POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

[TRNatalie]

It's alright if you like the movie btw.

 

[BackSet]

Never seen it. Just trying to come up with reasons and alternatives. I like to cover all the bases.

 

[TRNatalie]

I understand that.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

The only fanfic I've read substantially that references Pokémon Ranger is this My Little Pony crossover... and it has one of the worst cases of Ron the Death Eater I've ever seen, because all of the rangers are strawmen so the author can preach about Poképhilia. Yes, really. Hastings is the closest thing that meandering, overstuffed story has to an antagonist.

 

[Juliko]

Yeesh. Sounds like a weird fan fic. I don't remember too much about Hastings in the Pokemon Ranger games, but I do remember him being a mostly decent guy, and aren't Pokemon Rangers supposed to be the good guys?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

The rangers didn't really do canon ranger things in that fanfic or any of its derivatives, like helping out natural disaster victims. I tried to do that with Keith in a spinoff I wrote myself (which completely ignored the Poképhilia aspect), but I got bored of writing it, and quit the site it was on because I realised it was full of jerks.

 

[BackSet]

I've always wanted to do something with the Rangers but I can never find a place to fit them into my stories.

 

[KrspaceT]

There is a fanfic that does feature Rangers, a group of fics called the Resetverse centered around the fic 'Pokemon: Reset Bloodlines'

They are just a part of a lot of things it tackles (From things that sound good at the surface to things that are normally a turn off but are easy to ignore and are handled fairly well as the fic goes on), though the Rangers are specifically played as a bit of the Pokemon equivalent of the Warsaw Pact. Not in brutality and harshness, but in how they conflict with the 'Trainer Nations' and have laws about gender based abortions.

Also Wicke is from Fiorre in the verse.

Spoiler: Things Reset has that might bug you

It has Harem as a tag. 28 chapters in such a status is still developing but it is there

There are polygamous characters

The fic takes a bit to really find its flow. A change in who is betaing is a bit noticeable a bit into the fic

It is a Peggy Sue fic, though the world Ash goes back to is different from the regular canon one

The chapters can take a while to come out

Some spelling errors

It is a super fic, though like the Harem bit it is part of the story but not an all encompasing bit of it

 

[Juliko]

Oh! Here's a cliche I've often noticed: made-up Pokemon!

 

[BackSet]

Oh! Here's a cliche I've often noticed: made-up Pokemon!

That's not always a bad thing but many people can't get it to work properly. Especially when they make up a Pokemon specifically to be the protagonists partner and make it either really iverpowered or a blatant pikachu clone.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I don't mind fakemon if they've got a decent, unique role in the story, though I must prefer them in art form and whatnot. Something I've seen a bit more often recently in fic form versus art form that I enjoy are regional variants of existing 'mons - no doubt inspired by Alolan forms, but interesting nonetheless. @Agenda uses these in her most recent work and so does Cutlerine, another favorite pokemon author of mine. It's just another way to bring the world to life naturally.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@diamondpearl876 What fanfic has Agenda written?

 

[Persephone]

@diamondpearl876 What fanfic has Agenda written?

Iterations.

I'm not sure new mons as a whole is a cliche? Like, for me I find "cliche" to be something I heavily associate with dime a dozen on ff.net stories or things that imitate other fiction instead of real life.

If there is a cliche with fakemons it's essentially just "the protagonist has one, it's very rare and strong, their starter, and no one else has one." Of course, there are good ways of handling it. But when I see it I get flashbacks to far too many mediocre things over years of reading and will probably put it down unless the story's otherwise managed to convince me to stay at that point.

In Iterations, the fakemons and regional variants are there to establish that a character is a global wanderer and it's probable other characters get some of their own down the line. I also use them to help establish that, even though the story takes place in Sinnoh, at the end of the day it's just one island in a massive world.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I would agree with that. I mean, I've made oblique references to fakemons as well - in Into The Wild in The Long Walk, and a couple of times in upcoming chapters of Kanto: There and Back Again - but neither really fit into the fakemon cliché. Much like Agenda's usage, the point is to show that it's a big old world out there

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@Agenda I discovered Iterations shortly after making that post, but I didn't read it because it's mature.

I once read a fanfic with fakemons in it where I honestly couldn't get a good idea of what any of them looked like, and they were all introduced in one "as you know" exposition dump.

 

[Persephone]

Infodumping is a terrible way of handling it. And I generally think they should have profiles available to raiders as they read.

Iterations is mostly nihilism with an unwavering barrage of swearing. But I know when I started writing that would've sounded like something I would've steered way clear of. So take that for what you will.

 

[AceTrainer14]

One issue I have with Fakemons is when the new creation is either something pretty much similar to a Pokemon that already exists, or is basically a mythical creature from our world they decided to throw into a Pokemon story. I think the only way to make fakemon work is to make them entirely original and have enough to sustain your average Pokemon-story cast. Having just one or two makes them into cliches, really: as Agenda said, one the protagonist has that is super strong, and having another as a rival/villain just turns your story into a bad Marvel movie.

 

[CrystaI]

Reading the recent new thread in the Written Word section, I just realized a world-building cliche often appears in Pokemon fanfic.

Pokemon League is the government or the most authoritative governing body in the Pokemon World where they are the ones who set up the laws and civil rules of the communities, and they are the only one involved in civil legislation.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't recall any official materials from whichever canon that had ever stated or even implied or at the very least mildly hinted that the association which holds the Pokemon League or any battle conference consist of any political power or being involved in any political affairs of a region or a country.
The only borderline case I could think of is during the RS chapter in the Pokemon Special manga, the Pokemon Association activated the giant airship and helped in evacuating the civilians during the climate crisis of Hoenn region, and directed the gym leaders to battle TM/TA. But, to be bluntly honest, what does those activities have anything to do with politics? In Real-Life, many large NPOs/NGOs like Red Cross Society and WHO will also help the suffering local civilians when natural disasters happened.

It is kind of a pet peeve of mine seeing so many people politicize the Pokemon League and the battle culture of the Pokemon World.

 

[BackSet]

Reading the recent new thread in the Written Word section, I just realized a world-building cliche often appears in Pokemon fanfic.

Pokemon League is the government or the most authoritative governing body in the Pokemon World where they are the ones who set up the laws and civil rules of the communities, and they are the only one involved in civil legislation.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't recall any official materials from whichever canon that had ever stated or even implied or at the very least mildly hinted that the association which holds the Pokemon League or any battle conference consist of any political power or being involved in any political affairs of a region or a country.
The only borderline case I could think of is during the RS chapter in the Pokemon Special manga, the Pokemon Association activated the giant airship and helped in evacuating the civilians during the climate crisis of Hoenn region, and directed the gym leaders to battle TM/TA. But, to be bluntly honest, what does those activities have anything to do with politics? In Real-Life, many large NPOs/NGOs like Red Cross Society and WHO will also help the suffering local civilians when natural disasters happened.

It is kind of a pet peeve of mine seeing so many people politicize the Pokemon League and the battle culture of the Pokemon World.

I suppose people would rather take something that exists and turn it into a government than make up their own.

I have to admit that I'm guilty of this myself but in my version the Pokemon league tournament and battling stuff are kept separate from the politics. Pokemon battling is a stupid way to choose members of a government system. The only reason that trainers are allowed to battle the league and he gym leaders is because the league finds it fun and to encourage more people to train Pokemon. My version also has the ranger Union as a government as well but it has much tighter laws than the Pokemon league.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I'm sorry, but I couldn't recall any official materials from whichever canon that had ever stated or even implied or at the very least mildly hinted that the association which holds the Pokemon League or any battle conference consist of any political power or being involved in any political affairs of a region or a country.

This is why it is called fan fiction, so people can do things that are not necessarily based within canon.