kintsugi
golden scars | pfp by sun
It would appear that this fic has roughly doubled in length since I last said anything that wasn’t a shitpost; I’m sorry lol. It’s been a good read! Bear in mind this review is in this weird schrodinger’s state of trying to pretend not to know some of the lategame stuff, and also knowing what used to be here (I reread everything prior to reviewing, and also I’ve forgotten a lot of what used to be there on first read) while also coyly doing the exact opposite of that. This ended up grouped more by character than by chapter, mostly for the same reason.
Also, hey, a flying in the dark reference. As (probably) the only person left to read the rewritten version who gets that reference, I see u.
Fighting
(to whom it may concern, this is for 3.8 - 3.20 + Recap 2)
Cuicatl
if she remembers what she’s supposed to be grumbling about, and encouraging others to grumble. Or, hmm, less chafing, more resignation–Cuicatl’s had her fair share of hunching over various pokemon and sobbing into them, but once Kalani shows up and Pixie stops showing up, it becomes pretty clear that this where karma is coming to collect for Cuicatl. I found this to be something enjoyable about the unique, serialized nature of this rotating cast–the tone of the story remains pretty consistent, and no one ever really has a great time, least of all in the darkness arc, but individual characters end up in different places in their journey.
As several characters point out, this is the time for Cuicatl to practice what she preaches, and to see if she can make good of the things she’s been asking others to do–and the answer is yes, but not happily. Again I think the ties to duty and what other people call right are strong; this is what you’re supposed to do; glory means you’re supposed to feel good about giving your pokemon agency; life means you’re supposed to come to terms with death and loss–but it’s often more unpleasant than pleasant.
Despite the incredibly rough hand she’s been dealt, I think Cuicatl’s only now (at least in the recent timeline) coming to terms with this, whereas Kekoa and Gen feel like they’ve been doing this a lot more. I think it’s a good use of the story structure, though one that does sometimes make it harder to feel like anyone individually is progressing quickly within arcs. I think Cuicatl (and by extension Pixie) felt a little stagnant in the earlier parts of this arc, but wow do things really take a sharp nosedive for them around the middle. I do feel like some of her broader strokes feel a little repetitive–even in the arc about how she needs to confront how she deals with her pokemon, she’s still emotionally supported by her other pokemon and reassured by them as she hugs them crying (it’s just a different pokemon). I don’t think it’s unrealistic and I’m not really sure if I’m advocating for cutting it for that reason, but it does make her feel chapters feel a little less cathartic when the catharsis is largely the same. It’s a tough line to juggle, since “simply do not feel bad” and “simply do not make the same mistakes you made before” are both deeply unrealistic and also deeply antithetical to interesting to storytelling, but I think we’re averaging to more than one hug pokemon and cry Cuicatl chapter per arc, which is a lot given that she’s only got so many chapters per arc to begin with.
I admit I wasn’t sure what to make of the “flashbacks”/memories. They don’t really foreshadow much to me, even knowing what they’re for. I think the main takeaway I ended up having was that the world has always been shitty, both in the past or in faraway worlds; the only universal constant is racism and if you aren’t one of the lucky few it’s an endless uphill grind to exist, with a handful of lights at the end of the tunnel. Pleasant and unpleasant alike. This is largely something that Cuicatl has already learned/is already constantly tackling with in the present, so I found myself questioning the purpose of interspersing the flashbacks so heavily. Probably something I’ll revisit at the end of Arc 5 and re-feel how I feel, though.
To the surprise of no one, I find myself drawn most to the shitshow that starts when Kalani shows up. I’ve been expecting her to pop in for a while; she was one of the most interesting parts of Guidance for me and I enjoy how much she challenges both Cuicatl and Pixie directly. I think this is another instance where I really expected Cuicatl to empathize and was really surprised/disappointed that she didn’t (almost all her Kekoa interactions way back when stands out most sharply as another instance)--surprised/disappointed in the sense that I think it’s good and realistic character development for a traumatized, violence-prone, single-minded teenager, just not what I’d been hoping for her. Turns out there’s still a lot of growth to be had when you’re only halfway through your character arc. But really, Cuicatl’s deeply familiar with what it’s like to lose your home and want your family back; she’s deeply familiar with what it’s like to feel the toxic weight of wanting to please a parent who wants one specific behavior from you and refuses to accept anything else; she’s even deeply familiar with what it’s like to have cross-species found family that other people of her species side-eye but are afraid to question, and yet still yearn for something more closely resembling a loving birth family even despite the love she feels for that cross-species found family. That she’s unable to empathize is quite the point, I imagine, and that she’s unable to produce an answer that would satisfy both herself and Pixie is certainly part of the point, I imagine. It’s a lot easy to chafe against the people who are mean to you, and a lot harder to realize that you might’ve become the person who’s being mean to someone else.
And like. Cuicatl is clearly a beleaguered party; it’s not actually fair to walk up to a blind child on a beach and violently attack them; it’s not fair to racially profile your challengers even if you’re doing so in an anti-colonizer way; there’s some argument that humans simply are not as durable as pokemon (though this is consistently not universal; maybe it’s because Pixie really gets the shit beaten out of her frequently and recently, but I’m not really convinced that Pixie is actually better defensively than Cuicatl). But it’s really telling that to her Kalani is a violent thief and Hala is * vaguely makes motion of ripping heart out of chest and crushing it to let the blood drip onto the stones and appease the angered gods *. But if she’s going to stop hating the people who resemble her, she might also stop hating herself, and we can’t have that now, can we.
Putting on my “spoilers ahead are known to me” hat for a sec; I do wish there was a little more conclusions on this at the end of the tunnel. “Will you become your abuser or be better than them?” is a deeply complicated question, and in this case it’s quite likely that to become better than her abusers Cuicatl will also have to be them–some of the characters in this story are not conferred the same rights as others. Alice (apparently) has to be purchased; Pixie can be “stolen”; both of these are valuable to Cuicatl as emotional bulwarks and also tools of war, but ultimately they live in a society (heh) that sees them as property, and unfortunately Cuicatl lives there too. I think it’s hard to convey how deeply love and friendship is felt, and it’s even harder when it’s necessary to turn to the camera and say it, and imo it’s probably hardest of all to say it right after “your hair is starting to frizz so you know it’s got to be really bad for Pixie. Poor girl. You’ll give her a long brushing / cuddles session later”--it feels transactional. Everything about potentially losing Pixie is either framed around how awful Kalani is or how it’s just someone else leaving Cuicatl like everyone else–which makes sense in what’s effectively Act 2 of this arc, where things are known to not be addressed in a healthy way, but it’s treated like inevitable villainy of the world rather than the reality that Cuicatl probably does need to change too.
With Hala and the whole V-Star thing, while the subtext that V-Star is pretty awful to the pokemon they capture and those fifty-seven butterfree are basically being trafficked and honestly a lot of Cuicatl’s talking points would be pretty horrifying if phrased from a human villain to a human protagonist, I think there’s at least more of a grey area–there is no happy ending for a lot of the parties involved, and that Cuicatl gets involved just means that she’s doing it instead of someone else doing it more violently. Comparing this with Pixie’s arc from Cuicatl’s POV–obviously from Pixie’s chapters we know that going with Kalani is a terrible idea, but there’s really not much of that conveyed to Cuicatl, and it’s hard to disentangle how much of Cuicatl’s reactions are because she’s genuinely trying to make sure Pixie doesn’t run headlong into an abusive environment vs her being mad that someone’s taken her stuff. In calling Kalani a “violent thief” instead of, like, “a really bad mother” it seems like the latter, for what it’s worth. For me the V-Star stuff is very much a forgiven thing for me because Cuicatl is pretty open about the fact that she’s doing this selfishly and for her own gains (and because maybe this will all end in a sickass fight where Cuicatl punches Victini in the face)--the transaction is acknowledged, as are its justifications, and there’s no pretending that she’s actually trying to be the butterfree’s friends or that she’s helping anyone but herself when working with V-Star.
And again, all of this complexity is really fun I think, it’s definitely not unrealistic and it’s good character conflict, and we’re certainly in the part of the story where people are inclined to make bad decisions on the situation rather than good ones. Just writing out the things that I would expect to see addressed for her in the next arcs as things begin to resolve.
Kekoa
Jumping a little back to that thread about how the tones match but where characters are in their arcs feels very different, for better and for worse–Kekoa feels pretty stagnant this arc; mostly his new conflicts are comforting Cuicatl when she’s clearly going through the thing she lectured him about, and not making snarky comments to Lyra. Both, I think, are good conflicts for him to face and delve a lot into the heart of his own issues–facing hypocrisy and self-righteousness; not alienating your potential allies and learning when you should and shouldn’t hold your tongue–but both feel more like B-plots than anything else. The rufflet gets kind of dropped in his lap, and is something I could forgive if it ended up really important to him in later chapters–but he sorta vanishes for the rest of his arc. That his totem and grand trial fights were so uneventful that they happened off-screen is the point, and also I understand both why you wouldn’t want to show twice as many fights here and why Cuicatl’s were more important both times, but it doesn’t really leave Kekoa with much to do except continue to question if he should join Skull or not. Honestly I think Hala’s conflict of if it’s better to crush people now or if it’s better to let them get crushed later, if the current cruelty justifies both vengeance and helping the future, is something that feels a lot more deeply relevant to Kekoa than to Cuicatl, which is also why I found myself liking their conversation at the end of the chapter most interesting–so it feels weird to have so much of that conflict focused around Cuicatl ig.
(Again from a pacing perspective I really get why you wouldn’t want him to do this, why what might work on a story that’s just about Kekoa really doesn’t work in a story that’s about Cuicatl, Genesis, Pixie, and Kekoa. I’ll check back in at the end of Arc 4 and see if I have some more constructive thoughts here.)
I did like the various people Kekoa interacts with, even if they more question his ideals rather than challenge them (to the point that he changes in a major way). Florges and drifloon are both really fun; there’s something deeply pokefic-core about a supernatural revolutionary symbol. Kekoa’s struggle has often been one about heritage and home, so for him to run into forces older than him and have to hear what they have to say adds another dimension on that struggle. For them both to find him questionably worthy is also a lot of fun. I liked the somberness of drifloon just showing up and agreeing to show him the way to the graveyard; that felt like a really magical, weighty kind of scene that only happens in whacky fantasy and I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the alternate take on why drifloon is bad, or why orphan kids might actually want a drifloon–and it makes sense for Plumeria to be deeply affronted by the idea that someone else is just going to show up and take you from your shitty life, since everyone who’s showed up for her seems to have only made it worse. Flying-type specialists + that one rock who we decided not to sell into slavery, let’s go.
The florges chapter is delightfully creepy and also weighty, though for different reasons. Like with Cuicatl, Kekoa also has to confront the idea that his actions with V-Star are going to cause him harm; his conflict is more centered around whether the ends justify the means, as he believes his actions are for the good of Alola rather than for his own personal gain. Likewise though I find his conflict more sympathetic, probably because the antagonists/alternatives that Kekoa faces–impoverishment, powerlessness, cultural erasure, and colonialism–feel much larger than this own personal struggles. Even if Kekoa also stands to benefit from his very possible goal of ending capitalism and colonialism, it’s a lot easier to find this desire selfless, and as a result a lot easier to view him as conflicted rather than a guy actively participating in trafficking people for use or for murder, which is also something he’s doing.
Plumeria and Kanoa also provided nice, conflicting voices for Kekoa’s struggle. Fire/blood vs the establishment and all that. What I liked the most between all of them (Plumeria, Kanoa, and also Florges) is that none of them approve of Kekoa’s actions and all of them think his arguments are incoherent. Based. In trying not to pick a side he’s also picking a side, and he’s being pretty loud for someone who’s trying to grind exp on the sidelines lol. I found those bits of conflict the most interesting for him, even if he doesn’t change his mind based on anything yet–he’s trying and failing so hard to figure out what the proper course of action is, and in all of his gripes about how alienated and choiceless he feels, he’s burning most of his bridges (besides extremism. Extremism is always here for u kekoa).
I really liked the restaurant scene at the end of 3.19. Lyra, especially non-antagonistic Lyra, is a really good addition to the group dynamic in the absence of Gen imo. She still provides a lot of the main conflicts that Gen did–she’s fundamentally biased/bigoted against one of the main cast (though Cuicatl/psychics this time instead of Kekoa), she’s very serene about her statements that are actually hurling grenades into dumpsterfires, and she’s genuinely earnest that she wants to help. The dinner bit was a nice bow on all of that, and I think having the anniversary of Hoenn’s massive ecological collapse/Kekoa’s origin story right around the ending of Alola’s crisis is a nice way to show how the world sort of rolls on through a litany of disasters. I also liked how Lyra’s shown to have her own conflicts about the Hoenn events, even if she’s functionally far away–that kind of guilt for feeling bad about a thing that happened, and feeling its loss while being well aware that a whole lot of people felt that loss a whole lot more, felt very quiet and realistic. It’s a nice little cap on Kekoa’s arc, and also it’s great to establish both how other people are trying to extend him laurel branches and how much he’s about to throw those into the dumpsterfire with the rest.
Genesis
Genesis has a lot of really definitive quotes in her chapters. All of them make me feel terrible.
Admittedly I found myself really appreciating how awfully you made her behave towards everyone in the early chapters–I thought it was realistic then too, but now that she’s twisting as hard as she can to justify backsliding on the hard-earned character development, it really feels so much worse. There’s a lot more tension because we’re aware of how much more she has to lose, what kind of a person she stands to become. I was really impressed by how tense these chapters felt; I didn’t really know what to expect from what’s basically a modernized princess locked in a tower section, but there’s a lot of urgency and stakes even if people only really stay in one place. I think you also do a wonderfully gross job of juggling how hurt/comfort the Gages are; they’re actively abusing their daughter and are also actively planning to even more abuse their daughter, but they also shower her with praise, talk about how they’re looking forward to what a wonderful lady she’s going to become, how surprised they are at how strong she’s become on her journey. The talk with her dad where she gets Oliver really drove that grossness in for me–it’s less that I needed to be convinced that her parents think this is for her own good (I do not care, though I also understand why some readers would benefit from this), and more that I needed to be convinced what Gen thought she stood to gain, since she’s spent a lot of her bigoted time being on the road, away from her parents, and learning/growing. And I thought that second bit landed quite nicely.
Likewise, I think couching her downtime in terms of childhood fantasies, and also emphasizing how childish her pokemon nicknames and how much she just wants to curl up in a bed of stuffed animals, was a really effective move. It’s easy to get wrapped up in Kekoa and Cuicatl’s narratives that they’re definitely going to overthrow the system and buy a hydra, and uncritically I can believe them, and also forget that they’re very smol teenagers. Both in terms of efficacy and emotional capability. So to have Gen locked in her room like a child and craving for little more than to hug her smelly leafeon is a really effective way to ground things. I also liked the physical/mental journey parallels–Gen’s gotten stronger on the road, the books don’t feel as heavy any more, the bigotry isn’t rooted quite so deep. Likewise I found it very fitting that her fantasy involves her being an important warrior, and yet at the core of her fantasy backstory is being betrayed and failing everyone else. The being betrayed bit feels old and the failing everyone else feels new, which I found fitting. I liked the sense of time passing here–it’s hard to do that in fic, especially in one that’s simultaneously really long and also really narrowly-focused–Gen returning to her childhood fantasies and wanting them deeply, while finding that they don’t quite fit, really conveys the growth she’s experienced on the road.
And this lovely dilemma of personhood and growth matters approximately zero in a world where psychic-powered conversion therapy exists. It’s so gross and yet such a “sigh but of course they would” moment, both in the sense that the Gages immediately seize on the opportunity, that this kind of practice exists in the first place, and that only the most truly abhorrent people would do it. It’s so fucking vile to watch.
Pixie
I really like the idea of the mountain, this ideal homeland you can’t return to. In a fic that’s undeniably inspired by modern american events I think that’s deeply intentional. More on this in Arc 5 undoubtedly.
Likewise I found myself sold more on the ancestor stories as time progressed. In the early chapters they feel a bit like filler–Pixie as a character inherently has a lot less agency than the main human cast, so her POV often feels like she’s got to monologue a lot more to make up for it, especially in the stories–but I think the mother’s breath and green-eyes stories in particular feel a lot more linked to Pixie’s conflict/agency. It’s the kind of thing that only really happens once she has conflict, so I don’t have good advice for how to change things pre-Kalani rn. I really liked the added dimension of xeno–Pixie can tell these stories, and Cuicatl can listen as diligently as she wants, but ultimately the weird hobo ninetales is probably on to something when he says that humanscapitalism have built their system on the idea of limitless gain, and as such they don’t understand what it means to have a finite end to things. It’s a nice conflict of values that gives Pixie something more than just something to say, and sets up the groundwork for this whole question of Cuicatl can give her a home–can someone who’s so fundamentally different than you still offer you solace?
And on the question of home, I do think it’s telling in the types of comfort that Cuicatl and Pixie give each other, and how they react. Pixie receives nice-to-haves, pets/checking for injuries that she explicitly doesn’t have and just likes because she likes being pet, blood popsickles that make her feel like she’s actually hunting for real. Cuicatl receives what’s borderline on needs, therapy that keeps her from completely spiraling, a shoulder to cry on/sob into. And it’s not like Pixie is Fine and emotionally able to give this kind of support–she’s neither, both in the sense that she’s actually really emotionally devastated and also finds human sorrow borderline incomprehensible. And it’s also not like Cuicatl is actively a bad trainer, both by the scale presented in-universe and from some sort of vague generalized fanfiction scale of morality–she’s trying, and definitely trying a lot harder than most. And-and, what Pixie wants most of all right now is really toxic and unattainable, so it’s not like anyone is going to give her that kind of closure, even the best mom ever. But part of what made Kalani such an interesting antagonist to me, and why Pixie’s chapters are so fun to read, is that rn the answer to “can Cuicatl give Pixie a good home?” feels almost like … no. Which is kind of devastating to admit.
And on some levels I think it really all goes back to the mountain. There’s no limitless growth and no idealized place where everyone gets exactly what they want. There’s no perfect family. There’s just what you have right now, and what you stand to lose.
-
Worldbuilding continues to be on-point. Some misc things I really enjoyed that didn’t end up in any of the major headers–Hala’s obstinate refusal to recognize wrongdoing, Tapu Koko’s takes on modern warfare constituting being anggy at big companies, everyone flopping around on the ice, that small trial captain really digging her hole super deep, hivemind metagross vs Tapu Bulu, castform as a vital part of post-apocalyptic life. Odd gripes and personal inability to maintain a consistent review schedule aside, I think this fic is really something special, and I’m impressed and grateful that you continue to hammer away at it so much. See you in Arc 6. Er, 4 and 5 first, but eventually.
Also, hey, a flying in the dark reference. As (probably) the only person left to read the rewritten version who gets that reference, I see u.
Fighting
(to whom it may concern, this is for 3.8 - 3.20 + Recap 2)
Cuicatl
Swap out Unova for Alola and this is a pretty apt summary for Cuicatl’s BT experience, yeah? I was going to look really hard to find relevant quotes for each character, but this one was right here, lol, though this one suits more from a meta perspective than a strict one imo. I think Cuicatl spends a lot of time in the present specifically chafing against what she’s supposed to do–she certainly does it, but there’s a lot more grumbling
As several characters point out, this is the time for Cuicatl to practice what she preaches, and to see if she can make good of the things she’s been asking others to do–and the answer is yes, but not happily. Again I think the ties to duty and what other people call right are strong; this is what you’re supposed to do; glory means you’re supposed to feel good about giving your pokemon agency; life means you’re supposed to come to terms with death and loss–but it’s often more unpleasant than pleasant.
Despite the incredibly rough hand she’s been dealt, I think Cuicatl’s only now (at least in the recent timeline) coming to terms with this, whereas Kekoa and Gen feel like they’ve been doing this a lot more. I think it’s a good use of the story structure, though one that does sometimes make it harder to feel like anyone individually is progressing quickly within arcs. I think Cuicatl (and by extension Pixie) felt a little stagnant in the earlier parts of this arc, but wow do things really take a sharp nosedive for them around the middle. I do feel like some of her broader strokes feel a little repetitive–even in the arc about how she needs to confront how she deals with her pokemon, she’s still emotionally supported by her other pokemon and reassured by them as she hugs them crying (it’s just a different pokemon). I don’t think it’s unrealistic and I’m not really sure if I’m advocating for cutting it for that reason, but it does make her feel chapters feel a little less cathartic when the catharsis is largely the same. It’s a tough line to juggle, since “simply do not feel bad” and “simply do not make the same mistakes you made before” are both deeply unrealistic and also deeply antithetical to interesting to storytelling, but I think we’re averaging to more than one hug pokemon and cry Cuicatl chapter per arc, which is a lot given that she’s only got so many chapters per arc to begin with.
I admit I wasn’t sure what to make of the “flashbacks”/memories. They don’t really foreshadow much to me, even knowing what they’re for. I think the main takeaway I ended up having was that the world has always been shitty, both in the past or in faraway worlds; the only universal constant is racism and if you aren’t one of the lucky few it’s an endless uphill grind to exist, with a handful of lights at the end of the tunnel. Pleasant and unpleasant alike. This is largely something that Cuicatl has already learned/is already constantly tackling with in the present, so I found myself questioning the purpose of interspersing the flashbacks so heavily. Probably something I’ll revisit at the end of Arc 5 and re-feel how I feel, though.
To the surprise of no one, I find myself drawn most to the shitshow that starts when Kalani shows up. I’ve been expecting her to pop in for a while; she was one of the most interesting parts of Guidance for me and I enjoy how much she challenges both Cuicatl and Pixie directly. I think this is another instance where I really expected Cuicatl to empathize and was really surprised/disappointed that she didn’t (almost all her Kekoa interactions way back when stands out most sharply as another instance)--surprised/disappointed in the sense that I think it’s good and realistic character development for a traumatized, violence-prone, single-minded teenager, just not what I’d been hoping for her. Turns out there’s still a lot of growth to be had when you’re only halfway through your character arc. But really, Cuicatl’s deeply familiar with what it’s like to lose your home and want your family back; she’s deeply familiar with what it’s like to feel the toxic weight of wanting to please a parent who wants one specific behavior from you and refuses to accept anything else; she’s even deeply familiar with what it’s like to have cross-species found family that other people of her species side-eye but are afraid to question, and yet still yearn for something more closely resembling a loving birth family even despite the love she feels for that cross-species found family. That she’s unable to empathize is quite the point, I imagine, and that she’s unable to produce an answer that would satisfy both herself and Pixie is certainly part of the point, I imagine. It’s a lot easy to chafe against the people who are mean to you, and a lot harder to realize that you might’ve become the person who’s being mean to someone else.
And like. Cuicatl is clearly a beleaguered party; it’s not actually fair to walk up to a blind child on a beach and violently attack them; it’s not fair to racially profile your challengers even if you’re doing so in an anti-colonizer way; there’s some argument that humans simply are not as durable as pokemon (though this is consistently not universal; maybe it’s because Pixie really gets the shit beaten out of her frequently and recently, but I’m not really convinced that Pixie is actually better defensively than Cuicatl). But it’s really telling that to her Kalani is a violent thief and Hala is * vaguely makes motion of ripping heart out of chest and crushing it to let the blood drip onto the stones and appease the angered gods *. But if she’s going to stop hating the people who resemble her, she might also stop hating herself, and we can’t have that now, can we.
Putting on my “spoilers ahead are known to me” hat for a sec; I do wish there was a little more conclusions on this at the end of the tunnel. “Will you become your abuser or be better than them?” is a deeply complicated question, and in this case it’s quite likely that to become better than her abusers Cuicatl will also have to be them–some of the characters in this story are not conferred the same rights as others. Alice (apparently) has to be purchased; Pixie can be “stolen”; both of these are valuable to Cuicatl as emotional bulwarks and also tools of war, but ultimately they live in a society (heh) that sees them as property, and unfortunately Cuicatl lives there too. I think it’s hard to convey how deeply love and friendship is felt, and it’s even harder when it’s necessary to turn to the camera and say it, and imo it’s probably hardest of all to say it right after “your hair is starting to frizz so you know it’s got to be really bad for Pixie. Poor girl. You’ll give her a long brushing / cuddles session later”--it feels transactional. Everything about potentially losing Pixie is either framed around how awful Kalani is or how it’s just someone else leaving Cuicatl like everyone else–which makes sense in what’s effectively Act 2 of this arc, where things are known to not be addressed in a healthy way, but it’s treated like inevitable villainy of the world rather than the reality that Cuicatl probably does need to change too.
With Hala and the whole V-Star thing, while the subtext that V-Star is pretty awful to the pokemon they capture and those fifty-seven butterfree are basically being trafficked and honestly a lot of Cuicatl’s talking points would be pretty horrifying if phrased from a human villain to a human protagonist, I think there’s at least more of a grey area–there is no happy ending for a lot of the parties involved, and that Cuicatl gets involved just means that she’s doing it instead of someone else doing it more violently. Comparing this with Pixie’s arc from Cuicatl’s POV–obviously from Pixie’s chapters we know that going with Kalani is a terrible idea, but there’s really not much of that conveyed to Cuicatl, and it’s hard to disentangle how much of Cuicatl’s reactions are because she’s genuinely trying to make sure Pixie doesn’t run headlong into an abusive environment vs her being mad that someone’s taken her stuff. In calling Kalani a “violent thief” instead of, like, “a really bad mother” it seems like the latter, for what it’s worth. For me the V-Star stuff is very much a forgiven thing for me because Cuicatl is pretty open about the fact that she’s doing this selfishly and for her own gains (and because maybe this will all end in a sickass fight where Cuicatl punches Victini in the face)--the transaction is acknowledged, as are its justifications, and there’s no pretending that she’s actually trying to be the butterfree’s friends or that she’s helping anyone but herself when working with V-Star.
And again, all of this complexity is really fun I think, it’s definitely not unrealistic and it’s good character conflict, and we’re certainly in the part of the story where people are inclined to make bad decisions on the situation rather than good ones. Just writing out the things that I would expect to see addressed for her in the next arcs as things begin to resolve.
I don’t think I’m going to have a section for Noci; she’s very good at lying and very clever. I’m really curious why space metagross is deeply invested in gaslighting her about her heat vent tho lol. That definitely feels Important. I wasn’t sure why the integration attempts jumped by 8 here instead of 1?
Kekoa
Metal af ngl.
Jumping a little back to that thread about how the tones match but where characters are in their arcs feels very different, for better and for worse–Kekoa feels pretty stagnant this arc; mostly his new conflicts are comforting Cuicatl when she’s clearly going through the thing she lectured him about, and not making snarky comments to Lyra. Both, I think, are good conflicts for him to face and delve a lot into the heart of his own issues–facing hypocrisy and self-righteousness; not alienating your potential allies and learning when you should and shouldn’t hold your tongue–but both feel more like B-plots than anything else. The rufflet gets kind of dropped in his lap, and is something I could forgive if it ended up really important to him in later chapters–but he sorta vanishes for the rest of his arc. That his totem and grand trial fights were so uneventful that they happened off-screen is the point, and also I understand both why you wouldn’t want to show twice as many fights here and why Cuicatl’s were more important both times, but it doesn’t really leave Kekoa with much to do except continue to question if he should join Skull or not. Honestly I think Hala’s conflict of if it’s better to crush people now or if it’s better to let them get crushed later, if the current cruelty justifies both vengeance and helping the future, is something that feels a lot more deeply relevant to Kekoa than to Cuicatl, which is also why I found myself liking their conversation at the end of the chapter most interesting–so it feels weird to have so much of that conflict focused around Cuicatl ig.
(Again from a pacing perspective I really get why you wouldn’t want him to do this, why what might work on a story that’s just about Kekoa really doesn’t work in a story that’s about Cuicatl, Genesis, Pixie, and Kekoa. I’ll check back in at the end of Arc 4 and see if I have some more constructive thoughts here.)
I did like the various people Kekoa interacts with, even if they more question his ideals rather than challenge them (to the point that he changes in a major way). Florges and drifloon are both really fun; there’s something deeply pokefic-core about a supernatural revolutionary symbol. Kekoa’s struggle has often been one about heritage and home, so for him to run into forces older than him and have to hear what they have to say adds another dimension on that struggle. For them both to find him questionably worthy is also a lot of fun. I liked the somberness of drifloon just showing up and agreeing to show him the way to the graveyard; that felt like a really magical, weighty kind of scene that only happens in whacky fantasy and I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the alternate take on why drifloon is bad, or why orphan kids might actually want a drifloon–and it makes sense for Plumeria to be deeply affronted by the idea that someone else is just going to show up and take you from your shitty life, since everyone who’s showed up for her seems to have only made it worse. Flying-type specialists + that one rock who we decided not to sell into slavery, let’s go.
The florges chapter is delightfully creepy and also weighty, though for different reasons. Like with Cuicatl, Kekoa also has to confront the idea that his actions with V-Star are going to cause him harm; his conflict is more centered around whether the ends justify the means, as he believes his actions are for the good of Alola rather than for his own personal gain. Likewise though I find his conflict more sympathetic, probably because the antagonists/alternatives that Kekoa faces–impoverishment, powerlessness, cultural erasure, and colonialism–feel much larger than this own personal struggles. Even if Kekoa also stands to benefit from his very possible goal of ending capitalism and colonialism, it’s a lot easier to find this desire selfless, and as a result a lot easier to view him as conflicted rather than a guy actively participating in trafficking people for use or for murder, which is also something he’s doing.
Plumeria and Kanoa also provided nice, conflicting voices for Kekoa’s struggle. Fire/blood vs the establishment and all that. What I liked the most between all of them (Plumeria, Kanoa, and also Florges) is that none of them approve of Kekoa’s actions and all of them think his arguments are incoherent. Based. In trying not to pick a side he’s also picking a side, and he’s being pretty loud for someone who’s trying to grind exp on the sidelines lol. I found those bits of conflict the most interesting for him, even if he doesn’t change his mind based on anything yet–he’s trying and failing so hard to figure out what the proper course of action is, and in all of his gripes about how alienated and choiceless he feels, he’s burning most of his bridges (besides extremism. Extremism is always here for u kekoa).
I really liked the restaurant scene at the end of 3.19. Lyra, especially non-antagonistic Lyra, is a really good addition to the group dynamic in the absence of Gen imo. She still provides a lot of the main conflicts that Gen did–she’s fundamentally biased/bigoted against one of the main cast (though Cuicatl/psychics this time instead of Kekoa), she’s very serene about her statements that are actually hurling grenades into dumpsterfires, and she’s genuinely earnest that she wants to help. The dinner bit was a nice bow on all of that, and I think having the anniversary of Hoenn’s massive ecological collapse/Kekoa’s origin story right around the ending of Alola’s crisis is a nice way to show how the world sort of rolls on through a litany of disasters. I also liked how Lyra’s shown to have her own conflicts about the Hoenn events, even if she’s functionally far away–that kind of guilt for feeling bad about a thing that happened, and feeling its loss while being well aware that a whole lot of people felt that loss a whole lot more, felt very quiet and realistic. It’s a nice little cap on Kekoa’s arc, and also it’s great to establish both how other people are trying to extend him laurel branches and how much he’s about to throw those into the dumpsterfire with the rest.
Honestly for a dude in his pokethics route, and for a dude who loves feeling self-righteous about things, I feel like this would’ve been something he did way earlier. There’s a ton of non-pokemon options for meat, many of which he already eats in the fic. I feel like the natural progression of recognizing pokemon personhood puts not eating them long before asking if they like their nicknames or are happy with you–cannibalism was frowned upon long before slavery, bacon is delicious but what kind of monster would eat a puppy, sorta thing.
Genesis
Genesis has a lot of really definitive quotes in her chapters. All of them make me feel terrible.
Admittedly I found myself really appreciating how awfully you made her behave towards everyone in the early chapters–I thought it was realistic then too, but now that she’s twisting as hard as she can to justify backsliding on the hard-earned character development, it really feels so much worse. There’s a lot more tension because we’re aware of how much more she has to lose, what kind of a person she stands to become. I was really impressed by how tense these chapters felt; I didn’t really know what to expect from what’s basically a modernized princess locked in a tower section, but there’s a lot of urgency and stakes even if people only really stay in one place. I think you also do a wonderfully gross job of juggling how hurt/comfort the Gages are; they’re actively abusing their daughter and are also actively planning to even more abuse their daughter, but they also shower her with praise, talk about how they’re looking forward to what a wonderful lady she’s going to become, how surprised they are at how strong she’s become on her journey. The talk with her dad where she gets Oliver really drove that grossness in for me–it’s less that I needed to be convinced that her parents think this is for her own good (I do not care, though I also understand why some readers would benefit from this), and more that I needed to be convinced what Gen thought she stood to gain, since she’s spent a lot of her bigoted time being on the road, away from her parents, and learning/growing. And I thought that second bit landed quite nicely.
Likewise, I think couching her downtime in terms of childhood fantasies, and also emphasizing how childish her pokemon nicknames and how much she just wants to curl up in a bed of stuffed animals, was a really effective move. It’s easy to get wrapped up in Kekoa and Cuicatl’s narratives that they’re definitely going to overthrow the system and buy a hydra, and uncritically I can believe them, and also forget that they’re very smol teenagers. Both in terms of efficacy and emotional capability. So to have Gen locked in her room like a child and craving for little more than to hug her smelly leafeon is a really effective way to ground things. I also liked the physical/mental journey parallels–Gen’s gotten stronger on the road, the books don’t feel as heavy any more, the bigotry isn’t rooted quite so deep. Likewise I found it very fitting that her fantasy involves her being an important warrior, and yet at the core of her fantasy backstory is being betrayed and failing everyone else. The being betrayed bit feels old and the failing everyone else feels new, which I found fitting. I liked the sense of time passing here–it’s hard to do that in fic, especially in one that’s simultaneously really long and also really narrowly-focused–Gen returning to her childhood fantasies and wanting them deeply, while finding that they don’t quite fit, really conveys the growth she’s experienced on the road.
And this lovely dilemma of personhood and growth matters approximately zero in a world where psychic-powered conversion therapy exists. It’s so gross and yet such a “sigh but of course they would” moment, both in the sense that the Gages immediately seize on the opportunity, that this kind of practice exists in the first place, and that only the most truly abhorrent people would do it. It’s so fucking vile to watch.
Pixie
Honestly, most of what I wanted to type here I’d already found myself saying about Gen. I’m sure this is not at all intentional and also a sign of really good things to come.
I really like the idea of the mountain, this ideal homeland you can’t return to. In a fic that’s undeniably inspired by modern american events I think that’s deeply intentional. More on this in Arc 5 undoubtedly.
Likewise I found myself sold more on the ancestor stories as time progressed. In the early chapters they feel a bit like filler–Pixie as a character inherently has a lot less agency than the main human cast, so her POV often feels like she’s got to monologue a lot more to make up for it, especially in the stories–but I think the mother’s breath and green-eyes stories in particular feel a lot more linked to Pixie’s conflict/agency. It’s the kind of thing that only really happens once she has conflict, so I don’t have good advice for how to change things pre-Kalani rn. I really liked the added dimension of xeno–Pixie can tell these stories, and Cuicatl can listen as diligently as she wants, but ultimately the weird hobo ninetales is probably on to something when he says that humans
And on the question of home, I do think it’s telling in the types of comfort that Cuicatl and Pixie give each other, and how they react. Pixie receives nice-to-haves, pets/checking for injuries that she explicitly doesn’t have and just likes because she likes being pet, blood popsickles that make her feel like she’s actually hunting for real. Cuicatl receives what’s borderline on needs, therapy that keeps her from completely spiraling, a shoulder to cry on/sob into. And it’s not like Pixie is Fine and emotionally able to give this kind of support–she’s neither, both in the sense that she’s actually really emotionally devastated and also finds human sorrow borderline incomprehensible. And it’s also not like Cuicatl is actively a bad trainer, both by the scale presented in-universe and from some sort of vague generalized fanfiction scale of morality–she’s trying, and definitely trying a lot harder than most. And-and, what Pixie wants most of all right now is really toxic and unattainable, so it’s not like anyone is going to give her that kind of closure, even the best mom ever. But part of what made Kalani such an interesting antagonist to me, and why Pixie’s chapters are so fun to read, is that rn the answer to “can Cuicatl give Pixie a good home?” feels almost like … no. Which is kind of devastating to admit.
And on some levels I think it really all goes back to the mountain. There’s no limitless growth and no idealized place where everyone gets exactly what they want. There’s no perfect family. There’s just what you have right now, and what you stand to lose.
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Worldbuilding continues to be on-point. Some misc things I really enjoyed that didn’t end up in any of the major headers–Hala’s obstinate refusal to recognize wrongdoing, Tapu Koko’s takes on modern warfare constituting being anggy at big companies, everyone flopping around on the ice, that small trial captain really digging her hole super deep, hivemind metagross vs Tapu Bulu, castform as a vital part of post-apocalyptic life. Odd gripes and personal inability to maintain a consistent review schedule aside, I think this fic is really something special, and I’m impressed and grateful that you continue to hammer away at it so much. See you in Arc 6. Er, 4 and 5 first, but eventually.
