POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

[Drakon]

Y'all know what I'm talking about, the cliches that always appear in Pokémon fics.

So what are some that y'all can name?

1.) Eevee as a starter
2.) Getting attacked by a wild pokémon as the first step.
3.) Starter immediately hates/loves them.
4.) Meeting/befriending a Legendary on the first day of their journey.

 

[LightningTopaz]

5. Characters that are exact carbon copies of Ash and co.
6. The existing character's kids
7. Being "the chosen one", if you will.
8. Battles that sounded like they walked out of the games or the show

 

[kintsugi]

[Should these be the same thread or something?]

Debate about whether or not we can use the term cliche or not, I love doing these. XD

9. Professor is all out of at least one species of pokemon and has to give some other pokemon to the hero (which s/he will inevitably still like) (bonus points if this dearth is caused by waking up late)
10. Asshole rival
11. Father, what father?
12. Never failing to catch whatever pokemon that is supposed to be caught

 

[SquishyFace]

13. Eeveelutions... Eeveelutions everywhere
14. Too much shipping

 

[LightningTopaz]

15. Sob stories for a backstory
16. Winning a major tournament without so much as breaking a sweat (extra points if done on the very first try)

 

[AetherX]

17. Waking up late on first day of journey
18. Ash's father. Just in general.

 

[LightningTopaz]

19. The evil team is a carbon copy of an existing evil team (extra points for a Rocket-like motto)

 

[kintsugi]

20. Supposedly ten year-old kid is absurdly mature and generally doesn't act his age in the slightest
21. Girl does contests, guy does gyms
22. Stealing awesome quotes from other fandom s (like, I just read one that stole word for word from one of Ten's speeches from Doctor Who, down to the bemused apology for quoting The Lion King, and urgggghhhhh)
23. Evil teams are evil for the evilulz and nothing else
24. Canon character falls madly in love with OC

 

[Almonds]

25. A Spoiled brat for the rival
26. Lucario over-use

 

[CrystaI]

So, my current fic hit on the no.26. Well, I admitted my Lucario of my protagonist was surely somehow overused, but is it such a bad thing? Especially when it is his ace attacker in his team.


Well, I'll add one more:
27. Carbon copy of Ash's Pikachu, which hate to stay inside its Pokeball, always stay on the trainer's shoulder.

Sidenote: Again, in my current fic, my protagonist also have a Pikachu, but rather than Ash's Pikachu, it is more like Special!Red's Pikachu, fine inside its Pokeball, don't appear for no reason. So, just a regular Pokemon. Is this a bad thing?

 

[Silverwynde]

28. All Ghosts/Dark types are sinister and utterly evil and are always used by the villainous team.

 

[kintsugi]

Honestly, I'm in the camp that cliches aren't bad so much as common. I've seen plenty of awful fics that have used them, but I've also seen plenty of good fics that pulled them off in original manners. It's all in the writing in the end, I think?

On that note,

29. Starter pokemon is either loyal-to-the-ends-of-the-earth or a complete, disobedient jerk (bonus points if it gets over its initial distrust through the Ash Ketchum spearow method)
30. Main Hero OC goes off, meets Secondary Main Hero OC Of The Opposite Gender in episode two, and the two are in a romantic relationship by the end of, say, chapter forty

 

[LightningTopaz]

31. Gym Leader #1 is a carbon copy of Brock, right down to cooking skill and going googoo for the opposite gender
32. Gym Leader #1 joins the party in a manner similar to how Brock joined the party in Kanto
33. The party consists of two guys and a girl
34. Main Guy and Token Girl argue about the stupidest things

 

[Squeaky the sixth]

So Basically they Copy Season 1 Anime and the games?

 

[Stratelier]

I think we can safely define "cliche" as a combination of "gets used all the time by writers" AND "often executed poorly by writers", which is what gives it the bad rep. After all, nobody gets tired of anything done well....

 

[LightningTopaz]

In addition, if you take a cliche and do something new or unexpected with it, it is by definition no longer cliche.

 

[Flaze]

I agree with you Topaz, I always believed that one shouldn't run away from cliches, but rather try to improve them. Everything comes from improving something that's been done before, that's how we got iphones and androids that came from large brick like phones back in the 80s, the same applies here, you can use something that's been done before as long as you give it a whole new spin, that's where things like deconstruction or inversion came from.

 

[Squeaky the sixth]

To add a sort of relevant thing, ideas are everywhere, it is the execution that counts.

 

[SquishyFace]

Honestly, some of my best characters are made from re-imagined cliches. One of them is an orphan, so of course, an orphanage was your typical idea. But I decided to change them into a foster kid instead so that I won't repeat the "Little Orphan Annie" cliche.

Also, this is a pretty general cliche that annoys the hell out of me. I hate it when a villain laughs at the hero's pain, it's just so overused. It's like they're saying, "I'm laughing at your pain, so I'm sadistic and therefore that makes me evil!". It especially bothers me when the villain is some satan-like god monster who laughs out of evilness. I'm okay if it's a more comical and cartoon-ish villain laughing, but not if it's a remake of Satan!

 

[LightningTopaz]

To be honest, Aika, my evil team leader in "Pokemon: The Song of Jewels" is loosely based on Jafar from Disney's Aladdin--who has a very distinct evil laugh that Aika can and will channel on a few occasions. But one thing she won't laugh at is Brock, Wendy, and Hibiki in pain--she'd prefer to taunt them and rattle off the advantages (perceived and actual) she has over them at that point.