Pokemon fanfic categorization

[Pidgeot500]

Hi, I've been thinking...

Of course I reailze there are authors who enjoy Pokemon fanfic no matter what the subject, theme, setting, characterization, or writing style, but I have to admit I'm not one of them. Truthfully, not many fanfics draw my interest such that I find myself thinking of it or looking forward to it when I'm not directly reading it or discussing it.

For instance, I appreciate stories with dynamic characters and events, plot-based in essence, more so than vignettes or stories that focus more on people than on Pokemon or vice verse. It's odd, I know, but it's my own particular tastes.

So what I'd like to know is--does anyone else feel the same way about kinds of Pokemon fanfic? Not that you wouldn't read a lot of different fanfics, but maybe you feel that a particular content or type of perspective interests you more. Of course you could appreciate literary and well-worded Pokemon fanfic above all else, but outside of that, perhaps certain subjects happen to spark your interest?

This question is slightly different that the previous topic I posted about what you look for in a Pokemon fanfic, because this one is solely based on content. The reason I'm posting this is because I think it'd be a really neat idea, for my sake and (as I hope to find out through this topic) perhaps for the sake of others, to create keywords/labels for Pokemon fanfic that allow a person to get an idea of what it's about. Not to say that I'm too lazy to click on topics in Pokemon fanfic forums and read a few paragraphs, but I am so selective that it would very much increase the efficiency of such forays if I were able to pick out the few that I might enjoy especially.

I just think that this idea is something that could be very useful in some circumstances, or maybe it's something that should just be "put out there".

Has anyone done anything like this before, I wonder?


OK, on the subject of categorizing Pokemon fanfic, though, I think I've kind of worked out something out of a methodology. Let me know if I'm crazy, but...

With regular fiction we have fantasy, sci-fi, horror, adventure, suspense novels. I'll rougly define these as "A story that could happen ordinarily in the real world, but with some fairly central/essential element of X" where X is "fantasy", "pseudoscience", "adventure", "suspense" etc. I think that can be translated into Pokemon fanfic simply by replacing "real" with "Pokemon", e.g. "A story that could happen ordinarily in the Pokemon world, but with some fairly essential element of fantasy".

An indicator of "sci-fi" Pokemon fanfic would be significant expansions on what we know of the Pokemon world that concern science/nature, but that don't go too far "out there", for instance a scientist creates a device to locate any Pokemon then Team Rocket steals it and uses a ten-thousand-year sample of the hair of a Mew to use it to try to find Mew, or for instance having some element of psychic powers/destiny, a la Sabrina, or for instance infiltrating the Clefable moon base. A "fantasy" Pokemon fanfic would pretty much defy what we think we know of the Pokemon world, for instance explaining Pokemon as simply animals with the power to access elemental energies and then giving humans this power (Pokemon MASTER).

However how easy it to tell simple fiction from sci-fi, when the Pokemon world is so undefined right now? I'd just call this "expansion", and say that there are degrees of it. Creating a new continent and/or new Pokemon is significant expansion, but simply expanding the role of some person or organization in such a way that doesn't directly betray what we know of the Pokemon world from the TV show or games would be only subtle expansion. Maybe "expansion+", "expansion++", and "expansion+++" or summat.

And of course there could be a way to touch upon the setting and overall plot/mood/themes, and most importantly the fic's style. For setting there'd be the canon Pokemon world and other Pokemon worlds created by the others, so I guess that'd be just a dual label. For plot/mood, you can have stuff like "humor", "romance", "adventure", "action", "mystery". For fic style of the top of my head, maybe "scriptic", "poem", "vignette", "novel" I think.

Then there'd be ways to talk about elements of the story, some of the more common ones maybe being trainerfic, Pokemon-only...

Does any of this sound remotely interesting, or am I just letting ideas get out of hand?

 

[Frostweaver]

Well I'm skimming a bit on top of being a bit confused about what is being asked...

First of all, I personally can take any Pokemon fanfic rather well if it's not a direct Pokemon-Anime-Replica, and as long as it's actually a pokemon fanfic not "an original story forced into the Pokemon World." As long as the story plot doesn't offend my personal religious beliefs, otherwise, I can read quite a variety of stuff... I am also *easily* annoyed at scriptfics without the proper format. Crossovers are *really* hard to appeal me too because crossovers often overlook one of its component compare to the other...

I still don't really know what's the question... Maybe I'll just list out *all* the different mainstream content of Pokemon Fanfics in no particular order...

*note: some fanfics are compositied of multiple elements... and those fanfics are generally more appealing to most people due to its relatively original and complex nature.

a) "New Game"
-Go through the journey of the Pokemon Game with those characters, usually made when a new game comes out. 99.9% uses the game hero (ex: in Hoenn you get Brandon/May or Yuuki/Haruka) and not the anime ones.

b) School
-Pokemon characters going to school, and 100% romance is involved. School-fics that are written during the time of the Kanto Region almost always involve Ash+Misty pairing with Gary being the school bully.

c) New region
-Pokemon characters go through a new region, almost always with new Pokemon and a new "Team ________." Often blends in with original trainers. New writers often go after this style.

d) Team _______
-Evil team in the Pokemon world unleashing some evil plan/experiment that puts the world in danger. Hero's party tries to save the world. Probably the most popular type of Pokemon fanfic written by new writers after their first failure with an Orignal Trainer.

e) The Next Generation
-the sons and daughters of the Pokemon anime heroes go off on their own adventure. Usually, it's a cover-up of an original trainer. However, a good "The Next Generation" Pokemon fanfic can bewild your mind with its utmost abuse of the parents-sons/daughter relationship (most common: shadowed by the father's glory as a Pokemon master and hard it is difficult to live up to the glory. Most likely, Ash is the father) or how a problem from the past generation is passed on to the next.

f) Legends/Prophecies and the Legendaries
-mysterious ancient legends are fulfilled, and the fate of the world are in the hands of the heroes and the legendaries (with the legendaries not necessarily on the good side). Sometimes instead of a legend, it can be a prophecy. Blends in with "Team ______" style usually. A derivative is the origin of a legendary- how a legendary came to be.

g) Pokemon Manga Heroes
-instead of the Pokemon anime, the Pokemon manga heroes are portraited instead.

h) Original Trainer
-an original trainer goes off to a Pokemon journey. (generally, the most hated type because most new writers with no writing experience usually rush off to this genre immediately, making this genre terrible looking). A derivative of this type is characters from our time's present world being teleported to the Pokemon world through mysterious ways.

i) TV Shows/Game Shows
-Pokemon characters are portraited in a TV/Game show, such as "Pokemon- Survivors." 100% humor, *ALWAYS* (or at least I haven't seen one that's not suppose to be funny)

j) Pokemon hunting
-Pokemon are being hunted down and destroyed instead of being friends with humans... Usually featuring a Pokemon as the main character and angst as its genre, this type of fanfic usually focuses on the character's survival, and possibly talking about the relationship between humans and Pokemon.

k) The Ancient Times
-Pokemon in the "middle ages," with shields, swords, and Pokemon in war. Combines with many other action/adventure element nicely.

l) Resistance Groups
-Some power (be it "Team ______" or the Pokemon League) is in control, and a resistance group is formed to go against this power. Almost always, our designated couple is often torn between these 2 groups, one supporting the group in power and the other supporting the resistance...

m) Princes and Princesses
-Pokemon fairy tale style, with one of the designated couple being high in the aristocracy while the other is on the opposite end. Against all odds, they start a romantic relationship filled with obstacles...

n) Elemental Power
-Humans harness the power of Pokemon and uses Pokemon attacks themselves, be it through ancient magic arts or biological advancements.

o) Pokemon Movie Hype
-usually rushed out after a new Pokemon movie is made, this type talks about the aftermath of a certain Pokemon movie. Most famous ones are Latias's quest to find either Latios or Ash.

p) Satires
-all kinds of humorous ways to poke fun at the Pokemon, or how terrible the dubs are compare to the original Japanese ones

q) Near-Fatal Injury
-a main character is wounded severely because of the attack of Team ______, Pokemon poisoning or natural illness, and it is up to the character who is designated to pairup with this injured main character to take care of the wounded character. This also includes character possession by evil powers or ghost Pokemon.

r) Pokemorph
-Pokemon capable of morphing into humans, and sometimes the vice-versa is also true.

s) Beginning/End
-talks of the creation/start of Pokemon, or a reflection regarding the end of Pokemon


Err... did this thing help at all? O.o;;; I'm not sure...

 

[Iveechan]

I guess Guilty by Design doesn't fall into anything. Funky. Another fic type is "Origin" which is about a game/anime character when they were younger and training for whatever they do now. Personally, I like origins, but very little holds my interest. I had to read over the first post a few times, and I still don't fully understand it o.o

 

[Dragonfree]

Heh, Frostweaver, you should make some kind of an official fanfic categorization system of Pok?community.

 

[Pidgeot500]

Whoops, frostweaver, I guess I didn't make it so clear. Despite my failure in that I think you definitely hit the mark with those types of stories you listed.

My initial query can possibly be rephrased as "Outside of literary quality, is there any specific type of content in a Pokemon story that makes you enjoy it more?" For instance, Pokemon fanfics can be fantastic or sci-fi-ish, so some people might prefer one or the other just like some people like regular (not related to Pokemon) fantasy novels or science fiction novels.

Then I brought up the idea of a possible system, using labels, which could theoretically be used to briefly summarize some types of content that a particular fanfic would have. The second half of what I wrote (staring with "OK, on the subject of categorizing Pokemon fanfic...") is where I talk about my ideas for that.

It's important to note that when I say "content" I don't mean plot; if a kind of plot could be archetyped, as frostweaver has neatly done, then that would be noticeable, but there is a lot more that could be described than just plot. Also, this could theoretically apply to poems, scriptfics, vignettes, and regular-style stories (in fact, indicating which of those the fanfic happens to be is one of the possibly categories for classification that I listed initially).

Edit: And judging by Dragonfree's (...suggesting to frostweaver the idea of categories as if it wasn't half the point of my initial post ;) Although maybe Dragonfree understand that but thinks that any system developed at PC should stay at PC?) and Iveechan's post, my explanation really was badly-phrased... Does this post help clear it up? Any particular sentences/paragraphs that you don't understand?

 

[Yamato-san]

with any type of fanfiction, you can't so easily divide it into sci-fi and fantasy and all that, because you use existing characters, worlds, etc. from the franchise. It's like trying to make a science fiction category in a place with Zelda fanfics, it just doesn't work. If you use Pokemon Trainers, it'll almost always be sci-fi due to the technology involving Monster Balls and whatnot. And the Pokemon themselves sometime present a fantasy element, and since Pokemon and Trainers are almost always mixed together, it'd be a mixture of both worlds and the pure sci-fi and fantasies and stuff would be in the minorities (romance might not be a minority, but still).

While fanfics can't be classified the same way real books and stuff can be, they can have their own unique categories all their own, like the ones Frost Weaver just listed out.

 

[Pidgeot500]

Hmm, I realize now that this can be a complex concept. Let me talk about Pokemon sci-fi/fantasy fanfic. Pokemon fanfic by nature is fantasy, because Pokemon and the Pokemon world do not exist and are not justifiably possible by any small stretch of the present scientific episteme. However, there are limits to the defined scope of the Pokemon canon. (Re-read those last two sentences.) Within that scope can exist objects, events, and situations which would be categorized as "fantastic/impossible" or "scientifically feasible/possible" with the Pokemon canon acting as a standard of "possible".

There does exist a Pokemon canon. It's not so clearly laid out, but the vast majority of the Pokemon canon comes from the video games and the anime. Some people might follow the anime pretty clearly and borrow a concept from a Pokemon game for use in their fanfics, like item storage, for instance.

So when I say "Pokemon sci-fi" and "Pokemon fantasy", imagine this. You live in the Pokemon world. Maybe you share a flat with a fellow trainer east of Celadon City. Now, you pick up a book. It's an adventure novel about a man who overcomes his fears and won the Pokemon league championships. Now, you live right near Celadon City, and you know about the Pokemon League, and the Gym system; in fact, just a week ago your friend lost a match against the Leader, Erika. So you know what happens in the book could happen. But the main character of the book never did those things, so the book is simply a work of fiction. Everything in it could happen, but hasn't. ...When you're done reading that adventure novel, you pick up another book. It's a horror novel about carnivorous space aliens who infiltrate the Pokemon League by disgusing themselves as the cute, lovable Pokemon, Clefairy. Now, you yourself are a trainer and caught a Clefairy on your trip to Pewter City last autumn, which you then evolved to Clefable and used to defeat the Pewter City Gym Leader, Brock. So you know it's not true that Clefairy and Clefable are intergalactic invaders. Plus, at the time of you reading this horror novel, you've been reading in the papers about the Mossdeep Space Center and you know they haven't been able to send someone to the moon just yet. So in addition to horror, it's also a sci-fi novel. ...See what I mean?

But anyway, just people don't read this and think the classification system is just about genre, I should mention at the end of this post that it's not; it's a lot of things, which I mentioned up top. :)

Edit: Also, in case you're thinking that the Pokemon canon isn't defined enough to support this, that's why I talked about the "expansion" label, which would be the author's discretion. Though the Pokemon canon is more well defined that most I suspect people believe.

 

[Frostweaver]

That is really a flawed concept due to the nature of Pokemon to begin with... Pokemon cannot possibly be a "Pokemon-science fiction" or "Pokemon-fantasy" because it *must* be both.

How does a Pikachu unleash 10,000 Volts (note: Thunderbolt is actually just "10000 volts" in japanese) of power against a Victreebel and Victreebel won't die? Well first of all, it's amazing enough that something can generate power up to 10000 volts (imagine that current in Pikachu's body... oh boy.) That's already scientifically impossible.

On top of that, Pikachu can direct the voltage to strike a particular spot- Victreebel. How does this work? Electricity is attracted to the highest concentration of protons and will try to reach there in the shortest distance possible. Now first of all, Pikachu is grounded so technically his electric buildup will leak to the ground before he can even charge up 10000 volts, but let's assume that Pikachu's tiny feet is a super resistor and therefore Pikachu is not grounded although he is standing on the ground. Now the large amount of electrons in Pikachu's body will repel all negative charges around to move away (same charges repel), leaving the ground around Pikachu with a high positive charge. The closest distance between Pikachu's high negative charge and the nearby positive charge should be the ground right underneath Pikachu! The earth will certainly contain more protons than a Victreebel's body, so in all sense of physics, thunderbolt should strike the ground closest to Pikachu.

Ok let's pretend that it hits Victreebel too, but how does Victreebel survive? Electrons jump from Pikachu to "zap" Victreebel at a high insane voltage of 10000. Given by the formula...

Kinetic Energy (energy from movement) = voltage times charge

(where voltage is 10000 given by definition and charge of electrons are constant)

You get 1.6 * 10^-15.

Kinetic energy is defined by half of mass times speed^2...

1.6 * 10^-15 = 0.5 * 9.11 * 10^-31 * v^2

v = 59267389.7 meter per seconds

Ooookay... if electrons are travelling that fast, creating friction with the air molecules which is definitely going to *BURN* due to the insane speed... I think Victreebel is going to be fried before the nerve system even kicks in. O.o;

Ok so the point of all those physics calculation is just to show that Pokemon is defined as complete fantasy to begin with. Actually, psychic/ghost types itself are already a fantasy.

However, the scientific world of Pokemon completely qualifies for Pokemon to be a science fiction. How does a Pokeball or the Pokeball transfer system work? Pokeballs got the power to destroy matter by making it disappear into thin air, yet can store the "destroyed" matter inside and then recreate the matter again... confusing stuff. Also, we know that Pokemon World is perfectly capable of perfect cloning, or perhaps even cloning something better than the original. We're still in a stage where cloning (if we're even doing it... I hope not o.o; ) only makes terrible defects.

Science fiction is defined by the fact that if the technology available at the writer's time can perform the tasks mentioned in the work. For Pokemon fanfics, what kind of "writer's time" can be compared with? We're making a fiction out of a piece of fiction which already qualifies for science fiction, so how can a Pokemon fanfic not compose of any science fiction at all?

(note: I've read exceptions, and those exceptions are either about world creation, just the Pokemon characters, or reflection of a fad long gone in the present day world... indeed they didn't mention any science component of the Pokemon world but in order to achieve this, your plot is *greatly* limited.)

If we must insist of categorizing Pokemon fanfics into fantasy or scientific, then I guess that the conclusion of the day is...

a) if it has the existence of *any* Pokemon appearing in the story, it's by default fantasy

b) if it mentions Pokeball, Pokemon center and almost any other facility/tools, it's scientific already

Literatures got plenty of grey areas, and I really won't force myself to make everything black and white in this case (while it is a great thing to do in anywhere else. It's always important to know what is right and what is wrong, or at least to take an attempt to find out about it.)

 

[oni flygon]

b) School
-Pokemon characters going to school, and 100% romance is involved. School-fics that are written during the time of the Kanto Region almost always involve Ash+MistyGreen+Yellow pairing with GaryRed being the school bully.

g) Pokemon Manga Heroes
-instead of the Pokemon anime, the Pokemon manga heroes are portraited instead.

That would be the basic formula of Oni's fanfictions...
Replace it with GreenxYellow and Red being the bully... XD

 

[Pidgeot500]

That is really a flawed concept due to the nature of Pokemon to begin with... Pokemon cannot possibly be a "Pokemon-science fiction" or "Pokemon-fantasy" because it *must* be both.

Okay that is basically what Yamato-san said and then I replied to it, so I'm really hoping you just saw those two terms in my post and skipped the rest. My only alternative would be to believe that of the two separate parties (a) myself and (b) everyone else, and I'm afraid my logical mind's Occam's Razor couldn't allow me to believe that group b is at fault. And, I'd rather not live with myself were I to discover I'd become crazed. :(

 

[Frostweaver]

I read your post already... and I indeed replied to it.

"The concept is flawed" and remains to be >>;

Though you tried to explain yourself... and I read your example, but either way it is and remains flawed. Your explanation failed to explain anything regarding your original point... o.o;

EDIT: I = V/R... R is constant in the case of air. If you want a high I, you *will* need the high V.

unless air's resistancy is not a constant... then I don't know =p

I haven't done ionization of air... ciriculum is only concerned with electricity and magnetic fields in systems, not air for us here in Canada ^^

 

[Pidgeot500]

Okay, this the super-simplified reply, but, you don't believe writers living in the Pokemon world could possibly write science fiction or fantasy novels? That's basically (very basically) what Pokemon sci-fi fics and fantasy fics would classified by.

 

[Rebecca M. Renfield]

*looks at frostweaver's initial post* Very well-condensed?I can't think of any "canon" plots that you didn't list. Well, aside from the crossover fic, but I'm not even going there.... >_>

I agree with labeling fiction by genre. Having a generic label like "science-fiction," "action-adventure," or "Romantic" on a fiction would make it easier to locate fiction by taste (or a Gothic-Romantic sci-fi action-adventure, if you want something completely tacky and overworked, xd). Having it labeled solely by one of the nineteen "cookies" that frostweaver recanted just doesn't tend to spark much interest, if you ask me.... They've just... been overdone.... o_O

 

[Frostweaver]

Okay, this the super-simplified reply, but, you don't believe writers living in the Pokemon world could possibly write science fiction or fantasy novels? That's basically (very basically) what Pokemon sci-fi fics and fantasy fics would classified by.

For a writer inside the Pokemon World, of course... just compare if the technology within the work of that author is more advanced than the Pokemon World or not. However... that's them. We aren't in that world to get to use their classification... unless your story is about a writer in the Pokemon World really ^^

And Rebecca really, what's the difference between my list and your list? XD One of them is by overall genre that can be applied to all works of literaturem while mine applies to Pokemon only... Even say if you have a "action-adventure" you will still have to obey one of the "cookies" (and I realize that indeed I missed a few... forgot the drama/singer category and the rivalry category).

Can't really say that if a Pokemon fanfic goes by one of those plot is "boring" either... it all depends on how well it's done within that category. Afterall, *every* story streams from only 6 elements...

Plus, we aren't that big to have our fanfics categorized like that... we aren't even as big as serebii forums. We aren't fanfiction.net and that can be a good thing actually... this page doesn't get updated so fast that your story gets on pg.2 (aka land of the oblivion) by the next day after it's just updated.

 

[Pidgeot500]

(Preface to what I'm about to say: I don't mean to sound like a jerk :( but make sure you read each and every word because I am 99% sure I am saying everything correctly now, but judging by your response to my words you've read them as something other than what I intended. Sometimes a single misread word be a cause for misinterpretation.)

frostweaver,
Okay, that explanation must have been too simplistic, so I'll try another approach. Right now when people write sci-fi and fantasy--in this world, I mean--it might be said that sci-fi is based on what we know we might potentially be able to accomplish i.e. what's within sight, in terms of scientific advancements, sometime in the future. Fantasy is the same but in terms of what we know isn't possible.
When George Orwell wrote 1984, they didn't yet have the technology to put camera in the homes of over 15% of the population of Great Britain. Now they do. (Although of course they may not have the money.) So at the time it was written it was classified as science fiction, and rightly so. It doesn't become fantasy because the year 1984 already passed. (I'm sure you agree with this paragraph but bear with me.)
For general science fiction and fantasy, we decide what might be possible and what isn't possible based on what we know is possible, right now. For Pokemon fanfic--and this actually applies to fanfic for any fictional universe--we can decide what might be possible in the Pokemon world and what isn't possible in the Pokemon world based on what we know is possible in the Pokemon world, which is established by the Pokemon canon. Okay, I bolded that since it's the central point here.

For a writer inside the Pokemon World, of course... just compare if the technology within the work of that author is more advanced than the Pokemon World or not. However... that's them. We aren't in that world to get to use their classification... unless your story is about a writer in the Pokemon World really ^^

With this statement you seem to be saying that you believe there is a difference between Pokemon fanfic and fiction (not sci-fi or fantasy, just plain fiction) written from the perspective of someone in the Pokemon world. But is there? Only one differnce, really; the theoretical author who lives in the Pokemon world believes that what he is writing is true, while the fanfic writer (hopefully :\) knows that he is only writing a story. Yet their stories could be exactly the same. (Of course, this is supposing that the fanfic author knows as much about the fictional universe of Pokemon as a person living in the Pokemon world would--this might only work with Satoshi Tajiri as the fanfic author. :D) Am I losing you with all this?

 

[Yamato-san]

we can decide what might be possible in the Pokemon world and what isn't possible in the Pokemon world based on what we know is possible in the Pokemon world, which is established by the Pokemon canon.[/b]

but Pokemon canon itself is very complicated. It's divided between video games, anime, and several different manga, each of which taking place in their own world and with their own levels of technology. While most people do follow anime canon, the other types of canon can still be tooken into account in a fic. In the anime and games, they have plenty of technological advances, I'll give it that. However, in some aspects, it is lacking compared to our own world. In terms of transportation, have you ever seen an airplane, or anything more complex than that (OK, there is the Mossdeep rocket, but aren't they still experimenting with that?)? No, the closest you ever see is hot air balloons and dirigibles and such. In fact, Pokemon training and Rocket technology aside (maybe ignore La Rousse City, too), the world is exactly like our's, if not even more simplified. Now, when you read the manga by Toshihiro Ono, this isn't the case. In that, you see several technological advancements even outside of Team Rocket and being a trainer. Holographic screens, hover cars, towering futuristic metropolises, etc. Because of this, some things can apply as 'sci-fi' to certain types of canon, but not to others.

And Frost Weaver's right, we don't need to categorize our stories because there's not that many here. If you wanted the categorization system just so people could find what style of stories they like, I think that can be easily solved with a thread that lists off different categories and links the fics that apply to them (since there's no point in seperating the whole forum as such).

 

[Frostweaver]

Now now Pidgeot500...

For Pokemon fanfic--and this actually applies to fanfic for any fictional universe--we can decide what might be possible in the Pokemon world and what isn't possible in the Pokemon world based on what we know is possible in the Pokemon world, which is established by the Pokemon canon.

I think Yamato-san summed up already... We see Pokemon World being capable of cloning (Mewtwo exists in all games/tv/manga) yet we don't see any of them having airplanes. If we include robots to the ranks of Gundums from the Gundum series in the Pokemon World, does that count as "science fiction" or not? Well Team Rocket makes up some pretty crazy robots that define all source of science as well... so do we classify that as science fiction or "possible" for the Pokemon world?

Strangely enough, most people to that situation will answer "definitely, science fiction." But why is that though? Who knows just *when* will Team Rocket decide to come up with these kinds of stuff... where if they can fire bubblegum as bombs, surely they got the technology for firing real bombs? But the fact that our concepts of science-fiction always get involved when we're thinking about a science-fiction for a fanfic whose basis may well perhaps be a science-fiction already...

And yes! Definitely there's quite a bit of difference between a fanfic and an original fiction. The fact that a fanfic has a definite plot that's locked up as a restriction makes all the difference...

It's not just a problem with do we have enough fanfics to start categorization system... Fanfics on vb forums are pretty flawed to begin with. The fact that readers can only rely on the fanfic title to decide rather if the fanfic is interesting enough to read or not is very devastating... You don't have the one line summary in fanfiction.net, or the title page/whole page summary on the back of books in the library... Fanfics have so little chance to show itself to potential readers already. Must we put a categorization system so some fanfics won't even get a chance to be seen by light? Let the readers do some work to scroll through the different fanfics so every fanfic regardless of category/genre gets an opportunity to show itself so readers will read them...

Nothing wrong with bringing up this suggestion though... we all need suggestions to be debated upon in order to come to realizations about just anything... On top of that, a forum only grows by its members' willingness to make it improve... *rep up*


and btw Yamato-san, frostweaver is one word ;o;

 

[Rebecca M. Renfield]

Oh, I wasn't talking about any one community in general. I meant ficdom as a whole. Book stores have their fictions categorized by genre; it would only make sense. You want an action novel, you go to the action titles. You want a drama, you go to the drama titles.

Frostweaver, you make a point. *smushes face into her hand, feeling stupid* The only difference between my list and yours is that mine aren't archetyped solely to Pok?fiction, and can be assigned to any story. But, just like how someone may like romance novels, someone else might only like AAMR.

Also, I think that pre-labeling a plotline as archetypal tends to make everything in that specific category look exactly the same. Sure, some are written better than others?that's true of any and every story?and that's because some authors are better than others. I mean, have you seen how many people have tried to reduplicate Sanchez's work? Never gonna happen.

And I know that organizing them by genre would be pointless and stupid in most communities other than FF.net. All I'm saying is that genre-labeling makes it easier for readers to see beforehand whether they'd be more likely to be interested in that specific fiction.

 

[Pidgeot500]

(Whew, this took a while.)

Yamato-san,
Thank you for thinking of the manga, I had actually kinda sort completely forgotten it. :dead: Here are my thoughts on your thoughts:

but Pokemon canon itself is very complicated. It's divided between video games, anime, and several different manga, each of which taking place in their own world and with their own levels of technology. While most people do follow anime canon, the other types of canon can still be tooken into account in a fic. In the anime and games, they have plenty of technological advances, I'll give it that.

....

OK, I posted a response to this segment, and then I wrote the rest of this post and then I scrolled up and found it had disappeared. So, basically, my responses was: yep, it's complicated, I wouldn't use the word "divided" to discuss its presence in those three mediums, and I don't think simple differences levels of technology is a problem because the categorization system would have to be fairly liberal with accepting stuff as canon. (Of course I responded to all of this in greater detail later in this response, as you'll read.)

However, in some aspects, it is lacking compared to our own world. In terms of transportation, have you ever seen an airplane, or anything more complex than that (OK, there is the Mossdeep rocket, but aren't they still experimenting with that?)? No, the closest you ever see is hot air balloons and dirigibles and such. In fact, Pokemon training and Rocket technology aside (maybe ignore La Rousse City, too), the world is exactly like our's, if not even more simplified. Now, when you read the manga by Toshihiro Ono, this isn't the case. In that, you see several technological advancements even outside of Team Rocket and being a trainer. Holographic screens, hover cars, towering futuristic metropolises, etc. Because of this, some things can apply as 'sci-fi' to certain types of canon, but not to others.

On the idea of the Pokemon world being lacking in some technology: why would you think that? ;) Pokemon are the ultimate technology in the Pokemon world, let's not forget. What their scientists focus on may be different than us, but technology and science are very distinguishable... Their technology and their world developed and develops differently than ours because they have a different world, different needs. The key difference is the presence of Pokemon but let's not forget other minor details that evident though the anime--lack of disease, possible human nature that's less corrupt than our own which would explain why there's little high crime, berries. They have hot air balloons and carrier-sized flying-type rather than airplanes, but does that mean they couldn't make airplanes? Although I believe they may have had small airplanes before--didn't the Pidgey carrier guy have a plane on his roof in the anime? Commercial airplanes wouldn't be necessary as people don't travel as much or in the same ways or for the same reason and motivations as in this world, and buying/constructing an airplane and then learning to fly it is an understandably uncommon thing IMHO.

No one ever said the Pokemon canon was clear-cut. In fact, I said the opposite in a previous post :\:

There does exist a Pokemon canon. It's not so clearly laid out, but the vast majority of the Pokemon canon comes from the video games and the anime. Some people might follow the anime pretty clearly and borrow a concept from a Pokemon game for use in their fanfics, like item storage, for instance.

If all concepts are borrowed from the manga, anime, and video games, and the fanfic is mainly based off of one of the three with and borrowed concepts that don't betray the canon, and at the same time form a coherent fic that isn't set in a world that's radically different from any of the three... then that could be acceptable as canon, for purposes of making this system work. Personally in terms of strict canon I would say that the anime has primary credibility, but that's just me. (Maybe you believe the manga is better for that; stand by the anime based on--as you said--the vast majority of fanfic being based off the world of the anime, and also the world in the anime being very solid IMHO. The manga is probably solid too, but unfortunately I haven't read it. Is Satoshi Tajiri involved in the plot? I think he is in the anime, based on credits, but I'm not sure.) It's true that as far as a credible, consistent world, the manga and the anime are the only two things I can think of to base a story off--the video games is usually only used to borrow concepts off, I've never seen anyone try to stick strickly to the video games.

You do raise a good point, do you think that making a kind of label for what it's based off would solve this? "anime" and "manga" would be the two primary categories I'd imagine. Maybe even a secondary label for another canon source that's less prevalent. If you borrow a few concepts from something or other that is both Pokemon and from Nintendo (i.e. could be considered some kind of canon), then you can put it in as "expansion+" maybe. (See my explanation of the "expansion' label in the first post.)

And Frost Weaver's right, we don't need to categorize our stories because there's not that many here. If you wanted the categorization system to be in place just so people could find what style of stories they like, I think that can be easily solved with a thread that lists off different categories and links the fics that apply to them (since there's no point in seperating the whole forum as such).

No one ever said this was a need. The idea that this would be exclusively for PC is something I never thought of, either. (My only mention of this idea relating to forums specifically was "Not to say that I'm too lazy to click on topics in Pokemon fanfic forums and read a few paragraphs, but I am so selective that it would very much increase the efficiency of such forays if I were able to pick out the few that I might enjoy especially.", and believe me, I regret confusing the matter.) The idea is something that I find interesting and had hoped other people would too, but if it's too much hassle to think about there's no reason for you to bother with any of this- though of course I've appreciated your look on things (I kinda forgot about the manga) and would like to see this discussion continue. :)
Separating the whole forum is another thing that I'm not sure I quite understand and certainly never suggested. And the idea of a topic with categorized links to fanfics was how I'd imagined this concept could be utilized on PC (but with a full categorization system, not just cliche plotlines that frostweaver mentioned), if for some reason everyone read this topic and immediately became suffused with organizational enthusiasm and intellectual zeal :D, but of course that never happens with my ideas (in fact, response/explain topics like this one are what usually happen to my ideas) and I never suggested it because I didn't know what people would think. (I planned on suggesting it as an idea of something someone could do, if at least 2 people understood my idea and weren't against it. Yes, I set low standards (because I'm egocentric, though in a selfish way, I just focus on myself when it comes to the vast majority of things, including ideas). :\ )



frostweaver,
First off, I'd just like to say, in terms of discussing the idea... VICTORY IS MINE!!!!! :classic: :classic: We've gotten past me explaining correctly my idea because I see from your response (and Yamato's I believe) that you understand it fairly well enough... you just don't think it works with the Pokemon canon, an argument which I will now address. The war or words (in an intellectual/problem-solving sense of course ;)) may be far from over, but the battle goes to me! Well, both of us really, but I was afraid it would be stuck at that stage forever, and my relief is evident to myself.

I think Yamato-san summed up already... We see Pokemon World being capable of cloning (Mewtwo exists in all games/tv/manga) yet we don't see any of them having airplanes. If we include robots to the ranks of Gundums from the Gundum series in the Pokemon World, does that count as "science fiction" or not? Well Team Rocket makes up some pretty crazy robots that define all source of science as well... so do we classify that as science fiction or "possible" for the Pokemon world?

Not quite sure I understand this. Well, that's not true actually, I am sure I don't understand it. The first sentence or two about cloning and airplanes I'm fine with, but about Gundams... I feel like maybe there's just a word or two I'm not realizing is mental typo'ed. (I am the king of mental typoes, don't challenge that unless you want a list of dates and times... well, okay, there's no list, but really, it's absurd how many silly mistakes I've been making recently. Err, anyway.) Could you mean "If someone wrote a Pokemon fanfic with robots from the Gundam series, would that be sci-fi or just ordinary Pokemon fanfic? Because robots are possible according to the anime which is canon" then my response would be--in what I actually think is the kind of way of saying things that you often have--would the reverse be true, if a giant Meowth robot was introduced to the Gundam world? My answer would be, "Only with a very good explanation." ;) If Gundam Wing was a television show in the Pokemon world, then yes. If the author decided to make it that Gundams existed somewhere but had never been mentioned in the anime or anywhere, then that would be classified under "expansion" as "expansion++++", or (if the author was a moral person and didn't want to stretch the limits of "expansion") that would just be defined as non-canon.

where if they can fire bubblegum as bombs, surely they got the technology for firing real bombs?

How would we know that? We don't. We assume it because we know that powerful technology in our world is often invented and used for destructive purposes, but even Team Rocket has never indicated, that I've seen, that they would kill someone unnecessarily. People might think differently in their world. Maybe it was based off smokebombs, which were used for special effects in movies. You never know. ;)

But the fact that our concepts of science-fiction always get involved when we're thinking about a science-fiction for a fanfic whose basis may well perhaps be a science-fiction already...

My advise is: stop thinking of Pokemon as sci-fi or fantasy. When you write a fanfic, don't write something and think "Oh, this is something that could never happen in the /real/ world" or "Oh, they should have airplanes because that's an advanced technology." Think as though the Pokemon world is the world you live in, and if you ever find yourself considering the "real world", do so in a remote and observational way; think as though everything outside of the Pokemon world simply exists to provide ideas for writing within the Pokemon canon, whatever you may consider that to be. It's unfortunate that people confuse this--I really don't think that way when I think of Pokemon sci-fi actually except when you mention it in this concept--but, yeah, people should be able to think clearly if they put their mind to it; of course, clear thinking isn't that difficult, in theory, but... yeah. :surprised

It's not just a problem with do we have enough fanfics to start categorization system... Fanfics on vb forums are pretty flawed to begin with. The fact that readers can only rely on the fanfic title to decide rather if the fanfic is interesting enough to read or not is very devastating... You don't have the one line summary in fanfiction.net, or the title page/whole page summary on the back of books in the library... Fanfics have so little chance to show itself to potential readers already. Must we put a categorization system so some fanfics won't even get a chance to be seen by light? Let the readers do some work to scroll through the different fanfics so every fanfic regardless of category/genre gets an opportunity to show itself so readers will read them...

I'm afraid I'm not acquainted with vb forums. Although I'm not necessarily arguing the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of this idea, only the possibiliy of the development of a classification system that would have the ability to categorize a Pokemon fanfic in such a way as to allow someone who reads the label for that fanfic to make a decision on whether they'd enjoy the content and subject matter of the fiction, that would be correct satisfactorily-often enough. But I think I can say that a good categorization system would encourage people to read fanfics, especially older fanfics that were written years ago but are unique in a certain aspect--if the system were to work, then the only fanfics that would be unread would ideally be the ones that the reader wouldn't enjoy to the extent that the reader enjoyed the fanfics that fit the category he or she specifically browsed for. If someone fanfics are less read, then that's a matter of people's tastes, not necessarily the skill of the writer.

 

[Yamato-san]

Pidgeot, I'd just like to point out that your post makes it sound like there's only one manga. I do hope you realize that, as I pointed out before, there are actually several different manga, with Pocket Monsters Special (Pokemon Adventures) seeming the most popular, though Pipipi Adventures (Magical Pokemon Journey), Pocket Monsters (the one with that wise-cracking Clefairy), and Pocket Monsters: Dengeki Pikachu (Electric Tale of Pikachu) are also pretty well-known, with my post making a specific reference to the last one.

On the idea of the Pokemon world being lacking in some technology: why would you think that? ;) Pokemon are the ultimate technology in the Pokemon world, let's not forget. What their scientists focus on may be different than us, but technology and science are very distinguishable... Their technology and their world developed and develops differently than ours because they have a different world, different needs. The key difference is the presence of Pokemon but let's not forget other minor details that evident though the anime--lack of disease, possible human nature that's less corrupt than our own which would explain why there's little high crime, berries. They have hot air balloons and carrier-sized flying-type rather than airplanes, but does that mean they couldn't make airplanes? Although I believe they may have had small airplanes before--didn't the Pidgey carrier guy have a plane on his roof in the anime? Commercial airplanes wouldn't be necessary as people don't travel as much or in the same ways or for the same reason and motivations as in this world, and buying/constructing an airplane and then learning to fly it is an understandably uncommon thing IMHO.

I know that Pokemon are the ultimate technology, that's why my post was saying to put Pokemon training and Team Rocket aside. If you look at the world solely based on how people live as opposed to how they battle and raise Pokemon, things really do look simple. I mean, they have the technology to easily transport Pokemon across a network (and in the Special manga, they can be directed to Crys's cellphone), but do you see anything that convenient specialized for humans? You have a point about how people don't travel often in that world with the use of some type of transport, but there are still plenty of non-trainers who would want to get from point A to point B somehow, and in terms of transportation, it currently looks pretty inconvenient to do that if the best method of going across the world is a somewhat slow airship or ferry boat.

Also, transportation isn't just about going from one city to another, it's also a means of travelling within one's own city, because cities are pretty large habitats and it can be miles to the nearest grocer or wherever. The Pokemon world has cities, no doubt, but do you ever see stuff like heavy traffic or a stoplight or something? No. The people are just seen walking around the place. Since the only city vehicles in the anime that really stick out in my mind are Jenny's motorcycle and some pick-up trucks transporting goods, I get the feeling vehicle production hasn't gotten to the point where almost everyone could own one.