High Quality Fanworks


Always love high quality "existing music video, but with {series}" works. There's a rough translation in the comments (the song itself was unaltered so it doesnt really line up 1:1 with the game)

Love those manic Volo expressions
 

Always love high quality "existing music video, but with {series}" works. There's a rough translation in the comments (the song itself was unaltered so it doesnt really line up 1:1 with the game)

Love those manic Volo expressions
They fucking went ham on those hands holy shit
 
Not sure where else to post this other than maybe the "little things you like" thread, but this simulation I saw on Twitter is fun:


This is basically a scaled-up version of a "rock-papers-scissors" (RPS) cellular automata simulation, using Pokemon types instead of 3 states. The simulation takes place on a grid, which each pixel being assigned one of the 17 types (I guess the author never played gen 6 or later :p). At each step, the pixels "battle" their 4 nearest neighbors, with the winner converting the types of its neighbors to its type. The tweet thread doesn't provide details on how exactly this is implemented, but I would guess they focus on offensive matchups rather than defensive matchups, and the battling pixels are chosen randomly at each step, you don't try to update the entire grid at once.

The result is some interesting dynamics: you get cycles of fire-water-grass like you would in the original RPS sim, that tend to take over large swaths of the grid. Somewhat surprisingly, electric dominates large regions (with what look like clusters of ghost?). Replies speculate that it is because of interactions with the FWG regions: once electric hits water at the edge of a FWG region it can eat it up. A similar effect seems to happen with flying, but it eventually hits electric and is eliminated. It would be interesting to see what would happen if fairy were added and Fairy-Steel-Dragon cycles became possible.

And just to confirm if anyone was wondering:

 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
The result is some interesting dynamics: you get cycles of fire-water-grass like you would in the original RPS sim, that tend to take over large swaths of the grid. Somewhat surprisingly, electric dominates large regions (with what look like clusters of ghost?). Replies speculate that it is because of interactions with the FWG regions: once electric hits water at the edge of a FWG region it can eat it up. A similar effect seems to happen with flying, but it eventually hits electric and is eliminated. It would be interesting to see what would happen if fairy were added and Fairy-Steel-Dragon cycles became possible.
Makes sense, Electric only has one weakness, Ground, which itself is weak to Grass, Water, and Ice. Once all the Ground is gone there's nothing opposing Electricity which is SE against Flying and Water, both which are SE against notable Types (Flying with Grass, Bug, & Fighting; Water with Rock, Ground, & Fire); Water in particular getting locked into a 3-way war with Fire & Grass (and since this simulation doesn't seem to take resistances into account Electric & Grass neutralize each other thus nothing changes in their interactions). Once Electric gets a solid footing it just needs to wait long enough for Flying and Water to start clearing areas so it can jump in last moment and permanently claim spaces.

The purple swatches of non-Electric is Ghost as Ghost only has one weakness: itself. Watching the footage you can see at first many purple patches start to grow, but then some either stop at a certain point or get converted torn apart. So the purple patches we see in the later parts are the ones which were lucky with their dice rolls and able to sustain their control of their area but now allowing themselves to expand out any further as they're neutral to Electric. Though I did notice during the early parts that you can see a patch of Ghost growing by devouring Psychic which are usually clearing away Fighting.

As for adding Fairy, I honestly don't see it changing much. Notice how Dragon isn't really that present, you'd think it would be at least like Ghost where there are some patches of it. But apparently its Ice-type weakness is enough to keep it from spreading. Adding Fairy would only get rid of Dragon faster (also helping clearing Dark & Fighting though those Types didn't need much help getting rid of), maybe let Steel & Poison spread, and then I think will ultimately either join the Grass-Fire-Water cha-cha or become Electric (MAYBE some becoming part of a Ghost patch).

What would really change things up is adding resistances (and immunities if it's also not considered). I don't think the Grass-Fire-Water cha-cha will exist when there are plenty of Types which resist Grass; not to mention the Electric takeover would be stopped by Grass and Dragon. Speaking of which, Dragon might be able to come into play as it resists the Starter Types plus Electric so if it can ignore Ice (and Fairy if added) it would have a good chance of dominating or at least claim territory like Ghost does (which I think would also still exist in clusters as adding Resistances and Immunities doesn't really affect them). Though the bigger winner could be Steel with its huge list of resistances, possibly making it what Electric-type is now (though I can see it getting fight back, maybe forcing it to only take large territory but not spread so fast).

... BUT, with that all said, while an interesting experiment certainly, it doesn't really tell us anything. Even if they add Resistances & Immunities, anyone who takes a quick look at the Type Chart can tell it's not really "balanced". Altogether maybe, but isolated some Types either are relatively balanced, have more weaknesses than resistances, have more resistances than weakness, are SE against more Types, more Types resist it, and Immunities are only given to a handful of Types with Ghost getting two. Plus it doesn't include Type combinations which gives individual Pokemon a unique set of weaknesses & resistances (and maybe immunities) compared to a Pokemon which is just one of its Type. Finally, what completely breaks this apart is, unless they make each pixel represent a Pokemon, without the Stats all of these might as well just be coin flips. Dragon isn't strong because of its Type match-up, it's strong because just in general Dragons have high stats with their Type Match-ups only serving to bolster its Defense while giving it gaps in its armor. Psychic and Fighting are balanced in their match-ups but they're usually Special and Physical powerhouses, respectively, they don't have to worry about weaknesses. Despite Electric only having one Weakness, it's a pretty notable weakness and Electric-types usually have paper thin defenses. Steel are mighty walls but with overall low offense they usually either play the slow route to winning by wearing down the opponent or rely on a strong-hitting partner. And that's just touching the surface on variables which effect battles.

ACTRUALLY, maybe that is one good thing this simulation can show. For all the people who says Pokemon is nothing but a "rock-paper-scissors" game, well, here is a simulation that treats it just like that. Apparently Electric is the strongest Type, followed by Grass-Fire-Water which are equal to one another, and then we have Ghost which is just there. So go now and build your Electric, Grass, Fire, Water, & Ghost team and tell me how you do in the competitive scene.

EDIT: BTW Il Neige wrote a new Rock That Pokemon, this one for Meowth!
 
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Makes sense, Electric only has one weakness, Ground, which itself is weak to Grass, Water, and Ice. Once all the Ground is gone there's nothing opposing Electricity which is SE against Flying and Water, both which are SE against notable Types (Flying with Grass, Bug, & Fighting; Water with Rock, Ground, & Fire); Water in particular getting locked into a 3-way war with Fire & Grass (and since this simulation doesn't seem to take resistances into account Electric & Grass neutralize each other thus nothing changes in their interactions). Once Electric gets a solid footing it just needs to wait long enough for Flying and Water to start clearing areas so it can jump in last moment and permanently claim spaces.

The purple swatches of non-Electric is Ghost as Ghost only has one weakness: itself.
Ghost is also weak to dark.

I would guess that the things that allow for the ghost clusters are:

-Dark's weakness to fighting keeps it in check, preventing it from growing enough to devour ghost

-Ghost being weak to itself means encountering dark types is the only way it loses territory

-Ghost being strong against psychic means that ghost can grow its territory if it encounters psychic types.

The last point is particularly important, because that is the reason why dragons can't dominate despite having similar weaknesses: they are only super-effective against themselves, so dragon-type territory can never grow, only remain the same. (Similarly, normal type territory can never grow.). This answers my question about the fairy-steel-dragon core, which can't form spiral patterns because it's a defensive core and not an offensive core. So,

As for adding Fairy, I honestly don't see it changing much. Notice how Dragon isn't really that present, you'd think it would be at least like Ghost where there are some patches of it. But apparently its Ice-type weakness is enough to keep it from spreading. Adding Fairy would only get rid of Dragon faster (also helping clearing Dark & Fighting though those Types didn't need much help getting rid of), maybe let Steel & Poison spread, and then I think will ultimately either join the Grass-Fire-Water cha-cha or become Electric (MAYBE some becoming part of a Ghost patch).
I agree with you that adding fairy would only clear dragon out faster, and maybe even dark, which could lead to more ghost dominance than there already is.

What would really change things up is adding resistances (and immunities if it's also not considered).
After writing the above reasoning about ghost and thinking about it a bit more, I would guess that resistive matches are already taken into account if the algorithm is as follows: randomly pick a cell and check its neighbors. Any neighbors that are weak to the chosen cell are converted to its type, any neighbors that resist the chosen cell remain as they are. (To speed up the simulation I would guess many cells are chosen simultaneously, but perhaps given a random priority order to alleviate conflicts if two neighboring cells are chosen).

But, I could be wrong.

... BUT, with that all said, while an interesting experiment certainly, it doesn't really tell us anything. Even if they add Resistances & Immunities, anyone who takes a quick look at the Type Chart can tell it's not really "balanced".
As R_N said, the point of the simulation isn't to say anything about Pokemon, it's just a fun demonstration of pattern formation in an extension of a "classic" cellular automata by extending from rock-papers-scissors rules to Pokemon type matchups. If anything the point is to use Pokemon as a hook to get people interested in some of the neat things you can encounter in mathematics, for example by nerd-sniping people with a bit of Pokemon knowledge into puzzling over why some types form clusters and others don't. :)
 

Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
Surprised to see Il Neige wrote another Rock That Pokemon so soon. This time for Victreebel, a Nirvana grunge romance between a periwinkle-haired Rocket grunt and his carnivorous plant... that wants to eat him.
Giga Drain, James wish.
 
We have a new song from Il Neige! With the release of ScaVio, he made a song dedicated to one of the new Pokémon from these games. I'm putting it in a spoiler tag because of that.

It's Quaxly! Second best* starter from Paldea! The song itself is a parody of the old DuckTales theme. It is short but neat.

*opinions may vary
 
some really good fanfictions that i currently follow are
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/55114/the-type-specialist this novel follows an average pokemon enjoyer after he is teleported in the pokemon world tries to bekome the best fairy type spezialist in the world. started in hoen then had an short excursion to kalos and now is curently in sinno
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/59240/hard-enough this novel follows a person follows a person reincarnated as Brock from the anime after he already is the gyme leader and he has also an erxtreamly strong team. plays in kanto
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36950/borne-of-caution this novel follows an zookeeper after he died in an explosion of an atom bomb and was teleportet to the pokemon world. the author tries make the pokemon world in this work a bit more realistic and he also goes over some darker themes like ptsd. plays in hoenn
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46050/borne-of-desire this novel follows office worker that trough his own stupidity made them self younger and transported himself into the pokemon world. this work completely follows the tropes of shonen anime (like power of friendship) wich the protagonist is finds out and tries to exploit. until now it seems that he will spezielles into fighting typ pokemon. plays in sino
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57741/pokemon-trainer-vicky-pokemon-si (currently in hiatus) this novel follows an average pokemon enjoyer after she is reborn in an pokemon world where professor oak died befor he could creat the pokedex which creat manny problems for her. plays in kanto
 
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Pikachu315111

Ranting & Raving!
is a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
this novel follows an average pokemon enjoyer after he is teleported in the pokemon world...

this novel follows a person follows a person reincarnated as Brock from the anime...

this novel follows an zookeeper after he died in an explosion of an atom bomb and was teleportet to the pokemon world...

this novel follows office worker that trough his own stupidity made them self younger and transported himself into the pokemon world...

this novel follows average pokemon enjoyer after she is reborn in an pokemon world...
I can't help but notice you seem to have a favortie genre. :bloblul:
 
I can't help but notice you seem to have a favortie genre. :bloblul:
yea isekai especially reincarnation and overpowerd protagonists are some of my favorite genre. becose of this i dont really read many non iseakai pokemon fanfiction the only one that i read and find really interesting is https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13931794/1/Legendarily-Popular a fanfiction wher ashs legendary luck is increased to absurdity so that he has never seen a pidgie but has multiple legendarys
 

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