Let's Talk about the Future

The most recent chapter was posted here.

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With the current flow of the story, the Ghost Specialist is on its way to reaching a natural conclusion and thus, will be ending soon. I do not want to drag it out when it doesn’t need to be dragged out, and I really want it to have a strong, satisfying end. However, we still have a decent way to go with a few story arcs left. The final chapter won’t be out until after the Conference takes place.

(My estimation is that we’re about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through.)

There will be no change in schedule. Expect the same, two-chapters-a-week pace alongside the occasional break. Once the final chapter is posted, however, there will be a month-long break. I will be using that time to get my plans in order while also finally finishing those long-promised epilogue chapters of the Type Specialist. They should be out around the end of that month.

Now, while the Ghost Specialist might be ending sooner rather than later, I will not suddenly stop writing Pokémon. Although I have no final plans right now, I do have a few options I’ve been considering. I might use these characters again, I might write a new story, I might write something original, or I might write something with a heavy focus on Legendaries. Or I might try to write two stories at once.

Thank you for reading. Genuinely. I really appreciate all of the comments and the support. In-story, there are some events coming up that I’ve been planning for a long, long time. I’m really looking forward to them, and I hope you enjoy them once they take place.

See you soon. Next chapter on Tuesday.

(Unrelated, but I also want to talk about Sam’s sixth team member catch, but this isn’t part of any announcement. It’s just my thoughts/perspective. Since this post is public, the break is here to hide spoilers.)

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Again, major spoilers if you haven’t read the latest Patreon chapters. Technically, this also contains a few minor spoilers for future developments, but the outcome should be inevitable by this point and they’re only hints at best.

Sam was always going to catch a Dreepy. Its inclusion in the poll was to gather a sense of when and also the reaction. However, when I was first planning everything out, the Dreepy was going to appear as part of a nebulous, far less-planned, post-Johto arc, but since I’ve realized it makes more sense to end the Ghost Specialist sooner rather than later, its appearance was bumped up.

However, one of my pet peeves with Pokémon stories is that I prefer protagonists to obtain team members that make sense, and the species they catch have to fit in-universe. The problem, of course, is that a Dreepy appearing in Johto is the exact opposite of that. Even Trevenant, in my mind, makes some sense just because the concept of a haunted tree is practically universal. Yet, a Dreepy is specifically a Galarian Pokémon, and it’s a rare Dragon Type pseudo-Legendary to boot, so having one appear in early-timeline Johto/Kanto simply feels... off.

The nonsense with so many Dragon Types was me trying to justify its appearance to myself as much as it was me trying to justify its appearance in-story. A port city was the most realistic place to include foreign Pokémon, and the presence of a bunch of poached Dragon Types felt more likely than Sam just stumbling onto a single Dreepy out on its own.

As for its position in Sam’s team, a Dragapult’s strength comes from its speed and power, but you don’t need to worry about the current status-based strategy being lost. Dragapult might be aggressive fighters, but I have a plan for how this one will fight. For a Pokémon known for its power, it has a few tricks up its sleeve that let it slot in surprisingly well for a team so based around status.

If you want a hint of what it’ll get up to, look at the few physical moves a Dragapult can learn. Of course, these plans will expanded in-story once Dreepy and Drakloak actually start participating in training sessions with Sam’s team.