Setting. It's so important. As any Language Arts teacher will tell you, if ya got a story, ya need a setting. The bad news is, I stopped listening to Language Arts teachers way back in seventh grade. Fortunately, good ol' Ms. Curtis managed to pound the importance of setting into my head before I ultimately started ignoring her. Hmm. Well, first of all, to set the time. Ever read the Pokémon manga? In it, ya might have noticed, they seem to be somewhere ahead of us, year-wise. I mean, Officer Jenny rides a little hover-bike. People drive hover-cars. They wear futuristic little clothes. Now I know that the manga and the television show contrast in a few ways, but, to be perfectly honest, I like the manga better. ^_^;; Don't worry if you've never read the manga, I'm not going to cite examples from it or anything, and you'd better believe there aren't going to be any major inconsistencies between Persona and the show itself. But you've got to admit: hover cars are cooler than just normal cars. So what if it's in the manga, you ask? How is that enough to prove that the Pokémon world is well past the year 2000? Well, allow me to mention a little bit more evidence: in Super Smash Brothers, in the Pokémon level, there are little hover platforms. See? Hover everythings! It's all led me to assume that Ash and Misty and all of them are a generation far ahead of ours. So keep that in mind while you're reading: I'm not gonna go overboard with it, or do anything dumb, but I might write parts of this fic in the sense that it is a little bit in the future. I might. Dunno yet. If I do, it won't have anything to do with any major plot or anything. As I'm writing this, hover cars are starting to sound kinda stupid. ^_^;; But we'll see. Okay. Now for the location. I started this fic one-and-a-half years ago this month. Back then, the show hadn't even gotten around to Holy Matrimony (**kneels and praises 'Holy Matrimony'**), which is why Togepi was never introduced in my fic. Now I'm reluctant to change the fic around, and almost all of y'all agreed that adding Togepi would be a waste of time and effort. So what town were Ash-tachi near when all of this started? I have no idea. Pretty soon I'm going to be putting up a revision of the first few chapters or so that'll have more detail, but as far as exact location, don't ask me. Of course, no one knows where the convention takes place, it being all secretive and magical and all. ^_~ The rest of the fic, well, we'll just see where it takes itself. As you know, all the different types are going to different training grounds in different worlds, and those'll start coming up in chapter 13. Okies, I'm done talking. Till next rant, - Lizzie
