[Discussion] "My Starter is better than yours!" -- Writing rivalry

"No, totally! What can your Totodile possibly do before the awesomeness that is my Chikorita?"

- Some version of Silver in G/S, definitively..

One of the staples of the journeyfic subgenre, as well as of some variants of trainerfic. The so-called Rival. A natural extension on the family or school relationships your character might have. They get on this other kid's range of attention and 10~20 years later they are the Only One Allowed To Defeat You or something.

Depending on how the relationship between those characters progresses, pretty much everything can happen. Your rival might join the Evil Team. Your MC might join the Evil Team. Your rival might become a competitor in the industry. Your rival might save your MC from difficult fights until they are before the Final Boss. Your rival might, upon your MC's death, clone your MC so they can retain a sense of rivalry and familiarity. Your MC and rival might become best friends, worst enemies, or even go the whole "Enemies to Lovers" way Bay told me to mention because, yeah, that is quite a trend.

But anyway!

How do you write rivals? How do they start? Where do you like their relationship with the MC to go, or not go? What rivals do you see as inspiration to make yours happen?

In Foul Play, I have Selene and her rivals Gladion and Hau featured. Selene and Gladion's rivalry is more focused but what happened was I actually had them work together twice. The first time against Team Skull, the second time against Nanu. For the most part though Gladion thinks Selene is a bit eccentric and Selene likes to tease him for being an edgelord haha.

Another fic, At the Pokemon Day Care, I had Ethan be very upset at losing to Silver. Silver was only referenced in the fic, but if I were to continue to write about their rivalry it would likely be very similar to how it played out in the games.

For Stairway to Heaven, I took inspiration from own experiences in highly competitive environments while crafting the cast of rivals. In this case meaning that each rival is not only a plot device for Eloy (the focus character) but also the hero of their own story who is just as dedicated and with their own strong motivation. Naturally, they also all have a different flavour to their relationship with Eloy. There's Lauren on one side of the spectrum who has a very friendly and supportive thing going and Niall on the other who is straight up antagonistic. There's also Layla in the middle who is progressively sliding slowly into more "friendly rival" territory but who exists somewhere in the middle of the other two on that spectrum.

I think it's fun to explore multiple different rival dynamics. Rivals don't have to be enemies, but they don't have to be friends either. Depending on how you play different rival characters, you can open up a lot of interesting narrative beats. How do friends who are rivals handle the growing competitive pressure on their relationship? Why do enemy rivals hate each other so much? Sometimes a rivalry is one-sided, others it is a fierce deadlock. There's a lot you can do there.

In The Rose of Team Magma Rose has two rivals.

- Claire is the 'mean' rival of Rose. She is an Aroma Lady who takes over the Flower Shop from Rose once she joins Team Magma. She hates criminal activity and Rose by extension but there is more to her dislike of Rose than Team Magma which will be shown in later chapters. As an Aroma Lady with emphasis on Lady she is a good contrast to Rose and likes to antagonise her.

- Julia is the 'friendly' rival of Rose. A kind beauty trainer who went to the Trainer school with Rose. She's neutral to Rose joining Team Magma and first meets Rose with her already in the Team Magma Uniform. Julia and her boyfriend the Bug Maniac Glenn have a double battle with Rose and Courtney. She is shown to be a good battler and meets Rose during the story and the two are respectful to each other.

- It could be argued that Courtney is a rival to Rose too but they have only battled against each other once (In the opening chapter). Courtney is shown warming to Rose and recognises her battle skills and there is a mutual respect between the two.

Bay said:

Selene and Gladion's rivalry is more focused but what happened was I actually had them work together twice.

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How bregrudgingly was that working together, and did it mellow over time? It's interesting to me because many rivalries build into a situation where two characters "can't stand" each other('s guts, etc), but that's precisely why they would team up against some opponents or situations rather than letting anyone else.

gimmepie said:

For Stairway to Heaven,
[...]
There's Lauren on one side of the spectrum who has a very friendly and supportive thing going and Niall on the other who is straight up antagonistic.

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I should admittedly catch up if only to see more how various characters cross-rival, since it's a mechanics I don't see come up often and the personalities are just there ready and prime for it.

I think it's fun to explore multiple different rival dynamics. Rivals don't have to be enemies, but they don't have to be friends either. Depending on how you play different rival characters, you can open up a lot of interesting narrative beats. How do friends who are rivals handle the growing competitive pressure on their relationship? Why do enemy rivals hate each other so much? Sometimes a rivalry is one-sided, others it is a fierce deadlock. There's a lot you can do there.

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I agree and you seem to have a solid enough vision of how to build rivals that I should be consulting with you, and with other writers too.

But let's be real here, the true question is, who is Deacon's rival? o3o

LilyGardy said:

In The Rose of Team Magma
[...]
- Julia is the 'friendly' rival of Rose. A kind beauty trainer who went to the Trainer school with Rose. She's neutral to Rose joining Team Magma and first meets Rose with her already in the Team Magma Uniform. Julia and her boyfriend the Bug Maniac Glenn have a double battle with Rose and Courtney. She is shown to be a good battler and meets Rose during the story and the two are respectful to each other.

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This sounds interesting because in many depictions of characters having a built up rivalry, it tends to be a personal matter, so then one of the two characters suddenly donning up a banner or uniform notoriously changes the mechanics of that rivalry: it's no longer solely about them. So this does sound like something to catch up to.

Venia Silente said:

But let's be real here, the true question is, who is Deacon's rival? o3o

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Deacon is unrivalled. There is no comparison to his good boy energy.