LLMs have broken legibility of effort - our ability to tell, at a glance, whether something took a human real work. What happens next?
Read the full post on my blog!Here's a raw link, if you need it: https://eieio.games/blog/legibility-of-effort
Something the leprechauns asked me when I was a sprout in California had always puzzled me: what Pokémon was NOT created by Game Freak? Of course this was back in the 1980s and I didn’t know what a “pokey-man” was. So it was actually a relief when I discovered many years later that the answer is actually Lugia!
As the story goes: Takeshi Shudo, creator and producer of the Pokémon animated series, added created Lugia for Pokémon: The Movie 2000, the second film in the series. That is a whole long story in-and-of-itself, but since Shudo was not a Game Freak employee, technically that makes Lugia the only Pokémon that Game Freak didn’t create. This point is further emphasized by Lugia’s absence in the Space World demo.
Now this question was recently posted on Twitter by J | Pokémon Trivia Daily (@Elite_4_J), and most of their replies correctly chose Lugia. However, a small handful mentioned another Johto Pokémon: Spinarak.
Wait… Spinarak?? Yes, this has been a rather frustrating rumor which I have personally been trying to stamp out for the better part of the last 15 years. So I’m finally putting my foot down and laying out the facts: NO, Spinarak is NOT a fan-made Pokémon.
As a reminder, the rumor is that Spinarak was created via a fan submission, during some kind of contest that occurred during the North American Pokémon TCG Pokémon League back in the day. That young designer ultimately managed to win that nationwide contest to get their fan submission into Pokémon Gold & Silver, thus making them the ONLY fan to have ever gotten their design into an actual Pokémon video game. Super cool, huh?
I don’t think it takes much to suspect that this rumor has a slight tinge of bullshit about it. But what’s interesting about this rumor is that, unlike other rumors which just spawn in out from the internet hivemind from some long-deleted 4chan or reddit post, I know EXACTLY where to find the exact original source of this rumor.
I love Bulbapedia, I love randomly contributing to it, and I put in a lot of work and encouragement into setting up the foundations of their TCG articles. But if there’s one thing that bugs me the most about any wiki project, it’s that random stuff can sneak into random pages that no one pays attention to, allowing a false idea to fester and spread outwards. And it was especially easier to sneak in random stuff in the early years because Pokémon wasn’t the huge global phenomenon we know of today.
And so as fate would have it… back on October 3rd, 2009, a user named Skaramuche added this simple line of text to the Spinarak article:
Separately from this edit, someone by the name of SpinarakGirl posted in the Talk page for the Spinarak article stating:
Unfortunately both Skaramuche and SpinarakGirl seem to have disappeared into the ether, so there really is no way to tell who they were. But they certainly took that claim as fact enough to want to add it to the Spinarak article.
And there it sat for over TWO YEARS before I noticed it, and that was by sheer coincidence because I was there to simply add in Spinarak’s Korean name. I immediately removed it, but the damage was already done: that claim had spread internet-wide, even if some people had their doubts:
Now I’m not here to embarrass anyone over a 15+ year old rumor. If this had been snuffed out back then, whatever, I’ll just chalk it up to classic playground fun-time. It’s just that, there are still confident whispers of Spinarak being a fan-made creation to this day, meaning this VICIOUS rumor keeps needlessly spreading. (Or maybe it’s a viscous rumor?)
But hey, maybe I’m the one who’s wrong here. Afterall, I’m just some guy on the internet; what makes my claims more relevant that anyone else posting on Bulbapedia? Simple: I have the power of fact checking on my side!
Spinarak was one of 100 new Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Gold & Silver, which was the second generation of Pokémon video games. The game was released in Japan in November 1999, with the North American release happening a year later in October 2000.
It was around this time when the Pokémon TCG was originally released in North America; 1st Edition Base Set was released in January 1999, and the Pokémon TCG Leagues started play in Summer 1999 (sometime between June to September 1999).
By this fact alone: two months between the start of the Pokémon League and the release of Pokémon Gold & Silver in Japan really didn’t give Game Freak much wiggle room to include a new Pokémon from overseas. Of course the staggered release date in North America might have given some kid the impression that there was enough time to introduce one of their Pokémon designs into the game. But….
Even though Pokémon Gold & Silver was released in Japan in 1999, it had actually been a work in progress since at least before Space World 1997, which occurred between November 21 and 23, 1997. Thanks to the Gigaleak in 2021, we’ve been able to see all of these lost prototype Pokémon from the original Space World ROMS… which includes Spinarak:
You can even see how Spinarak and its evolution, Ariados, went through a couple iterations across the multiple Space World demos and other leaked materials. So unless the person claiming to have designed Spinarak had a time machine to go back to 1997… the year before Pokémon Red/Blue even released in North America in 1998… I’m gonna say I have my suspicions.
But wait, there’s more!
To be fair, the idea of official contests celebrating the artistic achievements of Pokémon fans is not new. In Japan, CoroCoro Magazine held a contest for children to illustrate certain cards in the then-upcoming “Vending Machine” set during late-1997 to early-1998. Incidentally, Linkinboss remade all those into English as the “Safari Zone HD Remaster”, which you can check out below; there you can see all the different cards that were illustrated by Japanese kids back then!
Later in North America, Wizards of the Coast held their own illustration contest in 2002 in order to get a fan-made artwork onto Snorlax Promo #49, which—probably not coincidentally—was one of the cards from Vending with fan-made artwork. The story behind THAT contest is as crazy as it gets, which you can find out more in the above article.
The point here is that there is plenty of evidence that these contests existed to begin with. Apart from the actual cards with actual names on it, at least there are also copies of old CoroCoro Magazine or Wizards.com/Pokemon site archives still out there to independently confirm these contests existed. To say nothing about old website archives still online.
Absolutely nothing exists for this supposed Create a Pokémon contest from the Pokémon League. And you would think there would be. Like, a HUGE national contest to design a new Pokémon at Pokémon Leagues? Pojo would’ve talked about it, I would’ve talked about it, Bulbapedia would’ve had an article about it… it was during the height of Pokémania back in the 1990s, you would think SOMEONE would’ve remembered it!
And this is not even considering that Wizards of the Coast was a licensee of Nintendo of America; a high-profile one for sure, but still a licensee. On top of that, Nintendo of America is a subsidiary of Nintendo Co., Ltd., a Japanese company. So literally no one on this side of the Pacific has any kind of authority to unilaterally create a contest on that scale.
Compounding matters is that, as international as the Pokémon franchise is, it’s still Japanese first. If any region was gonna get such a contest, it would be Japan first. They get all the best merch, best promos, best events, etc… why would Japanese fans be passed over in favor of new American fans? It just wouldn’t make any sense.
We could probably go deeper but I think I made my point abundantly clear: there is absolutely no way any kid, let alone a kid from outside of Japan, could have designed any Pokémon in any of their video games. So if I had my guess, this was probably just your classic “my uncle works at Nintendo” claim that we all know kids used to pull off, and their friends simply believed in them. Afterall, your friends never lie, right??
But let’s suppose Skaramuche and Spinarakgirl legitimately believed this was the case. This implies a worst case scenario: maybe some card store owner running a Pokémon League actually DID have some kind of “Create a Pokémon” contest, but did so knowing that Pokémon Gold & Silver was being released in Japan. They then found one of the entries that looked the most like one of the new Pokémon in Gold/Silver—such as Spinarak—which any kid might have accidentally drawn something similar too. Then once the game came out in North America many months later, they told that little kid “yay, you won! See, this is YOUR Pokémon”. Of course what kid back then could’ve known that Gold & Silver got released in Japan the year prior? That would be utterly cruel for an adult to do, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it did happen that way.
Either way, I’m not gonna dogpile on some little kid who ran with this rumor, either because they wanted to impress someone or legitimately believed in it. On the other hand, I will be giving a very VERY naughty wag of my finger to Skaramuche for actually posting that rumor onto Bulbapedia and wrought this crazy ripple effect upon us all. As for everyone else repeating this obvious untruth, I’m gonna be hitting you up with one of these:
But then all this brings up a new question: playground rumors get shared all the time, and everyone understands that they’re just… well, playground rumors. So how come this rumor has maintained its traction after 15+ years? I got a couple quick ideas:
Again, as international as Pokémon is, it’s still very Japan-focused. So the idea that one of us from the outside looking in managed to actually have an influence on the Pokémon franchise in such a huge way is fascinating in-and-of-itself. Cuz like, how many Western artists have created official Pokémon (just James Turner)? Or how many Western artists drew artwork for official Pokémon TCG cards (Turner, Craig Turvey, Christopher Rush, and maybe just a couple others)? I myself was THIS CLOSE 
to being able to draw artwork on official Pokémon TCG cards for Jamboree. A lot of people would pay good money to have that kind of influence, only for someone else to just luck their way into things just by sheer talent… it’s just a heartwarming story that made people believe in something.
If someone said “I invented Mew” or “I invented Ho-oh”, that is just so obviously out-of-pocket that there is no one who would believe it. But saying “I invented Spinarak” is just so bland that it’s gotta be true, right? Like, why would someone want to lie about something to mundane? Plus it also makes for easy sharing on social media: it’s just a simple tidbit, a single line… it’s very easy to digest and share with others.
In the grand scheme of things… who cares? It’s just a bit of fun. It’s not someone trying to gain undue influence, or buying a bunch of cards and tricking people out of their hard earned money… it’s just a silly story about someone who might have invented a Pokémon. True or false, no one is losing any cash or crashing out about it. Well, at worst it just makes people think that “if it appears on Bulbapedia, it MUST be true”, but as long as people stay on top of that, then Bulbapedia’s authenticity remains assured.
I dunno, whatever. Just be sure to let everyone else know that there is nothing special about Spinarak (other than it’s still pretty cute). That said, if I had a time machine…
The post Old Man Yells About Spinarak first appeared on Pokémon Aaah! The Website.
 |
| A-A-A-A. GRADE: D |
 |
| Mono-white A-A-A-A. GRADE: F |
With the release of the brand new Master Ball in Pokémon GO, many trainers are hoping to get to use one on the elusive and immensely difficult to catch Galarian Legendary Birds on their Daily Adventure Incense. Being a wild spawn, there are different levels, weather effects and CP values that can be taken into consideration as to whether or not the Galarian Bird you encounter is actually a good IV or not.
While many people will be happy to simply catch one, if you’ve been lucky enough to catch one, or want to hold out for a good IV, twitter user bmenrigh has done some truly amazing calculations to work out what chances you have of your wild Galarian Bird being a 100%IV!
They have kindly let us share their work, so huge shout out to them, because this is really fantastic stuff. Each bird has their own individual values, so we’ll break it down by each bird, both non-weather boosted, and weather boosted.
Each chart shows the level the bird may be in the wild, the CP the bird can be 100 IV, how many different IV birds can be that CP, and what percentage chance you therefore have of the bird being that perfect 100 IV.
Galarian Articuno
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 1 | 50 | 63 | 1.59% |
| 2 | 159 | 1 | 100% |
| 3 | 267 | 1 | 100% |
| 4 | 375 | 3 | 33.33% |
| 5 | 484 | 1 | 100% |
| 6 | 592 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 701 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 809 | 4 | 25% |
| 9 | 917 | 12 | 8.33% |
| 10 | 1026 | 29 | 3.45% |
| 11 | 1128 | 47 | 2.13% |
| 12 | 1231 | 45 | 2.22% |
| 13 | 1333 | 47 | 2.13% |
| 14 | 1436 | 43 | 2.33% |
| 15 | 1538 | 44 | 2.27% |
| 16 | 1641 | 42 | 2.38% |
| 17 | 1744 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 18 | 1846 | 47 | 2.13% |
| 19 | 1939 | 39 | 2.50% |
| 20 | 2051 | 41 | 2.44% |
| 21 | 2154 | 47 | 2.13% |
| 22 | 2256 | 48 | 2.08% |
| 23 | 2359 | 43 | 2.33% |
| 24 | 2462 | 44 | 2.27% |
| 25 | 2564 | 38 | 2.63% |
| 26 | 2667 | 45 | 2.22% |
| 27 | 2770 | 41 | 2.44% |
| 28 | 2872 | 28 | 3.57% |
| 29 | 2975 | 14 | 7.14% |
| 30 | 3077 | 1 | 100% |
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 6 | 592 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 701 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 809 | 1 | 100% |
| 9 | 917 | 1 | 100% |
| 10 | 1026 | 1 | 100% |
| 11 | 1128 | 5 | 20% |
| 12 | 1231 | 9 | 11.11% |
| 13 | 1333 | 8 | 12.5% |
| 14 | 1436 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 15 | 1538 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 16 | 1641 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 17 | 1744 | 20 | 5% |
| 18 | 1846 | 19 | 5.26% |
| 19 | 1949 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 20 | 2051 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 21 | 2154 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 22 | 2256 | 25 | 4% |
| 23 | 2359 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 24 | 2462 | 21 | 4.76% |
| 25 | 2564 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 26 | 2667 | 20 | 5% |
| 27 | 2770 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 28 | 2872 | 20 | 5% |
| 29 | 2975 | 30 | 3.33% |
| 30 | 3077 | 40 | 2.50% |
| 31 | 3129 | 42 | 2.38% |
| 32 | 3180 | 25 | 4% |
| 33 | 3231 | 12 | 8.33% |
| 34 | 3283 | 5 | 20% |
| 35 | 3334 | 1 | 100% |
Galarian Zapdos
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 1 | 50 | 4 | 25% |
| 2 | 157 | 1 | 100% |
| 3 | 264 | 1 | 100% |
| 4 | 371 | 1 | 100% |
| 5 | 478 | 1 | 100% |
| 6 | 585 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 692 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 800 | 2 | 50% |
| 9 | 907 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 10 | 1014 | 34 | 2.94% |
| 11 | 1115 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 12 | 1216 | 43 | 2.33% |
| 13 | 1318 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 14 | 1419 | 49 | 2.04% |
| 15 | 1521 | 44 | 2.27% |
| 16 | 1622 | 44 | 2.27% |
| 17 | 1723 | 42 | 2.38% |
| 18 | 1825 | 49 | 2.04% |
| 19 | 1926 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 20 | 2027 | 49 | 2.04% |
| 21 | 2129 | 51 | 1.96% |
| 22 | 2230 | 40 | 2.50% |
| 23 | 2332 | 42 | 2.38% |
| 24 | 2433 | 40 | 2.50% |
| 25 | 2534 | 38 | 2.63% |
| 26 | 2636 | 48 | 2.08% |
| 27 | 2737 | 51 | 1.96% |
| 28 | 2839 | 39 | 2.56% |
| 29 | 2940 | 14 | 7.14% |
| 30 | 3042 | 1 | 100% |
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 6 | 585 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 692 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 800 | 1 | 100% |
| 9 | 907 | 1 | 100% |
| 10 | 1014 | 2 | 50% |
| 11 | 1115 | 3 | 33.33% |
| 12 | 1216 | 7 | 14.29% |
| 13 | 1318 | 11 | 9.09% |
| 14 | 1419 | 14 | 7.14% |
| 15 | 1521 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 16 | 1622 | 20 | 5% |
| 17 | 1723 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 18 | 1825 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 19 | 1926 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 20 | 2027 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 21 | 2129 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 22 | 2230 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 23 | 2332 | 13 | 7.69% |
| 24 | 2433 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 25 | 2534 | 19 | 5.26% |
| 26 | 2636 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 27 | 2737 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 28 | 2839 | 22 | 4.55% |
| 29 | 2940 | 36 | 2.78% |
| 30 | 3042 | 33 | 3.03% |
| 31 | 3092 | 35 | 2.86% |
| 32 | 3143 | 24 | 4.17% |
| 33 | 3194 | 11 | 9.09% |
| 34 | 3244 | 3 | 33.33% |
| 35 | 3295 | 1 | 100% |
Galarian Moltres
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 1 | 44 | 89 | 1.12% |
| 2 | 140 | 3 | 3.33% |
| 3 | 236 | 1 | 100% |
| 4 | 331 | 1 | 100% |
| 5 | 427 | 1 | 100% |
| 6 | 522 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 618 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 714 | 6 | 16.67% |
| 9 | 809 | 29 | 3.45% |
| 10 | 905 | 52 | 1.92% |
| 11 | 955 | 48 | 2.08% |
| 12 | 1086 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 13 | 1176 | 50 | 2% |
| 14 | 1267 | 47 | 2.13% |
| 15 | 1357 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 16 | 1447 | 35 | 2.86% |
| 17 | 1538 | 49 | 2.04% |
| 18 | 1628 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 19 | 1719 | 56 | 1.79% |
| 20 | 1809 | 48 | 2.08% |
| 21 | 1900 | 53 | 1.89% |
| 22 | 1990 | 40 | 2.50% |
| 23 | 2081 | 46 | 2.17% |
| 24 | 2171 | 56 | 1.79% |
| 25 | 2262 | 50 | 2% |
| 26 | 2352 | 48 | 2.08% |
| 27 | 2443 | 53 | 1.89% |
| 28 | 2533 | 35 | 2.86% |
| 29 | 2624 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 30 | 2715 | 1 | 100% |
| Level | 100 IV CP | Number of Pokémon with CP | % Chance of 100 IV |
| 6 | 522 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | 618 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | 714 | 1 | 100% |
| 9 | 809 | 1 | 100% |
| 10 | 905 | 2 | 50% |
| 11 | 995 | 7 | 14.29% |
| 12 | 1086 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 13 | 1176 | 18 | 5.56% |
| 14 | 1267 | 15 | 6.67% |
| 15 | 1357 | 20 | 5% |
| 16 | 1447 | 21 | 4.76% |
| 17 | 1538 | 13 | 7.69% |
| 18 | 1628 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 19 | 1719 | 26 | 3.85% |
| 20 | 1809 | 22 | 4.55% |
| 21 | 1900 | 27 | 3.70% |
| 22 | 1990 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 23 | 2081 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 24 | 2171 | 17 | 5.88% |
| 25 | 2262 | 30 | 3.33% |
| 26 | 2352 | 21 | 4.76% |
| 27 | 2443 | 16 | 6.25% |
| 28 | 2533 | 21 | 4.76% |
| 29 | 2624 | 31 | 3.23% |
| 30 | 2715 | 38 | 2.63% |
| 31 | 2760 | 33 | 3.03% |
| 32 | 2805 | 21 | 4.76% |
| 33 | 2850 | 14 | 7.14% |
| 34 | 2895 | 6 | 16.67% |
| 35 | 2941 | 1 | 100% |
The post What is the Chance your Wild Galarian Legendary Bird is 100IV? appeared first on Pokémon GO Hub.
Log in
