Poké Battles are a form of humorous fiction created by Jason Ross in 1999. They are designed to parody the Pokémon series of Game Boy video games. Although they were originally based on Pokémon, Poké Battles no longer retain many Pokémon elements outside of the writing conventions; in fact, the vast majority of characters and situations are entirely original, with many parodies of pop culture. As such, they do not really merit being categorized as Pokémon fan fiction, or for that matter fan fiction at all.

Writing conventions and format

Battles are written episodically, with each battle usually starring one character, the Player. Battles take the form of lines of dialogue, which are typically split up into two types using different font colors. The first type is Narrator text, which is customarily red. It serves the function of the battle commentary shown in the Pokémon games, also mimicking that style of capitalizing names, attacks, and other important words. The second type of text is Player text, which is usually aqua, and shows the dialogue of the main character of the battle. Other important characters are sometimes given different colors to help distinguish them as well. Other times, what non-starring characters say is conveyed in Narrator text - for example, in red text (and without quotes), "JAMES says to stop hitting him!" or just "JAMES: Stop hitting me!"

Network and versions

This form of writing has spawned sanctioned imitators, which are ranked weekly by Mr. Ross. The ranking is called the Poké Battles Network and sites on it are called versions. Each one is given a name that suggests a color, much like the Pokémon games. The main site is called Red Version. The versions are ranked on the following criteria, in order:

• Battle Quality (BQ)
  • Rankings are determined for each battle on a 1-6 scale, with 6 being Perfect, 5 being Excellent, 4 being Great, 3 being Average, 2 being Poor, and 1 being Bad, by the High Council, a selected group of impartial community members who don't run Versions.
• Updates (US)
  • Each week a site updates, it gains a point here. The maximum is 5, and when a site reaches 0 it ceases to be ranked. Updates must be accompanied by a posting on the message board.
• Site Design (SD)
  • This ranks a site's design on a 0-4 scale, where 4 is the best.

There are currently over 100 version colors. Some notable versions are:

• Aqua (http://www.pokebattles.com/aqua)
• Black (http://www.pokebattles.com/black)
• Emerald (http://www.pokebattles.com/emerald)
• Wave (http://www.pokebattles.com/wave)
• Lavender (http://www.pokebattles.com/lavender)
• Liquid (http://www.pokebattles.com/liquid)
• Gold (http://www.pokebattles.com/gold)
• Cinnabar (http://www.pokebattles.com/cinnabar)
• Flame (http://www.pokebattles.com/flame)
• Digital (http://www.pokebattles.com/digital)
• Storm (http://www.pokebattles.com/storm)

Fan battles

Fan battles are submitted to existing sites, and no new sites are created in order to post them. Even the main site has a fan battle section, called Blue Version.

Live battles

Live battles are battles fought between two players over IRC or ICQ, with someone being a Narrator. The main site has Green Version for live battles.

Characters

The writing format has spawned various unique characters, and other characters or real-life people have become staples of Poké Battles humor. Additionally, certain normal Pokémon have taken on special significance.

• Bigglymuff is the evolved form of Wigglytuff. It evolves into The Evil Rabid Jigglypuff of Doom.
• The Evil Rabid Jigglypuff of Doom (Doompuff)
• Garry Kasparov
• Xbox
• John Movius
• Green Valkyrie
• Adam Deadmarsh
• Meowth
• Pikachu
• Da Evolution Man
• Missingno.
• Tree
• Bob "That Guy" Smith
• Butch Urrh
• Almighty Webmaster
• Immortus is often referred to as an immortal soul that cannot be killed. However, he died (sort of).

External links

• Poké Battles (http://www.pokebattles.com/)
• The Network (http://www.pokebattles.com/page12.html)
• irc.esper.net #pokebattles (irc://irc.esper.net/pokebattles)