captainash | 17th treasure [video]

Entry tags:

17th treasure [video]

[Ah, such a lovely day this is. Seriously, it has everything needed for perfection: a wobbly video feed, a fluffy lime green afro taking up most of said feed, a Relicanth swiftly swimming away from said afro, and an original score -crashing waves, Eevee screams, the shouts of a hundred furious souls- that matches the action perfectly.]

Look at that fish go-

[For a man who has to deal with an Eevee screaming in his ear and digging his claws in his shoulder, Ash sounds much too gleeful. The image starts to turn around, shaking even more as it moves.]

-and look at those turtles follow!

[Ash also sounds much too cheerful for a man being pursued by dozens of angry Tirtougas. He might even sound like he's laughing.

...He is laughing. Oh hell.]

Looks like they're gaining on us. Afrodite, show them what we can do!

[Not that anyone else will get to see what exactly that is, because Evo chooses that moment to try and get away from this madness, hitting the Gear in the process.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Especially since it's possible for a sentient yet not disconcerting icicle resembling ice cream to be both female and extremely girly.

Exactly. It really does seem understandable with the ones that seem to be based on manmade objects, at least in theory, but there's really no rhyme or reason to the majority of them. It just seems like they're there to make your life difficult when you're attempting to breed something.

Isn't that what Ditto is for? Breeding with everything that doesn't want to breed and horrifying everyone who tries to understand how that works?

That's really all it's good for, honestly... and in that situation, you can't breed any extra moves onto them, which is almost more frustrating than if they couldn't breed at all.

Really? I didn't know that. It would explain why AGE-2 and AGE-FX didn't know any additional attacks at birth, though.

It's annoying, but I suppose it follows something vaguely resembling logic, given that inheritance seems to be determined by the parents' genders. Offspring of the father's species inherit moves from the mother, while offspring of the mother's species inherit moves from the father. Given that Ditto can only learn one move which seems unique to it, you can see how that works out.

That would be a disadvantage to a breeder who aims for the largest possible moveset. Would the baby get anything at all from the Ditto parent? Certain personality traits, maybe?

[Hopefully not the one Dittos are best known for, though.]

Perhaps, yes. I really can't see any other reason why one would breed any Pokemon that isn't actually genderless with a Ditto, since you're settling for the worst option.

Well, you might not have a compatible partner for a gendered Pokémon. Then again, going out there and finding one would probably be more practical.

And a better investment in the long run, if you ask me. I haven't had much luck getting Ditto to be useful in battle, so I'd really rather have something else that could be a good member of my team.

I'm sure Dittos have their uses in battle.

[A beat.]

Somehow.

[Another beat.]

Under very specific circustances.

If they could use that transformation ability for things other than turning into a slightly worse version of the enemy, they'd be a lot more useful, I think. And really, there's no reason why it shouldn't be able to, which makes it all the more frustrating.

There must be a way to improve their transformation so that they become slightly better instead, at the very least. That would be helpful against Dragon- and Ghost-types.

It would, wouldn't it? Or if there was, perhaps, some way for them to have a different set of moves so they could launch a few surprises the enemy's way instead of being a nearly identical copy.

That might be much more difficult than it sounds, considering the large movesets certain trainers give their Pokémon.

...yes, that's true. Still, there has to be some way to give the Ditto the actual upper hand, because unless you're the only one in the battle who has any concept of strategy, you're almost certainly going to lose out.

You can't take advantage of the terrain, you can't use more powerful attacks... Pokémon can keep berries on them during battle, right? The right one could turn the tide, but you'd have to predict which opponent you'll fight...

Exactly. Furthermore, transforming takes time, which isn't exactly a plentiful resource in a battle. Unless the enemy's extremely slow or using some kind of absolutely useless move, that's almost certainly going to count against you.

...Well, at least that means it's enough to take out young Magikarps and Hoppips.

Thank God for small miracles, I suppose.

I've no doubt those poor newcomers who find themselves with pink goo for a starter appreciate it.

...I was actually thankful to run into a technical enemy from my world to accompany long enough to find a Hoothoot on the first route because it wasn't absolutely awful...

...Oh no. Please tell me you're kidding.

I wouldn't have half as many bad things to say about the creature if I didn't have reason for it.

Catching one to get a Normal-type for team balance and realizing that wouldn't work out would have been reason enough.