#pokemon liveblog

[the-evil-pizza]

Got the rare charizard... After all this time i was losing hope on getting 1 of the special 3

[tobiasdrake]

Fun fact: Whining over Ash and Misty's occasional "Will They or Won't They" ship tease sort of gave us official ages for Team Rocket.

In the Japanese version of Lugia's Explosive Birth, Fleura/Melody needles Misty a lot over whether or not she and Ash are a romantic thing. At one point, Team Rocket is nearby to overhear this.

The Rockets are immediately grossed out by shipping discourse for ten-year-olds. (A reasonable response.) Jessie snaps that Ash and Misty are "ten years too young" for that sort of thing. James, in his usual clueless fashion, follows up that he and Jessie, meanwhile, are "about five years too old" for it.

If you put those remarks together, Jessie and James are 15 years older than Ash and Misty. So, 25.

(Though they might also be 30. James's "five years too old" remark is kind of ambiguous and doesn't necessarily refer to the exact same age that Jessie's "ten years too young" remark does. In Japan, 25 is sort of the cut off point where it's considered weird to still be single. So if Jessie and James are "five years too old" to start dating, then they could be five years past 25.)

[pkmn-researcher-izzy]

Is there any research on whether Pokémon prefer a specific type of ball over another? I really want to make sure that I give Hecate a preferred habitat when I can't have her out of her ball...

[deerdeardarling]

Blue. Waiting for Red at the Veridian city sign.

I know why you are

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

i hope all carbink die and go to hell no matter what

[pkmn-researcher-izzy]

Congratulations!!

Sending all the best from Lilycove!!! <3

SO I HAVE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Dave and I have decided to actually get married, like legally. And soon like, next week maybe. Next Friday?

Not sure on the details exactly yet but anyone who can get to unova in a week is invited to whatever the hell we manage to put together!!!!!

[bulbagarden]

would you accept gas station pikachu.. .

[verdantmeadows]

Giacomo, Ortega, and Atticus (at least only because we've seen him without the mask before this) are all pretty recognizable for the most part, but God, ERI????? MELA?? Mela looks like she's TWELVE without her usual outfit and makeup and Eri is just, like, well. Unrecognizable. Although I'm so glad to see how they all look when not dressed up!

(And for those worried, no, this isn't permanent, it's because they're studying/doing makeup tests since they missed a lot of school as Team Star and Eri specifically wanted them to be in their uniforms since it's easier.)

[lucky-clover-gazette]

woman whose favorite video game of all time is breath of the wild: there’s just something about pokemon legends arceus that feels right

[lycankeyy]

BTW today I learned that if you walk around with your pokewalker with no Pokémon inside (I was doing this while going out to get the battery replaced), sometimes a wild Pokémon will just? Join you? And you can basically "catch" it for free. It's insane how I've been playing HGSS on and off since release and there's still stuff I'm only just finding out LMAO

[thewertsearch]

TG: i thought you were insane kinds of apeshit over the macabre stuff TG: like being all cutesy about executions and smelling cherry blood and such things contrived to get a guy feeling vaguely uncomfortable TG: was that all an act GC: NOT 4N 4CT GC: JUST FUN!

Of course it was real - but it was real because, up until now, Terezi didn't know any other way to be. Enjoying the macabre helped her be ruthless - and she needed to be ruthless, or Alternia would have eaten her alive.

TG: didnt you say youve killed people before GC: TH3R3 1S 4 B1G D1FF3R3NC3 B3TW33N M4N1PUL4T1NG P3OPL3 TO TH31R DOOM W1TH TR1CK3RY, 4ND K1LL1NG SOM3ON3 BY YOUR OWN H4ND

There's not really a moral difference - but when it's your own hand on the knife, you're forced to confront the reality of what you're doing. You can't turn away.

Vriska's fond of killing via mind control, so she's probably the same. It's quite possible that Tavros was the first person she physically killed - the first pair of eyes she actually looked into, before she stole their light.

TG: id like to help you out but i dont know what advice i should be giving […] TG: do you want me to tell you to be a better human TG: or to be a better troll

What, when you get right down to it, is the difference?

To be fair, this is a very complicated question. Ask a hundred people to define right and wrong, and you'll get a hundred different answers. There's always nuance. It always depends.

A random girl on the internet certainly can't give you a definitive answer - but she can give you her take on the current situation. I believe that the vast majority of Alternian murders are wrong, and that Terezi's new discomfort with killing is a good thing.

TG: maybe if you kill her at least we can finally stop obsessing over her

^ verbatim quote from the Homestuck forums.

[the-evil-pizza]

Lucky day on the pokemon gacha

[tobiasdrake]

Team Rocket's catch phrases in the dub are sadly less dynamic.

The english startup to their slogan is, "Prepare for trouble/And make it double." This is fine. It opens up a lot of variations throughout the episodes. But it doesn't segue out of current events the way the Japanese slogan does.

In Japanese, their startup line is, "If you ask us anything/Our answer is the world's mercy." To be honest, I'm not actually sure what that means. The English slogan is much less cryptic, so that's a point in its favor.

But the point is, the slogan is actually an uncontrollable tic for Team Rocket. They literally mean it. They can't bear to have questions asked in their vicinity without it provoking them to reveal themselves and fire off into their slogan.

This happens in a lot of episodes. They'll be hiding in the bushes or something, and the protagonists are running around trying to find their stolen Pokemon. And someone will be like, "Where did they take my Oddish!?"

And then we see the Rockets in the bushes struggling to resist. Fighting with themselves. And then they fail. They explode from the bushes screaming, "If you ask where your Oddish was taken/ Our answer is the world's mercy!" And then they fire off into their bit.

Similarly, their departure bit, "Blasting off again", is fine. It opens up a lot of variations for the bit based on how they're blasting off. But it doesn't account for a number of bad situations they find themselves in where they don't get launched into the sky.

The Japanese line, "Ya na kanji!" or "This feels bad!" wouldn't be as catchy in English with a literal translation. It's pretty tame compared to "Blasting off!" However, it incorporates a wide swathe of negative outcomes. Several episodes feature a "Ya na kanji!" with no "Blasting off!" counterpart for this reason.

It also has a pair phrase. Sometimes when things are going their way, Team Rocket will announce, "Ii kanji!" or "This feels good!" This sets them up for their inevitable fall and "Ya na kanji!" exit. There is no positive version of "Blasting off" that they can use when things seem to be going their way.

I do think the dub did well enough for what it had. This was a children's show in the 90's, after all. The English script wasn't meant to be comparable to the Japanese; It was just meant to entertain American children, and it did its job at that.

But for me, having to adjust to the English voices after going through Kanto in Japanese, it's hard not to feel like something's missing. Ash asks Jessie and James what they're fleeing from and they go into their slogan instead. And I can feel, "If you ask us what we're fleeing from/ Our answer is the world's mercy!" in my gut, even if I can't hear the words.

[sailor-crusader]

Why is she staring like that? You are fighting some cringe failgirl it is NOT that dire.

[aparticularbandit]

so. there's pokemon game called infinite fusions. and a couple of the poketubers i like are doing a soul link of it.

and this pokemon shows up - a fusion of of gengar and latios - and it looks like this:

and i think, squinting at that bandana, that's kokichi.

but no, no, that's surely not a danganronpa reference, definitely not.

and then i found the page with all of this artist's other fusion designs for the game.

and i saw this:

and i was like, okay, cool, that's blatantly kyubey but madoka and danganronpa, that's not the same, that's not a confirmation of anything.

this one is:

HI MONOKUMA.

[mandareeboo]

You realize evolution takes thousands of years for a reason, right? Like. I dunno if my puny human body can take a Glorious Evolution.