Behind the Deviations

Essentially, all the stuff that went on in the creation of my series and the anecdotes behind it. I find it interesting to look back on, and for those of you wondering 'What was he on when he came up with that? (or similar) - now you know!


Room 181:

- Danny's species was chosen when I was reading the first chapter of the original Pokeumans story which mentioned 'a boy with an Aron's face plate' in the hospital and I wondered 'Hm, I wonder what happened to him?' It's not the same one, for obvious reasons, but that's where it came from.

- There was originally going to be a character who was an Extinctionist minion who was caught, kept back from the army and effectively rehabilitated to live with the Pokeumans. That idea was scrapped, but I had a name and species picked so I figured we might as well keep that. A couple of chapters later, Jack the Quilava appeared!

- Following that last thought, you'll probably have spotted that Jack is effectively the fifth roommate of Room 181. That's because he was going to actually be in the original plan, but then I realised I'm bad enough at writing four-protagonist scenes let along five (although I've gotten better).

- The only character that had a name change in planning was Russell the Exeggutor, who in my notes was originally called Donald. Not sure why that changed, but...

- Tiffany and Garret were named after two members of the Go-Rock Quad from Pokemon Ranger. In fact, in the first game I believe Garret even has a Scizor on his team.

- A big one: Chapter 15 was originally intended to be Chapter number 7 Part 2, and the finale would have progressed from there without any of the stuff in the middle. However, Brandon's series didn't end as soon as I thought it would and rendered my setup irrelevant, meaning I had to continue the story for nine more chapters while waiting for him. Actually, I'm extremely glad that did happen in the end - it needed it.

- This series was also intended to end at the same time Brandon's does. Er, no.

- Something I only realised partway through writing it - Alex's friends can be viewed as alternate version of Cameron and his friends. There's the driving force leader, the quieter and more sensible Psychic without whom the rest would be screwed, the strong female character who isn't afraid to show her anger and the relaxed one who likes to mess around a bit.

- Cameron and co's room (the titular one) is Room 181. 181 is Ampharos' number in the National PokeDex. A virtual biscuit to everyone who already noticed this.

-You'd be surprised how many characters nearly didn't exist, or were invented as I was going along writing the series:
Emily was invented at around Chapter 3 being uploaded, when I realised Lizzy needed a villainous partner (Lizzy was always intended to be evil and set her brother up as her scapegoat).
Tiffany and Garret were originally intended to appear in the Angie Walsh rescue contest, but then I realised it would only be canon if I came first. In the face of that, I held them off so they could definitely be included.
The finale, which has had about a million updates and re-writes (you honestly would not believe) needed a few expansions in some areas, and one of those expansions produced Travis. Glad I did - he's now one of my favourites.
Part of my plan to make the nine chapters mentioned above relevant was to introduce a new villain - this lead to the creation of the Anti-Bodies and Anti-Cam.
My realisation that there needed to be some actual evidence at Cam's trial coincided with my sudden desire to have a Spinda character, and the result was Louie who was created a matter of weeks before he was incorporated into the series.

- There was going to be an additional epilogue scene, two years later where Danny finished recording the entire story from the main characters' compiled memories of the events Bilbo Baggins style. I do, in fact, consider that idea to be canonical. But it felt too melodramatic for the upbeat ending I wanted (*Cough cough* Also slight canonicity issues and sequel spoilers *cough cough*).

- I deliberately set out at the start of the series to dodge as many group cliches as I could, even back then: the series name is the simplest I could think of rather than something long-winded and pretentious, the dream messenger idea is totally mocked, the bad guy is just in it for the fun, the hero is an under-appreciated (in my anything-but-humble opinion) species, there's no superpowers, there's minimal tragic backstories and emotional turmoil and apart from cameos there's not a Zoroark or Lucario in sight.


Pokeumans Contest Characters:

- One of those 'once a chapter' things: Every time we first see Cassie in an entry, she's halfway through reading something. Go and check if you don't believe me.

- All of the contest entry chapters are titled after the names of songs:
King Of Hearts: The original title until shortly before submission was 'Where The Streets Have No Name', which is by U2.
Body Swap:
* Crossfire (the first chapter in the entry Cassie and co appeared in) is by Brandon Flowers.
* Flying Upside Down is by Cold War Kids.
* Fast And Slow is by The All-American Rejects.
* Goodnight, Travel Well is by The Killers.
Dimensional Gems:
* Grand Designs is by Rush.
* High Life is by Daft Punk.
* After Party is by The Lonely Island.

- Jupiter the Blaziken originates from a Pokemon of the same name, gender and species from my Randomlocke of HeartGold.
The story behind Jupiter's name (and hence this one's) is an odd one, but here goes: Having had a string of unfortunate deaths in a row (including Sheila the Bastiodon - give me a cheer if you're a Red Vs. Blue fan!), I was amazed and somewhat frustrated to discover that my latest catch, a Slugma, was ANOTHER male Pokemon. Since it's name is the symbol for 'masculine', as well as being sufficiently red and hot for a Fire-type, I named him Mars. Needless to say, he died before we got out of the cave I found him in. I exited the cave to encounter a MALE Torchic, who in-keeping with the theme and recent events, as well as him replacing Mars' role, I named him Jupiter. The rest is history.
No-one knows what Jupiter's real name is. Even I don't know what Jupiter's real name is.

- The character of Felicia the Ditto (master thief just doing it for the challenge) was originally a male Arbok (I think named Richard), and began life as an offered character design for someone else - I got him back because the recipient couldn't stand snakes!

- Cassie was originally a secondary protagonist to a Breloom named Will, where she would have been the 'hypercompetant sidekick' who rarely spoke but got almost everything actually done. However, the particular backstory I wanted Will to have never had a chance to come up, so I left it and made her the star instead. Will's in stasis lock for now.


Fighting Talk The Second:

- D'Avril la Premier is a Fraxure. Her April Fools post was inspired by the (Character) Taunts Everyone meme from League of Legends.
The only character to have dialogue lines against her in Bruno.
And one for the Skype/Discord group - I considered the idea of making the April Fool's character Sexia the Salazzle instead. I'm not even joking. Sadly (or perhaps not) I just couldn't get enough material for her.

- I considered doing 'Defeat vs' quotes as well - in fact, I even said on Discord that they'd be in Update C. However, they were just too difficult to come up with for the whole cast. They may yet be a thing, but I make no promises.

- You know how there was almost a year between the initial upload and Update A? I wrote at least 45% of the content of that first update about a week before it was posted. In the words of Lord D'Abernon, 'An Englishman's mind works best when it is almost too late'.


- External references (as in, to things outside the group):

'Was there ever a cat so clever?' (Alex vs. Jayde) is a reference to the song 'Mr. Mistoffelees' from Cats. That's right, I do classy references too.

'Sorry. Two legs bad, four legs good.' (Avery vs. Dane or Xoey) is the mantra from Animal Farm.

Bruno, naturally, is a goldmine of these:
* 'How did anyone ever enjoy these posts without me in 'em?' (vs. Avery) is a quote from Deadpool in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
* 'I think I'd rather fight Charlene. She's got a lot more attitude than you.' (vs. Cubone) is a reference to The Pokemorph Series, also by Ryusuta.
* 'You're going to need to have more fury, lady.' (vs. Emily) is a reference to Fawful from the Mario & Luigi series, who is pretty blatantly the character that inspired Emily's speech style. I'm not even going to pretend about that one.
* 'Flareon, Jolteon, Vaporeon, Espeon, whatever! It doesn't matter what you are, you're still going down!' (vs. Vee) is a reference to Red's Eevee (named Vee) from the Pokemon Adventures manga, that could shift between the first three Eeveelutions at will.

'Water types. Why'd they have to be Water types?' (Cameron S' reaction to Water-type opponents) is a reference to the famous 'Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?' line in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

'I think you were banking on speed being on your side. Sorry, but that only happens in theory.' (Chris vs. Anthony) was intended as a reference to the Pokémon anime logic about Pokémon facing their higher evolution that I think we all know wouldn't work out in real life like that.

Pretty much every interaction between Connor and Will is some sort of reference to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers, where a time-travelling Grovyle is a key character to the plot.

'Do electric sheep dream of androids?' (Dane vs. Cameron S) is an allusion to the Phillip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

'Ahh, my ears! Does your Hyper Voice give you super strength as well or something? That hurt!' (Dane vs. Tristan) is a reference to Tristan Taylor's 'My voice gives me super strength!' running gag from Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series.

'The Snake… that name sounds really ominous for some reason.' (Diana vs. Commander) is a reference to the organisation of that name from Sonyathehedgragon's series Alex and Shane, sadly no longer available.

'Guess it's really not easy being green, huh?' (Elijah vs. Subject-III) is a reference to Kermit's song 'It's Not Easy Being Green' from The Muppets.

'Charmed, I'm sure.' and 'Guess it's true what they say about people going strange up in the hills...' (Faith's reactions to Quark) are references to Charm and Strange Quarks, two types of subatomic particles.

'Eh, I could take him.' (Isaac vs. Roush) is a reference to a running gag from Worm (specifically, of what must be going through overconfident mooks' minds before they try to fight the protagonist).

'Ohh, that was not medicine. I lost my cool because you freaked me out!' (John S vs. himself) is a reference to one of The Medic's kill streak responses from Team Fortress 2 ('Oops! Zat vas not medicine!').
* Jake's quote against John S - 'Medic! Hahaha! Medic! I'm sorry, that's just too funny! Hahahaha!' - was also intended as a reference to TF2's Medic call button.
* Strike's quote against Augustus - 'Oh, headmaster. Who will they ever find to replace you? Anyone!' - is also a reference to one of The Spy's lines when getting a killing streak against The Soldier.

'Houston, you have a problem.' (Lee vs. Dane) is a reference to the iconic 'Houston, we have a problem' line from Apollo 13.

'Dead or alive, you're coming with me.' (Roush vs. Peter) is a reference to Robocop.

'Hey, police girl!', the start of Roush's reaction to Diana, is a reference to Hellsing Ultimate Abridged.

'What have I told you, Gamma? If you're still leaving scorch marks, you need a bigger gun.' (Strike vs. Gamma) is a reference to one of Schlock Mercenary's Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries ('34. If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.')

I said on the group Discord that I'd get a reference to Jinx from League of Legends into Strike's post at some point, and 'Relax! It's called gunplay.' (vs. Marcus) is a direct quote from The Loose Cannon.

'Oh look, the detachment from Team Skull made it.' (Subject-III vs. Scott) is a reference to Pokémon Sun and Moon, naturally. Although a similar reference to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers would also work, come to think of it.

'So I’m guessing the princess is in another secret underground base?' (Tristan vs. Storym) is a reference to the original Super Mario Bros.

'D-don't laugh at me! I'm not pink, I'm lightish-red! I'm way manlier than anyone you'll know!' (Tristan vs. Cameron S) is a reference to Private Donut from Red vs. Blue.

D'Avril la Premier, the walking April Fool's joke, is also a hotspot for these:
* 'Death doesn't scare me. Maybe taxes.' (vs. Andy) is a reference to the famous quote by Benjamin Franklin: 'Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.'
* 'Can't sing. Can't act. Can breath fire a little.' (vs. Avery) is a reference to Hollywood legend Fred Astaire, who was dismissed
in a early review as 'Can't sing. Can't act. Can dance a little'.
* 'Smaug, the Magnificent-ly Angst-Ridden.' (vs. Chris) is a reference to Smaug from The Hobbit.
* 'It's just a jump to the left...~' (vs. Connor) is a reference to 'The Time Warp' from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
* 'I thought diamonds were a girl's best friend.' (vs. Diana) is a reference to the song 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend' (History fact: First appeared in the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).
* 'I thought it was better down where it's wetter.' (vs. Faith) is a reference to The Little Mermaid. You know the song I mean.
* 'Sheesh, Dovahkiin, you got ugly.' (vs. Gamma) is a reference to The Dragonborn, protagonist of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
* 'English, do you speak it?!' (vs. Justin) is a reference to Pulp Fiction.
* 'Wow. Much fluff. Very superpower.' (vs. Kate) is a reference to the 'doge' meme.
* 'The feud abides.' (vs. Liora) is a reference to 'The dude abides' from The Big Lebowski.
* 'Quoth the raven, 'Stop hitting me'.' (vs. Mark) is a reference to 'Quote the raven, 'Nevermore',' from Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven.
* 'Someone fetch my Silph Scope.' (vs. Moe) is, of course, a reference to the ghost Marowak in Pokémon Red and Blue.
* 'Winners don't use drugs. They don't help.' (vs. Patrick) is in reference to a quote that apparently dates back to a 1989 anti-drug campaign promoted through arcade machines.
* 'You wanna know how I got these laughter lines?' (vs. Strike) is a reference to The Joker's famous 'You wanna know how I got these scars?' quote from The Dark Knight.



Nuzlocke: The Gold Standard

- The descriptions of Lisa/Clyde's Fire/ThunderPunch is meant to mimic the Shoryuken attack from Street Fighter. That kind of faded out after a while, though.
Similarly, Alexander's Headbutt (the one time he used it) is described similarly to E. Honda's Sumo Headbutt.

- Alexander the Sentret was named, given rough species correlation, after Alexander the Meerkat from Compare The Market adverts. I couldn't think of anything better at the time.

- Mick (Mike's real name) came from the trend of name RPG characters after yourself (Man-In-Crowd, geddit?).

- All Fighting-type Pokemon are named after characters from fighting games (ironically, the same character that Dan was named after was also the character basis for Colin). Every single named Gym Leader/Elite Four member's Pokemon is some sort of shout-out.

- Colin was originally intended to be an Espeon, a decision that was backtracked on after the death of Lisa (shortly after uploaded Ch. 1).

- You would not believe how hard it was to get Harry to die 'accidentally'...

- We came incredibly close to losing Sammy prematurely between Chapters 8 and 9 (after beating Morty and getting Surf) - a trainer with a Cloyster that I couldn't get away from kept killing him with Aurora Beam, and every time it did my emulator crashed and reset, forcing me to re-do the battle. The one time it didn't do this was the time it used Withdraw instead and I won. Genuinely, I didn't do this to preserve Sammy. I just got amazingly lucky.

- I considered portraying Lance in the style of Waka from Okami (and, er, Japanese mythology by extension). But getting my point across - how much of a dick he was - works better with his normal character.
I also considered doing Will of the Elite Four as The Phantom of the Opera.

- Remember the bit where Mike dressed up as a Rocket grunt to sneak into the Radio Tower and has to pass himself off with a foreign nationality? As he leaves he gives a short blessing in the language of his supposed country. If the language in question was Russian, it would roughly translate as 'What the heck am I saying?'
Similarly, before their battle Will quotes a phrase of ancient wisdom to Mike. Translated from Latin, it roughly means 'The interpreter is not available at the moment, please try again shortly'. Generally, if you see a foreign language used in my stuff it's worth translating for an extra gag.

- The hats worn by the Red and Gold/Ethan characters in the first two Generations are supposed to resemble a Poke Ball and an Ultra Ball, respectively. When Mike gets a new hat (Chapter 4), his resembles a Great Ball to continue this theme.


More to come as other series are finished off!