Fakemon

[SBaby]

1. Legendaries in a region are inevitable. Are you going to tell me when it comes to uber tier we should have no new creatures in my regional roster? Will any story characters catch them? No, but these legs caries make for good movie spinoff stories.

Legendary Pokemon are fine in a fanfic, as long as the Trainer doesn't catch all of them them. That's the point I was trying to drive home. I don't mind when Fakemon are Legendary; I use them. But I normally don't just let the Trainer catch them.

If you absolutely MUST have a Trainer catch a Legendary Pokemon, there should at least be a really good reason for it. I will admit, it's not as cut and dry as it looks re-reading what I've posted, but I've seen many authors fall into the trap where the Trainer suddenly has a bunch of Legendaries, even though by realistic logic it should be impossible to do that, and there's nothing that can challenge him or her. That's when the character becomes a Mary-Sue or a Gary-Stu.

Not to mention according to some canons, catching Legendary Pokemon outright can have really bad effects on the environment. This is one of the reasons I made that rant about the Battle Frontier in the Anime.

2. Besides which a major issue arises if there isn't a new region. Namely where did five new species come from all of a sudden and why on yr ewe five.

I'll address this point, too. As the Anime has shown us, you don't necessarily need to go to an entirely new Region to introduce a new Pokemon. A character could encounter it deep in a forest, where nobody ventures. Or maybe an evil Team brought it from an undisclosed part of the world. The point is, there's ways to introduce them without journeying to a whole new Region (and yes I have to admit, that also includes Legendary Pokemon).

I'm not saying that you're a bad author if you make a new Region with a new 'Generation' for your Fic. I'm just saying that not many people can do it well. And therefore if you're inexperienced, you should avoid it (at least for the time being).

3. Not sure how to answer this one. It sounds objective and a tad insulting to make such a bold claim in front of many talented authors but what do I know?

In all fairness, this last one is mainly for newer authors. I wasn't necessarily aiming this one (or really any of my post) at the veterans. But it's true. Alot of people don't put in enough description for their fan Pokemon. I see it all the time. And I'm sure the mods of the forum do too.


Honestly, I'm not sure why you got mad about this. It wasn't even being directed at you. I posted this to answer the topic in general.

 

[Sid87]

Honestly, I'm not sure why you got mad about this. It wasn't even being directed at you. I posted this to answer the topic in general.

Because people can't have this discussion without fighting. It's impossible.

 

[Ememew]

At the risk of seeming belligerent, perhaps instead of coming to the conclusion that it's "impossible" to have a civil discussion on this topic in all cases, we might consider hurricane-induced stress as a factor in making someone more on-edge than usual about what was said over then Internet, where it is difficult to detect the intended tone of a post?

Anyway, at the three points brought up above . . .

1) This basically just seems to be saying that you should treat original legendaries the same way you would work with a canon legendary: be careful in actually giving it to a character unless there is a very, very good reason to do so because, well, you wouldn't give a Kyogre or Mewtwo to a character without a very, very good reason to do so because it wouldn't seem very realistic. Should you make a fakemon rare, treat it as rare and make it harder for a character to catch it. Just apply the same rules to a fakemon the correspond to how you would treat an existing Pokemon of the same power level, rarity, and importance. The original phrasing may have been a poor choice (the inclusion of the word never, and ordering "not making a legendary" at all before bringing in the fact that this applies to "if a character will catch it" may have lead to misinterpretation), but the general idea is to simply apply the same "rules" to fakemon as canonmon.

2) In this point I disagree with the original assessment to an extent. The idea is not to overwhelm the reader with all of your new creatures at once, but this doesn't mean you have to pick a specific low number to restrict yourself to. Introduce your fakemon only as needed (not every one you've come up with needs to appear) to avoid overwhelming a reader, but if you can handle numbers greater than 4 or 5 at a time without being overly confusing, then feel free to do so.

Imagine if Gen 6 came out tomorrow and some fast writers starting using Pokemon from it within the week. They'd be canon Pokemon, but most readers would not have had time to become used to them. In that case, it would make sense to take extra care in their use, but it wouldn't be "bad" to use them at all simply because they're canon Pokemon, which seems to magically make them fair game no matter how new they are. A person new to the Pokemon franchise as a whole may begin reading a story with absolutely no experience with the Keckleon or Luxio the author includes, but the author is not wrong for including them in a fic a person new to the franchise reads. My point, then, is to question why it would be "wrong" to include multiple fakemon if they're all described well enough or if additional information is provided, when using a canon-mon someone is not familiar with is also quite possible?

Just as long as one introduces their new information only when relevant to avoid overloading the reader, then I see no problem with including more than five original creatures in an overall story. A one-shot might want to restrict things to very, very few, but a longer story has time to introduce multiple new creatures at a reasonable pace.

At the third point, the original poster already mentioned that it was directed at newer authors rather than at experienced ones, so that's already been cleared up as far as I can tell.

 

[LeikMudkips]

isn't there ALREADY a Fakemon thread?

 

[Dilasc]

Yes double storm devastation has me on edge. Still I can offer advice.


Starters are a delicate thing. Design them carefully.

Avoid a secondary typing that interacts with normal until stage 2 or 3 for a simple reason. You may have a lvl 5 tackle/pound/scratch and +/-1 atk/def modifier fight on your hands and if you're up against a grass/steel type you're gonna have a bad time.

Therefore avoid steel, ghost, rock and normal type secondaries. The normal secondary avoidance is because STAB tackle will win that much faster.

Another thing to think carefully is a secondary type for stage 1 that resists the enemy grass water or fire attacks. A water/bug may sound fun, but it really trumps the grass starter as odd as it is to evolve into a bug type.

Starters have the STAB pinch abilities appropriate for thier type. Personally I do give my bug starters, (I have 2 out of a cuurent 18) secondary option in swarm but that still counts. Of course fun abilities are hidden ones so make it count or fun/useful.

 

[Sid87]

At the risk of seeming belligerent, perhaps instead of coming to the conclusion that it's "impossible" to have a civil discussion on this topic in all cases, we might consider hurricane-induced stress as a factor in making someone more on-edge than usual about what was said over then Internet, where it is difficult to detect the intended tone of a post?

I was just poking fun about the previous time this was brought up. I wasn't being super serial about it. Well, not any more than how no one can have any civil discussion anywhere on the internet about anything. Heh.

I have about as little interest in discussing this matter seriously as is humanly possible. The last time it happened, someone that I very much like and respect around here and I both got some weirdly, uncharacteristically petulant sticks up our butts and came to verbal blows over it. And I really regret that. You and I, conversely, had a perfectly fine, rational, pleasant discussion over it in PM, and I think I'll let those things be the last I ever say on the matter in any kind of legitimate fashion. I was just joking in this thread.

 

[bobandbill]

Well.. that's all well and good but that's also off-topic and not what the thread is for at all. Stay on the thread topic please, guys.

 

[Dilasc]

A new word of advice to hopefully spark some interest: avoid the nicknaming phenomenah with Fakemon. Trust me on this, it'll prevent confusion.

 

[Scaldaver]

In my opinion, Fakemon are brilliant ideas. Unfortunately, just not in the world of fanfiction.

What you must remember is, anyone who reads or writes fanfiction has all the Pokemon memorised and know a majority of their moves. But when you introduce something 'alien', it can be hard for the reader to come up with an image of it, even if the description is brilliant. Here's an example of what I mean - if I describe a Pokemon as 'Bee-like, gold, with a stinger, wings' what do you think of? Some may say Beedrill, others Ninjask. (This is actually a description for a Ninjask in my fanfic - I was unaware of the potential mix-up until Dragonfree pointed it out).

And then there'll be the moves to consider: will the attacks be new? If so its just another thing for the reader to memorise. The names will also be hard as hell to remember (I have enough trouble with nicknames for Pokemon in fanfics as it is!), especially if the thing evolves.

So, in conclusion, I think that, if you really want to use Fakemon, use only one or two, and make them legendaries. That way it won't be as hard for the reader to remember too much and it could help develop a new region's 'personality'.

 

[Ememew]

I really hope I don’t sound like I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but why does it matter if the reader imagines your fakemon EXACTLY the way you do or not? In an original story, as far as I can tell, people aren’t told that they shouldn’t make original aliens or fantasy creatures and should only stick to tried and true dragons, elves, and dwarves because readers won’t be able to envision your spider-lizard aliens and rock-people the same way you see them.

If a description applying to more than one possible pokémon, such as saying “a bee pokémon” when there are both the Beedrill and Combee lines to contend with (I think Ninjask is more of a cicada, to be honest) confuses readers, then saying the pokémon’s name somewhere might help (unless you’re trying to be ambiguous for some reason). This is especially true of fakemon, where the reader isn’t going to be able to look it up on a fan-site. If you’re trying to be ambiguous to keep it mysterious, then the intention would be that the reader doesn’t envision it exactly anyway, so I don’t see why a fakemon could not be used in a case where you wouldn’t say its name. Otherwise, call it what it is as often as you describe it (or thereabouts) so people remember it. Again, the “exact” nature of what it looks like isn’t all that important as long as the reader imagines something.

If I were to write about an alien (not a fakemon, but an alien) that looked like a mountain lion with red fur and the curled horns of a ram, my readers likely wouldn’t see the creature exactly as I see it (or even as other readers see it). Does that mean I should never use it in an original story? No. As long as the reader can form a mental picture of the creature, they can enjoy the story, whether or not their picture is the same as my own. So why would the a red mountain-lion/mountain goat hybrid presented as a fakemon suddenly be a big deal because people won’t see the same creature unless I managed to get hired by Game Freak, in which case the exact same creature would magically become acceptable in fics?

I also think the “too much to remember” argument is more on how the information is presented than the inclusion of original creatures. We’re already writing in a franchise where we can expect about a hundred more of these critters to pop up in one go every couple of years. As I said in a previous post, if Generation 6 came out tomorrow and writers began using some of the creatures from that immediately, the reader base would not be familiar with them yet – but they’d still be acceptable to write about simply because Game Freak made them. Why? Why is a fan-made group of creatures so much more complicated than a Game Freak made one? Especially since some members have suggested making links to images of fakemon (seriously, read Phoenixsong’s post early in the thread). It’s not about the amount of info, but rather the amount of info at a time. Introduce new ‘mons as they’re relevant, and readers should be able to handle it. Saying they would be overwhelmed if you have more than two original creatures seems to underestimate the readers, in my opinion (although I doubt the sentiment was intended that way).

Since this is already getting long and I don’t want to sound too argumentative, I’ll put my last point in a spoiler.

Spoiler: more on what if it was presented as original?

I recently showed a fakemon I made to my parents. I was a little upset at the time because I had just realized how proud I was of the line I’d made and how disappointed I was when I realized that there’s pretty much NO way of it becoming a “real” Pokémon. Sending it to Game Freak to look at would pretty much be the equivalent of putting it in a shredder. My dad suggested I keep the creature but not make it a Pokémon – his argument is that if I’m creative enough to make it, I’m creative enough to make my own non-Pokémon world for a creature that “evolves” like a pokémon and is trained by humans like a pokémon (which is pretty much his argument against fan fiction in general, but that’s another topic entirely).

His assessment got me thinking (among other things), what IF I did release all my fakemon as an original concept? There’re a couple of monster-tamer type games other than Pokémon and Digimon,* so one more wouldn’t hurt. Sure, it’d pretty much be a rip-off, but that’s not the point here.

The point I am trying to make is that if I made all those same creatures for an original pokémon-like-but-not-actually-pokémon universe, the complaints about there being “too many to remember” or “no hard to picture EXACTLY” would likely disappear. If I were to do this, it would make even less sense to only release two-at-most per story out of fear of overwhelming people because, well, the potential fan would expect a whole lot more than two creatures in an original universe. They would be the very same set of creatures, but because they are their own thing a new fan like my rip-off would have fans? would be OK with learning each one and letting them be used in a fic of that universe my, my ego is at it tonight!. The exact same creatures as original pokémon, released at the same rate of “as needed for the story,” however, would be argued against as “too complicated” "too many" or “too vague” based on many of the arguments I’ve seen in discussions of fakemon in fics. Why?

*Note, I am NOT calling Digimon a Pokémon rip-off, I am using it as another example of a series with evolving monsters and their human partners. I am only calling my own idea a rip-off.

 

[Boomsta22]

I took some time to make a fakemon of my own for a friend's rom hack.

Murkleech - the Poison Leech pokemon
Murkleech from behind

It's not exactly complete- in fact, there are better versions with fixed horns and all, it's just such a hassle to get files uploaded here. Anyways, let me know what you guys think about this.

(Also, this picture file feature thing is pretty lame.)

 

[Psychic]

This isn't the Fan Art section - this thread is about Fakemon in fiction. It's also not a place where we literally judge one another's Fakemon. Please read the first post in a thread to know what the topic's about before responding to it, and get an idea of what each sub-forum is for so you know where to post.

~Psychic

 

[Boomsta22]

Wellp, golden.

Got a question though, I guess- it's regarding sprites.

I'm wondering how people would go about making map sprites of pokemon. You know how in Heart Gold and Soul Silver you have pokemon follow you, and how in Diamond and Pearl, you see buneary and pikachu out and stuff. I want to make sprites in that perspective but don't know where to start.

Anyone know how to help with that?

 

[bobandbill]

http://www.serebiiforums.com/forumdisplay.php?71-Fan-Sprites would be the best place on these forums to look, I'd imagine. There's thread stickies including tutorials on the subject. I doubt you'd get much help here though as this is for writing rather than sprite or other visual arts along those lines.

Soa gain, this isn't the thread for that. Try asking questions to mods of the art section via PM if you need help with that.