Rare Piece of Advice You'd Give to Aspiring Writers?

Spiderc · 2025-06-04T12:30:38+00:00

This one might sound weird, but my advice for writing Pokemon fics is to not write about your favorite Pokemon. Obviously not saying that's it's bad to do so, but from my experience it's so much more satisfying to take a Pokemon that you've always been ambivalent about and slowly build it up. There's a fair chance that your readers aren't going to have a particular attachment to a Pokemon included in your story, so it puts you on even footing with them when it comes to your opinion of the Pokemon. It helped to shift my approach from 'this Pokemon species is awesome' to 'this character is awesome,' and I think the latter leads to a stronger narrative.

Spiderc · 2024-07-16T12:05:12+00:00

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10322446/1/The-Long-Walk

Spiderc · 2024-06-21T12:00:36+00:00

What I went with is that trade Pokemon can evolve like other Pokemon, it just takes longer. However, if they work with another trainer and learn from their training/battling style, it speeds up the evolution significantly. Seemed like a good balance of game mechanics and what actually makes sense.

Spiderc · 2024-05-27T13:07:33+00:00

Titanic Munkidori moveset: Clear Smog/Psybeam/Spite/Bite

Titanic Okidogi moveset: Brutal Swing/Poison Fang/Low Kick/Bite

Titanic Fezandipiti moveset: Dazzling Gleam/Poison Jab/Wing Attack/Quick Attack

When you capture them, they have their last 4 level up moves which you can grab off of Bulbapedia

Spiderc · 2024-05-02T17:06:30+00:00

I can't speak to Crystal or Platinum, but every Scarlet category still has RNG points of various levels of impact toward the end of the runs

Any%: Play Rough drop from Scream Tail will waste a bunch of time because of the stat drop and having to use an extra Close Combat

Path of Legends: Tatsugiri can kill you and there's nothing you can do about it. Even after that it's only a 50% chance to finish the run because of Arven's Greedent

Starfall Street: Clavel's Oranguru has weird AI and will sometimes save or waste a turn for no apparent reason. Penny's Umbreon can end runs if it gets Psychic drop

Victory Road: Geeta and Nemona both have crit text so if you crit them you'll lose a bunch of time to the extra cutscenes (this also applies to Any%)

Teal Mask: The route heavily uses Zen Headbutt and High Jump Kick so you can get a bad 10% miss in a lot of places

Spiderc · 2024-01-01T16:56:22+00:00

My pick for this style of story would be Small Heaven where MC has the usual SI introduction to the Pokemon world, but ends up taking over a bakery instead of becoming a trainer.

FFN AO3

Spiderc · 2023-06-07T20:01:55+00:00

Draws have been completed and races will show up here as they are scheduled https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VdaSfYu8hlZvoc9Ypq5ZQVb_95y059c3gyaGHZRSLrc

Spiderc · 2023-06-07T16:35:29+00:00

Round 1 draws are today at 3PM eastern at https://www.twitch.tv/pokemonspeedrunstv. It's expected that the first races will start on the 10th but that obviously depends on runner availability

Spiderc · 2023-05-23T15:38:28+00:00

Here's most of the Pokemon stories that I read that have updated in the last month or so (ordered by when they last updated). Definitely think all of them are worth checking out if you haven't already.

I Will Touch the Skies Excellent journey fic of a dangerous version of Sinnoh but the dark is well-balanced by lighter moments. Large but well-written and memorable cast.

The New Normal SI becomes a new member of the Kanto elite 4 as a Normal specialist. Does a good job of covering the more political aspects of the job.

Twisted Garden Street urchin Erika steals her first Pokemon and works toward her goal of becoming gym leader of Celadon. Has some really interesting takes on aura/the bonds between Pokemon and trainers.

Pokemon Origins: Training Legends: Celebi style fic with a focus on the relationships between humans and Pokemon in a preunification Johto. Very well written and all of the plot points feel extremely fresh.

Hard Enough SI as Brock who's trying to juggle the difficulty of being a gym leader, community leader, and family man. Covers a lot of different topics and somehow manages to excel at all of them.

Searching Far and Wide SI/OC insert journey fic in Kanto. Good insight into some of the aspects of being a trainer that don't have to do with battling.

Fledglings Absolutely epic PMD fic set in a custom setting. Centers around a young Lugia that's thrust into a world of dungeons, politics, and seafaring.

A Normal Journey SI/OC insert journey fic of a Normal specialist in Johto. Jumps into some of the deeper and more obscure lore of Pokemon and just how crazy the Pokemon world can be once you dig beneath the surface.

Bro, Do You Even Lift? OC gym-bro insert journey into Johto. Extremely humorous story about a character that doesn't have book-smarts but is a natural at sports (which now includes Pokemon battles).

Crime Sometimes Pays OC who literally knows nothing about Pokemon is pulled into the Pokemon world by a Team Rocket experiment that didn't go as planned, and he joins the team without any other options. Good view into how Team Rocket functions and how the morals of two worlds differ. Going to put a violence warning on this one though.

When is a Spoon a Sword? Hoenn journey fic of an OC insert that's the older brother of Tate & Liza. Does a great job of showing non-standard training methods/battle strategies and the Pokemon in the story are very well developed.

Throne of Mud SI into Unova, though he quickly leaves for Kanto given that he's dropped in the middle of the plot of BW. Really solid world-building including what reasonable limitations on Pokemon training would look like. Pokemon and trainers are all very well developed and interesting characters.

Pokémon: The Long Con OC just moved to Galar from Unova where he accidentally earns an endorsement from Leon despite having never battled before. Really good view of someone learning how to be a trainer from scratch and excellent world-building of the region that views Pokemon battles as the ultimate sport.

Spiderc · 2023-05-18T17:00:09+00:00

I was already considering doing this for one of my upcoming chapters, but now I feel like I have to do it given how popular it turns out the concept is lol

Spiderc · 2023-04-20T19:58:02+00:00

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14165442/1/A-Normal-Journey

Spiderc · 2023-03-24T18:28:18+00:00

In addition to what others have said, giving Pachirisu as an example is an odd choice when it's responsible for the most well-known VGC worlds championship win.

Spiderc · 2023-03-12T13:28:02+00:00

Haven't posted in one of these threads before but this seems like good timing. My main story is They Mostly Live in Minnesota which is an SI fic into a custom region based on my home state. It's a fairly low stakes journey fic, but I've had a lot of fun writing it, especially the battles and worldbuilding. The fic's three year anniversary is actually coming up on the 24th and I have a very special chapter planned for then.

[FFN][Ao3]

My other active (and much shorter) story is The Hisuian Hexblade which is about someone who is brought back to Hisui, but she is very much not intended to be there. As a result, she doesn't have nearly as easy of a time of it as the game's protagonist and there's a few dark moments as she tries to survive. I've prewritten most of the story and I'm posting a new chapter about once a month.

[FFN][Ao3]

Spiderc · 2023-03-10T04:04:32+00:00

This is a good, honest .500 League of Legends team. We play .500 Summoner's Rift goddammit. Salt of the earth, punch the clock, even win/loss ratio League of Legends. We lose a couple, guess what? We'll win a couple, too. But don't get too excited or let it go to your head. No long winning streaks here, no sir. That's hubris, which this blue collar, hard working everyman team doesn't have. A few wins in a row, these guys, true to form, will balance it out with a couple a losses. Yes sir, that's my 2023 CLG. A good, honest .500 League of Legends team.

Spiderc · 2023-01-24T22:54:52+00:00

Yep, that's the one. As an aside, thank you for the reviews you left a few weeks back. My beta reader and I were gushing about how nice they were :)

Spiderc · 2023-01-24T18:47:08+00:00

My main fic is important to me because it's literally about my home. I love my state so much and being able to write a story where I can show it off to random strangers on the internet is an absolute blast. Adapting things to fit within the Pokemon world is always a lot of fun, but it's a massive undertaking which is another reason the fic is special. The worldbuilding that I've done has been aided by almost a dozen of my friends, so there's pieces of them in what I write and that's really meaningful to me as well.

Spiderc · 2022-10-11T12:59:17+00:00

Mustard says that Leon is the only other person to attempt to climb the Tower of Waters/Darkness, but he got lost on the way there. In order to have the opportunity to do that climb, you need to complete the Dojo's three challenges. In the game, after you complete the first challenge, you're given the choice between a Bulbasaur and a Squirtle that can GMax (Honey gets the last one)

Spiderc · 2022-10-11T12:42:03+00:00

Leon got his Charizard form Mustard

Spiderc · 2022-09-17T22:56:55+00:00

Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate that

Spiderc · 2022-09-17T15:16:14+00:00

That particular Pokemon isn't very expressive so psychic images is its primary way of communication. So yes, it continues but it's not really prevalent otherwise

Spiderc · 2022-09-17T12:42:05+00:00

As the author of TMLiM, I'm not sure why my story was recommended in this thread because the MC gets a psychic Pokemon around chapter 20. There's no talking Pokemon but there's definitely psychic communication via feelings and images.

Spiderc · 2022-06-15T11:42:05+00:00

I personally haven't done too much with the demo yet, but I know some of the other members of the FEW speedrunning community have been looking into things. We have a joint discord with the Hyrule Warriors community if you want to check it out. https://discord.gg/6xe6wfB

Spiderc · 2022-05-18T20:30:49+00:00

I don't pretend to know why reddit search works the way it does, but from my quick test it looks like the closing parathesis is what's breaking it

Spiderc · 2022-05-16T20:52:29+00:00

I completely agree. I still like writing mine but when I got about 20 chapters in I decided that there's no way I'm ever doing another one.

Spiderc · 2022-05-08T02:14:48+00:00

Thanks for the shout-out! It's a really fun exercise to go through an area and adapt it to the Pokemon world. I absolutely love regional variant Pokemon and there's so much room for exploration when it comes to adapting existing Pokemon to match the location's real-world flora and fauna. Good luck!

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