Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies

I've watched them too, but there was only time to watch the first four series (and the specials) in that single week. We literally finished The End of Time something like half an hour before I had to leave for my flight back to Iceland.



Then when I was home I picked up with series five with Shadey. And eventually rewatched series 1-4.

[08/01/2012 22:02:20]

Yamiidenryuu

You've only seen the first four new seasons? That means no Matt Smith! You don't know what you're missing, Butterfree.



(Oh hay and my spam Pokemon is a Butterfree too)

[08/01/2012 21:35:07]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 01-01-12

As in what is a Week of Centrifuges and TARDISes, or what is a TARDIS? Assuming the former, since you seem to at least know it has to do with Doctor Who, basically I stayed at Dannichu's place for a week, where she showed me (most of) series 1-4 of the new Doctor Who, and I showed her ReGenesis (possibly my favorite TV show ever, which contains biological lab work montages that often prominently feature centrifuges). The centrifuges became something of an inside joke (we'd go YAAAAY CENTRIFUGE whenever one appeared), and on one of my last days there she drew me an absolutely wonderful picture of a Pikachu, a Butterfree, a TARDIS and a centrifuge, captioned "Dannichu + Butterfree's Week of Centrifuges and TARDISes".



So, in short, I'm afraid it was kind of a one-time thing. You should totally nab the concept and host a similar thing with your friends, though. Especially if you include the ReGenesis half.

[06/01/2012 05:01:24]

Frostagin
Commenting on: 01-01-12

Quote: .."Week of Centerfuges and TARDISes."

TARDISes.

What is this thing and how can I be involved? *wants to be involved with Doctor Who stuff*

[06/01/2012 04:24:04]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies

The thing about mitochondrial DNA is that mitochondria used to be separate organisms, they replicate independently and mitochondrial DNA, as far as I know, affects only the structure of the mitochondria themselves. To propose that the DNA of organelles that used to be separate organisms like mitochondria is responsible for the whole appearance of the Pokémon seems pretty absurd. (Hence why I asked if there were examples of 'large-scale' inheritance only through the female line.)



Real-world definitions of concepts like species don't apply very clearly to the Pokémon world. The point of defining a species as a group that can interbreed is that for as long as the group can interbreed, they share a common gene pool and as such are meaningfully a unit. When Pokémon can interbreed with different Pokémon but always produce an offspring that is 100% the mother's species, that isn't what is happening; there is no meaningful mixing between, say, the Dragonite gene pool and the Salamence gene pool, even if they can breed (specifically, any mixing that occurs doesn't affect any of the factors that make an individual a Dragonite or a Salamence). So there is very definitively a meaningful sense in which no, Dragonite and Salamence are not the 'same species'; it's just not a situation that ever occurs in the real world (or, well, so I thought, anyway).

[05/01/2012 06:11:59]

Kevin

If the reference to inheritance through the female line was referring to something akin to the fact that Pokemon always hatch with the subspecies of the mother, I can think of one thing that, at least, sort of fits that.



That being Mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria, the organelles, have their own DNA, and the DNA in any human (or most species, for that matter), is identical to the DNA in the Mitochondria of their mother [This is because Sperm have no mitochondria, but eggs do.].



Of course, Mitochondrial DNA is, I believe, non-coding, and, even if it does, relatively unimportant in terms of phenotype.



However, going back to Pokemon, it is very possible that the subspecies, which basically encompasses almost the entire phenotype, is inherited in this way by some other organelle.



Oh, and something else - I am officially referring to the different Pokemon as "subspecies". They could not interbreed if they were different species. Plus, being subspecies also explains the concepts of Egg Groups.

[05/01/2012 03:59:23]

Slix
Website: Poliwager
Commenting on: 01-03-12

Thanks so much for giving feedback on my site! I took it as a learning lesson, and actually already started going through pages and rewriting sections and fixing the things you pointed out to me, so thanks! Maybe someday in the future I'll send you another request. :)



Slix

[04/01/2012 23:18:21]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-29-11

Bleh, that post I made earlier makes no sense now that I reread it. BASICALLY: Yeah, I'm not really into epigenetics, but I thought I knew enough for the very vague description I was going to put there to make sense without specifically looking into the particular mechanisms that would be at work, which I guess it didn't. Also part of what I wrote in the explanation in the fan theory guide was really weirdly worded and implied the actual sequence of the paternal genome was changed, which probably didn't help.



The earlier guestbook post sounds like I'm defending this theory on the basis that theories don't need to make sense to someone with a more intimate understanding of the field; that was meant to be a response to the final "does it matter if someone well-versed in a subject will recognize a theory as nonsensical" question, not the comments about my theory in particular. If, indeed, Pokémon inheritance can make perfect sense with normal Earth genetics, then my theory is very silly and obviously way overcomplicating things, and I'm very intrigued because genetics fascinate me and I've never heard of anything like that in real life. So if you were to throw some examples my way I'd be overjoyed.



Hope that made somewhat more sense.

[04/01/2012 19:53:09]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-29-11

Ultimately, since there is no actual reality to be discovered behind how governments/Pokéballs/genetics/etc. work in the Pokémon world (i.e. the creators almost certainly didn't have some specific educated idea in mind), and these are sufficiently complex things that any explanation posed will be pretty wildly speculative, I don't think it's especially productive to look for the explanation, or generally anything other than "well this is how *I* think it would work". When you get to that level, the best a theory can do is fit with what we observe, and there's no guarantee any possible theory could fit with what we observe while at the same time making perfect scientific (or economic, etc.) sense. It becomes a matter of trying to turn Pokémon's fantasy world into science fiction, essentially. Of course one theory can be simpler and more plausible than another, and most theories can definitely be improved by someone who knows more, but I can't help feeling just about any theory explaining the more fantastic elements of something like Pokémon is bound to be unconvincing to someone very intimately familiar with the real-world science at hand.



Or, while more research is always better than less, it strikes me as pretty futile to strive to make fan theories about something like Pokémon satisfy people with a greater education in the relevant academic fields. Because it wasn't created to make scientific sense in the first place, there's only so far anyone is likely to go in making sense of it after the fact.



All that said, I'm very interested if there are actually organisms where something like Pokémon's inheritance system actually exists. Are there examples of something like that large-scale inheritance-only-through-the-female-line in nature?



I tried to be vague on things like the mechanism by which genes are 'activated' or 'marked' as moves are learned, both because I'm not intimately familiar with epigenetics personally and because it struck me as unimportant precisely how it happens, so specifying it would just needlessly complicate an already pretty overcomplicated theory (I also didn't want to specify whether Pokémon's genetic material is DNA or something else, so talking about mechanisms specific to Earth cell chemistry would have been odd). But my admittedly cursory understanding of epigenetics was that the epigenetic processes that would be involved here could more or less be described as 'marking' particular genes, and that's also how I understand the Wikipedia article you linked. If I'm way off on that count, or if my wording is completely absurd given a more extensive knowledge of the subject, please correct me.

[04/01/2012 18:52:54]

Negrek
Commenting on: 12-29-11

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?

[04/01/2012 08:44:01]

Richie
Commenting on: 01-01-12

'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.

[03/01/2012 03:35:49]

Kratos Aurion
Website: Altered Origin
Commenting on: 01-01-12

I am proud. Very proud. More than you know.



TVTropes Mafia come baaaack ;-;



Happy almost ten years, anyway.

[03/01/2012 00:59:04]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 01-01-12

Just testing to see if I made some idiotic oversight in the comment system.

[02/01/2012 03:33:52]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies

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.)

[01/01/2012 03:26:54]

Yamiidenryuu

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.

[01/01/2012 03:06:22]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 12-29-11

Fixed.

[01/01/2012 01:12:14]

Kevin

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).

[31/12/2011 22:36:36]

Venomoth
Commenting on: 12-29-11

"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.

[31/12/2011 22:12:59]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies

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.

[30/12/2011 15:04:02]

Hiikaru

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.

[30/12/2011 05:56:52]