POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

[diamondpearl876]

Purple prose feels cliche to me in the sense that it's obvious the author's trying too hard, and that if I'm going to read through it, it's for sure going to feel like a chore. I do, however, enjoy poetic writing styles when they don't cross over into purple prose territory.

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

I'd also like to list some more that the card missed:

>ship bashing/starting ship wars

>"don't like don't read" posted anywhere

>MC is a virgin but is an absolute sex god.

 

[Ereshkigal]

>MC is a virgin but is an absolute sex god.

Does it count if they're also a literal sex god? Because I have this hilarious idea for what happens if you make drunken dares with Zeus for a Kratos alternative universe fiction...

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

Does it count if they're also a literal sex god? Because I have this hilarious idea for what happens if you make drunken dares with Zeus for a Kratos alternative universe fiction...

If its Zeus then it's fine. Hell you can even get away with impossible, unrealistic sex- because didn't he at one point impregnate half of the Greek population with the wind alone?

 

[Ereshkigal]

If its Zeus then it's fine. Hell you can even get away with impossible, unrealistic sex- because didn't he at one point impregnate half of the Greek population with the wind alone?

Let's not forget that, due to Zeus turning himself into a bull, three of his children were technically half-cow.

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

Let's not forget that, due to Zeus turning himself into a bull, three of his children were technically half-cow.

Zeus was a kinky motherfucker

 

[Serverus Snope]

>MC is a virgin but is an absolute sex god.

Do you mean that as:

A.) MC is a virgin but is somehow amazing when they have their first time (and every time after?) Or,
B.) MC is an awkward virgin who somehow has a whole bunch of highly attractive members of the opposite (and/or same) sex lusting after them? (i.e. Asterisk War and many, many harem series)

My guess is the former... or both at the same time.

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

Do you mean that as:

A.) MC is a virgin but is somehow amazing when they have their first time (and every time after?) Or,
B.) MC is an awkward virgin who somehow has a whole bunch of highly attractive members of the opposite (and/or same) sex lusting after them? (i.e. Asterisk War and many, many harem series)

My guess is the former... or both at the same time.

I was going with answer A, but I didn't know how to word it.

 

[Ghostsoul]

I would like to see a mystery dungeon fic with a human turned pokemon plot but with more an emphasis on loss of identity and being forced to adapt to the pokemon world than anything else (and being forced through dungeons certainly won't help you on that part). Most of the fics I've noticed seem to kind of forget (although the game too seems to brush over this part) that turning into some other creature would be confusing or traumatizing for more than a little while.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I would like to see a mystery dungeon fic with a human turned pokemon plot but with more an emphasis on loss of identity and being forced to adapt to the pokemon world than anything else (and being forced through dungeons certainly won't help you on that part). Most of the fics I've noticed seem to kind of forget (although the game too seems to brush over this part) that turning into some other creature would be confusing or traumatizing for more than a little while.

I think it's partly how impossible it would be to truly know what that's like. Even the majority of human experience involves relying on our brains to do a lot of behind-the-scenes processing. The "use ten percent of the brain" figure may be inaccurate for how much of the brain is utilized, but I think it's a pretty good metaphor for how much information we get on a daily basis that we're consciously aware of. It doesn't help that humans have somewhere around twenty to twenty-five senses and most people focus on three or four.

The other thing that really should come up more is the Pokemon with senses outside of those humans have. I do touch on this idea with my own fanfic, where one character reads a Magnemite's mind and learns their equivalent of sight is nothing like what humans have. I'm honestly curious to see how a story would work where the main character suddenly has to deal with senses that are absolutely nothing like what they're used to.

 

[Ghostsoul]

I think it's partly how impossible it would be to truly know what that's like. Even the majority of human experience involves relying on our brains to do a lot of behind-the-scenes processing. The "use ten percent of the brain" figure may be inaccurate for how much of the brain is utilized, but I think it's a pretty good metaphor for how much information we get on a daily basis that we're consciously aware of. It doesn't help that humans have somewhere around twenty to twenty-five senses and most people focus on three or four.

The other thing that really should come up more is the Pokemon with senses outside of those humans have. I do touch on this idea with my own fanfic, where one character reads a Magnemite's mind and learns their equivalent of sight is nothing like what humans have. I'm honestly curious to see how a story would work where the main character suddenly has to deal with senses that are absolutely nothing like what they're used to.

I think you could approach it more realistically than most would, or even take an experimental route and use gaps in grammar, variety in spacing and the like to portray sheer confusion and horror perhaps it might appear 'messy' but since it's something a normal human can't really comprehended won't it seem that way anyway? Hmmm, I'm tempted to try something like that now... Even if it's quite impossible to fully comprehended it, I think attempting something like that would be better than brushing major issues that would arise from such a thing under the rug because of convenience.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Ghostsoul, have you ever read Silver Resistance? It's a Mystery Dungeon story where the protagonist doesn't immediately get over becoming a Pokémon. Unfortunately, it's extremely long and still ongoing, so I stopped reading it a while ago.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I really don't like the fandom's idea of a legendary pantheon, which I see in fanfics sometimes. Why?
- Every region is supposed to have its own mythology; trying to tie everything together just overstuffs the mythos.
- Very few legendaries are actually "godly".
- The main games are vague about how true the legends actually are.
- It seems like in recent years, The Pokémon Company have been using legendaries as gimmicks, with things like Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon being more about Legendary Pokémon™ turning into stone for dramatic effect, without showing the consequences.
- I immediately associate the idea with a certain My Little Pony crossover that's the epitome of wasted potential. Please don't hate me for mentioning My Little Pony...

 

[Ereshkigal]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I really don't like the fandom's idea of a legendary pantheon, which I see in fanfics sometimes. Why?

So I guess you are not interested in hearing the holy word of Lord Helix?

- Very few legendaries are actually "godly".

This part I disagree with, but mostly because modern times seriously exaggerate what being "godly" actually means.

The idea of a pantheon of a lot of powerful gods really is a more modern invention, and probably entirely a result of influence by DnD. It was not unusual for ancient pantheons to have hundreds or even thousands of gods, many of which were barely more powerful than humans; the Celtic myths had so many that modern attempts to reconstruct them often treat their pantheon more like a genus than anything else, and the Greeks had classifications for their gods just due to the sheer number. "Nymph" isn't a type of spirit, but a category of god classifications.

The idea of godly really doesn't mean much when many real-world gods could be repelled by horseshoes or simply captured and married like any other woman.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

This part I disagree with, but mostly because modern times seriously exaggerate what being "godly" actually means.

The idea of a pantheon of a lot of powerful gods really is a more modern invention, and probably entirely a result of influence by DnD. It was not unusual for ancient pantheons to have hundreds or even thousands of gods, many of which were barely more powerful than humans; the Celtic myths had so many that modern attempts to reconstruct them often treat their pantheon more like a genus than anything else, and the Greeks had classifications for their gods just due to the sheer number. "Nymph" isn't a type of spirit, but a category of god classifications.

The idea of godly really doesn't mean much when many real-world gods could be repelled by horseshoes or simply captured and married like any other woman.

Now I want to see a fanfic with a legendary pantheon that's more like the ones you described, instead of The All-Powerful 60-Odd.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Now I want to see a fanfic with a legendary pantheon that's more like the ones you described, instead of The All-Powerful 60-Odd.

It's interesting to attempt.

I'm kinda working on it with mine. It does have some fun consequences, and makes the ones that are powerful have a much greater impact. And reveal just how badly people screw up in messing with powers they don't understand.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

It's interesting to attempt.

I'm kinda working on it with mine. It does have some fun consequences, and makes the ones that are powerful have a much greater impact. And reveal just how badly people screw up in messing with powers they don't understand.

Another problem I have with the legendary pantheon is that a lot of them overlap. We have Kyogre, the creator of the seas. We have Lugia, who lives underwater and guards the sea, and in my headcanon is a Psychic-type because it only started living underwater when the tower burned down. We have Manaphy, who's apparently the leader of Pokémon that live in the ocean, but I don't think we've seen that in any medium. The fandom also has this idea that Celebi has some kind of mini-dominion over time, when it's more like the guardian of forests.
Granted, in actual mythology, deities can overlap... but Pokémon fanfics don't get creative with that.

I honestly like it better when legendaries are just normal Pokémon that happen to be rare, like the entire village of Shaymin in Explorers of Sky, or Virizion and Keldeo in Gates to Infinity, rather than being living plot devices.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It's a kind of cliché in itself, to the point of fanon, that the fandom tends to exaggerate the canon power of legendary pokémon. I've touched on this more than one in my arguments against the usual Arceus = God assumption, but more generally in the games an awful lot of what fanon takes as fact is actually explicitly framed as legend. The anime tends to be more explicit when it comes down to apocalyptic power, and that old annoying cliché of any legend, myth or prophecy inevitably being completely true.

This:

The idea of a pantheon of a lot of powerful gods really is a more modern invention, and probably entirely a result of influence by DnD

is a pretty good argument (Though I think I'd argue that the long influence of the Christian God has a bigger influence on the perception of deities as being almighty), though it brings me to another point - as an author, to a large extent you're bound by the expectations of the audience. God (Capital G) is a very loaded word, so much so that getting away from the connotations it carried means a fair bit of exposition that may not be worth it or successful. I suspect this is why "spirit" is so often used as a translation for ideas like kami - it carries a lot less baggage

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@Beth Pavell I'm not a fan of the idea of Arceus being the Abrahamic God either, since Arceus takes inspiration from a variety of sources, but I can understand why people do so, since us westerners are most familiar with Abrahamic religions. Now I want to see what people from around the world think of the legendary pantheon idea.

Someone a few pages ago said that they were amazed that the Toge line wasn't associated with Mary Sues more often. It reminded me of this time when I asked some people on Fimfiction for advice on Pokémon fanfiction I was planning to compile (I ended up not doing so), and someone suggested giving characters an unusual partner Pokémon in crossovers. One of the examples they gave was giving Batman a Togekiss, which I found kind of hilarious.

Speaking of Fimfiction, a cliché in MLP/Pokémon crossovers which never fails to make me mentally facepalm is the characters calling ponies "weird talking Ponyta".

 

[Ereshkigal]

I will admit my fanfic pretty much treats Arceus more like a myth; no one's actually met Arceus, so how they talk about Arceus typically reflects more on how they respond to mythology and religion in general.

And that tends to be the ones actually still treated like gods. No one's actually met them, so people don't know how powerful they are. The treating Giratina like a god, for example, is because the myths made them out to be a god and there's no evidence to the contrary. And given where Giratina lives, no one is going to find any evidence either way any time soon.

Mewtwo I'll admit to using as a plot device to a degree, but that's because of his relatively-unique nature. He's created by humans, and was created to be powerful and ultimately backfired on its creators. It's treated more like someone's experimental weapon that got out and was finally contained than a living myth.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I really don't like the fandom's idea of a legendary pantheon, which I see in fanfics sometimes. Why?
- Every region is supposed to have its own mythology; trying to tie everything together just overstuffs the mythos.

Your other points were touched upon in previous posts, but this one simply seems to sweep the idea of diversity under the rug. I agree that tying everything together is an insanely difficult feat and a very unrealistic one at that, but overlapping mythology and having similar roles associated with different legendaries isn't implausible. This is a world where traveling is a well-established part of society. No doubt that each region has an excessive amount of immigrants and trainers who are initially tourists but end up becoming permanent residents, and naturally, these people bring with them their own culture's mythologies and other cultural aspects. It seems inevitable that, over time, mythologies and other cultural aspects intertwine in some way.