Define OT for me...

[not_awake]

OT, original trainer, what exactly does this apply to? I mean if a story isn't about an established character from the games or anime or written about/from a pokemon's perspective does it fall into the category of OT? If so don't you think that it implies the label is much to widely applied? I've heard this term thrown around so much, but I've never completely understood it.

For me OT covers so many things that it becomes a fairly useless term. After all, who isn't going to use original characters in their story? I mean a person writing a fic about a new and original character battling through gym battles seems to fall under this. Likewise, a person writing about a new and original character that travels through time in search of a cure for a new and strange disease also seems to fall into this. Is there a distinction that I'm unaware of? Again the same can be said for journey fics; aren't both these characters undergoing some sort of journey? From my perspective, it become very difficult to discuss what makes a good or bad OT/journey fic, because it covers so many possibilities.

Perhaps it's just me, and a lack of understanding, but shouldn't we have more clearly defined genres beyound OT and journey?

 

[Dragonfree]

OT, to me anyway, is a chaptered fic in which the main character is a made-up Pokémon trainer and the fic follows him or her through a Pokémon journey around the Pokémon world where at least part of the purpose is to collect Gym badges/compete in contests/some other organized Pokémon activity, usually climaxing in the national tournament. If it's just a person who is a trainer but the fic is not about his or her journey, I'd never call it OT; if it's just a short bit of the journey, I wouldn't call it OT either. My fic is straying more and more from the OT path, so it's not going to be within that definition much longer, and at least not once the Pokémon League is over. :/

Personally, I wouldn't call that example you mentioned about a new and original character that travels through time in search of a cure for a new and strange disease OT, unless the character is also collecting badges or whatever on the way.

 

[not_awake]

Thank you Dragonfree, for your definition. In my mind, I was reading OT as any original character set in the Pokemon world though I've always regarded it as badge collecting journeys and hoped my characters fell outside of it.

I'd still like to know what others think to see what the general consesus on this term is.

 

[The Burnt Shadow]

Well to me an OF fic is something a thousand times different. Instead of hearing the same story of trainers collecting badges and fighting some second rate jokes, a trainer would go on his own adventure, the trainer would go on an adevnture that he never planned to do. He/she would go through several hardships and adventures other trainers would never face. Mostly in an OT fic, there wouldn't be any much of cliche appearances, like a beginning trainer would have a Pikachu in the beginning or a battle Team anything. A few of my fics have been through those phases, but I began to see ideas that were going to be rather obvious and would lessen a reader's attention. I now focus on fics about trainers who enter adventures that would suprise them a little...

 

[Chibi Pika]

I dunno, it all depends on your perspectvie. For instance, I've always classified Orginal Trainer as simply meaning that the main character is a trainer and nothing more, and the whole journey/contest/traveling deal as Journey Fic, because that's how I learned it on Pojo. I consider my fic OT even though the main character trains illegally for several months and thinks that Gym Battling is stupid for a long time before finally doing it anyway out of boredom.

~Chibi~;249;<?>;rukario;

 

[Dragonfree]

Well to me an OF fic is something a thousand times different. Instead of hearing the same story of trainers collecting badges and fighting some second rate jokes, a trainer would go on his own adventure, the trainer would go on an adevnture that he never planned to do. He/she would go through several hardships and adventures other trainers would never face. Mostly in an OT fic, there wouldn't be any much of cliche appearances, like a beginning trainer would have a Pikachu in the beginning or a battle Team anything. A few of my fics have been through those phases, but I began to see ideas that were going to be rather obvious and would lessen a reader's attention. I now focus on fics about trainers who enter adventures that would suprise them a little...

That's not really a definition. That's just how you would write one, at least how I'm reading it...

 

[The Burnt Shadow]

Well yeah it it kind of we write one. I thought it would just give a little explanation about it...

 

[Astinus]

I thought OT just meant Original Trainer. That's how I learned it defined on fanfiction.net. So I think OT fics are just "trainer fics" that deal with the normal journey or not, with different plot points thrown in to not make it boring.

That's what I think, anyways. Hope that helps. :/

-;249-d;-