Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[CrystaI]

The Writers Workshop had finally fall victim to scam posts!

Even we exchanged the entire forum system, we still cannot prevent the scambot bombardment.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@Crystal Have the adbots all been removed? I haven't seen any here.
Also, you mentioned on the clichés thread once that you didn't like game mechanics being taken as in-universe fact. A well-known fanfic author also has that mindset.

In other news, the spellcheck on Google Drive recognises Pokémon names.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think I discussed somewhere (I forget where, it might have been in General Discussion) the reliability of the games as canon evidence. It more or less boils down to this - you have to draw the line somewhere. Aside from taking evidence literally to ridiculous extremes, you also run into the problem that, being games, there's an awful lot of missing worldbuilding. "Where does all that metal come from - we never see a foundry!" etc. That being said, you can easily take this mindset to simply ignore evidence you don't like. So when it comes to arguing over the canon I don't think there's a simple answer

 

[CrystaI]

Thank goodness the mod are so swift in noticing the enemy's scam ad attacks, and fending it off immediately before more damage is done. We are alive!!! ~\(^o^)/~
But, the enemy is still lurking around nearby, as we received information the other section of our base experienced invasion. We must be cautious because the enemy may possibly preparing another range of attacks
Hey, we abandoned our previous base and moved to this new one, the enemy shouldn't noticed our new hideout. Who was the spy that leaks our info out to the foe?


@Nitro Indigo
Yeah I did declared previously that I don't like literal adaption of game mechanics into fanfic, and I still hold onto that mindset.

Because first thing first, game design was supposed to imitate the Real-World physics. For example in reality throwing a ball makes a projectile line, that's why in action games it was programmed to make a ball goes in projectile lines if threw. In reality if a car is bumped onto the roadside it will be severely damaged even if not it should stop immediately or slow down due to Newton's Second Law of Motion, that's why in racing games it was programmed to have damage effect even if not the car shouldn't penetrate through the wall and come out on another side of the road.
In reality human have all sorts of attributes that makes up the current physical status of a respective person, where that includes things like stamina and power and intelligence etc, and with nowadays medical science such things are deemed to be measurable and quantifiable in terms of fat density and muscle tissue flexibility and spirometric calibration etc, for intelligence there is the IQ and academic records and many other performance measurement. In a RPG game that wants to imitate the attributes of a human being, to be fair it will be very difficult and volume-wasting if insert all of these numbers, that's why there invented the Simplified Attribute and Level system where now it is adapted by most RPG game, in order to imitate the quantifiable physical attributes of a human being and the phenomenon of increment of such attributes by continuous training and learning.

We have ATK to represents the attack power of a character, where in reality it should be the combination of strength and stamina of that person. We had DEF to represents the defense power of a character where in reality it should be the muscle strength and endurance of that person. We have SPD to represents the speed of a character, where in reality it should be the running velocity and agility also nimbleness and possibly reaction rapidity of that person. I'm just giving a few examples here, I could give a full laundry list if I goes on, so I'll just stop for now.

My point that I wanted to established in here is that, when a game where it is restricted by technology limitation and computation rules of everything is numerical calculation hence it can only imitate the Real-World physics limitedly and conditionally, why should a fanfic where it is not restricted by technology limitation and computation rules restrict itself like a game did? More of a problem behind that is that, game system already technologically limited the producers in how much information they can insert, so there will never ever be a game that can fully simulates Real-Life 100%, not even the fictional game Sword Art Online as like it portrayed in its anime/novel. Just like mentioned by Beth Pavell, there are a whole lot of missing worldbuilding, so if one is going to intake only the information provided by the game but completely refuse outside information that is not directly provided within the game (Such as Beth Pavell's very good counterquestion of metals and foundry), you will never establish a realistically plausible world that can suspense the disbelief of reader/audience.

I'm writing a fanfic set in the fictional world featured in a game where it has its own realistic physics, I'm not writing a fanfic of the game itself. There is a difference.


P.S. I don't think I'm in the same thinking as that fanfic writer you mentioned, because I don't "use game mechanics as filler" nor "adding story to game mechanics". What I do is, deconstruct the game mechanics into fundamental rules that is free of computation restriction, reconstruct it again with plausible realistic logic, incorporate it into the worldbuilding, and use such refined worldbuilding for the entire course of the story, not just filler.

 

[canisaries]

trying to figure out pokemon anatomy only to realize how absolutely nothing makes sense halfway through sure is fun and not at all soulcrushing
in other news i know a whole bunch of completely useless info on squids nowadays

also someone in another community linked me this site and in case it isn't already linked here somewhere and i've just missed it, it's pretty cool

 

[Beth Pavell]

To be fair, Pokémon is one of those fantasy worlds that works better with verisimilitude rather than hard science, so to speak. Overexplaining the fantasy usually ends up sounding sillier than the fantasy was in the first place

 

[canisaries]

but muh anatomy

yes i'm one of those people

 

[Nitro Indigo]

To be fair, Pokémon is one of those fantasy worlds that works better with verisimilitude rather than hard science, so to speak. Overexplaining the fantasy usually ends up sounding sillier than the fantasy was in the first place

Reminds me of when I posted a paragraph of Oksa Pollock I found narmy on this thread.

@canisaries I once saw a series of realistic fanart that re-imagined some of the more implausible Pokémon, like Froslass being a bug. Hey, it made more sense than MatPat's Cars theory.

 

[canisaries]

i know a lot of artists who do realistic pokemon, like arvalis. they often have to take creative freedom since they like to think about pokemon as parts of ecosystems, which is pretty cool.

 

[Beth Pavell]

arvalis is one of the better ones, certainly. He tends to think more about, well, anatomy as opposed to merely making pokémon look spikier

 

[canisaries]

i myself try to draw pokemon kind of semi-realistically (to fit with the style i draw my humans) but occasionally i'll try to draw stuff more realistically... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. (though in my defense, that one is pretty old by now)
of course the there are the mon that just don't carry over to reality that well unless you take away their cartoony features completely, and that can end up taking any cuteness away. i'm mainly thinking omanyte, but then again i just realized it could just look like this:

Spoiler: stubby squid

 

[Nitro Indigo]

It was arvalis who drew the bug-Froslass. And also a bug-Giratina.

In other news, I have a problem where I have so many ideas for a story that I get frustrated that I can't find a way to put some in. Thanks to reading Mighty ANT's Cars fanfics too much and thinking too hard about them, I currently feel like writing a "belittled giant"; a huge and intimidating character with low self-esteem.

 

[Beth Pavell]

@canisaries To be fair, with Omanyte all it really does is bring the eyes forward and give them cuter pupils, and flip round the orientation of the shell. I suppose it helps that you don't see the kind of flabbiness octopi octopusses octopodes fuck it, octopus have

 

[canisaries]

there's also the sad fact of ammonites being long dead and having no photo reference to look at fffhhh

closest relative is a nautilus which is probably the hardest of all cephalopods to draw

 

[Misfit Angel]

trying to figure out pokemon anatomy only to realize how absolutely nothing makes sense halfway through

First example, Snivy's law-breaking, 2-dimensional legs. I've not actually played the recent games where they made the full jump to 3D so they might have fixed that since then but that always bugged the crap out of me when I tried to visualize what his legs should look like.

 

[Beth Pavell]

First example, Snivy's law-breaking, 2-dimensional legs. I've not actually played the recent games where they made the full jump to 3D so they might have fixed that since then but that always bugged the crap out of me when I tried to visualize what his legs should look like.

I'm not a huge fan of Salamence's ridiculous axe-shaped wings, either. The anime didn't know what to do with them - Salamence ends up just floating through the air at whatever speed's required to be predictably oresum

 

[diamondpearl876]

First example, Snivy's law-breaking, 2-dimensional legs. I've not actually played the recent games where they made the full jump to 3D so they might have fixed that since then but that always bugged the crap out of me when I tried to visualize what his legs should look like.

So that's why all my snivy merch is never able to stand up without a prop...? It more or less looks like they just turned snivy's legs into pegs for merch and future game purposes.

 

[canisaries]

bulbapedia mentions the florida sand skink as one of its inspirations, and looking at its legs, it's clear to see why:

Spoiler: image

given how the snivy family becomes more serpentine as it evolves, it's most likely based on how snakes evolved from lizards. so it'd make sense for it to go from standing to slithering, to empasize the transition. and all the starter first forms (save for poor popplio) have been able to walk around and skitter adorably, so it might have also partly been a marketing kind of choice.

though servine having more developed legs than snivy kind of fights against the point.

anyway here's some realistic art people have done. kind of missing the point of "realistic" by giving them huge beefy legs or just legs that are clearly not vestigial, but i'm not sure if florida sand skink legs is something i wanna see either.

Spoiler: google screencap

 

[CrystaI]

I always wonder, can't there be a balance between the cutesy Anime-style and cool-looking Realistic-style in the Pokemon illustrations?

Personally, I really don't like those so-called "Realistic" Pokemon arts I found in Devianart. In the sliding scale of 1-10 of from 1 being outright cartoonish to 10 being so realistic like a photo, I would say Ken Sugimori's official art is at 2, and those in Devianart is...... +20. Because more than just being "realistic", they grotesque-fy the pokemon to Eldritch Abomination like those monster can often find in Monster Hunter or may be the aliens in Contra or Gradius series.

One can draw realistic Pokemon arts without grotesque-fy them . I hope for those Pokemon arts on the scale of 6-8, but not anything beyond 10 by adding in things that were unnecessary nor distort their cutesy atmosphere they originally had.

What kind of Pokemon art do I want? Well this will be an example:

Spoiler: Pikachu, draw by myself. No I'm not lying, it is indeed drawn by myself.

I'm still not completely satisfy with the overall quality. I planned in refine it better. But will do so sometime in the future when my artist whim came......

 

[AceTrainer14]

I agree that the 'realistic' Pokemon are kind of weird and gross to look at. I feel like the Pokemon in their current state are 'realistic' Pokemon, because, well, that's how they are. They may not make any sense in our world or look like our animals, but they don't really have to. They can be grounded in some reality, but I find the obsession some fans have with trying to make them like our animals as much as possible a bit much. Things are allowed to be a bit fantastical.