iTunes? More like cryTunes

Pull up a seat, make yourselves comfortable, and I will tell you a tale. A classic tale that will echo throughout the ages, an emotional roller coaster of frustration, rage, anger, irritation, aggravation, grief, longing, and buttmad.

This isn't your average, everyday joke reuse. This is... ADVANCED joke reuse.

I guess you could say that this story began in the year 1711, on a lonesome ship in the middle of a stormy sea, where a group of alchemists attempted to summon a devil to aid their quest for the grand panacea, an elixir granting immortality to any who imbibe it. Surprisingly enough, the ritual worked, and all aboard the vessel were granted everlasting life, only to be cut short by the hand of another immortal. But that's enough of my backstory. It could be said that my troubles began a few years ago, the moment my brother won a free iPad in a raffle, but refused his friend's offer to give him $200 to smash it against the ground then and there. This resulted in the unfortunate affliction of owning an iPad, and a yet more severe case of having to deal with iTunes. But little did I know, all those frustrations were but a prelude to the fugue that was to follow.

A few months ago, I saw an update on Serebii that said that the soundtrack for Pokemon X and Y (That's right. It's another one of those posts) would be sold on iTunes. Gamefreak had finally called me out on my bluff that I would legally pay for and download video game music if only I was given the chance. And I was glad they did. Gamefreak, and video game makers (Developers? Producers? Birthers?) in general make some pretty spectacular music, and they deserve to be recognized for it, monetarily. Sure, it meant that I would now have to actually pay for the music, and opportunities to become poorer usually aren't something that I celebrate, but as long as the money was going to a good cause, it would be worth it, because it would allow me to fit way too many commas in one sentence, wouldn't it?

And then, on November 12^th, a month after the game was released, the full soundtrack was released on iTunes, an impressive 212 songs for a meager $10. Deals don't get much better than that, right? I mean, sure a lot of the “songs” are probably just short jingles and sound effects, but even if as much as half of them were proper songs, it's still be chin and earlobes above most other songs you'd buy off iTunes. Hell, just a few days prior, I had considered buying the Bastion Soundtrack for the same amount of money, and it only has 22 songs. As it turns out, I should have purchased the Bastion Soundtrack, and heeded its words more carefully. Indeed, some day, these tears were gonna spill.

After taking a few minutes to download iTunes and get an account set up, I moseyed on over to the soundtrack, and-- wait, what? You know, Gamefreak, when I said “if even as much as half of them were proper songs”, I wasn't just trying to win a pretentious-sounding sentence competition. That was supposed to be an exaggeration. I didn't expect that that would be anywhere close to the truth. Well, whatever. Even just 20 songs makes for a pretty burly album, so I shouldn't complain. I'll just click on the “buy” button, enter some credit card information, fail to understand how the money that I'm spending correlates to real world time spent working, and get on with my life. Eh? It says the connection has been reset, and the purchase couldn't be completed. And if I try it again? Same thing. I guess I'll check out the internet to see what they have to say about this problem. This guy says that his problem went away after he logged out of iTunes then logged back in, so I guess I'll try that. No, that didn't work. This says that switching my DNS settings solved this guys similar problem. For all I know, DNS stands for “Do Not Switch”, but if someone on the internet says it's a good idea, who am I to argue? And... nothing. Same error. Maybe my firewall is blocking all the grass and ice types from getting in? Let's see what happens if I disable that for a bit. Huh. That didn't work either. I'm kind of running out of ideas now. Maybe it'll work if I try switching this narrative from present tense back to past tense? But that didn't work either.

The remainder of this story will be told in first person omniscient.

The error message seemed to indicate that some kind of error was occurring with my network as the album was being downloaded, so I reasoned that it may have been the size of the album that was causing the error. To test this hypothesis, I tried downloading a song. To my surprise, and immediate regret, the download was successful, and I found myself in possession of a song I had already possessed.

Pictured: Immediate Regret

So individual songs were able to slip past the music embargo iTunes had placed on my computer, but what about albums? I didn't know if all albums would produce the same error, or if it was just the Pokemon soundtrack. And, being a scientist, I knew that there was only one way to test my hypothesis: by experiment. So I decided to try to buy a different album, and see if it would work. So, with as little consideration as possible, (consideration is the enemy of scientific endeavors) I decided to buy The Decemberists' newest album, The King is Dead, because, hey, why not? I mean, sure, I spent $10 on an album that I could have just listened to on Spotify for free, but... wait. Actually, that is a pretty good answer to the question “Why not?”.  But the real kicker was when I later found out that I could have bought the Bastion Soundtrack on iTunes for the same price as elsewhere, killing two birds with one stone.

Pictured: Delayed Regret

At this point, I had had it. It was time to bring out the big guns. If no one else on the Apple forums had asked about this problem,  I guess it was up to me to nut up and do the opposite of shut up. So I made my own little discussion about how I could download other songs and albums, but not the Pokemon X and Y soundtrack. And apparently this is a problem others have experienced, as 8 other people indicated that they had the same question. While I was waiting, I figured that I might as well listen to some of the music I just bought. But, of course, my hardships were not over yet. Whenever I tried to play about half of the songs, it would ask me to authorize my computer to play my iTunes music. After entering my credentials, it would tell me that my computer was already authorized, only to ask for authorization again if I tried to make like Sam and play it again.

And in the face of all of this, I kept circling back to one question: Why? Why is iTunes the top music merchant in the world if this is how their software works? It certainly isn't because of quality. As it turns out, when you buy music from iTunes, you don't actually get an MP3 file, and whatever it is that you get, it isn't compatible with anything other than iTunes, and converting it to a more widely usable file is expensive, inconvenient, or illegal. And the whole "authorization" thing I mentioned earlier. You can authorize 5 computers to play your iTunes music, and then your account is basically dead, and you can't play that music on any other computer, as far as I can tell. And for what benefit? Why do we, as a society, allow Apple's monopoly on music to persist? Is it just because we've come to associate digital music with iTunes, and are too lazy to try something else, like Amazon Music or Google Play? And I think it's a real shame, because iTunes has a vast library, with even more music than Spotify.

Pictured: Even more music

 And at this point, I was going to lecture to lecture on the evils of DRM, and how information wants to be free, and how I wish that I could support the people who made some music that I enjoy without the money going to an evil corporation that is an enemy of Liberty and Justice. But I just managed to download the Pokemon soundtrack, and I'm quite enjoying it, even if many of the best songs are above my clearance at the moment. So I guess you win this round, Apple. I'll save my jokes about how you're "rotten to the core" for another day.

And what of the end of our tale? How was it that that most cursed of days drew to a close? I listened to Hyadain and cried myself to sleep. And that, kids, is how you make a silver lining out of a mole hill.

Pictured: ADVANCED joke overuse

Pokemon X and Y: The Last Hurrah

Well, here we are. For the first, and hopefully last, time, I will be writing a no-holds-barred, full-speed-ahead, other-hyphenated-phrase review of a game. It should come as little surprise that the game in question is Pokemon X. If you've come here for a review of Pokemon Y, then I'm afraid you'll have to go elsewhere. I'm not part of that mess.


I suppose I might as well focus on the good things. Good thing number 1: I don't have to play it anymore. Witty jabs aside, It really wasn't that bad of a game. It was a Pokemon game, and it had all the good things that come with the territory: pockets, monsters, attempted xenocide, mass graves, you know, the usual. The music was pretty-top notch, as is to be expected from Gamefreak. The biking song was particularly memorable. Speaking of bikes, in this game, you can bike and skate around smoothly, uninhibited by the opressive squares that constrained us in the past. It's pretty nice. There's also a really neat sidequest at the end where Detective Looker learns you what it means to be a hardboiled man. He's a pretty cool guy. Easily my second favorite fictional character that looks like David Tennant.

The first being Barty Crouch, naturally.

Moving on from the good things, let us now speak of the actual Pokemon, and the battles between them, and the real substance of the game. There is no doubt in my mind that 6th gen introduced the least change to Pokemon of any Generation. Of primary concern is the number of new Pokemon. Up until 6th gen, each new generation added at least 100 new Pokemon to the mix. The number of new Pokemon introduced in Pokemon X and Y is 69, which is alarming for a number of reasons. First and foremost, hahaha 69 is a funny number. Second and fivemost, that is not enough Pokemon. Granted, even number generations have historically introduced fewer Pokemon than odd numbered generations, but the amount of new Pokemon with each new generation has generally been increasing. So why did Gamefreak reverse this trend? Well, because there are too damn many Pokemon. People have said it before, and I agree with them. We don't need 800 Pokemon. So, in a way, I get where Gamefreak is coming from when they decided to only make a few Pokemon, and then just make the game a smorgasbord of mostly Pokemon from previous generations. I guess my main problem isn't that there are so few new Pokemon, it's that there are so few new Pokemon that I don't actively hate.

I am the 99%.

This is Diggersby. His prehensile ear-arms (earms?) are well suited for digging, allowing him to burrow into the anger glands of your brain and play them like a fiddle. He is just one of many new Pokemon that I could accurately describe as "revolting". Another such pokemon is Slurpuff, who impossibly manages to live up to his disgusting name. When I first heard that there was a cotton candy Pokemon, I thought it was a fun joke on people who wouldn't shut up about how stupid an ice cream cone Pokemon was. But when I heard the name, and saw its form, I immediately knew that it was no joke.

Serious Business

Keeping these fellas company at the bottom of the barrel are Quilladin, which just looks like a fatter Chespin, Dedenne, which is Pikachu except it's a Fairy-type this time, and Klefki, who is a key ring. Now that I'm out of Pokemon to complain about, and I'm realizing that there actually aren't that many Pokemon that I hate, I guess I should talk about the good Pokemon. That instance of the word "Pokemon" might as well have been singular, because Aegislash is THE good Pokemon of 6th gen.

Aegislash is the first Ghost/Steel type Pokemon, a great type that would be even greater if Gamefreak hadn't nerfed the steel type, removing its resistance to dark and ghost, with the explicit intent of keeping Aegislash from being overpowered. As you can clearly see, it is cool as hell. When Aegislash first takes the field in battle, he keeps his sword sheathed, giving him incredible defense stats. Then, as soon as he attacks, he draws his blade, giving him incredible attacking stats. Then, if he uses a defensive move, like King's Shield, (a new, overpowered-seeming move that, as far as I can tell, is like Protect, but it also sharply decreases the Attack of anyone who hits him with a contact move.) he goes back to shield mode. Unfortunately, he's pretty slow either way, but this is mitigated by his potential to play mind games with his opponent. He can also use boosting moves to beef up his attack and/or speed stats while tanking hits in shield mode, then switch to blade mode and put his enemies to the sword when he's in blade mode. In addition to the possible competitive implications, it cannot be stressed enough that this Pokemon is cool as hell. And speaking of Pokemon who are cool as hell...

Exhibit A

Hawlucha is a hawk that is also a luchador. And that's it. The prosecution rests. Case closed. In the trial of Hawlucha for the crime of "Being the most baller Pokemon ever", we find the defendant guilty. Hawlucha also receives the dubious honor of being the only Pokemon to learn the only dual-type attack, Flying Press, which is simultaneously a Flying type move, a Fighting type move, and a not very good move, since you can't hit Rock or Steel types super effectively with it. Or Bugs, I guess.


If you look closely enough at Hawlucha's face, you'll notice that he has regular mouth under his beak. This seems to imply that his beak isn't a real beak, and is just for show, like part of a mask. Notice also that it has a physique similar to a humans, and that its wings don't really look like wings, but more like arms with feathery things coming out of them, like Charizard X. Hawlucha is also very small, only 2'07'' tall. Now, I'm not saying for sure that Hawlucha is actually a 3-fingered little person who dresses up like a Pokemon to beat the crap out of other Pokemon, but it gave me the idea that that could happen, and for that I am extremely thankful.

In terms of actual new things added to the game, there isn't too much to talk about. Shiny Pokemon were made considerably more common. This news put quite a damper on the lavish party that I had thrown in celebration of the shiny Tentacool that I caught on my second day of playing. There's now a Fairy-type, whose arbitrary-seeming type-effectiveness match-ups were the cause of much confusion and frustration. Riding Pokemon is a thing that people apparently wanted, because they didn't realize that it would be clunky and unenjoyable. The fact that they are stupid may also have been a contributing factor. Competitive worries aside, Mega Evolution is pretty useful if you want to use one of a small handful of Pokemon to wreck absolutely everything. Not that you'll necessarily need a mega Pokemon to do that. Just about everything has been made easier in this game. I don't think there was a single time in the story where I was in any kind of danger of losing a battle. The new and improved Exp. Share allows all of the Pokemon in your party to get experience, without any being taken from the active Pokemon. Breeding changes and Friend Safaris have made it much easier to get Pokemon with good IVs. Super Training let's even the most plebeian Casualry EV train their Pokemon. The aforementioned increase in the odds of getting a shiny Pokemon is another example of something made easier. There is, however, one thing that stands in stark defiance of the trend towards everything being easier: Hordes.


A horde is when you fight 5 wild Pokemon at the same time. Remember how annoying Zubats were? Now multiply that by 5. That's what a horde is. Because, make no mistake, there are no "normal" hordes. Every single horde will have something about it to make killing it even more annoying than it has any right being. Like paralysis. You better pray to the RNG gods that you aren't fully paralyzed. That goes double for confusion. You may be able to OHKO pokemon that are half your level, but what if they keep lowering your attack? Or, God forbid, your accuracy? And if they have Sturdy, then I hope you brought some reading material, because it's going to take you at least 10 turns to take down those assholes. And to top it all off, since the Pokemon are half your level, they barely even give any experience. Rideable Pokemon was another failed attempt to introduce something cool and new, which ended up just being clunky and unenjoyable.

Not bothering with any kind of transitions, I will now talk about gym leaders. Specifically: I don't really remember them. I think there was an electric gym leader named Clemont? He was a dorky kid who made gadgets and lived in the Eiffel Tower. His name has nothing to do with electricity, so I have no idea how he passed the Gym Leader test. The terrifying thing is that they're all like that. To the best of my knowledge, none of the gym leaders really had pun names, so I guess I'll have to wait another day for Ace Attorney to get my fix. In general, I found most of the characters to be rather forgettable, other than Looker, and one of the Elite Four members that made a particularly strong impression on me. Rather than a singular rival, you're given a whole posse of children that I really couldn't care less about. Though I did get them to call me "H Bomb" as my nickname, and they had some pretty great music, so I guess that's a plus. I also found the main villain to be rather compelling, though I seem to be the only one who thinks so. He wasn't as sympathetic as N, or as deplorable as Ghetsis, but I think he managed to make the story with Team Flare a bit more interesting than some in the past have been.

I feel that I would be remiss if I were to talk about this game and fail to mention how unbelievably French it is. It is no secret that the Kalos region is based on the Fantasy Kingdom of France, similar to how Unova was based on our very own United States. But while the US's influence on Unova was mostly restricted to the existence of a huge, NYC-esque city replete with towering skyscrapers, every bit of Kalos is inundated with French culture. The capital, Lumiose City, is literally Paris. They have a freaking Eiffel Tower, the place is littered with cafes, there's a fancy art museum, everyone has poodles, and people even ride goats as their primary method of getting around. Routes, plazas, and towns are commonly given French names. They even have Stonehenge, complete with an ominous Underhenge.

All in all, if you were considering buying this game, you've probably bought it already. If you were hesitant enough about buying it to wait a week, then perhaps you're better off not playing it. Pokemon is often panned for its inability to keep things fresh and new, and it's especially noticeable in this generation, where there really isn't much to keep the games fresh. At the end of the day, though, it was still a Pokemon game, and I still had fun, even if it wasn't as much as I had hoped. I refuse to give it any kind of quantitative score or grade, such is the extent of my rugged individuality.

Now that that's out of the way, I thought that I might as well share some of the best nicknames that I gave some of my Pokemon. I nicknamed all of them, but I won't share all of them, because I caught more than 100 Pokemon over the course of this game, and so many of them were not given good nicknames. I will also include a small blurb about why I chose the name, or what it means, or something. So, over the course of Pokemon X, I had:

A Greninja named "Slippy Toad". It is a frog, you see.

A Honedge named "Edgeworth". This one was actually my sister's idea. I've never been more proud.

A Talonflame named "Guillotine". I'm actually rather proud of this one. It's a reference to my assertion, earlier on this blog, that execution by Talonflame is the most humane form of execution. Also, it's French.

A Litleo named "Burnin' Leo". I'm sure this is hilarious to those of you familiar with archaic Kirby Mini-bosses.

A Zigzagoon named "Class". Originally, it was supposed to be named "class C0", an esoteric math joke referring to how his stripes are not differentiable. But C0 was censored for some reason, and this is what I ended up with.

A Weedle named "420 hes bi". Rather than try to explain this myself, I'll just leave this here.

A Kecleon named "TheGreatLeon". Sadly, he never dogfought with my Greninja.

An Oddish named "Evenish". I am a weak man.

A Skiddo NOT named "Gogoatse". Evidently, Gamefreak is wise to my tricks. Instead, its name is "Gogrohst", because I don't even know how to spell made up words.

A Spoink named "CaptainHooke". Because jokes about Hooke's Law and springs never go out of fashion.

A Hariyama named "E. Honda". 'nuff said

A Hawlucha named "El Fuerte". I traded this one to my friend. Unfortunately, I did not name any other Pokemon after Street Fighters.

A Streetcar named "Desire". Hahaha jokes.

A Mime Jr. named "Grady Jr.", and a Mr. Mime named "Grady Sr." This is really funny if you remember the names of all the people in Bastion.

A Miltank named "Teatmeat". One of the less pleasant combinations of words I've ever come up with.

An Electrode named "Elecchode". Easily the dirtiest thing I got past the censor.

A Magneton named "Bohr", because there is a real life physical constant called "Bohr's Magneton". This is because Physics is radical.

A Durant named "DurantDurant". Like those music guys

An Aipom named "Raipom". Jesus, whose idea was this?

A Minccino named "Crimson Chin". Because he's a Chinchilla

A Psyduck named "Diesuck". I'm actually surprised I was able to get away with this.

A Plusle named "Anode". I actually got this from a Wonder Trade, and I give the guy an A for effort, but the Anode is actually the negative one.

A Solosis named "Felix Walken", because I'd love to see you figure out why.

I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I loathed not being able to proceed until I gave the 4th new Pokemon on this route some stupid name that I'd just be ashamed of later. Seriously, there are a lot of damn Pokemon in this game.

X, Y, and Everything in Between

I've been giving a lot of consideration to X and Y recently, as I'm sure many of you have. And, I don't mean to brag, but I am something of an expert on these matters, and I totally do mean to brag. Since I'm such a respected authority of the field, I'm sure that many have been waiting to hear what I have to say. Well, fear not, my flock, for it is now by my immeasurable grace that you shall find yourself unnerved by how much I sound like some kind of creepy cultist. And so, without further ado, I will now start talking about math. Because, you know, variables.

Really? Sorry, doesn't ring any bells

But before that, I'd like to talk about arithmetic. Now, you may be wondering why I just slyly implied that arithmetic isn't math. It's because I don't believe that arithmetic is math. Well, not Real math, anyway. Saying that arithmetic is real math is like saying that singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees,  and Toes" is practicing medicine, or getting in a playground argument is practicing law, or that I ever practice the clarinet: Hilarious. And yet, despite how trivial and elementary arithmetic is, people still manage to mess it up, and the only proper response is to get really angry and tell everyone how wrong they are. Like so:

It's about to get pretty mad in here. Viewer discretion is advised.

 Yes, of course, I'm talking about one of these stupid goddamn PEMDAS things that you always see on Facebook. When I saw this, my first instinct as a math major was find some clever math way to turn this into something it clearly wasn't meant to be. (Well, 3x3 is clearly 0, because any vector crossed with itself is 0, HAHAHAHAHA I know things you don't) My second instinct, as an internet man, was to look at the comments, and feast on the bountiful harvest of rage laid out before me. Naturally, there were plenty of people getting 18, because the American education system has failed them, Big Government, Idiocracy, ect. Some even had the audacity strain the bonds of their shackles of ignorance, and accuse us, the Knights of the Twelve, of incorrectness. And while the foolishness of a fool too foolish to realize his own foolishness is sad indeed, it is no cause for mourning. Neither grief nor rage can bring them to the light, so steeped their souls are in darkness. They reside in a place from which there can be no return. The Lost Zone, I guess.



But it is not these, who have forgotten that which has been taught to them, who have me dismayed. It is those who remember the vile lies they have been taught, striking out against the light of truth, and thinking themselves agents of justice for it. It is The Cult of Six who are a truly pitiable lot. They are the fundamentalists of the Church of PEMDAS, taking its word for how it is stated, rather than for how it is meant.



PEMDAS, for those of you who have probably been very confused for a while now, is a mnemonic for remembering the order in which mathematical operations occur in a mathematical expression. It stands for Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. So if you have some mathematical expresion, operations in parentheses are evaluated first, then exponents, then instances of multiplication and division, then instances of addition and subtraction. Some common mnemonics for PEMDAS are “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” (The boring one that everyone knows), “People Expect More Drugs And Sex” (Randall Munroe, of XKCD fame), and “Passing Egregiously Makes Dunking Awesomely Satisfying” (A Havoc Mantis Original).



So if, for example, you have the expression 2*(9+1)-3^2+20/5, you would first do the addition in the parentheses to get 2*10-3^2+20/5. Then, square the 3 to get 2*10-9+20/5. Perform multiplication and division to get 20-9+4. And from there, the answer is clear as day, right? Of course! The answer, as can be clearly seen, is 7. Because in PEMDAS, subtraction comes after addition, so you add to get 20-13, which is 7.

Remember this? This is what you should look like right now.

If you are nodding your head in agreement, or thinking to yourself, "Well, gee-wiz, that Havoc sure is correct. Only a devastatingly witty and powerfully sexy person would be able to type something so correct at 3:30 in the morning." then I am terribly sorry to inform you that you are wrong. Well, not about the part where you lavished me with compliments, but the part where I was right. You see, I was actually pretending to be wrong. The real answer is 15. Also, the cameras that you use to keep constant surveillance on me must never have sprung forward, because it's actually 4:30. It's no big deal, since Daylight Savings Time changes back pretty soon, but I just thought I'd let you know.


I guess the point that I'm trying to get at is that in PEMDAS, addition and subtraction happen at the same time. There are those who have been deceived, and would let you be deceived, given the chance. They say that subtraction happens afterwards, and I have taken it upon myself to tell them that they are wrong, and endeavor to guide them to the path of righteousness. It's over there, guys.

The path of righteousness is your weapon in the zombie apocalypse. How screwed are you?

If it helps, just remember that subtracting a number is the same as adding that number times -1. The multiplication goes before the addition, and then you add the negative number the same way as you add any other number, going left to right. Division can be thought of the same way, as multiplying a number that is taken to the power of -1. Are we all on the same page here? Can I stop bitching about this? Awesome.

Well, remember when I said that I was going to talk about math, but first I'd talk about arithmetic? Well I only said that so I could make those jokes, because I don't think there's any actual math I can talk about without talking over everyone's heads, while simultaneously being funny or enjoyable in any way. Unless you want to play cross-product tic-tac-toe? (You do not want to play cross-product tic-tac-toe)

Having exhausted math, I suppose I'll see if I can undash your hopes and talk about Pokemon, as I kind of promised in the beginning. I don't really want to spoil too many things, for my readers or myself, so I'll avoid talking about too many Pokemon, but there are some issues that need to be addressed.

"Issue" may be a bit of an understatement

Now, for those of you who aren't already in the know, would you care to guess what this thing is? Well, yes, I agree that it is an "abomination", but I was hoping for something a little more specific. An alien? Not quite. The shattered fragment of an orphan's forgotten childhood? Almost. I'll give you its name: Espurr. That's right, this thing is supposed to be a cat. The real problem with this Pokemon is its waste of one of the greatest names in Pokemon, made only better by how much it sounds like something out of Virtue's Last Reward, what with its abundance of cat puns, but no other reason, because of spoilers. I cannot identify a single trait of its appearance that indicates that it is a cat. I'm told that apparently its ears have something to do with it? What about the fact that it clearly seems to have 6 legs? Or its eyes, which are more unbalanced than psychic type in 1st gen? Or its rippling chest hair, reminiscent of a friend I've decided to refer to as "Baja Blast"? Perhaps I should just move on to the next Pokemon.

When I said that I was typing at 4:30 in the morning, this was the reason I couldn't sleep.

This Pokemon is the dusk that draws the sanity of mortal men to its end. It is beautiful in Its terror, and It is terrible in Its beauty. It makes Its home outside the scope of humanity, far removed from that which has been crafted by human hands, and far removed from that which has been imagined by human minds. It is removed from the trappings of human description. It labors not for good or evil, for order or chaos, for hope or despair. Its song is sung in languages that cannot be understood. That must not be understood. To gaze upon It is to feel that a piece of you has gone missing, yet know that it was not taken. This void within you has existed since the beginning. It has only made you Aware. It is a perfect contradiction, embodying that which It is not, giving form to what could never be. It is the weight that must exist to counterbalance the laws of an ordered universe. It is the knower of all that cannot be known. It is that which existed Before, and that which will exist After. It is too fearsome to be feared, too lovely to be loved, and too powerful to be stopped. It hates not, it loves not, it feels not, it does not. It is. 

Gal Bursten it.

Screw Clever Titles: I'm Talking About Pokemon Stuff

For some reason, I've really got it in my head recently that I should try to update regularly. Whether or not this will actually happen is anyone's guess, but if it does, I guess I'll try to update once a week, or something like that. And since today's Saturday, I guess that might mean that Saturday is my tentative day for updating. So if you're a fan of disappointment, be sure to check back here next Saturday.

Of course, the problem with regular scheduling is that I have to write an entirely new post every week, which puts a major strain on my incredibly tight summer workload of playing adventure games, catching pneumonia, half-heartedly writing romance stories, and being too beta to steal my brother's job. But the biggest challenge of writing a new post every week is by far coming up with new things to write about. As I've reiterated many times before, I am terribly bad at thinking up things to talk about (half the time I end up talking about exactly that). So sometimes, I just decide "To hell with it: Pocket Monsters". This is one of those times. And it's definitely because I'm lazy, and not because I'm an attention-grubbing asshole who happened to notice that my first post about Pokemon managed to net more than double the views of any of my other posts.

Nothing too major has been announced that hasn't been discussed elsewhere on this blog, but a fair few Pokemon have been revealed that I could probably say some things about. The first is the most recent Pokemon to be announced, Honedge.

"Master, I predict a 70% chance that no one will get this joke."

As you can see, Honedge is a sword, as well as a name that kind of seems like it's trying to be a pun, but just isn't trying hard enough. And a sword is a pretty cool thing to be, as long as you try not to think too hard about how it gets around. Does it just float around while physics looks the other way, like a Geodude? Of course not! It's a ghost, so it probably floats around because it's a ghost. Nothing unreasonable about that. Premiering as the world's first Ghost/Steel type, this thing has a pretty mean defensive typing, which is pretty ironic for a Pokemon that is literally a weapon. It also ruins the opportunity for a Fighting/Dragon to come along and wreck everything with unresisted STABs. (Same Type Attack Bonus, referring to the 50% bump in power that comes when an attack's type is the same as a Pokemon that uses it. So a Fighting/Dragon's STABs would be Fighting and Dragon.) It does nothing, however, to change the fact that a Fighting Dragon would cooler than Kyogre's OHKO move, so Gamefreak should still make one posthaste.

This thing is a panda that fights. It's pure fighting, but I'd say there's at least a chance it'll evolve a Grass secondary typing, or perhaps a Dark typing, with that attitude it's clearly sporting. It's name is "Pancham", which I have no strong feelings about one way or the other. What's really important about this Pokemon, though, is a new move that it learns, "Parting Remark". I'm about to talk about some high-level concepts in Pokemon theory, so you may want to step outside if things get too hot and heavy. Parting Remark is similar to U-turn or Volt Switch, in that it is a move that forces the user to switch out. However, instead of doing damage, it lowers the opponent's Attack and Special Attack. I'm honestly not that good at Pokemon. And even the top minds in the field have difficulty accurately predicting what Pokemon and moves will impact the metagame. But it seems to me like this could be a Big Deal. If properly used, this move could allow a player to safely bring in a setup sweeper against a weakened enemy. While the enemy is all but forced to switch out, the player gets a free turn to boost his Pokemon's stats. (With moves like Swords Dance, Quiver Dance, Calm Mind, and an assortment of other moves that you probably never used when playing the actual game.) I earlier compared it to U-turn, but it's actually more like Memento, an oft-forgot move with a similar effect except that it harshly lowered the enemy's offenses, and instead of switching the user out, it straight up killed them. I can't say for sure that this will revolutionize Offensive playstyles in Pokemon battling, but if it does, just know that I totally called it. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me and reading that whole rant. As a reward, here's a really good and funny song that isn't terribly safe for work.

The new generation has a bird Pokemon. It is Normal/Flying. It is based on a robin. I thought of using this as the basis of a "Holy ______, Batman!" joke, but decided against it. There is nothing remarkable about a new Normal/Flying bird, because there's one in every generation. What is remarkable, however, is what it evolves into...

Talonflame, the Pokemon whose name fully convinced me that the death of Pokemon's creativity is nigh. As you may have guessed from its flame decals, it is a Flying/Fire type. And it looks like Gamefreak did its homework for this one, because those flames clearly allow it to go a lot faster: 310 mph, which is about the speed at which a nerve impulse travels. This means that if a Talonflame flew straight through you length-wise, from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, by the time the signals registering pain from your feet reached your brain, your entire body would be immolated. It is for this reason that death by Talonflame is considered the most humane method of execution in the Pokemon universe. Unfortunately, despite it's fearsome appearance and award-winningly badass classification as the "Deterioration Pokemon", Gamefreak decided to set it apart from the rest of the generic birds by giving it the worst possible secondary typing. With a double weakness to Stealth Rock, this thing can bank on losing a good half of its HP whenever it switches in. In competitive battling circles, this kind of Pokemon is referred to as a "pizza". Pizza shit.

This Pokemon is called "Gogoat", and you've probably seen it, because OMG gaiz, you can totes ride Pokemon nao! I mean, you could before, but that was only when you were soaring through the skies, or effortlessly crossing large bodies of water. Now you can ride Pokemon in all the places that you can walk, which is clearly more exciting. Also, since this Pokemon clearly exists only for riding, and its combat abilities merit no discussion, I might as well take this opportunity to say that the Pokemon you ride aren't actually yours. You don't teach them an HM move or anything. You rent other people's Pokemon in order to ride them around. Because Pokemon totally isn't like slavery, you guys. We addressed that in the last game, remember?

Helioptile is another case of a Pokemon too stupid looking to not be given a Normal type. I guess the name is kind of OK, at least until you try to pronounce it out loud. As the name suggests to those of us familiar with  Greek roots, Helioptile is a reptile capable of photosynthesis, but totally different from every grass starter for every previous generation. Much like Pancham, Helioptile learns a notable new move, Parabola Charge. Despite taking the name of Parabola in vain, it's actually a pretty neat move. It's basically an electric typed Giga Drain. While Electric Pokemon usually aren't thought of as being too bulky, there are a few outliers. Washing Machine Rotom, who is already a top tier threat, probably stands the most to gain, as it is a bulky electric type that struggles to heal itself, and often only has Volt Switch as an electric attack. Parabola Charge could solve all of its problems, giving it a reliable electric attack, while also giving it a decent way to heal outside of Pain Split.

And for this generation's caterpillar bug pokemon, we have... Jesus Christ! Oh, sorry, I just lost my composure there for a second. The next Pokemon to carry on the heritage of Caterpie and Wurmple is not Jesus of Nazareth, though the truth might just be stranger. It's Scatterbug, which looks like it just dropped in to say hi on its way from some kind of horrific torture porn directly to your nightmares. In addition, its classification is the "Powder Blowing Pokemon", which, to me, is just aching for a cocaine joke.

And these are the Pokemon that Scatterbug evolves into, Spewpu and Vivillion. Besides the unmatched grossness of Spewpa's name, there isn't much to remark on. They're not as creepy as Scatterbug, but I still think there's something a little off about Vivillion. And Spewpu doesn't seem nearly crusty enough to be an intermediary between a crawling bug and a flying bug.

No, its eyes are actually placed right behind its nose, in an arrangement that does not seem very evolutionarily sound. That was the answer to the question that I'm sure you all asked, which is "Dear God in heaven, are those thing's eyes inside out?!" The "eyes" on Noivern's face seem to be membranes that it uses to hear, because that's totally what bats do, and it's probably a good thing that Bruce Wayne didn't try to emulate this. Noivern is a Dragon/Flying Pokemon with a pretty decent design, once you get past the freakish eye things. Next Pokemon.

Oh Gods, not this guy again. I've said everything I care to say about this thing. Next Pokemon.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took a Kingler, removed its ability to feel anything but hate, and changed it to an entirely different species? (A water gun, if the classification is to be believed) You'd probably get something pretty closed to Clauncher, who probably has the best name of any Pokemon revealed so far, though it's honestly not a tight competition. It actually might be my favorite Pokemon so far. There's just something magical about how legitimately pissed off it looks.

Using masterful camouflage, Skrelp disguises itself as a piece of kelp by making itself look like nothing of this Earth. Seriously, this thing could pose more convincingly as a Lovecraftian Horror than any kind of plant life. Also, while I understand that Pokemon are color coded for your convenience, being purple to indicate that you're poisonous is not a good business strategy for blending in. If I had to guess what this looked like, I'd say it kind of resembles an artist's rendition of a banana that was left in the refrigerator of The Bebop for too long. 

And for the last Pokemon of this post, we have Flabébé, the only Pokemon that I know of with accents in its name (Other than, you know, the actual word "Pokémon"). Flabébé is apparently the new smallest Pokemon, a recognition it won by swearing that the flower totally isn't part of its body. It's one of those new Fairy types you've probably heard so much about, and there seems a decent chance it'll snatch up a grass type when it evolves. It apparently comes with a variety of different colored flowers, making it kind of like Gastrodon and Basculin in terms of having differently colored sprites that aren't shiny. That stamen in the middle looks vaguely dirty, but you didn't hear it from me.

And that's just about all I have to say. I wanted to give this post a proper conclusion, so it didn't seem like I just quit as soon as I ran out of things to talk about, but I'm afraid that's exactly what happened.

E3 Concluding Ramblings, No More Parts to Follow

See, I was expecting that once E3 had actually gotten underway, there would be a whole host of things for me to care about and discussed, but then I remembered that I'm not a gamer. In light of a new Super Smash Brothers, there is nothing else that I care about, or could possibly ever care about. So I guess I'll just start off with a neat little observation I made.

First of all, though, you should check out http://www.smashbros.com/us/, the new most important part of my morning ritual. Well, second to the blood sacrifice, of course. Not even Smash Bros can keep the voices at bay. Sorry for making such an obvious joke, but you know what they say: The truth is stranger than fiction. Anyway, if you click the button that says "Wii U & Nintendo 3DS Developer Direct", it'll take you to a video where the game's creator talks about some of the new characters, and how he plays the game, and you can't, and how much happier he is for it. I highly recommend that you watch it. But in the video, he says something interesting. He says that the Wii U version and the 3DS version will have "the same number of characters". Well, actually, he says something in Japanese, and then the translator says that. But you will note that he does not say that they will have the same characters. In addition, he explicitly says that some stages and other things will be different between between the two consoles. So, while it may just be a translation thing, it certainly seems possible that the two games will have different characters.

So what characters will be exclusive to which consoles? Well, I can't say for sure, but if you go to the pages for The Villager and the Wii Fit Trainer, (Hilariously called "Miss Fit" by some) you'll notice that they have no images from the 3DS game, only the Wii U. All other characters have screens from both, so it seems fairly likely to me that Miss Fit and The Villager will be Wii U exclusive.

And really, that's about all I have to say. Except that Gamefreak seems really insistent on normalizing all their Pokemon. I'm sure that, theoretically, a math joke could be made about that, but I'll just blame sickness for my inability to do that. Two Pokemon so far have been announced to have Normal and another type, which is stupid, because normal is supposed to be the type that Pokemon have when they're too lame to have any other type. I guess GameFreak just decided that what they had created was too derpy to not have a Normal type.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... The New Bidoof!

But seriously, what the hell is it doing with its legs like that? Is it lying on the ground? Is that how it stands? I just cannot imagine how such a creature could come to be, outside of the imagination of a particularly mean-spirited Spore player.

Other than that, there's not much else to say. Everyone else has bitched plenty about Microsoft, so I don't really have anything to add. Kingdom Hearts III is something that my content manager certainly cares about, if not me. And everything seems quiet on the Hoenn front, which makes me a little nervous about how confidently I assured everyone that they were very definitely going to do a Ruby/Sapphire Remake. Perhaps they figured that after seeing the above monstrosity, no one would ever want to play Pokemon ever again.

E3 Initial Ramblings, More Parts to Follow

Did you watch both of those? No? That's too damn bad. Watch them now.

Thank you. Now that your tear ducts are empty and your diaphragm is enfeebled by your unrelenting sobs of joy, I hope that you still have the mental acuity to read this, though I really have nothing to say. Just... did you see all those brothers? Did you see what they were doing? They were smashing. And there was fire, and music, and Megaman. And it was good.

You could say that I've always been more of a Nintendo Fanboy than an actual gamer, so I will likely say little about the Xbox One and PS4, except that I don't care. Also, most of the rumors about used games and always online that surround the Xbox One are either exaggerations or outright fabrications. Does that make it a good console? Absolutely not.  But I think it takes a certain amount of egotism to think that Microsoft is really going to spy on your conversations through your Kinect. They really don't care about what you're saying. At worst, they'll have some computer analyze your conversation for certain keywords, then use it to target their advertising, which sounds pretty bad, but I never really saw the problem. Would you rather see advertisements for products you have no interest in? Why not just ignore them entirely, like you almost certainly do already?

Now that everyone who takes these things way too seriously has closed their browser window while muttering something about "sheeple", it's just us, the cool kids. Honestly, I'm not sure any of the things I'm talking about are even technically E3 news, but E3 started today, and Nintendo made a bunch of reveals, so I'm just going to consider it E3. Game Freak hasn't started their E3 conference yet, but they have let slip one major reveal: Fairy type.

Indeed, it is as the rumors foretold. There is indeed a new type, and it is "Fairy". Now, those Pokemaniacs out there with souls might notice that this is stupid. What is "Fairy Type" even supposed to mean? The currently announced fairy Pokemon are Marill, Jigglypuff, Sylveon, and Gardevoir. As you may have noticed, these Pokemon share nothing in common, flavor-wise. However, the damned among us, might just find this new type to our liking. You see, Fairy type is super effective against Dragon, and if it resists it as well, then there might just be something to stop Dragons from shitting all over everything. This could help stabilize the competitive battling metagame, and since competitive battling is all I care about anymore, I'm actually taking this surprisingly well.

Now that you've had a few minutes to recuperate, let's go back to Super Smash Brothers... I'm sorry. There's really nothing more to say. Next order of business...

Super Mario 3D World. As you probably guessed, it's for the Wii U, because "Land" clearly denotes portable games, and "World" clearly denotes console games. And if there's one thing that you can count on from Mario, it's consistency. In recent times, at least, they haven't really done much to change the formula, and it seems that they're sticking to the policy of "Just add a new powerup, screw it". And this new powerup is... some kind of cat suit? I can't say I like it. I might even hate it. But that's not important, because the idea of adding multiplayer to the formula of Super Mario 3D Land is intriguing to me. But, more importantly, the music. Give this a listen.

Mario Kart 8 was also announced, so let us all have a moment of silence for the laid off workers of Nintendo's Subtitle Division. The trailer didn't really reveal anything terribly notable, other than hovercars(?) and strange gravity antics, reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy. I really liked Mario Kart Wii, (I guess we can trace the downfall of the Subtitle Division) so I'm sure I'll pick this up, but it's not enough to make me get a Wii U. However, I might make an exception if there's a Möbius Strip track.

As it turns out, I'm not quite finished talking about the New Smash Bros, because it seems that a trailer managed to escape my attention.

Honestly, I'm not terribly confident about this, but after seeing Kirby do yoga, it doesn't matter anymore. I was upset at first, but I just can't stay mad at Smash Bros, and I can't stay mad at Kirby faced with the painful reality that he doesn't even have legs, just feet that are attached to his torso.

Well, I guess it's time for me to sign off by acknowledging that you had no real reason to read this. But thanks for doing it anyway. There are many places out there with far more in-depth coverage of E3, and I had like, three jokes, tops, so this may have just been a waste of time. But since that's all this blog is meant to do, I guess you could call this post a success.

μ3

For the small percentage of my target audience that is not comprised of native Greek Pokemon fans, this post is about the new Pokemon that was recently revealed, bearing a strong aesthetic resemblance to Mewtwo. Dubbed "Mewthree" by basically everyone, there is some debate about whether it is an alternate forme, an evolution, or a different Pokemon entirely. But it has been confirmed by Word of God that it is indeed related to Mewtwo in some way, so we shouldn't end up with another Alomamola crisis on our hands. Judging by the way that he is referred to as a new Pokemon with some connection to Mewtwo, it seems unlikely that he's a new form. And we can infer that he probably isn't an evolved form because that would be absolutely unacceptable. And we all know that Game Freak only makes decisions that are at least marginally acceptable. Right?

It was definitely those piercing, powerful eyes that tipped me off.

Whatever it is... I don't think I like it. On the other hand, I find myself inclined to reserve judgment until I know more about its competitive viability, which means that I've rescinded any right to have any opinion on a  Pokemon's appearance. In fact, I am now having something of an internal crisis, brought about by questioning whether or not I like this Pokemon. Its appearance does a rather nice job of evoking the idea of a genetically engineered superweapon, but if there's one complaint I have, it's that goddamned head-tail. I don't know why but it's just... not OK. Perhaps the argument could be made that the unease evoked by GodDamned Head-Tail (referred to as GDHT from now on) is intentional, and that it was purposely designed to push the boundaries of the uncanny valley or something. But that's obviously taking it way too seriously. This is Pokemon: a game for children. GameFreak doesn't do things on purpose.

Backtracking to what I said earlier, it seems likely to me that this new Pokemon is meant to be some kind of genetically engineered monster, much like Mewtwo, who(m?) was created by optimizing Mew's genes for combat, as I'm sure you didn't need me to remind you. This coincides interestingly with the titles of the new games, "X and Y", which some have speculated to refer to X and Y chromosomes. As you likely know, the X and Y chromosomes are the ones that determine a person's sex (or gender, if you prefer being wrong). Females have two X chromosomes, and males have an X and a Y. If my imaginary/real prediction falls through the cracks, (Click here to read more about that, and be whisked away to a magical realm where I was actually funny) then my backup prediction is that the next Pokemon Generation will focus on Sex Warfare. If you're searching for a band name, that one's on the house. In much the same way that Pokemon Black and White was an allegory for civil rights and racism, Pokemon X and Y will mirror women's rights and suffrage. How GameFreak explores this is entirely up to them, but I'd appreciate it if they explained how the Hitmon- evolutionary line reproduces. I mean, they're all guys, so they can't breed with each other. Female-only Pokemon like Chansey can get around this limitation by sexing it up with Pokemon of other species, because children are always the same species as the mother. But for males, such sluttishness does nothing for the continuation of the species. The only way to solve this problem is by saying that ever single Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, and Hitmontop is the son of a Ditto. The lesson is that the Pokemon universe is an engine, and debauchery is its fuel.

Feel free to imagine this Pokemon sexing it up, real inter-species-like.  Also, notice how way too small her face is.

Since I've already strayed so far from Mewthree into the somewhat charted waters of XY general discussion, I'd like to bring up this asshole:

I am expressing dissatisfaction with your appearance, sir.

The internet has been abuzz with discussion of this Pokemon, the newest evolution of Eevee. Because GameFreak absolutely hates everyone who plays their games, they've refused to reveal this Pokemon's type yet, but I can rigorously prove that there is absolutely no way I will be satisfied with this thing's typing. As much as I'd like to be proven wrong, the math is incontestable. The way I see it, it has 4 possible types, and I will exhaustively explain why each one is lame:

1. Normal-type. As I see it, this is the most likely type, because look at it. It looks like someone pasted an Audino texture onto a generic Eeveelution template. There are some people who say that its color scheme is the same as Victini's, and to those people I'd like to say that I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. In addition to the color, the ribbons seem to suggest normalcy to me. I can't really say why. I don't think I need to expound on why a normal type Eevee evolution would be lame. Normal is a lame type, for starters. The entire point of eevee is that it evolves to adapt to its environment. That's kind of how it got its name. So to what is Sylveon adapting? Is it purposely becoming cuter so that trainers will choose it more? That... actually kind of makes a lot of sense. But it's still lame.
2. Some type other than normal. You might be wondering how there can be two more possible types when I've already included every type. The answer may surprise you. The main reason that it would be lame if it were some other type is that it doesn't look like any other type. Eeveelutions are supposed to have a design that suggests their type. What other type could this be? Dragon? I'm not really a fashionista, so I wouldn't know if ribbons were the most draconian of all accessories, but I'm pretty sure that ribbons are rather low on the big list of design choices that imply that something is a dragon. No other type comes to mind.
3. Dual-type. Some people think they've come up with a clever workaround for the "It doesn't look like any type" problem by saying "Maybe it has two types!". These people have made poor life choices. By giving it two types, that just means that it has TWO types that it doesn't resemble, which actually doesn't circumvent the problem, but make it worse instead. This is known in the engineering community as "bad".
4. New type. OK. Here we go. A lot of people cling to the delusional hope that there will be a new type, and that Sylveon will have that type. I think that won't happen, and I know that it shouldn't. And here's why: It's too late for a new type. If a new type were created, it would be greatly outnumbered by all other types, even if a few older pokemon were retconned with new types, like Magnemite. In addition, there's no real need for a new type. What would it be? The favorite is usually "light", but how would that work, effectiveness-wise? It would probably be good against dark and ghost. Maybe dragon? What would it resist? Dark and Steel were introduced in the second gen to curb the ridiculous overpoweredness of psychic. I'm already running way too long, and I'm too angry about this to really make any jokes, so the specifics of why psychic was so OP will be left out. There is no reason for a light type. Another suspect is "sound", which is similarly dubious. How would its type effectiveness match up? I guess it could be neutral against everything, like sonic boom, but that would be overpowered and also dumb. To top it off, there isn't really much about Sylveon's design that suggests any conceivable type. He just has a bunch of fleshy tentacles and a bow... tie... Sylveon is Time type. Since Sylveon is the 9^th Pokemon in the Eevee evolutionary line, (including Eevee himself) I guess that makes him Chris Eccleston. Unless another Eevee is also revealed, in which case he could be David Tennant, which would be YES.

Speaking of the possibility of there being another Eeveelution: That “possibility” had better get upgraded to a “certainty” right quick if Gamefreak doesn't want me to threaten their pets. I may be a decent man, but all bets are off when it comes to preserving the parity of Pokemon. The number of Eeveelutions must always be odd, lest dire penalties be suffered. God Forbid GameFreak actually tries to change their games for once.

Pokemon X and Y Trailer

A few things that I found to be of note:

• It looks like Pikachu is standing on top of the Eiffel tower at 00:12. OK
• Roller skates at 00:27. That is all
• At 1:10, the Player Character approaches a throne that is flanked on both sides by HUGE pillars of flame. No words I type here can do it justice.

Special Blogspot Note: Honestly, I probably could have just included this on the previous post, since I'm Blogspot masterclass now. But they were two different posts originally, and I really want to achieve the even 20 posts that I promised in that first post.

XYZ Affair

The first thing they teach you at blog school is to stay topical. As it turns out, the adjective  that means “having to do with topology” is topological, so I can’t make a joke about that. Sorry. In reality, this means that I’m going to be talking about recent events. This is recommended so that when future bored-people read the archives of your blog, and see the kinds of things that were considered important in the past, they can have a good laugh at how silly we are here in the past. Also, if any of you out there are really excited to go to blog school, I’d really advise against it. I mean, I dropped out after they taught me the first thing, and look at how successfully I’m doing!

For awhile now, Nintendo’s been saying that they’re going to drop some juicy deets about Pokemon on January 8th (The day this was written). Despite being a Pokemon fanatic, more or less, I didn’t really much care. I thought for sure they would just announce remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, like everyone knew they were going to do. All that was left was to learn what the names were, and whether or not they’d finally nut up and release a Pokemon game for the 3DS. Personally, I was rooting for “Rapturous Ruby” and “Sinful Sapphire”, but that wasn’t the announcement. We still haven’t learned the names of the remakes, so it’s up to you guys, in the future, to figure it out for us, trapped here in the past (Don’t even pretend that there’s a chance that they won’t remake Ruby and Sapphire. That would be like if Call of Duty stopped being a yearly cash-grab bonanza. I really hope that joke seems prophetic in the future). But we do know that Game Freak’s deciding to elevate those nuts with a 3D Pokemon (Pokemon Rumble Blast doesn’t count, as evidenced by the fact that you’d never heard of it before now). Because, you see, Nintendo announced something that I never would have dreamed of: Gen VI.

That’s right. A new generation of Pokemon, within the end of the year. October 2013 is the worldwide release date. The names of the games are “Pokemon X” and “Pokemon Y”, presumably so they can release a “Pokemon Z” as a third title. Because the games are in 3D, this will be very mathematical and nice. Certainly, the rational part of my brain is thinking “Wow, that’s way too soon after the previous Generation. Only 3 years? That’s pretty sketchy”. But as anyone who knows me will know, the rational part of my brain is easily overpowered by the part that shouts “OH MY GOD NEW POKEMON NEW MOVES NEW ABILITIES NEW MUSIC NEW BASE STATS TO MEMORIZE”. So it seems that, against my better judgment, I’m excited for this. In addition, starters and title legends have already been revealed, with names for the former.

I guess I’ll start off with the grass starter, the way it’s always been done. As you can clearly see, it’s a… Pokemon. Honestly, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be. An internet friend suggested that it might be a chipmunk, but I’m not entirely sure that’s even a real thing. Regardless, this is probably my least favorite of the starters, as I have no idea what it even is. As a result, I also have no idea what the name is supposed to mean. Overall, pretty disappointing. However, it seems to be the very first grass starter that isn’t a reptile of some sort (Go ahead and review all the previous grass starters in your head. I’ll wait). So that’s something. If I had to make a prediction for the dual-type of this guy’s final form, I guess I’d go with… mono-type? Most Grass starters have been mono-type so far, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this fellow followed their dismal example, as I can’t really imagine what secondary type he’d have.

The Fire starter seems like it will probably break the long-standing trend of fire-fighting starters. While this is good from an originality perspective, it kind of sucks for the Pokemon itself, because fighting is one of the best types that fire can be paired with. As you can plainly see, it looks like a fox. Like the web browser. But a friend of mine seems to believe that it is a deer, a belief whose validity is greatly damaged by the existence of something called a “Fennec Fox”, which this thing’s name seems to be a reference to. It looks pretty cute, which is the best a starter can strive to do, but it reminds me too much of Vulpix to be my favorite. If I had to hazard a guess as to the secondary-type of this one, I guess I’d say fighting, because I really have no idea what else it would be, and it would be kind of funny if Game Freak decided to stone cold troll us like that. A different friend conjectured that it could be fire-psychic, which would be pretty bitchin’.

And finally, we have the water starter, my personal favorite. Maybe it’s the white puffs that look kind of like a beard, or the white dots that look kind of like tiny little spectacles, but there’s something about this Pokemon that just seems classy to me. Water starters have often been my favorites, and it seems that “Froakie” is no exception. As it turns out, my complaint about Fennekin (which sounds kind of like a knock-off beer brand, now that I think about it) being unoriginal is completely hypocritical, as Froakie is the third water-type frog Pokemon, after Politoed and the Tympole line of 5th gen. The one that ended with a frog made of tits.

If I had to guess the secondary type of this Pokemon, I guess I’d go with Poison, like a poison dart frog. If Tentacruel is any indication, then Water-Poison is a pretty workable type combination, so I’m looking forward to this Pokemon.

And these are the title legends for Pokemon X and Y. As you can clearly see, one looks like a Y, while the other… also looks like a Y. Serebii assures me that their eye-glints reveal that the left Pokemon is the X one, and the right one is the Y one. I guess this means that I’ll be getting Pokemon Y, so I can name my legendary Pokemon “Y Wing”. Now, ever since 3rd gen, we Pokemaniacs have come to expect our Pokemon to stand for something. Land and Sea, Time and Space, Yin and Yang (Or Truth and Ideals, whatever that means). So what do these new Pokemon mean? Well, that’s what I’m going to speculate about. I think (hope) that the X Pokemon represents reality, while the Y Pokemon represents imagination. This is a pretty nice duality, but how does it relate to X and Y, you may ask? As in so many other instances, we turn to math for the answer. Those of you with memories of advanced math education may remember complex numbers. A complex number is merely the sum of a real number and an imaginary number. The complex plane is a Cartesian coordinate system (the “regular” rectangular coordinate system, with ordered pairs and all that) where the real part of a complex number is represented along the x axis, and the imaginary part is represented along the y axis. Hence, the X Pokemon including the domain of reality in its portfolio (I actually made a joke without even realizing it. In math, domain is like, all the x values of a function. So it's like a pun), and the Y Pokemon ruling over imagination. If this speculation comes true, I will cry tears of pure math. I don’t know how they will fit the 3rd axis into this, but I’m still not entirely sure how they fit Kyurem into Black and White, so I’ll just leave it up to Game Freak.

Now, this next speculation has little to do with anything that’s been revealed about 6th gen, but it’s an idea that’s been knocking around in my head since 4th gen. Most hardcore Pokemon fans are familiar with Arceus, the Pokemon that created the universe, while paradoxically having descended from Mew (All Pokemon descended from Mew, remember?) Now, as creator of the Universe, most people have assumed that Arceus is the God of Pokemon, and you’ll find few people disputing that belief. But nothing in the games actually says that, and I think it’s not just to avoid theological controversy. You see, Arceus’s official Pokedex classification is “Alpha Pokemon”. But God is not “The Alpha”. He is “The Alpha and The Omega”. So what if… there’s an Omega Pokemon? Just as Arceus is the being that created the universe, this Pokemon is the being destined to destroy it. Now, the mythology of Pokemon is all good and interesting, but there’s something even more important to consider: Competitive implications. Arceus is perhaps the most powerful Pokemon of all time, thanks largely to his incredible stats and ability to have any type. It would be foolish to assume that his brother did not have similar competitive capabilities. So I conjecture that, much like Arceus’s Multitype, Omegamon (I’m going to go ahead and bet a slowpoke tail that that’s already the name of a Digimon) will have an ability that allows him to be customized with plates. But, instead of changing his type, these plates will alter his base stats, allowing him to take on the role of a sweeper, wall, or tank as needed. Needless to say, this would be hella prime, as specialized Pokemon almost always fare better than generalized Pokemon with the same base stat total.

Anyway, sorry about that. That’s just something I’ve been wanting to get off my mind for awhile. Now, since this is going to be for the 3DS, you might wonder what the graphics will be like. Specifically, how 3D they will be. The answer is all the 3D. Ever since 4th gen, Game Freak has been talking good shit about how totally 3D their new games are. Well, those promises are finally coming to fruition, as these graphics are as three dimensional as Land Super 3D Mario. In addition, the battles themselves will be 3D, with the Pokemon actually doing the attacks that they’re doing. 

As you can see, the Player Character looks wrong, like a 3-dimensional Bomberman. I can’t really think of a better way to describe it than “wrong”, so I’ll just leave it at that. The battles look pretty neat, but you’d really have to see them in action to get a good idea of how they look, and I’m not really sure how to embed video in this God-Forsaken medium. I trust you guys to be able to Google ”6th gen Pokemon trailer” or, failing that, scroll up to the video of the trailer than I will probably link to.

In the end, Game Freak is promising new Pokemon, so I can’t really afford to not be excited.

What’s this? EXTRA SECRET BONUS REASON!

0. If a Pokemon game comes out for the 3DS, that’s probably going to convince a whole lot of people to get a 3DS, because honestly, it hasn’t had “many must-have” games so far. Except for “Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward”. So the release of a new Pokemon game means that I might be able to more effectively plug the Zero Escape Series. This would bring peace to my heart.

That’s right, two different posts with the same twist ending. If I keep working at it, I could start writing stories for Professor Layton. Sorry Hershel, I’m just still a little sore over the ending of Diabolical Box.