Tag: Ditto

Hey bill, double Twins Anon. Yeah, my Lucario twins had each taken a ralts line twin. my budy suggested i take them on a triple date with me and my girlfriend. I decked him in the schnoz for the remark. I’ll be sure my male lucario knows to be gentle with my gardevoir. Would you recommend Ditto Surrogates if they decide they want eggs?

I must admit that Lanette is more of the expert in romance than I am, which I bring up only because I would suspect I’d be decked in the face as well. Honestly, that seems like a rather interesting way to spend a romantic evening to me.

And here, I inhale deeply and pinch the bridge of my nose. Just answer the question, Bill. —LH

Right! So! Yes, absolutely, this would be the best if they wish to raise hatchlings. Otherwise … well. As you know, it would be ill-advised to allow them to try for a hatchling by themselves. (Even if both parties were instructed to be careful.)

My ditto loves to watch documentaries, to mimic stuff good! Since you were wondering. -Signed, Keyboard Ditto’s trainer

Now that is very adorable. If you’d like a recommendation for documentaries you can show your ditto, I highly recommend any of Professor Birch’s, which are available for free on his personal channel. Professor Oak also does regular Pokémon Talks, although these are always filmed in his lab, whereas Birch films pokémon in the wild. (Both are very informative for a trainer, however!)

Is it possible for a Zorua line member andor Ditto to become permanently stuck in a transformation (or at least choose to stay in one)?

Choose to stay as one? Yes, absolutely. Some shapeshifters have preferred forms, and they’ll attempt to assume these forms whenever possible.

Get permanently stuck as one, however, is a different story, and the answer there is “no.” Such transformations are always conscious for the most part. There’s always something that will trigger a de-transformation, no matter how careful a ditto or zorua/zoroark is.

Bill, for some reason when I just read the ask about Ditto making good parents I thought it was asking if Ditto would make a good parent for human children. So now I gotta ask, would a Ditto make a good parent for a human child? Could I have a Ditto babysit human children?

The thing with ditto is that because they’re pokémon and not humans, they don’t fully understand human needs or society. (Granted, there’s always a possibility that there’s a ditto out there who does, but those are very likely extremely, extremely rare. And there certainly hasn’t been any documented case of such … probably for good reason, but that’s a tangent.)

So would they make good parents? Not really, no. They can provide basic care, but it’s unlikely they’d be able to provide the emotional support and general wisdom a human needs growing up and learning how to navigate our part of the world.

As babysitters, however, yes, most ditto have some level of baseline judgment skills that would allow them to keep human children out of trouble for short periods of time. Some might even be better babysitters than humans.

(Granted, why people leave small children in the care of teenagers is beyond me. Some of them can barely take care of pokémon.)

Bill. Remind me again how old you were when you moved out to the middle of nowhere on your own and became the storage system administrator of two heavily populated regions? —LH

Yes, but let’s be perfectly honest with each other, Lanette. Would you trust me with small, human children? —Bill

Fair point. —LH

… so I got my Ditto as a 5 year old and named it accordingly, Jello. Well Jello is insanely Uncomfortable when I eat The gelatinous treat, Jell-O. When I do, Jello slithers around me and gives me side eyes and glares. I’ve tried explaining that Jell-O isn’t refrigerated Dittos but my sweet Jello still doesn’t like it. What do I do… besides not eat jell-o anymore

I’ll give you two answers here, anonymous: the one my editor would want me to give and the one my editor would actually want me to give.

The one my editor would want me to give: Look Jello dead in the eye as you consume a cup of gelatin. Establish dominance.

The one my editor would actually want me to give: Allow Jello to inspect a cup for itself. You can do this by simply showing it a cup or by allowing it to taste a little. (Gelatin isn’t poisonous to ditto, for the record.) You may even wish to purchase a box of Jell-O mix and make a batch yourself, so Jello can better understand what it is you’re actually eating.

If all else fails, may I suggest switching to fruit snacks instead?

Would a ditto be a good parent? If not what does it do that makes it a bad parent?

Actually, ditto tend to be some of the best parents in the pokémon kingdom. Ditto are often either eager to please or eager to maintain their disguise, and as such, they’ll work hard to resemble whatever their target pokémon may be. This is relevant to breeding because as a result, a ditto will often do its best to mimic typical brooding behaviors of whatever form it’s assumed to produce offspring. If such an example is not readily handy (for example, if it assumes the form of a male charmander to produce charmander eggs, but another male charmander isn’t readily available to mimic in terms of behavior), then it will simply do its best to serve as a parent to its brood however it thinks a parent of that species should be until their children are capable of fending for themselves. Otherwise, it risks breaking its facade.

It only really becomes a bad parent if it’s forced to produce eggs of a wide variety of species in a short amount of time. If this is the case, then it becomes confused and incapable of taking care of any of its offspring, so it will consequently reject the whole brood. Likewise, ditto used with an abundance of different partners will find it more difficult to become emotionally attached to any particular species and will begin acting detached from the act of breeding in a way. It will, in other, admittedly human terms, begin seeing breeding as a job and will begin to anticipate its movement to another partner, rather than anticipate its parenthood.

So in short, breeders: please don’t abuse your ditto.

What’s your opinion on mewtwos creation? Also do you buy into ditto being failed clones of mew? They do have the same colors (shiny and otherwise), the transform ability, and weight class…

Regarding Mewtwo’s creation, in terms of what, anonymous? Granted, keep in mind that I’m technically not supposed to know anything at all about that event, nor do I actually know the intimate details beyond those shared among the members of the Symposium. So if you were referring to something specific about the process of its creation, I’m afraid I’m not privy to enough information to form an opinion.

However, the concept of a man-made pokémon—even a legendary—is an interesting matter of ethics. On the one hand, we already have perfectly sentient examples that no one really questions. (See voltorb, porygon, and so forth.) Likewise, being able to create manmade legends may give us the keys to understanding the actual, wild legendary pokémon—and thus, the primordial forces that influenced the shape of our world. On the other hand, however, one must ask if it’s at all right to play God and create life for the sake of science, especially if the aforementioned primordial forces of the universe are involved.

Therein lies the main issue with Mewtwo. Although we Symposium members only know as much as Professor Oak and his team have been able to gather, we do know that Mewtwo was the result of rather unethical experiments—ones that were less concerned with the subject’s well-being and more concerned with the effects of genetic engineering. Considering that, my personal opinion is that I feel rather sorry for Mewtwo, and if I ever came across it, I would most certainly like to befriend it.

As for ditto, I’m aware of that theory, yes, and I admit, it’s a rather compelling one. Even more than that, ditto isn’t a pokémon we have extensive historical records of—which is to say, researchers only knew about its existence recently, thus making the possibility of it having been created recently rather feasible.

How is it that two dittos cannot breed, two magnemites cannot breed, but a ditto and a magnemite can? The one thing I can think of is that ditto can somehow create ‘clones’ of regular pokemon in an egg and they can reproduce alone so there’s no need to breed with each other. What is your answer?

Actually, ditto can’t breed because they lack reproductive organs in their original forms. Instead, they reproduce via budding, so technically, all ditto are really the exact same organism genetically.

However, ditto do not create clones of regular pokémon, although this is an interesting theory. What actually happens is that a ditto assumes the form of whatever pokémon they choose to mate with, but there’s an asterisk to this concept. It’s true that on the battlefield, ditto become exact copies of their chosen target, but off the battlefield, they can actually assume whatever form they want. (They simply need a visual example in order to create an accurate copy.) What this means is that ditto gain the reproductive organs of whatever pokémon they choose, but they can only do so when transformed. At the same time, while on the battlefield, ditto assume the exact form of the pokémon in front of them because it’s quicker, off the battlefield (such as in a breeding pen), they can sometimes get “creative” by assuming the form of a member of the opposite biological sex. For example, on the battlefield, a ditto may transform into a male charizard because a male charizard is the closest example and thus the quickest thing to turn into, but in the breeding pen, a ditto may attempt to create female charizard reproductive organs instead to coincide with the male’s.

On that note, pokémon such as magnemite or staryu or other so-called genderless pokémon actually employ a wide variety of reproductive methods. After all, they need some level of breeding in order to maintain their wild populations. It’s just that they don’t lay eggs in the wild—or they don’t as we know it.

Take the staryu and starmie, for example. These are actually biologically fascinating pokémon, as they are capable of breeding one of two ways, depending on how stressful of an environment they’re in. The most common method is by fission, or the act of splitting themselves neatly through their core to produce two genetically identical specimens. This tends to be quicker, as it requires no gestation time, and the resulting staryu (the children are always staryu, making this a very rare case of deevolution) are capable of fighting immediately. Unfortunately, as one can guess, this reverts the parent to a heavily weakened state. The process essentially resets its genetic code all the way back to its preevolved form, and the resulting children each need to retrain their bodies to use the most powerful attacks their parent knew. Still, it’s the preferred method because the other method, spawning, requires a gestation period and thus can only be performed in situations wherein the parent staryu or starmie are capable of defending their offspring. To summarize this method, keep in mind that staryu and starmie are actually hermaphroditic, not truly genderless. That is to say, all members of this evolutionary family possess both male and female organs, and when breeding, these organs send out clouds of both eggs and sperm to mix with another staryu or starmie’s eggs and sperm. The resulting dust settles on the ocean floor and begins its slow march towards forming new staryu … assuming no hungry magikarp stop by, anyway.

Meanwhile, voltorb reproduces by electrical sporogenesis. When in contact with either eggs laid by ditto or metal and plastic debris (empty poké balls seem to be preferable), voltorb discharges spores containing a mix of its own genetic material and electrical energy. This fertilizes and jump-starts an egg, but when in contact with debris, it draws the material together via static, melds it together, and animates the resulting object to form a new voltorb specimen.

Then, of course, you have porygon, which simply create their own offspring exactly as you think they would (that is, by copying their code and writing their own young into existence).

Hopefully, you get the idea from there.

Where ditto come in, meanwhile, is quite simple. Oftentimes, asexual reproduction is the more costly method to use, especially for trained pokémon. Imagine, for example, that your beloved starmie, who you’ve trained for years, suddenly split itself into two staryu, and you had to start all over again with two new pokémon. Trainers prevent this by pairing their pokémon off with a mate: ditto. By encouraging them to fertilize eggs ditto creates (by manifesting egg-laying organs that are capable of generating eggs that are compatible with these species, as mentioned above), genderless pokémon may relieve their natural drives to reproduce, thus preventing them from, say, splitting themselves in half to form new entities.

In other words, ditto reproduce by budding, most other “genderless” pokémon employ any of a variety of reproductive methods (that don’t use eggs as we know them), but together, they lay eggs because ditto is mimicking them on a genetic level but conceiving of an egg-laying structure that can produce something for them to fertilize.

Except porygon, anyway. It seems all ditto and porygon do is write code together to create an artificial egg. It’s quite entertaining, actually. They’re far better at quality assurance than I am, and it’s a shame the Pokémon Association won’t let me hire them as actual system administrators.