The Making of PMD: Path of Valor
If I've learned one thing over the course of writing two fics, it's this: I am
not good at sticking to plans. Like a house pet, I'm very easily distracted by shiny new toys. A consistent feature between both of my fics is that I let whatever new piece of media I'd engaged with influence my plans and writing.
For
Guiding Light, a chunk of that involved implementing ideas from Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon
trailers, and then eventually the game proper. But the more significant finding was the... Kirbyfication of parts of the fic. Still, the issues didn't derail the fic, mostly thanks to the fact that, despite its length, it was written over a fairly short amount of time (two years, give or take).
Path of Valor, on the other hand, took much longer. And, perhaps as a result, it ended up as a fic that I feel struggled to find its identity, even once I
finally had a clear sense of direction for how it would go. So now, it's time to peel back the curtain and see what exactly happened during the writing process for this fic, and how it ended up changing so drastically multiple times over its lifespan.
But first, a little more about Guiding Light
Here is the original outline for
Guiding Light. The basic premise of the fic was inspired by Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, in that this was meant to be an alien invasion of a bright and colorful cartoon world and that, while the villains
would be creepy, this was mainly meant to be a lighthearted adventure. Shane was meant to be more of a parody of self-insert characters.
However, when initial responses to Shane's behavior — the fic was posted on Serebii's then-active fan fiction forum multiple months before ending up on FFN — sparked a good deal of interest, the comedic aspects were quickly downplayed and I decided to play Shane's struggles straight and establish him as an isekai'd autistic furry. Over time, newer folks to the fandom who've read the fic have overall dropped it over Shane's behavior. I absolutely agree it was too nasty for too long. But I have no intentions of going back to rewrite the fic.
Overall, the fic actually
did follow most of the broad strokes in the original outline. The biggest changes were the additions of more secondary characters that I ended up giving extended arcs to, adjusting Special Episodes and making extra or bonus chapters to further flesh them out. I found them fun, but I do admit they bloated the fic up considerably. Between them, and the foolish decision to have
so much fighting at the end of the game, I did manage to burn myself out.
If you look at the original outline, the plan was to have a "post-game" similar to canon PMD games, with small episodes focused around each of the main Ultra Beasts. But thanks to the burn out, these were scrapped entirely in favor of a single Special Episode that sought to (somewhat hastily) tie up the remaining loose threads.
I had tossed around ideas of some extended post-fic arcs. The one that got the most thought put into it was Team Radiance investigating (and getting caught up in) an underground gladiator event in Ultra Space. It was heavily inspired by Ratchet: Deadlocked (or Ratchet: Gladiator for you Europeans). But I quickly discarded the idea for two reasons: 1) the reception to the Ultra Space-focused content in Special Episode 3 was tepid to poor, and 2) I recognized the idea would likely explode beyond a "small arc" into something quite substantial.
In hindsight, I should've remembered reason #1 when writing
Path of Valor.
Path of Valor's Origins
As
Guiding Light was approaching its ending, I did have other ideas floating around in my head.
1) A "world tour" adventure, involving going around to various locales with different cultures, somewhat akin to Super Mario Odyssey.
2) A "bad end" AU of
Guiding Light, coming into existence as a result of a mysterious Butterfly Effect. In it, Zero becomes an AI administrator overseeing a bizarro world. The protag (an AU Nicky) would need to work with a silvally to solve the mystery of the Butterfly Effect and defeat Zero. This was heavily inspired by Inti Creates' Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avengers iX.
3) A Deltarune-esque story in which a group of teens or young adults living in a "light world" would have to dive into increasingly bizarro "dark worlds" (mystery dungeons) to prevent their corruption from leaking into and consuming their home. It would also include a lot of names and places familiar to
Guiding Light readers, but clearly different.
Initially, I didn't do much brainstorming on them. But that changed with the release of Pokémon Sword & Shield. With the new pokédex and, more importantly, a region whose potential felt
greatly untapped due to how
laughably bad the story was, I thought I had found the gel I needed to stick these ideas together. And thus, planning for
Path of Valor began!
The Original Concept
The premise introduced in
Path of Valor's first several chapters was my original plan for this fic. Team Bastion was a ragtag trio of underdog misfits who would be competing in the Crowne Cup against their more popular peers, learning to trust in one another along the way. At the same time, they would have to dive into dark world-esque mystery dungeons inside Eternatus, pulling the various Needles in order to stop the corruption from threatening the Kingdom of Radiance's various cities. The main points about this concept that I can recall are as follows:
1) Shimmer remained a conceited jerk (Bede up to eleven) alongside Xander, serving as rivals to Team Bastion throughout the Crowne Cup. Robin would slowly start to have a change of heart after getting to know Team Bastion, but would continue begrudgingly helping Shimmer out of fear of the prince ruining his reputation. In fact, Shimmer's toxicity would get bad enough to drive Xander away, and make it far easier for Demerzel to manipulate him. Xander would end up mutated into one of the calyrex steeds — I can't remember which — controlled by Demerzel as part of the fic's final boss.
2) Isola was a Xerneas. Ascending to the throne of the Kingdom of Radiance involved becoming the new Xerneas, but in reality that was part of Isola's hex. Naturally, Enamorus didn't exist at the time and I thought a villainous Xerneas would be an interesting take.
3) There would be more Great Ace Attorney-ported trials, culminating in one akin to GAA2-4 and GAA2-5 where Yuna and Kain would work to defend a rapidly-decaying Vegna from the Grim Reaper allegations, with Justine prosecuting and Isola presiding as the judge. This is when Shimmer's bought grades and inability to evolve would be revealed, alongside Isola being outed for her schemes.
4) Demerzel served as the fic's Big Bad, being from the dark world civilization inside Eternatus, but having been banished by Chiron for his power-seeking behavior. He manipulates all parties to get access to the Eternatus Core in the hopes of reshaping the world in his image.
5) The protagonists regularly used Dynamax... moves. I was not very keen on the whole Dynamax gimmick, so originally for the protags, Max Moves were glorified Z-Moves not subject to limits like I established in Guiding Light. I also thought the "Max" prefix was very lame and so the moves instead used "Dyna" as the prefix. And "Dynaforce" became the power name instead. Which isn't much better, if I'm honest.
6) Leo was not a character, with his spirit instead part of the Eternatus Core that Demerzel sought to seize. Yuna was still Bahamut and Chiron's other child.
7) Bahamut's husk was a recurring problem that showed up to cause havoc in the Kingdom of Radiance. But in this version, a dying Vegna would forcibly recombine with the husk, reforming as a base Necrozma.
8) Following Demerzel's defeat, the plan was to leave the Eternatus Core intact so the dark world civilization could persist. However, a still grief-stricken Bahamut refused to comply, wanting to free his son. This would lead to a "post-final boss" of Yuna vs. Bahamut. The main inspiration for this was Nero vs. Vergil at the end of Devil May Cry 5. This would've led to an ending where Yuna decides not to return home to Aeon but instead strike out on her own with Nikki and Chiaki.
9) Valkyrie had a different name.
10) Xeromus was meant to be somewhat akin to early secret bosses in Deltarune. Someone who was well aware of the world's true nature, and who had lost his mind as a result. Though I'm very much not good at writing these sorts of characters.
I did make an outline for this fic, too. However, recognizing that I planned to write slower, the outline only covered broad character strokes and background lore. You can view it
here.
Writing on the fic began around early 2020. And, initially, with the onset of the COVID pandemic, I thought the fic would be a nice outlet for my frustrations.
Except there was a problem...
... I wasn't having fun. Trying to write
Path of Valor proved to be a slow and
painstaking process. The prologue released in January 2020. The first chapter followed in February, with a second in March. Then there wasn't an update until June. And from there, additional multi-month breaks followed throughout 2020. While there
was a good reception to what had been released,
my heart just wasn't in it. As things stood, the fic was going to sputter out and die fairly quickly. Something
needed to change. And it needed to change fast.
Enter Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
This game was revealed as part of Sony's PlayStation 5 showcase in June 2020, with it getting additional snapshots late in the fall of 2020 and in early 2021 in the run up to its release. I had always been a big Ratchet & Clank fan, so seeing this material finally stirred my sleeping creative juices.
This led to the fic's first overhaul. The early months of 2021 were mostly transitional chapters that I could use to bridge the fic from the first Needle dungeon to its
new premise. Admittedly, yes, the fic took a
lot of Rift Apart and Pokémonified it. I introduced the Eterna Empire, with Paradox serving as a hammy, more comical antagonist compared to the likes of Vortex, Isola, or Demerzel. This also led to Gene, the resistance, Cyril, Widget, the space pirates, and a variety of background characters related to Eternatus.
Version 2 of the fic would still
try sticking to the broad concepts of Version 1, with Team Bastion traveling between an overworld and Eternatus, except that
now it would consist of the Eterna Empire, with its much more sci-fi and high-tech environment. Because the Eterna Empire was such a functional society, I ended up scrambling to try and figure out lore explanations for
why people under Paradox's oppressive rule wouldn't simply try to flee through mystery dungeons into the overworl. This is why there's mentions of the fact that the Eterna Empire seems more like an afterlife of sorts. Part of that was a holdover from the
original Eternatus plans. Of course, this was all eventually revealed to be a misunderstanding, but I'll freely admit that was a fairly hasty lategame correction on my part.
Some of the points I mentioned above were meant to remain, but other things changed considerably. Plans included:
1) As opposed to an alternate LaRousse City, that Needle dungeon would be far closer to the actual Blizar Prime level from Rift Apart, being a mining operation under threat from spreading distortion, and Team Bastion needing to stop a haywire piece of mining equipment before it destroys the planet the same way Quasar Prime was.
2) The team would try to break into the Vermillion Forge in Vermillion City to construct the Rift Ripper, which would help them fix the impending dimensional crisis. Like in Rift Apart's Cordelion level, they would flip back and forth between their version of the Forge, crawling with Eternatus Troopers, and an abandoned version where a rogue regielecki stalked them. They'd find another regielecki powering the intact forge, and would free it and send it to live with its counterpart.
3) At some point, Demerzel would steal the Rift Ripper, leading to the scrapped boss fight mentioned in author's notes. That fight would spurn the dimensional cataclysm and would lead to Paradox gaining the Rift Ripper and going on the offensive against the resistance and both kingdoms in the overworld.
4) Through his invasions, Paradox would gain the means to access the Eternatus Core. Seeking to activate it so he can go on an conquer the omniverse, the heroes would face him down and defeat him.
5) This would still lead to the "post-final boss" mentioned above. Except now it would start with Gene vs. Bahamut, given their ongoing rivalry, again akin to Devil May Cry 5. And that would lead into Yuna vs. Bahamut, and an ending where Eternatus is split from Aeonius, with Gene, Cyril and Widget taking charge of Eternatus while looking after Bahamut.
But there was another problem...
People always say that you should write what you want and that that serves as its own reward. And while that
should be true... at the same time, getting eyes and comments on your fic is still a great feeling and something that I really love. Unfortunately, as the fic transitioned into my new vision, readership fell off hard and fast. Some of it might've had nothing to do with my writing. People had gotten older and moved on from PMD. Many of my friends in PMD Writers United were now out of school with jobs that left them with no time or energy to read fics.
Arguably I shouldn't have been reading and writing PMD fics, either. And the PMD fic landscape had changed dramatically thanks to the pandemic. There were a lot of new, younger members with their own ideas, tastes, and fics.
However, I had gotten messages from several folks conceding that
Path of Valor wasn't a fic they were interested in. For some, the sci-fi focus was a turn off. Others simply preferred the original premise. It certainly stung to hear that and definitely didn't help in the motivation department. If anything, it made me feel more confident that
Guiding Light was something of an anomaly. It was somehow in the right place at the right time to catch lightning in a bottle. This sentiment has only grown as the overall consensus of the "post-COVID" part of the PMD fandom is that Shane is too unbearable for people to put up with. Funnily enough, on AO3, a fic called Seekers of Soul seemed to have picked up the torch in that regard. It's closer to a traditional PMD fic and focuses heavily on the relationships and character dynamics. I'd argue it's eclipsed
Guiding Light in its heyday and is the new standard PMD fics will be judged against. Congrats to Eevee. Well deserved, in my opinion.
Now, originally, even with the loss of motivation I intended to keep stubbornly plowing forward with the fic. Or, at least, I would have, were it not for one thing.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Like Rift Apart, I knew about this game about a year before its release. Like with USUM content in
Guiding Light, I'd already started adding Hisuian elements to
Path of Valor. But once January 2022 rolled around and I actually
had Legends in my hand, it lit a
new spark of creativity within me. One which caused me to change the plans of the fic
again. But this time, in a way where idea #2 of my original three could finally get some firm footing.
It all started with posing Volo as the Butterfly Effect. His appearance in a
Guiding Light AU in place of Prisma set off a ripple effect that went catastrophically out of control, leading to a collision of worlds that resulted in the current setting. With Eternatus being an attempt by an AU Cynthia to correct the problem, only for Volo to cause it to go awry. This allowed me to retool much of the cast to be either reincarnations of Legends Arceus characters or people from this
Guiding Light AU. And I felt as though there were enough wrinkles in the character dynamics to allow me to move forward with this.
This had the added benefit of
finally letting me figure out what I wanted to do with Yuna's Giratina powers. I originally intended for her to
only transform into Giratina during the final conflict with Bahamut. But I had no reason to give her these powers other than "She's Bahamut and Chiron's kid."
In order to make this happen, Leo was "freed" from his original fate and reincarnated as a little arceus, with the new plan being to going to various mystery dungeons — themed after AU versions of various Pokémon media — to retrieve his plates. And then Needles and Red Chain fragments would also get mixed in at certain points, if I thought it narratively appropriate. Terastalization proved to be a timely gimmick as I could have it serve as a symbol for boss characters holding corrupted plates. I could even meld it with G-Max if the need arose.
This new approach to mystery dungeons would allow me to keep some of my Rift Apart-inspired ideas — Paradox wasn't going to be gotten rid of, after all — but the various AUs that filled in the gaps also drew inspiration from Bayonetta 3 to varying degrees. Bayo 3
also served as my initial inspiration for how to portray this fic's version of Volo. Singularity served as the inspiration, hence Zodiark's initial haughty taunting and mentions that he controls fate. He even uses the same power, Phenomenal Affirmation.
But as months went on and Final Fantasy XVI came out, the characterization gradually shifted to incorporate elements of
that game's big bad, Ultima. Zodiark became more alien and warped in his thinking, which helped further the idea that he'd become inhuman thanks to everything he'd gone through to try and attain power. This, in turn,
also ended up affecting Yuna's characterization and her arc, including the Giratina elements.
The Final Version
Of course, in order to implement my latest plans, I had to figure out a way to steer the fic toward this new direction. And
that was... rough, to say the least. The chapters in the 30s and 40s all suffered to various degrees as a result of my desire to pivot. Folks who read the fic at the time or who binged it often describe these as a bit of a low point, where too many things are being juggled and the fic felt somewhat directionless. And I agree! They're easily the weakest part.
Leo's introduction needed to happen here to get the ball rolling, which was followed up quickly by repurposing one of the Rift Apart-inspired ideas (the monks) into the fulcrum with which to pivot the fic from the light/dark world angle to the omniverse and plate quest. I picked Alder to serve as the face of the monks because of the pictures of what appears to be an ancestor of his in Legends. That's also why Archie and Maxie show up. It also allowed for a connection to the Overseers which, again, Namohysip was nice enough to let me borrow.
From there, I decided I also needed to deal with a lot of the remaining overworld elements, particularly the school and Vortex. The only use Vortex had to me in the final version was to be the boss holding the Flame Plate. Likewise, the resistance was a big enough cast — with plans to have Scarlett, Widget, and, eventually, Shimmer joining the fray — so the students were hastily swept aside courtesy of Paradox. The lone exception, of course, being Xander, because I could repurpose Shimmer's planned toxicity
and my plans for a successor to the Ultra Primarina fight to work with him. I had no idea I was going to unleash the one thing that unified my small handful of readers. Happy accident. After that, I used the Seekerskorch as a means to get the fragmented groups back together, so I could then have a large group scene to serve as a prelude to what would follow.
The turbulence undoubtedly cost me more readers. And, having stopped paying attention to the MCU after Endgame, I wasn't entirely aware just how
burn out people had gotten of multiverse stories. Nevertheless, I pressed forward. And I feel as though I
did manage to find my footing. The fic found its rhythm of exploring these AU mystery dungeons with one small group, while other groups focused on secondary objectives. Yes, I know that this meant some characters were split up a lot, but I think this allowed for healthier character dynamics and interactions. And it also allowed me to slowly build up the main mysteries of the fic until I could properly scatter appropriate bombshells from Chapter 83 up until Special Episode 2.
Time Was Not on My Side
Initially, I intended to have no more than one or two plates per mystery dungeon. Coupled with the Mind and Flame Plates, this probably would've amounted to something like 12-15 different AU mystery dungeons. I thought I could handle it, but I vastly overestimated what I was capable of. Writing the little mystery dungeon arcs and their related subplots and breather chapters took a while. And, toward the end of 2024, I started to do the math and didn't like what I was seeing.
To put it in perspective,
Path of Valor was started during the clinical rotation years of medical school. It left me with less time and energy to write compared to
Guiding Light. This continued as I transitioned into residency, which
is a full-time job, including scattered weekends. Back in 2022, I had told myself that this fic
needed to be finished before the end of residency or it might not get finished at all. But I had forgotten about the fact that I would have board exams to deal with in 2026, and would
really need to focus time on studying by then.
Thus, I found myself with a need to finish drafting the fic by the end of 2025. That, in combination with the fact that I believed the planned number of dungeons would lead to stagnation and character arc decay, I began cutting out dungeon arcs. And then I began to cut
more things. I've already mentioned the Demerzel fight; it was part of this second round of culling. Other plans that I scrapped include:
1) An AU Treasure Town in which Wigglytuff actually became The Grandmaster of All Things Bad, following an altered version of the "Igglybuff the Prodigy" Special Episode. Treasure Town would instead be a polluted land with construction of a stadium being made that Wigglytuff would use to broadcast a hypnotic song to other worlds to make more "friends." Team Bastion would work with a local blaziken musician to stop Wigglytuff. This would culminate in a "Battle of the Bands," where Nikki, Starlene, and Blaziken try to outperform Wigglytuff's hypnotic song, "Live Wo-Chien Reaction," while Leo and Yuna fend off Wigglytuff's horde of Scream Tail followers. Elements of this were worked into the Xander fight.
2) The frozen over bad ending gates AU. Initially, the resistance were meant to explore this land, find Keldeo and Virizion, who had survived, and work together to take down Chien-Pao and the Bittercold. This dungeon would've been important to Diamond reconciling past and present, and for Shimmer to come to terms with his own bad actions. At first, this dungeon was shifted to take place after the Paradox fight, and a Chi-Yu and various Regis would also be there, hanging onto several remaining plates. But my fear with this idea was repeated the mistake I made with Guiding Light of having nothing but a long stream of back-to-back-to-back fights with no breaks. So, this dungeon was repurposed to be a short visit from Gene, Widget, and Bahamut. And the plates it was supposed to hold were gathered (mostly offscreen) by Zodiark.
3) An alternate Unova where N had succeeded in separating people from pokémon. The problem being that this included Ghetsis' hydreigon, who came into possession of a corrupted plate and was spreading a hate plague of sorts sending pokémon into a frenzy. N and the resistance would have to work together to defeat Hydreigon. This would've potentially been impactful for Widget, who was still trying to come to grips with his Voices of Life origin.
4) A dungeon based around the niche Pokémon ReBURST manga. This one I hadn't gotten that far into ironing out the details on, though.
5) An alternate Kalos in which the resistance would work with master thief Diantha to plot a heist to get a corrupted plate out of the Lumiose Art Museum, while avoiding Interpol's Inspector Lysandre.
6) The previously mentioned Vermillion Forge idea with Regielecki.
7) Tying the Citadark Isle prison break to a Citadark Isle mystery dungeon via lustrous ore and the team needing to stop an out-of-control Shadow Lugia. Originally, this is where Chi-Yu would've shown up.
The
fastest I could handle a mystery dungeon arc was around five or six chapters. That adds up to five or six weeks of writing, totalling around 22,500-25000 words. Multiply that by seven, and the
lowest estimate is thirty-five additional chapters to handle these dungeons. And that's not counting any additional chapters to cover interim events back on Aeonius. In essence, this would've added at
least another year of writing to the fic and another 150k-200k words. And maybe that sounds good to some of you folks. That it might've given you more time with the characters or more time for extra arcs and whatnot. But it all ran the risk of
Path of Valor being left incomplete as I would move into board studying and fellowship, leaving me with less mental energy to actually write.
So, what DID Path of Valor get right?
I imagine if you've read this far, you might think I'm being overly harsh on myself. And I probably am, to some extent. But I wanted to give everyone a proper glimpse at my mindset here.
It's not all bad news, though. While there were definitely plot and pacing issues, I think
Path of Valor's prose is much tighter than
Guiding Light's. Similarly, I learned from my mistakes with Shane and had Nikki become cooperative much more quickly, even if she does still mouth off a lot. Likewise, I got a lot better with my battles. They're a lot more concise and peppered with solid character moments. I learned to stop making fights so video gamey and having phases with bosses needing to show all their attacks. And once the fic found its footing, I think I did a good job with the overarching mysteries and keeping with the fic's themes of companionship and looking to the future.
And finally...
To address a few lingering questions...
Was this always a sequel?
No. The original version was meant to be a standalone thing. But once I began the first retool, the fic became a Xenoblade-style sequel. Even in this version, Shane would've appeared in some capacity. Admittedly, this decision was initially made to try and stop readership from stagnating, but once the fic morphed into its final version I was more comfortable leaning into the sequel elements.
Have you played Xenoblade Chronicles?
Also no. I knew about the memes and I was vaguely aware the overarching lore involved some sort of supercomputer. I have since learned after the fact of just how similar
Path of Valor's backstory is, particularly to Xenoblade 3.
Why is this fic so much gayer?
IDK. It just sorta happened. I suppose part of it is that I felt bad because I think I gaybaited a bit with Shane and Nero in
Guiding Light, only to end up pairing them off with Tessa and Selene.
Is PoV!Nikki's backstory suggesting GL!Nicky was a closeted trans person?
That was not my intent. If you want to headcanon that, I won't stop you, but Nicky's whole thing was the bullying/hazing stuff. They're distinct characters, like Bahamut and Shane, or Yuna and Tessa.
Will you consider writing something new set in either of your fics' settings?
No. I think, at this point, I am done with
Guiding Light and
Path of Valor.
Do you want to write something original or try to get published?
I've gotten asked this question a few times... mooooooostly from my parents. But the problem is that I that I do
not know how to be concise. Not only that, I don't feel like I have any truly original ideas that I could ever work into a novel. In my opinion, a
lot of things in
Guiding Light and
Path of Valor are quite derivative of actual video games that probably tell their stories better than I do. I feel like I've just... remixed this stuff and slapped a Pokémon skin on it. I lean heavily on the
fan side of
fan fiction. So, I'm not sure I'm cut out for original fiction.
XxX
And thus, we've come to the end. Again, perhaps it's a bit harsh. Still, I wanted to give everyone a comprehensive picture of what went into making this fic. It
is genuinely a surprise to me that the fic made it to the finish line. A pleasant surprise, of course. And it's all thanks to the support of you guys. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading and commenting.
bsky.app
