plzignr

[plzignr]

Saw episode 6 premiere of amazing digital circus, and oooh boy did it give me thoughts about this guy:

My read on his behavior is that Jax believes he is human, but isn't sure he *isn't* an AI. It seems to me he certainly believes everyone else (except *maybe* Pomni) is just an AI.

I think Jax believes that he *has* to behave as an archetype in order to continue his existence in the wacky universe he's stuck in.

And what a tragic existence- stuck in a world where you are almost certainly that everyone there isn't real, and you have to play your part as the joke of a being to make sure you don't literally break apart, and no wonder he is so terrible to the other characters, he doesn't believe they are real. Basically he thinks the setup is this:

My read is rhat Jax has basically taken the idea of Solipsism (that you can only know that *you* are a conscious being) to the logical extreme, and just assumed everyone else around him, isn't.

This may also be why he has taken the abstractions of Kauvmo and Ribbit so hard, abstracting means they *were* human.

But this has made me wonder... Can we the audience determine if any of these characters are a conscious being or an AI? And I think for one character, as of episode 6, we officially can.

Kinger, I think can *now be confirmed* as an AI.

There was a particular from a line in episode two with Gummygoo that Caine says-

"Can't mix up the humans with the sentient AI, because if I lose track of who's human and who knows what could happen [look of horrified existential dread]- anyway in off to drink water haven't done that in a while!"

The way CAINE phrases this implies that it has happened before. And I'm always immediately suspicious of anything CAINE says; I mean it's CAINE

We also know that CAINE will occasionally bring other sentient AI into the tent of his own accord- he has made Bubble himself

we know bubble is another sentient AI.

CAINE also brought Ming into the tent as a joke (though Ming may not be sentient), so at some point he was not *unwilling* to do this, but he is *now*.

We also know that Kinger is the oldest resident of the tent, as we've been told the order of arrivals earlier in the series, so if CAINE is currently incorrect about who is human, Kinger is the most likely to have been confused at some point since none of the current residents could have confirmed he was NOT a sentient AI.

The other clues we have that suggested Kinger might be a sentient AI rather than a human is his insanity gimmick. It is specifically remarked upon by Ragatha in episode 5 - 'I don't get it sometimes you're absolutely insane and sometimes you have these incredibly insightful moments' -Ragatha 'I guess I just have a resilient mind' -Kinger

But if you look back on it, the times where Kinger is more aware/less crazy is when the cast is on a new Adventure. The only exception being when they were in the canyland adventure, but when they are on this adventure, GummiGoo and other sentient AI are in the program so maybe this took away Kingers processing resources?

Anyway the conversation between Ragatha and Kinger in episode 6 where Kinger gives Ragatha amazing advice and a little bit of therapy made me wonder much like Ragatha why hasn't Kinger abstracted?

I mean this charachter has watched all his previous friends disappear before him, watched his wife abstract in front of him, is actively insane, etc.

Granted we haven't seen anything that directly causes abstraction in the show, though it appears to be trauma related as Pomni started to abstract when she had given up on exiting in episode one

So-

There are two options we know of that this can be as we don't know the root cause of abstraction:

Option A) Kinger is correct and he just has a resilient mind

Or

option B) Kinger is incapable of abstracting because he isn’t a human.

In episode 6 we see Kinger so something no other character has done so far:

Make something for one of CAINES adventures.

Kinger makes the butterfly, which Alters CAINES rules of the game by giving Ragatha a life back. Kinger also informs Ragatha when she asks how he knew this that he didn't, he just made it up.

So in my opinion either every character can do this, or only AIs can.

I'm inclined to believe only AIs can.

[plzignr]

I largely agree with TBskyen on this, but with one major caveat.

My read on this is that Jax honestly believes he is the only human amongst the group, with the exception of Pomni, who he is unsure of.

I think Jax is operating under the assumption that everyone else is a sentient AI like CAINE.

My reason for this is based in the questions he has posed *about* the other characters:

We have seen Jax question aloud the authenticity of the other characters & their behaviors. He has wondered aloud to the group if they think Gangle is even *capable* of happiness. He notes that Gangle's mask breaks every day. I am of the opinion that he thinks Gangle just isn't *capable* of being happy because it wasn't how she was programmed.

He believes Ragatha *has* to be nice, even at the expense of herself and her own well being. He notes to Pomni multiple times throughout the series so far that Ragatha will forgive her, or have to forgive her because she's just like that. Again, I think he is assuming this is because it's baked into her code, not her personality. (Honestly could be either).

For kinger Jax just assumes Linger is just crazy, but you'd expect a sentient AI to be incoherent and randomly babble occasionally when it is trying to be sentient .

We know that both of those characters predate Jax's arrival so it would make sense for him to potentially assume they are sentient AIs like CAINE, because if he is sussing out of they are actually real humans by pushing them to their limits (something that can only be truly determined by the event of abstraction), and he has pushed them to what he believes is their limit and they have not abstracted, then *hey they must not be human right?*

I think this is also why when Pomni is expressing concern about how her fellow teammates will feel tomorrow after the game Jax looks at her confused and asks her "you know none of this is real right?" I don't think that's referencing the game they are playing, I think Jax is also referring to Gangle, King, and Ragatha as not real.

I think this is also why Jax had taken the abstractions of Kauvmo and Ribbit harder then anyone else. He has confirmation they *were* human as sentienr AIs are not capable of abstracting. Now everything he did or didn't do when he acted like they were AIs would be put into the context where it actually *is* his fault (at least to Jax not necessarily in actuality).

Additionally in episode two when GummiGoo is removed from the tent I always got the vibe when CAINE says who knows what could happen, that CAINE *does know* what would happen, as if he has done this before hence his horrified look, which to me opened up the possibility that at least *some* of the main cast might be sentient AIs instead of human.

We see in episode 6 that Kinger is also able to alter the parameters of the adventure, to at least *some* extent with his butterfly. Something that presumably only CAINE or other sentient AI should be able to do. [More on that in a different later theory post]

Haven’t seen this covered much so I wanted to know your thoughts: Why do you think Jax refused to have a shoot-out with Pomni at the end?

My personal read is this:

At the end of the official game, Pomni hugs Jax in genuine joy and he freaks out and pushes her away, without 100% understanding why. It's an entirely reflexive action caused by some sudden subconscious swell of panic (it visually resembles something like a CPTSD episode to me, but ymmv).

Pomni sees that and goes "oh, okay, maybe he's not comfortable with physical touch, that's fine... oh well, I'll just go back to Playing The Game with him, we were having fun doing that." So she tries to set up the "mutual betrayal" game to keep playing, but Jax, kind of out of it and still rattled by his own overreaction, isn't quite playing along at this point, he's just looking for an out. So, "oooh yeah, you can betray me."

My read is that at this point Jax is like "ooooh I get it, she just pretended to actually enjoy my company in order to lower my guard and betray me and win the game. Okay, I understand this, that's what the hug was about. Sure, I'll let her have that. Phew! What a relief!"

But Pomni isn't trying to push Jax away, she's trying to get closer to him, to engage him in a way he's comfortable with. She can tell that Jax stopped playing their mutual game, and started playing his own "I am the bad guy who everyone hates" game.

So she refuses to actually betray him, and refuses to play along with his bad guy routine and refuses to validate that she wants to hurt him. That makes Jax annoyed because that would imply that she didn't just hug him to lower his guard, and maybe she actually meant that hug as a genuine expression of affection, and we can't have that, so the defense mechanisms kick into gear.

Now Jax's game is to provoke Pomni into finally shooting him, so he can confirm to himself that she hates him, while Pomni keeps looking for ways to get Jax to understand that no she doesn't. And the more Pomni pushes, the more upset and uncomfortable Jax becomes, and the more determined he gets to push her away, so he escalates his behaviour.

Pomni hits the Kaufmo button a couple of times, but then she says basically "what if this is the reason people abstract?" My read is that she means "I'm worried you're going to abstract if you keep pushing people away!", but what Jax seems to hear is "Kaufmo abstracted because of your behaviour!"

And THAT trips the guilt in him, which leads to an outburst, which leads to that supremely creepy moment of the mask sliding back into place over his face as he tries to completely shut down and dissociate from the situation. "I have no feelings, I'll forget you if you abstract tomorrow, I am emotionless."

Which, again, Pomni doesn't buy that shit and also she's getting pissed now, so she starts a physical fight to force him to drop the mask again. Jax is used to Gangle and Ragatha who just want to de-escalate, and Zooble who just wants to walk away, so this takes him extremely off guard on the one hand, but on the other hand I think Pomni also just reads him correctly. Jax doesn't fight back against her because... just like Pomni doesn't want to hurt her friends, Jax doesn't actually want to hurt Pomni either.

What he wants is to push her away, to put up impenetrable walls between them so she can't get close to him emotionally, and in so doing protect her from getting hurt. Jax thinks he's a fundamentally unlovable person, someone who is only capable of causing pain and misery to other people. Someone who, if anyone ever shows him true love and affection, he can only repay them by failing them, disappointing them, hurting them, betraying them. Just like he failed Kaufmo... and maybe Ribbit, even.

The catch-22 of course is that in order to push Pomni away, Jax has to hurt her (that's his whole "I don't care about you! You are my playthings!" speech), which of course proves his self-image right that he's an unlovable person who can only hurt other people, which proves that he was right to push Pomni away by hurting her, which proves that he's an unlovable person who can only hurt other people, and so on. The circular, self-reinforcing logic of self-hate.

[plzignr]

Ranking Pokemon by how much I think they break physics- Part 2; 004-006 the Charmander Line

Ah, Charmander. My First Pokémon. Probably my favorite Pokémon if I allow my nostalgia to win out, & probably the most popular starter of the first generation of Pokémon .

I love it so.

Unfortunately it is the first Pokemon in this series that also breaks physics.

Fortunately it doesn't break physics in a terrible horrible world shattering way. It does so only in the, this Pokémon should either be constantly starving to death or consuming literally everything it can possible get it's adorable three toed claws on.

See Charmander as an orange little Salamander could exist, orange little salamanders do exist after-all. The problem, is of course, the tail.

See, as the first fire type Pokémon that you're going to come across in Hoenn, Gamefreak and Nintendo decided in the design to make it very clear that this was the fire type Pokémon, by having it be y'know... on fire. As a consequence they gave it it's now iconic tail. Which is why it breaks physics, if not at least evolutionary biology to exist.

it's fine, it definitely won't kill us all by violating the laws of thermodynamics... probably

Per the pokedex:

Later generations are similar, but in essence. If Charmanders tail isn't burning brightly, it is in poor health.

Evolutionarily speaking it just takes too much energy to sustain that kind of chemical reaction for as a permanent basis to give any kind of advantage, and from the pokedex entries we know it *has* to be a constant chemical reaction.

So the only way that would make any sense to happen evolutionarily is as selection bias as some kind of mating display/preference.

Way back when on this blog I did an estimate of how many calories this creature would need to survive, and if it converted the food it ate to methane gas perfectly, it would have to eat 100 lbs of material every day, just to keep that tail burning. Which, in the Pokemon universe isn't a terrible amount, because a Caterpie weighs like 6 pounds subsisting on presumably nothing but leaves, but in our universe there just isn't a way to convert energy that efficiently.

Secondarily, and this is where it breaks physics is: how does this creature cool itself? It is constantly heating its backside with a nearby fire constantly radiating heat onto itself. (You'd think it'd be convection, but no because the heated air goes more or less straight up).

I apparently will have to rant about this almost as much as I rant about it in spaceship designs: YOU HAVE TO COOL THINGS DOWN. Things need to move heat away otherwise they die or melt, that's just how thermodynamics works. Salamanders cool themselves by moving to cool areas, like water or by going underground where it is cold and wet and DAMP. But if Charmander can't go into cold, wet, or damp places preferring hot ones, it's going to bloody die of heat stroke. At least in later generations they changed it from if the tail went out the 'mon dies to the tail being just a sign of how well off the pokemon is doing. Of course Charmeleon & Charizard also have these problems, and would absolutely die of heat stroke from being unable to cool themselves from their own tails being literal fires they have to carry around, but let's see what other problems they might have from their dex entries.

Well, it's not a new problem, it's the same problem but, it's just actually worse. It notes that when it fights it dramatically heats up the air around it. Which means, now it cannot even rely on convection to maybe [but not actually] cool it down. So it gets to die of heat exhaustion even faster because it moves around more, ignites its tail hotter, and fights more.

I've heard of burning the candle at both ends but this is ridiculous [insert laugh track].

Alright, both Charmander and Charmeleon are dead because of heat exhaustion and physics. Is there any chance that Charizard can bring this back around?

No, absolutely not. It... It... got so much worse. In fact, the Emerald description and the Stadium description are a terrifying concept. 10,000 tons is... that's too much to melt quickly. Let's say quickly is within 15 minutes, that is a fairly decent amount of time, but I would still say that could be described as "quickly". I'm going to assume this is a short ton to give the least amount of material that Charizard could be melting here so that's 2000 lbs. for 1 short ton. So 2,000*10,000 =20,000,000 lbs or 9071847.4 kg of ice.

As before I'm assuming this is occurring over the course of 15 minutes. That's 15*60= 900 seconds.

I can calculate the amount of energy input into the ice (with a rough estimate at least) using: Q=mCδT. We know the mass, I'm going to assume this occurs from 0 celcius to just 1 celcius, for the absolute minimum amount of energy that Charizard is imputting into this system since Charizard technically doesn't have to heat the water to anything that is 'not above freezing', & C is just the specific heat for ice, which is 2090 Kj/kg*k That is 9071847.4(2090)(1) = 18,960,161,066 kJ delivered in 900 seconds, & if we assume an even rate of distribution of that energy that would be ~21,066,845.62 Kj/s That is the equivalent of 10 pounds (~4.5 kg) of TNT. That is too much for a living creature to just be able to expel at anytime, and again, it has to get reflected back at itself and absorb some of that heat because heat doesn't go in a linear direction.

And the implication of Emerald saying it can melt any material is that it can achieve absolute hot, a concept meaning that no temperature can exceed that point, because physics actually stops working as we understand it at that point. Like, that's big bang levels of energy right there. So in summary: 9/10 Should be dead from Heat Exhaustion, and is a walking sack of explosive energy, and if emerald is to believed 10/10 can accidentally makes big bangs

[plzignr]

Ranking Pokemon by how much I think they break physics- Part 1: Rules & entry 0001-0003, the Bulbasaur line.

So, Pokémon are weird & they often break physics.

But by how much do each of them break physics?

I'mma do a series of these ranking how much I personally think each of these pocket monsters would destroy the confines of our reality.

The rules of this series are going to be as follows:

ONLY game data matters, so pokedex entries, and in game lore about the creature only. For the purposes of this, the anime does not count as source material. It has to come directly from game data.

Move sets don't count, but abilities do So zigzagoon being able to cause an earthquake won't be taken into account, but Ninjask having innate speed increases will be. The only exception to this rule that may be made is if part of the move set is part of the lore of the Pokémon *or* is fundemental to its nature (for example it would be very difficult to do this kind of review/analysis about ditto without talking about its ability to transform, and all the fire types/ice types would break thermodynamics with the move sets). In general hidden abilities will not be taken into account [exceptions might be made in future if I *really* want to talk about it.

Mechanics of the game matter for interpretation. Example: Ninjask getting a speed boost implies an infinite top speed, however by the mechanics of the game, it has a maximum speed ceiling, so it cannot actually achieve infinite speed increasing.

The pokedex entries matter *most*, in the event that a pokemon is described in the pokedex as incredibly fast, but the in game data makes it have a slow speed stat. I'm going to treat it like it is just as fast as the pokedex says, whatever ridiculous number that happens to be.

Final score of how much the pokemon breaks physics will go from 1 to 10, 10 being all of physics has to break for the creature to exist.

So without further ado:

Pokemon 001-003: how much do they break physics?

Let's take a look at the dex entries and the ability for Bulbasaur:

ability: overgrow- makes grass moves stonger when low on HP;

Alright no physics broken there. We can chock that up to adrenaline spikes for the Pokémon there.

what about its pokedex entries?

The later generations have extremely similar entries.

So in essence, it's a normal animal, then it is either implanted with a seed early in its life, or one grows naturally there.

Horific implication that a Bulbasaur migjt naturally exist *without* the plant in its back aside: does this break any physics?

Surprisingly- No. There are animals that can form symbiotic relationships with plants one of which is even a vertebrate!

Corals, some jellyfish, a sea slug (common name leaf sheep), spotted salamanders, and potentially Aphids all have symbiotic relationships with plant life in which the plants ability to harvest energy from the sun is in one way or another is converted to help the animal.

Also look how cute this slug is!

So while it is highly unlikely that a large creature would develop a symbiotic relationship like this with a plant, because it likely wouldn't provide much energy, there is no reason evolutionarily that I am aware of to say that it cannot happen.

Now if we look at the follow on evolutions Venysaur and Ivysaur do they start to break things after all?

Amazingly NO, they don't!

The dex entry for Ivysaur is much the same as Bulbasaur but with the caveat that Ivysaur can no longer stand on its hind legs. Meaning as the plant is getting heavier, the creature loses mobility, which is what you would expect.

And that slow down in mobility comes from drawing on more nutrients from the plant. So as the creature gets bigger and heavier with excess plant matter, it slows down.

So in terms of breaking physics I'd give the Bulbasaur line a 3/10.

Its highly unlikely that a large animal would form a symbiotic relationship with a large plant like this because the energy produced by the plant will likely be vastly smaller than the animal would gain if it didn't have to move around carrying the plant, but given that the plant produces nutrients for the pokemon, and the pokemon provides protection for the plant it is not strictly speaking impossible, just extremely unlikely.

[plzignr]

Can I complain about all star Super-Man's ending?

Well I'm gonna anyway.

I recently saw the ending of Allstar superman as a clip, and while I appreciate the conclusion of the overarching story and the thematic points it makes, I cannot get over the *glaring* physics mistake it makes for the conclusion of the story.

And look, I'm not desperate for real world physics in my comic-books, I don't need Spidey to dislocate his shoulders everytime he swings, or for flash to superheat the ground and when he runs. I can suspend my disbelief, that's fine.

But, when your resolution to the problem is based in physics, please, for the love of all, please get your physics right.

for those who are not aware of the premise of All Star superman it is this: Lex Luthor works with another supervillian to trick Superman into saving a bunch or researchers studying the sun, from close up.

This causes solar powered superman to essentially experience battery overload where his cells kamikaze themselves trying to keep all that energy inside of him. In short, superman is dying and turning into pure energy, but because his cells are essentially supercharged he is the strongest he has ever been or ever will be.

Towards the end of the story, Lex Luthor gets hold of and drinks a serum that gives him the same abilities as superman, the caveat of the serum though is that it only lasts for 24 hours.

During the faceoff Clark kent/Super-man hits Luthor with a gravity gun. Which alters Luthors personal gravity, but because he has Supermans powers, that shit don't matter when you can arbitrarily resist gravity and fly anyway.

So why did Clark Kent/Super-man do this? Well the story would have you believe that this altered time relative to Lex Luthor, and those experiencing normal earth gravity. Which causes Lex Luthor to lose his superhuman abilities in only a couple hours normal earth time as opposed to 24 hours normal earth time.

And this is where I get annoyed, because exactly the **opposite** thing should have happened.

If you're gravity increases to an unaffected observer you're time would *slow down* not speed up. You as the person whose gravity has been increased would experience time moving more slowly and the rest of reality would move faster by comparison. With supermans superseded being installed in Lex, this wouldn't affect combat, but if gravity was increased significantly it should *extend* his 24 hours of superpower, not shorten them.

Secondarily, I have done some math: We are told that the gravity gun increased Luthor's personal gravity 5000 times. From what I recall of the clip he gets hit about 3 times, so let's just assume 5 for safety.

Comics being weirdly detailed means we know Lex's exact height and weight (~1.9 m and 95kg, or 6' 2" and 210 lbs).

So 5000*5*95 = 2375 megagrams (2.375E6 grams = 2.375e3 kg) or about 2618 US tons.

At that change for every second that passes Lex Luthor would experience 1.00000000007 seconds. As you can see his time is slower, even then it's not a dramatic difference . It's like seven tenths of a nanosecond longer per second.

We are told during the course of the fight takes a few of hours. So we'll just assume arbitrarily four hours. That's 60*60*4 seconds which means that after a grand total of: 4.00000000028 hours Luthor would experience 4 hours. Instead of the normal 4. If you're curious that's a grand total of ~0.00001 extra seconds. So it really wouldn't make any difference.

it's so annoying because the epiphany luthor has and the way the story ends charachter wise is sooooo good.

But then this is the nonsense that exists to achieve it. Like I get they were trying to make superman look clever, but it instead makes him look dumb, and ultimately shouldn't have mattered anyway.

The math of it ruins the whole end of the climax for me.

[plzignr]

The watch

Honestly in terms of underappreciated inventions, I feel like the watch is right up there. It literally rewrote how people could travel safely, changed how people go about their day, and essentially caused a technological revolution basically rewrote technology.

And all because a guy wanted to win a math contest by being cheeky about it.

[plzignr]

You know what I miss now that technology has gotten as advanced as it has?

I miss the physicality of the machinery that used to be present.

Not just the gears & coils & springs from mechanical clocks switching to digital clocks either.

I miss the digital components that were present as well.

Handheld games used to have all the logic gates and components for unique features physically embedded in the cartridge.

My copy of Pokémon Sapphire has a physical battery component in it, this component specifically:

That was a counter that literally just counted seconds from when you set the initial time to figure out the day night cycle.

I also miss the innards of physical arcade stands,

Like look at the interior of this Paxman arcade game:

Each of those components specifically does *a thing*

I want right to repair, and right to own for the obvious reasons of: If I buy the thing it is now mine and I can do what I want with My ThingsTM.

But honestly, also just for bringing back this aesthetic

[plzignr]

True Story

Ignaz Semmelweis- Hey, if you wash your hands in this chlorine solution I made. People on surgery die less from infection. Wash your hands.

Literally everyone else- No.

Hey, little microscopic lifeforms exist, and they make people sick, but washing your hands with soap, lye, alcohol or other harsh elements destroys them. Please do that so less people die.

Literally everyone else: Le No.

Semmelweis: please, you're surgeons, take care of your patients with this minor inconvenience.

Society writ large: Don't feel like it. Also to the looneybin with you.

Louis Pasteur and **Germ theory** happens.

Semmelweis: Dies in looneybin for being correct.

Me in present day to grown as men I see in the bathroom.

"Wash your fucking hands."

Grown ass men: "nah don't feel like it."

Know how semmelweis felt internally.

[plzignr]

I attempted to make a better evolution for Duskull than Duskclops

Quick summary of why the vibes were always off with this evolution to me, more thorough explanation below the break

Quick explanation of design motivations above ^ More detailed motivations as to why below:

I have been recently getting back into Pokémon. I kinda petered out of it after Gen 3, because to me Gamefreak kinda stopped iterating on their gameplay so there wasn't much reason for me to continue with the mainline games. (I did get new Pokémon Snap when it came out and absolutely loved it). 

It's been nice seeing all the new Pokémon designs and such, but as I go look at all the designs again, there's a few that make me go 'I think they should have done that differently'.

My go to example of this used to be Magikarp should've evolved into Dragonite, and Dratini's final evolution should have been Gyrados. 

Not just because then the color consistency would actually make sense, (orange to orange and blue to blue the whole way through), but because in my opinion it tells a better story through the evolution. Magikarps evolution is based on the story of a koi fish turning into a dragon by jumping through a gate on the tip of the mountain, and while Gyrados looks the part of a dragon somewhat, its typing implies that it is a sea serpent, not a dragon. Dratini, likewise evolving into Gyrados tells the story of a beautiful powerful creature becoming enraged at 1 losing its supposed beauty from its rage and 2, actively lashing out at humans it is angry with. That much more fits the vibe of an elegant creature you've forced into battle multiple times in my opinion. 

I must confess though, there is in my opinion a far more egregious failure of an evolution from Gamefreak and Creatures Inc. And that is going from Duskull, to Duskclops.

Duskclops, in and of itself is not a bad design, it's just that other than its coloration it has absolutely nothing in common with its 1st stage form.

Duskull is in my opinion an extremely clever design. It plays directly into the sort of subtle horror vibe that is present in the Ghost type Pokémon. 

The inspiration for Duskull seems to me to come from a will-o'-wisp. If you don't know what a will-o'-wisp is they are essentially foggy or gaseous haunting lights that lure people into swamps to their death. This is based on the actual phenomenon of swamp gas.

 Duskull, in my opinion really captures the idea of a will-o'-wisp quite well with the central orb inside and in the 3d model moving the body around the orb while the orb itself stays perfectly still. The skull motif adds an extra bit of horror if you consider, like I do, that the actual pokemon is only the orb inside, and the shroud and skull are pieces it has found and are using it to look more human. I also like that duskull plays into the idea of a hooded lantern with the face covering. The pokemon sapphire dex entry also implies that it lures children away with its light. 10 out of 10 ghost Pokémon design, no notes.

But then... then it evolves into a mummy? Not only that, it looks like the neighborhood kid in a Halloween costume for trick or treating. Literally the only two points of connection these two Pokémon have are their coloration and the fact that Duskull had 1 eye. It also loses all the parts of the skeletal nature wrapping it up in cloth.

Pokémon have are their coloration and the fact that Duskull had 1 eye. It also loses all the parts of the skeletal nature wrapping it up in cloth.

Now to be fair, I don't think Dusclops is a bad design, but I do think it's a dumb evolution for Duskull (if I had my way it would be the middle stage for cofagrigus), so I decided I would make an attempt to fix that, and make a different potential design for an evolution for Duskull.

I am not an artist by any measure but I wanted to at least try it. Because come on, look at the weird progression here:

To that end, this is the design I came up with:

I have dubbed it Duskeacon (portmanteau of dusk and beacon).

I kept the idea of a haunting light and made that the central feature of the Pokémon and keeping with the idea that that is the actual Pokémon and everything else is items it has found and is using to *appear* more in a form a human would trust.

To keep with the hooded lantern motif I went with a design that implied it was encasing itself in an old fashioned hooded lantern, and dressing the outside of it with the skulls. I added additional skulls to the Pokémon to imply that it has either 1- been successful in luring things to their death

 or 

2-is collecting them for unknown purposes. 

I gave it skeletal arms as well to covey that it has become more powerful or is manifesting itself more completely, and to give the idea that it could also beckon others to itself to keep with the subtle horror vibe of ghost Pokémon & the shroud that duskull had been duskulls body previously became the shroud that would be used to cover the lantern.

Quick explainer as to why design choices were made in image below.

[plzignr]

This also makes sense as to why Oak hired Todd Snapp instead of just giving him a pokemon to 'go learn about Pokémon' and gave him access to a state of the art all terrain vehicle. Todd Snapp gets a job to do the actual research part of Pokémon research. Then professor mirror is continuing that in New Pokémon snap.

Ok not to be really insufferable but I think the thing that’s often lost when people talk about the Pokédex is that it’s assumed it’s genuinely a tool for adults. Like the in game professors describe it as a “high tech encyclopaedia” and that’s taken at face value.

But in Japanese the word used is “図鑑” - “zukan”. This means “picture encyclopaedia”. But what the implication of this is is actually mostly stuff like this:

Like the type of thing you read in primary school! Those big illustrated books that give kids introduction to just simple concepts of biology, or zoology. Full of fun facts that may not be 100% accurate but sure are cool! Not necessarily a robust resource for adults.

I’m not saying “zukan” is never used to refer to something a bit more high level. A little search around and I did find zukans that seemed targeted at older people, but honestly I noticed some of these had negative reviews like “there’s no furigana in this! This is too hard for my kid!”. So that to me suggests the connotation is very much like. Kids encyclopaedia.

So my point is when the Pokédex says bonkers stuff like:

It’s more akin to children’s encyclopaedia publishing a “fun fact” that’s just like…could be theoretically true but only if you simplify a bunch of stuff.

Anyway my point is

a) the Pokédex is a resource specifically for grade-school age children

b) Professor Oak is one of those professors that at some point diverted most of his time into children’s science communication.

[plzignr]

Turns out the horsemen of the Apocalypse now prefer to go by Shareholder Profit, Private Equity, Corporate Personhood, and Workforce Optimization.

[plzignr]

I just want you to know, if you make a composite image using shapes and any image to show a thing in MS PowerPoint, or Excel, or Word, or any other MS product, & you *don't* group them. I hate you personally and specifically.

[plzignr]

I'm not saying I don't want to work-

I *am* saying it would be nice if the continuance of my existence wasn't predicated on being used solely for the sake of increasing shareholder value.

[plzignr]

Okay, the names are clever, and the bowls are more clever, but I have one very sad realization about the oxidized puppy.

Clearly they are not getting enough pets!

To oxidize that thoroughly it would have to have a full coating of oxidation, that would in all likelihood NOT be possible if the dog was receiving appropriate levels of affection, because the rubbing of copper by human hands prevents the oxidation from fully settling in.

And now I have taken a cute post, and made it horribly sad, because my brain Think=Sad.

All this to say: LEMME PET THAT DOG. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IT NEEDS IT.

Hey @making-friendos, if you happen to see this, can you add a scene where the oxidized copper retriever is pet and is shined up a bit? Would be cute and make me specifically less sad for copper retriever

A copper retriever with her unoxidised puppies

[plzignr]

sometimes I think to myself while reading about historical events, or especially historical sanitation, man... I wonder what mundane arbitrary thing humans of the future will look back on and think "oh my, that's so gross I think I'm going to hurl".

I imagine though, that the same way I feel about how waste water and drinking water used to not be separated, is *very* similar how future humans will look at how we live with our current air filtration.

[plzignr]

doggy has got the *professional* zoomies.

nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.

[plzignr]

I like the hallucinations humans hallucinate together.

one of my favorite weird mysteries of life is how humans will have a collective experience together, of something that straight up does not exist. Not just something like the Mandela effect or a seemingly small coincidence like most cultures having dragons. When multiple people across time, culture, and region all have seemingly same experience.

Probably the most well known example of this is 'The Hatman' a figure often 'seen' by those suffering from sleep paralysis, but *my* favorite example of this is known as 'the black dog of death' or simply 'the black dog' often called the 'barghest' as well. Which translates to something like mountain ghost.

The black dog is said to appear when humans fail to get enough sleep, and is an omen of imminent death.

I like to think that's if this *were true* the black dog is more of a warning then anything else, and the idea that the dog causes death itself is misattributed.

But anyways- I love it when humans, as a species, have this weird connected experience to something that doesn't exist

Despite occasionally having had periods in my life where I have not slept for extended periods of time (76 hour stint I believe was my longest) I have never seen the black dog of death, but I kinda wish I had. Not only would it bring me into this weird experience of shared humanity but:

look at this cutie patootie! It deserves head pats, and I want to give them!!!