Hello again

This week has been an intense week. Among some of the intensity was launching of a brand new website for my art business. I won’t link it here because this blog represents an old version of me. This blog (and its previous one) represented a young man who had been shaped by wanting to be pleasing to other people. Ironically, this resulted in someone coiled up in bitterness, frustration and anger. This was conveyed through how I typed. I knew vaguely who I was as a person, but only distantly now. It was only by rereading my posts stretching back almost 10 years did I realise how much I am not that person now. I only came across those posts because I had forgotten to transfer certain information from my old website (I was very excited to go-live as it were). My old website was built on wordpress, so I hoped perhaps some of my emails might be attached to wordpress and thus would let me access the old site. Instead I found a time capsule of me. The time before and after becoming a Christian.

I revisited how my mind worked when I was confused and frustrated with people and the world. I saw how I evasively spoke about the emotionally intense experience, which was my “conversion”. I read the first theological reflections on challenging topics. I have deleted my original blog, which I kept whilst I was at university. It was interesting to see who I was, but I am certainly not him anymore. There is no good to keep that content online. I came to delete this blog, but I saw there were posts that had value, even if I disagree with not proofing or tone.

And today I post this, if in the event a random user stumbles across my blog. This post serves as a reassurance that I am fine. I won’t say I am filled with joy every moment, and I carry things with me. But I am fine. I will be fine.

Much love internet stranger.

Merrymaker Mortalis exists solely as an alias of a man in his early 20s who is trying to work out who they are.

Homosexuality and the Bible

The end of last August I became a Christian. The very beginning of last September I found out one of my friends had a very strong belief that homosexuality was a sin. I found this opinion troublesome. It did not sit well on me that a whole sweep of people who had a label stuck onto them could be convicted of being a sinner by a single person. I was then aware that in the future I will hear more opinions like this on subjects besides homosexuality. Without actually having read the bible, I was not in a position to talk about it. Without being aware of the text content of the bible, I would not be able to have a meaningful debate. I would have to take someone else’s interpretation as fact. So I prayed to God that he would help me gain insight when reading the bible, so I could hopefully see the truth.

I am just a twenty-five year old Christian man. I am not a preacher. I have not studied theology. I am just me. If anyone reads this post, bear that in mind. I tried to be objective when reading.

The version of the Bible I read was the NIV. If you are someone who is seeking a more thoroughly researched article on this subject, perhaps find someone who had read multiple versions in various languages.

I will try to quote the passages I’ll be using in context. Meanings of passages can mean anything without the context. I will underline the key words though.

Genesis 19:1-8

The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom–both young and old–surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.“

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

What is brought up here are the themes of rape and orgy. The city men wanted to have sex with the angels without consideration if the angels wanted to – rape. There are a lot of men and boys who wish to have sex. This would make it an orgy. They are also wanting to have sex with angels (they might not have known they were angels).

It seems strange (from the point of view of a 21st century person) that Lot offered his daughters to the crowd instead of his guests. Thing socially would have been different back then. But if that to happen today, it would sicken me.

Leviticus 18:22 (read Leviticus 18 as a whole for a fuller context on Unlawful Sexual Relations. There is too much to write down. They do not refer to homosexuality)

“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”

Leviticus 20:13

“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Lie is an interesting word used here. Does it mean to lay down beside another man as a man in bed? Does it mean do not have sex with another man as a man? If it is the latter, then there’s a strange meaning that could be derived. This is going to be descriptive of sex. However, you are reading a blog post that explores if homosexual sex is a sin. A man would “lie” with a woman by penetrating her vagina with his penis. Men do not have a vagina. It is physically impossible for a man to penetrate another man’s vagina since men do not have vaginas. The death penalty has be supercede by Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.

Romans 1:26-27

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

“Indecent acts” is vague. “Lust” implies having uncontrolled sexual urges; orgies/having multiple sexual partners. First time in the Bible (as far as I know) to reference homosexuality in women.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the same name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Vague. Could mean anything. Could mean homosexual people. Note the word “offenders”. It’s not explicitly convicting the person based on them being homosexual. They are an offender who is also homosexual. It is not clear. Not definitive.

1 Timothy 1:8-11

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers–and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

There is no reference to homosexuality in this passage. Sins are listed in this passage. But homosexuality is not mentioned.

Conclusion

There is no answer. I cannot find a definitive “yes” or “no” if homosexuality is a sin or not.

Orgies and having multiple sexual partners would have been bad because of STDs.

Anal penetration would have been bad because the anus would not have been designed for penetration by a penis. Faeces also comes out of the anus. If any internal damage were to be done in the anus, the faeces could pose a high risk of infection. This is ignoring a penis being exposed to faeces.

I cannot see any passages from the bible that states homosexuality is a sin. I cannot see any logic in homosexuality being a sin.

A sin is an act by a person that distances them from God. Therefore, if homosexuality is indeed a sin, then it is between the person and God.

Luke 6:41

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Luke 6:22

“Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”

(Same sex marriage is something even more uncertain)

What I Wrote Two Years Ago

One of the few perks of “tidying up” (besides acquiring hopefully more space) is discovering things that have been lost in the abyss of your room/house/bag/domain. Sometimes, you may discover something you wrote down from a bygone age. Two to three years in my case. It can be interesting reading these things because it gives you insight how you thought at that specific time. You can see how you’ve changed in a relatively short space of time; hopefully for the better. This is what I wrote. This was as a result of experiencing the MOBA playerbase:

WHY DO HUMANS FAIL?

Hypocrisy. Irony. Stubbornness. Arrogance. Ignorance. Selfishness. Greed. Over-shadows love and compassion. What does one do? Succum and accept it’s human nature to be evil? Or stay strong but sad…

Sad only because you care. Angry because you care. You care that people live shallow lives. People use the excuse of game to express these negative traits. It’s not fair on others. It’s selfish to be naive. Why?

That said… people are very manipulative. Maybe I can use this for betterment of themselves, or myself… That would be human though to make it benefit myself only. Is the reason why I prefer animals to people is that i am ashamed of my own species?

I see irony everywhere… when I grew up… and even now. “You’re weird,” well… look… YOU’RE also weird. Shut the ****up.

Humanity causes me sadness and frustration.

And now to speak in a Christian context. By observing other people you can see that it is indeed human nature to sin. Especially in competitive gaming where a stressful environment erodes people’s stamina or tag of “game” prevents some people from having consideration towards others. It can be sad in that environment feeling like you’re the only person not being an arse hat. But there are others like you. You just have to look for them and pay notice.

It’s a positive trait to care for others. But if that trait is causing you anger or frustration, then it is no longer positive. It is not your burden to bear. You may spend your whole life observing other people and there will probably still be mysteries. I don’t think I’ll ever understand stubborn naivety. It’s also not my position to judge others. I do not gain from concluding certain people live shallow lives. Give them help or aid if they need it, but judging achieves nothing.

People can be manipulated. But manipulating people for their own good is not good. It’s the good deemed in my eyes and not in the objective sense. Humanity has done a lot of horrible things. Humanity does a lot of horrible things. Humanity has done a lot of good things. Humanity goes a lot of amazing things. Animals are innocent and act on instinct (it can be argued that some species can act on something above instinct).

People will always be hypocritical. It is a judgement on themselves as opposed to you.

Yeah, this turned out to be a response to myself. I thought I’d share this because I found what I wrote interesting. I found it interesting how close and yet so far I was from how I think now. I shared it because it might be relatable? I would be surprised if I was the only one who got frustration and anger from a caring personality.

I guess I can add to my list of perks to tidying up: You can make a blogpost out of it on a blog which no one reads!

Adios MOBAs

Since coming back from Catalonia (Spain), I have decided to stop playing all MOBA games. I realise it is not healthy for me. In the last two years I was aware that that type of game wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t realise how unhealthy. I am talking about playing by myself however. Though playing with friends has its problems too.

All the communities for all the games are toxic. Understandable as to why. You are 5 complete strangers shoved into a team randomly. Within a short space of time (a minute or two) you must decide between yourselves who is doing what and where. You have no idea how skillful each team member is. A lack lustre player would be less crippling in other team base competitive games. However, this less skilled player, if it dies to the enemy, will grant the enemy bonus gold and exp. The death on an ally will empower the enemy. Making it a lot harder to win.

Every time a team member apologises for dying, I wish I could say “it’s alright, do not worry.” You cannot, that would be dishonest. You cannot say “you’ve made it harder for us to win now”, as it’d cripple them, and probably cause them to be a bigger hindrance. This is why there is such a toxic atmosphere to these games. Not every game is like this, but they are frequent enough to erode away at your soul. Each match is 35 minutes to 45 minutes long. Is it enjoyable to exist in an atmosphere of this nature? Even if you win, did you really have fun? If you lose it’s awful. Perhaps you sincerely enjoy playing MOBA regardless of the outcomes. That is cool. Please help foster a warmer environment in a game where the mechanics actively encourage awful attitudes.

Now to discuss why even playing with friends can be a bad thing.

It’s difficult teaching and guiding strangers how to improve their play. It’s impossible to do it for a friend. Well, the sort of friends I had when I used to play HoN and DotA2. Upon reflection, and in comparison to the company I keep now, it’s questionable. You encounter a situation where individuals who are meant to be friends ditch you for the sake of improving their own performance at the game. Gaming is a hobby, it’s not a lifestyle unless you achieve the point of being in the top 0.1% of skilled players of that game.To get there is hard. Most people are striving there. I say gaming is a hobby because… is that all you want from life? It’s nice being able to do your hobby all the time, but what do you actually achieve? What do you gain? These questions can be hard to take.

I love the game mechanics of all MOBA. It’s unfortunate that it’s the human interaction that hurts my experience of the game.

Past, Present and Future

I’ve recently came back from a trip away to Catalonia, Spain. I went on the trip expecting a lovely social trip with me being able to do some sketching and stuff. I have returned with so much more. I am aware there are people who get scared by talk of anything that is explicitly faith related. I say fear because I recall last Easter an Independent Video Game studio posted an explicitly Christian Image wishing love to everyone on Easter. They received some abuse including some users who were like “omfg, i wil unlike c0z u cristean” . I can understand the perception overall of organized religion by some people isn’t healthy. But it is incredibly short sighted to paint every single person who “represents” a “group” with the same brush (yay cliche expression).

So yeah, i tried to avoid making this post explicitly about faith and I’ve just gone and made it faithy.

 

We are obsessed with the past and future. We look upon the past with love or regret and we get lost there. We dream of the future, but in the process we lose track of what is happening now. The immediate now. Your current surroundings and environment. We do not appreciate the now. By only looking forwards and backwards, we ignore what is beside us.

We may at times wish we could travel backwards to do things better. But is this a good idea? We may repeat the actions that originally caused us to feel shame. Only by having foreknowledge can we ever change the past. So far, this is impossible. Current Scientific Theory for this idea is restrictive. You could only travel back to the point where time travel first gets invented. Reliving the past so you could spend time amongst people/a person or in a place may also not be such a good idea. The foreknowledge of what to come may affect your emotions. This could bestow you a burden.

So, try to focus on the present more, before it flows away and becomes the past. I would be lying if I said I could do this. These thoughts that compose this post comes from my own faults.

My Top 10 Unevolved Pokemon (Design) Part 2 of 2

(Introductionary bit to explain what’s going on if you didn’t catch part 1)

Humans have an obsession with lists. They have wishlists, shopping lists and criminal offenders lists. In a world of chaos and unpredictability, lists offer us a way to rationalise our environment onto a piece of neat paper.

In modern and digital times, lists still exist. They express someone’s opinion with cute little numbers. These lists may be personal or perhaps, financially influenced. Someone’s list of favourite Video Games may be sincere, but a list of “favourite PC hardware” is vulnerable to external influence.

You’ll be pleased to learn that my personal Pokemon list hasn’t been paid off. If I had hypothetical billions of followers, I wouldn’t be sure what the benefit would be.

The criteria of this list is:

The Pokemon still has an evolution to go
The Pokemon’s next stage evolution looks worse (in my opinion)
The final evolution of the chain is not redeeming
The number at which the Pokemon appears will be based on the personal appeal I have towards the design and how much the design is “ruined” by its evolution.

So with the rules of the list explained, shall we resume?

 

#5 Electabuzz 

I have a sort of love-slightcreepedout relationship towards Electabuzz. On one hand, it’s a bad arse fanged electrical beast that is fuzzy. On the other hand, it is dangerously close to appearing like The Honey Monster who was one supernatural beings that tormented my unconscious childhood. I suppose that’s why my attempt at drawing this Pokemon resulted in what looks like a sinister child’s drawing. Evidently I never gotten over this experience. I’ll shove a picture of the Honey Monster below for control and contrast. Don’t worry, it’s surprisingly relevant to this list.

 I have always been unnerved by people in mascot suites where I cannot see the actor’s face. There’s something primitively terrifying about it. It is made worse by your peers actually loving them. I found clowns fine in honesty. I hated clowns, but they didn’t install fear. 6ft walking carpets with creepy smilies did disturb me. There is one “mascot suite” character that tormented me more than Honeybuzz; Mr Blobby. I dare not show you a picture, just in case “That who holds an image of a Mister Blobby becomes itself a Mister Blobby”. Now to make this intersection relevant to the blogpost. This is Electabuzz’s evolution and I think I know why I hate it so much:

Electivire resembles much more strongly what I fear the most. It is not helped that it looks ugly. As an independant Pokemon, its design might not have bothered me as much. As it is the evolution of Electabuzz (which I do rather like), I am very disappointed. Magmar would be on this list as Magmortar I also hate, but Magmar I am not keen on anyway. I dislike its bobbly horns. Electabuzz has these as well, but they’re less distinct. Electabuzz’s fuzzy catlike tail has turned into two LED things. Electivire has a weird nose. The worst is that it has a pattern for a EU and USA socket on its back. I am not keen on artificial objects being motifs on organic looking Pokemon. Electivire is an ugly disappointment in my opinion. Hey, at least I can run Electabuzz competitively with Eviolite. (Rest. Power-Up Punch. Wild Charge. Barrier with Static as an Ability. EV train it to be durable). It works as a semi decent Support Tank in doubles.

 

#4 Croagunk

 I wish I could explain why I love Croagunk’s design. I would say it looking like an animal, a frog to be exactly could help. Then again, I find Croagunk’s evolution and Seismictoad’s evolution line hideous. I suppose it’s a simple design with little extras that complement each other. The proportions are nice. I also like the idea of it being a Poison type frog. This frog has no Water typing! In the Anime, I liked the character of Brock’s croagunk. I found the way it incapacitated Brock, when Brock was being a pervert interesting. I wasn’t sure if Croagunk did it because Croagunk was ashamed or putting Brock in his place. Or perhaps Croagunk would get jealous. I think Croagunk is a Pokemon design that stands up by itself without needing an evolution to develop the idea. Which is why I hate its evolution form.

Besides ugly, I would describe Toxicroak as a deformed Kyogre inflatable. There is something very unsettling and creepy about its appearance. Sometimes creepy Pokemon can look awesome. No… this one looks just horrid. Oh well… perhaps I can investigate how viable Eviolite Toxicroak is. Its x4 weakness to Psychic would be a problem.

 

#3 Scyther 

Perhaps one of the most popular Pokemon ever. Who wouldn’t like a giant praying mantis with scythes for arms? In generation 1, the majority of the bugs were underwhelming in appearance (even you mister triple stab wasp). Then came along the creepy looking Pinsir (whose MegaEvolution looks friccing awesome) and Pinsir in the Safari Zone (each were a version exclusive). However, generation 2 arrived. This added the steel type and the method to evolve via trade with held item. This gave us Scizor.

Scizor to me was initially cool. You acquired it via a difficult way. It was an evolution of a preexisting Pokemon. It had a new typing. It could learn False Swipe that made it great for Pokedex filling. But over many years, the novelty wore off. Now, when I look at Scizor, I see a not-so-good looking Scyther. I blame this one it having scissors for hands instead of scythes. Sorry, but scythe > scissors in terms of coolness. At least they share similar base stat totals. Meaning I could run Scyther in competitive battling. It just means I cannot use the Mega option (which kinda makes Scizor’s design worse).

I don’t like how extreme MegaScizors’ angular appearance gets. Its insectoid legs turn into pins. I gets a very weird black crown. If its claws turned into Chainsaws, that may redeem the design in my eyes. However, Gamefreak didn’t take this opportunity and decided to give Scizor serrated clamps. It feels like Deoxys, Bisharp and Scizor were fused together. Might look cool as a stand alone Pokemon (like how Tropius looks like a corrupted Megaranium), but as a Mega Evolution, I dislike it.

 

#2 Slugma

It was close between my #1 and #2. However, Slugma didn’t quite make #1 because I find Magcargo not criminal in design. I merely adore Slugma’s design so much, that I would find it hard to like any alternative evolution designs. I like Slugma because I have always been interested in blob creatures. For example, my favourite Goosebump books when I was a child were the Monster Blood books. I can’t explain this liking. I like Muk as well. I thought the concept of Slugma was a cool one too. Slugma is effectively sentient magma or lava, in the form of a mollusk. I think what’s even cooler is that Slugma’s form looks reminiscent of those awesome sea slugs.

Just awesome. I also have a personal reason why I like Slugma. I have a friend who used to stay at my house with his family every summer. One year, I stayed at his house. Out of boredom, we started making Pokemon out of paper and sellotape. I enjoyed this so much, that after I went back home, I kept making Pokemon. In the time between the next time we’d meet, I made a Slugma. I was really proud how it turned out. Its design lent itself so well to sculpture. I was proud at my ingenuity of creating the texture of its skin by heavily crinkling sheets of paper.

 

 

 

 

Why don’t I like Magcargo as much as Slugma? I don’t like the shell. That’s it.

I’m really annoyed at Magcargo in the games. It has three weaknesses: It takes 4x damage from Ground attacks (Magcargo is Fire and Rock), it is very slow (at least in Trickroom Teams this is a good thing) and its Special Attack and Attack base stats are equal. It’s not necessarily bad to have equal base stats in both Attack stats, but when you takes 4x damage from a popular attack type and dead slow outside of a Trickroom, it’s not great. Magcargo does have good base Defence, but has terrible base HP. Magcargo is one of those Pokemon I want to use, but can’t seem to make work. Given Magcargo has troubles, I can’t exactly run Slugma with Eviolite.

 

#1 Grovyle

 Coincidentally topical. My #1 Pokemon-That-Still-Needs-To-Evolve-But-Wished-They-Didn’t is a Hoenn starter evolution stage. This is the evolution of Treecko, and it evolves into Sceptile. If you ignore Electabuzz (because I wish both its final and first stage of evolutions didn’t exist), Grovyle is 1 of 2 “mid stage” evolution forms on my list. The rest are first stage or “basic”. What I love about Grovyle is that it’s a friccing Ninja Tree Frog. No other Pokemon looks this bad arse, and it’s ruined by Sceptile.

This agile green death evolves into a bulky smug thing with yellow back blobs and a pinetree tail. I think Sceptile is far over designed. It’s also a strange development. It’s as shocking as Vigoroth evolving into Slaking (an honourable mention). For a final stage evolution for a starter it’s fitting. It looks like a final form. I just wish I didn’t have to lose such a cool looking Pokemon just to get its final form. I wrote this list before the Mega Sceptile announcement. In my opinion, Mega Sceptile helps. As I stated at the beginning, one factors for my list is if the final evolution redeems the whole thing or not. I include Mega Evolutions in this. However, I ignored Megaevolution in every other aspect. That’s for another day and list. A list of my top 10 least favourite Mega Evolution designs (spoiler, MegaManectric and MegaHeracross will be on it).

Why does MegaSceptile dampen the blow of the sacrilegious Grovyle -> Sceptile?

The MegaEvolution is a logical MegaEvolution. It doesn’t ruin the aspects that make Sceptile Sceptile whilst “improving” the Pokemon. By the design being even more over designed, it helps it look normal. It’s as though the norm is now “lots of stripes, balls and spikes and stuff”. That magically makes it look less awful. I love the gradient on Mega Sceptile’s balls going from yellow, through to orange and finishing on red. I think the red arrow end on the tail is cool. I also love the fact MegaSceptile is infact now part Dragon type. I think this helps me like the design. MegaSceptile is no longer an overgrown tree frog. MegaSceptile is a Forest Dragon. (I love how Game Freak is using Mega Evolution to get weird and sometimes OP type combinations out of the way. Mega Evolution has given us Dragon/Fire, Dragon/Electric and now Dragon/Grass)

 

There we have it. That is my list. Since the topic of the list is my own personal thoughts and feelings and it discussing the design, some of my justifications of my dislike will be weak. That’s just the nature of personal thoughts on art and creativity. Sometimes it’s an interesting explanation as to why, and sometimes it’s just “I don’t like it”. Half the images in the two blogposts are my own. I’m sure you can tell which are my own and which are taken from Google Images. I would have produced my own images of the other Pokemon I referenced, but I realised it’d be hard to produce a nice image of Pokemon I wish didn’t exist. I mean, Electabuzz’s drawing was a challenge, and I blame that to do with my baggage phobia of underpaid actors in fuzzy suites.

 

My Top 10 Unevolved Pokemon (Design) Part 1 of 2

Humans have an obsession with lists. They have wishlists, shopping lists and criminal offenders lists. In a world of chaos and unpredictability, lists offer us a way to rationalise our environment onto a piece of neat paper.

In modern and digital times, lists still exist. They express someone’s opinion with cute little numbers. These lists may be personal or perhaps, financially influenced. Someone’s list of favourite Video Games may be sincere, but a list of “favourite PC hardware” is vulnerable to external influence.

You’ll be pleased to learn that my personal Pokemon list hasn’t been paid off. If I had hypothetical billions of followers, I wouldn’t be sure what the benefit would be.

The criteria of this list is:

1. The Pokemon still has an evolution to go
2. The Pokemon’s next stage evolution looks worse (in my opinion)
3. The final evolution of the chain is not redeeming

The number at which the Pokemon appears will be based on the personal appeal I have towards the design and how much the design is “ruined” by its evolution.

So with the rules of the list explained, shall we get going?

 

#10 Spearow

I do have some personal attachment to this Pokemon. During the first Gen, I noticed that Spearow and Fearow appeared to have more offensive capabilities than its pudgy pidgeon counter-part: Pidgey. Perhaps learning the move “Drill Peak” helped assert this impression. After discovering this, Spearow would become a strong contender for that “Fly user” slot in playthroughs. This cute Pokemon got dethroned by Taillow who had an equally amazing and looking evolution in Swellow.

Spearow would be a Pokemon I’d pick up to use if Fearow didn’t look so strange in comparison.

What I don’t like about Fearow’s design is the strange chicken plume it has on its head. The red seems a bad use of contrast. I don’t think the plume adds anything. I find its beak is too long for my liking. I can see how a Spearow would evolve into Fearow, I just wish it hadn’t. Chatot has done well for being a “cute little bird” without an evolution, why couldn’t have Spearow been like that?

 

#9 Rhydon

I’ll confess, I used to prefer Rhyhorn. I was not keen on the humanoid appearance of Rhydon. However, one day something happened. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl came into existence, dragging a malformed demon from the abyss (I liked Diamond and Pearl, I just didn’t like some of its evolutions). It brought Rhyperior.

I can see what they were trying to do. They wanted a “Tanky” looking Pokemon that was more dinosaur in appearance. But it just looks vile. Its proportions look wrong. It looks too short and too wide. It looks plodgey. It has these horrible orange rocks around its body. Its upper arms look too thin to support its hammer-like arms. His elbows have these weird stoney spines erupting. I just wished this Pokemon never existed. On the plus side, I can run Rhydon competitively with Eviolite.

I think the biggest crime is that you have to trade to evolve Rhydon into this. Rhydon must hold a special item. To get this ugly Pokemon’s Pokedex entry you must jump through obnoxious hoops. Erghhh.

Why would you want to evolve such a happy looking rhino into a pudgey grumpy pants?

 

#8 Spheal

Spheal is a cute and simplistic design. Perhaps a little bit silly with its reminiscence of a beach ball, but cute. Unfortunately this design cannot be improve on. Any option would ruin it. It can also never run with Eviolite well, so that’s sad. Poor thing has to evolve into the monstrous Walrein. Which looks both terrifying and daft. That is never a good combination. Walrein is like a clown with a knife. You’re welcome.

 

#7 Munchlax

Baby Pokemon are gimmicky and pointless. They shoe-horn a first stage evolution that is difficult to acquire. It scrambles up everything. It makes it complicated to integrate them into the Pokemon TCG. They add a pointless new item that’s required to breed with (incense). However, Munchlax is the only baby Pokemon I actually like. It’s existence is still mechanically pointless, but at least its design is good. It’s a cute organic dustbin. It will omnomnom everything and look cute doing it. It looks so much better than its evolution form: Snorlax.

Snorlax’s biggest problem is its serial killer eyes. Or lack of. There’s something terrifying about a monster where you cannot see its eyes. Snorlax just scares me. I want to keep Munchlax thank you.

 

#6 Buizel

Buizel is a darling little sea otter, who strangely has two tails. It has a very odd ring round its neck… but I pretend it’s just a mane of yellow fur… yes… it is… ssh.

And then you get Floatzel. Floatzel takes the most, unusual and strange aspects of Buizel and amplifies them. I just find it a shame. Buizel was perfect how it was, I don’t want a weirder Buizel. Ah well… at least it’s not a Rhyperior level of defilement.