an obsession with sentient stationery

Park Se Jun. One of the best players in the world. He used a Pachirisu with Nuzzle (a move with 100% paralysis chance), Super Fang (cuts target’s HP in half) and Follow Me (a move that redirects attacks AWAY from allied pokemon), and equipped with a recently-buffed Sitrus Berry. And he turned the metagame on its head, because nobody in the championships had prepared for anything outside their incredibly restrictive expectations. Their strategies and planning were completely tripped up by an electric squirrel. Battling his Pachirisu in incredibly tight synergy with the rest of his team, Park Se Jun swept the finals and became World Champion of 2014 Doubles.

Pachirisu’s stats aren’t great. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great. Of the four Pokemon involved in this particular exchange, Salamence and Garchomp have a base stat total of 600, Mega Tyranitar has 700, and Pachirisu has 405. Yeah.

To make things worse, Pachirisu is a gimmick Pokemon of a class known as a “Pikachu clone”. Its entire purpose is to be a generic Electric-type with middling stats and chubby cheeks. It was never built for high-level play, and a lot of people will even say that it’s not worth it for casual because there are so many better Electric-types.

Pachirisu does have a couple of things going for it, though. Firstly, its Special Defence and Speed stats aren’t totally garbage, and its Defence isn’t bad either. This means that it can take a hit if you train it right (which Se Jun did).

Secondly, the moveset that this particular Pachirisu had was a brilliant one for what Se Jun wanted it to do. Nuzzle deals a tiny amount of damage but is guaranteed to paralyse anything that isn’t an Electric- or Ground-type. Paralysis halves speed and gives you a 50/50 chance of not being able to do anything that turn. That’s HUGE. This is a game in which most major attackers are fast as hell, and outspeeding is vital to pretty much all strategies.

Super Fang, as mentioned, is guaranteed to do 50% damage to anything that’s not a Ghost-type. Pachirisu cannot explicitly KO with this, but what it can do is break down its opponents’ defences. You can’t use inventory items in competitive play, so it’s unlikely that this damage will be healed, and 50% damage can make the difference between Pachirisu’s partner taking two moves to defeat its opponent vs taking one move.

Follow Me redirects opponents’ moves onto Pachirisu if they would have otherwise hit Pachirisu’s partner. This lead to the instance above, in which Pachirisu survived a hit from a Draco Meteor (a 130 power attack in a game where 90 power is considered excellent and 100 power or above generally requires major drawbacks). You might think “but if it couldn’t take out Pachirisu, then it couldn’t take out the Salamence it was meant for, right?” NOPE: Salamence is weak to Dragon-type attacks like Draco Meteor and so would have taken double damage. That’s probably a KO.

But the real purpose of Follow Me was for Pachirisu’s intended partner: Gyarados. Depending on the situation, Gyarados takes either double or quadruple damage from Electric-type attacks, which is a shame because Gyarados is otherwise terrifying. Pachirisu has the passive ability Volt Absorb, which means that it’s healed by Electric-type attacks rather than taking damage from them. So if you try to use an Electric-type attack on that Gyarados there’s a very good chance that you will end up healing Pachirisu instead. Not what you want, especially when this particular Pachirisu is so unbelievably bulky.

Oh, and its last move is Protect, which totally nullifies damage on Pachirisu for that turn. Useful if Pachirisu can’t do anything useful this turn but you don’t want to swap it out.

And that Sitrus Berry? Yeah, that thing recovers 25% of Pachirisu’s total HP the moment it goes below 30% total. So if you just barely fail to kill Pachirisu, it’s going to heal itself. Have fun.

The last thing Pachirisu has going for it, at least in this case, is intimidation. The universal response to this team was “Who the fuck brings a fucking Pachirisu to the World Championship?!” But then you realise that Se Jun is totally serious about this ridiculous plan. And then you realise that it’s working. And then you realise: oh shit, this guy is really good. He knows what he’s doing with this.

Your mask protects others more than it protects you

You can still spread covid even if you’re vaccinated or not showing any symptoms

The more this spreads around, the more mutated variants of the virus will appear and they WILL be stronger than the original

I’ll be real I don’t know much about Phoenix Wright. But! I do know a lot about birds.

The mighty ptarmagin! Practically a feathered rabbit, these magnificent creatures are built for the snow.

Look at those boots! Wonderfully feathered. They spend most of their time as little snow lumps.

In fact, they’re very well known for the above phenomenon.

My subject this time is FURRET.

So, everyone knows Furret, the gen 2 normal ferret haha Furret walk haha meme. Furret is, in its pokedex, stated to be 6'/1,80m tall. The problem is: people are not properly representing this height.

You see, in real life, we measure an animal from head to tail. A good example of this would be the snow leopard.

A snow leopard is said to be 7'/2,1m long, head to tail. Its body measures 4'/1,1m long and its tail is 3'/1m long.

In Furret, we must apply the same logic, because if we don't, it's going to look like THIS

Ridiculous, right? Many people like to represent Furret like this for the shock value.

But when we apply the head-tail logic to its length...

Voilá! A perfectly believable little boy!

Those who feel like imposters, who think "I should want this, I need to want this, I need to do this, or else maybe I don't actually want to be an artist like I thought." Even without imposter syndrome, it's soul-crushing to be unable to start, sustain, or enjoy the hobbies that once fulfilled you.

Those who feel like imposters, who think "I should want this, I need to want this, I need to do this, or else maybe I don't actually want to be an artist like I thought." Even without imposter syndrome, it's soul-crushing to be unable to start, sustain, or enjoy the hobbies that once fulfilled you.

Have I watched the movie in the last decade or more? No. Do I have iron clad evidence to support my argument? Yes.

1. She’s the most knowledgeable about candy. She’s committed to it, and knows her stuff. When Wonka holds up a little yellow piece across the room, she recognizes it immediately. She was able to switch to candy bars for the sake of the contest, so we know she has personal discipline and is goal oriented. Also, two major projects play directly into her strong suits: the 3-course-meal gum that Wonka failed to make safe (gum) and the neverending gobstopper (longevity).

2. She’s the most fit to run a business. Violet is competitive, determined, hard working, and willing to take risks. Her father is a small town car salesman and politician, so she could easily pick up knowledge and support from him. (Veruca’s dad is also a business man, and in a compatible market (nuts), but it’s made very clear that Veruca has no respect or knowledge of business practices or hard work.)

3. She’s the most sympathetic to the Oompa Loompas. She critiques Veruca when Veruca demands to buy one. More importantly, Wonka has been testing the 3-course-meal gum that ‘always goes wrong’ on Oompa Loompas while he presumably just watches. Violet is ready to put herself on the front line, instead of treating the Oompa Loompas as disposable, and would therefore be a better boss.

4. Her personality ‘flaw’ is the most fitting for the company. In the moralizing Oompa Loompa song, they just say ‘gum is pretty cool, but it’s not socially acceptable to chew it all day‘. The thing is, we already know that she can stop if she wants, because she already did that to win the golden ticket. And yeah, she is defensive about the perceived impoliteness of her hobby (like when her mother tries to shame her about her habit during a televised interview) but the obsession with candy and neglect of social norms is EXACTLY what Wonka is all about. This is on brand.

5. Her misstep in the factory is reasonable. Wonka shows everyone a candy he’s very proud of. Violet is like “oh sick, that’s gum, my special interest.” Wonka then pulls a “WRONG! It’s amazing gum!” In the very moments before she takes the gum Wonka has mislead her just to belittle her. So when he’s like “I wouldn’t do that” why should she give a shit what he has to say? She’s not like Charlie over here who’s all “Sure Gramps, let’s stay behind while the tour leaves and secretly drink this thing that has been explicitly stated to fill you with gas and is too powerful for safe consumption, oh and also I just saw what happened to Violet so I actually KNOW what this stuff can be capable of” Also, Violet is not selfish about her experience, she tells everyone what she’s tasting and feeling, and everyone is eager to hear it. Taking a personal risk to share knowledge with everyone. Violet is Prometheus: fact.

So Augustus contaminates the chocolate river. Charlie sneaks around and contaminates the vent walls. Veruca destroys and disrupts the workspace. Mike knows exactly what will happen to him and transports/shrinks himself deliberately. Violet had no idea what the gum could potentially do to her, and caused no harm to anyone or anything but herself.

Lastly: Can you imagine Charlie filling Wonka’s shoes? That passive, naive boy? Violet is already basically Wonka. She’s passionate, sarcastic, candy-obsessed, free thinking, and a total firecracker. She’s even better than Wonka, because she doesn’t endanger others.

The meaning of shooting star

Enjoy.