Friends and Partners Contest - Results
- Thread starter Negrek
- Start date
Inkedust
Harbinger of Sunrise
Just stopping by to congratulate the winners and to thank the judges for their hard work. I had a great time writing my entry and I'd be glad to discuss some of the judge's feedback. I hope all the other entrants had a fun time and are just as proud as I am of what they wrote as well!
Over the Winds and Waves can now be read on TR, FFN, or AO3. Whatever suits your fancy!
Over the Winds and Waves can now be read on TR, FFN, or AO3. Whatever suits your fancy!
Umbramatic
The Ghost Lord
It was once again a blast to judge, and every entry was fun to read somehow. Looking forward to seeing these stories in the wild!
I've added all the story links that I've seen so far--if you've posted your story somewhere, please let me know so I can add links to the results posts! I've also edited in some author interviews. We'll also be seeing the in-depth interviews with our winners starting soon; this weekend, probably!
IFBench
Rescue Team Member
- Location
- Pokemon Paradise
- Partners
-
Here's the links for my submission:
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13892949/1/A-Way-To-Reunite
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31669754
TR: https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/a-way-to-reunite.737/
FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13892949/1/A-Way-To-Reunite
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31669754
TR: https://forums.thousandroads.net/index.php?threads/a-way-to-reunite.737/
Judging is currently underway for this year's contest, and while we wait for those results, it's a great time to give last year's stories one last hurrah! Whether you missed them last year or would just enjoy a reread of some old favorites, now's your chance to revisit some of the excellent submissions we had for 2021's "Friends and Partners" contest. To kick things off this week we're featuring 2021's third-place winner, "Ballast" by Wildboots! See below for links to where the story's been published, the judges' comments on it, and an interview with Wildboots about the process of writing it!
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
As is so often the case for me, it flowed pretty smoothly once I figured out the opening paragraphs. I usually write in order (except for when I realize after writing that another order would work better), so I just drafted a list of scenes I knew I'd need and went down the line. I initially expected it to be shorter ... which was foolishness because I also had a list of seven scenes to get through, haha.
Another thing that might be interesting to know about the writing of: I listened to one album on repeat for weeks while I wrote it. (Link to Kinnship's Community album on Spotify.) I found out after the fact that they're a Christian band, which is oddly perfect, but I mostly liked that it's very relaxing--which is not the kind of music I normally write to, haha. There’s a track called “Featherlight,” fittingly enough, and the lyrics of a few others resonated with me. Christian rock so often just sounds like love songs, and when it didn’t, the themes of wrestling with spiritual questions were fitting for this story, too.
Despite not appearing in the story, Cass is perhaps the most important character. Was there anything you were hoping to show by contrasting the narrator's and Bonapisa's and reactions to her death, and how they'd related to her in life?
Jenna is very un-spiritual. Not only is the Arcean church hostile to her, but she's also skeptical of things she can't see. Bonapisa literally is a spirit. She's connected to some things that Jenna isn't, both natural and supernatural; Jenna can't complete the task of spreading Cass's ashes on the lake without Bonapisa's understanding of both natural threats and the supernatural/spiritual connection to the beyond.
I think Jenna's evolving perspective (heh) on Bonapisa parallels Cass, who's in sort of a middle ground, too. She's not an outsider like Jenna, but she's more open-minded than her parents and she can recognize the good in a weird little ghost. She's a little caught in between, but she's also finding at least some value from both sides, and I think Jenna manages to by the end, too.
Beyond that, I think Jenna and Bonapisa actually respond similarly to Cass's death: they're both willing to undertake a journey and face some hostility to do this thing for their dead friend. They can't really communicate with each other, but they share an important priority.
Can you expand a bit on how you decided what Arcean worship might look like? How did you approach religion in a Pokémon context?
The idea of Arceus having a thousand arms despite being depicted as deer-like was an interesting puzzle for me. I imagined that in religious practice, the "arms" would be all of the types of pokemon in Its domain (a total of 16, with normal being separate and above/default and ghosts pushed outside) as well as the people who carry out Its will.
I was also thinking about "thousand" potentially being a stand-in for "big number/infinity." Bulbapedia points to the Dharmachakra, which as a possible inspiration for the tangly arc ... thing in Arceus's design and is a symbol for reincarnation. Nothing says infinite to me like the cycle of life and death! I also had trouble imagining a heaven for humans created by a pokemon; if the devout serve Arceus, why would Arceus make a human-centered heaven? Reincarnation made more sense to me in the pokemon context than a Christian idea of life after death. I wanted something that evoked Catholicism partly because of the cathedral in Hearthome and partly because, like Jenna, I grew up in a very Christian community that made clear to me that I was not One of Them. But I didn't want it to be a simple copy-paste, either: the sources of power and the ways people justify having and holding power have to be different in a world that has so many active gods.
Priests in rainbow robes have actually come up before in my fic Spring, which has a major character who's connected to Brass Tower and Ho-oh worship. It's such a nice image, the procession of colorful robes, the designation of "saints" and ambassadors to represents the elements. Humans are really into dividing things into categories to try to make meaning. The oddly specifics designations of Catholic saints is really, really interesting to me. Like, my boy St. Tryphon, who is here to meet both your wine and pest-management needs. Why not? The imagery in pokemon similarly evokes a lot of very weird, specific mystical stuff. The stories behind the Arcean saints are probably very weird and interesting all by themselves! Maybe I'll play with that more someday. Or maybe someone else will be inspired to take up that torch.
What made you choose drifblim to feature in this story?
I made a list of Sinnoh pokemon that interested me and then weighed my options. (Others I considered were carnivine, hippowdon, chatot, and abomasnow.) Drifblim won out for a few reasons.
1) Lately I've been really enjoying trying to explain what the actual fuck the weirder, more abstract pokemon are. Hi, porygon, solrock, probopass, and dhelmise, I love you.
2) Being able to fly and being kinda creepy both gave me some narrative utility. A drifblim can lift my protagonist out of trouble and it requires a change in perspective to be able love.
3) Who better to help a spirit of a dead person cross over than a flying ghost?
4) I just like it. It's always been one of my favorites from Gen 4.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
Ballast encapsulates a lot of my repeated writing interests. Most of my work overlaps with the kinds of character dynamics, world-building, and scene-setting that are in this fic, but I'll highlight a few standouts.
The obvious fic to read after Ballast is definitely Basic Mineral Components, which has a different answer to pokemon responding to grief and human funerary practices.
Training Data also heavily features a human-pokemon partnership, though the situation and tone are very different. Like Ballast, it concludes with a human realizing he's an idiot and that his pokemon knows best.
Spring is a longer fic and will likely remain unfinished, but it also has a lot to say about grief, loss, and making meaning from memory. Some commentary on pokemon world religion. Lots of camping and nature to enjoy, too.
Interview With the Author
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
As is so often the case for me, it flowed pretty smoothly once I figured out the opening paragraphs. I usually write in order (except for when I realize after writing that another order would work better), so I just drafted a list of scenes I knew I'd need and went down the line. I initially expected it to be shorter ... which was foolishness because I also had a list of seven scenes to get through, haha.
Another thing that might be interesting to know about the writing of: I listened to one album on repeat for weeks while I wrote it. (Link to Kinnship's Community album on Spotify.) I found out after the fact that they're a Christian band, which is oddly perfect, but I mostly liked that it's very relaxing--which is not the kind of music I normally write to, haha. There’s a track called “Featherlight,” fittingly enough, and the lyrics of a few others resonated with me. Christian rock so often just sounds like love songs, and when it didn’t, the themes of wrestling with spiritual questions were fitting for this story, too.
Despite not appearing in the story, Cass is perhaps the most important character. Was there anything you were hoping to show by contrasting the narrator's and Bonapisa's and reactions to her death, and how they'd related to her in life?
Jenna is very un-spiritual. Not only is the Arcean church hostile to her, but she's also skeptical of things she can't see. Bonapisa literally is a spirit. She's connected to some things that Jenna isn't, both natural and supernatural; Jenna can't complete the task of spreading Cass's ashes on the lake without Bonapisa's understanding of both natural threats and the supernatural/spiritual connection to the beyond.
I think Jenna's evolving perspective (heh) on Bonapisa parallels Cass, who's in sort of a middle ground, too. She's not an outsider like Jenna, but she's more open-minded than her parents and she can recognize the good in a weird little ghost. She's a little caught in between, but she's also finding at least some value from both sides, and I think Jenna manages to by the end, too.
Beyond that, I think Jenna and Bonapisa actually respond similarly to Cass's death: they're both willing to undertake a journey and face some hostility to do this thing for their dead friend. They can't really communicate with each other, but they share an important priority.
Can you expand a bit on how you decided what Arcean worship might look like? How did you approach religion in a Pokémon context?
The idea of Arceus having a thousand arms despite being depicted as deer-like was an interesting puzzle for me. I imagined that in religious practice, the "arms" would be all of the types of pokemon in Its domain (a total of 16, with normal being separate and above/default and ghosts pushed outside) as well as the people who carry out Its will.
I was also thinking about "thousand" potentially being a stand-in for "big number/infinity." Bulbapedia points to the Dharmachakra, which as a possible inspiration for the tangly arc ... thing in Arceus's design and is a symbol for reincarnation. Nothing says infinite to me like the cycle of life and death! I also had trouble imagining a heaven for humans created by a pokemon; if the devout serve Arceus, why would Arceus make a human-centered heaven? Reincarnation made more sense to me in the pokemon context than a Christian idea of life after death. I wanted something that evoked Catholicism partly because of the cathedral in Hearthome and partly because, like Jenna, I grew up in a very Christian community that made clear to me that I was not One of Them. But I didn't want it to be a simple copy-paste, either: the sources of power and the ways people justify having and holding power have to be different in a world that has so many active gods.
Priests in rainbow robes have actually come up before in my fic Spring, which has a major character who's connected to Brass Tower and Ho-oh worship. It's such a nice image, the procession of colorful robes, the designation of "saints" and ambassadors to represents the elements. Humans are really into dividing things into categories to try to make meaning. The oddly specifics designations of Catholic saints is really, really interesting to me. Like, my boy St. Tryphon, who is here to meet both your wine and pest-management needs. Why not? The imagery in pokemon similarly evokes a lot of very weird, specific mystical stuff. The stories behind the Arcean saints are probably very weird and interesting all by themselves! Maybe I'll play with that more someday. Or maybe someone else will be inspired to take up that torch.
What made you choose drifblim to feature in this story?
I made a list of Sinnoh pokemon that interested me and then weighed my options. (Others I considered were carnivine, hippowdon, chatot, and abomasnow.) Drifblim won out for a few reasons.
1) Lately I've been really enjoying trying to explain what the actual fuck the weirder, more abstract pokemon are. Hi, porygon, solrock, probopass, and dhelmise, I love you.
2) Being able to fly and being kinda creepy both gave me some narrative utility. A drifblim can lift my protagonist out of trouble and it requires a change in perspective to be able love.
3) Who better to help a spirit of a dead person cross over than a flying ghost?
4) I just like it. It's always been one of my favorites from Gen 4.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
Ballast encapsulates a lot of my repeated writing interests. Most of my work overlaps with the kinds of character dynamics, world-building, and scene-setting that are in this fic, but I'll highlight a few standouts.
The obvious fic to read after Ballast is definitely Basic Mineral Components, which has a different answer to pokemon responding to grief and human funerary practices.
Training Data also heavily features a human-pokemon partnership, though the situation and tone are very different. Like Ballast, it concludes with a human realizing he's an idiot and that his pokemon knows best.
Spring is a longer fic and will likely remain unfinished, but it also has a lot to say about grief, loss, and making meaning from memory. Some commentary on pokemon world religion. Lots of camping and nature to enjoy, too.
We're back with another flashback interview! This time we're taking another look at Shiny Phantump's "Dark-Clothed Small Human," the second-place winner of last year's contest!
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
I'd never tackled a perspective this unusual to me before, so this was a bit experimental. It was tricky, especially early on when I was still getting a feel for Null's flavour. This was something I took on for a challenge, and I'm glad it worked out nicely!
What part of your entry are you most proud of?
I made myself really feel some things writing the opening, the feelings of hopelessness, the bargaining with the idea that maybe forever won't be so bad. I always take it as a victory when I get myself to feel strongly about a character, much less when I've just started writing them.
How did you come up with the idea of the machine in Null's head, and how did you approach integrating it with the story?
The machine in Null's head was a bit of a necessary convenience. The idea for a Null's perspective has been kicking around in my head before I'd started working on the contest, and one think I'd decided I was sure of is that I wanted Null to be able to understand words, and have enough vocabulary to stop the narration from becoming a cumbersome mess of adjectives. The machine was mostly just a pragmatic solution to that problem.
The work you've posted on TR in the past has been set in a PMD world. What made you to decide to write a trainerverse story for this contest?
PMD writing prompts were my starting point in fic, with me writing my first piece about a year and a half ago. (Wow, it doesn't feel that long ago.) I wanted to work with ideas of belonging or difference, friendship (This is code for "touch-starved people getting physical affection") and some melancholy when this bonds are broken.
But those things aren't exclusive to PMD, and I've recently been finding I like approaching them more when I'm directly using humans in human situations.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
Well, I don't want to plug the Elegy, I have no plan to continue anytime soon, but I do have Eleventh Hour if anyone wants a dose of raw melancholy.
Interview With the Author
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
I'd never tackled a perspective this unusual to me before, so this was a bit experimental. It was tricky, especially early on when I was still getting a feel for Null's flavour. This was something I took on for a challenge, and I'm glad it worked out nicely!
What part of your entry are you most proud of?
I made myself really feel some things writing the opening, the feelings of hopelessness, the bargaining with the idea that maybe forever won't be so bad. I always take it as a victory when I get myself to feel strongly about a character, much less when I've just started writing them.
How did you come up with the idea of the machine in Null's head, and how did you approach integrating it with the story?
The machine in Null's head was a bit of a necessary convenience. The idea for a Null's perspective has been kicking around in my head before I'd started working on the contest, and one think I'd decided I was sure of is that I wanted Null to be able to understand words, and have enough vocabulary to stop the narration from becoming a cumbersome mess of adjectives. The machine was mostly just a pragmatic solution to that problem.
The work you've posted on TR in the past has been set in a PMD world. What made you to decide to write a trainerverse story for this contest?
PMD writing prompts were my starting point in fic, with me writing my first piece about a year and a half ago. (Wow, it doesn't feel that long ago.) I wanted to work with ideas of belonging or difference, friendship (
But those things aren't exclusive to PMD, and I've recently been finding I like approaching them more when I'm directly using humans in human situations.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
Well, I don't want to plug the Elegy, I have no plan to continue anytime soon, but I do have Eleventh Hour if anyone wants a dose of raw melancholy.
The 2022 contest season is winding down, so let's close it out on a high note by revisiting last year's first-place winner, "Methods of Support!" Whether you missed Equitial's entry earlier or simply want a chance to revisit it, I hope our author interview will give you some insight into the author's process, as well as assistance for anyone else interested in exploring support Pokémon in their fics!
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
I remember when the theme was first announced, I turned off my computer and decided I would think about it the next day. But then I couldn’t turn my brain off and ended up scrabbling for a piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the night. I had mused about service Pokémon before this, but all scenarios crystallized impressively quickly.
As for the actual writing process, it was both harder and easier than I expected it to be. I feel like except for only one scene, everything came right together on the first try. I was confident when it came around to editing, but it nevertheless took longer than I thought it would. I can’t really say what it was. I had been practicing flash fic in 2021; the first drafts generally turned out 50/50 for how they overall worked, but of the ones that turned out, they were easy to edit afterward. But for the scenes in this oneshot, I guess I spent a lot of time fiddling around to get things juuuuust right.
What was your favorite section to write? Were any of them particularly difficult?
I don’t really have favorite sections! Something I really tried for was for each scene to feel different, and they all came out in ways that made their writing processes all uniquely engaging.
For the first drafts, by far the hardest was Togetic/Sunday’s. I had a voice and “vibe” I wanted to go for, but it was hard to put together. However, when the rewrite came around it was actually pretty smooth: I just removed about 400 excess words and the story was pretty clean underneath, woot.
However, the ultimately most difficult scene was Stoutland’s. The trouble I had getting it together was surprising to me—Stoutland’s part was one of the first I had in my head, and his human was based on an irl person/service animal. I think the issue was that I assumed I had a solid plot, but really I just had afeeling based around a relationship dynamic and backstory. Stoutland’s was the only section I really had to rewrite; I experimented with different scenes and rearranged his backstory a bit.
Given the number of different support scenarios you wrote about here, I'm guessing you had to do a fair amount of research for this story. Tell us a bit about your research process! Was it easy or difficult to find the information you were looking for? What was the most interesting thing you found out that you didn't use directly in your story?
This is actually a case where a story allowed me to put into exercise interests I had already kindled for a long long time. I didn’t do that much research during the writing process itself, but I would say this story comes from the experiences of disabled people and support animals I have read or otherwise consumed over the past few years. Honestly, this question triggered something in me and now I want to info-dump ALL THE ESSAYS AND VIDEOS AND BOOKS AND SELF-ADVOCATES, but I’ll try to hold myself back.
Something I like to get a handle of when I write a character is how they move. Disabled people tend to move in different ways, and while I’ll more familiar with the atypical ways neurodivergent people move, people with physical disabilities aren’t so familiar to me. In particular, for the Gothitelle scene I came across a blind chef named Christine Ha during my research. Christine Ha is a very talented chef—the first blind contestant and winner of MasterChef—and I especially liked this video where she films how she cooks. Aside that video and from her appearance on the cooking show, she also has a Youtube channel and a Tedex talk. I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on things and you might too
Also, this is where I should admit I totally based Stoutland and his child off an irl autistic boy with a service dog as shown in these Sesame Street videos lol (video 1 and video 2). In general, my method for writing different kinds of people to go directly to the source—by directly seeking out experiences from individuals of said kind of people. However, when it comes to kinds of disabled people like young autistic children with significant communication disabilities, their experiences are too often shown second-hand in problematic ways. This ranges from carers giving out sensitive details that probably shouldn’t be shared, to parents egregiously mocking or exploiting their children. (Speaking of, I ran into these kinds of issues when looking for videos of people being helped by support animals during panic attacks. A lot of those videos turned out to have been shared in ways that made that original disabled people uncomfortable. Really sucks)
Anyway those Sesame Street videos struck me because 1) they're sweet as heck and 2) I like the way Thomas, the autistic child, was portrayed. The videos didn’t gloss over his disabilities or catastrophize them either. His parents spoke about him, but I think they made it clear they can’t speak for him just because they’re his parents. In these videos, respect was given to Thomas's own methods of communication, whether through his tablet or through his unique body language.
How did you decide which species of pokémon to feature in this story?
Probably the two whose species mattered the least are Espurr/Priscilla and Furfrou/Ace. For the latter, wanted a dog Pokémon, and for the second, I just felt like writing an Espurr tbh.
Stoutland is a Stoutland so I could fit in the Dog/Pup aspect in the fic. Which, btw, came about when trying to find a name the Boy, Coby, could pronounce with his limited speech. It ended up fitting very well to highlight Stoutland’s age and previous children.
Gothitelle and Togetic came directly with their scenarios. Their voices and worldviews popped right in, fitting with my ideas for their species. Morelull is kind of similar, except their species wasn’t so integral to the story/theme I wanted to convey. Honestly, it mostly happened because I had been thinking about Morelull as a species and thought, hey, this is a good opportunity to use my headcanons.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
For the story the most like the ones here, there’s my short, fairytale-esque Magearna origin story I wrote for TR’s anniversary bingo challenge! I didn’t think about it at the time, but someone else actually cited it as an example of a support Pokémon during a conversation on the TR Discord. Anyway, I really liked writing this piece as it features a multiple disabled characters mutually supporting each other.
My in-progress novel-length fic is also about disabled characters with supportive Pokémon! (As you can see, as I have a certain taste in fiction :P) The fic focuses on the forming friendship between two neurodivergent kids with two very different experiences of being on the autistic spectrum. Besides their sudden relationship with each other, they have existing close Pokémon partners who try their best to help their trainers deal with their world!
Interview With the Author
How was the writing process for this story? Did you find it challenging, or did things go pretty smoothly?
I remember when the theme was first announced, I turned off my computer and decided I would think about it the next day. But then I couldn’t turn my brain off and ended up scrabbling for a piece of paper and a pen in the middle of the night. I had mused about service Pokémon before this, but all scenarios crystallized impressively quickly.
As for the actual writing process, it was both harder and easier than I expected it to be. I feel like except for only one scene, everything came right together on the first try. I was confident when it came around to editing, but it nevertheless took longer than I thought it would. I can’t really say what it was. I had been practicing flash fic in 2021; the first drafts generally turned out 50/50 for how they overall worked, but of the ones that turned out, they were easy to edit afterward. But for the scenes in this oneshot, I guess I spent a lot of time fiddling around to get things juuuuust right.
What was your favorite section to write? Were any of them particularly difficult?
I don’t really have favorite sections! Something I really tried for was for each scene to feel different, and they all came out in ways that made their writing processes all uniquely engaging.
For the first drafts, by far the hardest was Togetic/Sunday’s. I had a voice and “vibe” I wanted to go for, but it was hard to put together. However, when the rewrite came around it was actually pretty smooth: I just removed about 400 excess words and the story was pretty clean underneath, woot.
However, the ultimately most difficult scene was Stoutland’s. The trouble I had getting it together was surprising to me—Stoutland’s part was one of the first I had in my head, and his human was based on an irl person/service animal. I think the issue was that I assumed I had a solid plot, but really I just had afeeling based around a relationship dynamic and backstory. Stoutland’s was the only section I really had to rewrite; I experimented with different scenes and rearranged his backstory a bit.
Given the number of different support scenarios you wrote about here, I'm guessing you had to do a fair amount of research for this story. Tell us a bit about your research process! Was it easy or difficult to find the information you were looking for? What was the most interesting thing you found out that you didn't use directly in your story?
This is actually a case where a story allowed me to put into exercise interests I had already kindled for a long long time. I didn’t do that much research during the writing process itself, but I would say this story comes from the experiences of disabled people and support animals I have read or otherwise consumed over the past few years. Honestly, this question triggered something in me and now I want to info-dump ALL THE ESSAYS AND VIDEOS AND BOOKS AND SELF-ADVOCATES, but I’ll try to hold myself back.
Something I like to get a handle of when I write a character is how they move. Disabled people tend to move in different ways, and while I’ll more familiar with the atypical ways neurodivergent people move, people with physical disabilities aren’t so familiar to me. In particular, for the Gothitelle scene I came across a blind chef named Christine Ha during my research. Christine Ha is a very talented chef—the first blind contestant and winner of MasterChef—and I especially liked this video where she films how she cooks. Aside that video and from her appearance on the cooking show, she also has a Youtube channel and a Tedex talk. I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on things and you might too
Also, this is where I should admit I totally based Stoutland and his child off an irl autistic boy with a service dog as shown in these Sesame Street videos lol (video 1 and video 2). In general, my method for writing different kinds of people to go directly to the source—by directly seeking out experiences from individuals of said kind of people. However, when it comes to kinds of disabled people like young autistic children with significant communication disabilities, their experiences are too often shown second-hand in problematic ways. This ranges from carers giving out sensitive details that probably shouldn’t be shared, to parents egregiously mocking or exploiting their children. (Speaking of, I ran into these kinds of issues when looking for videos of people being helped by support animals during panic attacks. A lot of those videos turned out to have been shared in ways that made that original disabled people uncomfortable. Really sucks
)Anyway those Sesame Street videos struck me because 1) they're sweet as heck and 2) I like the way Thomas, the autistic child, was portrayed. The videos didn’t gloss over his disabilities or catastrophize them either. His parents spoke about him, but I think they made it clear they can’t speak for him just because they’re his parents. In these videos, respect was given to Thomas's own methods of communication, whether through his tablet or through his unique body language.
How did you decide which species of pokémon to feature in this story?
Probably the two whose species mattered the least are Espurr/Priscilla and Furfrou/Ace. For the latter, wanted a dog Pokémon, and for the second, I just felt like writing an Espurr tbh.
Stoutland is a Stoutland so I could fit in the Dog/Pup aspect in the fic. Which, btw, came about when trying to find a name the Boy, Coby, could pronounce with his limited speech. It ended up fitting very well to highlight Stoutland’s age and previous children.
Gothitelle and Togetic came directly with their scenarios. Their voices and worldviews popped right in, fitting with my ideas for their species. Morelull is kind of similar, except their species wasn’t so integral to the story/theme I wanted to convey. Honestly, it mostly happened because I had been thinking about Morelull as a species and thought, hey, this is a good opportunity to use my headcanons.
Take a moment to plug your writing! If someone enjoyed this one-shot, what other stories of yours do you think they'd like?
For the story the most like the ones here, there’s my short, fairytale-esque Magearna origin story I wrote for TR’s anniversary bingo challenge! I didn’t think about it at the time, but someone else actually cited it as an example of a support Pokémon during a conversation on the TR Discord. Anyway, I really liked writing this piece as it features a multiple disabled characters mutually supporting each other.
My in-progress novel-length fic is also about disabled characters with supportive Pokémon! (As you can see, as I have a certain taste in fiction :P) The fic focuses on the forming friendship between two neurodivergent kids with two very different experiences of being on the autistic spectrum. Besides their sudden relationship with each other, they have existing close Pokémon partners who try their best to help their trainers deal with their world!