Interview with Dictator-Chan conducted by glitterandasphalt.

Dictator-Chan is a second year judge for the PokemonWatties, a judge for PokemonWritersDebut, and winner of this year's GRA writing tournament. She also has a personal review service titled Outside the Whale and two ongoing stories published to her profile: Ethos and Paradise.

The judges praised Paradise for being though provoking and well put together. Why did you pick this topic for the one-shot?

This is a bit of a very long not-answer, but I couldn't think of a better way to answer considering this story has a bit of a backstory.

So, fun story about this one. Paradise started out as a full-length book I planned out all of, but I scraped it because I got bored with it. I had an outline of about 5000 words that went to waste, and that just didn't sit right with me.

The story had a similar concept where the character is a kahuna and attempting to overcome the traditions of the island challenge. Granted, a lot of the story was based around the dynamic of her and the other main protagonist/antagonist/love interest of the story nicknamed "Corporate America." The whole idea was supposed to be this weird story of how public figures can be horrible people, yet nice in their personal life and vice versa. That and how corrupting the influence of money in politics can be.

The idea was that the main character would be this apathetic person who went along with everything like a cog in the machine before an injustice happened to someone close to her that would put her into action. The majority of the story is her struggling to not submit to monied interests and ruin everything she's fighting for, but still needing to broker deals with "Corporate America" to run a successful grassroots movement.

That story was meant to have an ending similar to the ending of the Paradise one-shot, but it was a bit happier/actually really depressing. I had the idea that the protagonist of that story would end up fighting a long battle against the Tapus after a failed referendum like in the one-shot before ultimately losing that fight.

It was written that "Corporate America" would come in and basically broker a deal where the Tapus wouldn't kill her, but that she would need to leave Alola. He went along with it because in the course of this fourty-five chapter story they would eventually fall in looovvveeeee.

So, she doesn't die, but it might have been a happier ending if she had.

The story ends in a really kind of depressing way where the main character ends up falling to the dark side of the money in politics debate. The epilogue of the story has her meeting with a former adversary from her time in Alola who ended up switching over to her former side of the debate. Basically, it ends with time having chipped away at her where she comes to the conclusion a grassroots movement will never work, and that money is speech and the only solution?

Got all that? Good, because I'm not done yet with my incoherent babble.

I've this draft sitting in my Wattpad works section since February, and it ended up coming to the forefront when I started writing the second prompt of the one-shot competition. My original idea was to write an alternate ending where the protagonist of USUM can become the leader of Team Rainbow Rocket. The problem was that I had no idea to write it.

My mind stuck in Gen 7, I decided to revisit my draft of Paradise and rework it to fit into a one-shot format. The result was my entry for the second round. Basically, you could say I just recycled an old concept to get my idea.

Fun story, while I was working on the one-shot, I ended up getting re-interested in the concept as a full-length story, but with one major difference.

I had the thought every bored English student does while reading an English classic.

How do I make this more gay?

And that's the story of how I ended up reworking the concept to a full-length book the GRA might end up reviewing in the distant future.

Look forward to it.

Or don't.

You're entitled to your own opinions, even you're wrong. :P

Well, it seems as though you have no shortage of ideas! Is there anything that you're currently working on or publishing currently?

I'm currently working on what I like to call a romcom. It has romance, and it's a comedy, so it's a romcom. Ignore the fact the majority of it is a political essay.

For a better explanation, I'm currently working on a full-length version of Paradise. The entire story is me pitting characters against each other in various situations and seeing what happens.

There are two major main characters, and they would never exist in real life. One of them is the stereotype of a snowflake tumblr blogger, but she also happens to be in favor or deregulating and privatizing every single industry. Even the fire department.

The other character is the woman who was the focus of the majority of the Paradise one-shot. She's still the kahuna of Ula' Ula Island, but her character and political beliefs are highly expanded on. In essence, she's a right-wing populist who spends her time "trollin' the libs." Her special quirk is that she's a racist. She would basically be Trump during his campaign if it weren't for the fact that instead of wanting to keep out the "brown people," she wants to keep out the white folk.

Yes, they both sound like horrible people, and that's the joke.

The first portion of the book is where most of the romancey stuff happens. Part two is basically a study of different aspects of political thought personified as characters that act as short-term villains. Part three does a deep dive into the pasts of the major characters as the overarching plot comes to a close.

Out of all of them, I'm probably most looking forward to writing the third part as I'm attempting to respectfully write about mental illnesses that have impacted people close to me. That portion is me explaining how the characters ended up so messed up, and me attempting to spread some awareness to less commonly talked about problems.

What else...

Right, I forgot about Nicholas.

Nicholas is best boy.

I won't say anymore besides that everyone should just read the book when it's (never) published.

What made you want to get involved in the Pokémon community here on Wattpad?

Honestly, it happened on a bit of a whim.

I had stalked the PWA for the entirety of the 2016 Awards period and just observed every little thing they did. I was weird. I admit that.

When the judge applications for the 2017 Awards came out, I jumped on it. I was super happy that I was accepted, but I didn't talk to the community at all.

The first contact I really had with anyone was when Maple asked me if I wanted to participate in the livestream that the GRA was doing that year. I thought it sounded cool, so I agreed.

Now, I will say that I was a little awkward for the whole stream, but I did enjoy myself.

...Maybe "a little awkward" is an understatement, now that I think about it.

I was really awkward. Like, incredibly awkward. As in I was saying absolutely nothing because low-key, everyone terrified me.

...And terrified is an understatement.

...I still get slightly nervous to talk to some of these people, to be completely honest.

In my defense, I knew none of who these people were. Now, though, I basically have had an extended interaction with most of those people.

It was really that stream that made me get involved with the community at large. You could say that I felt the need to actually know what was going on and be prepared for the next judging period.

Since then, I've met some really cool people, so I can't say I regret getting involved! <3

There are some pretty awesome people in this community. I know I have met a lot of very cool people too. Thank you so much for participating in the tournament, and good luck with your future projects. I'm sure we will be hearing more from you during the Pokémon Watty awards!