Your Shout-Outs: Allusions, references, and in-jokes in Pokemon fanfiction

[Stratelier]

Meaning a reference or nod to something else that inspired your fanfiction (or just something that inspires you in general). What kinds of references do you manage to work in to your writing, to what and why?

For example, when I participated in Nanowrimo in 2009 I tossed in a few arbitrary Naruto references here and there just because. You probably wouldn't spot them unless you knew what to be looking for, but:

1 - Smeargles are known for painting the pawprint on each others' backs as a social measure, right? One character in my 2010 setting was a Smeargle wose pawprint mark has several slashes painted across it -- a sign of being exiled from his clan. (In Naruto, renegade ninja have their identifying metal headband slashed out.)
2 - Another character was a Ninjask who fought almost exclusively by using the Shedinja like a remote puppet. (Not unlike a certain Naruto sand ninja, Kankuro...)

In my 2012 Nanowrimo, there were isolated references to Pokemon Conquest (a Zoroark named "Kotaro"), Pokemon Ranger (details of which are a spoiler), Doctor Who (Shedinja only move when you're not looking at them), even The Lion King (an exiled female Luxray named "Zira"), and probably a few more I can't name off the top of my head.

So any of yours that you'd like to share?

 

[LightningTopaz]

The anime Senki Zesshou Symphogear (and its sequel) has inspired me a lot--the incantations that keep appearing again and again in my work (eg. "Jao wiisha nes chiel com yutuul..."and "Karuto, iichiida shou...") are what the main characters use to transform. So I took that idea and translated it to a more fantastic arena--instead of turning into mecha superheroes, the incantations cast actual magic or invoke a magical girl-esque transformation.

 

[Kelleo]

I've made references to Avatar: The Last Airbender and lots of Disney. lol

I also have a few references to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, my favorite live action TV show. Namely in character names though. I have characters named after much of the main cast (from season 12 and before that is. I like the newer seasons too, but I named these characters before they came out).

Some of my plot aspects are inspired by SVU too.

 

[LightningTopaz]

I've also made made humorous references to the Pokeworld itself, Pokemonized many folktales from our world, and made a few Zelda, Disney and general RPG references as well.

Not to mention Digimon is a gold mine for spell ideas!

 

[Caitlin]

I intended to develop one of my characters, Jack Reiserben, after Jack Bauer from 24. Just this batshit insane cop who doesn't do things by the book, a means-to-and-end guy who completely goes off the deep end, but for the greater good, later on in the story. Even his dead wife shares the same name with Jack Bauer's.

I'm not sure if I'll get around to finishing that though.

 

[matt0044]

I make a reference to Arsene Lupin The Third and Daisuke Jigen in my BW fic as the two goofy yet formidable Pokemon Hunters, Mason L. Parker and Fargo T. Rider.

 

[Phoenix502]

one recurring element I intend to include is that my story will feature actual movies being watched by the main characters, typically ones that are action packed and high in acrobatics and martial arts [(such as the Matrix) and often tries to mimic some of the more practical examples, which frequently carries over to his fighting type Pokemon]. he's a bit of a movie buff as much as he is a Trainer, [explaining his occasional genre savvy moments]. perhaps to handwave the lack of firearms in the world as being impractical when there are Psychic Pokemon that can interfere with the firing mechanism, and Fire types make such a concept too dangerous to bother with... [for most...]

 

[Drakon]

Life of the Legendaries has a lot of Tuckerizations.

Here's the list:

Kumo class battleship
Zeukrom Industries
Captain Katie S. Rowling
Ensign Guy Ruog
Captain Jacqueline Palazzo
Captain Drake On
Captain Jake Yarta
Ensign Drake Cornova
Ensign Daniel Ernston
Zorroark class aircraft carrier
Captain Ryan Takeshi
Mijizel class attack submarine
Captain Tara Willow


There's also references to Zekurom's fic Generation 2021, Gantz, David Bowie's "Space Oddity", The Beatle's "Eggman", Indiana Jones, an old RP I played called The Spreading Hazard, Metroid, Smash Brothers, Metal Gear Solid, Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, the Pokèmon fansite Veekun and a bunch of stuff I can't remember.

The cyberpunk city is based off Hong Kong, Gotham from Batman Beyond and Los Angeles from Blade Runner

 

[SuperTrainStationH]

They'll eventually be an episode of my current serial fic concerning a group of wild dragonair. I plan to reference Henry Zao's textbook.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I intended to develop one of my characters, Jack Reiserben, after Jack Bauer from 24. Just this batshit insane cop who doesn't do things by the book, a means-to-and-end guy who completely goes off the deep end, but for the greater good, later on in the story. Even his dead wife shares the same name with Jack Bauer's.

I'm not sure if I'll get around to finishing that though.

I hope you do, I enjoyed reading Storm Island

 

[jasonwolf]

I'm writing a fanfic right now just filled with DnD references, but it is somewhat more of a tribute to old tabletops at times.

 

[Stratelier]

After reading through my old Nanowrimo, I just realized there are even more arbitrary Naruto references than I'd thought. I seem to have missed this one:

- The Smeargle character is played a bit like Kakashi from early Naruto episodes: Knowledgeable, aloof, rarely participates in direct combat, but when he does, he can mimic or mirror any of his opponent's techniques (Mirror Move), sometimes even faster than they can execute it themselves (Me First). He also has an over-the-top tendency to call out the name of a technique (and often to the exact format of "<Type> style ... <move> attack!")

One character also had a Gyarados named Jiraiya. Why? Because it sounds similar in pronunciation, no other reason.

 

[Kelleo]

Oh yeah, I forgot, I also put a reference to Fire Emblem: Awakening in the chapter of Super Luigi that I'm working on. I referenced one of my favorite critical hit quotes from the game.

I also plan to reference another favorite critical hit quote in a future chapter of Zelda: The Ancient Power.

 

[Stratelier]

Oh yes, this one you probably won't spot by yourself, but in Chapter 2 of my current Pokemon fic a Zubat complains about "dodging lightning bolts", with a reference to a "Team Venus" and their sigil.

This was a quick shout-out to Final Fantasy X, where if you could dodge 200 consecutive lightning strikes on the Thunder Plains you got a rare item called the Venus Sigil.

 

[LightningTopaz]

Oh yes, this one you probably won't spot by yourself, but in Chapter 2 of my current Pokemon fic a Zubat complains about "dodging lightning bolts", with a reference to a "Team Venus" and their sigil.

This was a quick shout-out to Final Fantasy X, where if you could dodge 200 consecutive lightning strikes on the Thunder Plains you got a rare item called the Venus Sigil.

I forget which character got that sigil--I THINK it was Lulu (correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[Glitchipedia]

Before I get started on the shout-outs, let me clarify my world-building technique. I tend to mix and match elements from many different Pokémon canons to create a larger, more complete world. Here are some examples:

The Games:

• Basic Pokémon world history and mythology
• Main plot, used as backstory
• Canon characters
• Pokémon Storage System

The Anime:

• Locations, including the Orange and Decolore Archipelagos
• Trading machines
• League Tournaments
• Additional gyms/badges
• Elements present in Yellow Version

Various Manga:

• Locations
• Government/law
• Burst technique

Now that that's understood, I'll get on with the topic. The in-Pokémon-universe shout-outs in my as-yet-unreleased works tend to be directed at things that don't make the final cut, like:

• The plots of the anime and various manga (referenced as works of fiction)
• The Time Capsule (referenced as an experiment that was scrapped because, for some reason, it reacted poorly to Johto-native Pokémon)

And I do use out-of-universe references as well; my characters will reference popular books, movies, games and musicians from time to time. For example:

• In the old Knight Pokémon University RPG, I justified my character Colin Sonan's alias "Twilight" by saying he stole it off the cover of a book he never actually read (and I haven't either, for the record ).
• In the same game, several parts of my other characters' backstories were inspired by music from Little Shop of Horrors, and it shows—up to and including Joanie Aimes having a talking, singing Bellsprout named Audrey II.
• Joanie was also eventually supposed to catch a Poochyena and name it Ubu (cookie to anyone who gets it!).
• More recently, a Porygon-Z belonging to my character Annie Jameson was noted to have the unit number 24601-327-1138, the first number being a reference to Les Misérables, the second a reference to Star Wars, and the third a reference to THX 1138.

 

[Drakon]

Pokè Wars: Downfall of a Champion has the "Grotle" armored caryo truck.

The original design was a halftrack type vehicle inspired by the vehicle that The Trio used when they invaded Chargestone Cave.

The current design is a 6x6 design inspired by the US Army's Stryker vehicle. The armor it uses is directly inspired by the improvised armor that Colorado dude used on his bulldozer.

 

[CrystaI]

My reference in my fanfic are all from Japanese stuffs, specifically the action-heavy manga, anime and games. Especially the battle scenes, I draw a lot of inspirations from how it was shown in them. I personally really dislike the official Pokemon anime's way of portraying attacks, it is just so "powerless", "speediless", uninteresting, unable to create a thrilling feeling in the eyes of me as an audience. In my fic, I just repicture the battle scenes of Pokemon in the battle style such as Super Robots Wars, Gundam animes, Digimon, Tales of series, Zoids, Dragonballs, Naruto, Sword Art Online, Magi, etc et cetera, then try my best to reiterate such scenes in words.

For example, the Gallade possessed by Leigh, one of the main cast OC in my fic, he can used an original move where I title as "Sword Waltz", where it is combination of Teleport, Fury Cutter and Double Team. Gallade create several illusions of himself to distract the opponent, at the same time Teleport continuously in order to move around in super short time count in milliseconds, and slice the opponent using Fury Cutter. This move was actually referenced from the game Super Robots Wars, the way of fighting of Soulgain piloted by Axel Almar.

Then the Lucario possessed by Atsusi, the protagonist OC of my fic, he can uses a special move I named as "Aura Flare", which is a super power-up version of Aura Sphere. Lucario hold both of his arm up and charge the Aura Sphere up to such size of 2~3 times of his own body size. I actually had this move inspired from Dragonball Goku's Energy Sphere.

Also the Pikachu possessed also by Atsusi, he uses the move Magnet Rise in a very special way: Concentrate the anti-gravity electromagnetic force about its limbs, then it can theoretically work like the magnetic levitated train, where the movement friction is reduced to zero, hence moving acceleration can be boosted to maximum. This was actually referenced from a villain featured in the manga Magi: the labyrinth of magic.

In my fic, I portray the battle abilities of Pokemon and their power in much more exaggerated ways than the official Pokemon anime and games, such that they look "cooler" if ever pictured on actual scenes. Yeah, so when one reads the battles in my fic, they never feels like they are really reading a Pokemon battle, because it just so much different from how the official anime, games, nor any Pokemon manga way and style of portraying.


But however, oppositely I draw very little to almost no reference for characters interactions. Because my main casts are all Original Characters, so I don't feel like reference them to any sort of specific existing characters. I wanted them to be a character that stand as an individual on their own. Though, when the time I designed my OC, I do received inspirations from many different characters, where the inspiration sources are quite a lot that my OC feels like a blend of them, but yet doesn't feel like any one of them.

 

[Baby Seals]

I have a lot. There are a lot of references to real-life celebrities and songs. I have one where two characters sing "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung. Another fanfic features Whitney accidentally ripping out a woman's toenail like SpongeBob did to Squidward. There's a line in my Marlon fanfic where Hugh tells Marlon he can get "a mansion and a yacht and two white women" - a line right out of The Boondocks. It also has a woman with a Purrloin named Lucifer - a reference to the stepmother's cat in Disney's Cinderella. (Even funnier, said character's surname is Tomlinson...and she was created a few weeks before I began knowing a lot about 1D!)

One in-joke I have is that Marlon's last name is never revealed (like Arnold's on Hey Arnold!), and his ethnicity is left ambiguous. It's a reference to his weird tan.

I also have a character named Briar Rose - a reference to the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. She doesn't use Rose, though - just Briar.

 

[kintsugi]

My character mentions reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Ho-Oh, and she's particularly interested in seeing if Ron Sneasly ever gets the girl, but I ended up letting that pun die off after I couldn't think of anything more creative than Seviperus Snape.

Later on, when we get to Violet City, I get to introduce Falkner, who speaks incoherently and basically just quotes As I Lay Dying because Faulkner geddit no okay never mind