Natural Pokemon

Time to Play Pokemon Amie!

WHY

Zendikar, Pt 1: Wild Wacky Action Murderworld

Once upon a time, there was a land of unsurpassed beauty. It was idyllic, bucolic, frolicsome, and just terrific. Utterly fab. Brooks babbled, hills rolled, and getting enough to eat was as simple as leaving your mouth open under the fruit trees during your afternoon nap. Or your evening nap. Or the morning one.

Our story has nothing to do with this plane whatsoever. Instead, we’re going to…

Here with me today is Chandra Nalaar, who recently visited Zendikar. Unfortunately, she has neglected to fill out any of the release paperwork I FedEx Interplanar’ed her overnight two months ago, so I can’t reproduce any of her statements here. She did bring us a lovely map which I’m pretty sure she doesn’t own the rights to either, so I’ll lead off our plane introduction with it. Behold!

Well, that’s just stellar. Uh, what else did you bring with…

Yeah, no, I don’t want that. In fact, that shouldn’t have come into the building with you. No, no, you can keep it, just don’t—I can assure you we won’t take it, we don’t want it but please just put it away—yes, thank you. If what else you’ve brought is anything remotely similar I’d really prefer you—

Is that a camera? I didn’t know you were into photography.

It’s Jace’s? Did you take it from him on Zendikar? Oh, perfect. Just hand it to our lab tech there and we’ll see if we can display any of his vacation photos. So do you—

Wow, you took a lot of his stuff, huh?

…Let’s just put that under the desk before we get calls.

That too. Don’t turn that book towards the camOKAY ROLL THE PICTURES

A Traveler’s Photographical Journal Through The Wilds of Zendikar

by Jace Beleren

Plate 001: I managed to get this lovely shot after luring a sea drake near a previously observed thaumaturgical phenomenon. Note how the wisps target areas most vulnerable to constriction. I should see if I can lure any other denizens with more varied morphology and note the strangling wisps’ reactions.

Plate 002: While scouts that don’t charge a high rate for their services possess knowledge of questionable utility, my experiences suggest even the cheapest will provide insight into the hunting and consumption practices of the local wildlife.

Plate 003: I was assured it was a lovely day to sail, but after making port it was added this was a relative judgment.

Plate 004: And this is what a bad day to sail looks like.

Plate 005: This time I elected to enlist the most experienced adventurer I could find, who regrettably witnessed the birth of a wholly unknown disaster as his final sights. If this trend continues, I will have to find another method of procuring travel mates other than hiring them; I’ve lost every deposit I’ve made.

Plate 006: A curious breed of mobile vegetation. It appears to react to vibrations nearby, which prompted a quick levitation spell to, ironically, remain on solid ground.

Plate 007: After this curious incident, I endeavored to learn more about this strange geological formations. As anyone who knew of them made it a habit to avoid them, my inquiry was largely fruitless. Evidently the name in the local goblin tongue translates to “God’s Practical Jokes.”

Plate 008: Furthermore regarding goblins, I was curious to find out if the local flavor were any faster, stronger, or smarter than the typical planar installation of goblins. They were not.

Plate 009: I have been informed that all goblin words for natural disasters translate to “God’s Practical Joke.”  I suppose their approach is better than my inevitable descent into nihilism, should I be bound to this world.

Plate 010: Although a descent into nihilism appears to be one of the more pleasant types of descent around here.

Plate 011: Shortly before retiring for the night. Upon second thought, we elected to find a different campsite.

Plate 012: Unfortunately, another campsite found us.

Plate 013: I was captivated by the sight of two merfolk, standing victoriously atop the former tallest peak of a mountain range, drunk with vitality and glee that they had survived the catastrophic flood that so many had not. I acquired their permission for a picture, and prepared my equipment posthaste. Upon review of this plate, I do remember my flash seeming brighter than usual. This explains where they went after I pulled my head from the camera hood.

Plate 014: If any of my comrades had survived these incidents to spread the word, I have no doubt that my camera and I would achieve infamy as harbingers of imminent death. In my defense, I just seem to have poor timing.

Plate 015: I could have sworn this was a peaceful scene of drakes lazily soaring about when I took it.

Plate 016: Tiring of my lens only capturing death and destruction, I gave into my baser interests out of momentary weakness. The next 36 plates are of this youn—-OKAY STOP THE PICTURES

Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Nalaar. Here is your camera back, don’t ever get those pictures developed, and have a nice day.

Right. So, in conclusion, Zendikar is a horrible place. And you know what they say about horrible places.

They hold horrible people. Shall we get to them?

10 LAZIEST POKEMON NAMES

10

Ekans

 

 

Starting off our list of the 10 Laziest Pokemon Names Ekans sounds mysterious, like the name of a rare reptile from the jungles of Borneo where fish slip across the mud. Is it really though? After hours of intense thought, research, and rearranging the letters according to the Fibonacci sequence, we decided to heroically give up on finding the mystery behind the name and possibly deem it not so lazy after all.

Wait. What did you say? Spell it backwards? S-N-A-K-E. Dammit! Really? You just flipped the spelling? That’s so lazy that there’s probably a keyboard shortcut for that. We would have thought of this earlier if we knew they were taking naming advice from Missy Elliot’s “Work It”.

 

krizeii.deviantart.com

9

Klinklang

 

 

It seems like Pokemon naming conventions have run out of concrete nouns to smash together and are now relying on the onomonopia you’d get from actually smashing two of these Pokemon together. Pokemon names should be something you don’t hear on a daily basis. Klinklang sounds like keys jangling around in your pocket or the crashing of subway cars together. To us, it is the sound of a lazy Pokemon naming department.

 

8

Vanillite

 

 

If they are going to make a Pokemon out of a scoop of ice cream plopped on a cone, couldn’t they have made it a more interesting flavor? Why not a dairy powered Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Doughbert or rock type named Rockyroady. Well, our names are no better than the one given to it by the Poke-Professors, but we wish this name wasn’t so, wasn’t so — vanilla.

 

7

Spoink

 

 

What sound do you get when you cross a pig and a spring? We’re not completely sure, but we have a hunch that it might be squealing. It certainly wouldn’t be this dastardly derived onomonopia mash up used as a name for this Pokemon. Although we appreciate the effort and restraint exhibited by not naming it “Spig,” some say that Spoink is a cop out, and that the Pokemon doesn’t even enjoy rolling in slop.

 

6

Horsea

 

 

There are only so many ways you can mash up Sea and Horse, and one is already taken. Although it could be referring to the infantile form of horse that so many kids shout at the petting zoo, but somehow we doubt that. With their track record in the past, we’re willing to bet they they just cropped and chopped Seahorse to their own exhausted devices. Couldn’t this Pokemon’s name be a somewhat wet play on Equine? Aquine maybe? No? Just trying to help out.

 

5

Seel

 

 

Really? This name is so lazy that it could have been made by a hurried typing accident. Someone was typing up the narration for a nature program when they saw the genius that auto-correct missed. There, underlined in squiggly red, was the name for a Pokemon that looks like a seal. This is the only entry on our list of the 10 Laziest Pokemon Names with a name that sounds exactly the same as its real life counterpart.

 

4

Krabby

 

 

Krabby is a unique case in the realm of Pokemon names. It not only describes the origins and look of the Pokemon it is ascribed to, but it might accurately describe the feelings of the people who named the poor little guy. This one has to have been a cruel joke that made it past the copy editors. The writers were having a rough day. They probably had a wild night out and were a little perturbed that they were stuck at work in the early morning hours. The drawing of a crab came across their desk. They attached their salty feelings to the ocean critter and swapped out a letter. Job done and cash the check.

 

3

Gurrdurr

 

 

This Pokemon is particularly sad. During the naming process, the monster under the giant beam wasn’t even taken into account. The namers were too busy picking out letters from a Scrabble bag to try and spell girder with twice as many r’s to nab that triple word score. Look at him. He’s just sitting there with a name taken from the thing he is holding. He looks depressed. Let’s call him Pokemuscles. (Hey, we never said we were good at this naming thing either.)

 

2

Lampent

 

 

This thing doesn’t even have a face. What does it evolve in to, a chandelier? Regardless of how desperate the Pokemon designers are getting for new monsters, Lampent is sinking to an all new low when it comes to nomenclature. We’ll give you a choice of naming stories for this one. Either this Pokemon was named after a desk accessory with a few letters slapped on the end, or it was named using the combination of useful desk accouterments and the word sentient. You already know which one we’ve chosen.

 

1

Ducklett

 

 

Now it's time for the #1 entry in our list of the 10 Laziest Pokemon Names. Why is it the laziest? Because it does not adhere to the nonsensical conventions of every other Pokemon. It doesn’t flip flop letters, smash together sounds, or describe what sort of powers whirl about inside this little guy. Instead, someone decided to apply the logic of “piglet” to a duck and add an extra t just for good measure. It is logical, boring, and most of all, lazy. Three attributes that none of us want from the world of Pokemon.

 

The 1977 Lawndale Illinois Thunderbird Attack

In 1977 a giant bird attacked and tried to carry away a ten year old boy in central Illinois in front of multiple witnesses. Actually, two giant birds attacked, but only one tried to carry the kid away. The mother witnessed the attack and chased after the bird yelling, the bird released the boy and the two birds flew away. The birds were described as:

“It had a white ring around it’s half foot long neck. The rest of the body was very black. The birds bill was six inches in length and hooked at the end. The claws on the feet were arranged with three front, one in the back. Each wing, less the body, was four feet at the very least. The entire length of the birds body, from beak to tail feather was approximately four and one half feet.”

The family reported the attack to police, and suffered ridicule and abuse for some time afterwards. And that’s the gist of it, read all the details here. The only other details I think are salient is that the dog reportedly didn’t bark at the birds, and this particular dog barked at everything. And the family went to some trouble to prove their case, even going so far as to hire some hunters to track the birds down. The hunters were said to have found and destroyed a giant bird’s nest. Curious, nu?

When all is said, I don’t think the details of the attack are terribly important in this case. At least for the type of analysis I am going to do. For starters I’m going to rule out hoax. The multiple witnesses and the fact that the perpetrators of the hoax didn’t try to profit from it also lends support to the idea that it wasn’t a hoax. It’s entirely possible it was a hoax, I’m not saying it isn’t a hoax, I’m just saying let’s look at other possibilities first. I also not fond of the typical skeptical analysis: “Well, it must be a hoax, what else could it be?” That’s neither a logical nor a productive approach.

So if it wasn’t a hoax, what was it? Well, a giant bird attack seems unlikely. It’s just really hard to imagine how a species of giant bird could remain undetected by legions of birdwatchers in the USA, among other problems. Maybe some local eccentric had giant birds that temporarily escaped, or maybe the birds were just eagles or hawks or some such and the witnesses panicked and “saw” much larger birds. The former seems really unlikely, and the later even less so since some of the witnesses saw the birds before the attack and noted their unusual size even then.

Hallucination? Too many witnesses. Mass hysteria? Well that certainly may explain subsequent sightings, but isn’t a particularly satisfying explanation for this particular incident. Aliens? Demons? Ghosts? Suffice to to say that while we can’t rule out exotic explanations like that, until we have some actual empirical evidence for same, they also fare poorly as an explanation for this event.

So what the hell is left? Is there anything that could explain why Mrs Lowe and her son, pictured above, are adamant about the attack taking place? And continuing to insist so even when they were getting pilloried for it by their friends and schoolmates? Well, yes, I have an idea. My suspicion is that Mrs Lowe (or possibly the son) suffered from some sort of Factitious Disorder. A factitious disorder is where someone feigns something is wrong with them in order to get attention basically. Munchausen syndrome is the old name for these disorders, they are now known to cover a  very broad range of behaviours. And people who have a serious factitious disorder can sometimes be both extremely manipulative and extremely effective in their manipulation.

In other words, the mother or the son imagined the attack and insisted that everyone else believe them. And for whatever reasons, the other “witnesses” decided that going along with the story was the path of least resistance. I can almost hear the husband saying “Of course I believe you dear, I hired two hunters to kill the bird, doesn’t that prove I believe you?”

Is this the explanation? Damned if I know. It’s a possible explanation though, and one that bears further examination. I’ve lately begun to suspect that psychology, and unfortunately disordered psychology, plays  a much bigger role in a lot of paranormal events than people have been willing to recognize. And not so much in that they weren’t willing to recognize them, more that the role psychology plays in people’s perceptions of the world is still very much underappreciated and understudied. The mind is an amazing thing, and the processes it goes through to “create” the world we perceive around us is amazingly complex, still poorly understood … and subject to myriad fail states.

The Five Worst Popes of the Middle Ages

Pope Stephen VI

(896-897)

Also called Stephen VII, this Pope's short reign is mostly known for having put on trial the previous Pope...who was dead. Stephen ordered the body of Pope Formosus exhumed, dressed in the Papal vestments, and set upon a throne. In what is known as the Cadaver Synod, Stephen charged the rotting corpse with perjury, coveting the Papacy, and breaking other church laws. During the trial, Pope Stephen screamed at Formosus, as well as mocked and insulted him.

Formosus was found guilty, and was punished by having his clothes stripped off, three of his fingers chopped off, and the rest of the body thrown into the Tiber River.

Stephen's reign did not last much longer - he was strangled to death.

Pope John XII

(955-964) 
For much of the tenth century, the city of Rome was dominated by the Theophylact family, and they often made the decision who would sit on St. Peter's Throne. Perhaps they didn't have too many choices, but it is hard to imagine they could not have picked someone better than John XII, who is about 18 years old when he became Pope. His youth had one benefit, as began his pontificate by personally leading armies against the local enemies.

However, it soon became apparent that John was more interested in the women of Rome than in handling church affairs. His antics eventually led to Emperor Otto I calling a synod to depose the young Pope. According to one chronicler, the charges against John included:

He had fornicated with the widow of Rainier, with Stephana his father's concubine, with the widow Anna, and with his own niece, and he made the sacred palace into a whorehouse. They said that he had gone hunting publicly; that he had blinded his confessor Benedict, and thereafter Benedict had died; that he had killed John, cardinal subdeacon, after castrating him; and that he had set fires, girded on a sword, and put on a helmet and cuirass. All, clerics as well as laymen, declared that he had toasted to the devil with wine. They said when playing at dice, he invoked Jupiter, Venus and other demons. They even said he did not celebrate Matins at the canonical hours nor did he make the sign of the cross.

Pope John retaliated by excommunicating the synod, and when he caught three of the men who took part, he had one flogged, cut off the right hand of the second, and removed the nose and ears of the third. Alas, his reign ended soon after, at the age of 27, when was "stricken by paralysis in the act of adultery" and died.

Pope Benedict IX

(1032 - off and on to 1048)

Another descendant of the Theophylact family, Benedict was at least 20 when he became Pope. Sexual scandals soon started, leading many church officials to complain about him. The Abbot of Monte Cassino, who later became a Pope too, wrote about "his rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it."

What also sets Benedict apart from most other popes was that he resigned as well. Unlike Pope Benedict XVI, who resigned because of his old age, this Benedict resigned in exchange for a large sum of money - bribed by his godfather John Gratian, who then became the new Pope, Gregory VI. However, Benedict soon had seller's remorse, and over the next Rome and the St.Peter's was fought over between the various sides. Eventually the German Emperor came down and removed all the contenders, naming a new Pope. Benedict lived on until 1056, but never regained the Papacy.

Pope Boniface VIII

(1294-1303)

(1294-1303)

Before he became Pope, Boniface was instrumental in persuading his predecessor, Pope Celestine V, to retire. Once he got to the Papal Throne, Boniface decided that having Celestine around was too much of a threat, so he captured the elderly man and imprisoned him until his death ten months later.

Most of his reign was spent in conflicts with the other states in Italy, but Boniface got in trouble when he decided to pick a fight with Philip IV, King of France. Eventually, he excommunicated the French king and proclaimed that all monarchs were subordinate to the Papacy. Philip responded by sending an army into Italy, where they captured Boniface at his summer retreat in Anagni. The French troops beat up and nearly killed Boniface - three days later he was dead, perhaps killing himself.

The Italian poet Dante, in his work The Divine Comedy, has Boniface relegated to the eight circle of hell for simony.

Pope Alexander VI

(1492-1503)

While he may not have been guilty of all the deeds depicted in the popular show The Borgias, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most notorious schemers to hold the papacy. He made many efforts to enrich his family and get his children into positions of power, and he also had enough time to have a mistress.

His death in 1503 is something of a mystery - Alexander may have been poisoned, and his son Cesare Borgias was suspected of committing the crime. Rumours soon spread, aided by the rapid decomposition of Alexander's remains. One person who saw the body commented, "It was a revolting scene to look at that deformed, blackened corpse, prodigiously swelled, and exhaling an infectious smell; his lips and nose were covered with brown drivel, his mouth was opened very widely, and his tongue, inflated by poison, fell out upon his chin; therefore no fanatic or devotee dared to kiss his feet or hands, as custom would have required."