Recently, I picked Traveler back up for a re-read, as I had about five chapter notifications sitting in my inbox, and figured I should try to clear them out. I'm enjoying re-reading it, don't get me wrong, but the early part of the story is basically a canon retread of the original Red/Blue games.

So I went on a search to try and find any interesting other pokemon fics - ones where we don't just follow Red/Ash/Gold/OCDonutSteele around the league, fighting gyms in the same order, capturing the same pokemon; or shipfics.

Oh how I loathe the shipfics.

I've tried filtering on AO3, and I've tried digging about on FFN, but you have to dig through trash to find anything decentish. I don't want a 'grimderp everyone dies' level fic, but I also don't want to read about a ten year old kid and his adventures with a pet. I'd love a story about adventuring through the still-feral wilderness, having left the safe-zones. Or about a aged up trainer, dealing with the actual hassle involved in managing a team of murderbeasts.

I'd actually enjoy a story about an OC travelling the region, so long as it wasn't just a canon re-tread, and they're not a hyperactive child who manages to become champion somehow - I've never been able to believe that someone with less than a year training pokemon can become the country's strongest, but at the same time I'm not a fan of "well my grandad started training Dragonair when it hatched from an egg, so hopefully my children will be able to become god-kings, if I make it evolve".

I've included the ones I remember enjoying below, but this isn't an exhaustive list.

Traveler
Thread here
Ash gets a Nidoran♂ , and goes on an adventure.

Johto Nights (quest)
(fiction.live, sfw)
You're an ex-Rocket, free from years of hard labour after the disbandment of your team, and looking to make an honest go of it.

The Origin of Species
Thread here
Red, Green, and Blue try to survive in a world where legendaries are roaming disasters. Rational fic.

Challenger
Can't remember much of this one. Like Traveler, it often goes a while without updating, so I've got updates from November to read. Pretty sure it doesn't tread canon rails, but don't know for certain.

Regret
Thread here
The world ended, pokemon fought humanity to a bloody end. A soldier raised in post-apolalyptia tries to stop it

The Sun Soul
Thread here
Honestly don't remember much (apart from Vermillion being a big part), and this has been added to the read queue.

 

Transgression is by the same author as Regret and I think it's an improvement in most aspects.

Thread

Summary :One by one I witness the fall of myths, of legends, of gods. As the world mourns and falls apart, I can't help but wonder if I'm the cause or the coincidence.

 

Yeah, I remember Transgression... But it's not finished, and hasn't updated for three and a half years, which is a shame. It actually looks like it was dead at the time a thread was started, which says dire things about the fandom even back then.

I liked Pedestal, too (thread), which ended up not being a standard 'wander around collect badges', but it dragged on quite a bit. I'm just looking to see if there's anything new, or anything I haven't already re-read multiple times.

 

Since I didn't see it mentioned, and in the off chance you haven't actually read it, @Lamora 's Game of Champions here in DLP sounds quite a bit like what you're after. It's not finished, and quasi-recently was abandoned, but it's very much a more adult-focused take on Pokémon, likely inspired by the manga.

Here: https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/the-game-of-champions-m-pokemon-by-lamora.18568/

 

Silly question - have you read the manga? It's basically a gritty take on the franchise itself.

 

I have not. However, I do most of fanfic reading on my phone in downtime at work. For some reason, they're not particularly fond of you getting a book out, and there's no wifi. Text based sites means I basically have unlimited data.

Might be worth looking into for homereading though.

 

I've got some recommendations:

I haven't read the next few entirely, but the little I did I thought was okay.
Vanquish Into the Wild

 

Renaerys has a number of pokemon stories that are great. They're more manga inspired than the video games or anime FWIW. Trimvirate follows Ash, Ivy (Green) and Gary (Blue), Clash of Crowns follows Iris (who pretty muchplays the part of Daenerys Targaryan), Wanderer follows Alain and is very heavy on mega-evolution, and Tartarus I can't comment much on.

A YMMV portion of the stories is that some humans are Tamers (read, playable or named characters in the game) that have an affinity with a certain type of pokemon I.E. ignifers that have a bond with fire types and can withstand heat or syreni with water types who can hold their breath for absurd amounts of time. I think it's done very well personally. It's nothing at all like the "aura" shitfics that have Ash blasting aura spheres at enemies.

They're worth reading almost solely for watching the evolution of a writer in real-time. Triumvirate has some rough parts in the writing and then you get to Clash of Crowns and the difference is stark. Tone wise it's far closer to The Sun Soul than it is to Traveller. I know you said you don't want following the MC getting badges, it's not at all like the anime or the games. There's no tournament endgame here. It's not sport. The monsters are horrifying.

DLP Thread:

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/triumvirate-by-renaerys-m-pokemon.38253/

AO3 landing page:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renaerys/pseuds/Renaerys/works?fandom_id=448284

 

Bit late to the party and sadly not with an epic, but decided to comb through SpaceBattles for anything interesting and came across a little gem.

The Mountain - A lone teenager decides one day to venture up the harsh, unforgiving, and untamed upper slopes of Mt. Moon in search for a companion to call his own, and instead gets a crash course on the risks, rigors, and rewards of Pokémon Training, and a taste of the hard day-to-day struggle that is daily life on The Mountain.

It's a cute little story about an OC falling into a Nidorina nest, fumbling through a capture and being somewhat adopted by it. Less epic battles and more about two ignorant beings coming to terms with the other.

 

I'm just going to go through my follows and link some that I've enjoyed over the years that haven't yet been mentioned. I too wish there was more of the genre you describe in the OP.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11460367/1/Y-know-Nothing-Jon-Snow
- Self Insert that's actually pretty interesting and entertaining. Jon Snow tries to become a flying type master.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10471043/1/Sacrifice-and-Subjugation
- One of my favorite Pokemon OC fics. Pretty long and still updating, but very slowly.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6013092/1/Storm-Warning-The-Rise-of-a-Champion
- This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure read. OC in original region fic, but makes things reasonably realistic. Probably my favorite pokemon in all of fan fiction is this MC's Skarmory.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12182012/5/Vanquish
- One I remember liking, but don't really remember much about the plot.

 

Re-reading that after the pseudo-update makes me need a fag and I don't even smoke.

 

Ascension - TheBlackStaffandNightMarE (Spacebattles)

Red/Ash had a dream about being a Dragon-type trainer, a shortage of Charmanders due to a research project in Kalos (Mega-Evolution anyone?) means that he makes his destined meeting with Pikachu.. only to be put in a coma after the inevitable shock. Starting his journey late with a Pokemon he didn't even know existed, he quickly comes to a realisation on how the world isn't all sunshine, rainbows and getting stronger.

As mentioned above there's a bit of world building with reference to Kalos and their need for Charmanders, there's also references to schools dedicated to teaching trainers the finer aspects of training and the Gyms seem to also have their own specialised educational programme. Ash mentions Growlithe's having 'inner flames' as taught to him by Oak, which Misty is somewhat sceptical of.. so I'm hoping that the education part of it, while relevant and correct, doesn't totally grasp the mystical part of Pokemon.

I'm rambling, it's a decent read.

 

Thanks for the rec! It seems to be going quite well - I picked this up a week or so back, and it's not bad. It does seem to maybe be overdoing just how grimdark everything is, but the rest of it's decent enough that I can look past it.

 

I'd recommend Making it Big

It's not quite as dark as some of the other recommendations here but for it's rating it's about as dark as it realistically could be. It's about a poor kid trying to become a pokemon trainer for money. The perspective might be a bit grating at times, but I remember really liking it for what it is.

 

I guess now's the time I'll shamelessly plug in my own story. It's an OC trainer fic set in Johto. I don't claim to be an amazing author or anything and it's the first story I've posted on FFN. I'd really like some honest feedback on it. It seems like most people who leave reviews on FFN just say "I'm really liking this for ____ reason" and leave it at that. In my own estimation, I'd place it in the readable, but not amazing category. This is mostly because I'm still learning how to do adequate characterization and plotting.

Restless

 

It's pretty good. Updates like clockwork, the personalities of the pokemon aren't overdone and he writes pretty good confrontation / fight scenes.

My main knock on it right now is that there are too many interludes / alt-PoV segments setting up future payoffs (Mia / Ritchie stuff), it should have been more condensed I think.

 

I've never looked into them but Ao3 is a clusterfuck of tags and crossovers, so came across a Naruto crossover while searching. Herald by Whiteleopard1124 is only 3 chapters long but has a 30k word count with decent characterisations and a slight bit of world building, with the Villages becoming Cities that hold tournaments instead of Gym/Badges which lets the trainers advance in tiers.

 

I'll second Herald. What there is so far is pretty decent. Some decent mystery being set up, although it has yet to finish the meat of the first arc, but the bulk of the set up has been done.

 

Traveller has just updated again, once again proves to be one of if not the best Pokemon FanFic still on going.

 

Has anyone ever found a good Professor Oak-centric fanfic? I'm slowly starting to plot one out, but it's in the very early stages and I'd like to read some other stuff first.