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Fan Fic Help

Atholas

Member
Hey everyone, I need help coming up with ideas for towns, their names, geography, gymleaders, and other points of interest for a story based in a region in America. I already have the start town, my home town, Canal Fulton. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 

Shadow Lucario

Lone Vanguard
Well Unova is based off New York. You can use that one. Anyway, I'm pretty sure in the rules it says you can't ask for help with stuff like this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. It's your story and you should write it. As for names of people you could use Behind the name. Google it.
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
Anyway, I'm pretty sure in the rules it says you can't ask for help with stuff like this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Kind of sort of? The rules for the AC say you can't ask people to submit characters or teams. Not so much cities, but I'd assume that if you stretch it far enough, asking for cities is basically the same principle. (And the gym leader thing is most definitely covered by that rule.) In general, it's frowned upon to ask people to come up with ideas for you in a writing community because it implies that your skills aren't exactly the strongest, which in turn reflects badly on your fic. Shortly put, asking for people to come up with the very basic concepts of your story (characters, locations, and so forth) makes people think your story isn't going to be that great. After all, if you can't come up with ideas for characters and locations yourself, what does that say about your ability to put together a plot?

Anyway, to offer up some advice, Atholas, think about the real-world region you want to base your area on. Every canon region is based on a real-world location. For example, as Shadow Lucario said, Unova was based on New York, so a lot of the region resembles the culture and locations you'd find around Manhattan. Then, you've got Kanto (which is based on the region of Kanto in Japan), Johto (Kansai), Hoenn (Kyushu), Sinnoh (Hokkaido), and so forth. As such, the shapes of the region mimic real areas of Japan, as do the cultures of each one, and sometimes even important landmarks. (Example: Burned Tower = Kinkaku-ji.) So when coming up with a fancreated region, your first step should be asking yourself, "Which location do I want to base this on?" Once you figure that part out, do some research and figure out the basic cities and landmarks you think are most important to that particular area. For example, maybe you'll want to include Akron as a major city. Maybe you'll want to include Lake Erie as a major destination for your plot. This will also help you to figure out the geography of your region. In this case, northeastern Ohio (if Canal Fulton = real-world Canal Fulton) isn't exactly flat, but it's certainly flatter than Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In fact, I'd say you'd probably be seeing a lot of gentle hills and forests, rather than the dramatic mountains and valleys or nothing but plains. But you'd probably know this more than anyone else, so think about the kinds of landscapes you see on a daily basis.

After that comes the culture of the region, which will help you define your characters. Try to think of it as advertising your region. If a tourist wanted to visit northeastern Ohio, then what kinds of things would you tell them to try? How would you describe the people? What important events take place there? Do a bit of digging into each landmark and city you include to get a picture of what each city is like. (This is also what canon does. Note that Goldenrod City has a very unique "personality" to it, as does Ecruteak. That's because Osaka and Kyoto -- the cities that both locations are based on, respectively -- have very different cultures, so Goldenrod and Ecruteak more or less embody exaggerations of those ideas.)

As for names of areas, each region follows different naming schemes. Kanto named every town and city after colors, Johto did flowers, Hoenn mashed up two words, and so forth. Think about a theme that would fit your region (based on its culture and what you want to say about them) and pick names that have to do with those themes. Gym leaders are a bit easier; their names directly relate to their type specialties, either as puns or because they actually mean something that has to do with their type. (For example, Blaine rhymes with "flame," Misty has the word "mist" in it, Elesa sounds like "electricity," Lenora is an anagram of "normal" with an E instead of an M, and so forth.) You just have to get creative about that part.

Lastly, gym leaders. A bit harder because that's dappling in character creation, but when it comes to type, it might help to think about your cities and their cultures. It wouldn't make sense to have a Fire-type gym leader in a place known for its forests (unless you were being particularly dark), but it would make sense to have a Bug- or Grass-type gym leader. Of course, you'll also want to think about which types you'd like to feature. It's always cool to see writers try to work in their favorites.

In any case, it just requires a bit of planning, research, and thought. Meditate a lot on the region you choose to write about, and you'll get it.

Good luck!
 

Atholas

Member
I didn't see anything like that in the rules. Hmm, I only read the main rules. Carefully noted. I know it reflects badly on my Fic, and my writing skills, but I have been suffering from a bit of writer's block. I was hoping hearing, well, reading some new/foreign ideas would "unblock" me haha. I'm going to look up that name thing, thanks shadow lucario.

Jx valentine, thanks man, I'll keep that stuff in mind. I appreciate your help.
 

Primal Crusader V

Watch some MANime
Well Unova is based off New York.

But I thought it was Castelia City?

Anyhow, for your starters, the Sinnoh starters would be OK for America as I see it. Torterra would be like America's pride and dominance. Infernape would be like America's confidence, but ego. Empoleon would represent America's experience and labors throughout the years. But hey, I'm just guessing.
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
I didn't see anything like that in the rules.

Can't blame you. With the amount of stickies in the AC, it's easy to miss their own separate rules.

I have been suffering from a bit of writer's block. I was hoping hearing, well, reading some new/foreign ideas would "unblock" me haha.

Writer's block is always a twerp to get over, and I can understand trying to find something to spark your imagination. If it helps, maybe try the word document trick: pulling up a blank word document and just filling it with whatever comes to mind about your region, no matter how nonsensical and crappy it is. Sometimes, "unclogging the mental pipes," so to speak, will help getting that spark going.

You're welcome, by the way. Good luck.

But I thought it was Castelia City?

It's the whole region.

Anyhow, for your starters, the Sinnoh starters would be OK for America as I see it. Torterra would be like America's pride and dominance. Infernape would be like America's confidence, but ego. Empoleon would represent America's experience and labors throughout the years. But hey, I'm just guessing.

I'd honestly recommend, if anything, coming up with fan-created starters, just because this is a completely new region. Unless you can come up with a particularly good reason why so many canon Pokémon exist here and why the regional professor (if that's how the story starts) is giving out starters from a foreign region. (I'd be willing to buy the idea that a lot of Unova Pokémon are in a region based on Ohio, but even then.)
 

Atholas

Member
I don't really feel comfortable coming up with fake-Mon. I used a starter from kanto, johto, and unova. America is the "melting pot" haha. Would you say it's believable that the canon pokemon would also be here?
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
I don't really feel comfortable coming up with fake-Mon. I used a starter from kanto, johto, and unova. America is the "melting pot" haha. Would you say it's believable that the canon pokemon would also be here?

Depends on how you handle it. For example, like I said earlier, I'd be willing to buy the idea that Unova Pokémon are in a region modeled after Ohio because when you get right down to it, Ohio has a lot of the same flora, fauna, and climate as New York, meaning there's a lot of similarities when it comes to ecosystems. There might be a few differences along the way that could be filled in with appropriate Pokémon (like Snover to represent the pine forests you might have, Diglett in place of groundhogs, Grimer and Muk in Lake Erie, and so forth), but when it comes to starters, that's when you have to get creative with your explanations (while ensuring that they're pretty solid and make sense in context) since regional professors have a fondness for giving away Pokémon that should be native to their region anyway (if they were actually wild). Of course, the other option is not using the regional professor as a starter dispenser (i.e., come up with another way your main character gets a starter if this is an OT journey fic), and at that point, you could pretty much go with whatever you want so long as you explain it decently enough.
 

Mew King

It's black magic!
I can help with just a little bit. I can probably throw you not what to use but a good list of things that you could potential alter.

For cities, why don't you, like, choose the 8 most populated cities that aren't in the same state as one another (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis) and research them. Figure out what's in the city and what's around the city. For example, I'm from Philadelphia. We have a large historical section, maybe you can use a city that has a large historical background around. In addition, one thing you got to remember about the US is how capitalistic we are. Right outside my city we have the largest mall in the US (slightly larger than the Mall of America) in it. Similar to the Shopping Mall Nine, you can have, for example, the Route 76 Mall (I-76 being the major road that goes past it). I'm just painting from what I know but it's the same thing you should be doing.

Or maybe just take specific states in the area and base towns off of them? Imagine what's around the US. Name climates that you can imagine and create a city for each one. I can help out, we have a wooded area for most of the US, some mountains, swampland in Florida, desert, plains, lakes, and you can just make a general big city on an island like NY.

As for the gym leaders, I'd first think about it and assign a type to the town or the location. and then develop a personality for the gym leader from there. For instance if you're going to follow what I said first, Phoenix is a desert town. Wouldn't ground types be good to have in the desert? What kind of person would you associate with the ground type? Indianapolis is known for their race track. What kinds of Pokemon are known for being really quick? Maybe you can use fire types because cars are known for "burning rubber". In that case the gym leader would be some sort of speed freak who makes constant references to how fast his Pokemon are. Like maybe you'd have him use a Rapidash, Arcanine, and Blaziken or something like that.

As for starters... If you don't want to make your own, why not choose a good 3 evolutionary line water, grass, and fire type that you believe is something that would be believable to be found in America. You don't have to use one of the starter sets already predefined. Make your own! There are 649 Pokemon out there. Somewhere there are 9 that satisfy the typing and evolutionary family requirements you need.

I'd be able to help you narrow the ideas down, but all in all, the work should be yours and we're just here to like give you small pushes in the right direction.
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
For cities, why don't you, like, choose the 8 most populated cities that aren't in the same state as one another (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis) and research them.

As a note, I would generally advise against this. Regions aren't modeled after entire countries; they're actually modeled after real-world regions. For example, Unova isn't all of the United States. It's actually just New York. Likewise, Kanto, Johto, and Sinnoh aren't modeled after all of Japan; they're just modeled after particular regions in it. Moreover, creating an entire region based off one country, when it comes to the United States anyway, will cause an overlap. You'll end up with a city that's modeled after something that's already been done, so it'll end with the same cultural background and flavor as something that already exists.

Besides, modeling a region after such a vast amount of space may spread you too thin, so to speak. Especially with the United States, there's extreme differences in culture between areas of a single state, so attempting to cram it all in a tiny area may either overload you or your fic with information or cause you to gloss over huge amounts of detail. For example, if you have one city on one end of your region be Boston and a city at the other end be Los Angeles, you've got cultures from all the space in between (Great Plains, Southwest, Mid West, Rockies, and so forth) to cover. That doesn't always condense well. It's not a matter of geography. It's a matter of the fact that the people in Chicago are extremely different from the people in Houston to the point where there's multiple reasons why both cities are actually in completely different real-world regions (besides geography and climate, of course).

What I would recommend is researching real-world regions (of which, yes, there are plenty), but even then, that may be too big of an area. After all, Unova doesn't represent the entirety of New York, never mind the entirety of the Mid-Atlantic. On the other had, you might be able to get away with modeling a region after New England in the same way canon models an entire region after Japan's Kansai or Kanto.

Point is, when designing a region, don't think too big because canon doesn't for a reason. Think small. States/regions/provinces small. Each region in canon has a particular flavor, just like each fragment of a country -- each real-world region -- has a particular flavor in real life. Attempting to combine everything is a lot like saying the only difference between New England and the Southwest is geography, which is most definitely not true.
 

Mew King

It's black magic!
I was always under the impression that Sinnoh was what happens when you do have a large combination of different ecosystems and stuff. I always imagined that region to be the largest just because at the very least when I played through it, it had a large value of ecosystems (a temperate area, a cold area, a mountainous area, a desert area in the upper right island, a volcanic area, a marshy area).

A lot of the cities I named are all in a temperate areas. So, it would make sense to squash the area because the areas are actually similar enough (I mean is New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Indianopolis too much different in climate?). I know they have different characteristics that are there because of their locations but you can make it work somehow. The point I wanted to make was not "Use these cities" but "Look at what these cities have, you can make new cities if you stereotype the cities and put it together in a new city"

There is one question I have... Castellia does not at all look like a city that is situated right next to the desert. It seems kind of dissonant to have a bustling temperate zone seaport right next to a desert... And right across the water from the city is a forest. That are just doesn't make sense to me: the whole closeness of the desert to a major city. So, I don't doubt that the designers might have done the same thing: compress a country into a region sized area... ... ...
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
I was always under the impression that Sinnoh was what happens when you do have a large combination of different ecosystems and stuff.

Sort of. Except, well, it's actually possible to do that without having to leave a real-world location. (For reference, Sinnoh is based on Hokkaido. Check that link to see what each city is actually based on.) It's possible to have drastic temperature (and therefore ecosystem) differences between two neighboring real-world regions or even two different areas within the same region. For example, Boston tends to be warmer than western Massachusetts, but that's because of the benefits it gets from being right up against the ocean, rather than further up in the mountains. Then you have a place like Pennsylvania. The western half tends to get a crapload of snow and bitter-cold weather (thanks to both the Appalachian Mountains and the lake effect coming from Lake Erie), but Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania tends to be flatter and warmer. Heck, you could even say the same about California and how different Los Angeles is from San Francisco in terms of climate, geography, demographics, and... actually, yeah, pretty much the entire list. So, yes, you can think small and still get the same geographic variations, so long as you do your research.

That and there is, of course, room for artistic license, but deciding it always snows in a city based on a real town in northern Hokkaido isn't the same as basing a city on Las Vegas to get a desert area and another city on St. Paul to get one that's always cold.

I always imagined that region to be the largest just because at the very least when I played through it, it had a large value of ecosystems (a temperate area, a cold area, a mountainous area, a desert area in the upper right island, a volcanic area, a marshy area).

That would be because real-world Hokkaido does have all of those geographical features.

(Well, that and you're correct. Comparing each of the first four regions to a map of Japan, Hokkaido is larger in area than Kanto, Kansai, and Kyushu/Okinawa. But it's not as large as an entire country.)

A lot of the cities I named are all in a temperate areas.

That would be because most of the United States is in a temperate zone. So is most of Canada and half of Mexico. (If we want to get particular about details, then you start dividing up the continent into tons of different regions, but we'll get to that in a second. Including how Chicago and Indianapolis are not even in the same climate regions as Philadelphia and New York.) That still doesn't mean you should squash everything because what defines a region isn't only its climate.

Actually, yeah, that's a point I'm a bit confused by. Genuinely, too, so I don't mean to come off as too harsh here. It's just that my point was "don't smash a massive country into one tiny region because there's extreme differences in culture between each actual region and state." So how did this turn into "you should because all of the cities have the same climate"? That and I'd like to know how climate is actually relevant to whether or not a bunch of places should be condensed into a region, particularly given the point that you've said in your first paragraph that Sinnoh is an example of where cities aren't similar to each other in that regard.

So, it would make sense to squash the area because the areas are actually similar enough (I mean is New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Indianopolis too much different in climate?).

Actually... they are. Chicago isn't called the Windy City for no reason (and it actually has more extreme weather patterns thanks to being right up against Lake Michigan). Indianapolis gets extremely hot thanks to being smack in the middle of flatlands. New York's temperature and weather patterns are regulated by the ocean. Philadelphia is... probably actually closely linked to New York. Even then, if we want to start being really particular, while Chicago and Indianapolis share a climate category (i.e., they both experience humid continental climate), New York and Philadelphia are part of a band known as humid subtropical (yes, which it shares with the Southeast) and therefore are literally on a different wavelength than the inland regions of the continent.

I know they have different characteristics that are there because of their locations but you can make it work somehow.

Not really. That's a lot like saying a New Yorker is, at their heart, the same thing as a Bostonian. (Tip: Don't try implying this to strangers in either city. This is a good way to start a fight.) The reason why I make this comparison is because canon's already made it. An Osakan (or someone from Goldenrod City) is not the same thing as someone from Tokyo (Celadon or Saffron). There's a lot of history and a lot of rivalry between both regions, and both cities are particularly proud of their unique cultures. That extends to the rest of Kansai and the rest of Kanto, which is why, instead of creating a map based on the entirety of Japan, the development team separated Johto from Kanto. The same could be said for the United States -- which they've already started in on with Unova (New York City) and Orre (Arizona). Simply put, the United States is just too big with too many cultures and regional variations all at once to cover in just one map, and the game developers have already realized that.

Granted, there are lesser-known fics that have tried to do things like condense the entirety of the United States or Canada into one region, but think of it like this also: your character will have to travel extreme distances to get from gym to gym. If you want to base an entire region off the United States, you might as well do it right by bringing up the fact that your characters will have to get through Kansas to get from Chicago to Houston, Utah to get from Houston to California, and so forth. If you don't want to bring up that much territory, then chances are, you'll want to think small.

The point I wanted to make was not "Use these cities" but "Look at what these cities have, you can make new cities if you stereotype the cities and put it together in a new city"

Every region is based on a real-world location, and even then, given the fact that the OP wants to use an existing city in Ohio as his starting point, it looks like he is going on some level for accuracy.

There is one question I have... Castellia does not at all look like a city that is situated right next to the desert. It seems kind of dissonant to have a bustling temperate zone seaport right next to a desert... And right across the water from the city is a forest. That are just doesn't make sense to me: the whole closeness of the desert to a major city. So, I don't doubt that the designers might have done the same thing: compress a country into a region sized area... ... ...

Again, Unova is based on New York. Pinwheel Forest is based on the forests and parks that are actually scattered around the area. (You can check out a decent comparison in this video. There's another one that shows you just how varied New York City is in terms of landscape.)

Point is, you can base a region off a real-world location, but as you've said, you've got to do a ton of research into it. And if you do a ton of research into it, you'll probably find that sometimes, cities and locations shouldn't be lumped into the same pot. That's why Unova is basically only the New York metropolitan area, not the entire state of New York or even the entire (real-world) region of the Mid-Atlantic. There's just too much to it to allow it to be condensed down into a single point of a larger region. Someone from Brooklyn isn't going to be the same kind of person as someone from Midtown. You could go with a general stereotype of the entire city, but then that would seem like you're glossing over large swaths of detail. There's a reason why the in-game regions and locations themselves are so interesting: because the programmers always pay attention to detail. So by zooming out and saying that everyone from Boston (Southies, the people from the North End, folks in Cambridge, other folks in Roxbury, and so forth) are all the same just so you can stick Boston on the same tiny map as Los Angeles, you end up missing a lot of what makes a region a region, if that makes sense.

Edit: I guess a good way of putting it is that basically, while everyone has an allegiance to a country and while everyone has basic similarities that way, region tends to be more specific and hones in on a place where people's attitudes tend to be similar. Think of it like this: a country is you and all your neighbors, whereas a region is your family. You may be friendly with your neighbors because you all live in the same place, but you're closer to your family members.
 
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Atholas

Member
I did it! my fic takes place in Ohio, which is roughly the same size as Sinnoh. My Ohio is mostly geographically the same as the real Ohio, but it only has 17 cities/towns/and a village. I went through all the Pokemon and decided which ones would most likely live in Ohio. I did not use any fake-mon. I have yet to a sign gyms to 8 cities and make gym leaders, but it's coming along great. I just posted the first chapter. :)
 
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