HOW IT ALL BEGAN

 

Back in December of 2001, I'd mostly given up on Pokemon fandom. I was reading less and less fanfics, moving more towards Transformers and others. Sure, I still liked Team Rocket, but even on that front there was nothing being made in both fan and official material that I hadn't already seen.

Then I ran into Farla's fanfiction. I forget how exactly, but it was a huge breath of fresh air for me- here was someone taking the concept of Pokemon and injected a mix of morbidity, black humour and rebellious characterisation into it. Sure, this had been done before, but never with such consistency and skill as Farla was doing it (to my knowledge). She wasn't letting up, she was simply pouring out darkness with every word she wrote. I was hooked. 

Then I ran into "Written In Stone", which introduced Eon. I saw the character had potential- she had been betrayed by her trainer and had her entire life ripped away and altered; and, while she is certainly cruel and vicious, as she says- "...they made me what I am. They wrote my destiny in stone, they chose my path, in a language they did not know, simply guessing what would happen. And they wrote that I would become what I am...".

I felt she would logically declare war on the entire League- it was the only way this character could go. But in Farla's universe, all the Pokemon are like Eon to an extent- they resent being trained, they hate being imprisoned and realises to fight their brethren for the glory of idiotic children. I was suddenly hit by an idea- Eon leading a revolution among Pokemon and fighting to drive humanity from Kanto, Johto and the Orange Islands. But while "Pokemon declare war on humans" fics had been done before, I could think of a few key differences:

a) Most of these fics were told from the POV of the HUMANS, and the rebels are the "bad guys".

b) This fic would be done like a real revolution- there would be strategies, rallies, counter-strikes and hysteria.

c) Nobody would be heroes. Everyone would be in the shades of grey, just like in a real revolution.

I immediately E-mailed Farla asking if I could collaborate with her on such a fic, and she agreed. And thus we began work, working out what characters we would use, what would be the first targets, who would be on which side and so on. In 28/12/2001, the first chapter came out and we struck a nerve, gaining more and more fans who digged the darkness, and gathering a vocal group of haters (whom we poked fun of and cruelly prodded). 

My only regret is that people seemed to support the Pokemon too easily or aggressively flame the idea of them. My ideal would have people raving about how good the characters are, yet reacting uneasily as the characters they loved committed atrocities. Ah well, at least I got to make lots of stuff blow up real good!

 

 

THE WRITERS

 

NAME: Charles Ellis, AKA Charles Rocketboy AKA Charles RB

FUNCTION: Author and overall nerd

"One of the big joys of writing is getting to write scenes of major destruction."

PROFILE: Been writing fanfics for several years now, the earliest still available being a Pokemon fic called "Alternatives". Dabbles in Team Rocket, Transformers and Sonic the Hedgehog fandoms regularly. Aims to write comics professionally, writes a Pokemon fan comic and works for the fanfiction group "Transmasters UK". Influences include the Marvel Transformers comics, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, Spider-man, Neon Genesis Evangelion and a large array of movies.

FAVOURITE FANFIC MADE: "Alternatives", if only because it was my first. It was a blast to put it up and get all these reviews.

ON "REVOLUTION": I personally support Eon's cause, because I think fighting for your rights is a great thing to do. However, I always want to make the Pokemon just a LITTLE too aggressive and destructive, just to make everything more realistic and questionable.

 

 

NAME: Farla

FUNCTION: Writer

"The winners write the history books."


FAVOURITE FANFIC MADE: Walking Through the Valley. It's interesting to write from a character's point-of-view when you know they're wrong, but not to let that show in their own viewpoint.

ON "REVOLUTION": It's been really fun to write. Different characters have different views of other characters. One might say something, and it's wrong, but they don't know that. Another character might say something different and they can both be wrong. It's not exactly lying, and it's probably mostly right, but just not quite. I can't do this very much, because it's a lot to remember, but it's fun to do once in a while. And foreshadowing is always nice.

 

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