POPULAR: Plot Bunny Zoo

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

In Explorers of Destruction, I want Lopunny to defeat Ku, but I don't know which option is best: straight dropkicking him through the cave, or giving him the good ol' knee to his stomach Captain Falcon style

 

[Misfit Angel]

So I had a relatively amusing idea for a sci-fi story:

The story follows the travels of a cargo freighter as they try to avoid a trade authority. They venture into an uncharted nebula in an attempt to conceal themselves. And then the story ends abruptly, right in the middle of a sentence.

The back cover simply reads, "It was a black hole that did it."

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Sounds hilarious. Probably it would be very frustrating to read, since it is pretty much a troll ending, but hey, it's a good troll ending. Which is an important difference. (Sorry for the short reply, not got much time on my hands right now, and this isn't really what I'm meant to be using it for anyway).

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

After I'm finished with Explorers of Destruction, I was thinking of continuing more on Desolate Lands. I finally decided to model the setting after Dust Bowl-era North America. But for some reason, I keep thinking of everyone's voices in some sort of Louisiana/Mississippi accent. Even Lugia, who's pretty much camping right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is a Cajun princess.

 

[Lugion]

I wouldn't worry too much about that until you get there, man. Just focus on finishing what you're working on now.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I mentioned a few weeks back in the General Chat/GWQ how I wanted to do a prequel story for Arnold Adiem, a recurring character from the GVerse whose had influence over a number of events. I want to start planning it, but I was just wanting some thoughts. I am thinking of covering three different timelines in the story, and was wondering if that might be too much. The idea would be to arrange them a bit out of order/disjointedly, with the possibility that some of the timelines will cross over.

Currently, the three timelines are:
- 1945 (might move to the 50s to accomodate his age better): the story of how Arnold got the Lustrous and Adamant Orbs
- Late 60s/early 70s: an event based in Kalos that tells how he got the encyclopedia from Dawn of Darkness
- 1995/6: the events leading up to the Fall of Kalos and how Arnold became involved
It could be told either as an Act I/II/III situation, or have each chapter tell a different part chronologically from each timeline, but I'm hoping to make it more thematic and interesting and try something new, especially as I have never had an unreliable narrator before. I have a clear enough idea of the events of the first and third timelines (first takes place across only a few days, while the second will extend that, and then the third is set over several weeks), second still needs work. I'm just wondering if the idea sounds do-able/interesting to anyone.

 

[Lugion]

It sounds interesting enough, although I'm only vaguely familiar with the Galacticverse. I would personally go for the three act structure, although Gastly's Mama did the alternation structure with Dragon Days and that worked pretty well as I recall.

 

[Beth Pavell]

The unreliable narrator is a balance between mystery and cohesion, I think. I would be wary of trying to jump between three timelines even without that. It's a lot for the reader to take in, and I suspect it would end up causing more problems than it's worth. As I see it, it would be best done in one of two ways. One, run two timelines simultaneously - logically the 40s and the 70s - culminating in the 90s for Act III. Two, run all three together, with each chapter in any given decade being rather meaty (To the tune of around 5-6,000 words, perhaps), using short vignettes from the present day of Arnold introducing the coming flashback as the narrator.

 

[AceTrainer14]

As I see it, it would be best done in one of two ways. One, run two timelines simultaneously - logically the 40s and the 70s - culminating in the 90s for Act III. Two, run all three together, with each chapter in any given decade being rather meaty (To the tune of around 5-6,000 words, perhaps), using short vignettes from the present day of Arnold introducing the coming flashback as the narrator.

It wouldn't really work for what I have planned to only do two of the timelines at once, and I am too attached to a certain idea to really split the timelines up too much. The most would be your suggestion and have the chapters be solely one timeline each, but then have them take place out of order.
I think I'd rather avoid having the 'present day' Arnold (which would be New Year's Eve 2009) involved in the flashbacks too much. I am contemplating having 2009 Arnold narrating it first-person, or perhaps some kind of mix of first and third - possibly similar to what you suggested, with his thoughts interrupting the story/setting the scene as he goes down memory road, questioning his actions. It is quite a tricky idea I have, and I would have to plan the story in great depth before writing a single word.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

All right, I'm still undecided, so I guess I'll just ask directly: what game would you guys rather see a nuzlocke fic of, Platinum or Black (/potentially sequel with B2)?

Pros of Platinum:
- good story
- threatening villains
- decent amount of pokémon variety
- a good balance of potential for character exploration vs. action

Cons of Platinum:
- story starts off SUPER slowly
- gonna have to get technical regarding some of the rules and how they apply (ie how I'm gonna handle eggs and splitting mt. coronet into interior, exterior, and spear pillar)
- probably gonna have LOTS of deaths

Pros of Black:
- lots of potential variety with the pokémon selection
- excellent foundation for the story with a ton of possibilities and depth to explore
- overall a pretty quick region, so there's less possibility of the story bogging down
- in-story potential to bring back being able to understand pokémon speech and develop them as characters as well

Cons of Black:
- Ghetsis
- I'll probably still end up without a dozen Tranquil and/or Boldore
- might be too much of an imbalance between character focus and action until late game

 

[AceTrainer14]

@Feliciano: I think that of the two, Black would have more story-telling potential. The Sinnoh games don't really have much story until about halfway through, and while the Distortion World would be great to explore, I still find the dynamic of Pokemon and their role in the world would be more interesting to explore. Really, the choice for the story shouldn't be on the games themselves but the story you actually want to tell. Having the Pokemon die if they faint isn't enough to really make a story interesting as it's been done so many times. You mentioned in the General Chat about about how Myths of Unova has already done the BW games very well. That's because Ky-nim added her own touches and changed the storyline up to make it more interesting and addictive. You should look at both games and think of what you would do with the characters in the respective regions and see which story would be more dynamic (and preferably new/original) to tell.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

@AceTrainer14 Whoops. Should've figured that'd go here, sorry. I forgot that kind of thing isn't for the general chat anymore.

 

[Beth Pavell]

What tends to put me off stories along the lines of the game rewrite is that they tend to cleave so very much to what's in the game. The story is what you make of it - just because the funny costumes don't show up until relatively late in the game doesn't mean that you have to resign yourself to filler. It might force you to take your character seriously and lay some proper groundwork to give the later conflicts emotional context.

For that reason I would look at it as writing a journeyfic with plot points adapted from the games rather than as a game novelisation. If it were me I think I'd probably choose Platinum rather than Black, if only because the "talking to pokémon" thing has been really done to death by now. There's more space for playing around with the canon antagonists as well.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

@Beth Pavell I would be following the basics of the stories in the game, but I like to think I do an okay job of taking an established story and making it my own - Heart of Crystal basically was what you describe, a journeyfic that followed the basic plot of the game, but with the added elements of the nuzlocke aspect and a lot of emphasis on individual characters. A lot of people really liked that I had my protagonist be able to understand her pokémon because it meant I could develop them more deeply as individual characters, and if I were to go that route, that's how I'd do it - not "these pokémon are special and can speak human!", but "this human can understand pokémon, isn't that weird?". That aspect has more precedent in Black, with N also being able to understand pokémon, but I agree that it could very easily turn into a tired trope.

My biggest concern with not being able to verbally develop the pokémon as individual characters would be, rather ironically, that it might be more difficult to develop my protagonist. In Platinum especially, there are very long stretches of the game where you go without any interaction beyond random trainer battles, and I feel like I'd have to deviate and have something happen during those times to prevent them from being entire chapters that amount to little more than "this route is very long and took several days to traverse" or "got lost in Mt. Coronet again", but then I worry that it might distract from the main story. Without someone there to play off of, the protagonist might begin to seem a little stale.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Well, by way of clarification I mean talking to pokémon as essentially a superpower. I've used a mundane form of it in The Long Walk, as a product of trainer's love and attention towards their pokémon. It's not completely without canon to back it up, at least in the anime. Morty explains why he can understand his Gengar as part of a throwaway line in his first appearance. Other opinions are available, of course, but I find it removes a lot of the baggage if the ability isn't uncommon.

Playing off the pokémon works fine, but this is a journeyfic, so there's no reason you couldn't make use of the travel companion cliché in some way. How much of a supporting character as opposed to a secondary protagonist you'd want to make them is up to you, though I'd venture to claim that travel companions with good strong characters in their own right go a long way to smoothing out the worst of that cliché

 

[Juliko]

I actually have an idea for a potential Pokemon fan fic about Pokemon Musicals.

Here's what I have so far: a young Unovan girl named Shayla goes to Kalos one day to catch Pokemon. She finds a shiny Fletchling and catches it, naming her Garnet. One day, they go watch a Pokemon Musical, and Garnet is inspired, deciding she wants to participate in Musicals and become a star. Shayla and Garnet become close as they practice for Musicals and aim for stardom, meeting friends and rivals, encountering problems, and basically seeing what the world of show business has to offer.

I don't know what I should do for an actual storyline, because as it stands, even I can tell it sounds a little bland and uninspired. I want to do something with it, but I don't know what.

 

[AceTrainer14]

@Juliko: If I am being honest, if that was the only description I had to work on, I wouldn't be greatly inspired to read it. That isn't to say there won't be people who would read it, but I think you need a much stronger hook.

Have you ever seen the TV show UnREAL? It's about a Bachelor-esque show and the people scheming behind the scenes. You could always write something about the dark underside of Pokemon musicals that Shayla does not expect. I also think you would need to give her a strong motivation for wanting to go to Kalos and catch a Pokemon anyway: why not catch Pokemon in Unova, what's so special about Kalos to her?

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

I was thinking of doing a Gothic PMD story with vampires in it. And before anyone says how stupid that sounds, no, I know better not to base these vampires off of Twilight. Instead, they'll behave more like the Vampires in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcwN2g5IO3

But instead of just targeting the neck for blood, my Vampires will target any part of the body with a vein; the neck is merely a convenience.

 

[Warrior of Fire]

So, I'm working on chapter four of my Yu-Gi-Oh fic, and I'm having trouble thinking of how to resolve the ongoing duel from chapter three. The main issue is this card used by the antagonist of the chapter pair:

Fissionist
DARK/Spellcaster/Effect/4/?/0
effect: When your opponent Fusion Summons a Fusion Monster: Special Summon this card (from your hand or Graveyard). If this monster would battle a Fusion Monster: This monster's ATK becomes equal to that Fusion Monster's ATK, also return it to the Extra Deck, then Special Summon the Fusion Material monsters to your opponent's side of the field in Attack Position. This monster can attack all monsters Special Summoned by this effect.

The main issue is how the chapter's main character defeats it. The easy way out is to simply exploit Fissionist's effect by using one of his weaker fusions to cripple it, then destroy it using another monster to attack it, but it's so obvious that anyone who's reading would simply predict that's how it'll happen, and that's just too boring. Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[Natu? Natu!]

Guess I'll start this thing

Since I'm almost finished with Explorers of Destruction, I was thinking of fleshing out another story of mine, Desolate Lands. In that one, we meet a Treecko in a drought stricken woodlands, with no recollection of his memories. Originally I was gonna take a similar route with this much like Yugioh Zexal, where he has to defeat certain enemies to gain more pieces of his memory, but since that would take too much time I don't have, I decided not to do that. So should I instead find another way for him to unlock his memories, or have this be just temporary Amnesia?

Amnesia in fiction is often depicted as a complete retrograde amnesia for events that have taken place before a certain point of time, maybe including its own identity, typically with the person/pokémon waking up from unconsciousness without remembering anything about the past, yet with no problems of forming new memories or recalling things that take place after they wake up. Typically, the episodic memory is gone, while the semantic (i.e., memory of facts) and procedural (i.e., memory of procedures, such as how to cook, how to use a phone etc) memory may be relatively intact. In reality, I would suspect some sort of dissociative amnesia in that case, that is, an amnesia without an identifiable underlying organic cause but rather a psychiatric condition. That is in humans of course. Maybe pokémon are different? Essentially, this is where your fantasy comes in. My rule of thumb is that it can happen if you can make it believable. As Beth pavell points out, disorders of memory can also occur after a brain damage, for example. Severe amnesia after a brain damage is often associated with other symptoms.
Having said that, let's leave the medical stuff and focus on amnesia as a plot device. You may use it to make the readers curious, to make them keep reading to understand what happened. In that case, I think that making the amnesia temporary and having the pokémon suddenly remembering everything will be a disappointment to the readers. Rather, let it gradually find out more and more about its past and how it ended up where it is. If you want the amnesia to end suddenly for some reason, I think you should reconsider using another plot device to get what you want.