Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Lugion]

Back when I was writing A Pokémon Story (RIP), I had to alter the concept of Mega Evolution to fit the universe. What I came up with is still pretty similar to what we get in the games, but with a few key differences. I got rid of key stones and mega stones altogether, with Mega Evolution instead being solely a function of the bond between trainer and Pokémon. It involves the merging of a trainer's chi with that of the Pokémon's, sort of forming them into a gestalt being, so to speak. Of course, the trainer's body wouldn't be involved in the merger, just the spirit/life energy/what-have-you. Any fully-evolved Pokémon would be to achieve Mega Evolution, but the sheer rigorousness of the training required would mean that few are able to.

This ended up creating an even nicer parallel between Mega Evolution and Primal Reversion, with Mega Evolution drawing on the latent energies of the trainer, and Primal Reversion drawing on the latent energies of the world.

It's also the version I decided to use in the universe of Stainless Steel... 'cause let's be real, it's a bit convoluted to require all these weird, specific stones.

 

[Misheard Whisper]

Eh. I watched the first special - nice to watch the battle sequences, but my god in that episode Alain is such a collection of anime cool guy clichés

Yeah nah, I'm with you on that one. Can't stand Alain, or Mairin for that matter. But bah gawd those battles, those legendary Pokemon . . . it's like one of the movies if we didn't have to deal with Ash and his dorky friends (and their power of friendship) the whole time.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It's a nice enough change of pace, certainly. Although I have to say I generally prefer it when the anime is unashamed about being a cartoon, since I find the moments where it tries to get dramatic or clever to be more tiresome. Case in point would be XYs incarnation of Ash - trying to keep him as a reasonably competent trainer and retain that twerpy energy, and just creating something that spouts smug clichés all the time. Actually, no, a better example would be Hunter Ham J. Hammy dialogue, excessive equipment, excessive henchmen and a big ol' suit of plot armour. Just give us back the goofy villain team plots

 

[AceTrainer14]

I was a fan of Hunter J. Given the excessive length of Sinnoh in terms of pointless filler, I think it needed those villainous plots to actually get stuff done. Hunter J may have been a bit OTT, but the anime is a lot of the time (Team Rocket has a giant robot every other episode), please having something darker was great. I'm still disappointed we lost out on the Team Plasma vs Team Rocket thing from the start of Unova. Damn tsunamis.

I just had a look at my stats on FF.net, and the second to last chapter of 8ES randomly has a ton of views and I am not really sure why. It's the most read chapter for about 40 chapters and I am really quite confused to why it's so popular

 

[Beth Pavell]

I suppose this is a YMMV case, but I find goofiness and darkness difficult to accept. I mean this extends to what I thought of all the Galactic and the BW Team Rocket in general as well, so not limited to Hunter J by any means.

And speaking of latest chapters, readers, Chapter Twenty Three ought to be done within the next few days. This one's taken a lot out of me, I can say that

 

[CrystaI]

Although I had dwell in the Written Word for quite sometime, this is really my first time to participate in the General Chat Thread. Greeting to every writers in here.


Regarding on the Pokemon Anime, I didn't watch anything since the late beginning of DP, well to be fair I began to watch it less frequently starting from mid AG. Although I still follow the movies and OVAs, but just not the Ash journey anymore.

Yeah, I acknowledge that I'm in no condition in discussing the quality of Pokemon Anime as I had lost connection with it, but I really wanted to know, from the writer's viewpoint where one understand about literature and narratology and story-writing, how do you feel about the Pokemon Anime? If you compare it to other Japanese animes, how good is it?

Every Pokemon anime fans praised the ME Special to be a spectacular, and I also watched all of it. But...... if I compare it to other battle anime, it is nothing outstanding. (Or, am I being too fastidious as I'm comparing to other animes?)


About the villains, goofiness and darkness (or more correctly speaking, maliciousness) are IMO two qualities that doesn't blend with each other. It is like trying to mix strawberry ice cream with...... chicken tikka masala? No one with their right mind will try to mix these two things.
On the opposite, I really wanted to know how one can write a believable goofy character. This is one character type I never planned to use in any of my fic, and probably doesn't wanted to even imagine about it, as my fics are not anything light-hearted.

 

[Misheard Whisper]

It's definitely not up there with other battle anime, I'll agree. More serious shows like D. Gray-man, Fate: UBW or the likes of Berserk (more the manga than anything) blow it out of the water, but it was definitely a cut above what I'm used to seeing from the Pokemon anime. Plus, it tickled my Hoenn fanboy funny bone with Steven Stone and the weather trio.

 

[Beth Pavell]

from the writer's viewpoint where one understand about literature and narratology and story-writing, how do you feel about the Pokemon Anime? If you compare it to other Japanese animes, how good is it?

From that perspective, it's bad. I mean, I think the anime can be quite accurately described as a cartoon anyway - which can be enjoyable in its own way, provided you watch it in the right frame of mind. I watch it in the same way that I watch Tom and Jerry. And I love Tom and Jerry

Insofar as compared to other anime, well, I don't watch battle or action anime, or, for that matter, really long-runners so I can't make much of a fair comparison.

Goofy characters tend to work best as brief jokes, possibly with some spoofing mixed in. Terry Pratchett was a master of these. One of my favourites is troll police officer Sergeant Detritus, from his Watch subseries. A lot of his appearances centre around him being big, dim, and made out of stone. Over time, his character becomes steadily multi-faced faceted, with his dim intellect becoming something more like a steady, implacable cunning, or his brutish trollishness being used to instil civic duty into new recruits (i.e, he shouts at them for six weeks).

 

[CrystaI]

Well I don't watch any Western cartoons, so I don't know anything on that matter. My best regarding on Western cartoons is only the Disney and Pixar animation movies, where I don't know does that count or not.

In terms of Japanese anime, although I watched mostly the shounen ones, but it is not like I don't watched any kodomo series. Doraemon and Precure are two I watched occasionally on TV. In the past, Hamtaro and Keroro Gunsou is also counted. Ah, now the Youkai Watch is also part of the kodomo ones suitable for preteen children.

For the last three I had mentioned, they concentrated more on the comedies than any other things like battles or emotional quarrels. I would not say their story fascinate me to the extent like many of the shounen animes targeted at higher age group, but still I don't find their character portrayal to be as jarring as the Pokemon Anime. I can't describe exactly why, but IMO may be it is because their character relationship is more natural than the Ash Ketchum group.

BTW, now that I think back, when I was young I started watching the Pokemon Anime not because of its story plot. I watched it simply because of wanting to see the cute monsters being animated. This alone can tell where my focus is regarding on looking also at the entire franchise.

Another BTW, just a little thing I notice from the screen shots of Pokemon XY sagas. The animators surely put a lot of efforts in the visuals and graphics, they are of the highest quality I'd seem for all the Japanese family/kodomo series I ever seen, it may be even better than a few shounen animes I had watched in the recent years. However, I would say the budget was more being wasted as it was spend on the unnecessary superficials. The Pokemon Anime IMO need more budget in things that one cannot see directly with their eyes.

 

[Misheard Whisper]

I've wanted for a long time for Pokemon to put more effort into its writing, character development, and so forth, maybe move away from the episodic stories into a more experimental format. They've played around with it a bit in the past, with short arcs focusing on villainous teams, legendary Pokemon and so forth - and XY is definitely making moves in the right direction with the whole Zygarde bit, I gather - but they're never going to abandon their formula entirely, because the anime is, at the most basic level, simply advertising for the games and merchandise. Having a new short story every episode allows them to feature more Pokemon, selling more toys. Keeping the overarching storyline simple makes it appeal to children, keeping their viewer numbers up. Ash never growing older, maturing or having any character development to speak of ensures that it still hits that baseline kodomo demographic, picking up a new generation of kids as each successive one grows out of it. I'd love for it to go more shounen, but I don't think they ever will. The special episodes, like the Mega Evolution ones and some of the movies, are a step in the right direction, but the central canon will never risk deviating too far from the norm, I fear. As a result, we're doomed to see the budget continue to be poured into sparkly effects. Even as far back as the DP series, all I can remember is fucking bubbles. Everywhere. Sparkly, beautiful, rainbow-coloured bubbles.

 

[Flaze]

I don't quite like to compare Pokemon to other battle anime if only because it's so much different, Pokemon for one doesn't put its focus on plot or anything, it's supposed to be the adventure and it isn't until Ash actually makes it to a league that we get the best of the season (reallit's as if they just save everything for the end) I do however prefer to compare it to Pokemon Special. Now I know Pokemon Special isn't perfect but it's pretty much what I would want the anime to be because it's got a perfect blend of whent to be goofy, when to be dramatic and when to be serious (no I don't think it's impossible for something to be goofy and dark, in fact I'd prefer something that tries to be both things, that goes to you Pavy dear )

On that note the ME specials are...they're a good change of pace, I like them because they put the focus on something else, something we don't usually get to see and while they're not perfect o particularly good they're also not horrible and I'd recommend it to someone that wants to at least watch something different...even if it is mostly just battles (also I liked Mairin so shut up Whispers >:c) if it comes down to which special I think works best I'd say Origins for me though it also has its flaws (mostly trying to put the story of the game into four episodes of content)

My problem with the Pokemon anime is that I don't get why it doesn't strive to be better when it can, it feels like it's just stuck in this loop at this point because it's what's worked and taking risks might put all the success they've had in jeopardy, not saying it has to get gritty or anything like that but even other children's anime try to at least have some semblance of a serious plot.

Also the bubbles were ocean in blue in DP btw.

 

[Misheard Whisper]

Ah shit, I really need to watch Origins. I have it on DVD ffs, yet I've never gotten around to actually watching it. Whooooops.

 

[AceTrainer14]

In case people haven't seen it, the Staff Drive has begun. If you want to become a mod, go to this here thread for instructions about applying. The Workshop is looking for someone to join the team: there are a number of people here I'd like to hire, so this is a good way to let us know if you are actually interested in the position and work out who's keen and who isn't. So apply!

 

[Misheard Whisper]

Big Brother is giving me a great big banner announcement across the top of the page now, haha. T h e y k n o w .

In other words, good luck to anybody who's applying. WW mod is a pretty sweet gig!

 

[Beth Pavell]

When you play the Game of Mods, you win or you die

 

[AceTrainer14]

It's true. The only reason Aether hasn't quit is because he knows I'll track him down and murder him by dropping the entire GalacticVerse manuscript on him from a large height.

 

[Misheard Whisper]

Yeah . . . I died. It's my fault you've been stuck with Ace for the last few years. #sorrynotsorry

 

[Beth Pavell]

I'm beginning to regret being so bloody pedantic when it comes to cultural verisimilitude. Trying to modify folk songs to be appropriate for a fictional industrial town when you have the musical talent of the average crow is not easy > >

 

[CrystaI]

^ Don't worry. No one is going to listen anyway. Can't say for sure if you are doing it for your fic. But, just out of curiosity, is music and song necessary for fiction writing? Or, do you need it to incorporate into the fic?

I do my things and learn new skills out of pure necessity. So if I need to obtain a skill and technique in order to do something right and better, I'll put my effort in learning such skills.

I learned to draw digital illustration just because I wanted to design a better character for my fic. Well quite a nerdy pulse for this skill learning. But IMO it is not a waste of time, because illustration is something to be seen with the eyes, where it is the same of one uses their eyes to read fic. Illustration incorporates well with fic better than music.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I'm beginning to regret being so bloody pedantic when it comes to cultural verisimilitude. Trying to modify folk songs to be appropriate for a fictional industrial town when you have the musical talent of the average crow is not easy > >

Ugh, I've been there. I think I spent more time trying to write believable adaptations of These Are the Days of Our Lives and Somewhere Over the Rainbow than I spent writing the chapters they were written for.

If it helps, don't worry about maintaining the rhythm of the music and just write the lyrics out. Most people probably aren't going to try to sing along to it as they read, especially if they don't have a clue of what music you're adapting. Think of it as poetry.