F. someone with good taste

This too.

Hey! I have a lot of good qualities! —Bill

Yes. You’re funny, charming, sensitive, passionate, adorable, conscious of personal hygiene … and completely oblivious to your personal safety, social convention, and the embarrassingly obvious hints people drop that they’re interested in you. —LH

Just adorable? —Bill

Does this mean you have a cruuuuuuuuuush, Lanette?

This is Bill we’re talking about, anonymous. If you don’t have a crush on him, you’re either:

A. A system admin who has already been through The Phase.

B. From Kanto or Johto but decidedly not attracted to men or the sort of people who are really into steampunk cosplay.

C. Related to Bill.

D. Not from Kanto or Johto and also not well-versed in news related to tech, science, or pokémon.

E. The girl who works at that one flower shop in North Goldenrod.

Oh, that last one hurts. —Bill

Bill, I’ve been hearing certain rumors from one of my more…. ‘creative’ friends about the Unova government doing something to the Tympole line and similar Pokémon. Do you know anything abiut that?

There are several different conspiracy theories about Unova being completely unable to leave its species of frog-like pokémon alone. Could you be more specific?

(Is it the one about chemical testing affecting tympole sexuality? The one in which Unova is attempting to synthesize hallucinogens from tympole’s poisonous mucus again? Or something else?)

Do you ever look at a pokemon and wonder why it evolves in “that” way? Also what’s the first pokemon that came to mind when you thought about the previous question?

Octillery.

What? It’s an octopus-like pokémon that evolves from a remora-like pokémon! Their ecological niches are entirely different, and they don’t even share remotely the same sets of adaptations. There is literally no reason why these two should be related in any way, yet they are. And the worst part of it is I can’t even explain it without perhaps squinting at them both and saying something about how remoraid’s specialty in gun-like shooting attacks somehow causes it to evolve into the tank-like octillery, but that doesn’t even make sense! It’s just baffling! It’s one of the biggest puzzles to pokémon science right now, and on Ho-oh’s wings, I will solve it one day.

I can’t tell whether you’re excited or angry right now. —LH

Both! —Bill

So… Hypothetically… If I get a magnezone and it magnetizes my wheelchair to the top of its head, I could theoretically make a hover craft?

Well … I’d imagine this would be a rather tricky question to answer. Technically speaking, it’s true that magnezone are perhaps just wide enough, but their shape would make it difficult. For starters, there is the antenna, and contrary to what one might think, this antenna can’t really bend. So to begin with, you’ll need to work around that—perhaps by, instead of situating your wheelchair at the very top of its head, balancing it on your magnezone’s magnets. Then of course, there should be some consideration both for the weight of the wheelchair itself and the electrical equipment therein if you’re using a motorized wheelchair. You could very well render it inoperable after such a ride, but perhaps that would be a moot point. Third and finally, you’ll also likely need to take into consideration the fact that your magnezone won’t be battle-ready so long as it’s focusing on magnetizing your wheelchair—and for some time thereafter, for that matter. For this to effectively work, you would need your magnezone to periodically if not constantly charge your wheelchair, which would deplete its electrical reserves and wear it out. Likewise, it probably shouldn’t use its electrical abilities while supporting you for obvious, electrocution-related reasons. However, if you keep it calm and give it a moment before using it in battle, perhaps that won’t be so bad.

So in short … with some adjustments to your plan and some side considerations, very likely!

Best of luck, anonymous!

Don’t wish them the best of luck with something you would do! —LH

Come now, Lanette. We should be encouraging our young, inventive readers to be scientifically creative! —Bill