koboldfacedlie:

maggotmaster:

baronessvonbullshit:

how is the healthcare system funded in pokemon, they must either have some sort of state which taxes the little shops which sell you ether and repel and shit or it’s some gigantic mutualist utopia or something

in pokemon black and white pokemon walmart and pokemon hospital are in the same building making it very clear they take place in america

the pokemon world’s economy is eccentric, but there are clear signs towards the existence of state power: ie, the fact that there are police. imo, all signs point to a utopian post-capitalist society that has only operated under its current mode for perhaps two generations. this reorganization of society was not precipitated by any revolution or even conscious political action, but rather the natural result of reforming the pokemon leagues and the systematic cataloging of pokemon and their capabilities thanks to professor oak’s pokedex.

throughout pokemon world’s history, pokemon have been used by humans to achieve things that they couldn’t do personally. indeed, as per Klink, Voltorb, Trubbish et al, new pokemon species will develop sympathetically to human society. however, forming a Bond between human and pokemon was significantly more difficult and required either the long-term taming of a pokemon raised from its juvenile evolutions or (more recently, within the last 700 years) the use of apricorn pokeballs, which were difficult to obtain due to the difficulty of cultivating apricorn trees. add to this the fact that pokemon at higher evolutionary tiers are less disposed to obey humans unless they’ve somehow proved their worth, and the vast majority of human owned pokemon would be placid, domesticated types and otherwise low power species. more powerful species and legendaries would only attach themselves to humans in dominant positions: kings, warlords, and so forth, and these pokemon would be bloody engines of war (see: pokemon conquest).

this feudal society evolved into a capitalist one thanks to the inception of the leagues. initially little more than the equivalent of a village cock-fighting ring. particularly adept trainers would find themselves able to make a living betting on the results of pokemon battles however, and would travel from village to village, challenging the best the locals could muster. eventually, they would make enough to retire, and many founded pokemon “gyms”, schools and dojos where people could pay to learn from them and perhaps even challenge them for status. the influence and wealth and gym leaders became such that they de facto controlled their town. this obviously drew the ire of the nobility, who attempted to crack down, but the gyms formed together into leagues and mounted a successful defense. the nobles were forced to play ball with the league, or else were replaced by them.

the resultant society was perhaps more “fair”, it operated under a meritocracy of a sort. anyone who was able to tame or catch a decent selection of pokemon, and challenge the league to make themselves known, could achieve high status and wealth. becoming league champion is, in its way, just as arbitrary an achievement as winning a war: enough to satisfy powerful pokemon’s desire for a competent master. a broader array of pokemon entered “common” use and could be directly leveraged to fulfil the requirements of a larger, more egalitarian dominant social strata, specifically in terms of construction and manufactory. this spurred the equivalent of the pokemon world’s industrial revolution. 

it wasn’t really fair of course, the children of gym leaders and former nobles, those who possessed land to hunt pokemon on. These people all tended to have better access to pokemon, and the money to buy apricorns. but there was no mass movement in the pokemon world equivalent to socialism. the majority of pokemon world’s people were still largely agrarian, the use of pokemon made the patterns of land enclosure and mass employment as laborers seen in our world unnecessary. 

the world carried on much as before until about 60-70 years ago (i’m basing this timing on the fact that some older trainers, such as Draden, suggest that they tamed their original pokemon rather than catching them) when Silph Co invented the mechanical pokeball. they could be manufactured in massive numbers and, more importantly, it could be done very cheaply. suddenly everyone could have pokemon, lots of pokemon. not just a couple of Flaafy that you trained over your entire life, but dozens of the damn things, of every conceivable type, even ones previously considered dangerous like Arcanine and Dragonite. 

suffice to say, this shook things up some. the leagues adapted quickly though, incorporating increased democratization and overhauling their structures to fit with the new paradigm. it may perhaps seem odd that the leagues acquiesced in most respects to popular political demand, but we  have to bear in mind that these were compromise measures: any nation that didn’t adopt the mechanical pokeball was going to fall behind, as mass pokeball ownership exponentially increased industrial capacity, and it was better that than face a real uprising from one of the new dangerous criminal and terrorist organizations who were able to quickly gain power by stealing pokemon (previously virtually impossible). the founding of the International Police around this time shows how seriously the leagues took the threat from Teams.

the new economy has, since then, gradually become divorced from capitalism. power, food, technology and consumer goods are all easily produced with the assistance of pokemon. they have become so cheap to produce that they may as well be free. the only form of poverty exists among the sick and disabled, who can’t catch or train pokemon, and that’s why social safety nets like nationalized healthcare have been broadly adopted. they are paid for by heavy taxes on “pokemon products” (potions, pokeballs, etc) which remain the only goods with any real cost outside of really specialized luxury goods. this is why in black 2 you don’t get paid money for starring in movies; you instead get rare items and pokemon products from your fans. 

most money probably doesn’t even come from jobs, since you need very little of it to keep yourself comfortable. money is kept in circulation mostly through pokemon battles, since trainers are the only ones that really need it (this is what allows Veterans to make a living as trainers also). this isn’t to say that access to resources is equal, far from it! certain old families still have more at their disposal (and more potent pokemon breeding stock). thus rich boys and ladies.

efficiency is only increasing since the development of the pokedex. while most pokemon species were discovered already, the pokedex allows detailed demographic information to be collected, making it easier for people to catch the pokemon they really want. it’s also led to stronger understanding of type interactions, see: the discover of dark and steel types (fairy type is still in peer review). since the pokedex was invented the world has been hyper-modernized, and now teleporters, maglev trains and the like are a reality. this is not a coincidence.

your average citizen in pokemon world is schooled until age 10-12 or so, and then begins a pokemon journey. they bond with various pokemon, and those pokemon determine what career they will have, by social convention. some jobs don’t require pokemon, but these are probably less prestigious outside of management roles. most of them will challenge and beat at least a few gyms. the gym leaders maintain several rosters to provide an appropriate challenge depending on the number of badges their opponent already has. their own personal team will see next to no use in an official context. 

not many people challenge the elite four, the top trainers that are part of the league, but doing so is considered very impressive. again, the elite four don’t use their best teams, they’re mostly battling children here. becoming a region “champion” will qualify a person for a gym leader position or a role in something like the battle institute, with membership in the elite four or even as the sitting champion themselves being a remote possibility for the future. the actual champion champion, the one you challenge, is determined by the elite four fighting among themselves and appointing the winner. they then replace the empty slot from among the gyms. 

yes, it’s possible to essentially join the government of a pokemon world nation by being really good at cockfighting. don’t forget, it’s widely believed (apparently sincerely) that a person who is a good trainer also necessarily has other positive attributes, so this isn’t that weird. and it seems plausible that the league trainers are supported by a larger bureaucracy that handles much of the day to day administration.  

in conclusion: jesus christ i hate myself

mr-egbutt:

thekingofvikings:

trainerjessikawantstobattle:

Pokemon X/Y is going to be set in France.

Yay! We can finally run from trainer battles!

hyrule-in-a-pokeball:

Pokemon… you’ve come a long way, kiddo

tinycartridge:

Fresh as hell Pokémon X/Y boxarts

The designs are essentially the same for North America and Europe, aside from the local ratings boxes. Which one do you intend to pick up — Pokémon ElkSwag or Pokémon Come At Me Bro?

PREORDER Pokemon X and Y, upcoming releases

Y’s box art is so damn cool but I think I’m going for X, because ElkSwag seems a whole lot cooler than Come At Me Bro, and I gotta play to that favorite.

B2/W2 Lifehack: if doing a lot of hatching with some really long incubation times, go to gear station in Nimbasa, stand in front of the point machine, tape down your circle or d-pad to “down,” and let it go until you see the “oh?” alert in screen.

Because biking up and down bridges for hours on end sucks, might as well let this go and work on something else while incubating.

[SIGHS AGGRESSIVELY]

This links to my live-updating Evernote-powered Pokedex. I’m planning on getting the top evolutions for every species stored, in order (by evolutiondex, see link), in my PC boxes on my copy of White 2.

I’m gonna reboot my White tonight (I pulled everything worth keeping off of it yesterday night), and play through again, both for plot (I was really bad at White, haha) and for Dex completion (namely, getting Tirtouga and Tepig as well as White Forest Pokemon and some prevolutions I don’t really want to spend time breeding to procure).

I also plan on picking up all the missed events in White by transferring the necessary Pokemon from Diamond/SoulSilver that I never got around to doing, and getting any and all missed Mystery Gift Pokemon by using a DNS GTS. I’m also gonna ask Nintendo to restart my White Dream World so I can start it from scratch and try to pick up new Pokemon on both White and White 2.

Eventually, I’m gonna do a full replay of Diamond for Dex completion and a replay of SoulSilver for both Dex completion and plot (haha I never finished the Johto League in SS oops), but hopefully at that point I will be hilariously and dangerously close to a perfect Pokedex, and any missing holes can be easily plugged up. Then, I’ll get my first Pokemon Diploma (holla) and have the ability to pull off a quick and dirty transfer of any required/missing Pokemon to Pokemon X this autumn.

It’s gonna happen this time. I’m gonna be a Pokemon Master.

quillavas:

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue Rescue Team: Best Friends

FUCK YES

Backflips down hallway and gives self a hi-five

More Pokethoughts:

My most vivid memory of Pokemon Blue was Christmas morning, being at my grandparents’ place in Cincinnati, opening the box and finding the brand new purple translucent Game Boy: Color and a copy of Pokemon: Blue Version. This was just before the show came out, so I had no knowledge of Pokemon besides a weird promotional VHS that some company had shipped to our house in Englewood.

I put the game in the GBC, flipped the switch, and started playing, listening intently to Oak as he gave me the first notes on what the fuck Pokemon were. I had seen Pikachu and thought that was pretty cool, but had no idea how expansive the number of Pokemon was.

I chose my name (ASHBY, all uppercase, of course) and saw my standing sprite shrink to the little guy in a bedroom.

And I remember looking around, completely engrossed in the fact that pushing the direction buttons moved me around in four directions (I was used to Genesis-era side-scrollers at this point in my life, so this was a BIG DEAL), and hitting A on every object there was to look at.

The big issue, however, was that I didn’t know how to leave the room.

I tried the computer, I tried the bed, I looked out the window, I even clicked A on the weird box in the top right corner. Nothing.

It’s silly to think about now, but I was actually stuck in Red’s bedroom for about two hours, because the staircase tile’s sprite was so foreign to me that I didn’t understand how it worked or what it even was.

It’s just crazy because you look at the bedroom now

And it’s so crazy to see how these small details in spriting, modeling, color palettes and such over the course of each game’s iteration have completely revolutionized the game’s visuals and aesthetics but retained the 2D top-down tile feel from the originals.

It’s just neat to see how these things have changed and yet stayed the same in so many ways and I think that’s what I like so much about Pokemon. It feels familiar and comfortable but can still do really cool new shit in every new series.

That said, even though it looks like Pokemon XY will continue the tile system of movement, I think the change from top-down 2D to 3D will be a really big step in the style of the games, and I’m really interested to see what that does for how the game feels.

I keep thinking about aging and nostalgia and Pokemon

I just read a post by a really good pokemon blog I follow that was like “when I was a little kid my friends and I would always joke that Kyogre was around when it was raining”

And it was absolutely mind-boggling to me for nearly a full minute because something about “little kid” and “Kyogre” in the sentence didn’t compute for me

Read More

tinycartridge:

Falling in love with Quagsire today

Thanks to these GIFs and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity scenes posted by claralovescup, tangelo-hat, and sonofabug.

BUY PMD: Gates to Infinity, Pokemon X and Y, upcoming releases

Quagmire literally gives no more than 1/8 of a fuck on a good day

Bless his silly heart

My Paradise is an absolute mess so I’m starting from scratch and going in with a plan this time.

Gonna have to grind like mad, but I think in the end it’ll be worth it.

Here’s the plan for the two Creeksides: a shop acre and a service acre, to the left and right of the home acre. Gotta get to work!

It’s pretty good thus far

It’s on a similar level feelings-wise at EoD/T/S, which is good (well, good for the game, not good for my feels)

There’s a few things that kind of irk me, mostly only being allowed to take on one mission at a time and having this big focus on customizing Paradise which is… REALLY time consuming

It takes three missions minimum to scrounge enough materials for an upgrade, and that’s if you get lucky and find just the right missions for what you want—so, at the pace the game moves, unless you start playing in “Companion Mode” (you get to play as the characters you leave behind when your leads go on missions), it’s a bitch to get much done.

That said, the graphics are great, the dungeons look a lot cleaner with the new scale, and the addition of non-gridded areas to dungeons is pretty refreshing.

I hope it comes to you guys soon, I know exactly how much it sucks to wait for a game to come out in your country (see: New Leaf).