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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

I've thought about tackling Pokemon vs. common animals. I could buy into the idea that there are thousands of species of pokemon that evolved from the millions of species of common animals, with the only thing separating them being their level of intelligence (and ability to control crazy elemental powers, I guess). In my mind, all Pokemon exhibit advanced intelligence comparable to that of a human teenager at a minimum, while common animals are just as 'dumb' as they are in the real world. Mostly, I need an excuse for why meat is in the diet of the characters in my story... There are ethical concerns about sourcing that meat from such intelligent creatures, so why not get it from 'stupid animals'?
 
If nothing else, the sheer diversity of life is a good enough reason for mundane animals. I mean, there are lots of ecological niches that aren't exploited by any pokémon, and plenty that are only exploited by a pokémon in a few regions. But there are plenty of other questions that mundane animals solve - like, the diets of a lot of pokémon. Or why some species have names that allude to mundane animals. And then there's always the question of why trees and grass and flowering plants, but not insects, mammals, fish, etc?
 
So I've been keeping up with Ashes of the Past, a story over on ff.net, and I like that the author's changed Brock from a Rock-type Gym Leader to an illusion-based Gym Leader with Ninetales, Statler, Zorua and Sudowoodo, all of which in the animé were based around illusions. It makes me wonder what other 'typings' could be used for Gym Leaders outside of actual Types. Like a Superspeed Gym Leader with Arcanine and Pidgeot, for instance.
 
It's always nice writing up a chapter and ending up with two when you realize what you just wrote ended up twice as long as you expected.

So I've been keeping up with Ashes of the Past, a story over on ff.net, and I like that the author's changed Brock from a Rock-type Gym Leader to an illusion-based Gym Leader with Ninetales, Statler, Zorua and Sudowoodo, all of which in the animé were based around illusions. It makes me wonder what other 'typings' could be used for Gym Leaders outside of actual Types. Like a Superspeed Gym Leader with Arcanine and Pidgeot, for instance.
I'd thought about mixing fire and water to make a 'steam-type' gym, but I dunno how that'd work in a standard 3v3, single fighter ruleset. In my mind, you'd need at least one of each type on the field at once to even toy with the idea of steam.
 
Another option would be to make it less about the pokémon and more about the trainer. If your Gyms are of the "challenge the trainer" kind of purpose you could go for themed challenges that test aspects of being a pokémon trainer. Maybe the challenger is restricted in the number of instructions they can give, or maybe the challenger is forced to think very quickly on their feet
 
I know in my story, the Battle Frontier is seen as a more advanced challenge compared to a regular challenge. The battles on the Frontier have a secondary aspect to them and require the trainer to have a high set of thinking, such as competing in a PokeRinger match from the anime. Its a battle, but requires more skill to obtain the ring and place it on the goal while simultaneously battling the frontier brain of the facility.
 
You know given the fact that Sun and moon were made to reflect Hawaiian culture to a degree, it actually gives me an excuse to justify having a lot of the culture of the native tribes of michigan such as the Objawy be used to base the culture of the native people of Marshiso.

To be honest I think what I will do is for the most part downplay the european influence on the americas, I mean do you honestly think the history of the world would remain the same if Pokémon were real? I mean let's face it the legendaries would literally be the gods therefore I highly doubt christianity would have as much of a stranglehold on the world as they do in our world.
 
I'd disagree with the notion that legendary pokémon would inevitably be the focus of religious thought to the point that they'd displace other belief systems. It's telling that Christianity offered people something that largely weren't getting from other religions at the time - a solid moral code, inclusiveness, the chance of something better than this life after death. The animistic "Celtic" religions didn't offer anything like that, nor did the Roman cults and especially not the Greek pantheon.

Animistic religions tend to be most attractive to people who don't have much control over their environment, but are both intimately familiar with it and completely dependent on it for their livelihood. If a religion centred around a pokémon only seems to offer the hope that maybe they won't destroy the village again, then it's probably going to have some serious competition in a belief system that says "It doesn't matter how bad things get in this life, be good and it'll be glorious in the next". That's a powerful message for people who live in an uncertain world, particularly one where the uncertainties come as much from other people as from the natural world
 
I'd disagree with the notion that legendary pokémon would inevitably be the focus of religious thought to the point that they'd displace other belief systems. It's telling that Christianity offered people something that largely weren't getting from other religions at the time - a solid moral code, inclusiveness, the chance of something better than this life after death. The animistic "Celtic" religions didn't offer anything like that, nor did the Roman cults and especially not the Greek pantheon.

Animistic religions tend to be most attractive to people who don't have much control over their environment, but are both intimately familiar with it and completely dependent on it for their livelihood. If a religion centred around a pokémon only seems to offer the hope that maybe they won't destroy the village again, then it's probably going to have some serious competition in a belief system that says "It doesn't matter how bad things get in this life, be good and it'll be glorious in the next". That's a powerful message for people who live in an uncertain world, particularly one where the uncertainties come as much from other people as from the natural world

Do you know you are slapping your own face here with the contradictions?

With the argument in the 2nd paragraph, ancient people living in the Pokemon World which lacks the tools to control pokemon and thus exposed themselves to possible dangers, will obviously choose to revere the powerful pokemons, deemed them as "gods" or "deities", and will try their best not to anger them, thus forming the belief of "Be good and kind to pokemons, or else we will be destroyed". Remember, religion is developed based on the livelihood of the human beings, and depends on the structure of their society.

Real-Life Christianity, well in fact many other religions including the ones you just mentioned, they are all believes centered around human beings instead of any non-human identities, all of the noticeable God/gods/deities/whatever religious figures are human beings instead of non-human beings, I don't think there were many mentions related to animals or animalistic creatures in the bible or myths or legends within those religions. Therefore, you can't really use these religions as argument for the religious believes in Pokemon World, because the daily life of humans living in Pokemon World centered around pokemons. They need a belief system centered around these creatures.

Though, I would not rule out the possibility that there may exist Christianity and many other RL religions in the Pokemon World, because human beings indeed living in the Pokemon World, and they are now the dominant species of this world, hence will develop a religion centered around their own livelihood excluding the pokemons. But, I doubt it will be the dominant religion in the Pokemon World, because still there exist pokemons, where they are influencing the Pokemon World human societies prominently since ancient time. It is impossible that the human beings in Pokemon World believe in some religions that completely neglects the existence of such identities that has significant impact to their life.

One more thing. Moral code is not copyright solely for Christianity. Every single religion in this world comes with a list of code telling its believers what is right and what is wrong. Through they may differs greatly from Christianity, as each religion that their own standards. Maybe you are more familiar with Christianity, maybe you don't have much knowledge with other religions, but don't think Christianity is the only religion on this world having the utmost righteous mindset where every single one should believe in it, including the characters in fictional world.

Maybe not the best place for correct academic knowledge, but for a quick knowledge absorbing:
Religion - Wikipedia

Accounting the origin of religion, I would rather speculate Pokemon World had their own fictional religions, most probably unsimilar to any RL religions. IMO this is not really that farfetched, oppositely it seems more natural in that way.
 
Do you know you are slapping your own face here with the contradictions?

No, I'm not. If you'd look again you'll notice that I point out that early religions, of the sort that Christianity displaced (This includes the semi-animistic "Celtic" religions of northern Europe) failed to offer people concepts which Christianity did. Animism is largely about trying to appease natural forces in the hope that the natural world will be benevolent. Certainly in a European context, it was very much based on hope. Ancient peoples such as the Greeks or the Celts didn't believe that their gods cared about them - sacrifice and ritual was never guaranteed to get them on side.

Then along comes Christianity. It doesn't necessarily promise that God will make the rains come at the right time, but it does promise that life will be better in the next world if you're good, because God does care about you, personally. There were also other elements that made it attractive - the fact that anyone can be a Christian, for instance, and that at this point people had bigger, more connected societies with a lot more control over the world. It was still an uncertain world, but the uncertainty came as much from the possibility of war and conflict as from the natural world.

So how does this apply to Pokémon? Well, for a start I think it's entirely possible to overstate the importance of pokémon. To people living in that world they'd be as normal as animals are to us. So it's fair to say that there would be a whole corpus of myth, legend, cultural and religious ideas surrounding them (Just as there is around animals in our world. Even within religions that aren't directly animistic you can find animal metaphors: the "Lamb of God" for example). Given that pokémon constitute powerful forces of nature, it's reasonable to assume that animistic religions would probably arise from them. Nevertheless, people are still people and will have similar needs, material and spiritual. A pokémon-based religion would need to cater to these in order to survive and grow. Would it possible for that to happen, yes, certainly. However, there's a gulf of difference between "could possibly happen" and "would definitely happen", which is my whole point.

The bigger question is how this could happen, and how such a religion would adapt itself to the modern world, where humanity is able to, for the most part, control pokémon without making appeals to the divine. If I were to look at that, I think I'd probably start with the history of Shinto as a model and go from there.

Maybe you are more familiar with Christianity, maybe you don't have much knowledge with other religions, but don't think Christianity is the only religion on this world having the utmost righteous mindset where every single one should believe in it, including the characters in fictional world.

I wish you'd stop assuming that I don't know there's a world outside of Europe. I picked up on Christianity because that's what Charles Legend mentioned in his post, and because it's a very good example of why a religion can become popular.
 
I think that perhaps religion isn't the best choice of conversation for this thread. I would prefer we didn't get into a big and potentially messy debate.

@Legacy: Perserve and you'll go far! It would be great to see another one of your epic stories on the site again :D
 
@Legacy: Perserve and you'll go far! It would be great to see another one of your epic stories on the site again :D
Agreed. I very much enjoyed what I read of the new incarnation of The Power Inside. More of that would be nice, but I'll give what else you might work on a fair shake.
 
Something that's been bugging me lately, from the prescriptive camp of writing - complaints about "Ok" and the use of "laughed" as a speech verb. They're both completely legitimate, and as my evidence I turn to the pendant's bible, the Oxford English Dictionary [Online]:

"it seems that O.K first appeared in 1839", "competing theories as to the origin of the expression have been in evidence almost since it's first appearance". In support of ok as an abbreviation or acronym, the OED gives the theory that it may stand for "all correct", and given the citations, it seems that this was the prevailing assumption in American English. If you argue that it therefore should be spelt "OK" or "O.K.", then one has to ask whether you'd be prepared to apply the same rule to "laser". As far as "okay" is concerned, the earliest citation the OED gives is 1895 - it's also worth mentioning that some citations from around the 1920s give it as "okeh". I think, given how little used it is now, you could argue that spelling ok as an abbreviation thus - "O.K. or o.k." is obsolete.

Now to "laughed" - supposedly not a speech verb and so this:

"Sometimes the arbitrary rules of pedants are just plain nuts," Bethany laughed.

is wrong. On a purely common sense level this obviously means "to say while laughing", and if anyone says that's not possible they're just being deliberately obtuse. Well, the OED gives this as sense 4: "to say or express with a laugh; (also) to utter as a laugh". This usage goes back as far as Old English, which I quote here:

Gelpan ne þorfte beorn blandenfeax bilgeslehtes, eald inwidda, ne Anlaf þy ma; mid heora herelafum hlehhan ne þorftun þæt heo beaduweorca beteran wurdun on campstede.

But if you don't agree that Old English can provide sufficient rules for modern English then there are other citations from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Ingraham's Captain Kidd (1839) and no less a heroine of the English literary canon than Charlotte Bronte's The Professor.

But hey, why should all that get in the way of pretending that your personal peeves and hangups are linguistic rules?
 
So I've been keeping up with Ashes of the Past, a story over on ff.net, and I like that the author's changed Brock from a Rock-type Gym Leader to an illusion-based Gym Leader with Ninetales, Statler, Zorua and Sudowoodo, all of which in the animé were based around illusions. It makes me wonder what other 'typings' could be used for Gym Leaders outside of actual Types. Like a Superspeed Gym Leader with Arcanine and Pidgeot, for instance.

I mean, Norman's gym sort of did this in RSE, with the different trainers throughout the gym focusing on different playstyles and stats. Overall it works, but I don't think it sticks as well as type specialists

Ugh, I'm about to start ANOTHER new fic. I already know I'll get 5-6 chapters deep and quit, but I guess I'm going for it.

Ayy looks like I found another me

It's always nice writing up a chapter and ending up with two when you realize what you just wrote ended up twice as long as you expected.


I'd thought about mixing fire and water to make a 'steam-type' gym, but I dunno how that'd work in a standard 3v3, single fighter ruleset. In my mind, you'd need at least one of each type on the field at once to even toy with the idea of steam.

Hey, Liza and Tate exist. Double battles are always an option no matter the situation. Battle diversity makes everything more fun
 
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Welp, I just wrote a scene that involves a stripper-turned-coordinator giving a Machoke a lap dance as part of a contest performance. What even is my life?

It's so bad, I think I'll have to cut it back a bit.
 
You'll probably be disappointed, it doesn't hog up much space. It's more of a silly aside than a fully fledged scene.
 
Welp, I just wrote a scene that involves a stripper-turned-coordinator giving a Machoke a lap dance as part of a contest performance. What even is my life?

It's so bad, I think I'll have to cut it back a bit.

I thought I had some dodgy ideas for my stories - but this one at least sounds funny XD If anything, it makes me want to read LOTR more (also, was that name on purpose so you can have that acronym? :p)
 
(also, was that name on purpose so you can have that acronym? :p)
I actually didn't even notice it at first, and only realized after the fact that I'd published a few chapters of it. If I could, I'd go back and rename the story, I hate that acronym.
 
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