Seven Books in Seven Days #7

This is the last entry in this series I've been running on weekends over the past month or so, where I talk a bit about the seven books (or series) that most influenced me growing up. See previous entries in this series here: day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six. This will not be in any particular order, as it's hard to put these seven in any sort of favorite to least favorite order.

Yes, Pokémon. Yes, fanfiction.

My obsession with Pokémon runs deep. It's ingrained there, pretty much forever. Though, I rarely watch the show or movies anymore or read the books.. the games, the cards? They still take up more space than they should in my little apartment. (In fact, I own at least one version from each of the game's generations since the very beginning.)

I haven't written fanfiction in years, but like many people who aspire to write I it's where I started. Mostly, it was Pokémon fanfiction. I created versions where Ash was evil, I did a lot of self-insertion, but really... they grew to be more and more complicated and less and less Pokémon until I just took the leap and started world-building the fantasy world I now have 5-6 in progress stories based in.

I think the thing that appeals to kids about Pokémon, primarily, is getting to leave your parents at 10-11 to go befriend these amazing creatures and go on an adventure. Sounds totally awesome. As a parent, that sounds pretty horrific, especially considering my kids who have like no outdoor survival skills, but man did dropping down into that world appeal to me. As I got older, I started thinking about how that world worked.

In several episodes, the characters are seen eating meat... so are some Pokémon designated as the meat Pokémon or are there normal animals in this world too? How does this world work with essentially free healthcare (note, I grew up and still live in America where free healthcare is a pipe dream)? Why did they have gym battles? How did these creatures come to be? Ash could understand Pikachu and I wondered if he just learned how to after being with her for so long... and if that's the case why wasn't there someone studying that instead of (in the later games) progressively making the creatures stronger and stronger? And when, when the Pokémon become so overpowered, do they as sentient beings (as the show/games endlessly show) decide they no longer want to fight for their masters and kill them all? It'd probably be easy. I mean, some Pokémon can literally self-destruct and not die themselves.

The most recent Pokémon fanfiction I wrote delved into that. They never show Pokémon severely injuring the humans on purpose in the shows, but why not? I'm sure some of them don't like being confined to those tiny balls, forced to fight. So why not have them rebel against their masters?

It's weird to think about, but I basically wrote grimdark Pokémon fanfiction and that evolved into my current SFF writing I do now. I just can't let go of the dark implications of the seemingly fluffy and childlike.

Did you ever write fanfiction? Do you think it had any influence on your later writing? What fandoms did you delve into?