Fun Fact, Ditto were canonically failed pokemon clones developed by Team Rocket. There is a an argument to be made that it is all of the Pokémon it imitates trapped in constant flux with no real mind of its own.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
262 points (98.5% liked)
Comic Strips
24772 readers
1870 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
😇 Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
🏘️ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
🧬 Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
📋 Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author's website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
✅ Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
❌ Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
📬 Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 🖐) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author's comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 🖐) will be removed.
-
🏴☠️ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
Sí, por favor [Spanish/Español]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
🍿 Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Banned Artists
The following artists are banned from the community.
- Jago
- Stonetoss
- GPrime85
It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.
Web Accessibility
Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
Other Comic Communities of Interest
- !bloomcounty@sopuli.xyz
- !calvinandhobbes@lemmy.world
- !cyanideandhappiness@discuss.online
- !exo@discuss.online
- !foxtrot@slrpnk.net
- !garfield@lemmy.world
- !moomin@sopuli.xyz
- !oglaf@discuss.online (NSFW)
- !outland@slrpnk.net
- !pbf@discuss.online
- !peanuts@discuss.online
- !smbc@discuss.online
- !theboondocks@slrpnk.net
- !thefarside@sh.itjust.works
- !xkcd@lemmy.world
- !NoseEars@lemy.lol
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I thought the theory was that Ditto are failed clones of Mew, which explains the ability to (technically) use all of the moves, and the coloring comparison between those two and their shiny forms.
Didn't know it was officially recognized.
I guess theres still debate about it but:
-
The notes in Cinnebar Mansion say there were tons of failed expiriments to create a clone of mew specifically in the first location you find Dittos
-
The only other location where you find Dittos is where you find MewTwo who is the same color as Ditto
-
Ditto and Mew both use Transform, have the same weight and similar stats, and both have blue shinies
-
I could be misremembering but I faintly recall the Pokémon movie showing actual ditto-like goo turning into clones in the Team Rocket cloning vats
The best argument against this is:
-
Shigeru from GameFreak said he only added transform as its ability because Mew was a last minute easter egg at the time and it stuck
-
Ditto do appear in other regions but it's debated if they're canon or if they're intended to be used for Pokémon breeding strats which are a popular game mechanic/feature
The way I thought it all shaked down (and what I thought was established fan canon long ago), was that the Cinnerbar Mansion experiments were an attempt to clone Mew.
Ditto was one of the first failures (and I bet the poor guys have it worse than no thoughts of their own, but rather their very thoughts are constantly trapped fighting shifting self-identity, if we want to go Grim Dark lol)
And they never got to perfect a Mew, because the next stage in the experiment precluded that.
That they achieved Mewtwo, after Ditto, and the scope of the project rapidly changed when the "benefactor" (sue me, there's still kids picking up the games, I ain't spoiling it, but we know who we're talking about) bankrolling the project got the initial "power level readings".
So they pumped Mewtwo, their perfect IV monstrosity, with both forced and artificial EVs, until what happened, happened, and Mewtwo had to go hang out in that cave to get some peace.
Meanwhile the Dittos suffer ;(
It even has the Ditto eyes when it transforms into human! This is 100% canon-compatible.
It’s Pokefluid.