barring emergencies

[the_very_best]

Bella's not sure where she has wandered. She thought she was about to walk into a shop, but this appears to be an unattended bar. With none of the windows associated with the shop she thought she was entering. It could be an elaborate psychic assault of some kind, but it doesn't feel very... assault-y... and she was in the middle of a town and doesn't think any humans want to sic their 'mon on her. It's strange. She approaches the bar, looking around warily, hand hovering near her belt.

with Max (Benedict)

with Earth and Lightning (kappa)

with Ann and Sabrina (kuuskytkolme)

Comments

[can_i_go]

"Type? What does that mean?"

[the_very_best]

"Oh - 'mon have different, well, types, of characteristics. What type or types a 'mon is affects their defenses and correlates with their offenses. Like - Fireflower's an easy example. She's fire-type, so she can learn lots of possible fire attacks on top of a few others, and she's defensively strong against other fire attacks, weak against water, etcetera. There's a chart."

[can_i_stay]

"Oh, does it have something to do with how they've evolved? Animals are sorted by the very distant ancestors they've evolved from."

[the_very_best]

"Uhhhh... I don't know exactly how we're being translated, here, but I don't think you're coming across clearly."

[can_i_stay]

"What do you find unclear? Evolution? It is a relatively new theory and not trivially obvious, it's only been around for something like 150 years for us."

[the_very_best]

"The word is translating, but the thing it's translating as is... uh... trivially obvious."

[can_i_stay]

"Okay, let's define the terms. In short evolution is small cumulative changes in animal populations over a long period of time that results in individuals in different populations no longer being able to procreate and thus creating new species. There is, of course more to it, but it's not obvious unless you live for hundreds of thousands of years and habitually observe a certain group of animals."

[the_very_best]

"...Okay. The word 'evolution' in my language refers to individual Pokémon literally glowing and changing shapes under certain conditions often related to having a lot of combat experience but sometimes otherwise. Also, different species of 'mon can have baby 'mon together as long as they're in the same egg group. And all of them can have baby 'mon with Ditto."

[can_i_stay]

[can_i_go]

"Wow, that's super obvious, and also really cool! Do you have a video of it happening? What does a Ditto look like? Does its name mean "likewise" in your language too?

[the_very_best]

"I don't have a video on me. Ditto look like pink blobs with faces. And no, Pokémon in general are almost all named after the vocalizations they produce, but it's really cute that it's translating like that, considering that Ditto transform into other things."

[can_i_go]

"People where you live must have really bad imaginations, because that's a silly way to name things. what if a cat was called 'meow' or a dog was called 'bark'. And to say the name of a bird you'd have to sing its song. Okay, that'd actually be pretty fun, and as a bonus you'd always be able to recognize what bird is singing."

[the_very_best]

"It's not completely consistent. Some of them don't really make wordlike sounds - although most do. Chatot are mimics and they got their name some other way. But it works fine for most of them."