User:Umbramatic/Headcanon

OK...

A while back, someone proposed creating headcanon docs. This one is mine, though it's been a continual WIP.

In front of each headcanon bit is the source, weither it's something I came up with myself, took from the anime or a manga, borrowed from WAAPT, PEFE, another fanwork, or even someone else's headcanon.

Note this page also serves as a prototype "setting notes" page for my shared Pokefic universe called the Yangverse, which is essentialy my headcanon version of the Pokeverse made reality; stories of it so far can be found on the Authors' Works page.

Now to start...

Headcanon Priorities

The games (mostly main-series, but also a good number of spinoffs) are the dominant influence on my view of the Pokemon world. A close second is interesting fanon, such as WAAPT, PEFE, or other people's fanworks or headcanons, as well as stuff I make up myself. I like the anime enough that a good amount of elements from it are incorporated as well, though often modified to better adapt to the rest. I know relatively little about the various mangas, so there are few elements from there. I know even less about the TCG, so all that's from there are interesting fanon interpretations of it (such as Holon and Delta mons).

Legendaries

• (Mostly original, some cues taken from WAAPT, PMD, and the anime) Legendaries are beings that can be classified as either deities, powerful spirits, or cryptids, of descending metaphysical importance. Most Legendaries are also unique, with the known exceptions of Shaymin, the Latii, Heatran, Mew, Phione, Diancie, and perhaps a few special cases. There may be one extra of at least one of the Creation Trio, for example (due to the Arceus event).
  • List of Legendary tiers:
    • Deity Tier (inherently unique barring special circumstances): Lugia, Ho-Oh, The Weather Trio, The Lake Trio, The Creation Trio, Arceus, The Tao Trio, The Mortality Trio
    • Powerful Spirit Tier (Unique): Legendary Birds, Legendary Beasts/Gerbils, Legendary Golems, Regigigas, Cresslia, Darkrai, Victini, Sabot Quartet/Swords Of Justice, Kami Trio/Forces Of Nature, Meloetta, Hoopa, Volcanion
    • Powerful Spirit Tier (Non-Unique): Mew, the Latii, Heatran, Phione, Shaymin
    • Cryptid Tier (Uniqueness varies and is sometimes ambiguous and/or spoilery): Mewtwo, Deoxys, Genesect, Diancie
    • Unknown/Undetermined/SPOILERS: Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy, Magearna
    • Special Cases: TBD

• (Mostly original) Nearly all canonically unknown-gendered legendaries have something close enough to a gender identity to effectively be male, female, or genderqueer. List in Google Doc here.

• (Original) The Legendaries are on the whole humanlike in both good and bad ways, with both aspects shaping Pokeverse history greatly.

• (Tagg, mostly) One thing decidedly unhumanlike about more metaphysical Legends (such as the Creation and Tao trios) is their true forms. They are capable of driving people insane just by looking at them, which is why the Legends don't use them often. Looking at Dialga's true form, for example, is like looking at all of time at once. Looking at Zekrom's true form is like being bombarded with the ideals of every being that has ever lived.

• (Original) The first Mew has ties to both Xerneas and Arceus and seeded the Pokemon world with life by Transforming individual cells. More were created later to maintain the balance of life. Mewtwo was created from said first Mew's DNA.

• (Pokemon Special, mostly) Mewtwo has some human DNA, specifically Blaine's plus a few Rocket higher-ups.

• (Original/a touch of loosely adapted anime) Arceus is a VERY awesome and powerful creator and oveseer of the Pokeverse; no paperwork or "colored water" for them. They also has a big sense of humor. However, they've got a lot of mystery around them, and even with the fancy water not being a problem a divergent version of the Jewel of Life still seems very important...

• (Original, but based on a suggestion by Tangent) More metaphysical Legends (as well as those that simply can like Mew and the Latii) can assume human form. Where they fall on the scale of "looks like a normal human" to "MUKKING GIJINKA" depends on how familar the locals are with the Legendary, so as to blend in when necessary. Flings with humans ARE known, but very rare.

• (Original) Related to the above: The Harmonia bloodline is possibly the result of one of these flings.

• (Mostly original) Many legendaries have at least one religion centered around them. Due to Pokemon being a more idealistic world in my eye, they genrally get along far better than most real-world religions, at least in the modern day, but conflict is not unknown. These religions have many devotees, and a man you pass on the street could easily be a priest of Giratina or something.

• (Original) Some legendaries are former humans or mundane mons.

• (Original) Legendaries CAN be captured, but it is both exceedingly rare and entirely on the Legendary's terms. They choose to serve a chosen human who has served them well, done a great deed for them, or something else to earn the right to use a Legendary. Said Legendary can very well disobey the trainer if said Trainer tries to misuse them, and may leave or even punish the Trainer if the misuse gets bad enough.
  • (Tracer sorta/Silent/Myths Of Unova/Original) On a similar note to the above, due to their metaphysical importance attempts to forcibly manipulate or control Legendaries often has drastic consequences for the Pokeverse at large; prominent examples include the events of the Hoenn games causing record floods, tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; Lugia's Shadowfication in Pokemon XD likewise causing an upswing in deadly tornadoes/hurricanes/other severe storms; and the events of the Sinnoh games causing spacetime anomalies to crop up for a decent while after.

• (Origional) Headcanon personalities for certain Legends:
  • To be added.

Attributes and EXing

• To be added, possibly.

Pokemon Biology

• (Every) Each evolutionary line is a single species. Its members are simply different stages of its life and are not given separate scientific names.

• (Original) HSOWA-type stuff is very much possible, though interspecies breeding is fairly uncommon outside of captivity, and sometimes artificial assistance is required.

• (Genral Fanon/some PEFE) Miltank and Tauros are the male and female halves of the same species, as are the Rufflet and Vullaby lines; however, some quirk of each species' biology causes "traditonal" breeding to only produce female offspring.

• (Original, mostly) Nidorina and Nidoqueen are capable of breeding, but are similar to how IRL pandas were until recently in that getting them to do so in captivity is REALLY hard.

• (Tagg) Diglett/Dugtrio dig down faster than the eye can see upon being released from their balls, which is why it's so hard to see their bodies.

• (Original/Tangent) The in-game gender ratios that aren't 50/50 are pretty much bunk. (All-female and all-male species being the main exceptions.)

• (WAAPT) Pokemon can learn far more than four moves, though they usually only bother to remember the ones they find useful. The four-move limit was established by the Crimson Lady of Dragnor as a rule to prevent battles from being either too restrained or too chaotic.

• (WAAPT) Pokemon are pretty much sapient. However, they are still more animalistic than humans in the wild, with Carnivore Confusion being a fact of life.

• (WAAPT) Monese exists, and has dialects like Draconic and Lapine. Aside from those dialects, Pokemon can inherently understand each other and humans just fine. Humans are not likewise able to inherently understand Pokemon; the main known ways to get past the language barrier on the human end are getting a Psychic type to translate or essentialy being self-taught (a prominent example of the latter being N), though others may exist...

• (Luke/Tagg, mostly) No two Pokemon look quite the same, with phenotypes differing more by region. However, it is generally hard for humans to tell the difference until they spend a good deal of time with Pokemon.

• (Original) Most Pokemon can live as long as humans do or longer. The few that don't (Mostly arthropods and rodents) can still live far longer than their RL counterparts, and have increased lifespans living with humans.
  • Lifespan tiers are as follows:
    • Most arthropods not named Larvesta or Volcarona, some small mammals: 50-60 years.
    • Most Pokemon: Human lifespan (About 70-90 years, can go past 100 if healthy enough.)
    • Absol, Vulpix/Ninetales, Sigilyph, Dragon-types, some Rock and Steel-types: Depending on the species and individual anywhere from a good bit over a century to a good bit over a millennium.
    • Larvesta/Volcarona: A few millennia.
    • Ghost-types, inorganic mons, most cryptid/powerful spirit-tier Legendaries: Functionally immortal.
    • Most deity-tier Legendaries: Completely immortal.

• (Silent, partially) Girafarig tail-heads are capable of thinking for themselves.

• (Original) When Zweilous evolves, its heads fuse back together then resplit.

• (WAAPT/Luke/Original) Pokemon use moves differently depending on species and individual. For example, one Pokemon may use Stone Edge in a Gate Of Babylon-like effect, while another may wield a pointed stone like a sword.

• (WAAPT) Ditto are better at Transform than the Canon!Dex gives them credit for.

• (Original) Ditto and Smeargle are capable of transfoming into Legendaries, but they're incredibly gimped compared to the real deal. So if, say, a Smeargle who learned Transform changed into a White Kyurem, they could still be easily curbstomped by even the weakest Legends.

• (The anime, mostly) Early evolutions can occasionally happen if a Pokemon gets enough of a "life-or-death" adrenaline rush.

• (WAAPT) Charizard females often say "Charizard do/don't X" and variations therof as both a cultural thing and as a strangely recurring verbal tic.

• (Every, mostly) Pokemon (and to a lesser extent Pokeverse!Humans) have an insane healing factor and pain tolerance far higher than most RL lifeforms. Coupled with the fact that most actually enjoy friendly battles, the "cockfighting society" stereotype falls apart pretty fast.

• (Original) Miltank milk is better than RL!cow milk in almost every way. It's far easier to digest (hence why pretty much every Pokemon can drink it), far less likely to cause an allergic reaction, and more nutritious. If one were to do a cross-universal taste test it would probably even taste better.

Notes on Individual Types

Ghost-Types

• (Every/Original) All Ghosts are capable of phasing through solid objects and Normal/Fighting attacks, with Gastly line being the best at it (can phase through pretty much anything) and Golett line being the worst (can only phase through attacks). A similar and mostly connected scale exists for how easily a Ghost can possess an entity, with Gastly line being able to do it easily and Golett line being pretty much incapable. (Rotom are an oddity in that they normally can only possess electronic devices and machines.)

• (WAAPT/Original) Any non-Legendary Ghost that doesn't evolve from a non-Ghost is capable of being a "true" ghost, essentially a human or Pokemon brought back from the dead. However, they comprise a rather small percentage of the Ghost-type population.

• (PEFE/Original) All Ghosts are Emotion Eaters. Most are capable of eating lifeforce, though some individual Ghosts consider that unethical. A few can gain nourishment from solid food. Sableye is an exception, feeding entirely on rocks and gemstones.

Fighting-Types

• (Every, mostly) All Fighting types (or anything with Fighting moves, really) can use Aura to an extent. However, only a few can use empathic abilities and more high-tier powers, including Lucario, Miensao, Gallade, and Medicham. (Auric humans, strangely, have empathy as a basic ability.)

Dark-types

• (WAAPT/Original) Dark types are completely unaffected by any sort of psychic power, with the exception of a few non-offensive types like hypnosis, teleportation, and telepathy (though the last can be blocked pretty much at-will). Miracle Eye can remove all these immunities.

Steel Types

• (Original) Steel types are virtually immune to most toxins. This is why Lucario can eat chocolate.

History/Geography

• (Original) Prehistory is fairly similar to Earth's, with a few differences to account for superpowered fauna.

• (Original/WAAPT)The Alakagross Civilization as seen in an old, unfinished fic of mine and WAAPT, is a thing. The events of it may be different from either, however. The main difference likely being they did themselves in. (Interestingly, it didn't become part of my headcanon until after it was added to WAAPT; originally, it was a WMG meant to make my fic a more interesting yarn. :P)
  • (WAAPT) The Moon Tribe, Celestials, and Shadowlanders all existed in some form as well.

• (Original) The modern Pokeverse calendar was created by AZ firing the Ultimate Weapon, its energy breaking through the atmosphere in a way that seemed to form visible cracks in the sky and not only caused great devastation in and of itself but inadvertently drew asteroids and large meteors to the world for a couple thousand years or so after, leading to the event being dubbed "Skybreak" and it setting the Pokeverse calendar eras as Before Skybreak (BSB) and After Skybreak (ASB). The firing of the Ultimate Weapon, over 3000 years before the present day, is designated 1 ASB; the events of Generation 1 began 2996 ASB. (Further pre- and post-main-series timeline stuff TBD.)
  • Notable collision events caused by the Skybreak:
    • Two major collisions in Hoenn, the first of which occured around 1000 ASB and forms Meteor Falls, the second around 750 years later impacting into and briefly re-igniting a formerly extinct volcano to create the Sootoplis Caldera. Both collisions cause enough chaos and unleashrd enough strange energy for Groudon and Kyogre to achieve their Primal forms and go berserk until Rayquaza becalmed them at the behest of Hoenn's people; the initial occurrence lead to the establishment of the Draconids as a major sect of Rayquaza worshipers, and the second allowed Rayquaza to achieve her Mega Evolution for the first time and lead to the creation of Sky Pillar.
    • (The anime) Around 1300 ASB a collision in the Sinnoh region devastated several parts of it, particularly the area around what is now Michina Town. The people beseeches Arceus, who gave a human priest of theirs named Damos an artifact called the Jewel Of Life, a "spark of creation" said to exceed all of Arceus' plates combined in power and have deep personal importance to Arceus themself, to restore the region quickly so long as the Jewel was returned once the damage was repaired. However, once the region was fully healed, something occurred between Damos and Arceus in the latter's retrieving of the Jewel, of which the fine details remain a mystery except it was the last recorded encounter between humanity and Arceus.
    • A collision in the Unova region around 600 ASB formed what is now the Giant Chasm. The Meteonite left over from the impact soon reformed into the God Stone from which the Original Dragon that later split into Reshiram, Zekrom and Kyurem was then born not long after, though the exact circumstances of how all that occured remain a mystery.

• (WAAPT, the anime) The Aura Guardians have been a thing since very ancient times, but only got more organized about 1800 ASB (this is also about when they got the distinctive Sir Aaron-esqe uniforms). They are widely thought to have mostly disappeared about 2500 ASB, but in reality are operating in secret around the globe. Riley is obviously one of them.

• (WAAPT/Original) Ransei exists in the regular Pokeverse. However, Pokemon Conquest itself is an AU; the events of the main Pokeverse's Ransei are rather different. (And may be rather WAAPT based. o3o)

• (WAAPT/Original) Orre, Fiore, Almia, Oblivia, Ferrum, Holon, and nearly all locations from the anime all exist in some form as well.

Culture

• (WAAPT/Original) Pokeworld pop culture is a mix of both works completely original to the Pokeverse and parallels to things in RL pop culture.

• (Every/Original) Pokemon training is a common practice, and trainers are usually sent out around the age of 8-15, if they wish to become a trainer. Trainers replace traditional schooling with abridged online classes, and there is a fairly profitable business in finding better ways to keep trainers educated. Enough people take more traditional schooling routes, however, that public and private education is still well established in many cities.

• (Every) In both residential and business areas, building owners can mark their buildings with an "open to trainers sign." This will place the building on the virtual map that trainers are given at the start of their journey, and indicate that they are okay with random strangers entering their house and asking questions.

WAAPT Characters

• TBD

Other

• (WAAPT/Tangent) Humans occasionaly exhibit Pokemon-like powers of all types. The most common (common being a rather relative term) are Auric, (Fighting) Obscuric (Ghost and/or Dark), and Psychic. These are are also the only ones that go beyond very simple moves or parlor tricks. It is, however, possible to increase what one is capable of with the main 4 with enough training.

• (Silent, Tagg, others?) Certain small RL animals exist, as do pretty much all non-animal lifeforms.

• (WMG by Silent) Wally is part of the Harmonia bloodline.

• (WAAPT/Silent, sorta) Wallace has a Ring Of Water. Because he's awesome.

• (General fanon) Riley has some connection to Sir Aaron. It is currently unknown what. Mostly because I can't decide on which explanation I like best and so have elicited to currently keep it vauge. :P

• (WAAPT/Original) Multi-use TMs and single-use exist side-by side, with TMs coming in and out and back into circulation all the time.

• (Original) Canon games are as follows: Yellow (with some elements from FRLG), Soul Silver, Emerald (with some elements from ORAS), Platinum, White, White 2, X. (Take on the timeline TBD)

• (The anime/original) Pretty much any human character otherwise only seen in the anime exists in some form... Except Ash Ketchum. This is not out of real dislike so much as that removing him from the equation changes a lot of things.

• (Bitters/Silent) Anyone in the Pokeverse who wears a hat constantly has done and/or is destined to do something heroic.

Things to be worked out

• Male-only mons: How do they survive, especially with ones that have no female counterpart? Is a Tagg-esqe solution necessary?

• Role of the Unown: Were they an Alakagross creation? Something vital to the workings of the universe like pretty much everyone else's HC? Or something else entirely?

• Origin of Humans: Most likely extradimensional or something, but this is a bit tricky if there's a multiverse involved. Any good cross-francise interpretations?

• Shiny Legendaries: Are they phases Legendaries go through every few years out of a millennium? An enhanced power level? Something else?