Crystal Mind

My personal blog. It's almost always video games here. Current icon and banner are Valerie from Pokemon.

[crystalelemental]

Was briefly confused why Coalossal had so many haters (#10 for its region), and all the comments are "Why wasn't this thing a train?"

I...actually can't argue that at all. This is the most legitimate grievance I've seen.

[crystalelemental]

Today I got to learn that Pokemon fans have really dumb taste. In the favorite Pokemon declaration site, Goodra is #6 for Kalos, Goomy is #7, and Sliggoo, the best one, is #63.

[helicalsymmetry]

i actually don't give a shit what 'human nature' is. i don't care what we're 'meant' to live like, and i'm not interested in projecting a vision of whatever validates my political/ideological beliefs onto the past. it's natural for humans to die of diseases and injuries. it's natural for humans to hit each other to death with objects. i don't care if my body is 'meant' to be a persistence predator in an (unrealistically) idyllic hunter-gatherer society because actually my body is 'meant' to lay down and die of nerve dysfunction. defy and overcome your fucking nature and do what you want without hallucinating the support of a thousand dead apes.

[crystalelemental]

Actually, you just opened my eyes on how horribly they butchered the Unova dragons in the West. “Truth” is supposed to be “negativity”/“yin,” while “ideals” are supposed to be “positivity”/“yang.” Incidentally, “yang” is “sunny,” while “yin” is “cloudy,” which probably explains their typings.

While that does explain the typings better, I don't think "positivity/negativity" is really doing any heavy lifting on making their thematics more tangibly relevant.

[crystalelemental]

Honestly, the whole truth and ideals thing has less to do with the dragons and more to do with the brothers/N. Reshiram got the truth label just because that’s what his particular brother fought for, same with Zekrom and ideals. Ultimately, N awakened both dragons in a sense, since the player’s stays dormant until facing N for the first time since they get its stone.

Also, Reshiram and Zekrom are supposed to be yin and yang, but good luck explaining that to a Western audience.

I mean. Yeah, that's kinda my point, but that also means that the dragons themselves don't really have anything they do that embodies the concepts they are identified with. They're functionally just cool dragons.

[crystalelemental]

"csolarstorm: That's the secret behind most legendary Pokemon. Their symbols/associated box titles are basically prompts to inspire the player to fill in their own interpretations of what they mean."

I think that's really only true for Gens 4 through 6. Gens 2 and 3 had extremely concrete roles: Lugia and Ho-oh are just Big Birds with one who has resurrection powers as a phoenix but their association is place of worship, while Groudon and Kyogre are just big land and sea beasts with Rayquaza as the sky beast that keeps them in line. There's no a whole lot of interpretation to be done, at least not in the philosophical sense. Meanwhile, Gen 8's dogs are just kinda there as vague protectors, while Gen 9's lizards are just past/future beasts that are cool. There's really nothing going on there.

Gen 4 had Space and Time as fabric of reality control, with Giratina as the reverse world, whatever that is supposed to be in metaphysical terms. But that I think gets distilled down to like...control over. Dialga controls time, it can therefore manipulate it in some way, although this is rarely explored. Palkia can manipulate space, which is more explored in Mystery Dungeon where it can functionally teleport wherever it wants and draw people between dimensions. Giratina rules the reverse world, though it's not entirely clear what exactly it does.

Gen 6 has the life/death/balance thing, except they forgot that Zygarde does anything. Xerneas confers (nigh eternal) life, while Yveltal kills, but there's not a whole lot of confusion about what exactly their functional deal is.

Gen 5 is really the odd one out. Similar to 4 and 6, it's going for a sort of metaphysical control, but unlike Space/Time and Life/Death which have a clear "Control over" mechanism, what the hell is "Control of truth/ideals" supposed to mean? Reshiram and Zekrom really don't have any actual alignment to either, they're just the tool used by brothers whose rhetoric championed those concepts. They don't "control" anything, and they don't strictly represent either concept, especially considering N will take either while his dialogue and goals go virtually unchanged. So I do find that duo particularly meaningless in concept, even if I still enjoy them.

[crystalelemental]

A thought occurred to me: If we were going to get Z Megas anyway for Mega Dimension, then wouldn’t it have made sense to use the Kanto starters to introduce that concept? I mean, I know you think Kanto deserves nothing, but like, use Rogue Mega Venusaur Z to introduce the concept instead of randomly making it the only Kanto starter whose Mega Stone you can’t buy, then make Charizard Z Grisham’s ace so that he actually stands out, and I dunno where you’d sneak in Blastoise Z, maybe Mable or Jett gives you the stone for some reason?

I am vehemently opposed to this idea. If they wanted to introduce the idea, first of all they shouldn't. I fundamentally disagree with the Z Megas to begin with; I didn't like Zard and Mewtwo having two distinct forms either, and I personally find little reason for Raichu to have two forms either. I think they all should've just picked one (Two Y, Zard Y, Chu X are the correct answers).

That said, since they did insist on doing Z megas, I think their introduction was fine. Bringing back Korrina to showcase a new form of mega evolution makes complete sense, and it's not like Lucario isn't a fan favorite for reasons that baffle me. It's just a shame what they did to Korrina's aesthetic.

[silentauroriamthereal]

[the-real-seebs]

the average rap battle has nothing on people who are still deeply in love after twenty years

[max1461]

Guy who believes that anything minus 1 is zero because, ok say you have 2, right? Well that means you have one 2. So if you take away one out of the situation that means you don't have one 2 anymore you have zero 2s i.e. you have 0. Guy who believes that.

[apricops]

type of guy who hunts that type of guy for sport

[chenna-kitty]

Eternal Princess Kaguya

[crystalelemental]

Just to confirm, does Magnet Rise functionally CHANGE the user’s ability to Levitate? Or are you just immune to Ground for five turns? I feel like that’s gonna be HIGHLY relevant to Mega Raichu Y going forward.

Adds effect. And I dunno, it’s not exactly tanky so supereffective attacks are far from its biggest concern, so I can’t see Magnet Rise being remotely worth the turn in a doubles format.

[crystalelemental]

This is exceptionally funny to me. No Guard Zap Cannon meta is real. That said, I don’t love the pick for Raichu X. This makes it a good partner to Future Pokemon, but its special attack is sub-par, and physical electric is memetically cursed. Given the lack of hold item and no ability to boost them, coverage isn’t exactly spectacular either. Then again, it’s more utility than sure hit Zap Cannon/Focus Blast. I expect X to be more of a utility mon, and Y to be a decent but unexceptional offensive option.

…actually I’m looking at options and Zap Cannon is a transfer only move from the now unavailable Gen 2 downloads on 3DS. So actually it’s just Thunder.

[pokemoniker]

“We need a robust impersonal state-sponsored safety net for the elderly, disabled, and mentally ill, because not even severely antisocial people should be left on their own to die” is a statement that i agree with. But it’s an issue i think people tend to oversimplify, because well. caring for insane bigoted old people sucks ass

[pokemoniker]

When people invoke this sentiment, i think they often make the same error seen in, say, calls for stronger online content moderation: a lack of consideration for who is going to do this work.

In the US today, around a quarter to a third of aides and caregivers for the elderly are immigrants [1, 2], the vast vast majority of whom are women. (From what I can tell) a major reason for this is that nursing or social work degrees/certification programs provide a straightforward (well, relatively) pathway to citizenship or permanent residency; and many simpler caregiver jobs only require a high school diploma, which is useful for immigrants in the US who may not be able to attend college. While I'm sure many of these workers have a sincere passion for caregiving, in a world without severe immigration restrictions and these obvious pipelines the numbers would not be this skewed. I do not think most of these people would put these careers as their first choice.

For starters, they do not pay very much. Average base salary on Indeed for caregiver jobs was $16.83 an hour. For seconders, how often have you had to deal with older relatives making sexist, racist, or otherwise uncomfortable comments at family gatherings? Frankly, lot of old people suck to be around! So do a lot of mentally ill people! Mentally ill old people (so, a lot of the ones receiving home care or living in facilities) can extra suck to be around!! Sexual harassment, violence, and abuse towards workers is common in home care and facilities. [1, 2, 3]. Many caregivers of color experience racism from coworkers, patients, or patients families. Now, many of these people are not fully in control of their thoughts or actions (hence why they require care). And even if they were, being a racist abusive serial harasser doesn't mean somebody deserves to be tortured or medically neglected or left to die.

But we aren't talking about abstract hypotheticals and who "deserves" what. We are talking about real people. When people say things like "the worst person you know still deserves care", it feels like they are expecting the care provider to just manifest out of the ether, and be willing to do whatever is needed without complaint. How much money would someone have to pay you to visit your shittiest relatives for eight hours a day? How long do you think you could retain a warm, kind bedside manner while being sexually harassed, called slurs, or physically assaulted? A week? A month? This is what providing care for the elderly, disabled, and mentally ill can entail, and this is what needs to be addressed if we want to prevent abuse and neglect of patients.

[pokemoniker]

I feel like i didn't connect the first and the second two paragraphs very well... my point in bringing up demographics was that

1- most of the people in caregiver jobs currently are not people who can really have their pick of whatever careers they desire. This is relevant because people often bring up "care provided for people who need it regardless of their sociability" in the context of like, what we as a society should work towards as an ideal. But in an ideal world, how many people would choose the career path of "care for the assholes nobody wants to deal with"?

2- many healthcare workers are nonwhite and experience racial harassment

3- the fact that "who is going to provide this care" seems like an unimportant concern for people reflects how the needs of immigrant workers are often overlooked and invisiblised by those unfamiliar with them. Similar to when people say "We need more content moderation!" without considering the thousands of content moderaters who do exist (mostly in poorer countries) and are being traumatized constantly

[crystalelemental]

Like I actually do think that Reshiram and Zekrom's whole philosophical background is kinda nothing if you dig into it, interesting as words but by ideas is functionally incoherent. Like there's no real distinction in events or meaning between games that signal "truth" or "ideals," given that everyone's dialogue is identical barring a flip-flopping of these terms.

Kyurem being their void shell or maybe a space monster that eats people sometimes with absolutely no attempt to reconcile the two lore explanations despite obviously fusing with the other legends, however, is hilarious.

[crystalelemental]

I think the Reshiram hater is the first one to actually have a truly savage takedown I can say nothing against and kinda hurt my feelings:

"Reshiram is a pretentious Pokemon. It is a plot and merchandise convenience, but its games pretend it is important with inauthentic, cloying, faux-philosophical-substitute. Zekrom shares this but clears in design and mechanics. Reshiram tries to convey elegance without having it and plays boringly."

Brutal.

[crystalelemental]

When considering the validity of hate comments for Pokemon, these are my generalized criteria:

If the comment is about an in-game frustration, it is valid.

If the comment is about competitive frustration, it is valid.

If the comment is about subjective opinions of design, it is valid regardless of depth of opinion.

If the comment is about the Pokemon being "over popular," it is valid.

If the comment contains a basis in inaccurate information, it is invalid.

If the comment has nothing to do with the Pokemon itself when you get right down to it, it is invalid.

While a subjective take, if I get the sense that your disdain is exclusively a sexism/misogyny thing, it is invalid.

To give some examples:

Lurantis' hater identifies Mallow's trial as a significant point of frustration that turned them off of the Pokemon. This is valid, not just because I also hate that trial, but because any in-game experience is a fair reason to be mad.

Landorus-Therian has multiple comments of hate directed at its competitive viability ("fuck you and your meta," "sucks to play against"). This is valid, not just because it is true and Smogon should have banned it in like every generation's OU, but because competitive frustration is valid in general.

To give a really wide example, blanket "it sucks" is still fair. I don't necessarily need explanation, just an assessment of dislike. Comments like Wartortle's indication of hating its "wings" may be a shit-tier opinion, but it's subjective and valid. Shelmet's a good generalized one, just saying "Who saw this design and said 'Yeah, let's go with that?'" It's lacking detail, but clearly about subjective stance on design; valid.

A majority of Umbreon's nine haters express "overhyped" as the cause, and while my wife would fight them about it, it's a valid take.

Espeon is the one on my mind for this, since its sole hater calls it a "hairless cat" when it has fur per dex entries dating back to Gold. But another good one is Kadabra, which references "kidnapping children," which is...not something I've heard of in the anime, or referenced in dex entries unlike with Drifloon. My best guess is they're thinking of Drowzee and got confused, but since this has no relation to Kadabra, it's kind of moot.

The optimal example here is Kirlia. The one and only hate is just "What in the pedo-bait? Icky." While this may sound like an aspect of "vague design dislike" similar to category 3, the difference is degree of distance. It goes beyond just "this gives me the ick," into "it gives me the ick because I, personally, consider its design to be evocative of children, and I, personally, assume the design is meant to be sexualized, therefore." That's a lot of extrapolation that goes beyond just personal dislike and into dislike exclusively based on your interpretations of what others are seeing. It's not, and you're revealing a lot about yourself right now.

Gardevoir's "gooner bait" comment comes down to a similar issue to above, but is very specifically deriding a "feminine" design as being obviously sexualized. Primarina is much more overtly sexist, having two comments that are exclusively about how starters shouldn't be cute or pretty because that "skews too close to one gender," despite how many big monster things are masculine-coded without complaint. I can't find one, but I know I saw it earlier today: anything that is exclusively down to "used exclusively by 'pick me's'" is entirely about your stance on the women who like it, which is both not about the Pokemon, but also clearly about your opinions of women's preferences.

[crystalelemental]

If I have to see another person on the declare your pokemon site cite their reason for hating Gardevoir Lopunny or any other anthro pokemon because Gooner Bait I will force them to play day 1 ScarVio on the og switch

Oh god, you’re 100% correct, like fuck that complaint in particular. The absolute worst to me was actually Primarina, let me capture it for you:

Absolutely yes they should, we have so many starters that are focused on being hulking monsters and exactly one (1) with definitive cute-leaning traits, this was exceptionally overdue. Especially considering:

“Too visually coded to one gender.” This is a game for little kids. They understand “male as default,” and all those dinosaurs and cool-looking fighters are understood as “for boys.” It may not be Ideal Gender Politics to say so, but if this series is serious about being for boys and girls both, then you do in fact need feminine aesthetic Pokemon to appeal to young girls who want to see pretty things instead of hulking tough monsters. This was necessary and proper, but so many adult dudebros complained about “but dogs are masculine, they ruined my boy Popplio” that they never leaned this hard into femininity for a starter’s final stage again and it sucks.

The “Gooner Bait” thing is obvious dreck to anyone with sense, but they can at least fall back on the discomfort of the known quantity of porn. Primarina’s haters are half “I hate when women femininity.” One of the others is standard vapid hate, and the other accuses it of being a “Digimon mermaid.” There is one hater I consider valid, the rest of you are wrong.