Subject: Any Bakugan fans here?
Author:
Posted on: 2013-06-13 19:48:00 UTC
I am trying to get some ideas down for a Pokemon/Bakugan crossover, and I would like to know if any Boarders are available to bounce questions off of and/or eventually beta my fic. Nothing's been written yet, but there's a pesky little detail that I'm trying to pin down, so any help would be appreciated.
Any takers?
(In case of any confusion, the following is not the "pesky little detail" that I mention in the beginning post; I flesh out that problem is later in the thread. However, this is a problem as well.)
I have a lot of the plot lined up, but as they say, the first step is usually the hardest: How do you plausibly acclimate a canon character from one 'verse to the ways of another 'verse?
In case you need specifics, the first few chapters of my crossover will focus on Volt Luster, a former antagonist from Bakugan Battle Brawlers. I say "former" because he rebelled against his team and consequently got banished to another dimension--which I am saying is the Pokemon world.
But even if you know nothing of either canon, feel free to answer the question in the abstract if you've written a goodfic crossover.
You've found this great canonical opening for a crossover. That's the first step, because that sets it up the whole story more plausibly.
I'd like to point you towards Lily Winterwood's Tutorial on Fandom Collision (very slightly NSFW), because it conveys things better than I can.
Don't worry, you're on the right track. Gods, that feels so nice to say. I was just giving concrit to a Suethor.
It's been a while, but I've watched most of the Bakugan show and thus know a majority of the canon. I have nothing on its material outside the show, though, but I can always double-check with wikis and the like.
I'd be more experienced in the Pokémon side, since I've played all of the games from Pokémon Stadium 2 on except for Pokémon Pearl, and that's close enough to Diamond that I can substitute details.
I've watched enough of Pokémon's show to know how its side of the canon tends to run, but I'd be less experienced in events of the more recent seasons, since my tentative connection to the show was severed by Cilan being really annoying.
So, all in all, I should be able to provide at least some help here. What's the detail you were wondering about?
I should have been a bit more specific: The pesky detail is not about the canon per se, but about how I can find a canon-friendly way to make this crossover work.
To be more precise, here's the problem: In Bakugan, the elemental attributes don't really mean much, e.g., Pyrus isn't weak to Aquos, Subterra isn't weak to Ventus, etc. However, type alignments are central to Pokemon battles. So the problem (which I pose to anyone reading) is this: is there a plausible way to make Bakugan susceptible to Pokemon type alignments?
Were you considering having the six Bakugan attributes gain the strengths and weaknesses of their corresponding Pokémon types, with Pyrus becoming Fire and thus gaining resistances to ice-based attacks with an increased susceptibility to earth-based attacks, Ventus becoming Flying and gaining a resistance to plant-based attacks but increased susceptibility to electric-based attacks, and so on?
What would Haos be, since Pokémon doesn't really have a "light" type? I suppose this could just cause it to default to Normal when the Pokémon continuum gets confused by it, or cause a shift to the closest type thematically, though I'm not sure what that would be. Psychic, maybe. Or maybe this could be a plot point, with the method of Pokémon acclimation not meshing properly around the Haos Bakugan.
Also, an important question related to this: Will the crossover be characters from Pokémon entering Vestroia and/or the Bakugan Earth, characters from Bakugan entering one of the Pokémon worlds(and if so, which one), or characters from both canons experiencing dimensional bleeding and/or having sections of their worlds merged together? I'd need to know to be able to search for plausible methods for the Bakugan to be altered.
Regarding the typing question, I was thinking of something a bit more intricate than simply equating each attribute with its Pokemon equivalent; my idea was that each Bakugan, like each Pokemon, would have its own typing.
Illustrations would help clarify my point: Drago, for example, would be Fire/Dragon, while a Bakugan like Tigrerra would be Normal. Obviously, most non-Haos Bakugan would end up with a typing corresponding to their attribute. (I say most, since a Bakugan like, say, Taylean would not be Flying-type, despite the Ventus attribute. (Perhaps Dark/Fighting would be more appropriate?))That would also get around the absence of a Light-type in Pokemon, a problem that I also noticed.
As for the crossover itself, it will intially be Bakugan characters entering the Pokemon anime-verse.
After some thought, here is a possibility that I thought up.
My explanation would be that Bakugan were always susceptible to Pokemon type alignments. However, given the differences in the battling styles, the natural susceptibility has never been a visible issue.
In case you're confused, recall that a Bakugan brawl is different than a Pokemon battle. In a Bakugan battle, the brawlers use Ability Cards, Gate Cards, and Support Pieces (Bakugan Traps, PakuNanos, BattleGear, etc.) to affect the combatants' G-Power. When everything's said and done, the Bakugan with the highest G-Power wins. With Pokemon battles, however, the idea is to KO the opponent's Pokemon (mainly) by attacking. Different playstyles, different roles for attributes/elemental types.
What do you think?
Is there a mini for the Bakugan universe? Because there is one on the loose--PakuNanos. (Misspelling; should be "BakuNanos")
I've not been to the Board in a few days, and the one time I was, computer problems cut out my response before I could send it to you. As such, I've had to shorten it, because I don't remember all of the response I lost, which is a shame, because I had a really great metaphor I can barely remember any of now.
Your theory is possible, conceivably, but it doesn't mesh well with the way Pokémon types are represented. Pokémon types, while in practice more active, serve to balance each other out, to allow for an individual Pokémon's moves and typing to affect a wide range of others to keep the more powerful Pokémon in check and to allow the Pokémon themselves to maintain an order to their battling style.
On the contrary, Bakugan attributes don't seem to serve to weaken or balance the power of the Bakugan, but to strengthen it, especially when the presence of multiple Attributes allows the Bakugan of the two different attributes to gain more G-Power during the extent of their working together, and then when the team-up is over, both return to their former levels.
Pokémon operates on a level where stability is the final goal, though along the way there is possibility for brief fluctuation, and Bakugan operates by maintaining stasis between battles, and then generating enough bursts of power through Abilities or Battle Gear to defeat the opponent, which makes the main point of a Bakugan battle not planning, as it can be in Pokémon, but giving yourself enough of an advantage over an opponent.
Essentially, the themes of each are so different that saying "it was the same all along" would be more than a little jarring.
It's almost order vs. chaos, were that concept not so used as to be practically a cliché. It even reflects in their evolution methods. Pokémon evolution takes place within a rigid framework; introduce this Stone to this Pokémon at this time, allow this Pokémon to gain experience (or have a certain amount of personal determination, in the anime) to this amount, introduce a Pokémon to this location, and evolution results. Bakugan, on the other hand, rarely evolve when not exposed to specific energies, and evolve in a comparatively erratic fashion, developing new powers based on the situations that they encounter or the energy that they absorb rather than following the more structured basis of the Pokémon development.
Aaand that was only slightly on-topic, but thinking of it gave me a good idea for how to mesh your idea with the one I came up with in the response I lost.
Since only a few Bakugan characters enter the Pokémon continuum, rather than the other way around, this means that their realities would have some way of crossing between each other. I'm not sure how, since I don't know the context, but I'm taking a wild guess that it may have something to do with the Reverse World, since it's the most dimensionally unstable location in the Pokémon animeverse and would be the most likely cause of non-synthetic dimensional gateways.
Anyway, once they enter, something within the Pokémon reality initially doesn't accept the Bakugans' presence. It may see it as an interference, it may see it as fundamentally incompatible with the world, it may just simply not have the same characteristics that allow Bakugan to access their full power in their home reality, what have you. Either way, they would not be able to leave their ball forms initially. Plot points kick in, though I can't provide specific suggestions since I'm not sure which eras of Bakugan and Pokémon anime you're working with, and the Bakugan develop the ability to leave their ball form at the cost of developing characteristics of Pokémon-continuum natives, which would include Pokémon typing and possibly access to certain Pokémon moves.
As hybrids (or perhaps the Bakugan could treat this as a new stage in their evolution, which could allow it to be shed as soon as they evolve again), they would still be able to use their Abilities and some of their Battle Gear, albeit through the Pokémon world assigning move types to said Bakugan items to allow them to remain compatible, but the more Bakugan-specific powers such as Gates would be inactive. This would cause the Bakugan characters to need to adapt to a new style of battling and allow their partners to change in a new way, and allow the Pokémon characters to see the Bakugan battle style without one battle style completely trumping the other, while the Bakugan would utilize moves and techniques that the Pokémon world had never encountered before.
It's not a finished idea by any standards, especially since I don't have a lot of details and either way you'd be the one to choose what parts of it to keep and which to discard, but I think it could look good with a little polishing.
What do you think?
Hmmm...interesting idea. I think I know exactly where I will be taking this story. Thanks for the help.