#this is all Clifford could see as Howard was explaining

[burdadart]

Howard be like...

I spent way to much time doing this hahahaha

#bcs #bcs spoilers #howard hamlin #bcs fanart #better call saul fanart #this is all Clifford could see as Howard was explaining #goodnight sweet prince #digital art #way too much effort for stupid meme #but i have NO REGRETS

[toonstarterz]

Deconstructing the Reality of Catching Pokémon

Warning: Minor spoilers for Pokémon - Detective Pikachu.

When Tim was running from the Cubone screaming, “It didn’t choose me! It didn’t choose me!”, it hit me.

You don’t “catch” Pokémon.

You earn them.

Those unfamiliar with Pokémon often see the whole catching and battling aspect of it as akin to cockfighting. They see it as trapping innocent creatures in little balls and forcing them to attack each other. And while that’s not how the franchise describes it, it’s hard for fans to completely refute that assumption.

But seeing how the film deals with this, and Ryme City’s “progressive” views on Human-Pokémon relationships, I think I’ve come to a possible explanation on how catching Pokémon actually works. Fair warning, this is heading into headcanon territory.

Basically, there are two main factors at play here.

The first addresses the accepted understanding that weakening a Pokémon makes them less resistant to the effects of the Poké Ball. 

But I think that understanding is short-sighted.

Rather, I see the physical process, the whole sucking-them-in-and-the-ball-beeps process, as the Poké Ball encoding them.

Granted, I’m not the first fan to think this. What happens is that when a Pokémon is absorbed, the Poké Ball takes the Pokémon’s information, their DNA you could say, and converts it into digital data. The Poké Ball then beeps, signaling that the encoding is complete. 

However, encoding a Pokémon is a relatively timely and delicate process. A Pokémon can disrupt the process simply by being unruly and forcing it, hence why weakening them is preferred. It’s why Pokémon can break out of the Poké Ball, and why the ball is unusable should this happen. The encoding software is just too damaged. 

It would also explain how the Storage System works, and how a trainer can release a Pokémon even without seeing who’s inside. When called upon, possibly through voice activation, the Storage System selects the specified Pokémon in the party and decodes them into existence.

The various Poké Ball types, like the Great Ball or Heavy Ball, are designed to accelerate the encoding process when appropriate. 

Now that can’t just be it, can it? 

After all, it’s absolutely possible for a fully healthy Pokémon to be caught. It’s feasible in the games, and the anime especially, where Pokémon can willingly join a team.

And that’s exactly where the second factor comes in.

While the Poké Ball can encode a Pokémon’s information, what determines if that information is accepted or not is the Pokémon’s ability to consent. 

That’s right. A Pokémon can actually choose whether or not it gets caught. 

The best way to conceptualize this is what the game calls a Pokémon’s Catch Rate. It actually measures the percentage of how likely a Pokémon will consent to capture. Exactly how this consent is measured is tricky. Perhaps its a combination of endorphins, muscle tension, consciousness, etc. But the general idea is the same.

The higher the catch rate, the more likely it’ll consent. 

It actually ties in pretty well with the game mechanics. Fainted Pokémon can’t consent, which keeps the Poké Ball from working. Lower-level Pokémon like Pidgeys and Wurmples are more receptive to beginner trainers, whereas higher-level, evolved Pokémon like Skarmory and Volcarona are more picky with the trainers they want.

Even more so when Legendaries and Ultra Beasts are involved. A Tapu Koko is going to be extremely judgmental to those it deems unworthy. It’s why catching one in the games is so difficult even when they’re at minimum health and have a status condition. So long as the Pokémon won’t consent, it won’t get caught.

Which leaves one final conundrum. If you can influence the encoding process, how do you influence a Pokémon’s consent, and ultimately, earn their trust?

Through battle. 

Obvious, I know. But it’s the best method for making sure that both factors in the capturing process are satisfied. 

Battling weakens the Pokémon for encoding.

And battling allows the Pokémon to assess your skills, personality, and overall character, and whether they’ll accept you as a trainer. 

When Howard Clifford builds Ryme City as a community where catching and battling are forbidden, it’s not saying those methods are inherently flawed or unethical. It just means that the city is meant for fostering Human-Pokémon relationships where catching and battling are unnecessary for growth. Though whether that was Howard’s true intention is another thing...  

Pokémon as a culture seems to be full of contradictions and questionable philosophies. But instead of trying to have Pokémon fit our own ideals, having our ideals fit Pokémon may actually be the best course of action in crafting a fully realized world.

#pokemon #detective pikachu #poke balls #analysis #catching #battling #wrote this all in one sitting #spoilers

[lil-purplebird]

*Pikachu noises*

I saw Detective Pikachu last night but I needed time to put my thoughts together because it’s still so hard to believe this movie exists. It’s a cinematic marvel that they managed to make the Pokémon world work. Yes, I agree its plot is nothing to sneeze at, but so what? Pokémon was never about the plot, it was always about the journey, the experience. It’s just a little bonus to get a plot, but it was always about the world, and the little touches they put in this world was well-done. Also the Mr. Mime scene is the funniest part of the movie, it was so cleverly put together with a perfect punchline.

Okay gotta get into spoiler mode because of my boy Mewtwo, just going to gush about Mewtwo here even though I loved just about every single frame in this film and that one of my favorite Easter eggs was with the Loudred, like that was dope.

I am so glad they did more with Mewtwo, he had little to do in the actual game that all I really cared about was just that Mewtwo would get to blow shit up and I would’ve been happy. But what they did with him was absolutely bonkers and I love it, it was as if they wanted to explore the abilities of Psychic Pokémon, and especially the world’s strongest Psychic Pokémon, and it felt plausible. It needed a chemical reaction to do it, but Mewtwo could naturally do it as shown in the hologram-flashback (God that was a cool scene). That makes him terrifying on another level because if you get on his bad side, he’s going to do some freaky shit to you and who knows if he’ll put you back together.

But speaking of freaky shit, I actually had a freak-out moment in the theater as soon as Howard neuro-transmitted his mind into Mewtwo and he physically spoke because Mewtwo shouldn’t talk with his mouth. I mean, he probably could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. And that’s why it was so uncanny and made me want to sink into my seat because it was soooo creepy. But thinking about it, yeah, makes sense Howard wouldn’t know how to use telepathy, but also on a technical level, I think this was Bill Nighy doing motion-capture for Mewtwo, and I think that’s pretty cool they were able to do that. Remember the last character he did motion-capture for?

The resemblance really and truly is uncanny.

Also we probably shouldn’t have laughed in the theater when Pikachu was singing the Pokémon theme song to himself, but it was so unexpected we couldn’t help it (even though it played in the newsroom with the Cliffords, it was so cool). We also couldn’t help losing our minds when it was revealed that, yes, Ryan Reynolds is the father all along even though it honestly was obvious, especially for those of us who played the game. But I actually liked the twist they did for the reveal because Mewtwo was never going to reveal it to Tim in the game anyway because he’s a DICK, but it explains the “They never found the body” line even though I always thought Mewtwo had Harry’s comatose body hidden away in some cave or his own secret lab until he could cure him, but assimilating him inside Pikachu’s body is cool and really sweet of Pikachu and Mewtwo to do.

Overall, I just have to see this movie again, and again, and again so I can take in this big, beautiful world they recreated on film. There’s so much more to it like the giant Torterra not being out-of-place or the squeaking Bulbasaur (us Bulbasaur fans all know why we love them so much, this scene was for us), or the fact Cubone was pissed at Tim and could’ve killed him with Bonemerang (Professor Oak warned you, bro!), or that this was a utopia built to show humans and Pokémon could live together in harmony like in times of old, or hell, just the fact that Mewtwo is 20 years old and had fled the Kanto region and oh my God this world is so big and has untapped potential!

I think it’s nice of them to not leave a sequel hook at the end, but I really want to see this world again. I want to see more stories done in this style. I think Legenday can pull it off.

Also it’s probably not a coincidence the Sonic trailer played in front of this film. Big OOF right there.

#pokemon #detective pikachu #pikachu #mewtwo #bill nighy #I'm not crying YOU'RE crying

[linzerj]

alive

Short Mewtwo fic/drabble thing. Contains Detective Pikachu spoilers. (listen the DP Mewtwo is the same one from Mewtwo Strikes back they’re the same dang it)

AO3 link will be in a reblog to avoid the tumblr algorithm murdering me

“Don’t cry, Mewtwo. You should be happy. You’re alive, and life is wonderful.”

…

Life is wonderful, they remember, even if they don’t know how, don’t remember who said this to them, don’t know where this thought came from.

Life is wonderful, they repeat. Life is wonderful, but… why?

They know nothing, nothing but an empty ocean, nothing but the vague sense of nothingness. They wonder if they even are alive at all.

Then the sensations get stronger. Voices – other voices – get louder. They want to know what this is all about. They want to exist. They want to live.

They push this feeling, this desire to be, outward, and can hear the shattering of glass, the gushing of liquid from its containment. They land in the remains of the container that had kept them suspended, disoriented.

But then there are others speaking to him. These – these people, humans, scientists, refer to them as Mewtwo.

Two. As in copy, clone. Not original. Not even a pure copy. An amalgamation of Mew’s DNA, and changes that suited the scientists’ needs.

This… cannot be their destiny. This isn’t right. This isn’t what it should be.

(They can picture mountains and lakes, the sun and the moon, freedom, in their mind’s eye. They do not know where these images come from, only that they exist, and Mewtwo wants.)

They unleash their fury on the scientists. It is a confusing fury, they reflect later, after the lab is nothing but ruins and ash. They are angry with the scientists for not caring, for only seeing them as an experiment. They are furious that they have been brought into this world, a copy of something so great and pure. They are upset about even existing in the first place.

But then a new man arrives, promising partnership, and Mewtwo is too naïve and curious to refuse.

…

This turns out to be a mistake.

Humans, Mewtwo reflects, cannot be trusted. Giovanni attempts to control them, subdue them, and use them. Mewtwo will have none of it.

They destroy another prison, and flee. They could go and live in the wilds, avoiding humans and just… exist.

But their righteous fury has reached the breaking point.

(Life is wonderful, someone tells them. You’re alive, and life is wonderful.)

Life is not wonderful. Life is cruel, life is betrayal, life is torture and subjugation. Life, maybe just human life specifically – life is just evil. Humanity is evil.

This revelation, this decision, spurs them to that first lab, the place of their creation. Humans wanted to play with forces they didn’t understand? Fine. Mewtwo would show them what happens as a result of their narcissism and entitlement.

…

It takes several months, but they reactivate the cloning facility that birthed them, and get to work.

They have cloned other Pokémon, now, and are ready to show humanity how superior they are. They are ready to free Pokémon from the subjugation and control of humans.

Mewtwo decides to start by challenging promising young trainers of Kanto to a battle. But only the worthy may come; they plot to brew a storm so only the strongest and most willful can stand in their presence.

The young humans come, with their teams of Pokémon. And Mewtwo challenges them, and defeats them, and takes their strong Pokémon to clone to suit their needs.

But one young human defies logic, defies expectation. This young boy, Mewtwo learns later, is named Ash Ketchum, and he is a human of impulse and heart, compassion and determination. (Years later, Mewtwo will reflect back on how nothing in the world could have prepared them for the unstoppable force that is Ash Ketchum.)

And in the midst of the chaos, there is a familiar yet alien presence. There is someone else, like them, watching.

There is the original. It’s Mew.

Just the sight of them fills Mewtwo with rage.

This pink little kitten is what they originate from? This soft bundle of giggles spawned them, tall and imposing and powerful and angry? This small myth?

They fight. Mew seems unconcerned, despite the effort both are putting into this. Mewtwo never wonders why.

Then that crazy boy gets in the way.

…

“What are… these?”

“They’re tears. You’re crying.”

“Crying?”

“My daddy used to tell me a bedtime story that when Pokémon are sad, and they cry, their tears are filled with life.”

…

Mewtwo wipes the memories of the children and their Pokémon after that. They don’t deserve to live with those awful memories, not really. They’re young, and innocent, and naïve. From what Mewtwo has seen, humanity is evil. But it seems that not all humans in the world are bad.

Ash Ketchum proves this when he returns to Mewtwo’s life barely a year later. He saves their life, for no other reason than … he wanted to.

(“Do you always need a reason to help somebody?”)

They don’t wipe the memories of the kids, this time. Mewtwo does make sure to wipe the minds of everyone else, especially Team Rocket’s.

Ash Ketchum and his friends are good. The rest of humanity is… maybe not all evil, then. Mewtwo… can live with that.

…

“You’re alive, and life is wonderful.”

…

They realize soon after the irony of their powers. Mewtwo can wipe the minds of humans with ease, but at some point early in their life, someone else erased their memories, and now those memories are only coming back in fragments of words and images. They don’t know who was talking to them, only that… she… is gone.

It’s a bittersweet feeling, to know that someone cared about them, once, when they were young, before they had broken free into the world; but now that person, that little girl, is gone. She’s said goodbye, and she can never come back.

(“It feels… like it’s time… to say goodbye.”

“…Goodbye?”)

Mewtwo puts that in the past. The memories may come, or they may not. But they have their whole life ahead. Maybe they can finally experience the wonder of life now, free as they are.

…

“I have to go.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But it’s alright. Thank you for caring about me. And don’t cry Mewtwo. You should be happy. You’re alive, and life is wonderful.”

…

(Her name was Amber, they learn ten years later, when they return to New Island and go through old encrypted files that they had ignored in their earlier, angrier quest for retribution. Her name was Amber Fuji, and the scientist that had spoken to Mewtwo – that Mewtwo had likely killed – was her father. Heartbroken by her loss, he turned cold. He’d never cared about Mewtwo. Once Amber was gone, Mewtwo was just an experiment again, nothing more.)

(But Amber had cared about them. And they had cared about Amber, for what brief time they had known each other in that psychic in-between.)

(Mewtwo is alive, and maybe life hasn’t always been wonderful, but it’s been getting better, and they are now determined to make life wonderful, to spite the cruel world, and to honor Amber’s memory as best as they can.)

…

Twenty years, almost to the day, from when Mewtwo escaped from the people that created them, a man named Harry Goodman finds them.

Harry Goodman has a Pikachu partner, similar to Ash Ketchum. But Harry and his Pikachu are detectives, he explains. They search for clues, find evidence, and solve mysteries. They’ve been hired by scientists hoping to study Mewtwo in order to improve science and medicine – or so he’s been told.

They should be careful, Harry explains, because the humans working at that lab were discredited for malpractice, or uncertified, and gave off a secretive and mistrustful vibe. Harry took the assignment to find Mewtwo because he cared, and didn’t want this Pokémon to be hurt by people in over their heads.

Mewtwo appreciated the sentiment. But curiosity killed the Meowth – or in this case, the Mewtwo.

…

When the scientists and PCL immediately capture Mewtwo and shove them into a containment unit, Harry Goodman looks upset, but not necessarily shocked. He’d deduced this possible outcome. But as much as Mewtwo wants to know why, what the scientists are after –

They hate being caged. They will not go through this again, not after being free for so long.

The Pikachu fries the circuits, and Harry and Pikachu run. Mewtwo breaks free and follows, but can’t stop the Greninja in time.

Humanity is evil, but not all humans are bad.

The Pikachu wants to save its partner. Mewtwo… they can fix this. The scientists were saying that their psychic energy could merge humans and Pokémon together.

It’s not a perfect fix, but until Harry Goodman’s son can show up, Mewtwo is unable to fully heal the human. So, merging with his Pikachu it is.

And then Tim Goodman arrives, with Harry/Pikachu injured again. Healing Pokémon bodies is easier.

And they try to explain. They can heal Harry Goodman and Pikachu, right then and there – but somehow, the scientists have found them again, and interrupt.

They catch a glimpse in one mind – Howard Clifford wants not only Mewtwo’s powers, but their body. And technology has advanced so much that they just cannot escape.

Tim Goodman shows up alone, confused about which Clifford is at fault. Mewtwo screams at him to run, but then –

– They wake confused, and to a sensation of falling. They’re falling, and falling, and –

Mewtwo barely catches Harry/Pikachu before he hits the ground. They’re still slightly confused, but memories from when they were not in control come rushing back all at once, and they hear Tim asking if they can fix all this.

They can, and they do. Mewtwo fixes everything, sets everything in Ryme City to rights.

…

Humanity is evil, but not all humans are bad. Now Mewtwo has a small handful of humans that are definitively not evil, and are in fact – good.

That’s a nice feeling. Twenty years ago, fifteen years ago even, Mewtwo would have just fled, and maybe killed more humans than they already had. But to see that not every human is so heartless and self-centered – to see that there are humans out there who care just because it’s the right thing to do, humans who want to help, humans who are just good –

Maybe life isn’t so bad after all.

…

(If Ash Ketchum wakes to find Mewtwo hovering nearby, looking to talk about all they’ve seen and done and been subjected to after nearly twenty years – well. Who is he to say no?)

(If Tim and Harry Goodman return to their apartment to find Mewtwo curled up on their couch, just wanting someplace warm and cozy and comfortable to sleep without fear – well. Who are they to say no?)

(If Amber Fuji says that life is wonderful – well. Who is Mewtwo to say no?)

…

The world spins on. Mewtwo is one of the most powerful Pokémon to ever exist – but not the most powerful, as scientists had thought. That’s fine by them.

They still linger on the edges of society – human and Pokémon alike. They don’t really belong, don’t really fit, but that’s okay. They’ll help any in need. They’ll carve out their own place in the world.

Life, Mewtwo thinks, is wonderful, even if they had to wait a while to figure that out. It doesn’t matter how they came into existence. They’ve learned that all that matters is what you do with your life. That’s what determines who you are.

They’re alive, and life is wonderful after all.

#mewtwo #pokemon #detective pikachu #mewtwo strikes back #pokemon fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #drabble #mewtwo returns #the uncut story of mewtwo's origin #amber fuji #ash ketchum #tim goodman #harry goodman #detective pikachu spoilers #mewtwo needs a hug

[ckret2]

Medical Research

SPOILERS FOR DETECTIVE PIKACHU!! Even the summary has spoilers I ain’t kidding.

Fandom: Pokémon, Detective Pikachu movie Characters: Mewtwo, Harry Goodman, Detective Pikachu but he doesn’t do much Words: 2600 Summary: How, exactly, did Harry Goodman get Mewtwo into PCL? He certainly didn’t capture the most powerful Pokémon in the world. The only possibility is that he persuaded Mewtwo to go. But what would persuade Mewtwo, whose first conscious act was to blast its way out of a scientific lab full of gene experimenting, to willingly walk into one? Notes: Call me Babe Ruth.

"Medical research!"

Mewtwo froze, glowing hand outstretched toward the floating human's chest—still poised to blast him halfway to the northeast Kanto coast with a single mental flex. A Pikachu was clinging to his shirt, huddling over his heart with eyes squeezed shut.

Slowly, Mewtwo's hand stopped glowing. But it didn't let go yet. "Explain."

The human gasped in a breath as the pressure Mewtwo was exerting on his body to keep him floating loosened, then automatically kicked his legs as if trying to stay aloft as he felt gravity take hold of him again. Mewtwo wasn't going to drop him. Not yet, anyway.

"J—just outside Ryme City, in Sinnoh," the human said. "There's a lab! They want—"

Mewtwo's skin prickled at the word lab. "I am not interested in being experimented on by humans again." It raised its hand. The human yelped as he jerked another few feet in the air.

"Listen to him!" the Pikachu cried. "He's not here to hurt you, I promise! Please!"

Mewtwo hesitated, ruminating on the Pikachu's request. The pair had approached it with words instead of attacks, and with none of the complicated machinery designed to entrap and ensnare that the likes of Team Rocket and their many subsequent bounty hunters tended to throw at it. Mewtwo could have chalked it up to cockiness—but the human wasn't even carrying poké balls. Not even one for the Pikachu. The only machinery he had on him was a cell phone.

They weren't here to catch it.

Slowly, Mewtwo lowered the pair—and then dropped them, from three feet up, to the muddy bank of the Cerulean River. The human landed hard and groaned; Pikachu squealed in surprise.

"Very well. I will listen," Mewtwo said. "Explain your research—and why I should want anything to do with it."

"Nnh..." The human sat up, lifted his arms, and grimaced at the mud covering them from elbow down. "Not—not my research. I was—hired, by the guy funding it. You've heard of Howard Clifford?"

"No."

"Ahh. Great. Well, he's uh, he's this—big, idealist philanthropist type guy—it's that whole archetype, the benevolent futurist billionaire thing, you know the type—"

"I do not."

The human stopped, mouth partway open, caught mid-sentence and unsure how to go on now. "Right. Well, I'm—I'm sure you'll meet him, if you decide you want to come. Anyway, he wants to make medicine from the genes of Pokémon, that can be used on both humans and different Pokémon. Stuff like, uh, uh... identifying the genes that are altered when Wailmer turns into Wailord, and injecting them into Grotle so they get way, way larger when they evolve."

Mewtwo tilted its head. "Why would they do that?"

The human opened his mouth. Then stopped with his mouth open again, brow furrowed, and thought about that. "You know, I—I don't actually... know why they did that. I think I was, uh, busy gawking at the ginormous Torterra when they explained the whole... purpose, of that specific project."

It didn't matter, ultimately. Mewtwo's skin was prickling again, at this talk of genes shuffling between Pokémon as casually as scavengers trading berries, and its instincts were telling it to go hide.

Hide where, though? The human had done what few others had done before: tracked Mewtwo down to its hidden sanctuary, an unobtrusive mountain cave hiding in the shadow of Mt. Moon. Mewtwo's fault for being so being so merciful to other explorers who'd passed through. If it showed mercy to this one as well—and, at this point, it supposed, it would—then its location would be known to this benevolent futurist billionaire the human had mentioned, and who knew how many others would be sent after it. And soon Team Rocket would learn of its location again. This sanctuary was no longer safe for Mewtwo—and it wouldn't be safe for any of the other Pokémon in it, either, if Mewtwo didn't leave it behind for good.

For a moment, Mewtwo was furious at the human for discovering it.

It forced itself not to act on its rage. But the Pikachu sensed the rage all the same, fixing Mewtwo with a hard look, his cheeks crackling.

"You have accomplished a feat that very few humans have ever achieved, in tracking me down on purpose," Mewtwo said. "To have done so, you must know a great deal about me. You must know what I am—what I come from."

The human hesitated, the nodded. "Little—little island near Cinnabar, right? A cloning experiment? Sponsored by a gym leader with ties to organized crime."

"I am far beyond a mere 'cloning experiment.' Tell me: do I look like a Mew?"

"Well, I can't say I've ever seen a Mew, but—" The human stared at Mewtwo for a long moment, taking in its height, its oddly fused fingers, its strange bony sternum, its misshapen double neck, "—but no, you... don't exactly look like the cave art."

"I am Pokémon gene splicing. I am what happens when humans try to improve upon Pokémon—when humans snip DNA apart like so many little lengths of rope and knot them back together. I should not be."

"Hey now, that's pretty harsh on yourself—"

"And there should not be other things like me," Mewtwo said firmly. "I do believe you both came here with good intentions. But your intentions mean nothing in the face of the abominations you're asking for."

The human stared at Mewtwo a moment longer, hard—this time, not like he was taking in its body, but like he was looking for something deeper. Mewtwo didn't like that look. It felt... penetrating.

"Hey." The human's voice was softer now. "Listen." He slowly got to his feet, brushing excess mud off his rear. Pikachu scampered up to his shoulder and settled there. "You've... you've had bad experiences with humans. Especially humans in labs. Especially especially humans in labs talking about genes. I get that. I understand why you wouldn't want to go back to one. I wouldn't blame you or judge you in the slightest for completely rejecting anybody coming up to you to talk about anything that's got to do with humans in labs with genes." He paused. "But I hope you'll consider not rejecting it. Because there's a lot of people and Pokémon out there, right now, every day, suffering—from injuries they won't recover from, from diseases we don't have cures to—and the Pokémon Comprehensive Laboratory in Ryme City is trying to change that. You can't im—"

He stopped, face twisting, swallowed hard; Pikachu fussed with his hair for a moment until he'd collected himself. "You can't imagine what it's like," he said, voice hoarser than it had been just a moment earlier, "what it's like, watching someone you love—waste away, and die. From an illness that there's no cure for yet."

Telepath though Mewtwo was, it had never been much of a mind reader; and what skill it had once possessed had atrophied to nothing under Team Rocket's tender care. It was a very weak empath at best. But it didn't need to be strong to feel the sudden miasmas of decade-old grief leaking from the human, like poisonous gas from a Koffing's craterous pores.

It drifted closer to the human, equal parts intrigued and pitying, feet inches above the muddy riverbank. "You speak from experience?"

The human shrugged with his un-Pikachu-occupied shoulder. "Do you know what cancer is?"

"I've been told I am a cancer," Mewtwo said. "A Mew who's more tumor than healthy tissue."

The human let out a startled laugh. "Well—that shows you can survive it, right? That's more than most people can say. Imagine what that would be like—being made of cancer, but never dying from it." He sniffed hard, shook his head, and collected himself again. "Listen, I uh—I didn't come to talk about my life. Sorry. But—Howard's poured a lot of money, manpower, and poképower into tracking you down. And he's done it all because he believes, sincerely believes, that something in your genes—your weird, part-prehistoric-demigod, part-manmade-mishmash genes—holds the key to making life a whole lot better for a whole lot of sick folks. I don't get the science behind it, but he's got people who do—and to them, you're not Wailord genes in a Grotle. You're everything."

Mewtwo glanced away from the pair, considering the proposition uneasily. As much as it reviled the thought of returning to another lab... had it not been working, for years, to undo the things that Team Rocket had done to it? The damage that had been done to its soul—if it had such a thing—its mind, if not. For years, now, it had been fighting to unlearn all that Team Rocket had taught it about where a Pokémon's worth comes from, and the supremacy of power, and the dynamic of master and tool between human and Pokémon. Mewtwo was not the same Pokémon that had fled from Viridian City so many years ago.

Maybe it was time, too, to unlearn its fear of white coats and the smell of sterilized steel.

Maybe it was time to see if it could redefine how it saw its own genes—not as slap in the face of the natural order, but as a gift to the world.

It wanted to be a gift.

"I am... proficient, in genetics," Mewtwo confessed. "I have conducted my own experiments in augmented cloning. You've come to ask if I'd offer my body to medicine. I can also offer my mind."

The human blinked at it. "Augmented cl—what, what-what, what kind of augmented cloning?"

Mewtwo cringed in shame. "Enhancing a Pokémon's strength. For battle. Augmenting their innate special powers."

"Wh..." For a moment, the human just stared. "Th—yeah! Yeah, that's—that's fantastic. Hey, the PCL's got some Froakie it tries out all its new discoveries on—Froakie adapt really well to new DNA, apparently—you can show them what you've got, see if they think it's useful?"

Mewtwo nodded hesitantly. "My procedures don't allow for genes to be inserted into already-living Pokémon. I'll have to clone new ones."

"Maybe they'll be able to help you figure out how to put it in living Pokémon? Froakie evolve a couple of times, it should be easy to get the genes in them."

"Perhaps. If they're willing. If they're volunteers." It would have to ask them, personally—all the Pokémon in the facility—if they'd volunteered. If even one hadn't...

"So, that's a yes, right?" the human said. "You're in? Gonna come help make the world a better place?"

"Provided I will be treated like a volunteer, not a test subject," Mewtwo said, "yes. I'm in."

"Yesss." The human performed a slow fist pump.

Pikachu cheered, then beamed up at Mewtwo. "Thank you. You've made my partner really happy."

Partner. Not trainer, nor owner, nor master. "I would not have given him a chance had you not vouched for him." It would not have given a chance to any human who didn't have a human to vouch for them; but it had found that Pikachu tend to be particularly good judges of character.

"Wh— Are you talking to—?" The human pointed to the Pikachu on his shoulder.

"Of course. Did you think I, a Pokémon, am only capable of communicating with humans?"

The human paused. "No! No, of course I didn't. I just, didn't think about— He vouched for me?"

Mewtwo nodded. The human smiled at Pikachu. "Aww. That's the sweetest— Hey, buddy. Fist bump." He held his fist up. Pikachu leaned forward, planting both hands on his knuckles; sparks snapped between them.

"This facility is in Ryme City?" Mewtwo asked. "Can you describe the neighborhood so I can find it? Preferably from a bird's eye view."

"Oh, no, don't worry about— Howard said if I actually found you, he could send a charter flight. We get to ride to Sinnoh in style."

"I see." Rich, ran his own science lab, could summon up airplanes at his convenience... Mewtwo had yet to met this Howard, but it was already uneasy at the thought of his power. It seemed like a very familiar power.

But he wasn't using his power to design the world's most powerful Pokémon; he was using it to cure diseases.

And Mewtwo wasn't going to be one of his possessions; it was going to be a volunteer. A volunteer who had been asked to come, by a human and a Pikachu who'd approached with words instead of weapons. It would be a volunteer. Perhaps even a scientist.

That thought also made it uneasy.

"Ugh, the mud's starting to crust on me." The human shook his hands. Not much mud came off. "You mind if we head back into town so I can wash off in my hotel?"

Mewtwo wasn't fond of the idea of venturing into Cerulean City. It glanced to the side. "There's a river right here."

"Well yeah, but—I don't want to walk back into town with soaking wet pants."

"You could take them off."

The human's face screwed up. "Thaaat's not going to work for a human."

Mewtwo waited for him to explain why. He didn't. Maybe it was an instinct. One must respect other species' instincts, even if one doesn't understand them.

"I will wait, then. At the entrance to the cave." Mewtwo raised higher, preparing to leave for its shelter. It would perhaps be its last opportunity to visit the cave for a long time. "When you're ready to go to Sinnoh, come find me."

"Yeah. Okay." The human nodded. "And—thanks, Mewtwo."

Mewtwo nodded. Then, slowly, spoke: "Thank you. For all of my life, the means of my birth have been a... a burden to overcome. I have lived my life striving to prove that I have worth in spite of how I was made. I think... it will be good to learn whether, despite all the horrors I went through—and committed—some worth can be found in me because of how I was made. I appreciate this opportunity, human."

The human looked surprised. "Wow. That's... You're kind of a deep guy, Mewtwo."

"I have a lot of time to think," it said. "And the most powerful brain on the planet."

The human huffed a laugh. "Hey, before I go—you don't have to call me 'human.' I shoulda introduced myself earlier, but, you know—" He held one hand up, first two and last two fingers pressed together, and imitated the gesture Mewtwo had made when it levitated him into the air. "The name's Harry. Harry Goodman."

"Hairy Good Man," Mewtwo repeated dubiously. "I have seen hairier humans."

"No, it's— That's spelled H-A-R-R-Y," Hairy said. "No I."

Mewtwo nodded slowly. "I can't read."

The human stared at it. Then shook his head slightly. "I don't know why I assumed you could."

Now that they'd been properly introduced—and now that Mewtwo had spilled more of its inner life to a human in thirty seconds than it had to anyone else in the past decade—Mewtwo was more than ready to be alone. To prepare itself for a trip to Sinnoh. To the lab. "Go." It gestured with its head in the direction of Cerulean City. Its highest roofs could just barely be seen over the trees beyond the river. "I'll be waiting."

"Right, right." Hairy turned toward Cerulean City; then turned back around again, in the direction of the nearest bridge back across the river, far in the opposite direction. He sighed quietly. Pikachu craned his head, checking for wild Pokémon along the route ahead.

Mewtwo gently lifted him up—he yelped in surprise—carried him over the river, and sat him on his feet on the opposite bank. "Oh—thanks!" He waved.

Mewtwo nodded again; then floated there, and watched, as Hairy headed back toward town. Pikachu turned to watch Mewtwo over his shoulder until they were gone.

Walking into a lab of its own free will. (Medical lab, it reminded itself again. Medicine, not power.) It hoped it wasn't making a mistake.

It hoped its genes would help people.

Comments/reblogs are welcome! If you want to leave a tip or like the fic on AO3, the links are in my description!

#detective pikachu #mewtwo #harry goodman #pikachu #fanfic #my writing #spoilers

[elyvorg]

DETECTIVE PIKACHU IS EVEN BETTER THAN I EXPECTED AND I ALREADY EXPECTED IT TO BE GREAT.

I'd played the game, which was also generally better than I expected it to be but had some problems that made me kind of lukewarm on it by the end. Still, I knew that the game had potential that would work well in the movie if they did it right, so I had no reason to assume the movie wouldn't be pretty good. But man, they made use of even more of that untapped potential than I even realised it had in the first place.

That's not to say the game doesn't have some things going for it that the movie doesn't - I got invested in some of the side stories for individual chapters, and because of the longer game format, it got to spend more time showing off lots of neat ways that humans and Pokémon work together outside of battling. Those are things that were never going to really fit into a shorter movie, though, and in almost every other respect, particularly the main core of the story, the movie is so much better.

(Spoilers for both the movie and the game beneath the cut.)

So, of course, I went in knowing full well that Pikachu was Tim's dad. This is actually not explicitly revealed in the game for some utterly bewildering reason, but the hints at it are big enough and numerous enough that there's no way it's not meant to be the truth of that story. As soon as I saw trailers for the movie describing the deal with Tim's father - he went missing in an accident connected to the central mystery, Pikachu was his partner Pokémon - I knew the movie would do the same and, if it had any sense, would actually deliver on the twist and provide the closure that the game didn't.

But it works so much better in the movie than it would have even if they'd revealed it in the game because the entire core of the movie was about Tim's relationship with his dad. See, in the game, that's just not really a thing - they just expect you to assume that of course Tim cares about finding his dad because it's his dad, without any kind of going into what their relationship was like or why they hadn't seen each other in so long before this. The game's versions of both Tim and Pikachu (and what we hear about Harry) simply don't have any personal issues at all. Which is a huge missed opportunity on the game's part, because look how much potential that story has when done right! Not only does Tim have issues about being in his father's shadow and feeling like his father abandoned him for his detective work after his mother died, but Harry also has issues, both in what Tim and Pikachu deduce from Harry's apartment in that he did care about Tim after all, and in Pikachu himself, with his thing about how all he does is push people away and hurt them.

It's also really neat that the movie's villain works as a foil for this, first when you think it's Roger doing it because he couldn't deal with being overshadowed by his dad's awesomeness, and then when you realise that it's Howard doing it by getting so wrapped up in unhealthily dealing with a traumatic life event that he pushed away his son. It's just wonderfully cohesive in a way that the game really, really wasn't.

The clues pointing towards the twist are a bit different, possibly because of the nature of the things they had to change in an adaptation from game to movie. In the game, Pikachu still loves coffee, but they also make a point that Harry did too and that Pikachu didn't before the accident. And Pikachu insists on walking everywhere on two legs, refusing to ride around on Tim's shoulder even though Tim offers, which further hints that he's really human. In the movie, though, since they have less time to spend on the minutiae of mystery-solving because they're spending it all on the action scenes and the character drama, instead the presumably biggest hint that Pikachu is Harry is that Pikachu has the same issues as Harry. I am really curious to know when and how people who hadn't played the game figured it out, if they did so before the reveal.

Also, because I knew the twist, I was expecting Pikachu in human form to not be played by Ryan Reynolds, because I was assuming Tim's dad would be a POC like him. But Tim is mixed-race, and in the brief glimpse we see of his mom, she is not, so it follows that his dad could be white and therefore totally could be played by Ryan Reynolds after all. I wonder how many people, like me, didn't put that together until the moment we saw him in human form and therefore used the fact that Pikachu was voiced by Ryan Reynolds as more reason not to think he was Tim's dad.

(This does however beg the question - I know they'd never seen each other for like ten years, but did Tim really forget his dad's voice so much that he didn't recognise it coming from Pikachu? In the game, I just assumed that Harry's human voice would be different from Pikachu's voice because of this, since we never actually heard it because they never confirmed the twist grrr.)

I was a little confused by the ending making out like Tim was totally just going to go back home and leave his dad before he changed his mind, though. They'd already talked about how both of them wished they could have spent more time together! It should have been obvious to Tim the moment his dad was back in human form that he wanted to stay.

Also in terms of things similar to the game, Lucy was generally better than her game equivalent, Emilia, who was also a reporter for CNM (called GNN in the game, but close enough). Emilia was basically just doing her job and didn't have any personal drive to follow a big story, making Lucy much more interesting than her. Of all the things from the game they kept the same, they really didn't have to keep the eye-rolly extraneous romance between Emilia/Lucy and Tim, but at least in the movie it was just as unobtrusive and minor as it was in the game (in fact possibly even more so), so eh.

The part where Pikachu figured out how to use moves was probably one of the only similar parts that was maybe done a little better in the game - in the game he does so in a moment of peril where Tim is being attacked by the bad guy's Pokémon and he’s directly doing so to protect Tim. But in the movie, it's instead just when generally everyone is in danger (but he has no reason to believe Tim is specifically), giving it less of an emotional impact. And then suddenly he's not only capable of using them but just as good with them as the real Pikachu used to be to the point that he can hold his own against Mewtwo, which seems a bit of a stretch. I guess the movie writers just wanted to show off Pikachu doing the kind of thing Ash's Pikachu does, since that's what people would be expecting from a movie with a Pikachu in it.

While I was obviously not surprised by the biggest twist, I was surprised by several other things that didn't go even remotely how they went in the game. In fact, I really love the way the movie played with the expectations of the tiny handful of the audience who'd actually played the game and went in thinking they knew what to expect.

In the game, the main bad guy turns out to be a guy called Roger Clifford who's one of the higher-ups in GNN. So the moment someone with the same name who was in charge of a similar news network was introduced in the movie, I had a little laugh to myself and went "well, that makes this mystery obvious for anyone who's played the game, heh". But that was the trick! Roger is the only character in the movie with the exact same name as someone in the game aside from Tim and Harry. They had to have done that on purpose to try and get people who'd played the game to just assume Roger was the bad guy and accept that. I didn't question it at all when he was supposedly revealed to be the one behind it all only like halfway through the movie, because I figured they weren't planning to make it a huge reveal since those who'd played the game would already know anyway. But everyone who hadn't played the game was probably super skeptical about learning that so soon and so easily. The people who played the game and assumed they already knew the gist of the plot and had everything figured out were set up to be more surprised than the people who weren't!

Plus, the Ditto being used to make Roger look evil was a really neat use of a well-known Pokémon's unique abilities, and it didn't feel at all out of nowhere because everyone watching should have already known that a Ditto can do that (plus they briefly established near the beginning that Howard has a Ditto and that it could take human form). I didn't see it coming, but I wonder if anyone did pick up on that and figure that out.

And in the game, the main goal of releasing R everywhere during a big parade was simply to cause Pokémon to rampage in order to create a big scene that GNN could report on, so that it could become the most influential news network (which it wasn't already, because game-Roger didn't have a rich dad) for generically evil take-over-the-city purposes. While the movie version of Roger was supposedly motivated by the desire to ruin his dad's city rather than simply power, which was already more interesting than the game, it still made sense that the end goal would just be rampaging Pokémon and nothing more. So I really like that it turned out to be more than that - a plan to put humans' minds into Pokémon bodies is an even more interestingly messed-up-yet-somewhat-sympathetic goal, and it beautifully ties in to what was already happening to Harry, setting up the twist even further. I wonder how many people who hadn't played the game and hadn't figured out the twist up until that point had a big realisation moment when Mewtwo's ability to do that was revealed.

This also explained in hindsight an earlier part of the movie that had bothered me, namely that during the big R breakout in the battling ring, Pikachu somehow never got affected by it. It seemed awkwardly convenient that he never breathed any in, since the fact that I knew he was really human didn't change my assumption that he should have been affected by R because he's still physically a Pokémon. But actually, with how it was established to work, that does make sense - R is used to make Pokémon mindless enough to put a human inside them, and then once they're human, they're sane, even though R is still in their system. So a human already in a Pokémon body wouldn't be affected by R after all.

I like that they added in the storyline that Harry was the one who led Howard to Mewtwo in the first place. In the game, Mewtwo wasn't ever captured by anyone; the scientists who created R just used some of his cells, and Mewtwo only got involved and asked Harry (who was already on the R case) to help because he didn't like being partially responsible for this. But setting it up this way in the movie allowed for more intrigue, both in terms of giving Mewtwo every reason to be angry and vengeful even though he actually wasn't, and in terms of throwing doubt onto Harry and Pikachu, first with the notion that Harry was a bad guy who captured Mewtwo, and then that Pikachu was a bad guy who let Mewtwo escape to enact his revenge on Harry. Presumably the reality is that Harry initially just took on the job for Howard because it was challenging, since he kept burying himself in cases for the sake of cases to run away from his issues and might not have cared that it was kind of sketchy. Then somewhere along the way when he realised what was going to happen to Mewtwo, he regretted the whole thing and kept pursuing the case to make amends to Mewtwo - it was almost certainly Harry who ordered Pikachu to set Mewtwo free. I kind of wish they'd been able to go into Harry's guilt about that a bit more, but it makes sense they couldn't since he'd lost his memories and thought he was Pikachu (and he still managed to make himself feel guilty over Pikachu’s actions, so there’s that). I never remotely believed the possibility that either Harry or Pikachu ever had bad intentions, because I expected Mewtwo to turn out to be the innocent victim that he was in the game. (Although the opening did make it look like Mewtwo caused the crash, I never quite trusted that). But I'm curious about how people who hadn't played the game felt about that and whether they at least somewhat bought the possibility that Mewtwo was angry and vengeful and that Harry kind of deserved Mewtwo's wrath.

Generally seeing Pokémon absolutely everywhere was a huge treat as well, of course, but that's a thing that was always going to be the case with this movie even if everything else about it was terrible. But it was not! It's a genuinely really good story that's getting mainstream attention, that happens to involve Pokémon! That's everything Pokémon always deserved but never had until now. If you'd told me several years ago that Pokémon would get a live-action film and it would be legitimately great in a way that even people who aren't hardcore Pokémon fans could appreciate, I'd never have believed you - I don't think anyone would have - but here we are.

#pokemon #detective pikachu #detective pikachu spoilers #ramble #i'm really happy i decided to watch it at the first opportunity i had #you should do so too!

[kibibarel]

how similar is the detective pikachu game to the movie??

they both involve R and Mewtwo (and Harry of course) as major plot elements, Tim and Pikachu are the protags (Pikachu might as well be the exact same character, though imo movie Tim is a little more interesting and likable than game Tim), the climax takes place during a Pokemon parade, the overall tone of the story is basically the same…but that’s about where the similarities end. the cast of characters is completely different (barring Harry, Pikachu, Tim, and Mewtwo) and the story plays out differently

i’ll elaborate further under the cut; HUGE SPOILERS for both the movie and the game ahead

the game features a much greater variety of Pokemon, and its biggest charm point is definitely the Pokemon characters…a lot of more obscure Pokemon are used, their unique abilities are implemented into the game’s mysteries in clever ways, and they are just really cute and fun…and the game, unlike the movie, actually uses the whole “i can talk to Pokemon, you can talk to humans, we can talk to each other!” concept to its advantage. it honestly kind of bummed me out watching the game cutscenes because i wish the movie could have done more where the Pokemon cast was concerned (did you notice that they don’t really utilize that premise at all? i mean..not once is Pikachu’s ability to talk to Pokemon a necessary skill to get them to the next plot point)…buuuut it was a very expensive movie to make (there’s no way they could have conceivably put in as many Pokemon as i wanted to see) and they had to get Genwunner butts in seats by focusing more on the nostalgiamons, so i get it

the human characters in the movie are much more likable, however (the human characters in the game are super boring and don’t act like real people…because they are Pokemon game characters sdkfjdks;f), and the climax of the movie, while incredibly convoluted and weird, is far more satisfying than the game climax. the game doesn’t even really have an ending…there is a showdown against the main villain, and it’s meant to be dramatic, but it’s hardly bombastic or interesting (hilariously anticlimactic, actually), and the story kind of just fizzles out afterward, leaving one of the biggest questions (why Pikachu and Tim can understand each other, why Pikachu acts the way he does, honestly just…why Pikachu?) completely unaddressed…like it’s strongly implied that he’s Harry? but the game just. doesn’t tell you for sure, or how that might be possible– i guess because maybe they were setting up for a sequel? which will never happen now lmao

(and that explains why Mewtwo was just conveniently given a Heart Swap-like ability in the movie, despite never having been stated to have such an ability literally ever…had to tie up that HUGE loose end somehow!)

probably the most glaring difference between the two that people have started pointing out is that uh…..in the game, there is no wheelchair involved. the main antagonist of the game is Roger Clifford, who is simply power hungry and wants to take over the world (OF COURSE!), but his movie counterpart ends up being a red herring for Howard Clifford, who has that whole convoluted uhhhhhhh wanting to fuse with Pokemon motivation due to his degenerative disease…this character and his motivations are entirely an invention of the movie

i think it had the potential to be far more interesting than anything the game had to offer in its climax (i mean…not to channel my inner Lusamine furry here, but who wouldn’t like to fuse with/become a Pokemon? and, no matter how you slice it, the final showdown being against a power-mad human-turned-Mewtwo is SO much cooler than whatever the game’s climax was), but, in execution, it comes across as tone-deaf…i don’t think i’m of authority to say much on this subject, but, from what i’ve read from other people, it seems a little 😬

#Anonymous #detective pikachu spoilers #i think it might have been improved a LITTLE by the protagonists discussing Howard's actions a bit afterward #but that's not really how DP operates...these big wild things happen and then they kind of just stop and are never talked about again #remember the Torterra scene? lmao ALL THAT SHIT happens and there's shit flying everywhere everyone's screaming in danger AHHH #and then it just. stops. never spoken of again #AHHH TIM THIS CHARIZARD IS GONNA KILL ME aAaaHHH THERE'S WATER EVERYWHERE #stops. anyway onto the NEXT SCENE #anything insightful to say about how Howard was perfectly capable with his wheelchair and Ditto companion and huge wealth? #and how he could have done truly great things for the sake of suffering people and Pokemon if he hadn't allowed #selfishness and fear and hunger for power corrupt him? no....? oh i see we're done with that scene-- RYAN REYNOLDS?!?!??!?!!

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

Detective Pikachu movie thoughts

I finally got around to seeing Detective Pikachu yesterday after months of waiting. As a long time fan of pokemon and someone who played the detective pikachu game on the 3DS, I was intrigued and excited about how they were going to go about this movie. So here are my not spoiler free thoughts.

The Pros:

- I liked how Lucy got more of a role than Emilia (her game counterpart) did. Like Emilia really just felt like a means to explain how Tim got from place to place up until the last section of the game as opposed to being a character we’re meant to give a shit about like Lucy was.

- A lot of the things the movie cut from the game was stuff that held the game back. Like the Glalie scene was no longer needed thanks to the retconned Aipom scene + Tim already having met Lucy and the GNN filler part was objectively the part of the game people hated the most so shortening that to Tim just looking for Lucy was absolutely for the best.

- On that note, I liked the retconned Aipom scene more than the game one. Like I know the Aipom in the game weren’t meant to be R victims and instead just mischevious, but having the main plot of the story hinted at right at the beginning but not chucked in your face like other parts of the plot were felt more natural. Basically the fact it let them cut a bunch of unnecessary parts in the game was nice. The only slight thing I’d change is I’d probably make Tim open/drop the R after Pikachu starts talking because I know a few people assumed that the R was what make Tim understand pikachu which led to questions of why he couldn’t understand other pokemon and so on.

- The whole “They only show what they want you to see” stuff was done really well. Like even though those who had played the game (and maybe older audiences) would have questioned Howard because the “nice” guy in the game was the evil one, it gave the illusion that Tim had the full picture better than a lot of media I know.

- While I found the lab stuff an interesting change to make (see below), I did like the showing of experiments, especially the Torterra scene.

- Visually this movie was stunning.

The Cons:

- While most of the parts they retconned from the games was for the best, it feels weird knowing that they took out the part about R initially being made as an attempt to be a cure, especially given the change in motivations in this game. And it could be argued that that would make it too clear that Howard was the bad guy in the movie, but he could have easily lied and said he was trying to make a cure but Roger took over and corrupted the study. That would also make more sense in terms of Harry helping them find Mewtwo and not asking questions until Mewtwo was captured.

- Likewise, it felt unnecessary to change the bad guy from Roger to Howard. I mean I guess the argument could be made that with the new motivation Howard was the better option because he was older and had more reason to look for a “cure” and be a more morally grey villain, but just switching their personalities and plots around (or at least from what we know, it was implied that Roger is like the ditto who acted as him) felt unneeded.

- I also felt it was a weird choice to retcon the internship stuff at the labs to Tim and Lucy breaking in considering the internship stuff felt more detective like. However, I’m assuming it’s because the movie was aimed at a younger audience so the action of the break in is the more reliable way to hold their attention. Likewise, having to stop R in gas and edible form in time as opposed to just fighting at the end felt more satisfying even if it wasn’t actually timed.

- I know they attempted to address this with the fight scene, but really I feel like the biggest letdown for me personally with the movie was that the game really built up R as something that was affecting millions of people despite being somewhat underground. Like it was being made even under the chief scientist of the lab’s nose, it had caused mass panic and gotten pokemon and an annual parade abandoned/locked away, people were bidding for it in illegal auctions while others were being kidnapped over it and you watched and had to help as Emilia and Meiko got attacked by an R victim pokemon. And yet in the movie, to be completely honest, if it wasn’t for the last part, the only person outside the Goodman’s + their loved ones (through Harry’s death) and the Cliffords it seemed to have affected was Lucy who wanted a story. And to be honest, I think a lot of this came down to getting rid of Keith/not having a good (I say good because they did have the ditto but it just didn’t work as well) counterpart for him. Like he really was the glue of showing that R was as big of an issue as it was. Like he was the one hiding the tape while you were at GNN, he was the one in charge of shipping and selling R, he set off Charizard in the parade; he was there for every step and without that it feels like it comes down to a “Father frames son for attempting to kill your dad” plot.

- Kinda goes with the above, but with the plot being reduced down to the bare bones, I feel like we missed interactions that enhanced the game. Like Mike (Yoshida’s game counterpart) was such a big part of the game and was that interested in Tim’s mission that people questioned whether he was in on the R stuff which would have been good to play out with Howard’s fake comment about how Roger “owns” the police, Ludicolo and the cafe owner mentioning why the parade was such a big deal and why everyone would be there and so on and even interactions with Keith and Roger pretending to be nice and “helpful” once again showing how people only show what they want you to see (but we did somewhat get that last one with Howard) all could have helped add to the story to be honest.

- I feel like a lot of people are going to say this but I hated how blunt they were about the whole “Harry’s soul is in Pikachu” thing. I mean don’t get me wrong, I think anyone who played the game assumed that was going to be how the movie ended, but I just feel like the game struck a good balance between hinting at it without shoving it in your face unlike the movie that literally showed a man using Mewtwo’s powers to put people’s souls into pokemon. But again, I can put that down to it being aimed at a younger audience who wouldn’t understand foreshadowing as well as older fans do.

The Mixed:

- The ending. As I mentioned when I played the game, I was hoping Pikachu wasn’t going to have Harry’s soul inside him and I do think it’s a shame because I think this could have had a really cool spin off show like How To Train Your Dragon did where Pikachu goes around solving crimes with Tim and/or Harry, but at the same token I’m just glad we got an ending seeing as the game didn’t give us that.

Final Thoughts:

This movie is an action movie through and through; and there’s nothing wrong with that. While it’s not a perfect movie, when considering it on its own, Detective Pikachu the movie is a great movie which I would recommend to people of all ages. However, in comparison to the game, it is most definitely a simplified version. And while this improves the plot in many areas by decreasing unnecessary elements that the fandom as a whole didn’t enjoy, it also hurts it in other ways. All up though, it’s definitely worth the watch at least once and I’ll probably end up buying the DVD when it comes out and watching it with the children and children at heart that are in my life.

#detective pikachu #Pokemon

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Detective Pikachu and the (Il)Logical Extreme

If I were a Pikachu, I would have laughed my spiky yellow tail off. As it is, I spent the majority of Detective Pikachu in fits of hysterical giggles, and not because of Ryan Reynold’s PG-version-of-Deadpool one-liners – though those were as funny as we all expected they’d be. The hilarity of Detective Pikachu lies in its wholehearted embrace of the over-the-top. Every single aspect of this movie – the setting, the characters, the story tropes – is taken to the extreme, right up to the edge of the imagination and implications.

But this embrace of the extreme is also where the movie’s problems lie.

Reader beware, for as usual, here there be spoilers.

I’m a relative latecomer to Pokémon. As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t watch much TV as a kid, and my parents strictly monitored what I did watch. Pokémon, with its technicolor, fantastical dog fights, was too violent for my house. But as soon as I got my hands on a Gameboy, I fell in love with this world. Pokémon is the perfect escape for a worldbuilding geek, with its ever-expanding ecosystem of superpowered critters.

It’s clear that the creators of Detective Pikachu love the world and all of the juicy little details you can find in the Pokédex just as much as, if not more than, I do. Because for every Pokémon you see walking the streets of Ryme City, there was a writer who said, “If this is real, then what does that imply?” and then totally ran with it to the ends of the earth.

Mr. Mime completely communicates in pantomime? Then if you communicate back, within that world of pantomime, he will believe what you do to him.

Charmander needs to keep his tail-flame lit in order to survive? Then the best way to get a raging Charizard’s attention is to stomp on his tail.

There’s a legend that says the world is on the back of a Torterra? Well what if it actually was?!?

Humans see Pokémon evolving into “better” versions of themselves? Somebody’s gonna get jealous. (But more on this later.)

The characters seem to be aware that they are living in this world of extremes as well. Perhaps it comes with living alongside creatures who could literally blow you up with their brain, but the humans of Detective Pikachu all live a rather extreme life, completely fulfilling the character archetypes they represent.

The titular Pikachu is so much a movie detective that he immediately suspects that Harry’s death was faked, and he even foreshadows the true villain of the movie by labeling Ms. Norman’s car a “bad guy car.”

Jack and Detective Yoshida can do little but encourage Tim to get a Pokémon partner and become the hero of the film.

Lucy’s introductory scene feels like she’s reciting a monologue for a journalist in a detective movie – which, you know, she is.

Nobody is especially complicated. Pikachu outright spells out his tendency to push people away multiple times even before we’re supposed to know that he’s actually Tim’s father, who pushed him away – and the distant-but-well-meaning dad is yet another trope that is played out to its extreme here.

This could a weakness in the writing, but it’s much more fun to imagine that everyone knows that they are in a movie and is behaving accordingly. Everyone except Tim, that is. Until he puts on that leather jacket and starts pouring imaginary gasoline on Mr. Mime; then he’s in on it.

Not every movie has to be deep, and it’s okay to take shortcuts in the name of entertainment. I was certainly entertained.

However, some of the shortcuts that Detective Pikachu takes as it reaches for the logical extremes of its world result in outright harmful tropes.

On the one hand, you have the forced relationships. Sure, you’d expect a Pokémon movie to be about the bond between a boy and his ‘mon; that’s literally what the entire anime is about. But there’s something incredibly squicky about first Jack, then Yoshida, and then most everyone else Tim meets insisting that Tim needs a Pokémon partner when Tim is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. At the same time, you have Detective Pikachu constantly nudging Tim towards a romantic relationship with Lucy, until Tim finally, suddenly, unnecessarily mentions in the middle of the final battle that he’s “attracted” to her.

Making a Torterra or a Mr. Mime over-the-top is funny. Over-the-top pushing relationships is not. There’s just nothing interesting about it. It’s been done before, and before, and before. It’s heteronormative, playing into the idea that a one needs a relationship in order to be complete, and that it’s impossible for a boy and a girl to exist in the same movie without being a romantic couple. This trope is a big part of why it took me so long to realize I was ace.

On the other hand, you have the disabled villain. How movies portray disabled people, particularly disabled villains, is a topic that deserves its own article written by a disabled person. Here are a few you can and should read as a starting point:

How Disfigured Villains Like "Wonder Woman's" Dr. Poison Perpetuate Stigma by Alaina Leary

“Showing facial disfigurement as a signifier for evil has consequences for real people with facial disfigurements.”

Disabled Villains by Emily K. Davison

“A strong consensus that runs throughout literature is that a person with a disability is innately driven towards evil due to their disability.”

What "Everything, Everything" Gets Wrong About Living As a Disabled Person by Alaina Leary

“We’re repeatedly presented with disability narratives that declare that our disabled lives aren’t meaningful and that it’s impossible to have a disability (and limitations) and still be happy.”

Howard Clifford is undeniably an extreme character. He is the only disabled person in the world of Detective Pikachu, and he hates being “confined” to his wheelchair so much that he founded an entire city to support a research empire towards capturing MewTwo and forcefully merging humans and Pokémon.

And this movie, like so many other movies, embraces the villain’s trope so completely that it doesn’t even devote five seconds to explaining why he is wrong. We’re just supposed to accept that this is the logical extreme of his situation, the conclusion that a person like him would undoubtedly come to in this world, just like Mr. Mime believing that imaginary matches would burn him.

And so my review of Detective Pikachu takes the tone of so many reviews of mine: I enjoyed it, but wholeheartedly believe that we can do better than it.

#detective pikachu #pikachu #pokemon #ableism #tropes #reviews #thursday thoughts #film analysis #disability

[yasbxxgie]

When this black woman shot a white doctor in the 1950s, an ugly Southern secret came to light

Onthe quiet Sunday morning of August 3, 1952, Ruby McCollum, the richest black woman in the town of Live Oak, Florida, put two of her children in the backseat of her blue Chrysler. She then drove to the office of Clifford Leroy Adams, a prominent white doctor and state senator-elect. She parked, walked in the “colored entrance” and through the office waiting room. She pulled a .38 caliber pistol from her pocketbook, and shot the doctor dead.

White townspeople would say that McCollum was trying to dodge a medical bill, but McCollum would claim that she’d been sexually victimized by the doctor for years, and forced to bear his child. The murder and the national attention garnered by the subsequent trial brought to light the open secret of rape in the South, and dredged up many other issues the town of Live Oak had long kept buried.

Halfway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville, Live Oak was sleepy and serene. A straightlaced, segregated town, it was the kind of place that was pleasant for white families and much less friendly to others. As historian Carol Herring says in the 2012 documentary The Other Side of Silence: The Untold Story of Ruby McCollum, “This part of North Florida is the deepest of the Deep South.” Rodney Hurst, an author and civil rights activist, corroborates that for nonwhites, Live Oak “was not a town that you wanted to travel to or through, and you didn’t want to spend the night there.” Eight years before Ruby McCollum turned a gun on Clifford Adams, a 15-year-old named Willie James Howard was lynched for sending a Christmas card to a white girl. (The girl was the daughter of a state legislator, who came for the boy personally and may have been the one to kill him.)

By all accounts, the town all but screeched to a halt after Ruby McCollum pulled the trigger that August day. “Dr. Adams Slain by Negress,” read the headline in the local paper the following day. People speculated about McCollum’s motives — there were rumors she and Adams were lovers — and black residents feared reprisals by the KKK. As C. Arthur Ellis and Leslie E. Ellis write in The Trial of Ruby McCollum, Live Oak residents gathered at beauty shops and lunch counters the following day to express their shock and grief over the sudden death of the kind “poor man’s doctor,” but “public lamentations soon gave way to whispers about Adams’ darker side.” Was Adams involved in illegal business with McCollum and her husband? Might he have owed her money? Did Adams’ rumored habit of overprescribing morphine contribute to McCollum’s state of mind that day?

Newspapers from all over the country reported on the sensational trial. The Pittsburgh Courier, one of the most widely distributed black newspapers in the country — at the height of its popularity, as many as 14 editions circulated nationally — sent novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurstonto cover it. The judge, who was a pallbearer at Dr. Adams’ funeral, imposed a gag order on McCollum, prohibiting her from giving interviews. Furthermore, the press was barred from the courtroom. But Hurston sat daily in the segregated balcony, scribbling the notes that became “The Life Story of Ruby McCollum,” a multi-installment report. In it, she wrote with nuance about not only the testimonies, but the underpinnings of racial prejudice that warped the entire proceeding.

Ruby was married to an industrious man named Sam McCollum, who, along with his brother Buck, ran a highly profitable gambling ring. The family also sold liquor, grew tobacco on a nearby farm, and owned a few juke joints. The couple was known by nearly everyone in town. They lived in a two-story house, where they raised four children, one of whom was studying at UCLA at the time of the murder. During her trial, Ruby testified that the youngest, Loretta, was the child not of her husband Sam, but of Dr. Adams. She claimed the doctor had raped and assaulted her for years, forced her to bear his child, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t bear him another. Hurston wrote that the judge repeatedly shut down efforts by Frank Cannon, McCollum’s lawyer, to ask her for details about the violence. “Ruby was allowed to describe how, about 1948, during an extended absence of her husband, she had, in her home, submitted to the doctor,” Hurston wrote. “She was allowed to state that her youngest child was his. Yet thirty-eight times Frank Cannon attempted to proceed from this point; thirty-eight times he attempted to create the opportunity for Ruby to tell her whole story and thus explain what were her motives; thirty-eight times the State objected; and thirty-eight times Judge Adams sustained these objections.”

It seemed clear to many that Loretta was Dr. Adams’s daughter, but that meant to jurors that the wealthy woman and the 44-year-old, 270-pound doctor were simply lovers. In the documentary You Belong To Me: Sex, Race, and Murder in the South, Tameka Bradley Hobbs, a professor of history at Florida Memorial University, says Loretta “looked a lot like her father, so just visually it was very difficult for anyone to escape or deny that this was Doc Adams’s child.” Adams’s secretary, Thelma Curry, said that McCollum was a frequent visitor to the doctor’s office. And in a 1960 interview with Jet magazine, McCollum told an interviewer that the morning Dr. Adams delivered Loretta, he’d called her husband Sam “into the bedroom and told him: ‘Sam, I love all my children — niggers and white — and this is my baby. I want you to treat it right and see that it gets proper care.’”

The prosecution alleged that McCollum was haggling over a $116 medical bill the morning she shot and killed Adams. And indeed, Thelma Curry testified that she heard the two discussing money. But the focus on the payment was also a means of diverting attention away from the charge of sexual violence. According to Hurston, “It was like a chant. The medical bill as a motive for the slaying was ever insisted upon and stressed….there was this quick and stubborn insistence that the medical bill, and that alone, could have been the cause of the murder. It was obviously a posture, but a posture posed in granite.”

Of course, a man like Clifford Adams — white, elected to public office, celebrated in his community, and gunned down in the prime of his life — was about as sympathetic as a character could be in the 1950s Deep South, especially to jurors a lot like him. But the charge that Adams had raped McCollum, and its repetition throughout the trial, made the case bigger than one man’s reputation, bigger than any lone woman carrying out a solitary act of insanity or revenge. McCollum’s testimony — reportedly the first time in history that a black woman accused a white man of sexual assault in open court — served as a broader indictment of “paramour rights,” the widespread practice among white men of having sexual relationships with black women by force or coercion. Those relations, while certainly never mentioned in polite company, had tacitly become so normalized as to be nearly invisible. The proliferation of mixed-race children in the South was the result of such encounters, but like so many ugly realities born of slavery, it was simply too fraught, too painful, or too uncomfortable to acknowledge. And needless to say, the men involved had no interest in publicity.

Hurston was no stranger to unease around this subject: she had written about the phenomenon before. In the capacity of anthropologist, she’d spent time in the 1930s in the turpentine camps of North Florida, and documented there the practice of white men subjecting black women to sexual relationships, coining the term “paramour rights.” So, it was with the life experience of a southern black woman and a particularly keen ethnographic eye that she took in the McCollum trial. That expertise enabled her to painstakingly report on not just the details but the stakes of the trial.

In pulling the trigger that day, Ruby McCollum exposed the seedy underbelly of pastoral Live Oak — including gambling, prostitution, illegal liquor sales, and the cops and officials who were paid off in cash to keep their mouths shut, as well as the existence of relationships, sexual and otherwise, that crossed the color line. She also surfaced a dark truth about white men. Though they would continue to lay claim to the bodies of black women, with relative impunity in many cases, historians mark the trial as a turning point in the national consciousness. Even if the legal system or the culture at large were slow to catch up, it was a bell that couldn’t be unrung.

As for McCollum, the jury of white men sentenced her to death by the electric chair at the trial’s end in 1953. She escaped that fate when her case was appealed and overturned on a technicality by the State Supreme Court. When it was brought before the court again in 1954, McCollum was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. She was sent to the notorious Florida state mental hospital at Chattahoochee, where she resided until 1974, when her lawyer was able to arrange for her release. Interviewed in 1980, McCollum had no recollection of the shooting or its aftermath, which aroused suspicion that she’d been subjected to electroshock therapy while committed. She died in 1992. [h/t]

Photographs:

Ruby McCollum (left) claimed to have been had raped and assaulted her for years by Dr. Adams (right) before killing him in 1952.

Writer Zora Neale Hurston covered the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier, a widely read African American weekly.

#ruby mccollum #zora neale hurston #pittsburgh courier #nina renata aron #live oak florida #florida #racism #rape #the other side of silence: the untold story of ruby mccollum #the other side of silence the untold story of ruby mccollum #willie james howard #amerikkka #kkk #ku klux klan #c. arthur ellis #c arthur ellis #leslie e. ellis #leslie e ellis #the trial of ruby mccollum #sam mccollum #you belong to me: sex race and murder in the south #you belong to me sex race and murder in the south #tameka bradley hobbs #thelma curry #clifford leroy adams #clifford adams #paramour rights #black women #white men

[jillmckenzie1]

Detective Deadpool

In order to understand Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, you need to understand a couple of startling facts. First, let’s explain what Pokémon actually is. Created in 1995, this Japanese franchise concerns itself with a world overflowing with what are known a   s pocket monsters. Folks known as trainers must capture different species of Pokémon, which are weird critters that have fantastic powers. From there, they do battle with other trainers to become a champion.*

You probably know this, but Pokémon is massive. 807 distinct species of the titular beastie have been created so far, and they appear in video games, anime series, films, manga, and other assorted merchandise.** To paraphrase Joe Biden, Pokémon is a big deal.

But maybe it isn’t. On the one hand, while I’m aware of Pokémon, it’s not exactly my thing. On the other hand, I certainly won’t sit here and sneer at the concept, because I’m a grown man who gets emotionally involved with the characters of the MCU. Not everything is for everybody, and that’s completely okay.

For the people who are into pocket monsters, they are going to lose their damn minds at Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. It clears a hilariously low bar to become the best movie based on a video game ever made. Plus, if you’re a parent like me that couldn’t tell the difference between a Snorlax and a Litten, it provides a reasonably okay time at the movies.

Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) is miles away from living his best life. He’s in his early 20s, has already given up on pursuing a worthwhile life, and has taken a job as an insurance adjuster. In a world overflowing with Pokémon, he’s pretty much over it. You can’t blame him, considering he’s estranged from his father.

His pops is a cop who works in Ryme City, a metropolis where humans and Pokémon work together peacefully. In the past, Pokémon were trained to fight each other in massive arenas. Tech genius Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) saw a future where the two species*** could live and work together comfortably.

The plot kicks into gear when Tim is notified his father is killed in a car crash. He travels to Ryme City to get the details. Naturally, he gets more than he bargained for when he encounters his father’s Pokémon partner Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds). Ordinarily, Pokémon communicate by repeating variations of their names. This one is a little different, and not only can Tim understand him, but he also sounds exactly like Deadpool.

Pikachu survived the car crash, which left him with amnesia. All he knows is that a) he’s a detective, b) Tim’s father might still be alive, and c) he’s compelled to be a raging wisenheimer. Tim and Pikachu reluctantly team up to get to the bottom of the mystery. Along the way, they encounter an enthusiastic wannabe journalist (Kathryn Newton), Howard Clifford’s seemingly sinister son (Chris Geere), and a metric ton of weird Pokémon doing weird Pokémon things.

At this point in the review, I’d usually break down the direction, the writing, the acting, and attempt to wrap it all up in a tidy bow. This time, we’re doing things a little differently. First, I’ll give the parents and non-Pokémon enthusiasts a quick overview so that you can prepare yourselves appropriately. Then, my kid will be coming in. He’s a Pokémaniac, if you will, and he’ll deliver some thoughts from the perspective of a kid and a fan.

While the script by Rob Letterman, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Nicole Perlman, and Derek Connolly is pretty thin, the film itself has three not-so-secret weapons. The first is Letterman, who also directed. He’s made a film overflowing with fan service and stuff to look at. Greninjas fling throwing stars at our heroes, Charizards blow fire, and Mewtwo hovers over the action like a remote deity. Every couple of minutes, a thing happens, and I recommend treating it all like you’re a Pokémon tourist. It’s okay if you have no idea why a Psyduck explodes if it gets stressed out; just think of it as Mutual of Omaha: Kanto Region.

 The second and third weapons are Justice Smith and Ryan Reynolds. As Tim, Smith is an engaging and likable presence. Most of his job is to be amazed at the wild stuff happening around him. There are a few moments that require fairly sizable emotional lifting, and Smith handles them with ease. As far as Reynolds is concerned, he’s doing his regular schtick playing a motormouth. His Pikachu is essentially Deadpool without the rampant profanity and fourth-wall breaks. I’m totally fine with that since Reynolds is good at that kind of thing. The guy is talented and genuinely can act, he just doesn’t need to flex that in a big way here.

Let’s be real, though. If you’re a fan, literally none of what I’ve written will really matter. That’s why I’ll step out of the way and allow my kid a moment to offer his thoughts:

So, you want to talk some Pokémon, do you? Since you got this far in the review, I’m assuming yes. Pokémon is a world where dreams are born and where you enslave animals to fight against other animals to the death! It’s a vibrant world, with it being very apparent as soon as the movie starts. Justice Smith’s character, Tim, makes that very obvious because his philosophy is that he doesn’t need a Pokémon. Pokémon are also used as a sign of status, and Tim’s isn’t very high. But the most thought was put into the Pokémon themselves. The CGI is amazing, and the Pokémon look as if they are real! You see a Flareon, a Lickitung, and a Psyduck with their abilities helping move the plot. Also, the fan service was everywhere. That’s about all I have to say, so back to the main review!

If you’re on the younger side or a lifelong fan of pocket monsters, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu will not disappoint you. It’s packed with enough fan service to give Avengers: Endgame a run for its money, and it’s a strong starting point for a live-action franchise. If you’re a parent or someone who’s curious about this whole thing, you’re going to be fine. The film is anchored by a couple of fun leading performances. Better yet, the movie itself is only an hour and 45 minutes long. Trust me, you can make it.

    *It’s basically about people enslaving animals and forcing them to do battle for the amusement of others. Why isn’t the ASPCA on this?

**Including a Pikachu cloth diaper, a “tobacco” pipe, and a full-body spandex Lucario suit which looks like it would be right at home on an episode of Hannibal.

 ***But are Pokémon really a species? Going further, do Pokémon replace animals in this world. Are there cats and cat-Pokémon, or have the cat-Pokémon taken their place? The mind boggles.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/detective-deadpool/

[flauntpage]

Is Robert Covington Good at Defense?

I promised this story last week, so here goes.

The premise is this:

We know that Robert Covington is a streaky shooter, a “3 and D” guy who sometimes drops fireballs from deep, but goes cold more often than not. When he’s on, he’s really on. And when he’s off, he’s really off.

That stuff is easy to identify. It’s easy for us to sit here and say, “well, Cov had 5 points last night after putting up 22 the previous night.” People bitch and whine and say he’s not performing to the level of his new contract, which results in we, the media, usually justifying his minutes with something like this:

“Well, Covington is the team’s best defender. He guards the opponent’s best player and performs well in that phase of the game, which is why Brett Brown trusts him.”

It’s so simple to parse and quantify offensive basketball data to frame a narrative, but it’s a lot harder with defensive basketball. The data doesn’t tell nearly as much of the story. You simply have to dig into the film and use your eyes to make observations and draw conclusions, the ‘ole “eye test” that college basketball pundits love to use in March. It’s a polite way of saying, “you simply didn’t watch enough games.”

We’re gonna do that with Covington. I want to pull some clips to show the things he does well, and not so well, on the defensive end of the floor.

First, let’s take a brief look at some of the numbers that DO matter without going too deep into advanced metrics.

Steals

Covington is 15th in the NBA with 1.59 steals per game. Ben Simmons leads the Sixers with 1.69 SPG.

When you extrapolate the numbers per-48 minute shifts, this is how the Sixers look:

T.J. McConnell – 2.71 SPG

Covington – 2.37 SPG

Simmons – 2.35 SPG

All three are top-30 NBA players in this category, though you see how effective T.J. is projected to be if all three of those guys played the same amount of minutes.

One area where Covington sags a bit is steals per personal fouls, where he falls into a 57th-place tie with a 0.54 number. That basically means he commits two fouls for each steal, which could be a result of a number of things.

That leads into our next category.

Deflections

Cov is more aggressive than most defenders. He gets his hands into passing lanes and will poke at the ball and try to turn you over.

To that end, he’s 2nd in the NBA with 3.9 deflections per game. Only Paul George has a better number at 4.1. Per 48, he would put up 5.8 deflections per game, leading all NBA starters.

Common knowledge says that the more you reach for the ball, the more likely you are to commit fouls, which is why Covington’s steals to personal fouls ratio is low.

Defensive Rating

A metric that determines how many points you allow per 100 possessions.

As a team, the Sixers are 5th best in the NBA at 103.1.

Individually, Joel Embiid has the best Philly mark at 100.2. Covington is right behind him at 101.1, placed just ahead of guys like Andre Iguodala, Justise Winslow, and Draymond Green on the league-wide charts.

Simmons logs a 102.6 DEFRTG while JJ Redick lands at 103.4 and Dario Saric is at 104.5.

To the Video

Alright, so the basic numbers say that Cov has a pretty solid defensive rating, steals and deflects at a high level, but fouls a lot and can sometimes be over-aggressive.

I went back to a few games to see what I could find.

One of the things to keep in mind is that the Sixers do a lot of switching on defense, more than most NBA teams. For that reason, Covington usually starts on the opponent’s best player, but draws a variety of matchups as the Sixers rely on their athleticism and don’t often find themselves in lopsided mismatches. I can’t stress that enough; he really is asked to do a lot of different things on any given night.

A play like this is typical:

There you’ve got Covington on Dwyane Wade, but he switches onto Wayne Ellington to deny the catch and shoot three-pointer.

When Ellington ducks underneath and tries to free Wade, Covington blocks the passing lane and Kelly Olynyk decides to take Dario Saric to the rim instead:

Roco does a good job at switching early, getting his hands up, and using his length to block passing lanes and deny easy distribution. He’s really not the fastest guy out there. He doesn’t possess amazing foot speed and he’s not going to lock down defenders 1v1 necessarily. What he does is switch fluidly and uses his wingspan to complicate things for opponents. There are a lot of off-ball things he does that go unnoticed.

To that point, when you watch him defend pick and rolls, there will be some times where he looks like he’s being screened into oblivion:

It’s a middle pick and roll with Wade and Bam Adebayo. Covington looks a step slow on the play, but he actually does a nice job of hooking that right arm and using leverage to turn with the bigger roller and stay with his man.

Embiid, then, is athletic enough to “zone” the screen and engage Wade at the foul line, forcing him into a contested fadeaway:

That’s a tough shot, and I think you’d be satisfied with forcing an opponent into that look on most occasions. D-Wade is a special player, especially in the 4th quarter.

Sometimes it’s a little messy, though, and Covington will find himself trailing the roller when overplaying the screen:

This sequence starts with Covington switching onto Wade, who sets up a middle pick and roll with Hassan Whiteside. Wade doesn’t get him the first time, but Cov tops the second screen and finds himself turned around. He grabs Whiteside to slow him down and the refs miss the foul, but Amir Johnson does a nice job of sliding over to Wade and forcing the turnover.

Obviously Joel Embiid is a better PnR defender than Johnson, but Covington usually stays in front and likes to defend the three point line. I don’t see a lot of instances where he goes under the screen, and that’s not a bad way to approach these scenarios when you have a rim protector like Embiid right behind you.

One more play from the Miami loss, a possession that begins with Ersan Ilyasova on the wrong man and Covington defending the perimeter 1v2:

Roco is on Tyler Johnson this time, and goes over two James Johnson screens to deny the three pointer. Ilyasova eventually comes into the play and the first Johnson hits a 21-foot jump shot.

That’s fine. You can live with that. It’s the lowest-efficiency shot in basketball. It’s similar to the Wade fadeaway, which isn’t the best look on the planet. This is a broken defensive play and Covington does a nice job to prevent a three-point look and get Miami to settle for a long two instead.

Last Tuesday, Covington started on Nicolas Batum, then guarded Kemba Walker when JJ Redick came off the floor in Charlotte. Walker finished with 5 points on 1-9 shooting in a 14-point home loss to the Sixers.

I thought he did well here to get through a baseline screen to stick with Batum on the low block:

Charlotte tries to free up Dwight Howard with a second screen, but good job by Covington, Embiid, and Redick to choke the space and keep their hands up. Batum tries to take it himself and settles for a tough-angle shot after Covington pins him down near the baseline.

Earlier, this play jumped out to me:

Steve Clifford sets up a a curl for Walker with two screens and Covington does a really nice job of skirting Marvin Williams and Howard to get a hand on the shot. That’s all reach right there, with Cov using those long arms to get up and challenge a shot that I thought he would be nowhere near.

Again, when it looks like he’s beat, he usually finds his way back into the play.

Some clips now from Tuesday night, when Covington spent most of his time on Victor Oladipo, who finished 4-21 from the floor.

Really nice defense here:

He fights through the Myles Turner down screen and sticks to Oladipo on the perimeter. Even when Oladipo creates some separation with a slight right arm shrug, Covington does a nice job to keep his hands up and contest the shot.

Airball.

This was one of the few things Oladipo did all night:

You see Redick “hedge” the screen and get out in front, then Indiana resets and brings Trevor Booker into the pick and roll. But Oladipo takes it himself and gets Covington with a beautiful crossover and step back.

Sometimes you just have to give credit to the offensive player when they make plays like that. Most people on the planet aren’t defending that.

And finally, we’ll wrap it up on a high note, a play that Alaa Abdelnaby half-explained last night, which I’ll expand on:

That’s brilliant stuff.

What you have here is a “pre-switch,” which Covington does twice in once sequence.

Indiana is trying to set a Turner screen on T.J. McConnell to get Darren Collison onto Joel Embiid. Covington sees that and so he takes Turner instead.

Make sense? You wouldn’t switch Collison onto Covington, because there’s no mismatch there. They wanted Embiid.

Instead, Indiana tries it from the other side and brings Thad Young to the arc to try to switch Ilyasova, but Covington sees that, too, and pre-switches there:

  Collison ends up driving on Cov, who blocks his shot.

Just high-IQ stuff right there.

Conclusion

Is Robert Covington good at defense?

I think so, but we waste a lot of time looking at it the wrong way.

Cov is a 6’9″ guy with great reach and active hands. He disrupts passing lanes, steals the ball, and deflects it. He’s versatile enough to switch onto both smaller and bigger guys and plays a somewhat aggressive game that places trust in Joel Embiid and Amir Johnson to cover behind him. His strengths, I think, are seen much more off the ball, and not so much in on-ball situations.

No, Covington doesn’t have the best feet or the quickest lateral movement. Sometimes he gets lost in screens and can’t recover. He’s not a lockdown, 1v1 defender, and I think that’s how people are judging him. I often hear about dribblers “blowing by” Covington as a main criticism, which I think is overdone. If you’re looking for Bruce Bowen or Gary Payton, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Collectively, this starting group has one of the best defensive ratings in the NBA, and when you take the parts and put them together, you’re got an incredibly efficient unit out there. Covington is a big part of that for reasons that might not be so obvious.

Is Robert Covington Good at Defense? published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/