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Pokemon Fanfiction Cliches


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I've read countless fanfictions of Pokemon. Here are some cliches that I've noticed in a lot of them:

 

-The protagonist get's an Eevee as a starter

-If there's an Espeon and an Umbreon who are opposite genders, they always fall in love at some point (same goes for Gardevoir and Gallade)

-At least one of the main characters have a Lucario and/or an Eeveelution on their team

-The evil team mostly uses Dark and Ghost types

-At least one of the human characters can understand Pokemon

-One of the good guys has some connection to the evil team

-At least one of the protagonists has a super sad backstory :'(

 

Are there any you've noticed that I didn't point out?

(I'm not saying that these cliches are necessarily bad. I actually like most of these :))

Edited by ThatGuyOverThere
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oh.

oh my god.

its currently nearing 1 am so ill abstain on argumenting for now but

 

2 hours ago, ThatGuyOverThere said:

-The protagonist get's an Eevee as a starter

-At least one of the main characters have a Lucario and/or an Eeveelution on their team

 

this is so true it hurts. it hurts so badly.

 

thank you so much for creating this topic, ill be adding more content tomorrow.

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Might as well probe a little more in this:

 

I will first single out the cliches that are actually not that bad to have:

 

-At least one of the human characters can understand Pokemon:

While it is super cliche'd  i actually appreciate the understanding pokemon thing if it is well justified (which is  incredibly easy to do in such an unrealistic setting)  since it does make the story more interesting.  I preffer stories that are more centered in pokemon than humans and this helps, especially since i like seeing them as individual personalities instead of "the things you use for your plot progression battles".

 

-One of the good guys has some connection to the evil team:

A good story needs some plot twists. The thing is,  this is one effective method and it works despite its repetition.  It can be avoided ofc, if one can make a decent story without it.  The thing is,  when such cliches are implemented,  its good to find a way for them to be as unpredictable as possible.  For example  even if you know that someone is connected with the evil team,  you dont know who,  and how and somehow manage to make the one no one would expect be that guy.

 

-At least one of the protagonists has a super sad backstory:

I personally dig those.  So i don't mind.  Cliche'd or not, i really have no problem with them as long as the reason of the person's misfortune is original/creative enough   and make me feel genuinely emotional with them. After all utopic settings where everything is happy go lucky is boring for me.   Tho if one wants to avoid super sad backstories,  they can just  start the fic as happy-go-lucky  and create sad events  during story progression.   Just don't give me a story without feels. I'll get bored soon.

 

 

Every other cliche mentioned:

I wish they just stopped using those. It's so easy to just select any of the rest hundreds of pokemon for a change.   If you want to use the same cliche'd pokemon so much, at least make it interesting (you probably won't).

 

 

Edited by DemICE
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alright, im here and ready to go full in on this one. bear with me.

 

- eevee/eeveelutions and riolu. so whoever knows me a bit, absolutely knows I despise seeing these pokemon appear in fanfictions, especially as starters. the reason for that is quite simple- im sick of seeing them. theyre literally EVERYWHERE in fanfictions. whenever the main character announces 'I have a different starter pokemon' or 'im going to catch my starter pokemon myself' or even 'my starter pokemon was abused and I nursed it back to health', in 90% of the cases that very same starter is eevee or riolu (to a lesser extent ralts). main characters in pokemon fanfics literally start out more often with eevee or riolu than with actual starter pokemon. sure, the aura is a cool concept and everything, and sure, the concept behind eevee was rather cool. but theyve been used so much now that just seeing an eevee or a lucario gives me major headaches, and thats not even only talking fanfictions. the ironic thing is that a lot of those very same people complain about pikachu being overused by gamefreak, while at the same time the pokemon fanbase abuses lucario and eevee much harder than gamefreak could ever have used pikachu.

 

- speaking of lucario. remember that one movie in which a lucario was able to talk? yeah? that was cool, wasnt it? yeah, now every trainer in the world who has a bond with their riolu/lucario can talk to those too in fanfics. disregard the fact that every single other lucario that has ever appeared in the anime, games or wherever could not talk for a bit, because I have a bond with my lucario and that means im able to talk to them. it doesnt matter that korrina, who had such a tight bond with her lucario that she was able to mega evolve it, wasnt able to talk to it. and the worst is that the reasoning is always the same- tight bond, we can talk. god, at this point just say that the aura your riolu/lucario uses is stronger than the average or something. that honestly isnt much better, but im so done with seeing this 'tight bond' stuff, especially if said tight bond develops in goddamn chapter 4 or something.

 

- your main character never did well in any classes or something, and was never really remarkable. thats a good thing, now youve made sure theyre not a gary stu or a mary sue. oh, and now they received their starter pokemon, which is imported from another region. and now they can start their pokemon journey to meet lots of new pokemon but for unspecified reasons only bond with the rarest of them while not losing a single battle ever. if this sounded okay to you, I want to beg you to reconsider.

 

- speaking about the 'rare pokemon' stuff, why does every random trainer in your story have things like rattata or pidgey or even stuff like kadabra, sandslash or onix? thats because theyre not too rare and thus should made sense for the trainers to have, right? then why in the name of the lord does your main character have a team that consists of charizard, venusaur, blastoise, vaporeon, dratini and I dont know what else?  because theyre the main character? if your main character is as happy to finally be able to go on their pokemon journey and befriend all pokemon, then why in the name of the lord do they not catch a random rattata or caterpie and instead wait for the first rare pokemon to appear?

 

- nicknames are a weird concept in fanfictions. your main character(s) use them, but literally everyone bar maybe your rivals dont. why? who will ever know, man. who will ever know.

 

I dont have much time left so ill cut it short for now, but next up ill be focusing on the worst cliches of them all. the ones that still make me shake in anger every time I read them.

 

betrayal ash fanfiction cliches.

 

7 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

yeah... describing and characterizing pokemon is boring when all they can say their name, or be like lassie and nudge and bark suggestively that little timmy is down in the well.

 

partly agree, partly disagree. yeah, its harder to give your pokemon a character due to this, but at least you can try. make a chapter centered around one specific pokemon (not counting the chapter you catch said pokemon in) or something. ive literally seen fics that fully go 'pokemon are friends and equals and' yada yada yada, and then proceed to only focus on the human characters and go full 'oh and on the way charmander evolved into charmeleon and learned metal claw'. like, at least specify how that happened. jesus christ, its not that hard.

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The hero is an IDIOT, or an IDIOT unless he/she is battling.

 

The rival is a generic smug bootleg Gary Oak.

 

"YOU'RE SO MAGICAL AND KIND AND SPECIAL, SUE-CHAN! HERE, LET ME GIVE YOU THESE FREE POKEMON! TAKE THIS RALTS, THIS RIOLU, AND THIS EEVEE!"

 

"WOW, IS THAT AN ABUSED DEFORMED CRIPPLED POKEMON THAT DESERVES A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE AS A HOUSEHOLD PET, NOT THE MISERABLE LIFE OF A WEAK POKEMON ON A POKEMON JOURNEY? BETTER TAKE HIM/HER WITH ME ON MY MAIN TEAM TO PROVE HOW 'UNDERSTANDING' AND 'DETERMINED' I AM!"

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let's see few months ago I tried making pokemon fanfiction but failed due to my own laziness... sigh.. let's see how much clinches I used back then

-The protagonist get's an Eevee as a starter= yes I give the Eevee for the protag and his five friends

-If there's an Espeon and an Umbreon who are opposite genders, they always fall in love at some point (same goes for Gardevoir and Gallade)= okay, my the protag was going to have Gardevoir and his love interest was going to have Gallade... I assure you I didn't realize this one until you mention it

-At least one of the main characters have a Lucario and/or an Eeveelution on their team= Lucario yes, a new eeveelution oh god...yeah... and add Gardevoir and you have the three most used pokemon in fanfic

-The evil team mostly uses Dark and Ghost types= haven't thought about the evil team

-At least one of the human characters can understand Pokemon= oh no I was trying to avoid this one, but if understand like Korrina with her Lucario and that champ with Gardevoir yeah, I was planning to make some of the trainer to have that kind of understanding

-One of the good guys has some connection to the evil team= haven't thought about the evil team

-At least one of the protagonists has a super sad backstory :'( = ehhhh not really

no wonder my laziness take over me a lot quicker than usual. those clinches man I used a lot of em

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