Hi, I'm Ice :) It's really cool that you're checking out my blog. I hope you like it as much as I do.
My blog consists of a vast majority of things including RWBY and Overwatch. [Profile Picture from http://equesbian.tumblr.com/post/146013138055/real-housewives-of-overwatch-inspired-by-x |Background image from amzwall.com]
In the Pokemon fandom, every once in a while you stumble upon a ‘Pokeballs are $200′ joke. In reference to how Pokeballs cost 200 of the in-game currency:
What a lot of fans, especially more casual ones, don’t seem to realize is that the currency in the Pokemon games it based on the Japanese yen. The symbol for the currency in the games even resembles the yen symbol:
In fact, according to Bulbapedia, the ‘Poke dollar’ symbol was specifically created for the English translations of the games, and the original Japanese versions use the yen symbol.
Now, for perspective, although the exact exchange rate naturally varies, a US dollar is equivalent to about 120 Japanese yen. So, 200 yen is about $1.67.
A Pokeball in the Pokemon games actually cost less then two bucks.
There’s a REASON we see so many young kids training Pokemon, especially early in the games. The cost of investing into a Pokeball to try catching their own Pokemon easily falls into the range of a typical kid’s allowance. A Potion for healing after battles is 300 (or about $2.50), but since Pokemon Centers offer their healing services for free, that’s a moot point.
Youngsters in the early game only give within a range from 50-150 of the currency, which is about equivalent to $0.40-$1.25. The first Gym Leader in Hoenn Region, Roxanne, give 1,680 in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, equivalent to about $14. Which is about right for the equivalent of a middle or high school honors student. A later Gym Leader, Winona, gives 4,200, or about $35. The Champion, Steven, gives 11600, or $96.67.
The winnings from enemy Trainers varies, but Ace Trainers seem to give out about 1500 or $14 on average, give or take. Swimmers (especially common later in ORAS), award a range from 400-800, or $3.33-$6.67.
Vitamins (such as Calcium, Iron, and HP UP), cost 9,800 or $81.67 each. An Ultra Ball cost 1,200, or $10. A Paralyze Heal costs the same as a Pokeball, while an Awakening is half that. A Revive is 1,500, or $12.50.
What’s the point of doing this? Well, for one, to get a better sense of the in-game economics, which can be hard to grasp if one doesn’t realize the in-game ‘Poke dollars’ are based on the Japanese yen. And a look at said economics reveals some interesting details.
First, it shows basic Pokemon training and raising is well within the affordability of a ten-year old, or older. Which makes sense as Pokemon is aimed at younger kids, and the develops would want them to have the sense that going on a Pokemon journey is something they could do if they somehow ended up in the Pokemon world.
On the other hand, it also shows there’s really not that much money to be made in Pokemon raising and traning, unless you battle frequently and regularly against higher-level opponents regularly and and win. Which is…very much in line with how professional sports work in real-life. Pokemon battling gets compared to a sporting event a lot for a reason. The initial 3-D games were even called Pokemon *Stadium.* Parallels are frequently drawn between the Pokemon League tournaments and the Olympics in the anime. The low money output is probably also why we often see Gym Leaders and the like working other jobs.
Just something interesting I decided to look into. I’m a Pokemon fan first, before any other fandom, and always will be. It’s shocking that I haven’t written any meta on it yet.
The 1000000 price for the bicycle translates to $8259.51, which is the price of a top quality bike for proffesionals.
Excellent catch! Helps explain why the bikes can ride through stuff like snow and sand. They are of excellent make.
And it also helps explain why the bike shop owners are happy to give out their bikes to a prospective Pokemon Trainer for free (whether through a voucher or otherwise). Your average Trainer taking the Gym challenge puts those bikes through the *wringer.* Riding them along mountains, through marshes, and even through snow. But a bike being able to endure that is the kind of thing a professional rider would look for, and desire.
Most Pokemon Trainers will never be able to afford the bikes, but are in one of the best positions to push them to their limits. So giving them out for free is actually a clever marketing move. Imagine a potential buyer seeing a Trainer riding one of those bikes in Lillycove, and said Trainer reveals they rode it from Rustboro (which means they rose it around a mountain, several caves, a few marshes, and possibly other environments I’m not thinking of right now). That’s a hell of an impression to make, and a fast, easy way to sell the buyer on getting the bike themselves, especially if they ride competitively.
Case in point, in Pokemon Gold/Silver and their re-makes, the bike shop even gives you the bike specifically as ‘advertising.’ After you’ve ridden it around long enough, you get a call saying that because of you doing so, their sales have shot through the roof (and happily tell you to keep the bike). And it’s no wonder why.
i feel sad bc nobody knows me as the guy who loves crocodiles anymore i used to be so vocal about it. i still love them with all my heart those big boys!
crocodiles are filled with hate
you’re going to be filled with bullets if you keep running your mouth
[puts water in blender by itself] [puts on highest setting for a full minute] fuck you
Okay, but no joke, I worked with a guy who actually did this.
This was like 2011, and I was working at a vidya game store. There was no kitchen, but there was a back room with some inventory and a bathroom. I was training this dude and it was his second day and he was like, “Hey, can I take a break real quick? I gotta make a drink. It’s this diet thing, it’ll only take like two minutes.”
And I was like, sure man, whatever. So he goes into the back room with his backpack, and there’s a brief pause, and then an ungodly awful high-pitched mechanical whining sound.
I go back there, and he has plugged one of those little one-serving high powered blenders into a wall socket, and it’s sitting on the floor, screaming.
He stops it and is like, “Sorry, was that loud? I’m used to it, I forget how loud it is.” And he starts drinking the drink.
“What is that, anyway? It’s just clear. What’d you put in it?”
“It’s water,” he says. “But if you blend it for a minute, it gets oxygenated. And when you drink it, that oxygenates the cells in your gut, and it actually helps your small intestine take up and use the nutrients in whatever you eat, and it kind of filters the bad stuff.”
I stared at him in silence for a few seconds, decided not to engage. “Okay, well, when you’re done drinking it, I’ll show you how to do trade-ins,” I said.
“Cool, cool. Hey, you want to try some? It sounds weird, but it actually tastes different. It’s pretty good.”
“No, I’m cool.”
He worked at the store for three weeks. He did that every single day.
So I used to have a Russian friend who had a pretty thick accent and like a lot of Russians tended to eschew articles. She would say things like “Get in car.” And stuff.
Well one day this asshole who had been kind of tagging along with us asks her why she talks like that because it makes her sound dumb and I still remember her response word for word.
“Me? Dumb? Maybe in America you have to say get in THE car because you are so stupid that people might just get in random car, but in Russia we don’t need to say that. We just fucking know because we are not stupid.”
i have no fucking clue what to even say about this like this is just absolutely stupefying
this is why i will always make fun of vegans
Chelsea Manning. Committed. Treason. She put American lives at risk. This is a fucking joke.
She exposed war crimes you fuck, including video of the US military killing journalists (some of whom were Americans to follow your point) and civilians including children, showed the awful conditions and tortue of the prisoners in Guantanamo (again including children as young as 13 and journalists), and revealed the civilian deathtoll from Iraq and Afghanistan to be in the 100,000’s
American lives are not inherently more valuable than any other. It is not treason to expose the crimes of your government; blind, obediant patriotism is much more harmful as it allowed the US to put even more of its citizens into a war zone to die.
Even then, none of what she leaked endangered a single troop on the ground as none of the files had anything to do with current military operations.
As Chris Hedges eloquently writes in his book Wages of Rebellion:
“Manning, if we had a functioning judiciary, would have been a witness for the prosecution against the war criminals she helped expose. She would not have been headed, bound and shackled, to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
But the government effectively shut down Manning’s defense team. The Army private was not permitted to argue that she had a moral and legal obligation under international law to defy military orders and to make public the war crimes she had uncovered. Because the documents that detailed the crimes, torture, and killing that Manning revealed were classified, they were barred from discussion in court, and so the fundamental issue of war crimes was effectively removed from the trial. Manning was forbidden to challenge the government’s unverified assertion that she had harmed national security.”
Some other things to consider:
*Manning was prevented from presenting her motives to the court- that could only be raised at the time of sentencing but we all know that’s too late
*The restrictions placed on her and her defense team prevented Manning from using the Nuremberg Principles in her favor - principles created post world war II by the United Nations to determine what constitutes war crimes
* Had she been able to appeal to the Nuremberg Principles she would have been set free since under them military orders do not exonerate you from committing war crimes
*Empirical evidence now shows that Manning’s actions did not harm the U.S.’s empire building, war-loving ways
So besides being innocent she was fucking shafted by this twisted, servile to the military industrial complex judiciary system we have that so many of us are proud of. This country is pathetic.
This isn’t the first time the us government has shut down someone even though they were perfectly within their legal rights, just to cover their own ass.
one of the randomized reference pictures during my warmups was a person with an umbrella so of course I had to draw neo! I really hadn’t ever thought to draw her before so this was really fun. she was the last one I did so as far as technical stuff goes this doodle is probably the cleanest. the extra versions aren’t very different, but they show off some of the layers of lighting and shading I usually do.
getting chased as a mccree is a nightmare like… he moves so slowly… once a winston tried to solo ult me and chased me, fast and glowing red and roaring down a corridor and it was just me combat rolling backwards. i killed him but i was. so fucking scared.
“mccree that winston is headed right for you! get the fuck over here!”
“im power walkin’ as fast as these chaps’ll take me lena.”
