Team Yellow's Masterlog

by Tashojiri

The sequel to Team Yellow's Pokélog but can be read by itself . Janet, now a master, sets out to Aspen to compete in the Master Tournament. How will she fare against the much more experienced pokémon masters? Discontinued.

1. Information

NOTE: This first "chapter" contains some background information about the story. It's not necessary to read, but it should help somewhat to understand the story. If you'd rather not read this, just skip to the prologue to begin the story! This is the same information that was posted at the beginning of TYP, so if you've read that, there's not really any reason to read this.

Team Yellow's Pokélog is the first Pokémon fanfic I began writing, and to date, the only one I've finished. ^_^; The 200 chapters took me 3 years and 3 months to write - from February 1999 until May 2002. Because I started writing it when I was 13 years old, you can see how the writing style improves as the story goes along. ^_^ I had ideas for Team Yellow's Masterlog pretty much since the day I started TYP, but only released it in April 2003.

TYP can be classed as a "new trainer" fanfic, but with a major difference in that it's not set in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, or any other existing Pokémon world. Instead, it's set in the world of Team Yellow's Tales, which is a sort-of-fanfic I've been working on since . . . as long as I can remember. ^_^ By sort-of-fanfic, I mean that it's not based on any particular game/anime/whatever, but it uses some of the elements of these in it, particularly the Super Mario Bros. series. Before I explain the Team Yellow's Tales universe, or the "yellowverse" as it's come to be known, I have to point out that Team Yellow's Pokélog's world is only based on the TYT world, it's still not the exact same one. The main difference is that, well, pokémon and pokémon training and so on exist in the TYP world! Once I explain the world of Team Yellow's Tales to you, I'll explain which elements of this exist in Team Yellow's Pokélog and which don't. I just feel that explaining the yellowverse first will help me to explain the world of TYP. ^_^

The yellowverse is made up of an almost infinite amount of different species, from all of the different games, anime, cartoons, stories, and so on, around the world. By species I mean things like yoshis from Super Mario Bros., nameks from DragonBall Z, cabbits from Tenchi Muyo!, kitsunegumas from Hunter X Hunter, meowths from Pokémon, and so on. In the yellowverse, each species lives in much the same way as humans do. They all speak in human tongue (a few have their own native languages, but these are mostly dead languages), go to school, work, and basically everything else which humans do (except stand on two feet and wear clothes!). Each species is its own biological species, so those which in their original games/anime/whatnot which "evolve" or otherwise change, do not. Thus, an azurill, a marill, and an azumarill are all completely different species, despite how much they look alike. Most species like azurills which are very small, grow slightly larger in the yellowverse as a result of their lack of evolution. None of the species have special powers like natus having psychic abilities, but some species do have (limited) abilities such as charmanders being able to breathe fire.

And so, in the yellowverse, although there are such species as squirtles and snorlaxes, there are no such thing as pokémon. That may be a hard concept to grasp, but it will make sense after a while. Take the character Gelby Chu. She's a pikachu, but she's not a pokémon. This is because pikachus in the yellowverse are born pikachus and stay pikachus - Gelby was never a pichu and never will be a raichu. Similarly, pikachus in the yellowverse do not have any electricity, and are not able to be kept in pokéballs (especially since pokéballs themselves don't exist!). Each one of them speaks English. So what does Gelby have in common with Ash's pikachu? Basically, nothing, except her appearance.

As for the world itself . . . the yellowverse is divided up into continents, and each continent basically functions as a country. Within each continent, there are different kingdoms, which are the lands which can be found in different games, anime, etc.. For example, the Mushroom Kingdom from Super Mario Bros., Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda, and such. However, these lands are not exactly the same as the ones you know and love . . . as although they contain many of the same features, they also contain a lot more, mainly the modern residential and commercial areas. So yes, only a few minutes' drive from Hyrule Castle is, in fact, the Hyrule shopping centre, a set of high-rise flats, and loads more. ^_^

The continent in which most of Team Yellow's Tales is set is called Mildew, and its capital kingdom is the Mushroom Kingdom. It also contains Hyrule and a number of other kingdoms both existing in games etc. and ones made specifically for TYT such as the Reflexion Kingdom, where the main character Janet Harris lives. Mildew is inhabited mainly by Nintendo species. The South-East area, where both the Mushroom Kingdom and the Reflexion Kingdom, are located, consists of mainly creatures from Super Mario Bros., like yoshis, koopa troopers, goombas and bob-ombs. Different areas of Mildew contain different species, and different continents of the yellowverse, such as Aspen or Trefoil, are inhabited by different species yet again.

Now, although species from these various games and so on live in the yellowverse as humans do, this doesn't mean that the games which they're from don't exist either! No, quite the opposite. Video games like Pokémon do exist in Team Yellow's Tales, despite there being remoraids speaking English, not using attacks and not evolving. In fact, Pokémon is one of Gelby's favourite games. She doesn't find it strange to have to "train" pikachus which can only say the word "pikachu", which have strange powers and which somehow can transform into raichus. As strange as that may sound, it's not all that weird when you think about it. We watch anime like DragonBall Z where humans fly, turn into monkeys, and can throw energy blasts and so on, don't we? It's really no different to that.

I think that pretty much sums up the yellowverse for you. I don't know whether I've made any sense or not, since it's hard to explain something that only I understand to someone who's probably never heard of Team Yellow's Tales before. ^_^ If you have any questions about the yellowverse, feel free to ask: I'd be happy to answer them.

So how does all of this work in Team Yellow's Pokélog? In TYP the scenario is slightly different. There exist those kinds of "pokémon" mentioned above, but they are only found in a town called Pallet Town (which isn't the same one Ash lives in, it's simply named after it) and are thus called "Pallet pokémon". They also have some features of the "real" pokémon, but these features are very limited. In TYP, Gelby can give people electric shocks, something she cannot do in TYT! I chose to do this to help people grasp the concept of yellowverse species. However, Gelby still does not evolve nor can she be kept in a pokéball.

The main difference between TYP and TYT is that in TYP, pokémon do exist. As well as the "Pallet pokémon", there are the creatively titled "Poké pokémon". ^_^; These are the pokémon you are familiar with: those which speak only their name, which can use attacks, which evolve, and which can be kept in pokéballs. Unlike the rest of the species of the yellowverse, they do not live like humans, but instead like animals, just as they do in the Pokémon games and anime. In TYP, there are pokémon trainers, pokémon gyms, and of course a Pokémon League.

Thus, the world of Team Yellow's Pokélog is somewhat of a combination between the world of Team Yellow's Tales and the world of Pokémon. Perhaps I should have chosen a less complicated scenario for my fanfic, but it really isn't all that complicated once you read the story. Although originally I was going to include species from TYT such as koopa troopers and goombas regularly, I decided against it. The only non-typical Pokémon character is Sand-Cloud Pluff the yoshi, whom I had to include as she's part of Team Yellow itself. ^_^ If you ignore the fact that a yoshi travels around on a pokémon journey, Team Yellow's Pokélog really isn't all that different from the Pokémon universe. You can simply imagine Gelby as a pikachu who can speak English and doesn't battle, if you wish. ^_^

Finally, Team Yellow's Pokélog takes place in locations from Team Yellow's Tales, not from the Pokémon games or anime. So instead of travelling to Cinibar Island to earn the fire-type badge, Team Yellow must travel to Charcoal City. And speaking of badges . . . the Pokémon League in Team Yellow's Pokélog requires trainers to collect fifteen badges, not eight. The fifteen badges must be of the fifteen pokémon types (TYP is set in the days of Blue/Red/Yellow). Rather than allowing the trainer to enter a competition like in the Pokémon anime, the fifteen badges allow the trainer to battle an elite trainer (just one, not four ^_^) for the "master badge" which gives the trainer the status of Pokémon Master. Of course, in TYM, Janet is already a pokémon master, competing in the Master League, but you'll learn about that as you read Team Yellow's Masterlog.

The "characters" thing at the beginning of each chapter is there to help you remember the names of the pokémon and such. By the end of the story there are quite a lot of pokémon to keep track of, so I decided to put the "characters" at the start of each chapter so that you can refer to it when they appear. A lot of the time it does state what pokémon the character is, but sometimes it doesn't. So if it just says "Chazz" and you can't remember what Chazz is, just look up the top of the chapter and it'll tell you that it's a charmander. Hmm, I just spent a whole paragraph explaining a fairly simple concept. =P Anyway, the "characters" list also tells you the last names of the main characters, which don't actually appear in the story. So there you go.

A lot of the characters in the story have been submitted by people on request. If you'd like to submit a character to appear in Team Yellow's Masterlog, just contact me. ^_^