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Greenlit: According to the PokéDex...

Lycanthropy

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Hiya! You guys probably recognize the feeling of reading a random PokéDex entry and questioning the sanity of the Pokémon world. Seriously, I feel that mankind and the world it lives within will be cruelly destroyed by half of the Pokémon, if we were to believe the PokéDex. Just to name a few:
Spoiler:

Then there's also a bunch of entries that's super creepy or just plainly weird:
Spoiler:

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. As you can see there's a lot of content to talk about, enough to turn it in a full-fledged series, with each article featuring one Pokémon. I'm not entirely sure about the style yet, I was thinking about either just describing the consequences or writing a short made up anecdote about it, or maybe a combination of those two.
"According to the PokéDex..." is just a placeholder title by the way, until I find something better. I'm open for ideas.

That's about it, I think. Please share your thoughts. :)
 
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It might be worth opening these up for discussion a bit here or on the main boards, as these might occasionally be based on various myths, etc., which might also be of interest to add. Such a series has been brought up once in a while, however, so it might as well occur at some point.

In any case, while Haunter's entry does seem to be a reference to exorcism and related stereotypes, it might also be a reference to the move 'Lick,' or perhaps to the paucity of ghost moves generally, and in that sense might come across as an exaggeration to justify certain aspects of the game rather than something wholly affecting the PokVmon itself. While the choice of licking stands out as a strange action fitting your description, it might be that there was some awareness of that, as notice the seeming reference to the paralysis animation. It was also somewhat like a slow Poison Sting which might not hit many early opponents, and hence must whittle its opponent down with Lick, etc., if you wish to go there. There may have also been some discontent at the Ghost-type, after the Psychic-type issues of the first gen, continuing to be fairly marginalised with the subdued addition of Misdreavus. That said, there is something there when it comes to the move itself, and the Pokémon graveyard of Lavender Town, but by then it is quite mediated, in various ways, and not a first impression, as well as the paralysis thing still rendering that fairly humorous. In Pokémon, likewise, Tyranitar need not come across as that odd, as it combines stories of natural forces, such as peculiarly tsunamis, which are frequently converted into creatures in such contexts, with mythical rarity where they rarely appear but can cause damage, like dragons, plagues and so on.

That said, Frosslass and such might be interesting, if you notice the fairly clear mythological, and often Western, analogues to this that are probably being drawn on. A focus such as that kind of thing, on specific figures that seem to come up and their general nature, might be interesting, but focussing on exaggeration and occasional eccentricities might be limited in terms of their relation to the rest of the game. From dreams being eaten to dangerous pursuit, life is rarely kind to people who interact with Pokémon. Likewise, you could focus on the weirdness as related to battle, or unintended consequences that things might have in battle, etc. Drifloon is a bit friendly-ghost-ish, and half-hearted, while Rhydon is mostly a caricatured image of determination, or Calvinist, but you could perhaps make an amusing observation about how this could be inconvenient, although it's probably assumed to take place mostly in the wild, where Rhydon appear. At present, there might be a bit of a focus on their occasional traits, while to give that sense as an article you might want to differentiate between which are exaggerated versions of a trope, which can generally only be dealt with for a short amount of time, and which are for example actually seemingly scary in the context, rather than necessarily gravitating towards the usual suspects. People tend to find it weirder when the concept of things shakes them, as for instance with Lavender Town and the sudden introduction of ghosts, or the concept of Pokémon that can eat dreams, and so on, rather than either traits or oddities.

'According to the Pokédex' is a good title, although you might not want to base every article on one Pokémon given this basis, where quite a lot seem to rely on the others for their effect, and as such perhaps having two or three to begin with might make sense before determining whether to home in. This would also focus things on the commentary, such that you'd not be relying upon the entries themselves to have a major effect on the reader, and could rather be freer with those.
 

bobandbill

one more time
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I think there's a fair bit of content to be had from Pokedex entries, so I like that idea. May need some figuring out on how we write it.
As you can see there's a lot of content to talk about, enough to turn it in a full-fledged series, with each article featuring one Pokémon. I'm not entirely sure about the style yet, I was thinking about either just describing the consequences or writing a short made up anecdote about it, or maybe a combination of those two.
If we do entries featuring one Pokemon at a time, I would be tempted to have this accompany the series of articles for featured Pokemon (atm it is Eevee). Similarly if we did it with a Pokemon species evolutionary line (e.g. Bagon, Shelgon, Salamence together), although in the case of Eevee and its 8 Eeveelutions a few different ones can be split. It could be a case-by-case basis too; when the dex entries for Pokemon are related, talk about them in the one article, otherwise split them up.

"According to the PokéDex..." is just a placeholder title by the way, until I find something better. I'm open for ideas.
PokéDex Entries: ___? I'll think of other ones but I don't mind 'According to the Pokedex: ___" either. Welcome to more input there.
 
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  • Seen Apr 16, 2020
I'd really like to see such articles! There are plenty of pokédex entries that could have their own article, even though they might be too short.

I like 'According to the PokéDex...", I think it makes you expect to actually read something interesting/strange. Any title that would be followed with a sentence rather than a Pokémon name would be good, though. "According to the PokéDex: Drifloon kidnaps children!" would be a more attractive title than "PokéDex entry: Drifloon", for example. If this would be combined with Pokémon feature articles, "PokéDex Entries: ____" would fit more, though.
 

Lycanthropy

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11,037
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Spoiler:

Of course the PokéDex entries don't come completely out of the blue, they definitely have some sort of background story. It is however not really what I want to focus on. Let's take Tyranitar as example: I want the main part of the article to be about the consequences of capturing a Larvitar, evolving it twice and releasing it back into the wild, and the small population of Tyranitar that lives on Unova Route 15 on the environment. I agree that some Pokémon background may be not be completely out of place and I will definitely add a bit when I feel it's worth mentioning.

'According to the Pokédex' is a good title, although you might not want to base every article on one Pokémon given this basis, where quite a lot seem to rely on the others for their effect, and as such perhaps having two or three to begin with might make sense before determining whether to home in. This would also focus things on the commentary, such that you'd not be relying upon the entries themselves to have a major effect on the reader, and could rather be freer with those.

If we do entries featuring one Pokemon at a time, I would be tempted to have this accompany the series of articles for featured Pokemon (atm it is Eevee). Similarly if we did it with a Pokemon species evolutionary line (e.g. Bagon, Shelgon, Salamence together), although in the case of Eevee and its 8 Eeveelutions a few different ones can be split. It could be a case-by-case basis too; when the dex entries for Pokemon are related, talk about them in the one article, otherwise split them up.

I'll probably make it depend on the Pokémon. I'm not a full PokéDex myself, so I don't know every single entry from the top of my head, but I'll definitely look deeper into this later to see if I can combine a few of them with a similar theme (like Kadabra and Froslass, to name something), but some Pokémon might have an entry that gives enough content to talk about by itself.
Spoiler:

I like 'According to the PokéDex...", I think it makes you expect to actually read something interesting/strange. Any title that would be followed with a sentence rather than a Pokémon name would be good, though. "According to the PokéDex: Drifloon kidnaps children!" would be a more attractive title than "PokéDex entry: Drifloon", for example. If this would be combined with Pokémon feature articles, "PokéDex Entries: ____" would fit more, though.
Ah yes, I completely agree. I think I'm going to stick with that then.


Thanks for your insights, guys!
 

Lycanthropy

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11,037
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So it's been a week... do I still have to add things to get this series approved? I guess I can summarize:
Structure will be: short anecdote - Dex entry/entries - text
"text" is where I'll be talking mainly about the effects to people's everyday life, what happens when you encounter the Pokémon and that sort of stuff, optionally accompanied with a little background and some more PokéDex entries. The style of this part will be very dependent on the Pokémon(s) featured in the article, so I can't say a lot about this yet.

I've been asking around for other interesting Dex entries and have a nice collection of them now. Also, I started reading every PokéDex entry of every single Pokémon and gathering everything that's at least somewhat interesting in a text file. But... it might take a while before I get through all of them.


By the way, I'm thinking of doing the first article about people who got turned into a Pokémon: Kadabra and Froslass.
 

bobandbill

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That all sounds good to me. Article series is greenlit, as well as the first article on Kadabra and Froslass! (People can still give feedback to the idea however). Copied last post into the subsection as well for you to start working on the draft +posting it in there.

Again, feel free to tackle entries belonging to Pokemon that will be currently covered in species article series, but not necessary (may also depend on their dex entry as well, of course!)
 
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