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I find it kind of hard to keep track of the guide without pictures, especially the step-by-step explanation of how germline cells are formed.
It's kind of hard to talk about what would be plausible or implausible about this system of inheritance without getting down to "well this is how *I* think it would work," and there are plenty of real-life organisms with systems of inheritance that get roughly this crazy. At the same time, though, there are ways similar problems have already been solved by organisms that live here on earth, so your system ends up looking pretty strange and complex by comparison. Chromatin remodeling would be a plausible explanation for the way that moves are inherited (does your system account for the fact that level-up moves can also be inherited, but only if *both* parents know them?), for example. I dunno, I don't really want to be like "go out and do a ton of research on high-level topics for your pokémon fantheories," but it would really make what you came up with ring more true, I think.
Perhaps that would be something to address in your fan theories guide? It's fun to speculate about things like how the government of the pokémon world might operate or the technology behind pokéballs, but unless you happen to know a lot about government or theoretical physics/engineering you're probably going to come up with something that would look pretty strange, if not outright wrong, to someone well-versed in those areas. Or would you say that's not important?
'Penn & Teller, because I just love them, damn it.'
:D
Oh Butterfree. Also, I'd like to thanks you. You're awesome, and this site keeps me going.
I am proud. Very proud. More than you know.
TVTropes Mafia come baaaack ;-;
Happy almost ten years, anyway.
Just testing to see if I made some idiotic oversight in the comment system.
I think they don't fix likely mistakes like this in order to maintain consistency, to be honest. Probably the same reason as why they take pains to introduce new evolution methods when they introduce new evolutions.
(Incidentally, I now have a male Azumarill that was born a female Azurill myself, so I can personally confirm that it happens.)
Azuril's gender is probably like Nidorina and Nidoqueen's ability to breed. It's probably a mistake, and the developers totally coulda fixed it… But, like, they didn't. And nobody knows why.
Fixed.
I've heard that before, that the female-to-male Azurill was a mistake, but I never really bought it. If it was a mistake, it would've been fixed in later generations, but it still hasn't been.
It could be argued, of course, that it may have been intentional, and the developers decided to make it official, and this is of course possible (and is most likely the case, as there seems to be no reason to choose ahead of time to make the sex ratio of Azurill different).
"dictats that it should be female"
You forgot an "e" in "dictates."
You may have been sleepy when you typed that, but as a perfectionist, I think you would appreciate having that error pointed out for you.
It's not "official canon" in the sense that it's likely some kind of a mistake, but the fact is it does happen. A Pokémon's sex is determined by a number between 0 and 255 that's derived from its personality value (and is therefore static throughout the Pokémon's life); depending on its species' sex ratio, there is a certain cutoff point such that any Pokémon whose sex value is lower than the cutoff point is female and Pokémon whose sex value is greater than or equal to the cutoff point are male. Because Azurill has a 75% female sex ratio while Marill and Azumarill are 50% female, the cutoff point is different, meaning any sex value in between the two cutoff points will result in a female Azurill but a male Marill/Azumarill.
Is it canon that Azurill sometimes switch sexes upon evolution…? I can't find anything that says they do officially, only things that seem to be people just plain guessing.
If you have the time, could you make sprite packages for the backsprites of Pokemon? I know that's not really in high demand, and that you're busy, but it's just a suggestion.
When I've thought of a new poll I want answered. Might change it later, actually.
When will there be a new poll?
Oh, yeah, it's not meant to be taken seriously at all. I never intended it to be serious. I understand what you mean though, and I'm glad I could help you out with writing down your thoughts.
Yes, if you found evidence suggesting it was not a coincidence that the technically-666th Pokémon is Joltik, then you'd have a meta theory that Joltik was consciously created to correspond to that number. But it would be a very weak one, to be honest, unless there is something really mind-blowingly Satanic about Joltik that I haven't noticed. You started from the wrong end; instead of looking for possible explanations for something odd about Joltik and figuring out something that seemed to make sense, you first made your not very meaningful observation that it's technically the 666th Pokémon and are now reaching for something about Joltik that you can explain with it in order to be able to claim that it is meaningful. 666 just isn't a meaningful number in Japan, and even if it were it's highly unlikely the creators would choose to make their 666th set of stats special rather than making the 666th Pokémon in the National Pokédex special as all those other fans are assuming. You could make a crack theory out of it, but something that could be taken seriously? Not really.
So it's more like a fact that you have to search for. But if it was added to in a way that went into detail as to WHY it's not just a coincidence that Joltik was placed there in the Unova Dex, then THAT would make it a theory and not just something left to your imagination to elaborate on. Right?
That's a whole different sense of "explain", one that's simply interchangeable with "say". Theories are about the "You've got some explaining to do" kind of explaining: reasons, justifications and clarifications for something that is already there.
Your theory isn't an explanation of something that is already there. You're just making an observation that Joltik is technically the 666th Pokémon if you count forms. You're not, say, asking a question about why Joltik was designed the way it is and introducing this observation to answer it, or exploring some particular possible reason Joltik is the technically-666th Pokémon; you're just making an observation. That's not a theory, any more than "Voltorb is Pokémon #100 in the National Pokédex" or "Pidgey has wings" is a theory. They're simple facts.
A theory is a model, a set of assumptions about what you can't see that explains consistently why you observe what you observe and not something else. Your theory doesn't answer any why question, because it isn't a theory; it's just a dangling simple fact. Sure, it's a simple fact most people haven't thought about, but it doesn't become a theory unless it answers a sensible why question about the existing canon.
(This discussion is actually helping me put more of my thoughts on fan theories into words, so thanks?)
Hmm. Maybe it just seems to make more sense in my head then. The theory's there to explain that there are already more than that supposed number that so many dread, and therefore we wouldn't have to wait and see if theres a whole new generation for a Pokemon that matches up with it. I DID originally write it as a theory for a creepypasta site and therefore for entertainment. Maybe that's why it comes out as wierd?
I… really wouldn't call that a theory. o.O Exactly what is it a theory about? What question are you trying to answer? It's an observation you could base crackfic on, sure, but as far as I can tell it isn't explaining anything or even attempting to explain anything.
