The Pokédex - Extended Fanon Edition

The links a bit messed up, I'll go fix it. The guy who wrote that is actually a Troper, btw.

Oh, index is done, too.

And furthermore: Someone double-check please, but I think we've hit 149 articles. At 151, we need to celebrate somehow. (That's articles, not Pokémon. )

Tropius still needs biology and courting/childrearing done, though. I could still do that, but probably not before the end of January, so other takers are welcome.

Legendaries should probably have information about related legends given, yes, but I would suspect most of them are not the only of their kind.

Given that Mystery Dungeon bits keep coming up, we should probably think about a way to allow slipping that in. Obviously any tales of that nature would not tend to make their way into a scholarly journal, so a different framing device is needed.

edited 26th Jan '11 8:07:21 PM by Tangent128

I say go with the Gastly Article approach: mention notable pokemon in the series (outside of the player and partner characters) and refer to them as being part of a fairy-tale.

Not sure how any Mystery Dungeon accounts we know of would become fairy tales if they had a basis in reality, though. I'd like a way to hint that there could be a kernel of truth.

You raise a good point there. Not sure how we'd go about that.

I'd suggest not actually including Mystery Dungeon as canon, but throwing in hidden references and jokes, like "Kecleon are known for a superpotent adrenaline reserve that only kicks in when the Kecleon's belongings are being taken." or something like that. Maybe base some traits on traits shown only in those games, as well.

For legendaries that aren't done yet, let's decide which are truly one-of-a-kind and which are just glorified species. I'd say Lati@s, Heatran, Phione/Manaphy, and Shaymin are definitely multimember species. Darkrai, Cresselia, Regigigas, Celebi, and Deoxys may be unique, but I'm on the fence about those. The others I'd say are one of a kind with the exception of the second Giratina created in the Arceus article.

edited 26th Jan '11 8:13:04 PM by Anomalocaris20

Deoxys has already been done. It may not be unique in the universe, but my article's implication on the subject was that Deoxys is the only one of its kind present on Earth (that we know of).

Ah. That's good.

Celebi may be a one-of-a-kind Pokemon that only seems to have multiple members because of time travel. But that's just one idea.

edited 26th Jan '11 8:16:13 PM by Anomalocaris20

Technically the Arceus Article says that now there are two Dialgas, Palkias and Giratinas in-universe, but Dialga and Palkia both belong to some other trainer that is radically elusive to the point of practically being a legend themselves, and Giratina was given to a known Regional Champion, and thus easier to interrogate and making Giratina easier to observe.

Well, just in case, I'd like to call the Lati@s entry, to work on it. Slowly. As usual. But hey this is the guy who overthought mating rituals for Zigzagoon and Linoone (and everything Nidos) so can't be so bad. I'll let you know in advance that I no longer have a stable internet connection though.

As for the Giratina entry, I'd like to comment more on it, but that'll have to wait 'till the weekend.

@Anomalocaris: yeah, that's how I interpret Celebi as well. Now, I wonder if Celebi is able to travel to times before the point he first existed...

EDIT: so, if there are second Dragon Trio wandering around, do we have a paradox-bringing clash of time/space/whatever control powers, or something like that?

edited 26th Jan '11 8:23:28 PM by SilentReverence

Celebi may be as primordial as other world-shaping legendaries, as far as we know. But what if it kept going back to even before Arceus shaped the world...?

edited 26th Jan '11 8:24:12 PM by Anomalocaris20

This raises the interesting question of what relationship exists between Celebi, the Time Traveller, and Dialga, Time Itself. If Celebi tried to go back in time to before Arceus existed, Dialga—and thus time—would not exist, so what the hell would happen is anybody's guess.

I imagine that if Celebi did manage to arrive in this chaotic 'before-time', however, then the results would not be pleasant.

I suggest that any references to Mystery Dungeon should go the way of the Pokewalker, and references to anything but the mainline games should be kept at a minimum.

I still think that indirect references and jokes would be acceptable regarding PMD.

I am going to start working on Phione/Manaphy soon, but I need to know what to call the article. "Manaphy line"? "Phione and Manaphy"?

I don't see how could it be either Manaphy Line or Phione Line. The "Manaphy and Phione" sounds good with me.

My crazy brain once had a dream that Celebi was Dialga's child, so that would make it directly subordinate to Dialga and thus unable to do things that Time Lord would not allow.

I'd imagine that Celebi can't defy Dialga anyway.

"Manaphy and Phione" sounds good. After all, they aren't an actual evolutionary line.

We've already established that our entries lie somewhere between multiple continuities (mainline games, anime, Shadow series, manga, TCG); using information from Mystery Dungeon is well-precedented. However, referencing specific characters and events from that series is problematic- nobody's really in a position to both be aware of goings-on in Pokémonly Land and submit to the Pokédex project. Even going by a "fairy tale" route- nobody's known to be in a place to know of the events and pass down the story to humans.

EDIT: Taking Dungeon into account, we know there must be at least two Celebi- one's shiny, after all.

edited 26th Jan '11 9:39:14 PM by Tangent128

Shiny Legendary Pokemon make my head hurt.

↑↑And gendered, if the game is to be believed. Also yay. IMHO, PMD may be best seen as a help for fairy tales or something like that. There's no other reasonable way for that information to reach "us" unless it has been fabricated to begin with. The TCG may be best seen in a similar way as well. Then let's guess about Rumble...

And yet establishing it as fabricated prevents the fun of mystique. Maybe information on that stuff would end up added by a third party, in the Pokédex Extended Fanon Edition Annotated Edition. (I'm not sure where the TCG gives any problems; didn't you reference Call For Family?)

More seriously, you mentioned previously that advertising the project would be desirable. Any ideas for doing that beyond userbars?

edited 26th Jan '11 10:07:25 PM by Tangent128

Over on the Bethesda forums I have the link to our article in my sig, but no one's been biting. I've also posted it on my Facebook.

I was referring to the (main) events in both canons, mostly. I find it way harder to bring them (and Rumble) into recollection and adaption than, say, adapting stuff from the anime and Ranger. Things like traits and moves are not hard to "pull back", in particular from PMD, because they tend to support themselves across canons (that's why for example I could get away with Call For Family, or at least no one has called me on it until now, but I certanly won't be able to easily pass with, say, Jolteon's Diaelectric); although by referencing them that way we would be doing the converse of projecting stuff from those canons to "the one" where the PEFE is written, I guess that would matter not — as it is just semantics.

And now that you asked about promoting the project, I truly haven't given too much thought to it. I sucked big time at my college's marketing classes. Userbars and other artistic stuff is one thing; maybe a dedicated startpage / aggregator outside of TV Tropes would be the second best as it gives us an "internet name". Then we can evolve it into our new hosting if and when we decide to do the move — or the sheer amount of traffic generated towards the project starts overwhelming the TV Tropes servers. Because I suck at visual arts, I've decided to incorporate elements of the PEFE into my fanfic in progress, and eventually feature the project itself, perhaps as an in-universe published encyclopædia or something, all while credited and stuff. Discussion of the project itself is not going to lead us somewhere new (or fast) because it is somewhat constrained by the domain of the problem; using the project, on the other hand, like say specifically drawing stuff from the project to do cross-reference in fanfics and artwork, hopefully getting some pieces to take part in contests or feature displays, would work lots better and would also be less demanding overall (except for the ones who do the writing/drawing). All in all, we have to believe our own sell, if I am translating thee idiom right.

Other than that I have no good ideas to pull out from a hat to raise awareness to our project, sorry.

edited 26th Jan '11 10:27:53 PM by SilentReverence

Maybe I could ask some of my e-friends over at the Bethesda forums for any ideas.

hmm...maybe I could drop on by my old forums drop a link.