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#and I developed a whole magic system and shit and based the rival's characterization on his relationship with his magic
outeremissary · 7 months
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You know I spent a lot of time reading Nuzlocke comics and fics as a teen and I think that really shaped my understanding of approaches to canon in fandom. Like there's fandom you're doing straight and trying to be faithful to the material on, and then there's fandom like a lot of the Good Stuff on Nuzlockes and wacked out chess AUs where you're somewhere on the sliding scale of remixes from "playing fast and loose with the base material" to "reality is whatever makes the story fun. heart." And they're both valid. God I fucking love how insane Nuzlocke comics could get.
#I used to be super super into nuzlocking myself. it's really fun! I used to do it blind with new games until I stopped playing the new ones#but I enjoyed journaling my experience and making up a story to string things together in my head and then doing art/writing for it#and I used to keep notes on how I was also deviating any canon characters from my understanding of their base characterization#and why I was doing that#I feel like that kind of remix or that exercise in 'what's another possible reading and how could you build on that' is really fun#maybe the best time I had with a nuzlocke was the one where at the beginning I decided it was going to be magic themed. a magic au.#and I developed a whole magic system and shit and based the rival's characterization on his relationship with his magic#opposite the MC's relationship with hers- the prodigy vs the flunky mage who doesn't really want to work with her natural talents#at a point that's probably over the threshold of what can actually be considered pokemon but god it was good entertainment.#truly truly joyful kind of fanwork#deviant characterization can be really fun even if sometimes it really pisses you off lmao#like. yeah maybe he would not say that. or I'm not convinced. but if you spin a delightful enough yarn it's a good time to pretend anyway#rambling#I think I just miss all that whimsy#I used to read one guy's stuff who sometimes nuzlocked and then wrote fic for the same games#and I loved how he always did all the canon characters totally different in the overlapping stuff#but always had a great case for the diverging characterization within the context of his fic of the hour! I loved that!#I think there's also something of a DM/GM attitude there. lol. sure you can run a prewritten straight but you're unlikely to in the end#that deeply personal element and the way the material is chopped up and remixed and changed by the touch of a new hand...
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