less Wrong’s desire to lord his intelligence over the reader. BUT. This story was one of the most influential pieces of fanfiction over the last decade. It helped bring the medium from a niche little corner of the internet into more of a mainstream idea. I just wish it had been any other story on this list.  

14.  The Queen Who Fell to Earth

I hesitated to add this, but Bob and Alyx were a pair who helped introduce me to the wider world of fanfiction and writing back in the day. This is a Harry Potter/Dragonriders of Pern crossover that spanned 2 fully complete stories and 1 incomplete. Bob fell ill and passed away before the 3rd story could be completed, but what exists is fascinating worldbuilding and attempting to answer the question: “What is a person?”

13.  Pokemon: Origin of Species

I hesitated including this story on my list, as it is incomplete and can get heavily conceptual and aggrandizing, but honestly? The chapters where Zapdos attacks Vermillion is some of the best writing I’ve found on the internet in a while. Thrilling, heartbreaking, the author was so descriptive that I found myself fervently awaiting the next chapter every month. Inspired by the story “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality,” but set in the Pokemon-verse.

12.  Triumvirate

A realistic Pokemon story, this puts some heavy stakes on Red, Blue, and Green’s journey through Kanto. Renaerys knows how to write fight scenes across all of the fandoms they frequent (there’s a deliciously Violent Miraculous Ladybug fic they completed a little while back that did good things for me). 

11. The Broken Series

The Dresden Files is my favorite series non-Potter, and this short 5 story fanfiction series brings Dresden to a satisfying-ish conclusion. The writing is extremely in the style of Butcher, and filled the gap between Skin Game and Peace Talks for me nicely.

10. Traveler

A pokemon fic currently clocking in at over 1 Million Words (and still going), the Kanto arc of this story is one of my favorites so far. Starting out a little fast and a little weak, the author really hits their stride about 7 or 8 chapters in, and the rest of the story truly slaps. Deals heavily with the Legendaries and their effects on the world, while drawing from canon enough to keep the story familiar and interesting. Currently in the middle of a delightful Johto arc, and infrequently updated. 

9. Back to Us

The only Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction you’ll find on my list (despite me binging it like crazy recently). Adrien and Marinette are aged up 7 years after the defeat of Hawkmoth, and the story deals with them reconnecting and dealing with a new villain. Definitely an adult story, I enjoyed the hell out of the character interactions and the fight sequences.

8. The One He Feared

Taure is a masterful author and dedicated adapter of the Harry Potter universe to play with as his own. This short 4 chapter story is no exception. Harry obtains Albus Dumbledore’s memories, abilities, and magical talent from before Albus captured the Elder Wand, and uses these to take the fight to Voldemort. Incomplete (and probably never finished), the 4 chapters encompass a pretty good first arc of the story, enough for it to live here in the top 10 of my list.

7. The Shadow of Angmar

Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings crossover, where Harry is pulled by the Witch-King into Middle-Earth, and spends years being tortured by him before being freed during the Fall of Angmar. From there, Harry must travel Middle-Earth, trying to find a way to adapt their magic to his own. Steelbadger manages to capture Tolkien’s writing style fairly well, mixing him, JKR, and his own style.

6. Incorruptible: The Dementor’s Stigma

A Harry Potter Zombie story with some of the best action sequences in the business. This story elevates dementors from scary to truly terrifying, in that they are the source of a Zombie plague that has wrecked the world. If you ever wondered how magic users would deal with a Zombie Apocalypse, this is by far the best one (the scenes of the plague’s origin in Saint Mungo’s are ESPECIALLY good)

5. Renegade Cause

I spent this entire story saying “Holy Shit? Holy Shit? Holy Shit?” Harry doesn’t receive Sirius’s letter telling him to stay put after the Dementor attack, maiming and killing several aurors in his escape attempt, and things to TERRIBLY sideways from there. There is political drama in this story that is unmatched in almost any other writing I’ve found. (TW: there is a rape scene late in the story, which occurs mostly off-screen but was still super disturbing).

4. Seventh Horcrux

You want some humor? Here, amidst all the drama and despair and morbid writing, is one of the funniest stories I’ve ever read. Voldemort, while evil, is hilarious. He is thrust into Harry’s 1 year old body during the murder attempt, with all of his memories intact. What ensues is mayhem, humor, and Harry!mort attempting to not be evil. Sticks fairly true to canon personalities, minus Harry. Great Story. Great ending. It holds up.

3. A Long Journey Home

A Harry Potter genderbend, post defeat of Voldemort. On a tomb raid with Bill, Jasmine (Harry as a woman), is suddenly thrust back 1000s of years into Ancient Egypt. While this would normally be an ordeal to read, the author does something immensely clever and brings Jasmine back into the story immediately, alternating chapters between Jasmine adjusting to life after thousands of years of being alone, and Jasmine’s journey through history (the Merlin/Morgana chapters are especially enjoyable). Unfinished, and hasn’t been updated in 2 years, it is a GREAT story that stands well even though it’s incomplete.

2. The Game of Champions

Deleted by the author and unfinished, this remains the best adaptation of the Pokemon universe I have ever seen. Red and Blue are amazing protags, and the style of writing and the concepts introduced regarding Titan-class Pokemon, violence in the universe, and the plotline of the original games. The author came out of retirement at the desperate pleading of their fans to write up short summaries of what the rest of the story would be and LORD I wish they’d finished the story (ask me for where the rest is).

1. Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

It was tough choosing between this and The Game of Champions, but I went with Wastelands because it’s complete. A masterpiece of AU fanfiction. Harry is a Time Traveler, but instead of a single journey to the past, it’s a Groundhog Day type repetition, but without the fun and with more blood and screaming and sadness and madness and magnificent writing. While begun in 2008, it was finished in 2010, which means I’m still going to include it on this list. It’s my favorite to this day, and has a sequel, Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time, which took FOREVER to finish and ended mildly disappointingly. But the author, Joe, moved into published novels, and can be excused. Sorta.

[crystalelemental]

Gen 2 was such a fun generation.  Gen 1 started things, and perhaps because of a first attempt, there were some rough patches.  Gen 2 really smoothed a lot of things out, including expanding movepools, offering some new evolutions, and two whole typings to try and introduce more balance to the system.  It's also my personal nostalgia generation, so I have the fondest memories of this gen.

TOP 15: 15) Noctowl - Noctowl would be my favorite regional bird, if it weren't for the fact that it's competitively terrible and beyond help, and Staraptor wound up looking cooler.  Still, Noctowl is a great Pokemon.   Owls are cool, and Noctowl is just a big owl with Psychic-type coverage.  It was always weird to me that it got Normal/Flying.  Why not Psychic?  Is it because you didn't want it to compete with Xatu and Lugia?  It probably wouldn't regardless; just let the poor thing be Psychic/Flying already.

14) Lanturn - Water/Electric is such a cool typing.  Water, Ice, and Electric type coverage is fantastic, and Lanturn gets all of it, on top of some serious bulk.  It's also just a big round friend, and I love it.   Actually cute final stage evolutions are a rarity, for some reason, so it's nice to have one that's both adorable and unique.

13) Murkrow - Dark types were introduced this gen, and while, as a Psychic lover, you may assume I hated that change, I actually loved it.  I'm not opposed to Psychic having answers; in fact it was much needed.  Murkrow is one of the best new Dark types, I felt.  Not in terms of actual utility.  Houndoom was way stronger, and Tyranitar was a pseudo-legend so...there's that.  Even Umbreon probably did better than this thing because it could stall more effectively in a generation all about stall.  But Murkrow stood out to me because of it's cute design and mischievous nature.  Shame that it's only in Kanto, after you beat the League.  You know.  Along with every other Dark type bar Umbreon.

12) Politoed - King's Rock must have been a very hit-and-miss evolution item, creating two split evolution paths, one of which was outright not as good, and one that was outright better.  Slowking was the not as good evolution, and Politoed is the better evolution that seems to get everything.  Pure water typing is working out a lot better as a rounded Pokemon than Water/Fighting, and Poliwrath just never got any useful tools, while Politoed got Drizzle of all things. I really love Politoed.  It's a sleek and cute design for a final stage, and it makes more sense as a frog design.  It is an odd choice of design for the Poliwhirl evolution, but it's such a good final form.

11) Magcargo line - You know what typing sucks defensively?  Fire/Rock.  4x weaknesses to Water and Ground, a common defensive typing, and the most common offensive typing.  But you know what's a really good offensive typing? Fire/Rock.  Fire blasts through a lot of threats, including the new Steel type, while Rock hits a lot of things Fire can't.  It also gets some fantastic coverage moves, and decent support.  Unfortunately, it's defensive and slow.  Slow enough that even Shell Smash can't save it.  It's a very sad state of affairs.  That said, Magcargo is cute.  An adorable lava snail that I wish I could pet in Refresh, without buring my hands off.

10) Furret - Again, cuteness wins the day.  Furret is 100% adorable, and if there were any early-game "rodent-type" that deserved to get more to work with, it's Furret.  I, personally, think it's the cutest of them all, and should at least get a bit of a buff in stats.

9) Jumpluff line - I love Jumpluff.  I love its entire evolutionary line.  Hoppip is super cute, and its evolutions are just as adorable.  Too bad they are awful. Like, competitively they have nothing.  Even in-game they get very little in terms of attacks or roles.  It's such an unfortunate situation for them, and they're very high on my list of things I wish would get more tools.  But it will always have a special place in my heart as the adorable cotton puff.

8) Xatu line - This is one that became more solid after the first mystery dungeon games.  It's role as some strange, mythical fortune-teller is fantastic.  Xatu is just an interesting design for a Pokemon, and Psychic/Flying was a cool typing.  It was a pain to catch because Natu knows Teleport, but man, what a unique bird this line is.  I also really appreciated the time it spent as the bulky Magic Bounce user.  You know.  Before Mega Sableye.

7) Steelix - If someone were to ask about my favorite gym leaders, Jasmine would easily be on that list.  A large part of that is because she's cute, but has this giant metallic snake creature as her signature Pokemon.  You never expect it.  Even on its own merits, Steelix is just cool.  It's a refined version of Onix, offering obscene physical defense, respectable attack, and...probably nothing else.  It does have a lot of flaws from a competitive standpoint, but it's got a strong design and a great presence.

6) Slowking - Slowbro was a great Pokemon in Gen 1.  It was never really my favorite, but I had to acknowledge it was good.  Slowking, though?   Now we're talking.  It's basically a specially defensive variant of Slowbro's defensive variant, and as such, was...never really as good.   Boosting for Psychic types always allowed for special defense to grow, so you needed good base defense, which Slowking did not have.  Its movepool also didn't differ from Slowbro in any meaningful way, so it's basically a carbon copy that had less going for it.  Still, I adored it, because of the design, and its role in Pokemon the Movie 2000.  I think it looks a lot nicer than Slowbro, and it feels like a more impressive final form.  Even if it's probably not.

5) Mareep - IT'S SO CUTE!  I love the entire Mareep line, but Mareep stands out as one of the cutest first-stage evolutions in the game.   Honestly, Gen 2 really stood out because of how cute a lot of first stage Pokemon were.  But Mareep? Mareep is unbelievable.  Prior to Mareep, I wasn't the biggest electric-type fan.  I loved Raichu, but Electrode, Magneton, and Electabuzz weren't exactly that interesting, with Zapdos also being my least favorite of the birds.  But it was with Mareep that I had a really cute Pokemon that evolved into a still cute but powerful creature.  I always try to get a Mareep when I play Gen 2. It's easily one of my favorites to train in-game.

4) Espeon/Umbreon - Flareon may be my favorite, but Espeon and Umbreon were my favorites for a long time once they showed up.  Psychic is a great typing, and Umbreon is just such a sleek design.  The two are a great new addition to Eevee's evolutions, and the choices they made with these two are nothing short of divine.

3) Kingdra - Talk about an improvement.  Water/Dragon meant you basically had a weakness to all of three attacks.  One was a TM, one was a move I think only it learned, and one was a move only Dragonite learned.  Best of all, its even stats meant it was pretty solid at any role back in the day.  I also really like the design.  It just feels like an ancient sea-based dragon, and it's fantastic.

2) Celebi - Mythic legends suck.  Not because of what they are, but how they're distributed.  If it weren't for the show, or rather the first movie, I wouldn't have known Mew existed.  But by the time generation 2 came around, I knew about Celebi.  And I wanted one so bad.  But I couldn't get one!  Because they're based on nonsense events you have to go to.  In gen 3, I got a Gameshark, and the first thing I did was hack in a Celebi.  I wanted one so badly.  It is absolutely adorable, and I love anything with time-focused powers.  Being a psychic-type is also a huge plus for me, and it's just...such a good Pokemon, and such a good legend.

1) Misdreavus - I don't think there can be any comparison.  Misdreavus is a godsend.  It's such a cute ghost type, and as the only other ghost besides Gengar, it stands out incredibly by virtue of not having a Poison typing, and thus being able to handle Psychic types.  Between aesthetics and its role as the first pure ghost, I love Misdreavus a lot.

BOTTOM 10: 10) Granbull line - Not a bad one by any means, but it's another aesthetic thing. Before the advent of Fairy type, this being just a standard normal type thing also didn't really help it stand out.  I don't dislike them, but someone had to take the spot...

9) Shuckle - I really don't know what Shuckle is supposed to be, and I think that's why it weirds me out a bit.

8) Yanma - Not a bad Pokemon, just...not as interesting?  It's a Dragonfly that's just another Bug/Flying type.  It doesn't really stand out much to me.

7) Quilfish - A bit more unique and dynamic, but misses the mark a bit.  I just feel it's a bit too plain?

6) Octillery - Oh man.  Okay.  Remoraid is a cute little thing, but Octillery just...it doesn't really make sense to me.  At all.  Why are you an octopus?  How does this relate to what Remoraid is?

5) Delibird - And now for the complete opposite of #7 and #8.  Yanma and Quilfish are a bit plain, but Delibird, by comparison, is an interesting concept and design.  It's meant to look like santa, with its tail being the sack of toys.  It only uses Present, which can hurt or heal the enemy.  It's a really cool concept...that does little for it.  I can think of few Pokemon less useful than Delibird, and some of those at least evolve into something more useful.  It's gotten more options as time goes on, but it has virtually nothing going for it.

4) Tyrogue - Baby Pokemon are not my favorite.  I just don't like them.   Tyrogue is, design-wise, one of the better ones, I feel.  But its evolution method is obnoxious.  I hate it.  I absolutely hate it.  Three possible evolutions, based on the stats it has when it levels.  I liked Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee well enough. Hitmontop is okay, but I don't think it's all that interesting, since it mainly kicks like Hitmonlee but different, and Tyrogue as a pre-evolution to all of them is not a terrible idea, but is definitely not my favorite.

3) Magby - I didn't care for Magmar all that much, and Magby just isn't that cute as a pre-evolution for it either.  There's little aside from just me not liking the look of it.

2) Elekid - There are many who disagree with me, but I do not like its design.  At all.  It just doesn't look right.  The electric plugs on its head are just goofy to me, and I didn't care for its evolution either.

1) Aipom - I mentioned this with Primeape, but I don't really care for monkeys.  They are definitely not my favorite animal.  Aipom is at least cuter, but it's also weirder.  Why is the end of its tail a hand?  Why does it have to be like this?  That's so weird to me.