One of the benefits of having a kid in kindergarten is the random bits of inspiration they provide. Sometimes it comes in the form of misused words. Sometimes they make a joke that makes zero sense but it hilarious to them. This time, it came from Bananagrams and Pokémon.

Last night Westley brought the kid’s Banagrams set to the table and organized all the letters and letter combinations (kid’s Bananagrams combines common letter pairings like sh and ai). He then started spelling out Pokémon. First was Ratatta, then Raticate, then Rapidash. He got through the r’s and did Sandshrew.

Here, he made sure to tell me it was a compound word, sand and shrew. The inspiration came from how he said shrew. I can’t really explain his exact tone since my mind was already headed in a different direction, but as soon as he said “shrew” my mind went to Taming of the Shrew, and then to Taming of the Sandshrew.

Now, being an English and Theatre major, Shakespeare is firmly in my realm of interests. Two of my plotted out future novels incorporate The Bard heavily, and I once considered making Shakespeare themed clothing (like women’s underwear that says “Out, Damn Spot!). I also have played Pokémon off and on since the very first games and very first cards (Tyler, if you’re reading this, I hope you kept that first edition Charizard). And I still play Pokemon Go (My 100IV maxed Tyranitar dares you to laugh). Combining the two has more than just tickled my fancy.

Since I only just started thinking about this last night, I haven’t fully mapped anything out (more about that later), but my favorite so far is The Taming of the Sandshrew. I imagine Katherine the Sandshrew being a prickly local Pokemon that all the people avoid. The most unruly Pokémon in town.

Enter Petruchio the Pokémon trainer. He loves all Pokémon and patiently trains them to be their best versions. There’ll be the back and forth you’d expect from this parody, and instead of a romance it’ll be a friendship. Throw in a tournament to keep with the Pokémon world and voilà, Taming of the Sandshrew.

A couple other thoughts that popped into my head were Macbeth in Lavender Town with Gengar as Banquo, Romeo and Juliet but Zangoose and Seviper, and A Midsummer Night’s… something, but with Jigglypuff making people fall asleep. Super fun thoughts, but also super problematic in a budding writer’s world.

As my wife was quick to point out, “there’s no way to make money off this.” There are the obvious copyright issues. Fanfic is a thing, but there’s not a not of monetization with that. And given the amount of time dedicated to getting my novel done and short fictions published, allocating time to this project might be counter productive, meaning this blog post is likely all the attention this idea will receive.

So what to do? Hopefully put a smile on the face of whoever reads this. The Venn diagram of Shakespeare readers and Pokémon players might not have significant overlap, but it’s there. Hopefully this prompts someone else to think of something clever combining the two.

Aside from that? Nothing. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I can’t write as fast as I can come up with ideas. Since my last post I’ve plotted out two more novels, one of which could easily start a trilogy, and I probably won’t do anything with them for a decade.

Sometimes a fun idea will just end up being a fun idea. But I don’t think I’ll ever not want to see Hamlet talking to a Marowak skull.

PS: The pictures all came from MidJourney. I use it a bunch to come up for visuals for my writing since I can’t picture things myself. It’s super fun, though never give you exactly what you want. Here’s a preview image I’m using for my last short fiction piece before going back to editing the novel: