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POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

Prose fiction is subjective, and I am not the arbiter of "right and wrong" in writing.

Still, my opinion here is that it's about the rest of the execution. Your ptoagonist gets a shiny out of dumb luck - that's fine. Is this the only shiny in the whole fic? Do they get treated as if they're really cool for it, or are people envious and bitter about it, or is it just not considered a big deal because shinies aren't any better than non-shinies really? Do they fawn over the shiny for the shinyness, or not really give a damn? And so on. I hope you can tell what I'm going for here.

It's not really an idea that's relevant to my own writing, since my personal canon just has variants and breeds and subspecies and whatnot and shinyness sort of becomes insignificant.
In my fic, the characters really don't give a damn about the protagonist's shiny Glaceon, to them it's a Glaceon nonetheless no matter the color scheme
 
Well, about this whole shiny talk… Barbara, my main character of Delta Dossiers, has been turned into a shiny Zorua. However, this doesn’t have any impact on the story. She isn’t any different from a regular Zorua skills-wise (at least at first), and she has become a shiny just because she as a human has “rare” colors: red hair with green eyes, one of the rarest combinations. The PMD world simply reflected that.

Some characters comment that “brown Zoruas” are an uncommon sight, but shinies are actually far more common in my story than in the games and are nothing more than color swaps, without any particular attribute to them.
 
There's another fanfic I've read where a regular Zorua/ark disguises herself as a shiny one, because she's a phantom theif.
 
I don't think I've put any shinies in my fics yet, but I have had morphological variants (inkay with serrated tentacles and three-pronged head fin, breloom with a darker color scheme and glowing puffballs at the end of his tail, bronze-furred ninetales). If I did feature shinies, though, I'd have them as rarer color variants (like melanistic, piebald etc) or, if the shiny isn't very distinct from the original (looking at you, garchomp), it could have a special texture instead, such as having curly fur or abnormal scale shapes/sizes or having no hair at all.

If you try to have mon function more or less like real animals biologically, though (which is what I do, and probably shouldn't have done in hindsight), it's kind of odd to have totally separate and unrelated species all have one distinct "special" form. It'd make more sense to have several "shinies" and prrrobably not always call them "shiny" either, as it isn't exactly descriptive unless the specialty of the form is precisely having a shiny appearance with i.e. smooth fur or iridescent scales.

Of course, if you want to make shininess have more to it, it could be tied to a medical condition. We all know that pugs' strange appearance causes them major breathing problems, and as a less known example, the "spider" ball python morph is known to be correlated with major neurological problems related to the snake's sense of balance. If you do take this route, though, you should do it respectfully and research the disorder beforehand so you it doesn't look like you're just exploiting something for a gimmick.
 
Rising Hopping in on the shiny discussion over something I'm planning for a fic down the line outside of the two I'm currently working on, which I'll share a little bit of the plans for.

The main character of this currently unnamed fic (which will be an original region of my creation) has a shiny Espeon she caught as an Eevee when she was young. With shiny Pokémon in the story, each have multiple variants for their colors but there are "true" shiny Pokémon which are their normal game Shinies. Much like what unrepentantAuthor brought up, the Pokémon was attempted to poach due to their shiny status and as well also being a rare female Eevee for breeding purposes in chance of getting more shiny Eevees. The Eevee by chance landed in my main character and her mother's backyard, and she brought her to a nearby Center. While being Shiny, that's all that is unique about it; while the Pokémon is okay and mentally stable by the time of the story, it still suffers from trauma from the poaching attempt in certain situations.

I think a possible reason why Shinies are always portrayed as stronger than normal Pokémon is because of certain episodes of the anime. With the exception of Ash's Noctowl, there's always something that when there is a shiny Pokémon is seen in the anime they are usually stronger or is seen defeating main characters. with the shiny Metagross in a Team Rocket focus episode of the Diamond and Pearl anime coming to mind for me.

Another possible explanation is from the Red Gyarados from Gen II, as it was scaring away people and tipping over boats. It could of given this impression of a powerful Pokémon, as no one, implied by us arriving to the Lake of Rage and it still being there when we arrive that no one has been able to defeat or capture it until we arrive.

But those are just my two cents into this.
 
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Ash's noctowl is extraordinarily powerful for its species. Noctowl are a fairly mediocre pokémon, but his is formidable.

It just happened to be a Original series bird, which were always poorly utilized. Say what you will about Rowlet, but Rowlet was better treated than Pidgeotto and probably better than Noctowl and Unfeazant.

(Swellow still the most badass bird)
 
I'm leaning back and forth on making a Meowth in my current planned story a shiny. Although he's not actually a very good fighter (it's sort of Mystery Dungeon verse) so that element is absent. It's actually more to emphasize that his appearance, as he's supposed to be considered beautiful by other Pokémon.
*
Winona's shiny Swellow seemed to avoid the "shiny is stronger" element, since it lost to Ash's non-shiny Swellow despite having more powerful moves. I think it was portrayed as faster, but it wasn't a ludicrous tank like Ash's and lost out in the end.

(Swellow still the most badass bird)
(y)
Him and Glalie saved Ash from Katie. Really hope he gets another good battle at some point after his last one was just to get wrecked by Trollbias.
 
Here's a common one: Using the japanese names for characters (especially Ash) and places instead of their english ones.

It's not bad, per se, but as someone who grew up always knowing them by their english names it jars me, despite the fact that I should have acclimated to that kind of stuff by now.
 
Here's a common one: Using the japanese names for characters (especially Ash) and places instead of their english ones.

It's not bad, per se, but as someone who grew up always knowing them by their english names it jars me, despite the fact that I should have acclimated to that kind of stuff by now.
Eh, I consider using the Japanese names for characters, places, and Pokemon the equivalent of using -e^(πi) to refer to 1. It oftentimes comes across as gatekeeping and a little pretentious in my opinion.
 
Eh, I consider using the Japanese names for characters, places, and Pokemon the equivalent of using -e^(πi) to refer to 1. It oftentimes comes across as gatekeeping and a little pretentious in my opinion.
Man, I know what that's supposed to mean. It's supposed to be some sort of technical or original version to say the number 1. But at the same time I can't wrap my head around it at all and it confuses me and I don't understand.
 
Man, I know what that's supposed to mean. It's supposed to be some sort of technical or original version to say the number 1. But at the same time I can't wrap my head around it at all and it confuses me and I don't understand.
e^(i x) is equal to cos(x) + i*sin(x). i is just radical -1.

-e^(i π) is -(cos(π) + i*sin(π)) which is -(-1) or just 1 as cos(π) is -1 while sin(π) is zero.

Just like with the Japanese names, using -e^(i π) just confuses people and makes it harder for some to understand what you wrote.
 
e^(i x) is equal to cos(x) + i*sin(x). i is just radical -1.

-e^(i π) is -(cos(π) + i*sin(π)) which is -(-1) or just 1 as cos(π) is -1 while sin(π) is zero.

Just like with the Japanese names, using -e^(i π) just confuses people and makes it harder for some to understand what you wrote.

I'd say this largely depends on the franchise. For stuff like the Pokémon Games, I think a lot more people know of the English names than of the Japanese names (I, myself am included in this, despite the fact I use Japanese names for stuff like animes). For franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh! I always use Japanese names because I find more people familiar with them cause most people watch the Japanese version because of various problems with the dubs as far as availability and receivement goes.
 
Here's a common one: Using the japanese names for characters (especially Ash) and places instead of their english ones.

It's not bad, per se, but as someone who grew up always knowing them by their english names it jars me, despite the fact that I should have acclimated to that kind of stuff by now.

I'd almost be fine with that, if it was made to be the most accurate thing possible: example Satoshi, Citron, and Cilan (AKA Kalos characters use their French names, Gen 1-4 Japanese, etc)

...But that would probably require a end of chapter name repiository for the readers.
 
Yeah, the only reason I know Satoshi is because it's the most common name for dark pokemon fics like betrayal fics or whatever. Ash dissapears for a few years and then this guy named Satoshi who totally isn't Ash shows up for revenge.
 
Yeah, the only reason I know Satoshi is because it's the most common name for dark pokemon fics like betrayal fics or whatever. Ash dissapears for a few years and then this guy named Satoshi who totally isn't Ash shows up for revenge.

It's the equiv of 'Namikaze Naruto' or something like that. Oddly I don't see as much 'Harry Evans'....
 
Here's a cliche. Dark-type pokemon or trainers of dark-type pokemon who are so moody and sinister and they did BAD THINGS and may or may not FEEL BAD ABOUT IT

Jeez

I've got half a dozen dark-type morphs in DE who are unlike this trope jsut to give myself the breath of fresh air I badly need
 
It doesn't really help that gamefreak kind of promotes this idea. Most dark types aren't nice (understatement) according to the pokedex entries, are based off some pretty sinsiter things like gangs and stuff, and it's called the evil type in Japan. Not to mention most evil teams use primarily dark type poke on.

Man, poor Piers. Dude must have to put up with so much prejudice.
 
Not sure if this is a cliche or not. Probably it’s an overused trope more than anything, but here it is: Legendary Pokémon being some kind of big group and having meetings and conferences from time to time, as if they were some international leaders.

They are usually portrayed in the games as forces of nature, territorial beings capable of flooding continents or summoning everlasting storms and who fight for supremacy or are forced into a deep slumber to keep their immense powers at bay, and to simply have them just meeting up like simple businessmen is… simply bizarre in my eyes.
 
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