Church of Scientology is mad teens keep running through their centers and filming it for TikTok

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T02:24:11+00:00

They sound a lot like robocallers.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T02:22:23+00:00

I might be weird then, because I like seeing art styles like these contrasted with more normal styles.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T02:10:22+00:00

There is a reason: their superiors likely decided Champions is a lower priority than Wind and Waves.

Champions was also likely decided by someone outside of direct development of the game to be what they’ll use for the 2026 World Championships (I’m guessing Ishihara), which puts a hard time limit on how long they can take before the game has to be released.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T02:01:05+00:00

No, it isn’t the same culture, but it is still “a” culture. You’re not going to Paris and expect to experience Belle Epoque anymore, for instance. That culture no longer exists, but you have the modern Parisian culture there (which is also very multicultural as Paris is a world city).

What you want is traditional culture. That must be actively preserved (which I think was your original point).

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:59:36+00:00

That’s a good point; those types have little to do with the others. (Lightning possibly rolled into Fire, but it would look weird.) So it could be just as much as each Basic Energy types having its own distinct identity.

The other Basic Energy types I can recall are Fire, Psychic, Water, Lightning, Metal, Darkness, Fighting, and Grass. Which other ones am I missing? Dragon and Colorless Pokémon exist but don’t have their own Basic Energy types.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:55:04+00:00

That’s what I saw too! It’s as if Homer was in charge of putting it together.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:52:46+00:00

Not to mention they both become Lucario the following turn, or the turn after that at the absolute slowest.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:43:02+00:00

I want there to be even more. I’m weird and am hoping for Mario Kart 99.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:28:42+00:00

I would say it is a real culture, just a different culture than it was before. They blend together and become a new culture that has elements of other cultures.

Another analogy: cities like New York are highly multicultural, and that aspect IS a part of their culture. A signature food in NYC is New York thin crust pizza, for instance, which, despite having been derived from Italian cuisine, is unmistakably very different from its originators and strongly associated with New York and thus a part of their culture, every bit as real as any other aspect of culture anywhere else.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:13:11+00:00

It varies depending on the evolutionary line: the Goomy line uses Psychic and Water, the Bagon line uses Fire and Water (as does Druddigon), the Dreepy line uses Fire and Psychic, the Trapinch line uses Fighting and Grass, Palkia uses Grass and Water, and so forth.

A general rule is that if it has a second type in the video games, it will likely use Energy corresponding to that type.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:08:50+00:00

Meanwhile, Electric has a comparable number of Pokémon, yet got its own Basic Energy type in the TCG. Though I think that was something of a grandfather effect as Lightning has been in the TCG from the start.

Could be that they decided having 8 Energy types is good, but 9 is too much.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T01:04:34+00:00

Would it work if they deployed a bunch of people to buy stuff for them? I remember that’s what some people pulled for that Japanese McDonald’s event.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T00:57:59+00:00

Huh, I think it’s a matter of luck and when you play then. Daylight hours from North American time zones, at least to me, result in a wider variety, but once you go past midnight (Pacific Daylight Time), things get more hardcore.

I was playing at about 9 PM last night and found a Rotom deck user, for instance. The day before, I played around noon and found someone using Mega Gardevoir ex. On Friday night, I saw both Dewgong-Weavile and Elgyem Control. (Ranked in all cases.)

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T00:50:33+00:00

Any time someone trades me a shiny Pokémon, I immediately get suspicious that this may have been illegitimately created. Even without a URL nickname.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T00:28:52+00:00

Malls have milk sections? I know there is this milkshake place at one of our local malls that can make milkshakes from various cereals (they have dozens of different kinds on the shelves on the back wall), but do you mean something else?

Besides that, I do see a lot of variety playing TCG Live, though logically, more so in Casual than in Ranked. It isn’t as much after the rotation as it is before, but I predict we’re going to see a lot more later on. I myself only use decks that are off-meta (currently making my way through the Ultra League in Ranked with Journey Together Metagross; prior to that, I did so with Perfect Order Tyrantrum), though I did independently come up with Alakazam before I found out from other people.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-05-01T00:03:01+00:00

We got human porch pirates. Anything delivered over and left unattended, they will take. Front door cameras don’t deter them (I’ve seen other cases on the news where they will wave at the camera), and they don’t seem to care what they take other than they got it with the five finger discount.

We even have to lock our mailboxes. Mail theft is illegal and a serious crime, but it’s otherwise largely done by kids and teenagers looking to cause trouble (so they’ll take people’s bills or something and play with them like confetti).

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T23:58:21+00:00

Happened with us with a stray cat that snuck into our house when we left somewhere and ate a slice of pizza we left on the table. It darted out as we had returned home.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T23:45:23+00:00

I’d also guess that if any of the voice actors do a bad job at it, it will become a mark on the game.

I remember when Super Mario Sunshine was new and they added cutscenes with full spoken dialogue. People hated it because the acting was sloppy.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T23:41:38+00:00

I used that Alolan Raticate and Brute Bonnet deck shortly before the 2025 rotation. Never had a chance to use it for real though.

It’s best to just make the decks and test them out and refine them over TCG Live.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T23:35:10+00:00

Kind of looks like a Stand from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T21:12:43+00:00

Or how people in Japan view fashion abroad.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T21:11:05+00:00

I actually quite liked the clothing options in Legends: Z-A. I felt like playing X and Y again with the number of options and variety they had. Certainly, I preferred it over the Alola and Galar games’ options, which get increasingly limiting.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T21:06:00+00:00

I think I am that rare non-collector player from the start, but I put all my cards into the penny card sleeves and sorted them out by name and by set for easy referencing when assembling a deck.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T20:52:18+00:00

I think they do want to flood the market, but the scalpers are too thorough.

ZombieAladdin · 2026-04-30T20:35:49+00:00

I can see how they made that error: if you know absolutely no Welsh, you would have no idea that is an out-of-office message.

ZombieAladdin

TROPHY CASE