Pokémon Sealed Colosseum (Orre Novelization Project)

The place for all updates and miscellaneous posts related to Pokémon Sealed Colosseum, a written reimagining of the Orre region with all the love and care two overly-obsessed twenty-something year old shut ins can muster. Written by CardinalArts (that's me) and IcarusDrop (not on this website) Find the fic on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63997315/chapters/164165305 pfp by @corviwing.bsky.social header by TigerUchimaru

[azrielsshadows42]

There are two types of writers:

1. 'It's fiction, it doesn't need to make sense!'

2. 'I didn't account for the rotation of the planet and how that affects the constalations while my characters stargazed at different times of year, I have failed as a writer, and this entire thing is trash'

[sealedcolosseum]

I'll be either of these depending on the context.

Miror B. takes over Pyrite and somehow no one except Silva figures out where his hideout is even though every Colosseum winner gets taken there for a Shadow Pokémon and they aren't being subtle about it? Fine. It's in the original, so I don't care as much.

But then in the Cail battle I spent longer than I would like to admit worrying about whether or not it was realistic that Makuhita would be fast enough to hit Furret from where she was standing.

[orre-region-professor]

Official Survey From The Professor

How do you pronounce Gateon Port?

Gate-on Port

Gate-ee-on Port, similar to Eeveelution names

Secret third option

Easy! I don't pronounce it at all :)

Voting ended onJun 8

[sealedcolosseum]

Oh hey, an excuse to rant about this.

Gateon Port is probably the most confusing localization choice in Pokémon history. Every town in the game is named after a rock or mineral. The English translation made minimal changes to these names, usually either changing a letter or two, or just using the mineral's actual full name. Pyra -> Pyrite, Ralga -> Realgam, stuff like that.

The original Japanese name for Gateon Port is Io Port, presumably named after iolite. So, if the name were translated in the same way as the others, it would have been Iolite Port. BUT THEY DIDN'T. DO THAT.

"Gateon?" What is that? What actually is that? Gate + eon? I guess because it's where you get a stone to evolve Eevee, but that's a weird thing to focus on. So much so that no other translation does it, even though those other translations would've been based on the English version. And none of them reference iolite, either.

What I'm saying is that they should've just called it Iolite Port to save us all the headache of figuring out how it's pronounced, and the mild annoyance of one town randomly ignoring the theme.

Also, I pronounce it Gate-ee-uhn Port if anyone was wondering. Feels less awkward that way.

[sealedcolosseum]

Coming up with Orre-style names

For the most part, we don't really give names to nameless NPCs unless we really need them to have one. When we do, we just take a name or relevant word to their personality/background and mess around with the letters to sound more Orre-like.

The Outskirt Stand owner is a more prominent character in our version of the story. Since he's the one Wes gets all his Poké Balls from, we named him "Bolo" because it kind of sounds like "ball."

On this current chapter, I wanted to name an old woman in Agate Village. My thought process was basically: "Okay, what's an old woman name... uh, 'Dolores?' How about... 'Delres.' Yeah, that works."

I sometimes wonder if that's how the localizers came up with the actual names. We already see this in how they translated a few of them, e.g. "Logan" to "Eagun". But good luck trying to figure out the origin of Gonrag. (Maybe it comes from Conrad or something, who knows)

[sealedcolosseum]

Sometimes I worry that we're accidentally implying Wes is more of a Pokémon expert than he actually is. He's been able to identify almost every Pokémon he's battled so far, but that's because I view those as being relatively common in Orre. Since most trainers are using hand-me-downs, Wes has most likely seen a lot of these Pokémon before. But we made it a point back in Chapter 3 to say that Wes didn't recognize Lotad, since the only trainers (that we can remember) who use the Ludicolo line are associated with Miror B or Cipher. With the resources Cipher has, they probably rely a lot on imports, and thus have access to more Pokémon Wes has never seen before.

This is something that will become more apparent after we leave Pyrite and Wes battles more Cipher peons.

[sealedcolosseum]

Examples from Chapter 20:

Twice in one battle, too. Wes was having on off day.

[sealedcolosseum]

Shout out to the person on AO3 who put us into a bookmark collection named "Tolerable."

Hey, we'll take it.

[sealedcolosseum]

Update: they have removed the bookmark. Guess that means we're officially not tolerable anymore.

[sealedcolosseum]

Intermission — A Moment's Reprieve

Here's a quick intermission chapter to conclude the Pyrite Town arc, taking place in the middle of Chapter 21. While waiting for Duking to finish his dinner preparations, Rui notices that Wes has been acting differently ever since they left Pyrite Cave.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[turboemmy]

more of these guys!!

[cardinalarts]

Tried out the Tomodachi Life demo. You know what I had to do.

[sealedcolosseum]

Sealed Colosseum Chapter 21 — Another Step Forward

After Wes's victory against Miror B., Duking invites him and Rui over for dinner to celebrate. Hilarity ensues.

Next chapter will be another intermission, then the Agate arc officially begins!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63997315/chapters/214157046

[coatl-cuddles]

Teaching myself how to do pixel art

[sealedcolosseum]

Sealed Colosseum Chapter 20 — Let the Music Spin!

Almost a month after the last update, the battle against Miror B. is finally here! Lesson learned: stop promising that the next chapter won't take as long. It never happens. What I will say is that the next few chapters are much simpler and are already mostly done, so we'll see how it goes.

But here it is! The end of the Pyrite Town arc is in sight. Let's see how Wes handles everyone's favorite dancer.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[sealedcolosseum]

Shout out to the person on AO3 who put us into a bookmark collection named "Tolerable."

Hey, we'll take it.

[theunfortunate-author]

my daily affirmation as an author

[sealedcolosseum]

I have a bad habit of overdoing italics when writing dialogue (both of us do, but I'm worse about it), because I get so fixated on making sure the reader hears it in their head in the exact same way I do.

But for Miror B., I go all in. I can't stress enough how much he stresses every key word he says.

Oh god, now I'm starting to talk like him

[sealedcolosseum]

Sealed Colosseum Chapter 19 — Sandstorm

Finally managed to finish another chapter! Took a bit longer than expected, but that gave us more time to plan ahead for the end of Pyrite/start of Agate. The wait for the next one shouldn't be nearly as long.

In the meantime, please enjoy our angstiest chapter yet!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[cocosnowlo-drawings]

Wes is one of the coolest Pokemon protag designs to this day, change my mind

[sealedcolosseum]

We have a strict "no swearing" rule for Sealed Colosseum. This is because we want it to feel as much like a legit adaptation as possible, keeping in mind the original's age rating and target audience.

I would also like to state for the record that if we allowed just one swear in the entire story, Rui would be the one to say it