Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[unrepentantAuthor]

Johto is a lot more nostalgic for me than Kanto, as most of the anime eps I watched as a kid were Johto-era. Although the first game I played was Sapphire, I technically played five minutes of one of GSC belonging to a fellow pupil at primary school. Ultimately, however, I feel more fond of Sinnoh than possibly any other region. Gen IV is when I got most stuck into fandom, and it brought so much to core series gameplay. Memorable, with an exceptional score. I loved DPPt.

Rooting for a remake after SwSh.

Incidentally, is anyone else hoping that SwSh will be a bit more plott-y and challenging and worldbuild-y, given that they seem to have dumped the weight of supporting the most casual playerbase and attracting new players onto LGPE?

So many initialisms...

 

[Misfit Angel]

Memorable, with an exceptional score.

Hell yes. Sometimes I'll load up a 30 minute loop of the Galactic Grunt trainer battle music because my god, so good. Easily the best bad guy music in the series. Route 201's music is pretty awesome too, and has that cozy "You're gonna be great, kid" feel to it.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

My liking for Johto is really based on nostalgia for playing Silver over and over again. I remember how much of an improvement it seemed, compared to Red/Blue/Yellow - well, actually, that is true. Gold and Silver were a lot less rough around the edges.

My interest in Johto comes from me liking it in concept, and thinking about how mind-blowing it must have been for kids back in the day. I never enjoyed SoulSilver as a kid, even less than Diamond, and nowadays I feel it's too archaic. It also seems like most Gen 2 Pokémon only exist to look cute in establishing shots in the anime, but I like how they were designed around graphical limitations. (ie: only two dominant colours.)

Some discussion on another thread about how to handle a heavy plot element has made me loose interest in writing A Dragon Out of Water, because now I have even less of an idea of how to get all of the main characters involved with the plot. I should really spend more than a few days planning out my stories.

Also, @unrepentantAuthor, I've only read partway through the first chapter of Different Eyes, but I like how you twisted the concept by having Pokémon choose to become Pokémorphs, instead of going for the easy "waah waah I was kidnapped and experimented upon I'm so misunderstood my life is so horrible please pity me", especially considering that your protagonist is a mammalian Dark-type, the poster children for 3edgy5me fanfics.

 

[canisaries]

i still haven't grown out of my edgy story phase

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@Misfit Angel - I'm a big fan of Mt Coronet, Mt Stark, several of the routes, game corner, champion theme especially good grief. Also, nobody ever listened to it in-game but the Arceus theme is goddamn terrifying.

@Nitro Indigo - hey, thanks very much. Subverting "classic" morph stories is half my inspiration to write that fic. Also, I'm honoured that you'd quote me in your sig, but I'm not so proud of that wording now that it's all over the forum — have this:

Nostalgia is love and longing for something in memory of a past fondness; I prefer to love things that I'd be truly fond of if I experienced them now for the first time.

I like that a little better~

@canisaries - I know ;3

 

[UselessBytes]

Tfw you accidentally write romantic undertones into the first chapter of a new project and it reads better than what you originally intended.

Okay gang, do I rewrite the whole thing or roll with it?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I can't remember the last time I read a Pokémon fanfic that wasn't a My Little Pony crossover, but I was once in a forum roleplay circa 2012 where a bunch of Pokémon were being held in a lab and were genetically modified, and it was really hard to escape. The plots of every roleplay I was in never went anywhere.

I also once read a Pokémon/My Little Pony crossover where characters discussed natures and friendship in terms of cold, hard game mechanics instead of taking those game mechanics as expressions of "story" elements. It almost felt like a parody.

I had an idea for a rather sombre Power Rangers fanfic a few weeks ago, but I was tired when I came up with it and forgot to write my ideas down, so now they're less vivid.

 

[Cresselia92]

I'd like to start my virus post-apocalyptic Pokémon story soon, but I wouldn't know what sources to pick for it aside from "I Am Legend" and "Planet of the Apes".

Any suggestions?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@UselessBytes - run with it! Always run with it. Discard it when you're done if you want to, but never stop yourself going somewhere unexpected in your writing!

@Nitro Indigo - so I can't help but ask: why the interest in pokémon-MLP crossovers?

@Cresselia92 - oh, interesting! I quite liked World War Z (the book, not the film) for having a variety of interesting stories about viral undead apocalypse. Depends on what you're going for, certainly.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

why the interest in pokémon-MLP crossovers?

Because I've been interested in a certain setting again, whose premise is a quick 'n' easy way to start a plot - many characters wake up in an unfamiliar world, there's no going back, and they could be separated from their loved ones - though I'm starting to loose my interest now. It just happens.

I keep finding the idea of writing a pure Pokémon fanfic boring now, but I wish I didn't. I've had on-and-off interest in writing an underwater story for a long time now, and after a few attempts at such MLP crossovers, some throwaway characters in Dragony made me sort-of want to write a pure Pokémon fanfic set underwater. Years ago, I had an idea about a Piplup finding a Manaphy and guiding it to the tropics in a PMD-like world, but I felt that such a story would be too long.

 

[Cresselia92]

@Cresselia92 - oh, interesting! I quite liked World War Z (the book, not the film) for having a variety of interesting stories about viral undead apocalypse. Depends on what you're going for, certainly.

I don’t know much about that book, but I’ll certainly give it a look. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@Cresselia92 - it's been some years since I read it, but it's essentially a chronicle from patient zero outbreak to post-apocalyptic clean-up, with very classic zombies, in the form of interviews, diaries and suchlike from different people over the years in different situations. I recall enjoying it, but I'm suggesting it because it's varied and pretty much pure counterfactual speculation rather than a story that happens to feature zombies. Every chapter had an "angle" on the apocalypse.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

For a while now, I've had an idea for a fanfic where Pokémon live alongside humans as citizens, but equality hasn't quite been achieved yet, but I couldn't think of much of a plot for it. All I could come up with was that there was a government organisation that recruited Pokémon, but they were kept in Pokéballs. (So basically, a combination of Power Rangers SPD and a Fullmetal Alchemist AU I came up with last year that I've since lost interest in.) The Pokémon all had to be recalled when there was an outbreak of shadow-ness, but one human helped two Pokémon to rebel and find out the culprit on their own.

I just got the idea to write an anthology in this setting, which were linked by an ensemble of main characters meeting different oneshot characters. Now I finally get to explore some ideas I didn't know what to do with, such as a city of underwater Pokémon, or a mute child who uses a telepathic Pokémon to communicate with people who don't know sign language.

Unfortunately, I don't like posting fanfics on forums, and the only other place I have an account on where I could post it is FictionPad, which is hella dead. (I've long since stopped logging into Fanfiction.net.) I've considered getting an Archive of Our Own account, but I don't like how it looks like a white void.

EDIT: So I was reading that Google Doc I linked to, and I chuckled when I saw that I called Father a "bad orb".

Also, I just remembered seeing someone on these forums discuss their fanfic where Hilda can talk to Pokémon, and N can't talk to artificial Pokémon. Does anyone know what it's called?

 

[Beth Pavell]

On this forum? I've not seen a Unova fic in years, so it would be buried down deep if it is here

 

[Cresselia92]

Unova fic, huh? Does Black/White anime retelling count? Because I’m pretty confident I have a couple of chapters of that around here.

…Which reminds me that I seriously need to get back to it.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

It could have been posted on Fanfiction.net.

EDIT: Also, I have a weird aversion to describing what human characters look like, and giving characters two parents, the latter because I don't know what to do with them.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Here's hoping I might actually be able to get something planted tomorrow, after having spent half my booked time off trying to get rid of another nasty virus

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Also, I have a weird aversion to describing what human characters look like, and giving characters two parents, the latter because I don't know what to do with them.

Well, regarding the Pokémon world at least, most of the main characters in both the games and the anime seem to have no more than one parent anyway... usually a mother. Half of the problem solved in that case, right? And then there's always the nuclear solution to the problem: not giving them parents at all! (Or at least, none that are present.) It definitely wouldn't be the first time that's happened in fiction... especially if it's fantasy fiction, or if the characters in question are children and/or one of the protagonists. Although then you might have to come up with a reason for that, assuming that it's the type of story where a parent's absence matters in the first place...

Unova fic, huh? Does Black/White anime retelling count? Because I’m pretty confident I have a couple of chapters of that around here.

You mean right here? I know that one; I stumbled upon it not too long ago as part of my perennial search for Best Wishes rewrites (I kind of have a thing for them). I didn't get to read a whole lot of it, but what I did see looked interesting... I wouldn't mind seeing an update.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@Nitro Indigo - how come you don't like posting fic to forums? If you can't get past that, I don't have any other suggestions for places to post. FFN, AO3 and forums are about it, honestly, and I think most of us don't stray much from here.

Describing human characters isn't strictly essential, and neither is writing about parent figures, but I do wonder what the deal is with your aversion. I generally believe that core writing skills and topics should only be discarded because a competent writer is doing without them for good reason. If they're something one isn't confident in, I always recommend applying oneself and getting some practice in. Plus, even if you don't write descriptions or about parents, every character has an appearance and has parents.

Only two more weeks of this job! Cripes, I'm tired...

Yesterday was nice and sunny, and there was an organised busking event around the town. I got to listen to some talented performers and it was a fun time. I love cute shit like this that happens in my town. I hope get to live here a long time.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@unrepentantAuthor I don't like posting fanfics on forums because the format isn't ideal.

I thought about it, and it's more like I have a weird aversion to writing human characters in general.