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Ok, one of the hardest things to do in any Pokemon fan fiction is to choose when to evolve your character's Pokemon. I know there is already a section here for this but it's a paragraph long and trust me, this is way to hard to explain in a paragraph.
So let's start!
Yamato-san wishes to note:
First off, there are a lot of factors you have to put into play when evolving a Pokemon. Like where to evolve the Pokemon? Well, we all know that Pokemon evolve at different levels, right? Well, there really isn't a point (in a fan fiction) of getting a Caterpie and Dratini in Viridian Forest and to evolve them both as soon as your character beats Brock because Caterpie evolves at level seven, and Dratini evolves at level thirty. You have to have paitience when evolving a Pokemon. If you don't, then I'm afraid you aren't going to get anywhere. Face it, nobody likes it when a Pokemon evolves too early - it's stupid and ilogical. Some people say you should stick with the way it happens in the games, your starter should evolve around the second gym and should evolve again around the fifth or sixth. Personally I don't go with that sort of thing because really it depends on the lifespan of your story. So don't rush things, you'll know the right time for your Pokemon to evolve when it comes.
Jax Malcolm replied:
Of course, the amount of time you have had the Pokemon doesn't really matter until it has it's fair share of Pokemon battles, right? I mean, you could catch a Geodude in Mt Moon and walk all the way to Cinnabar Island without letting him battle, then you use him once and he evolves? No, time obviously isn't the only element here. Make sure your Pokemon has battled a couple of times and that it hasn't been neglected.
Yamato-san had to make input here:
Jax Malcolm Replied:
Bonding. Personally I hate it, but as everybody else loves it I may as well put this in too. In the anime, you normally have to be close to your Pokemon before it can evolve - which is pretty thick, if you ask me. Because it more or less defies all logic, I mean, you have a level thirty one Dragonair and it goes up one level and evolves because you had a vacation with it? That's just ilogical and a waste of a paragraph to me.
Why, none other than Yamato-san:
Of course, Jax Malcolm had to reply:
Pokemon and trainer relationship is another factor. Some say it's the same as bonding, I do not. As taken from my friend Glajummy: If the bond is strong, evolution will soon follow. That's more or less it really, I mean, if you have a character who kicks his Eevee all day and then the Eevee wins a battle and evolves into an Umbreon, that fan fiction wouldn't make any sense.
Alter Ego wanted to point out:
Now, another thing from the Pokemon anime. Whether or not the Pokemon wants itself to evolve. Bulbasaur and Pikachu both rejected the offer and so can your character's Pokemon, I guess. But there has to be a lot of understanding there between trainer and Pokemon to work.
Alter Ego said:
Of course, there are some authors who will want their Squirtle to evolve into Wartortle after route one. That's not realistic, but if it's the way you want to go I can't exactly stop you.
Ok, that's all I can think of for now, PM me if I left anything out!
So let's start!
Yamato-san wishes to note:
I think it's worth noting that not everyone is going to follow the games when it comes to the level of wild Pokemon. Remember, it's just a game, there's clearly meant to be a difficulty curve. As with most RPGs, there'll conveniently be low-level enemies around the area that you start off in, and higher level enemies as you go along. In a more realistic setting (which most fic-writers go with, as well as official media like the anime and manga), you're capable of finding all manner of Pokemon, evolved and unevolved, powerful and weak, old and newborn, almost completely regardless of location (I say "almost" because one could take into account that certain Pokemon can migrate and be given specific nesting grounds by the writer, thus a different distribution of age, strength, and evolution that's logical). Thus, the evolution of a Pokemon shouldn't be gauged by how long they've been with their Trainer and battled on-screen. Rather, since most writers will just display a Pokemon's strength and skill as is instead of using numbers to represent level and status, how long they've got until evolution should be more or less determined by how strong they seem to be by the time the Trainer catches it (said strength being in comparison to other members of the same species... obviously, you don't need a Caterpie to be at a stage where it can smash boulders with Tackle before it can become a Metapod). Since I brought it up, I also highly advise that you keep the Pokemon's strength consistent. This is a problem which plagues the official media, especially the anime (though, I don't believe the manga's exactly innocent of this neither).
First off, there are a lot of factors you have to put into play when evolving a Pokemon. Like where to evolve the Pokemon? Well, we all know that Pokemon evolve at different levels, right? Well, there really isn't a point (in a fan fiction) of getting a Caterpie and Dratini in Viridian Forest and to evolve them both as soon as your character beats Brock because Caterpie evolves at level seven, and Dratini evolves at level thirty. You have to have paitience when evolving a Pokemon. If you don't, then I'm afraid you aren't going to get anywhere. Face it, nobody likes it when a Pokemon evolves too early - it's stupid and ilogical. Some people say you should stick with the way it happens in the games, your starter should evolve around the second gym and should evolve again around the fifth or sixth. Personally I don't go with that sort of thing because really it depends on the lifespan of your story. So don't rush things, you'll know the right time for your Pokemon to evolve when it comes.
Jax Malcolm replied:
And, well, what happens in the story and how often the starter is shown battling. In some stories, the trainer doesn't get to the city with the second Gym for twenty or so chapters because he or she is constantly distracted or ends up doing little "side quests" where he or she might be running around with their starter a lot. So, in that case, the starter might evolve before the second Gym. Likewise, there are some stories that follow the games' line exactly, so they may evolve after the second Gym. Or alternatively, the Pokemon may simply choose to not evolve right away. It all depends, as I've said, on what you're doing in the story.
Although I do agree that you shouldn't rush things, that advice holds true with anything you do in a Pokemon fic anyway.
Of course, the amount of time you have had the Pokemon doesn't really matter until it has it's fair share of Pokemon battles, right? I mean, you could catch a Geodude in Mt Moon and walk all the way to Cinnabar Island without letting him battle, then you use him once and he evolves? No, time obviously isn't the only element here. Make sure your Pokemon has battled a couple of times and that it hasn't been neglected.
Yamato-san had to make input here:
On the matter of timing being convenient.... personally, I'm planning to bend the game's rules of evolution just a little and make it so a Pokemon's health completely recovers after evolving. It's much like they do in other monster-raising franchises, like the Digimon anime, or the game Jade Cocoon 2.... it actually makes sense when you think about it. Seeing as evolution is most often indicated by a glow and shape-changing, one could assume it's triggered by a release of pure energy, accumulated in the body over time, powerful enough to completely change the Pokemon's bodily structure and, subsequently, instantly heal any wounds and bruised tissue in the process (the same could apply to evolution items, namely the stones which are stated in canon to contain a type of radiation). Evolution can be used as a trump card meant strictly for when the Pokemon is pushed to their very limits. With that said, I can logically have a Pokemon evolve in my story when it's really convenient (but conversely, it can be really hindering to the Pokemon or Trainer, who's choosing to deal with a weaker body until that critical moment comes... though in contrast to that, a Pokemon that kicks a lot of ass in its unevolved form, clearly having far exceeded the level of strength required to proceed to the next stage, will become godly the second it evolves).
Jax Malcolm Replied:
This I tend to sway back and forth with. It depends on the evolution, really. Happiness evolutions don't necessarily need battles to trigger, and the anime has shown us that there are cases where evolution can be triggered by the amount of experience a Pokemon has gained, even by using its abilities for other, non-battling purposes (although it may have one or two battles just before it evolves). It just depends on what your storyline calls for.
Of course, that isn't to say that everyone needs to go out and model after the anime. I'm just saying that there may be room for different types of experience.
Bonding. Personally I hate it, but as everybody else loves it I may as well put this in too. In the anime, you normally have to be close to your Pokemon before it can evolve - which is pretty thick, if you ask me. Because it more or less defies all logic, I mean, you have a level thirty one Dragonair and it goes up one level and evolves because you had a vacation with it? That's just ilogical and a waste of a paragraph to me.
Why, none other than Yamato-san:
That same rule could apply to any Pokemon, really. They can seem strong enough to evolve, but just aren't doing it for whatever reason, leaving their evolution open for a convenient moment (I'm sure several writers prefer making evolution seem dramatic and in the heat of a moment rather than evolving when they're just out in the open, having finished off a random wild battle with a Rattata... for that matter, I'm sure there've been several complaints that the games don't allow Pokemon to evolve in the middle of a Trainer battle). Aside from that "full recovery" rule I'm adding in, I also intend to feature a Pokemon that, somewhat in-synch with its Trainer, doesn't evolve until the Trainer becomes enraged at a gang taking him lightly. Essentially, it stops being in a cute and playful form the second its Trainer acts serious about trying to be strong (though, I don't intend to outright say this in the story, instead leaving it to subtle interpretation).
Of course, Jax Malcolm had to reply:
Not necessarily. Charmeleon evolved out of pride, not because he liked Ash. In fact, he got right back to torching Ash's rear as a Charizard after he tried to prove he was the better dragon compared to Aerodactyl.
Also, please note that bonding with the Pokemon does not mean the same thing as having fun. Really, what people imply by allowing the Pokemon to evolve out of a feel-good moment is because it's the Pokemon's choice to. (You've actually put this in a separate category, although I really think that it's the same thing. By the time the trainer-Pokemon bond is strong enough, the trainer respects his or her Pokemon as a living thing, meaning the evolution is left up to the Pokemon, particularly due to...) The Pokemon may evolve to defend its trainer, to prove that its trainer is a decent person (see the way Ash won the Cascade Badge in Electric Tales of Pikachu), or generally because it's had enough time to learn how to trust the trainer, which circles back to what you were saying about how time + battle experience = evolution. (As in, during that time that the Pokemon learned to trust the other trainer, it was also serving as its partner.)
Pokemon and trainer relationship is another factor. Some say it's the same as bonding, I do not. As taken from my friend Glajummy: If the bond is strong, evolution will soon follow. That's more or less it really, I mean, if you have a character who kicks his Eevee all day and then the Eevee wins a battle and evolves into an Umbreon, that fan fiction wouldn't make any sense.
Alter Ego wanted to point out:
Alter Ego interjected:
As for evolution...I'd like to add symbolic value to the mix as well. It's sort of a less than ideal example, but when writing for a character of mine (RP character, mind you, and one whose RP was shot down from beneath her, alas, but a character noentheless) I used her first pokémon, a Ralts, as an indicator of her personal development. My character was kind of an introverted intellectual type, so I made the growth of her pokémon dependent on her growth as a person, namely so that evolutions wouldn't occur until she learned to open up to others and express her emotions. Since pokémon from the Ralts line are supposed to grow when exposed to positive emotions from their trainer I sort of had a justification for it too.) It's a bit of a stereotypical example (I enjoy the occasional cliché, so sue me. xP) but evolutions do hold a strong symbolic value, so I see nothing wrong with an author making use of that. It's not like significant character development can reasonably occur in every chapter anyway, so the pace (in terms of accumulating experience etc.) shouldn't become a problem with that method. x3
Now, another thing from the Pokemon anime. Whether or not the Pokemon wants itself to evolve. Bulbasaur and Pikachu both rejected the offer and so can your character's Pokemon, I guess. But there has to be a lot of understanding there between trainer and Pokemon to work.
Alter Ego said:
And...I'd add a small warning tag to the 'evolution by necessity' thing. Sure, if it's once in a while why not? But there's a danger of turning evolution into too much of a deus ex machina thing by having a handy new evolution manifest itself each and every time your character has their back against the wall. Not all evolution has to be triggered by crisis. I mean, these are not Digimon we're talking about here.
Of course, there are some authors who will want their Squirtle to evolve into Wartortle after route one. That's not realistic, but if it's the way you want to go I can't exactly stop you.
Ok, that's all I can think of for now, PM me if I left anything out!
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