Mikachu's Forum Fanfic

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I just adore message board-related fanfics you TPMers create, like an oldie Lord Of The Pokemasters by Mikey (not sure if you remember) or mr_pikachu's more recent War of the Forums. Now I'd like to create something similar for my former school's message board. I think they'd never guess I'd plan a fic about the forum and it would be a nice surprise for them to see the thread there.

I have decided that the format of the fic is going to be a comic, so I'm not sure if this topic belongs to Fanfic. However, I post this on Fanfic because the people here have experience in message board-related fanfics.

So I ask for tips here. Some questions you might want to answer:

1) Should I make it a bit like War of the Forums, but what difference do you think I'd make, or should I do something more of my own.

2) What kind of plot should my story have, should I make it related to the forum history or should I write and draw a more fictional series of events? Or perhaps both?

3) What kind of characters should a good forum-based fic have?

4) Should I be the protagonist myself like mr_pikachu was in War of the Forums?

5) What should I make the characters look like? Should I use their favourite animes and such as an inspiration?

For background, I'll post the history of the message board in question. Some vocabulary first:

Haapavesi
A town about in the middle of Finland, where I lived for 7 years, from 1997 to 2004. Declined genetive Haapaveden.

Haapaveden Lukion Foorumi, HLF
www.edu.haapavesi.fi/foorumi3 The Forum of Haapavesi Lukio. The abbreviation isn't offcal, I just invented it.

Lukio
A second level educatonal establishment here in Finland. After Peruskoulu, we Finns may choose between several options, the two main ones being Lukio and Ammattikoulu. Finns normally go to Lukio from the age of 16 to the age of 18.

Peruskoulu
A school where virtually all Finns go, usually from the age of 7 to the age of 15. Ala-aste is a school for the first six years and Yläaste is for remaining three years.

Ylioppilas
In a way, the main purpose of Lukio is to prepare the students for Ylioppilaskirjoitukset, the final examination one has to take to become an Ylioppilas. This title usually means you have completed Lukio and Ylioppilaskirjoitukset.

The History of HLF
By Mikachu Yukitatsu

It all began in autumn 2002. The new computing teacher MM created a message board for Haapaveden Lukio. Some of the first members were The Who, who still was in Peruskoulu and had a different name back there, and Oan and AM, who used to be my best friends but had quitted visiting me already in 1999 or 2000.

I was 17 and taking a break from The PokeMasters when I got introduced to Haapaveden Lukion Foorumi. I signed in as Mikachu Yukitatsu. As I was a great Sailor Moon fanboy back there my first avatar was Sailor Moon. Some of my classmates joined or had joined as well, including overdoze, who was the first to hit 500 posts.

Later 3 of The Who's friends came. Assariah (under a different name back there as well) who was 15 years old too, 15-year old Soliddi, and one boy one year younger than me, now named Cruzical. Soliddi and Cruzical were Final Fantasy fans, but, of course, Soliddi liked also Metal Gear Solid. They were also Dragonball fans.

MM, the Webmaster, was quite active in the forums during its first year. For example, he criticized Soliddi's first alias Solid Snake since it was a videogame character name. MM was very strict about copyright issue, he also asked me to remove my Sailor Moon signature.

HLF was never too popular among the people at school. My crush MaaREIto-sama (a name I gave to her) never was a member as far as I know. Nor was Hateshinai Waraigoe, the English teacher's daughter who I have mentioned in Truth about Mikachu Yukitatsu as well. The only teachers in the forum were the headmaster erkkise (who posted only one message, and that was in 2005) and MM.

Perhaps the most interesting HLFer was a girl who signed in in 2003. My first love from 1998 asked me to help her to register under the name Lapio. It was a secret between me and her. I wasn't allowed to tell about her real identity to Assariah, The Who and Cruzical who knew her from Real Life. Also I might want to add Lapio never was a Lukio student herself.

Most HLFers quit the forum as the school ended and they became Ylioppilaita. overdoze, Oan and AM stopped posting. The Who had already overtaken overdoze in postcount long ago and he, Assariah, Cruzical and Soliddi ruled the forums. MM chose the first moderators, the most active one of them was a member called Katoya. In 2004, also I left the forum for some time. My postcount was 300 something but I still was one of the top ten posters.

Autumn 2005, I came back to HLF. I was astonished by The Who, Assariah, Cruzical and Soliddi, who had these enourmous postcounts in our standards: over 1000 posts each! I began posting again, but meanwhile, all the conversations began to get boring and die. Assariah, The Who, Soliddi and Katoya all left. MM seemed to have abandoned his own forum. I and Cruzical were now alone in the forums, more alone than ever. We both grew tired and finally stopped posting in 2007. I still checked the forum sometimes, but posted extremely rarely because nobody was there.

Something happened in Spring 2008. I hadn't checked HLF for two weeks or so. One day, I typed the address only to see a large text where the index used to be: EI TÄÄLLÄ MITTÄÄ "There's nothing here". I contacted MM and he told me the forum had been deleted! He gave me the address of a backup site from where I could save my replies. I noticed two new active members there: Kurkiaura and Juustoneliö. They were friends and I should add Juustoneliö loves Naruto and Red Alert. But hates Final Fantasy.

A week later, MM reopened the forums and I could post together with Kurkiaura and Juustoneliö. Also some other members appeared like one named Matlock but they weren't so active. MM's message was "Remember to behave". I didn't know what had happened and still haven't figured it out. I assume Kurkiaura and Juustoneliö had behaved in a way MM didn't allow. Perhaps their bad replies had been deleted. One spooky thing was that a topic named "Anime" was gone. I'd really like to find out what they had done, but I have yet to ask anybody.

MM has left HLF just as Kevin has left TPM. I, Kurkiaura and Juustoneliö keep the forum alive but I don't know if they will continue posting after their last year in Haapaveden Lukio.

Any ideas for my fic?

[mr_pikachu]

I'm in a sarcastic mood, so I'm only going to respond to one of your questions directly....

4) Should I be the protagonist myself like mr_pikachu was in War of the Forums?

Who said I'm the protagonist?

...

But seriously. My advice is simply to design it the way you want. I use a bunch of anime characters, for instance, both because I know many members of my audience are familiar with anime and because I've seen a lot of different series. That, and I can't draw to save my life.

Aside from having a visual aspect, I don't think a webcomic is too different than a standard literary work. Sure, you have to actually show the characters and actions to your audience, but you'd need to describe them adequately even if there wasn't a picture. Either way, the important thing is that they seem fitting. A mature person, for instance, probably shouldn't be portrayed by a five-year-old.

...Well, unless you're watching Doki Doki School Hours. But that's... intentional. And stuff.

I'm going to stop talking while I can still delude myself into thinking I have some shred of credibility left. Just work on it until it seems "right." Or something.

[Mystic_clown]

This is making me want to write a TPM fanfic was well. After all, I've done TPM RPGs in the Roleplaying Forums.

2) What kind of plot should my story have, should I make it related to the forum history or should I write and draw a more fictional series of events? Or perhaps both?

Depends on which one's got your interest more in my opinion.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

mr_pikachu: Oh yes, I somehow thought you'd say that. I haven't counted how many pictures you were in, although it still wouldn't suffice to show you're the main character, of course.

I think I should use the people's interests as inspiration, like making Juustoneliö look like Naruto. Kurkiaura actually watches the anime as well, so he could be Sasuke. Anyways, I have two options in my mind: I'll either make them look like the specific anime characters in question or I'll just make some of them look, say, naruto-ish with the same kind of clothes or something.

I think I can also take the advantage and use things I and the other HLFers have in common, like Naruto I just mentioned, and perhaps also Pokemon (well some of them at least used to like it), Lord Of The Rings, Super Mario, Final Fantasy and so on. There's the problem that some of them don't like Final Fantasy and maybe dislike some others, too, though.

Mystic_clown: Well maybe I'll go with history, then I already have the base here in this topic. I could of course make it different, like all them coming back in the plot and "edu.haapavesi.fi: The School Reunion" as a title or something as well, I'll have to consider.

[Asilynne]

MM has left HLF just as Kevin has left TPM.

MM= PMK?! lol j/k

Anyway it might take longer than finding pics on the internet but did you ever think about drawing them? Unless Im horribly mistaken you drew the pic in your sig and in the girl game, and its a kind of style I havent seen before so maybe you can be the one to make it famous

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Asilynne: Would that make you Lapio?

Yes, I drew them myself. I highly consider drawing the comic myself. It actually sounds easier to me than to browse Google picture search for like 10 hours.

[mr_pikachu]

Yeah, if you have any artistic talent at all, I would highly recommend drawing the comic yourself. You almost have to be masochistic to endlessly sift through poorly sorted online picture collections. As long as your stick figures don't look like pineapples, you'll be fine.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

mr_pikachu: Weren't you the one who endlessly sifted through poorly sorted online picture collections? Ignore that remark. But you must be the one to know that.

About the plot, long ago, I even planned to do something similar to Battle Royale, like a teacher forcing my schoolmates to play a shoot 'em up videogame, but the project has been pretty much cancelled one reason being the school shootings in Jokela and Kauhajoki. Of course my version would have been a soft one, plus, a friend of mine threw once an idea of Battle Flower, where everyone must gather flowers in an island.