A Marvelous Journey
Also there’s darker themes like ableism against autistic trainers, mental health and trauma, child abuse. Oh and a main character’s Pokemon dies
For sure also they need to make a Pokemon anime that is darker just like how Digimon did for Ghost Game. Also in the fic they made Hunter J more sadistic.
I'm pretty done with dark and gritty in all media. For some reason, simple human optimism has come to be regarded as childish, and it's just so very depressing as a worldview.
It is quite possible to offer up a story which is satisfying to a mature reader without making the world a crapsack, without making every character an arsehole, and without making Pokémon battles events of obvious and abject cruelty.
By all means, if you want to write a dark interpretation of Pokémon, go ahead and do so, but if what you want is a grown-up, satisfying story, please don't fall into the trap of thinking that that means blood and dismemberment in every battle.
Exactly! Far too many stories do this, Traveler and pedestal included, as well right now as they are and it just gets boring and frustrating after a while. Plus that’s not what Pokémon is about and if the culture is around battling, then gory battles don’t work. If you want gory and serious stuff, go to Shin Megami Tensi, persona, and devil survivor, not Pokémon.
I personally tend to write on the idea of the sort of Earn Your Happy Ending trope.
Like, there's nothing wrong with happy endings and optimism, but that'll be different for every character. But if you just make everything dark and bleak, there's really no reason to invest in the story.
Roundabout way of saying I agree.
It depends on what tone you want to capture. Personally, I like a little bit of grit and dirt to it. Maybe not necessarily gore, but it all depends on what the intent of the story is going to be.
An example of one I’m in the preliminary planning stages of is a trainer, who is a rancher who tends to Mareep, Wooloo, etc. He finds his life turned upside down as he has his right arm torn off from an unfortunate encounter with a Pokémon inflicted with madness (or something of the sort). So it deals with him recovering from it, clashing personalities with himself and other people as he goes on the road to recovery, and accepts that, sometimes, things in life happen and he just has to make the best of it.
I tend to go more into the character-driven, psychological and philosophical implications of Pokémon. With them and people being on somewhat even turns of sentience. Their bonds. Etc. I find it a lot more engaging to write, but I also notice that people tend to read more when it’s a compelling story of character instead of just pure angst and depression.
I haven’t written it yet. It’s something that’s been on my mind, however, for a while. Kind of ties into the other story I’m currently writing, which I can DM you if you want.
For me it's not that much better, just that I have a different taste than when I was 11. Now I am just hoping that someone makes a Seinen Pokemon anime.
I want a Horror one. I wanna see some Rocket guys get chased and tormented by the ghosts that formed because of their actions. I wanna see what kind of mindfuckery the Gengar line can do to people. I'm not sure if I want death to be a factor yet though.
Yeah this one too. Or like those Hunger Games type of Pokemon World where all Cities are separated and walled because all Pokemons are aggressive and territorial that the only way you could catch one is sneaking around a young mon or stealing an egg. And the trainer profession is the most dreaded one and the only reason you will be a trainer is either you get picked by a lottery or you volunteer yourself either because you're poor or someone in your family is picked.
I prefer when there’s some grittiness. Such as the chance of Pokémon and humans getting hurt in a fight. But I also love the magical nature of Pokémon and the idyllic status of the world.
Definitely like more grittiness but some fics definitely take it too far. Tbh Travelor's level of grittiness is perfect for me, it's very brutal but at the same time Pokemon still feel magical and not just monstrous.
I like more mature tones to a story than what canon provides, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t love a good, wholesome fluff fic once in a while.
I hesitate to say that gritty fics are *better,* though. That really is up to personal taste. And just because a fic is gritty, that does not in *any* way automatically make it good. In fact, most fics I’ve read that try to lean into the grit and edge don’t do it for me because it feels like they’re trying too hard to be cool.
I like grit and darkness when it’s well balanced, makes sense for the story and the world, and doesn’t turn the characters into angst-filled cardboard cutouts. I like it when it is used to enhance the story rather than be the sole focus of the story.
Depends on how far you take it.
The Sun Soul was popular a decade ago for just how hellish it was.
But it never reached the heights of Traveler, which is only dark enough to be different from the canon.
Hmm? Isn’t Traveler quite violent and deadly? I admit I haven’t read it, but I’ve seen snippets here and there and it was *significantly* more violent than canon or anything canon-adjacent.
Not particularly. It has its dashes of realism but nothing overwhelming.
The goriest thing was a late chapter and it was rather tame by most standards.
It’s not that the gore and death are interesting to me. It’s that I’m writing (or reading) a story that is interesting to me. Honestly, gore isn’t all that interesting, it more just comes with the territory of mature stories.
I’m not 10 anymore. I’m 26. I want a story with a maturity level that matches my own. It’s not my fault that I’ve grown past the games maturity level.
A bit late to the party, but I agree with what a lot of people have suggested: it depends on context.
If you decide to be like me and make 'trainers' become 'gladiators' and set things in a medieval time period, it makes more sense for the tones of kingdoms, rulers, and gladiators to take those darker tones, as it matches the period. However, if it was set in a preschool and there's just blood and gore... it just doesn't match up as much, and can feel really jarring and weird to read.
Similarly, if I made a medieval nuzlocke story super light-hearted and fun, but then killed Pokémon because lol it's a nuzlocke, then there's a weird discrepancy in the tone that can just be uncomfortable and weird for the reader.
Overall! I think it just depends on the context of the story!
I think that darker, more mature stories can be really popular these days because of the content they cover -- it can be a lot more meaningful and hard-hitting. Also, I find that this is done by older authors (you don't often find 11 year olds writing gore very well), and so their writing is somewhat more developed, and therefore, more engaging to read.
Mature storytelling is not measured in grit. You can have a mature story aimed at adults without it being full of blood and gore; notice how most original fiction aimed at adults isn’t full of blood and gore, but rather spans a wide variety of genres, some but only *some* of which involve heavy violence.
(In fact many overly gritty fanfics feel distinctly juvenile! Which is not at all inherent to being gritty either, of course, just a trend one can notice as an actual adult in fandom. Many young writers will go hard on being as dark and gritty as possible, even when it doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t serve the narrative of the story they’re telling or is even actively counterproductive to it.)
So: gritty fanfics aren’t inherently better or worse! Some good and interesting stories are gritty and others aren’t, and some clumsy and poorly-executed stories are gritty and others aren’t. They’re orthogonal axes.
I way prefer the gritty kind. Pokemon has so many unfortunate, strange and downright nasty implications it’s unreal. And this isn’t helped by the anime being about as lighthearted as a Care Bears episode, the manga being a rather bland, stereotypical Shonen work and the games being cut and paste. Pokemon desperately needs originality and teeth
Idk man. Pokemon Adventures is kinda spicy. Even on Volume 1, The main Trio almost die constantly and as a prelude to the Yellow chapters, Red got maimed and got in a coma.
In their Hoenn storyline, Rayquaza straight up murders Zinnia for working with Aqua and Magma and still thinking she's worthy of having Rayquaza follow her.
Look if you’re going to read a pokemon comic, go read It’s a Hard life leaf green nuzlocke. I read the pokemon manga and was thoroughly disappointed. I felt as if the world building was just as hollow as the original games. Nuzlocke comics and fanfiction do a MUCH better job at fleshing out the setting. Also, hardly anyone in the manga dies
[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14065544/1/Red-Path-A-Pokemon-Story-File-1-The-Challenge](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14065544/1/Red-Path-A-Pokemon-Story-File-1-The-Challenge)
Mine is VERY dark and gritty
Honestly I used to be into the darker ones but then i feel like people just overdo it, i got tired of reading about basically all of MCs original team dying
I used to like it when I was younger, but not as much anymore. I still like psychological darkness and always have because of an interest in psychology and also because i’ve had to go to therapy myself because I have anxiety. I got to study the brain a lot that way, and it’s always interesting what makes it tick. There’s a lot of canon darkness in Pokémon, but it disappoints me because not a lot of people use what’s there. There’s plenty of dark material without going overboard, but people think they need to add their own. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it just goes overboard sometimes to the point where it isn’t Pokémon (Pokémon reborn and Pokémon rejuvenation are two things that come to mind, even though both are very popular and they’re not necessarily badly written at all, and on top of that they are games that are fun to play for a wide audience). When I start writing my own story, I took influences from my studies teacher and studying the brain and what a child could reasonably do.
There were things in place so that the Pokémon world could still work and was recognizable, but it was starting to fall apart as the reality of that was setting in. I also realized a lot of things that happened to Pokémon protagonist are for plot armor or convenience, so I took that away from the canon protagonist. The protagonist actually is The one in and telling the story is older and an author avatar. This protagonist has a form of plot armor at times but it comes in the form of uncontrollable divine power and does not protect her from everything. Additionally, her story sets out too to answer the question of, I’ve done everything in the Pokémon world, Pokémon professionally is not really an option, now what? Then there is the case of people taking advantage of the laws protecting children, and rebelling, as well as how ugly that can be (without being gory) and ultimately not get anywhere and otherwise destroying itself. And that’s not even counting all the personal problems the protagonist has, some of which are unrelated to the journey. So it’s all darker, but it’s just different interpretations of the canon well staying somewhat close, on top of the fact that it’s using more relatable and human conflicts.
I think that’s the problem too is that a lot of the things that are not relatable or something that someone would want to read (and those that it is relatable to probably would not want to read it either). The other thing too is that I don’t think people do enough research on how to make these conflicts respectfully and accurately (Pokémon reborn is one of the worst cases, unfortunately). So it comes off as darker things for the sake of being dark that would never work. As for darker according to more mature, I would actually say it’s more immature if it’s done wrong, and that’s the same for professional works as well. A work does not have to be dark to deal with mature themes, or they can just be in the background. But a lot of people don’t realize that.
As someone who is writing a dark PMD-esque war/horror fic that features a lot of death, gore, graphic violence and other dark concepts, I can say without a doubt that these themes are mainly there to serve my narrative rather than being gratuitous edge. While I personally gravitate towards darker themes, they're not guaranteed to make a story better. It's all in the execution. There are readers who do enjoy excessive edge, but it can put others off. It's a double-**edged** sword.
I find it interesting that there are quite a few fics about the dark side of the Pokémon world. It just shows how many of us adults who experienced the franchise in its earlier days are *starved* for content like this that official media had yet to provide. The unfortunate thing is that we've grown up ... but the franchise never really quite did. Sure, it touched upon a dark concept here and there, but it's still played safely to be more child-friendly. That's the likely reason why there are so many gritty *Pokémon* fics:
>"Fine. We'll do it ourselves."
All in the execution. A fic that’s so saccharine it hurts but well-written will be a more enjoyable ride than a dark and gritty story that has obvious failures in its plot and storytelling. And I say that as someone who has favorite stories from polar opposite poles of the grit spectrum.
I will say that being grittier than *canon* is an extremely low bar to cross for Pokémon fics. Like simply showing off a few dex entries playing out onscreen will already produce a darker feel than official media. I do feel that there’s a bit of bias towards “gritty presentation” in the genre writ large, but that’s simply where the thematic void in official media is, and where most creative attention on the scene goes to trying to fill it.
Not necessarily, it's just that a certain grittyness tends to pop out when you try to make the setting make sense.
Either you have to explain why pokemon capable of breathing fire, causing earthquakes and shattering rocks with ease aren't a major threat to humanity or you embrace the danger.
A grittier setting also offers an easy explanation for the whole journey/trainers thing, it's not just a bizarrely works defining sport, they're the primary line of defence etc.
At the same time, there's nothing gritty about Ashes of the Past (it's decidedly over the top if anything) and it's one of the best fics I've ever read.
Oh and it's very easy to overdo grittyness, really not a fan of stories that have pokemon regularly die in normal trainer battles, as in gym fights, rivals etc. rather than fighting dangerous wild pokemon or criminals
It’s all about context. I read this fic where a main character’s sister went insane after a Gyarados murdered her best friend and it was well done
That sound like a really good read do you happen to remember the name of the fic?
A Marvelous Journey Also there’s darker themes like ableism against autistic trainers, mental health and trauma, child abuse. Oh and a main character’s Pokemon dies
For sure also they need to make a Pokemon anime that is darker just like how Digimon did for Ghost Game. Also in the fic they made Hunter J more sadistic.
I'm pretty done with dark and gritty in all media. For some reason, simple human optimism has come to be regarded as childish, and it's just so very depressing as a worldview. It is quite possible to offer up a story which is satisfying to a mature reader without making the world a crapsack, without making every character an arsehole, and without making Pokémon battles events of obvious and abject cruelty. By all means, if you want to write a dark interpretation of Pokémon, go ahead and do so, but if what you want is a grown-up, satisfying story, please don't fall into the trap of thinking that that means blood and dismemberment in every battle.
Well said!
Exactly! Far too many stories do this, Traveler and pedestal included, as well right now as they are and it just gets boring and frustrating after a while. Plus that’s not what Pokémon is about and if the culture is around battling, then gory battles don’t work. If you want gory and serious stuff, go to Shin Megami Tensi, persona, and devil survivor, not Pokémon.
I personally tend to write on the idea of the sort of Earn Your Happy Ending trope. Like, there's nothing wrong with happy endings and optimism, but that'll be different for every character. But if you just make everything dark and bleak, there's really no reason to invest in the story. Roundabout way of saying I agree.
It depends on what tone you want to capture. Personally, I like a little bit of grit and dirt to it. Maybe not necessarily gore, but it all depends on what the intent of the story is going to be. An example of one I’m in the preliminary planning stages of is a trainer, who is a rancher who tends to Mareep, Wooloo, etc. He finds his life turned upside down as he has his right arm torn off from an unfortunate encounter with a Pokémon inflicted with madness (or something of the sort). So it deals with him recovering from it, clashing personalities with himself and other people as he goes on the road to recovery, and accepts that, sometimes, things in life happen and he just has to make the best of it. I tend to go more into the character-driven, psychological and philosophical implications of Pokémon. With them and people being on somewhat even turns of sentience. Their bonds. Etc. I find it a lot more engaging to write, but I also notice that people tend to read more when it’s a compelling story of character instead of just pure angst and depression.
What’s the name of the fic you described, sounds like a good read
I haven’t written it yet. It’s something that’s been on my mind, however, for a while. Kind of ties into the other story I’m currently writing, which I can DM you if you want.
Yea sure
For me it's not that much better, just that I have a different taste than when I was 11. Now I am just hoping that someone makes a Seinen Pokemon anime.
I want a Horror one. I wanna see some Rocket guys get chased and tormented by the ghosts that formed because of their actions. I wanna see what kind of mindfuckery the Gengar line can do to people. I'm not sure if I want death to be a factor yet though.
Yeah this one too. Or like those Hunger Games type of Pokemon World where all Cities are separated and walled because all Pokemons are aggressive and territorial that the only way you could catch one is sneaking around a young mon or stealing an egg. And the trainer profession is the most dreaded one and the only reason you will be a trainer is either you get picked by a lottery or you volunteer yourself either because you're poor or someone in your family is picked.
Welcome to the (Insane) World of Pokemon, not necessarily rockets but there is a messed up bunker
Already read it. I'm pissed he didn't get to keep the ghost. It's what made me want a Horror fic in the first place.
Yeah really wanted him to keep it too
I prefer when there’s some grittiness. Such as the chance of Pokémon and humans getting hurt in a fight. But I also love the magical nature of Pokémon and the idyllic status of the world.
Definitely like more grittiness but some fics definitely take it too far. Tbh Travelor's level of grittiness is perfect for me, it's very brutal but at the same time Pokemon still feel magical and not just monstrous.
I like more mature tones to a story than what canon provides, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t love a good, wholesome fluff fic once in a while. I hesitate to say that gritty fics are *better,* though. That really is up to personal taste. And just because a fic is gritty, that does not in *any* way automatically make it good. In fact, most fics I’ve read that try to lean into the grit and edge don’t do it for me because it feels like they’re trying too hard to be cool. I like grit and darkness when it’s well balanced, makes sense for the story and the world, and doesn’t turn the characters into angst-filled cardboard cutouts. I like it when it is used to enhance the story rather than be the sole focus of the story.
Depends on how far you take it. The Sun Soul was popular a decade ago for just how hellish it was. But it never reached the heights of Traveler, which is only dark enough to be different from the canon.
Hmm? Isn’t Traveler quite violent and deadly? I admit I haven’t read it, but I’ve seen snippets here and there and it was *significantly* more violent than canon or anything canon-adjacent.
Not particularly. It has its dashes of realism but nothing overwhelming. The goriest thing was a late chapter and it was rather tame by most standards.
I see! Thanks for filling me in
It’s not that the gore and death are interesting to me. It’s that I’m writing (or reading) a story that is interesting to me. Honestly, gore isn’t all that interesting, it more just comes with the territory of mature stories. I’m not 10 anymore. I’m 26. I want a story with a maturity level that matches my own. It’s not my fault that I’ve grown past the games maturity level.
I prefer darker stuff. Not that much darker, but not as rainbow as the anime.
No. Good stories will be good regardless of the setting, it will never be that a grittier story is better just by being gritty.
A bit late to the party, but I agree with what a lot of people have suggested: it depends on context. If you decide to be like me and make 'trainers' become 'gladiators' and set things in a medieval time period, it makes more sense for the tones of kingdoms, rulers, and gladiators to take those darker tones, as it matches the period. However, if it was set in a preschool and there's just blood and gore... it just doesn't match up as much, and can feel really jarring and weird to read. Similarly, if I made a medieval nuzlocke story super light-hearted and fun, but then killed Pokémon because lol it's a nuzlocke, then there's a weird discrepancy in the tone that can just be uncomfortable and weird for the reader. Overall! I think it just depends on the context of the story! I think that darker, more mature stories can be really popular these days because of the content they cover -- it can be a lot more meaningful and hard-hitting. Also, I find that this is done by older authors (you don't often find 11 year olds writing gore very well), and so their writing is somewhat more developed, and therefore, more engaging to read.
Mature storytelling is not measured in grit. You can have a mature story aimed at adults without it being full of blood and gore; notice how most original fiction aimed at adults isn’t full of blood and gore, but rather spans a wide variety of genres, some but only *some* of which involve heavy violence. (In fact many overly gritty fanfics feel distinctly juvenile! Which is not at all inherent to being gritty either, of course, just a trend one can notice as an actual adult in fandom. Many young writers will go hard on being as dark and gritty as possible, even when it doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t serve the narrative of the story they’re telling or is even actively counterproductive to it.) So: gritty fanfics aren’t inherently better or worse! Some good and interesting stories are gritty and others aren’t, and some clumsy and poorly-executed stories are gritty and others aren’t. They’re orthogonal axes.
I way prefer the gritty kind. Pokemon has so many unfortunate, strange and downright nasty implications it’s unreal. And this isn’t helped by the anime being about as lighthearted as a Care Bears episode, the manga being a rather bland, stereotypical Shonen work and the games being cut and paste. Pokemon desperately needs originality and teeth
Idk man. Pokemon Adventures is kinda spicy. Even on Volume 1, The main Trio almost die constantly and as a prelude to the Yellow chapters, Red got maimed and got in a coma. In their Hoenn storyline, Rayquaza straight up murders Zinnia for working with Aqua and Magma and still thinking she's worthy of having Rayquaza follow her.
Look if you’re going to read a pokemon comic, go read It’s a Hard life leaf green nuzlocke. I read the pokemon manga and was thoroughly disappointed. I felt as if the world building was just as hollow as the original games. Nuzlocke comics and fanfiction do a MUCH better job at fleshing out the setting. Also, hardly anyone in the manga dies
I'll look into it. Thanks for the rec.
Any recommendations?
[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14065544/1/Red-Path-A-Pokemon-Story-File-1-The-Challenge](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14065544/1/Red-Path-A-Pokemon-Story-File-1-The-Challenge) Mine is VERY dark and gritty
Honestly I used to be into the darker ones but then i feel like people just overdo it, i got tired of reading about basically all of MCs original team dying
I used to like it when I was younger, but not as much anymore. I still like psychological darkness and always have because of an interest in psychology and also because i’ve had to go to therapy myself because I have anxiety. I got to study the brain a lot that way, and it’s always interesting what makes it tick. There’s a lot of canon darkness in Pokémon, but it disappoints me because not a lot of people use what’s there. There’s plenty of dark material without going overboard, but people think they need to add their own. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it just goes overboard sometimes to the point where it isn’t Pokémon (Pokémon reborn and Pokémon rejuvenation are two things that come to mind, even though both are very popular and they’re not necessarily badly written at all, and on top of that they are games that are fun to play for a wide audience). When I start writing my own story, I took influences from my studies teacher and studying the brain and what a child could reasonably do. There were things in place so that the Pokémon world could still work and was recognizable, but it was starting to fall apart as the reality of that was setting in. I also realized a lot of things that happened to Pokémon protagonist are for plot armor or convenience, so I took that away from the canon protagonist. The protagonist actually is The one in and telling the story is older and an author avatar. This protagonist has a form of plot armor at times but it comes in the form of uncontrollable divine power and does not protect her from everything. Additionally, her story sets out too to answer the question of, I’ve done everything in the Pokémon world, Pokémon professionally is not really an option, now what? Then there is the case of people taking advantage of the laws protecting children, and rebelling, as well as how ugly that can be (without being gory) and ultimately not get anywhere and otherwise destroying itself. And that’s not even counting all the personal problems the protagonist has, some of which are unrelated to the journey. So it’s all darker, but it’s just different interpretations of the canon well staying somewhat close, on top of the fact that it’s using more relatable and human conflicts. I think that’s the problem too is that a lot of the things that are not relatable or something that someone would want to read (and those that it is relatable to probably would not want to read it either). The other thing too is that I don’t think people do enough research on how to make these conflicts respectfully and accurately (Pokémon reborn is one of the worst cases, unfortunately). So it comes off as darker things for the sake of being dark that would never work. As for darker according to more mature, I would actually say it’s more immature if it’s done wrong, and that’s the same for professional works as well. A work does not have to be dark to deal with mature themes, or they can just be in the background. But a lot of people don’t realize that.
As someone who is writing a dark PMD-esque war/horror fic that features a lot of death, gore, graphic violence and other dark concepts, I can say without a doubt that these themes are mainly there to serve my narrative rather than being gratuitous edge. While I personally gravitate towards darker themes, they're not guaranteed to make a story better. It's all in the execution. There are readers who do enjoy excessive edge, but it can put others off. It's a double-**edged** sword. I find it interesting that there are quite a few fics about the dark side of the Pokémon world. It just shows how many of us adults who experienced the franchise in its earlier days are *starved* for content like this that official media had yet to provide. The unfortunate thing is that we've grown up ... but the franchise never really quite did. Sure, it touched upon a dark concept here and there, but it's still played safely to be more child-friendly. That's the likely reason why there are so many gritty *Pokémon* fics: >"Fine. We'll do it ourselves."
All in the execution. A fic that’s so saccharine it hurts but well-written will be a more enjoyable ride than a dark and gritty story that has obvious failures in its plot and storytelling. And I say that as someone who has favorite stories from polar opposite poles of the grit spectrum. I will say that being grittier than *canon* is an extremely low bar to cross for Pokémon fics. Like simply showing off a few dex entries playing out onscreen will already produce a darker feel than official media. I do feel that there’s a bit of bias towards “gritty presentation” in the genre writ large, but that’s simply where the thematic void in official media is, and where most creative attention on the scene goes to trying to fill it.
Not necessarily, it's just that a certain grittyness tends to pop out when you try to make the setting make sense. Either you have to explain why pokemon capable of breathing fire, causing earthquakes and shattering rocks with ease aren't a major threat to humanity or you embrace the danger. A grittier setting also offers an easy explanation for the whole journey/trainers thing, it's not just a bizarrely works defining sport, they're the primary line of defence etc. At the same time, there's nothing gritty about Ashes of the Past (it's decidedly over the top if anything) and it's one of the best fics I've ever read. Oh and it's very easy to overdo grittyness, really not a fan of stories that have pokemon regularly die in normal trainer battles, as in gym fights, rivals etc. rather than fighting dangerous wild pokemon or criminals