Lexi's Top Ten Pokemon She Wishes Made the Cut in Sword and Shield

By Lexi, obviously

I think it’s fine that they didn’t make all the Pokemon in this one. Despite what morons on Reddit seem to think, it takes a lot of time and effort to make Pokemon in these games and it’s so clear that they didn’t really have time to finish all the stuff they were doing for the game as it is. Besides, as someone who has Caught Them All in at least one game each generation this decade, there are just too dang many of them at this point.

I think it’s absolutely great to have a rotating cast of available mons. Giving some of my favorites some time off is going to make it so much more exciting to come back to them a couple of games down the line. Overall I thought the roster in this game was really solid and an even 400-count dex was the perfect length to feel like an achievement without getting tedious (seriously no one actually enjoyed tracking down the 50 legendary Pokemon from the last few generations). That said I feel like there are a few omissions that I am, personally, a bit disappointed in, and here’s why:

10-9. Houndour/Houndoom

Much like Team Yell, dobermans are big sweethearts who are frequently mistreated, and have been unfairly stigmatized as dangerous.

Completely aside of the fact that this little goth doberman puppy is one of my all-time favorites, just imagine this lil guy running up to you in the wild area and crouching and barking like he thinks he’s tough, before slinking back into the grass, too shy to actually make a move.

What should they replace?

Elgyem and Beheeyem. The game isn’t wanting for Psychic types and is too monotype-heavy as it is. They’re also fairly middle-of-the-road Pokemon, which are a necessary space to fill in the dex but it means no one would miss them.

8-7. Larvesta/Volcarona

I’m the protagonist of every kaiju movie, pleading with GameFreak to put their trust in this giant friendly moth.

This is a pretty good generation for bugs already, complete with a new, really good, fire bug, so I admit it’s a bit greedy, but come ON, this big fluffy friend is a perfect counterpart to Frosmoth. If I can’t run a strategically-disastrous Fire and Ice combo team of Frosmoth, Volcarona, Ninetales, and Alolan Ninetales what’s even the POINT of this game?

What should they replace?

Durant and Heatmor, I suppose, to somewhat keep the type representations the same.

6-5. Skiddo/Gogoat

he sleepy

You might be noticing I have a thing for pairings, and what does everyone’s new favorite Wooloo need if not a goat best friend? These guys were one of the standouts of Gen VI, imo, and really deserve more love than they got. Plus, I want a shirt with Skiddo’s smiling face plastered across the front, peeking out from my partially-zipped hoodie and definitely the only reason we didn’t get one is because Skiddo isn’t in the game. England’s got tons of goats! There’s still time to fix this with a patch GameFreak!

What should they replace?

The Oddish line, we’ve seen enough of those guys. And putting in the Oddishes but not the Bellsprouts is messed up anyway.

4-3. Yanma/Yanmega

“Really, WHERE DO YOU GET OFF not including me in your game, ya freaks?”

No real reason other than if we’re gonna have Pokemon on the overworld, I wanna see Yanma flitting around, doing their whole dragonfly thing. I like taking walks at the park and seeing big ol’ dragonflies zoomin around is always a real joy, and exactly the sort of experience I want Pokemon to replicate for me. Besides having lots of bugs is important for a healthy ecosystem so the more the merrier I say!

Who should they replace?

We still have two open slots from giving Oddish the boot.

2. Castform

Make whatever jokes about their appearance that you want, Castform is above your petty insults.

This is no one’s favorite, I know, but I’m baffled as to why the Pokemon who’s whole gimmick is changing its form based on weather isn’t included in the game that gives the most attention to weather since the concept was first introduced. Bring it in, give it Sandstorm and Fog forms, and you’ve got a nice little in-game promo for the wild area weather feature. Weather Ball being a TM this gen really drove home how weird it was that this little guy wasn’t there.

Who should it replace?

Mr. Mime. Yes I know it got a new form and evolution this generation. That was a mistake and they should not have done it.

1. Dunsparce

Cannot BELIEVE they included Caterpie in this game but did not bring her best friends Dunsparce and Dunsparce.

I’m not even gonna try to justify this one, I just love the little guy. Dunsparce should be the only Pokemon that is in every single game going forward, the secret string that ties together all games, the hidden, true mascot of the Pokemon universe, and if you can’t see why that’s beautiful, then I weep for you.

Who should it replace?

Just a regular unchanged-since-its-inception Dunsparce is worlds better than Mr. fuckin Rime.

For No Reason a List of Pokemon I Wholly and Completely Adore in No Particular Order

By Lexi

Mareep

Steelix

Sudowoodo

Shuckle

Vulpix

Sandshrew

Alolan Vulpix

Alolan Sandshrew

Ninetales

Alolan Ninetales

Cyndaquil

Torchic

Rowlet

Rockruff

Pikipek

Toucannon

Jangmo-o

Froslass

Piplup

Turtwig

Torterra

Eevee

Jolteon

Leafeon

Glaceon

Umbreon

Growlithe

Raichu

Alolan Raichu

Dratini

Dragonair

Kabutops

Sharpedo

Blastoise

Venusaur

Beedrill

Crobat

Shedinja

Zebstrika

Krookodile

Slowpoke

Slowbro

Farfetch'd

Spheal

Cubone

Alolan Marowak

Mudsdale

Chansey

Kangaskhan

Joltik

Galvantula

Litwik

Chandelure

Volcarona

Ludicolo

Archeops

Yanma

Dunsparce

Skiddo

Gogoat

Pancham

Pangoro

Helioptile

Amaura

Gligar

Hydreigon

Phantump

Trevenant

Pumpkaboo

Shaymin

Anatomy of a Dadrock - Centerfold

By Lexi

My name is Lexi and I love 80s rock music.  Well, I love the idea of 80s rock music.  The compositions are great--big catchy hooks, wild bombastic singing, it's music you really want to just get swept up in--until you listen to what they're saying.  This was, of course, nothing new for the world of music, but it feels like in the 80s they stopped trying to be subtle about anything and just let the brazen misogyny shine.  Too often have I had a song come on the radio and instinctively start singing along only to catch myself as I realize what the words I'm about to say really mean.  So as a cathartic exercise, I'm going to break down the lyrics of some of the worst offenders stuck in my head, starting with the one currently plaguing me, 1981's Centerfold, by the J. Geils Band.

First off: the music.  Man this song fuckin' kicks.  Wasting no time it starts right in with the iconic hook and just keeps that energy up nonstop.  This was part of my high school's pep band repertoire and, along with fellow famous na-na-na piece Land of a Thousand Dances, was a strong argument for high speed repetitive hooks as the shortcut to the hype center of my brain. Shame about the, well, we'll get there now.

The song opens with a reference to common side-show hype patter, "It walks, it talks, it <third presumably more noteworthy thing>".  In this case that third thing is "comes complete" which makes me think it was maybe a reference to an advertisement of some sort but I'm having trouble finding out what.  In any case it immediately sets the theme for this song which is: beautiful woman as a commodity or attraction for entertainment purposes.

The woman in question is the singer's high school crush whom he refers to as his "homeroom angel", a phrase that could be accepted as sappily poetic in another context but here is the first in many examples of how men will put objects of their desire on a pedestal and set absurd standards they could never meet.  The next line, "She was pure like snowflakes, no one could ever stain," furthers this framing.  The man desires this woman and that desire comes with an expectation of "purity"--she exists for him alone and no one else.  The line finishes, "The memory of my angel could never cause me pain."  We'll come back to that one.

"Years go by I'm lookin' through a girly magazine. And there's my homeroom angel on the pages in-between."  Here's the premise of the song.  Dude's lookin' at a porno and sees his high school crush as the centerfold.  So far so good.  But then,

"My blood runs cold, my memory has just been sold.  My angel is the centerfold."  Here it is.  "My blood runs cold," is an idiom people often employ to explain something truly horrifying, like seeing a former abuser.  This experience for the singer is on par with an encounter from someone who has ruined your life.  And why is it so chilling?  Well, his memory has just been sold.  His memory.  "Angel" doesn't even have ownership of her own body here, because this man desired her once. That image is for him and him alone.  "My angel is the centerfold."  His angel, the woman whom he desires and thus must remain exclusive to him, has sullied that purity by broadcasting those exclusive images to the world.  It's a betrayal of the highest order.

Alright time for a flashback.  This will fill in the gaps, let us understand just how much she meant to him, help us make sense of this betrayed reaction. "Slipped me notes under the desk," oh okay so it wasn't a one-sided crush, she liked him too, "while I was thinkin' about her dress," oh right okay I see now.  So while this girl showed genuine interest in him, he really only cared about how hot she was. "I was shy I turned away before she caught my eye." oh yeah were you shy or did you realize you were straight creepin' and on some level you knew how fucked that was and didn't wanna get copped?

The next few lines are just about how attractive she was--ironically, fetishizing the idea of her before complaining about the physical fetishization of her in print. "Those soft and fuzzy sweaters, too magical to touch.  To see her in that negligee is really just too much." Listen I get it, obsession over your crush's clothing is a common part of teenage infatuation, but that second bit there is getting into Mike Pence "can't be alone with women other than my wife" levels of hung up, my dude. 

After another bout of the chorus, the singer capitulates a bit.  "It's okay I understand, this ain't no never-never land"  "Sure I just spent a couple minutes bitching and moaning about how dare you advertise your attractiveness to anyone other than myself but fine, I begrudgingly accept that I'm not the only man in the world." "I hope that when this issue's gone, I'll see you when your clothes are on. Take your car, yes we will, we'll take your car and drive it.  We'll take it to a motel room and take 'em off in private."  "I'm going to accept this grave injustice you've committed but I expect in return that I can reclaim my superior claim to you by having sex with you.  My precious memories from before just aren't worth anything now that other people have also just seen how attractive you are or whatever.  You fuckin' owe me."

He summarizes, "A part of me has just been ripped, the pages from my mind are stripped. Oh no, I can't deny it," so what's his conclusion? "Oh yeah, I guess I gotta buy it."  A breakthrough.  The singer finally realizes that he can't reasonably expect to maintain exclusive claim to a woman who only really even exists for him as a long off memory from his youth.  Now, enlightened, he's prepared to objectify and debase from afar an attractive woman alongside the entire rest of that magazine's audience.  Such growth, such magnanimity, such maturity.  It would be insulting that he's willing to so gladly cast aside genuine feelings in exchange for base desires, but base desires were the only part of that memory he was ever engaging with in the first place.

So what we have here is a story steeped in women-as-a-commodity.  It details how a man's ego is so preoccupied with a sense of ownership over a woman's image, over the very idea of her as a desirable thing, that her decision to show off her body publicly is seen as a personal betrayal, despite this man having no current personal connection to her.  This song posits a status quo in which any man who has ever developed an attachment to you (or even just to the idea of you) has the right to feel entitled to your likeness, to your image, an attitude that remains disturbingly prevalent to this day.  Of course the mechanism that lays bare this pathology is a nudie mag, itself a commercial endeavor that commodifies women's bodies, perpetuating the delusion even as it challenges it.  Part of me wonders if Seth Justman based this on a true story, if some poor woman heard this on the radio one day and had an "oh my god" moment. 

The beauty of the pep band version of this song is it retains all of the great musical qualities and lacks the awful story contained within.  Short of that, perhaps it's best to stick with J. Geils' other hit from this album, Freeze Frame, a song about, *checks notes*, obsessing over a momentary encounter with a beautiful woman, oh dear.

What Your First Bionicle Says About You (from someone who knows nothing about Bionicle)

By Lexi

I had some Bionicles as a kid.  I had three of the ones that combined and my friend had the other three that combined.  Sometimes we'd combine them and make them fight each other.  That's the extent of my experience with Bionicle.  This is a list of what the first Bionicle you owned probably says about you as a person, based entirely on a single-paragraph summary of each character from Wikipedia and a picture of what they look like:

• Tahu - You prefer to take things at face value.  Your favorite Power Ranger is the Red Ranger, your favorite Digimon is Agumon, and your favorite video game is Call of Duty.  You think Big Bang Theory is a perfectly fine television show and you don't understand why people have to be so damn critical of the Transformers movies.
• Lewa - You have never stopped believing that Tommy from Power Rangers is the coolest person to ever exist. You vastly prefer the best friend/sidekick/friendly rival character in everything and think they'd make a better main character than the protagonist.  You've gotten into incredibly heated fights on this subject too many times to count.
• Gali - Even though you hate the "token girl" trope, you immediately embrace every single one and will fight anyone who bags on literally any female character in a popular work of media at the drop of a hat.  You've written fanfiction about what if Link in Majora's Mask just kept the Zora mask and wore it permanently.
• Kopaka - You prefer the clever heroes to the strong ones.  Your favorite stories are the ones that are way too complicated.  There's a solid chance you're some form of genderqueer now.
• Pohatu - You think the Pokemon anime would be a lot better if they got rid of all the Pokemon fights and were just about Pokemon doing cute things.  You spend all your time in mmos doing crafting.  You've been playing No Man's Sky regularly since it launched and are really glad everyone else is getting excited about it again.
• Onua - You fuckin' love ninjas.  Like whoa.

Welcome to The Shredder

Hey anyone who managed to find this unlisted blog page, welcome to my brain dump.  Why is this here?  Well I came up with a really dumb thing that was too long for Twitter so I decided to abuse my powers as admin of this site and created a space for it.  I figure if the place for us to drop our audio trash is the Garbage Dump, then clearly our text trash should go in The Shredder.

That's it, that's the whole reason this is here.  Anyway enjoy this Bionicle shitpost.

~Lexi