Over used main character pokemon?

I guess it all depends on the first post of the Pikachu's personality. Then again Pikachu was a dick to start off with so it's hard to tell.

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Not only that, but they would have to start the fiction off in the complete opposite direction of the anime. If a reader picks up any link between the fic and the anime, then they will call it then and there. I think catching Pikachu, Eevee, Ralts, etc. as a second or even third Pokemon might be more effective than starting with it, even if the trainer uses it more often than his actual starter. But that might develop the character into an Anti-Sue, which would defeat the purpose anyway. It's a difficult thing to work around, but people that love these Pokemon shouldn't feel like they have to avoid them completely in their fictions. As I said earlier, using just about any Pokemon as a starter is possible as long as the fiction is developed right.

You do make a good point as well though.

Charmellow said:

because fan fics most people would want to steer clear of the anime.

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This, unfortunately, is not actually true. Given the popularity of the "woke up late" cliche in Pokemon fanfiction (which does exist and is inspired by Ash Ketchum's journey), people do embrace the anime and attempt to emulate it in fanfiction, whether they admit they do or not. Likewise, yes, Pikachu ranks up there in terms of popular starter. Would you like links to fics from this forum that follow either convention?

Besides, erm, que? There's a lot of fanfics that either feature canon characters or are otherwise set in the anime universe, even when it comes to OT stories. What gave you the idea that writers steer clear of that particular continuum? O_o

I think we've surmised that Eevee's and Pikachu's are incredibly overdone. However, it is still possible to add that pokemon in the storyline. It can't be the antagonist; that completely destroys the purpose, although you can have a passing trainer use a bunch of cliche pokemon as a sort of joke.

I have see only 8 riolu starter fics, and all of them were girl trainers. I'm a girl, and hate to say this, but I was disgusted with them. Each one was some pansy little girl, despite a few being 17 or 18, and were completely pathetic and weak. I am curious if there are others where Riolu actually fits in with the proper trainer.

Anyway, legends should never be used because they are, well, legends. In canon they are one of a kind, extremely powerful, and very hard to tame. The likelihood of a newbie trainer obtaining one is zero percent. (Post Office Buddy)

A newbie trainer definently not, but what about in the future after a good year of training and the story calls for it? Say there's a war going on or you have a pokemon that feels the need to avenge its family's death simply because it saw Suicune in the distance but did nothing. It all has to do with the setting and the storyline.

I've also seen a lot of Vulpix, but rarely any Growlithe. Poor thing is actually very underused, and no one really sees the main character have an Arcanine. Well, I do hope this helps!

I was thinking of giving my main character a Pikachu, then justifying it with Pikachu's popularity in the fanfic world. Pikachu is cute, small, yellow, and probably easy to house train once you teach it not to electrify strangers. Who wouldn't want it as a pet? It's better proportioned than Skitty, at least. An ideal Pokemon for apartments.

Having said that, I admit it isn't an original Pokemon choice. :B

Well, I can officially say I'm nervous now...I used Riolu as the starter for my fic, but as those of you who have actually read it, know that the circumstances are WAY different than the whole 'wake up late runs to Oak gets special Pokemon' thing. In fact, Oak is about to kill over in mine, and Gary has taken his place. But anyway, Oak didnt have anything to do with the main character getting a Riolu...but still I'm starting to feel that I've basically killed my fic, no matter what kinds of twists I add to the Riolu (havent gotten that far yet though, so I could be saying this to early).

i was going to pick pikachu but i remembered that pikachu was the starter of yellow so i think it would be togepi because after it hatched every ep with misty had togepi in it

We weren't talking about episodes, though. We're talking about fanfiction. I haven't seen any fanfictions that have Togepi in them, but several that have Pikachu as a starter. Therefore, Pikachu is much more overused than Togepi. And by much more, I mean MUCH more.

Also, the same argument that you used with Togepi could be applied with Ash. Every episode with Ash in it had Pikachu, and since Ash has been in several more episodes than Misty, that would make Pikachu more overused than Togepi even then. Just pointing out the flaws in your logic.

I have considered using a few of the Pokémon here as starters for the characters in my fanfic. One version has the main character being a girl who starts out with a Riolu, who she finds near the Tree of Beginning. Another has her starting out with Vulpix, while her friend starts out with a Growlithe.

Dragons are definitely WAY too overused. I have a friend who I role play with on another site who has to put the dragons in every single Pokémon role play we've started. Once her character started out with a Trapinch, and caught a random Dratini who just happened to be swimming in a waterfall which is apparently near Twinleaf Town on their second day. So yeah, don't use the dragons until later.

Dragons are definitely WAY too overused. I have a friend who I role play with on another site who has to put the dragons in every single Pokémon role play we've started. Once her character started out with a Trapinch, and caught a random Dratini who just happened to be swimming in a waterfall which is apparently near Twinleaf Town on their second day. So yeah, don't use the dragons until later.

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Yes, but this isn't RP. Although both are similar, there are great differences in them. That's not to say that dragons aren't overused, though, since they generally are or were. That also isn't to say that you can't use a dragon type as a starter because they are overused though. As long as it is explained well enough and doesn't seem too unlikely, ex. character gets one from a random stranger, finding a hurt one in the forest, etc., then it could be pulled off. It all depends on execution, as does everything in a fic. It's perfectly conceivable for a trainer to start off with a Dratini, as long as the writer does the narration well enough.

*raises hand* Actually, if I may, I'd like to argue about the likelihood of finding a Dratini in a pond on one's second day as a trainer and capturing it with apparently no problem. There is a fanfiction equivalent of that kind of thing. It's called "Mary Sue."

(The dragon problem extends more into that territory, given the fact that dragons tend to evolve into powerhouses anyway. Trapinch isn't so bad, if I recall correctly, but Dratini's another story.)

Xanthine said:

*raises hand* Actually, if I may, I'd like to argue about the likelihood of finding a Dratini in a pond on one's second day as a trainer and capturing it with apparently no problem. There is a fanfiction equivalent of that kind of thing. It's called "Mary Sue."

(The dragon problem extends more into that territory, given the fact that dragons tend to evolve into powerhouses anyway. Trapinch isn't so bad, if I recall correctly, but Dratini's another story.)

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i agree. in the games catchin dratini is really annoyin and hard where catchin trapinch is really easy. evn if flygon is the coolest

I didn't say that it was right in Fanfiction, though, I merely pointed out that RP is a different entity than fanfiction. What I was thinking at the time was that they aren't going to have the same problems with starter overuse as fanfiction does, and vice versa. True, some overused starters may be the same, but there are bound to be some differences.

Besides that, the Dratini in the pond wasn't really a starter, since he already had the Trapinch, therefore that wouldn't have anything to do with the topic here. I do agree completely that it is very, very unlikely that a newbie trainer could catch one with no effort on the second day, but I did say above that it could be permissable to use Dratini as a starter if it was obtained in a likely way. If I was vague and didn't word that correctly, then my apologies for the misunderstanding.

EDIT: This post may be vague as well... My mind is a little confuzzled right now...

Lukespade said:

i agree. in the games catchin dratini is really annoyin and hard where catchin trapinch is really easy. evn if flygon is the coolest

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It's not really so much about how easy it is to capture them as it is who would die first if the rival came along with his Water starter to Ice Beam the protagonist's Dragon in the face. (And who, for that matter, would beat the crap out of the other Pokemon with one Hyper Beam right back.)

Although, sure, part of what makes people call Sue is how easy it is to find the starter in the wild (with the exception of Pokemon professors hand out as starters).

Edit: To POB...

Yes, it is, but I really don't think it's relevant when it comes to actual storyline. Just execution. In RPs, you still get pretty much the same overused Pokemon as you do in fanfiction because you'll get (many times, particularly with original trainer RPGs) the same kinds of character concepts.

Likewise, my note about Dratini was in response (i.e., correction and addendum concerning how Dratini would be a bad starter) to this quote:

Post Office Buddy said:

It's perfectly conceivable for a trainer to start off with a Dratini, as long as the writer does the narration well enough.

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I just remembered that in an idea I had the main character started out with an Aipom, while her friend's starter Pokémon was an Ampharos. (They actually got it as a Mareep- the character just didn't appear until after he had went through Johto and came to Hoenn.)

Some starter ideas I think are original are starting out with Pokémon like Drowzee, Shuppet, and Spheal, all of which seemed to work out well when I read about them.

Tizaria said:

I just remembered that in an idea I had the main character started out with an Aipom

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:P Mine does!

Overused ones aren't bad to use, just, as their name suggests, overused. Just like Overused Pokemon. To some extent. Except the part about them being any good.

To add to the conversation on Dragon starters...I had/have this fic idea about a kid (living in Johto) before the days of the Magnet Train. He wants to travel in Kanto and travels with an experienced trainer and a backpack hiker through Tohjo Falls, where the experienced trainer accidentally catches a Dratini. Then, while trying to cross a river with fast current, a Dragonair accidentally bumps them, knocking the kid into the water along with all loose rolling objects, namely the Pokeball with the Dratini. The kid falls down a waterfall and wakes up later on, bruised pretty badly, lying in the shallows near the really, really steep waterfall. He finds the Pokeball with Dratini next to him in the shallows and either uses it to protect himself while looking for the others or talks/plays with it while waiting for the others to find him. Would this be the "well narrated" method Post Office Buddy was talking about?

I remember participating in an RPG once and having Momoko start of with an Aipom and Yukii (who, in that RPG was her brother) start of with Buizel...

Five bucks says whatever that "new pokemon" is will be overused.

Would this be the "well narrated" method Post Office Buddy was talking about?

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Well, the Pokemon isn't his to begin with anyway, and it is extenuating circumstances, so I would imagine that it would be okay. Besides, the trainer that caught it was experienced, so you don't have that going against you. As long as you narrate the "accidentally captured" part well enough, then I think the premise would be okay.

BTW, Xanthine also made the same point as I did above with the execution/narration idea. So here's the credit line for her XD

Now I have a question myself on this topic: A ghost types overused? In the canon-times prior to Depth, Lauren's Haunter was a Gastly, although they only crossed paths because Taunter was busy haunting her parent's attic when she was little.

Aside from that (plus I don't normally go fic-hunting anymore), I've only seen one other fic with a ghost-type starter (which was also a Gastly, by chance).

So... yeah, for anyone who actually hunts on other sites for fics, are Ghost types overused?

DGexe said:

Now I have a question myself on this topic: A ghost types overused? In the canon-times prior to Depth, Lauren's Haunter was a Gastly, although they only crossed paths because Taunter was busy haunting her parent's attic when she was little.

Aside from that (plus I don't normally go fic-hunting anymore), I've only seen one other fic with a ghost-type starter (which was also a Gastly, by chance).

So... yeah, for anyone who actually hunts on other sites for fics, are Ghost types overused?

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Nothing on FF.Net either...... I guess Ghost Starters aren't used like at all =/

~KiTsUnE said:

I guess Ghost Starters aren't used like at all =/

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To be honest, they really aren't. It's odd, given that:

1. It's actually very easy to explain how a character would be able to find a Ghost-type. After all, Ghost-types do actually haunt buildings and cemeteries (like your Gastly haunting an attic), so humans have fairly easy access to them. Catching one might be a different story, but hey, that's true for pretty much any wild Pokemon.

2. It's not like Ghost-types are particularly unpopular. I don't know how many times I've seen someone use a Gengar on their teams, at least.

3. They have the potential to be very interesting characters. While Ghosts generally don't have powerhouse moves for awhile (for example, Gastly only knowing Lick as an offensive move until much later -- and even then, its next damaging move would be Night Shade, if we don't count Curse), many of them typically have the ability to pass through solid objects, hover, use status moves, and pull off all kinds of other interesting tricks to get through a battle. On top of that, they can't really die (again).

So, yeah. I really don't know why, but Ghosts just aren't on the overused list. *shrug*