Generation 2021

"It must have evolved when I wasn't looking!"

- A trainer from Route 49, commenting on the recent evolution of his Caterpie into a Metapod

Meet Rachel Palton, a trainer from a city called Spectrum Town, next to Pallet Town, and her "Buoysel", Suigun, as they go on a Pokémon adventure and meet Ken and Hikaru, two brothers who accompany her on her journey around the Kanto region - and get into all sorts of wacky adventures like a tournament in Viridian Forest, a costume competition in Pewter City, and a trek atop Mt. Moon - all while warding off the dreaded Team Yin.

Generation 2021 is a Pokémon "training fic", written by Daniel 'Chiryu' Ernston on FanFiction.net, also known by his screen name of Smuglord on the Bulbagarden forums.

That is, if you can really consider it a training fic at all. The characters get into so much trouble in the meantime, there's almost no mention of their actual training in the story itself.

You can read the semi-official copy on the Bulbagarden Forums.

This work contains examples of:

 * A Boy And His Mons: What did you expect? This is Pokémon we're talking about here!
 * Aerith and Bob: Averted for humans, but the Pokémon are a different story. Here we have a Skarmory named Telia, a Swellow named Oiseau, and a Pidgeotto named Clyde. And that's just the birds.
 * A Good Name for A Rock Band: Of the "number" type.
 * All Men Are Perverts: Specifically, Hikaru's Bayleef, who, when instructed to wrap his vines around Rachel's waist to help her climb a mountain, tries snaking them a bit... further down. (Considering that this is a legitimate move in the Pokémon games, this may also be a case of Power Perversion Potential.)
 * Anti-Villain: Diabla. She doesn't turn evil evil until Chapter 24 or so.
 * Baleful Polymorph: a variant; Hikaru is forced into a Garchomp costume - that grants him the exact same powers as a real Garchomp - against his will.
 * Berserk Button: Gamer, whenever she hears a bad name for a Pokémon. She slaps people with her tail when it happens.
 * Bond Creatures: Played pretty much straight - but only a trainer with strong links to his or her Pokémon can do it.
 * Claustrophobia: Hikaru, with his fear of caves.
 * Chained Heat: Technically, it's a sturdy rope and a falconer's glove that keep Ken and his Skarmory together for the first little while.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: "Really..." said Suigun, smiling. "How about I tell you that I still think you're a damn fucking God-forsaken idiot for betraying me at Route 49?" And you have to remember - this is the Pokémon speaking.
 * Contest Winner Cameo: Until a better name is found for it - Chiryu allows any reader of the fic to submit a Gym Leader to make an appearance in the fic. So far, two people have done so.
 * Conveniently Precise Translation: The entire fic is this. The author claims that the whole time, the characters are speaking Japanese, which has been transcribed into English.
 * This makes for oddities in speech, such as: "Phoenix is the English word for 'phoenix'!" The second "Phoenix" in that sentence is actually pronounced "Ho-oh".
 * Another one, from Chapter 28: "The haunter of what? ...oh, you mean the Haunter!" The first "haunter" is pronounced "bakemo" - the second "Haunter" is pronounced "Gōsuto" (Ghost).
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: The legendary Pokémon, at least the way the priest that wed Matthew and Tana sees it.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Ken's first Gym battle - Bella manages to use just her Diglett to defeat both Ken's Charmander and his Pikachu. She then proceeds to use the Diglett to kick them out of the Gym outright, and Ken with them.
 * Curse Cut Short: Rachel, when she realizes that the entirety of the Lavender Gym is black. "Oh, that is bull-shi--"
 * Deus Angst Machina: Hikaru dying. Period. It comes straight out of nowhere.
 * Distant Prologue: The prologue at the beginning of Chapter 1 takes place 4,000 years before the actual story. In fact, the entirety of Chapter 1 is (by Title of God) a huge prologue that spans 30 years.
 * Dreaming of Things to Come: Subverted. Rachel dreams of stuff, but it's too vague to really have any meaning. Not to mention, the dreams are pretty surreal.
 * Dropped a Bridge On Him: More like Fired A Flamethrower At Him. Hikaru. He gets Killed Off for Real, too. No extramondial communication, nada.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: What caused the Cerebus Syndrome. The first few chapters are more about introducing the characters and getting a few classic gags in before anything else - you see characters like Cassidy and Butch popping in and out of nowhere.
 * The writing was also just generally worse in the first few chapters because of said gag insertion; as the quality improved over later chapters, the fic just kinda got darker naturally.
 * Epigraph: One made up by the author himself, for the story.
 * If you must have a god, do not worship one that exists. Somebody will make friends and be equals with it.
 * Fictional Currency: Chiryu uses the term "pyen", which is "yen" with a "p" in front meaning Pokémon.
 * Ironic Echo Cut: More of an Ironic Narration Cut. The quote is as below:
 * It was the girl who had pointed a gun to Ken’s head. “You were the one who pointed a gun to Ken’s head!” said Rachel.
 * Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Even the author is trying actively to build the puzzle together.
 * Memento MacGuffin: Rachel's good luck charm, a device, referred to as the "Death Star-like device", that can release Pokémon from their Pokéballs.
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: Strangely enough, invoked when Rachel and Ken are trying to come up with a name for Rachel's Swellow. And not even by the Swellow either. Ken's Poliwag actually slaps the Swellow with her tail for coming up with "Flugelmon", which she criticizes as too Digimon-like.
 * The Poliwag, who is named Gamer, does this on the occasion that Hikaru tries to name her too. He comes up with such names as "Polly", "Riley", "Wagger", and even "YIÀXÀ" when he tries to decode the Poliwag's Morse code. Needless to say, Hikaru also gets slapped pretty silly.
 * "It's Bobby Barney  Baxter  Botch Butch, dammit!"
 * My Nayme Is: This author has a penchant for using the word "Buoysel" instead of "Buizel", and refuses to change it.
 * Oh My Gods: Played for laughs, in the case of the wedding priest in the first chapter. Every time he replaces a conventional, "real-world" god with its Pokémon equivalent in the vows, Tana and Matthew start laughing.
 * "What in the name of Arceus is so funny?" he asks the first time.
 * "By the power vested in me by the commander of Dialga and Palkia, I--" he is abruptly stopped by more laughing.
 * "You know what, it's obvious that you two love each other, and agree to your vows, otherwise you wouldn't be doing this in the first place. I pronounce you man and wife, now please stop laughing! Giratina!" By now, he's mad.
 * Hikaru swears to Mesprit once.
 * Original Generation: Yep, it's one of those fics. Although, it doesn't introduce any new Pokémon. But nearly everything else has been replaced. Even the route numbers - Route 1 is now known as Route 49.
 * Platonic Life Partners: Rachel and Ken.
 * Plot Coupon: The badges. Strangely enough, this is actually subverted. Rachel and Ken, as of Chapter 30, have but one badge between the two of them. And they've already visited six cities with Gyms.
 * They even rejected a badge (given by the Cerulean City leader to them for protecting the Aquarium from Team Yin) on the basis that they didn't actually battle the leader.
 * Powered Armor: The costume competition. The Pokémon costumes actually give the wearer the powers of that Pokémon.
 * Played for huge laughs in the case of Hikaru - see Baleful Polymorph above.
 * Race Against the Clock: A textbook case in Chapter 26 - when Diabla is defeated, she sets the underground half of the Silph Co. building to detonate in five minutes. Rachel, Ken, and Phoenix spend most of that time running the hell up the staircase.
 * Schedule Slip: Originally, the story was to be released one chapter a week; however, as of chapter 26, the average waiting time has been about 1.5 months per chapter.
 * The author promises us that the next one will be weekly!
 * Screw the Rules I Have Plot: Almost as bad as the Canon Rape. Almost none of the battles actually follow the Pokémon League rules, or the technical rules of certain Pokémon's learn sets.
 * It is explained away in some cases, by one author's note, that claims that the World Pokémon Association contains a "rule override" rule, that says that if two trainers agree to a rule (or lack thereof), then that rule is in force for that battle. Also, if neither trainer reports the violation of a rule when there is no referee, then the rule is not applied.
 * Of course, that doesn't excuse Hikaru the Garchomp learning Razor Leaf.
 * Shoot the Hostage: Ken commands Gamer to hit the Charizard that is holding Rachel up in the air. But the Charizard just holds Rachel in front of it.
 * Shout Out: Chapter 12, to Basquash - they play a 3-on-3 basketball match, to the tune of a song.
 * When Rachel gets her shiny new storage laptop, she looks on the Internet, and finds sites such as 4chan and Uncyclopedia.
 * Ken asks, "What's a Smogon?"
 * Ken gets a counterfeit 75-pyen coin with Crypto, the starter monster from Keitai Denjuu Telefang, on it. This is both a reference to Telefang itself and the fact that it was sold as a counterfeit version of Pokémon.
 * Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The cosplayers in their costumes? Right on the mark of the Civilized Animal level. Ditto with the Infernape-guard.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The author actually makes an effort to keep it on the idealistic side. Doesn't detract from it becoming dark after the first 13 or so chapters, though.
 * Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Again, very far on the "silly" side.
 * Sound Effect Bleep: Happens exactly once, at the beginning of the costume contest. Ken says, "Well, ain't that f**king nice," and Hikaru comments that he literally heard the bleep.
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Rachel, kinda sorta. She simply has the power to hear any Pokémon speak, instead of just the ones that she is closely bonded with. She even helps translate in some cases.
 * One particularly amusing result of this is some of the strange quotes the Pokémon seem to know - Ken's Skarmory once exclaimed "NO U," literally as spelled.
 * Synchronization: Similar to the Bond Creatures bond, trainers can synchronize with their Pokémon, in a process called "pairing up". Depending on the synchronizer, the pair can glow different colours. Rachel does this the most with her team.
 * Rachel puts this to pretty good use - she even uses it to allow Oiseau to fly her away.
 * Talking Pokémon: in droves. Technically, any Pokémon can talk in this story - as long as they are Bond Creatures (see above) with their owners.
 * That's No Moon: Rachel sees the white circular orb surrounding Lugia as he approaches, and thinks at first that it's the moon, even though just five minutes ago there was no moon out in the sky.
 * Theme Music Power-Up: If you count the scene in Chapter 18 when Ken recovers from his Heroic BSOD and kicks Alice's ass. The scene is meant to be read in time with the ending theme of the Legendz anime.
 * To Be a Master: Still the main plotline of the story, the thing that holds it all together.
 * Three Amigos: Rachel, Ken, and Hikaru. They're Two Guys and A Girl.
 * Unflinching Walk: More of an Unflinching Flight - as Rachel, Ken, Phoenix, and the Infernape-guard zoom out of the Silph Co. Building on some birds after the underground portion explodes.
 * To be fair, it's only partly their badassery - part of it was because they just wanted to get the hell out of there.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Diabla and Team Yin. They want to take over the world to establish female supremacy.
 * Wham Episode: Chapter 16. That's when Hikaru dies.
 * Where Do You Think You Are?: Gamer pulls this one on Oiseau as they're trying to come up with a name for her. She suggests "Flugelmon", which causes Gamer to lash out in rage, saying, "What do you think this is, Digimon?"
 * When You Snatch the Pebble: Kyo's gym challenge for Rachel, the entirely dark maze, is an attempt at this. Kyo tried to teach Rachel to use her other senses instead of just sight. This is useful later on.
 * Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: The costume girls have male names - such as Milo and Marcus. And they just shrug it off, too.
 * Writers Cannot Do Math: More a case of Writers Cannot Keep Consistent Dates. Hikaru (13 at the time) is stated to have fought with Giovanni, but that whole incident took place in 1996, which is 25 years before the story began.
 * You Can Never Leave: Inverted and lampshaded in the case of Fearow-711 and Diabla. Diabla does let him go when he quits, but he refuses, saying that criminal organizations like them usually kill off members they don't want anymore. She never does kill him, though.