DISCUSSION: Shiny Pokemon in Fan Fiction

[diamondpearl876]

@Twilight-Kun Isn't shiny eevee already silver-furred? Although in that pic, all of it is silver, while the actual shiny eevee has a white tuft of fur around its neck instead. I can get down with little differences like that, sure.

@SuperTrainStationH I suppose if I wanted a fantasy character to be special, I'd give them actual pokemon powers, not a shiny. But that might just be me. XD

 

[jasonwolf]

@SuperTrainStationH I suppose if I wanted a fantasy character to be special, I'd give them actual pokemon powers, not a shiny. But that might just be me. XD[/QUOTE] Great minds think alike. See Tyler Apel in Decolonized.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

Isn't shiny eevee already silver-furred? Although in that pic, all of it is silver, while the actual shiny eevee has a white tuft of fur around its neck instead. I can get down with little differences like that, sure.

Gen II Eevee was dark silver/gray

Gen III gave it a new look that's more-or-less stuck around to this day
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[unrepentantAuthor]

I have a personal canon for my fanfiction, and one way in which it differs to conventional canon is that shiny pokémon are fictional. Instead, pokémon are widely, even wildly different between individuals, much the same as how animals in our world are far from homogeneous. That's a lot more interesting and fun to me than a glittery pallet change gimmick.

I think shinies are popular because they're "special" and many fanfic writers are doing a bit of escapist fantasising as they write, so they end up with rare and beautiful pokémon featuring in their protagonists' teams. I think this partly is a consequence of the homogeneity of pokémon in canon. That homogeneity is itself a result of the limitations of artists and game engines to depict many variations of a pokémon species, a limitation that does not exist in fanfiction. That's why I'm so eager to have my pokémon characters be diverse. It overcomes a failure of the franchise's chief media.

 

[Drakon]

On that note, I may add slight color changes or physical variations to differentiate pokémon but I'll pretty much never have Shiny pokémon.

Of course, such things do happen in the real world like blue, transparent and yellow lobsters. I'd imagine they'd bee seen more in places like a preserve or a zoo instead of battling.

 

[canisaries]

Haven't given this too much thought myself. The TPP canon has a bunch of shiny Pokémon, but I haven't happened to write anything about those so far.

I like the idea about varying coat patterns and colorations, but I don't want to erase the concept of shinies. Instead, I'm going to headcanon that the variations aren't extremely different (as an example, an arcanine's stripes may be different shapes or hues or even be absent and its mane can be different lengths and styles, but you won't meet a blue-coated arcanine) so that the shinies are still their own thing. The downside to this is that some mons' shinies are absolutely lackluster and barely different from their normal selves, but to solve this, I'd have them have some rare features other than surface color, such as a distinct scale shape or skin texture or even iridescence. That, or just have them be as boring as their in-game counterparts and therefore simply not that special.

I'd actually like to incorporate some variations into my upcoming stories as it sounds so neat. I'm already planning to include a tricolor furret and I could have the beartic in my Agápe rewrite differ from each other visually.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

diamondback Arbok and the orca Lapras

Do you have pictures? I'd like to see.

If I recall, Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky did it with a pink Celebi.

I think this was done to show that she's not the same Celebi that you can recruit in the postgame.

That homogeneity is itself a result of the limitations of artists and game engines to depict many variations of a pokémon species, a limitation that does not exist in fanfiction.

I once read a fanfic where it was specifically pointed out that every Pokémon of a species looked identical, and it irked me so much. Spinda proves that Pokémon of the same species can look different.

I once had a headcanon that shinies were at the extreme end of the colour spectrum that a Pokémon could come in.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Do you have pictures? I'd like to see.

I don't. However, I did throw this together in about five minutes. It's not a perfect representation of what I wrote (lacks the sharply spiky shell), or even the greatest, but it gets the point across without taking up a lot of time and effort.

edit: mixing up my artistic things

 

[Ambyssin]

I opted to go the route of poking fun at game logic. In USUM, you can enter Ultra Wormholes with a 100% chance of spawning a shiny 'mon. So, I have this blue Houndoom that lived in such a place. While she's technically shiny by game logic standards, she thinks having blue fur is perfectly normal for a Houndoom.