#baf postmortem

[echoeternally]

BAF Postmortem Documentation (Fanfic Stuff)

Hello! If you’re reading this, you’re probably curious about a breakdown of my stories, and very specifically, are looking to learn more about the development of my Pokémon story, “Bluebells Are Forever.” (Abbreviated to BAF for simplicity.)

Normally, if I recall what I learned in college, these types of breakdowns tend to be an interview style report of how creative developers would go over the bits of how they created something, explain what went right, what went wrong, things to do differently for next time, and it’s supposed to be very technical and nitty-gritty. I don’t have the attention span for half of that, honestly.

So, this being my first attempt at one in a few years, I’ll give this a shot loosely based on what I’ve learned from that, but also just kind of detailing ideas as I can. Obviously, there’s a lot to go over, so it’ll be updated slowly over time, when I’m at a loss for other ideas.

Here goes!

Plot

Setting

Main Characters & Pairings

Secondary Characters

Minor Characters

[echoeternally]

BAF Postmortem ~ Plot

General Concepts

This segment goes over the general development of plot for the first fanfic. Essentially, it’s about the origin of it, and the ideas that I wanted created from the story, which I’ll explore below. (I’ll leave chapter breakdowns for later and posted elsewhere.)

Inspiration

 I think a few people know about this, but browsing art originally inspired my Pokémon fanfic. Pokémon was a franchise that I had a nice amount of knowledge over, and I was looking through different artworks of pairs that I was getting into.

 This was back around 2014 and 2015, so that’s when Kalos (Gen 6) was big, and when a lot of people around me were bringing up their interest the series after missing out for at least the last one.

 While I was browsing online, I saw some art pieces related to a pairing between Greninja and Chesnaught, two final forms of the Kalos starters. There were several artworks that I found, though it was my eventual friend Root who had made a name based on this pairing.

 There was another artist back then by the name of…I think it was “Mint” or “Cactus,” but I can’t really remember them anymore, especially since I never got to know this person. One of my favorite pieces wasn’t even done by either of them, but had a scene or comic of Greninja and Chesnaught under a starry night of fireworks. I went to search for it before typing this, but I couldn’t find it in like three seconds and gave up.

 Anyway, these pieces were interesting to me, and I had already entertained the idea of the Kalos starters being related to fantasy archetypes.

 So, something in brain had a switch flip go, “Hey, someone should make a story about medieval Pokémon things!” Guess who was dumb enough to try that?

 Origin

 Originally, I tried writing up a document for the pairing that I had built some investment into. (And I actually found that one, whoo!)

 Initially, I set a few pairings down that I liked, and wanted to see which I could use. Though a good number of them played out in the fanfic proper, some didn’t even have characters added in, while others would contradict pairings and I simply didn’t write them. A bunch I chose based on cool names from an unofficial shipping list from…I think it was Bulbapedia, or related to them.

 With those, I went on to set up some roles based on different characters that I decided to use, with some roles being assigned and going unused for the story. To keep this from getting too long (like it’s not already), I’ll have a separate post for the characters and talk about them there.

 After that, I came up with a blurb in order to create a world for the story to be told in. Originally, it was just to help me create the world, and wasn’t meant to go beyond, though I did imply and play with the idea for that.

 The original descriptions that I had written were as follows:

 “There are four kingdoms (Grasslands, Tundra, Mountains, & Desert) that are at war over finding a prophet. Each has called alliances with smaller lands to build armies.

The war has currently come to a halt, with reports that the prophet has died. Though most believe it has only disappeared, all combat has been declared under cease-fire. However, there are still minor disputes that arise now and again.

This story follows a shy Greninja, who is looking to find love during what he believes to be a post-war lifetime. He falls for the more outgoing knight, Chesnaught, who the ninja believes would never acknowledge his existence.

What starts as a simple love story grows into a larger grand-scale adventure, in which the characters will struggle with the alliances they forge and the choices they will make.”

 Hilariously, that’s pretty much what I went with as I asked readers if they wanted more from the story. There’s a bit more based on each story that I tossed up, but since I am currently following that, I’ll save that for another day.

 Beyond that, I have some listings for flowers and their meanings, a bit scattered around, and some possibly not being accurate by this point. I had the idea of using flower language as a theme, because it was something that’s interested me quite a few times, but this was the first time that I was going to consciously use that for a story at all.

 Initial Concept

 Well, if you’ve read the stories, you have an idea of how things come together. But, the original story itself? It was mostly the last two or three chapters of BAF.

 The story itself, as you might’ve caught on, was originally going to be solely from Greninja’s perspective. The story itself was kind of just knights parading around town, fans cheering about them, Greninja monologuing (a lot), and then the juicy stuff.

 And by “juicy stuff,” that meant Greninja helping Escavalier with his wife’s gift, then his big confession to Chesnaught in castle, and then the parade with the flowers at the end. That was going to be the extent of the whole thing, condensed and packaged into a single one-and-done story chapter (a one-shot).

 Even those weren’t on a one-to-one ratio either. In the story proper, those events happen after actual development among the cast. Whereas, for the original version, Greninja starts as part of a parade to the castle, talks to Escavalier about flower gifts (and actually doesn’t help him, since I never got that far), and has personality talks with nameless characters (as in I never even wrote who Greninja was talking to). THEN he finally gets to the confession and aftermath, all of which takes place in the castle itself, and just outside of it.

 Obviously, this never came to pass as a story itself, since…well, a lot of that was just kind of spitballing. I wrote a few ideas down, some lines of dialogue that didn’t always string together, and that was the end of the conceptualizing. The ideas themselves weren’t half bad, so I kept them saved on a separate document page.

  As for the rest, that became the story itself, which I worked on and posted after I had written up a lengthier version, properly integrating Greninja into his home, and bumping up Chesnaught as a main character himself, not just a simple love interest. It came out a LOT better that way, since that added in all of the depth for the story in the end.

[echoeternally]

BAF Postmortem ~ Characters

Protagonists! (The Main Couple)

My main couple that I wanted to be the focus of the story. It originally started with trying to figure out how to set these characters along to make them fun to follow, and gradually became a project on developing characters altogether!

Greninja

The first character that I had written for and planned on using, that’s Greninja.

Seems pretty typical for folks that want to write about their favorite “popularmons,” but this was back just after X and Y had been released; Greninja was doing well, but still wasn’t in the anime at the time (Ash-Greninja wasn’t even a daydream), and had just been tossed into the latest Super Smash Bros. games (For).

But hey, it was a Water type Pokémon, a Starter no less, and a ninja frog; I don’t think there was a way that I was avoiding using him. 

Since this was coming up after I had written for my Super Mario fanfic, I wanted a character that wasn’t quite as front and center as the main characters from that story, at least not to start with.

So, I went with a shy ninja fellow, one that was added to the roster for the king’s personal army. To fit with, well, internal monologues for readers to follow, he was kind of caught up in daydreaming and getting lost in thought when I originally wrote him.

Greninja was also a lot more awkward, having moments that he would kind of burst out and/or babble/ramble his thoughts and emotions a bit more impulsively than he does later on.

He joined them alongside his clansman, Accelgor, who I had been planning on having something of a close relationship with Greninja, but never really wrote it out for the starting concepts.

(I still haven’t quite flourished it yet, but at least they have more interactions than before!)

Through his knowing Accelgor, he gained interaction with Escavalier, who sought him out for advice on his wife.

Otherwise, he pretty much observed others and noted them, but didn’t really hold meaningful interactions with many. It was the kind of typical sort of feeling from a first person perspective, where the other characters just exist to fill holes, and you don’t really worry about their existence at all.

(Not that Greninja would help the audience really care about them, since he kind of just went about his own business. This wasn’t even based on his character; that’s just how the writing depicted him.)

This later developed as I wrote out the actual story, sharing his leading role with his love interest, Chesnaught. Greninja was still introspective, shy, and awkward, but gained a much-needed boost in elegance.

Whereas prior writing had focused on his odd qualities that set him apart from the cast, it was now reshaped to make him alluring instead, with an air of mystery that intrigued others to him, beyond his superior skill and speed as a fighter.

The main boon that Greninja gained was his interpersonal connections. To better balance him alongside Chesnaught, I wanted to give Greninja a rising scale of connections to other characters.

This is showcased when he starts picking up friends in the middle portions of the story, forming fast friends with others, but maintaining those friendships through interaction and support. Doing so balances him to Chesnaught’s connections with the other knights. These friends help Greninja explore his desires more through their encouragement.

Although he remains quick to romance and develops a weighty crush on Chesnaught, Greninja also doesn’t expect his affections returned, holding back on ever telling Chesnaught how he feels, and assuming his partner has no interest in him. In fact, he’s practically given up on the pursuit until another character convinces him to just plug away at life regardless.

It comes down to the point where he’s confessing his feelings not to find love, but just to be open. And that’s a middle ground he dances along oftentimes: contrary to some aspects of his personality, he’s not the type to his affections based on his romantic inclinations. However, he’s not eager to dump this side of him out where it’s not appropriate either.

By the story’s end, Greninja is still a shy and quieter type of character, but one that looks to grow honestly. His relationship, signaled by his silent acceptance of his boyfriend’s public declaration, is what becomes a driving factor for him to keep being true to himself, and to come out more with others.

Chesnaught

My second character written, originally serving as a love interest until I later upgraded his role to a lead protagonist with his eventual boyfriend.

Something gave me an inkling of a feeling that Chesnaught wasn’t going to be the most popular of the Starter trio. Just a hunch, I suppose. Personally, I enjoyed all three of the Kalos trio, and was a bit bothered by this idea.

So, knowing that Greninja was going to be the main character, the idea was to make Chesnaught his love interest, in hopes to appeal to the wider audience that might grow to like Chesnaught as well. (Ok, so I wasn’t completely oblivious to Greninja’s potential popularity.)

His original character acting only as a one-off story’s love interest, however, felt very bland. Chesnaught was fairly popular for the other characters, being more loved by his fellow knights over others, but he was generally liked by many overall. Cheery, easygoing, and attractive were pretty much his traits, which…made him feel a lot more like an object and a lot less like a character.

And that was the prompting factor that made me want to rework the story to improve him a lot more.

(Especially given that I had written another story that alternated between the two main protagonists, another couple, which was a lot more balanced.)

To do so as soon as possible, I wanted to write the first scene from his perspective. This helped give that initial push to not only begin developing Chesnaught, but also the world around him; even if it’s all new to the readers, Chesnaught could still make a reliable narrator to introduce the castle, the knights, and essentially the plot.

His personality was able to open up more flaws to flesh him out as well. Though he retained his positive characteristics, Chesnaught was also saddled with some flaws.

He was a bit more oblivious this time around, not catching onto Greninja’s feelings like he did in the concept. This tipped into his own awkward behaviors, increasing how relatable he’d end up as a character, since he didn’t quite pick up hints from the other characters.

Though he does eventually discover Greninja’s interest in him, it’s after other characters suggest it to him. To his credit, he’s not the type to fall at first blush either; though he’s attracted to Greninja, he doesn’t immediately act upon it, not looking to develop a love-at-first-sight type affair. Slow burn for Chesnaught’s less than stellar speed, I suppose.

Chesnaught also picked up some insecurity, with his popularity being less based on himself and more on maintaining projected norms around his knight comrades. He wasn’t comfortable with himself around them either, not to the same extent as before, until it’s finally revealed that none of them are aware of his romantic inclinations. (This also made it so that he would never be the first to reveal his budding romantic interest.)

By adding this, he was now less attached to his portion of characters that would take up his attention, as there was an unmentioned desire for him to get space, allowing readers to follow him for isolated instances, or to have one-on-one interactions.

But with these flaws, he was also able to gain a more dedicated focus on bettering himself, through improving his strength and interest in combat practices.

This in turn helped differentiate how each would tell the story to a degree, with Chesnaught’s segments focusing more on combative instances and less on descriptions. The world was new to Greninja, not him, but the battles were something he could pay attention to. He’s even perhaps a touch on the impulsive side here too.

In spite of these inclinations, he still remains open to suggestion, which allows the other characters to help him grow comfortable with his pursuing his interests. So when Greninja finally confessings his attraction, Chesnaught is immediate to reciprocate, deciding to break past his barriers to follow his heart.

Though he’s still working on this by story’s end, Chesnaught discovers Greninja’s desires to be open on multiple levels. This pushes him to his ending gamble, publicly revealing his love for Greninja. Its development is saved for later in the next story.