Outside opinions...

Hi there. I've been around for a while -- was registered before the big forum crash, but even then I didn't post often.

I'm writing a Pokémon fanfic that's been mostly planned out from beginning to end, and two chapters are currently up for public viewing. They're here if you want to have a look, but I'm not here for more readers, just for some opinions, because the only people who I could ask for feedback on this kind of stuff also happen to be reading the fic, and this'll contain spoilers for it.

For one, there's a Pokémon who has a weird genetic defect. Since I'm not so sharp in biology, I wanted to pitch this idea to people who might know a little more about this sort of thing This is a significant element in the story and I wanna make sure that it seems somewhat plausible.

The as-of-yet-unnamed condition is exclusive to rock-types, in which rocks start to form through muscle tissue in the same way that it normally does on the skin, and predictably it can lead to permanent damage. This happens to a trainer's Rhydon (although he keeps any sign of it totally concealed until the point where he's unable to use his legs). The symptoms are treatable, but being encoded into the DNA it's not curable. It turns out that Rhydon has an odd case. While the rock formation is usually confined to one area, it gets around his heart and lungs, and since detection is already difficult in a Pokémon like Rhydon, it unexpectedly leads to his death.

And since I'm here... are people who are anti-dark-type cliché at all? There are groups of such people in my fic, but they follow it to varying degrees; some think dark Pokémon simply shouldn't be trained, others want them and those who associate with them, wiped off the earth. Their reasons are usually religious, since in this universe Mew is commonly thought to be god, and its psychic element affiliated with holiness, the dark being unaffected by it has led to its depiction as something evil.

Thanks for reading this.

Mmm, I don't know. I know a bit about cell biology, but I'm not studying medical stuff, so I may not be the best to answer this. With what I do know, however, I'm going to say that the disease as you described it isn't entirely plausible to me.

This is because muscle cells are very different from skin cells, so if this defect causes muscle cells to behave like skin in that they produce deposits of the minerals that constitute a rock rock type's rocks, normal muscle function is probably significantly impaired in more ways than simply getting filled up with rock. It doesn't seem like this is something that would be difficult to detect: having your tissues fill up with hard, crystalline deposits is extremely painful, and as I said, I would expect muscle function in general to be impaired if muscle cells were affected to the point that they would start producing a skin product.

Also, if this sort of condition was affecting a pokémon's heart, it seems like the death wouldn't come too suddenly or unexpectedly. The way you're describing the condition makes it sound, to me, like this isn't some sort of sudden-onset thing like a heart attack, where you've got a sudden blockage that cuts off oxygen supply to cardiac cells. This sounds like something chronic, and painfully debilitating at that--the rhydon would likely be very sick before it up and died, making the chance of failing to detect the disease much slimmer, unless the trainer was deliberately keeping it away from pokémon center and treatment facilities on purpose or couldn't get to them or something. Also, so far as I know, the only major muscle associated with the lungs is the diaphragm; breathing would become difficult for the rhydon, but I imagine the lung condition wouldn't be as dire as the heart thing--breathing would grow excruciating, but if your heart beating is already extremely painful, I don't know to what degree that would even register. In any case, the rhydon certainly wouldn't be able to battle at all for some time leading up to its demise.

All in all, the disease could work, although I don't see it being very difficult to figure out, or a good way to have a character die unexpectedly. If you could elaborate on what makes it difficult to find out that a pokémon has this disease, it might help. Consider that if the genetic defect that causes it is known, all that needs to be done if it's even suspected that it exists is for a blood sample to be taken from the affected pokémon and analyzed--this isn't something that can hide, like some kinds of virus.

As for the dark-type thing: it's fairly common that prejudice towards dark-type pokémon is shown in fanfiction, yeah. Don't let that bother you, though--as long as you do a good job of it, it won't be a problem.

I thought about the skin tissue itself simply hardening to a rock-like density, instead of minerals just forming over the flesh (or some balance of both). It sounds like a better explanation of how at least a Rhydon's hide is formed anyway. Then the muscle tissue would start to stiffen as opposed to being damaged by stray rock particles. But I'm going to hold the rest of that thought until later, since I'm still wanting to research this a bit, and I've been up for about a full day so I won't be able to make sense of anything I come across. :P

The only problem with the initial detection of it, in Rhydon's case, is that he just doesn't let on that anything is wrong. Which I now see is pretty unbelievable, since you brought up how much pain this would realistically be causing him. If the workings of the disease are changed, it might not be such a glaring issue, but yeah, still needs work.

Thanks a ton for your feedback. It's funny, I've had the idea in my head for a while now but half the things you pointed out were things that I should've been able to see. Initially I was going to try and weasel my way around all the explanation by distorting it -- it's only briefly relayed to a kid by Rhydon's trainer, who has just heard this from a doctor but doesn't really understand it. Now I actually want to have all this down, even if it's just for myself (which would have been a good idea from the start, but... meh).

I thought about the skin tissue itself simply hardening to a rock-like density, instead of minerals just forming over the flesh (or some balance of both). It sounds like a better explanation of how at least a Rhydon's hide is formed anyway.

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Well, the thing is, cells can't take on a rock-hard consistency and still be alive, at least not in the biological systems on this planet. The interior of the cell needs to remain aqueous in order for necessary biological reactions to go forward, so they're always going to be squishy to some degree. The hard bits of living things are formed either by simple cell density, something that the cells excrete, or dead cells crammed together. For example, bone is tough stuff, but the actual bone cells exist in little holes within the matrix of collagen and minerals, and they're not in themselves hard--just the stuff they manufacture. You could have something like the cell accumulates a lot of minerals and grows increasingly rocky until it dies, or have cells develop cell walls like in plants or something, but the body of a living cell won't be hardened to any great degree.

Anyway, good luck working out the kinks and writing the 'fic.

Negrek said:

You could have something like the cell accumulates a lot of minerals and grows increasingly rocky until it dies,

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Something like that crossed my mind too, while I was looking into petrification. I didn't want to brush on it then though, since I hadn't read much into that process yet and I don't need to make myself look like any more of an ass. :P The cell wall idea is definitely worth considering, though. Thanks again for your help.

(I knew this cell stuff backwards in tenth grade, so now I'm worried.)

Actually, a weird genetic disorder that causes too much "rock-stuff" isn't too far from reality.

There's been some people in real life who have had similar problems, though in their case it was excess bone growing in places where it wasn't supposed to be. In the earlier stages it just looks weird, but the more that grows the harder it gets to move...

Having it only grow around the heart and lungs seems like a bit of a stretch, but then again, it's Pokémon, so genetics-related things can be stretched around a bit without really breaking anyone's suspension of disbelief. Just look at the breeding groups...