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Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
It's been 3000 years, but I am finally here for chapter 2! 🎉

She signed furiously at him, trying to explain that a morph should see someone like them when they wake up, that she could help, that she could better put the new morph at ease, but his face maintained blank incomprehension, and he put a hand to a pokéball at his waist. She made a sign with one finger that he’d definitely understand, and stormed away.
I love how quickly and strongly this conveys Dusk's personality to us.

“O-kay. Yes. ‘Gifts.’ Let’s do gifts.” Dusk put her claws to her chin and thought for a moment. “What is her name, Al-i-sha?”

“Oh, I’m not telling,” Alisha teased. “I mean for one, don’t you remember what I told you when you woke up? You should have the opportunity to choose a new name to go with your new identity. I'll give this one the same choice when she’s conscious. Once she chooses, then you'll get to know.”
I am always here for fun with names. Birth name, chosen name, human name, sign name, naaaameesssss.

She tried to splay her fingers, and they twitched in front of her, useless. Out of her control. She tried yanking out the tube and found she had neither the strength nor the pain tolerance.

What if… Could she get up? What if she couldn’t move? She needed to be upright. Now.
Salem nooo. Stop it, ackk. This entire scene is viscerally painful, I just want her to rest. ;-;

“Sorry, Kitten. Even bipeds take a few days before they can hope to walk around. You need rest!”

Her tail repeatedly thumped the bed in quiet anger. [Walk. I want to walk. I can.]

“No way.”

She yowled, signed. [I will walk.]

“Not now, Salem–”

[Now!] She hissed as she signed, showing off her fangs.
Oh my godddd she's so impatient. I want to bury her under a million blankets and make her stay put.

She discovered ‘red’ from the magazine by pointing at a man’s clothes and being patiently answered by the nurse. Red. It had always been there, at least for humans. Now she could actually see it, really see it, instead of perceiving it as identical to orange, brown, even some purples.
I love how you acknowledge the sudden shift to tricolor vision!

The thought was strange, that her eyes were different now. Forever. She decided she was okay with that. She chose this. She wouldn't regret it.
She chose this. She wouldn't regret it. I love how this is worded almost as if she's deliberately committed to refusing to regret it. It's so LC-core.

Salem wouldn’t have paid the thing any attention, but it made a pleasant ‘clink’ when tapped with a claw, and it reflected light as a tiny dancing spot on the walls. Making the little dot of light swim around the room provided considerable entertainment.
Human cats can play laser pointer with themselves. >:D

“This is tay-king so long,” she complained to Jo during one session, hating her tongue for every mangled syllable. She lisped a little if she didn’t concentrate, she drawled half her vowels, and she still paused awkwardly on difficult syllables. It was a wonder Jo understood what she was saying without sign. “Wuh-enn will I speak fast-er?”

“Salem,” said Jo with a smile, “it’s only been two weeks. Take it steady, now.”
A great portrayal of the feeling of wanting to force a skill to develop on sheer willpower alone.

Any time her mind went unoccupied, it was like she was back there, with Laura gone, waiting.

Well, Salem might not be able to see Laura here, and (she realised with a crushing feeling around her chest) she might never be able to again, but there were plenty of other humans in this place, and they were willing to tend to her.
Really like how you're setting up Laura as important this early.

“I know. I know you feel that way. I’m asking you to be gentle with yourself. To take it steady.”

“I will try.”

Salem decided not to ‘take it steady.’
As I'm sure you're aware, this is my favorite type of comedic timing.

Taylor, tale, lore, tayyy-lorrr,” she trilled, playing with the syllables and signing a needle and thread motion as she did.
Putting a pin in this for when you read Animorphs

Cinnamon buns. Bun-zuh. Bunnnzzzz.

[Hello, welcome,] signed Dusk, grinning.

[Hello,] replied the cat. [Are you a friend?] Then, hesitantly, “Are you… a friend?”
Help, this is heckin adorable.


Post chapter 3, ya nerd
 
Chapter 3: First Impressions

unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Author's Note:

At long last, an update. This one has been near-complete for a long time, pending some difficult edits, but finally it's ready. The good news is that so is Chapter 4, which should be up very soon. As always, I appreciate any and all feedback!

69de355bcfa98437afe41e9784ece800bf32a314.jpg


Chapter 3

First Impressions

Salem drank it in, all the while staring at the morphs inside. Each one a mystery. Each one an opportunity and a risk.

The room was larger than the offices and bedroom Salem was used to, but felt much smaller with a dozen or more morphs inside. Just standing by the door, their distinctive scent – at once pokémon and human – overpowered her. She couldn't help but stare, trying to take in every detail and identify every species. Round tables with varying numbers of chairs – and occupants – beside each one, and a desk at the near end of the room. Morphs talking among themselves; morphs alone. They all wore the uniform, they all had a human's upright body plan, and they all had fingered hands. Just like her.

"Don't panic," said Taylor, kindly. "I know it's another big change, but you've already been through the biggest one, right?"

That was true. It had been hard, though. This might be hard, too.

"This is the main seminar room," he continued. "You can stick around here for a bit, then maybe you'll want to see the next room along. That's the morph common room, and it's where you should go if you aren't sure where to be. It's for morphs to meet and spend time together casually. Here is one place where morphs can learn as a group. Alright, are you ready to go through?"

She nodded and stepped forward, feeling more eyes on her than she actually saw. A lizard, half-asleep, with burnt-orange and black scales and a throat that bristled with spikes. Maybe a heliolisk, or possibly a really weird dragon-type… A birdlike morph with strikingly metallic plumage stared at her from one table. She stared back, but couldn't hold their gaze. A morph with leathery wings bunched beneath their arms waved to her. She thought to wave back, but hesitated too long, and her arm stayed at her side.

"You can go ahead and sit anywhere, Salem," Taylor said to her, quietly. "The teacher will be along soon. I'm sure someone will make introductions for you."

She looked around. Most tables had one or more free spots left, and there was even an empty one. Should she pick randomly? Or study the seated morphs in a hurry to make a judgment? Maybe just sit with the one who waved. No, they were talking to their neighbour now, they'd clearly lost interest. Her hands made tight fists as she looked from face to unfamiliar face.

A white-furred hybrid, alone at her table, froze her anxious searching by making direct eye contact. Blood-red feather behind one ear, golden gem centred on the forehead... A sneasel, she guessed. For a moment, Salem's hackles started to rise, but then the sneasel winked at her. Salem closed one eye and opened it again. Definitely not a proper wink. She'd better practice. The sneasel beckoned her by signing [come here] with a pair of long claws. Something Alisha had told her about 'your type' made her wonder if it was correct to sit with other dark-types.

She searched the room for groups of morphs, guessed their types – there was one table with three morphs she thought looked like psychics, but elsewhere there was a rock-type with a grass-type, and a water-type with a fighting-type. She wasn't sure what she'd expected – she was used to seeing like-types together in the teams of type specialists on TV. But this wasn't television. It was a room full of beings like her.

[Come here!] The sneasel was exaggerating the gesture now.

Taylor gave her a gentle nudge, so Salem approached the winking morph and carefully steadied herself with a hand on the table to sit down. The sneasel pulled her chair out for her, and she signed [thanks] when she took it. Taylor gave her a little wave from the door and left.

[Hello, welcome,] signed the other morph, grinning like a human who had grown up doing it. Her smile was full of sharp points.

[Hello,] replied Salem, [are you a friend?] She added in Galarish, "Are you . . . a friend?"

The toothed grin got bigger.

"Yeah," she said. "I'd like to be, anyway. You got a name?"

Salem had already decided to keep her name, but she hadn't considered what other morphs might think of it. After a moment's panic, she replied: "Salem."

"Salem, huh? Nice to meet you, Salem. I'm Dusk."

Dusk made a sign a little like the one for [sundown]. That must be [Dusk], then.

"I'm a sneasel," she continued, the -'morph' part left unsaid. "I guess you're a purrloin, maybe? Yeah. I saw you freaking out and wanted to help. We can be friends, but it's okay if you sit somewhere else next time. I'll even help you pick." Dusk smirked a little at Salem's extended silent stare. "Hey. You talking much yet?"

Salem swallowed, her throat seeming to dry up. "Uh, yes?" she ventured.

"Any bigger words than that?" asked Dusk, leaning her cheek against her clawed hand and maintaining her fanged smile.

"Encyclopedia," said Salem, without thinking.

Dusk burst into laughter at that; a full, eyes-closed, wheezing laugh. For a moment, Salem felt like she was interacting with a human and not another former pokémon. She glanced around to check if this was drawing any attention from the dozen other morphs present. Not really. Good. Without her meaning for it to happen, her mouth pulled at the corners into a smile.

"Okay, that's a good word," said Dusk, when she was done. "I don't know that word! I also don't know this word, 'Salem'. Does it have a sign?"

"I don't think so?" Salem said, and signed out [s-a-l-e-m] as quickly as she could. It wasn't the same as having a single sign for her name, though. What had Laura used…? Oh, yes. "My human used to sign [kitten] as a nickname. Do you understand?"

"They signed [cat]?" asked Dusk, frowning.

"No." [Kitten. Like this. Kitten.]

[Kitten?]

"Yes!"

"I don't like that," said Dusk, her grin faltering. "You're not a child."

"Not a child," Salem agreed. But her tail bristled a little all the same at Dusk's disapproval of Laura.

"It's okay. You'll pick up a sign-name soon enough."

Salem's tail shot up. "Ah, I have one!" she blurted. "Pickpocket!" [Pickpocket!]

Dusk's grin came back twice as wide, and she copied the sign with ease.

"What does this mean?"

Salem tried explaining, with some difficulty, what a pickpocket was. Eventually she settled on 'sneaky thief', to Dusk's delight.

"Nice. So, you were trained?" asked the sneasel.

"Trained. No, I was not trained."

"You gotta stop being my echo," said Dusk, making a face. "Anyway, I was wild. Used to live up in the Alban tundra. I'm telling you now in case you don't like wild 'mon. Some trained – I mean, some 'mon that lived with humans are like that."

Echo? Oh. Of course. Salem would have to try not to copy Dusk's words out loud. She shook her head. "I'm interested in your wild. How did you become here?"

She knew she'd said something incorrect the moment the words left her mouth, from how Dusk's smile curled at the faulty phrasing. Yet, her face did not burn and she did not need to look away. It seemed funny, somehow. Funny. That wasn't a totally new concept, but it was becoming familiar faster than she'd expected. She laughed. It was a chattering, high-pitched sound which she cut off immediately with a strangled noise.

The grin again. "I'll tell you later. Right now is a good time to tell you what you need to know about everyone else here."

Salem nodded. She bit down on the urge to echo Dusk's words and said, "Okay. I'm listening."

Dusk leaned back in her seat and nodded at the starkly-coloured bird. She looked back. Salem expected her head to bob like a pidove's, but she held it still, like a human.

"You see the bird? Steel-type bird, looking angry? She is a corviknight. She is called 'Veracity'. She is sharp. I mean sharp, because she can cut you with her wings, but also her words, they are 'sharp'. All you need to know about her is she thinks she's the boss. The boss bird, maybe."

Salem nodded, mouthing 'boss bird' wordlessly. She listened carefully, clutching at the information, but attentive also to the cadence of Dusk's voice. This was only the second time she'd heard another morph speak at all, and Dusk was speaking at length. Her phrasing, her timbre, her rhythm, were all unlike that of humans, and it was pleasant in the manner of a new toy, or petting from a stranger. Maybe 'fascinating', more than pleasant?

Dusk continued, turning to look over her shoulder, and put her paw on Salem's chair back as she did so.

"That one there is Eliza. No, not the one with scales. The one who looks most human? Dark green hair, very pale skin? She is a gallade. She thinks she was almost human even before the Change and she is always trying to make a proof of it. Like it matters."

The sneasel didn't seem to tire from talking, but barrelled on as if in a hurry. She commented on each morph in the room in turn, giving Salem a basic description. Salem repeated the key words in her head over and over, determined not to have to ask again.

The winged mammal was a noivern, called Nox. Dusk liked him, as he never did anything without thinking, which she respected. The lizard with the spiked throat was Contrivance, and he was a heliolisk. Often quiet, the throat-spikes pumped up if you startled him, which Dusk promised was tremendously entertaining. Salem would have to try that. A lone eevee didn't have a name at all. Dusk didn't know him well; he was another new arrival. There were others still, but Dusk paused her stream as one ear twitched.

"Look up now," she said, "teacher is coming."

A tall figure, made taller by a dark horn rising from one side of their head, passed through the doorway. They and Taylor nodded to each other as the newcomer brushed by him. Beside that curved horn, a sandy mane of long hair, a charcoal-furred face, and a distinct muzzle all made it clear: the teacher was no human. The teacher was a pokémorph. Morphs could teach…?

Salem could read the expression on his face somewhat (scowling, but only slightly), guess his sex from sight (male), and make a note of the clothing he wore. Black leather jacket, chequered shirt with the top three buttons undone, Perihelion badge at an angle. That all meant 'informal'. Very informal. His red eyes settled on Salem for half a second as he strode to the front of the room.

"I see some new faces," said the morph, in a quiet growl. "Today I am your communications tutor. On other days, I will be your combat instructor. You call me Whiskey to each other, and Sir to my face. I am here to help you make yourself understood, and to understand others. If you work hard to do that, I will be pleased. If you are not interested in that, I am not interested in you."

Dusk nudged Salem in the side. "This guy's my best friend," she said, and Salem knew she was joking from the tone.

Whiskey's eyes flicked to Dusk, but he didn't comment. He pulled up a chair for himself at the desk up front, and picked up a pen.

"Class begins in two minutes," he growled. "If you're ready to learn, be here when that time is up. If not, there's space for you elsewhere."

Salem fidgeted with her claws. Was she ready? She'd thought so, but she wanted to keep talking to Dusk…

At this point, Taylor approached, his gentle smile familiar enough to soothe. "I hope this was interesting for you, Salem!" he said, brightly. "Absol Whiskey is probably not the best first-time seminar tutor for you, though. Would you like to come with me again now? I can give you that tour of the facility, if you like."

Salem glanced at Dusk. She'd not even been in the company of other morphs for minutes. She shook her head and signed. [No, thank you. It is still interesting here.]

Taylor made a particular face: mouth pulled over to one side, head tilted the other way.

"Come on, Salem. Class is about to start. You're not even scheduled to join just yet, you've not had time to properly acclimatise."

"No, please. It's interesting."

"Are you sure you won't… Salem, I'm worried you'll have a difficult time, with so many new stimuli at once. It might make learning harder, for you and the other morphs…"

"No! I'll be okay. Very okay. I want to see other morphs."

Taylor was about to speak again when Dusk interrupted him.

"It's alright, chief," she said. "Why don't I look after her? I'm ahead in comms, so I don't need to be here. I can give the same tour you can give, but better for being a morph. Much to learn and fix her ears on, she won't be bored. She will be fine. Yeah?"

Taylor looked inquiringly at Salem, who nodded back firmly. Yes, this would be okay. Even better than class, even, for getting to hold extended conversation with a morph.

Taylor rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe. If you're sure, Dusk... Do I need to go over the rules?"

"Nah. I got this."

"Okay. I'm trusting you. Salem is your responsibility for now."

"You got it, chief."

Taylor left, looking over his shoulder at the pair of morphs as he went.

Dusk gripped Salem's shoulder. "Alright! I'm responsible for you. You can count on me, yeah?"

"Count on you," Salem echoed, signing a small [I understand]. It was easy to believe the sneasel, with such assurance in her voice. Perhaps if Salem had boldness like her, she'd get what she wanted from humans as easily as that.

Dusk rose from her seat, and Salem rose with her, tail thrashing with anxious excitement.

"Let's start that tour," said the sneasel, all confidence and delight. "Lounge first, then we can get food. Sound good?"

It did.

The absol hybrid taking notes at the front didn't raise his eyes to look at them as they left.

XxX​

Salem peered through the door as Dusk held it open for her. It was full of morphs. Hybrids of every description sat alone, in pairs, and in groups, on comfortable-looking sofas. One at a time would be enough. If she made a mistake, it would be in front of so many… Then again, there were so many to watch and learn from. Her breathing sped up.

She flicked her tail, flexed her claws and watched the morphs, picking up what she could without gawping. No staring. No eye contact. No threat.

Two talking nearby: a peach-and-rose tabby with a pincushion tail, and a grey canine with black fur around their shoulders like a cloak. Pincushion tail meant skitty; skitty were predictable. But Salem remembered the last time she tried interacting with a dog – a rockruff whose playfulness she'd instinctively misunderstood as alarm. These morphs had no such trouble. They signed in continuous sentences, punctuated by quiet words in Galarish. One laughed. The laughter sounded almost perfectly human, but with a distinctly inhuman throatiness to it.

Further away was another bird. Their plumage was a striking red and cream and iridescent green, and a bifurcated scarlet wattle hung from their head... A male blaziken, then? It was males that were so colourful, right? This one was the brightest creature she'd ever seen, and he was transfixed by a wall-mounted television playing muted sports coverage. His beak moved slightly as if he were mouthing words to himself.

There was one morph, cross-legged on the floor, quietly reading a book Salem knew this one's species for sure: mienshao. Salem had met one of those at the shelter. This one was pure white, without banded markings. They caught Salem's eye in a glance, and smiled at her.

Salem tried to imitate the smile, on reflex. To her surprise, it was easier to copy another morph than a human. There was a trick to it, and the mienshao had figured it out. So could she.

She tried smiling at Dusk, who beamed back at her.

"This is the common room," she told her. "You can come to this place when you want to, for seeing other morphs, or just to be here. Just . . . be careful. Not every morph is as friendly as me, yeah?"

Salem nodded, trying to communicate seriousness with a tightly shut mouth and pricked ears.

"Right," said Dusk, nodding at the bird. "That's Sauce. I can't say his real name, but it's the word for a kind of sauce, so that's what I call him. It's, ah, 'suh-ree-racha' or something. He doesn't like being called Sauce, so I will never stop calling him Sauce. He's a blaziken. He . . . also thinks he is the boss bird. Maybe this is just what birds are like."

Dusk resumed her stream of information as if it had never been cut off. She described several other morphs in turn, including the mienshao, Xiaomao, an older morph who kept to herself. The last were the cat and dog pair that sat together. Dusk made a funny sound in her throat when she noticed them.

"Those two are Heather and Bramble. The skitty is Heather, the mightyena is Bramble. I always see them together, I am pretty sure they both were pets before this time, so maybe that is why? They are okay, I guess, but I don't think they want anything much. Usually morphs want a thing really bad, like Sauce over there wants to be big and important and in charge, and Eliza back in class wants everyone to act like she is a human."

Dusk looked at Salem, holding eye contact barely any distance from her face.

"What do you want, Salem?"

"What do you want?" Salem replied, surprising herself.

This earned another grin from Dusk. "I will tell you about that some other time. We have more to look at, first."

Well, Salem would just have to keep talking to Dusk until she got an answer. But for now, she listened.

Dusk pointed at each significant thing in turn as she explained them. The morphs lived here, having all gone through the same process as Salem. The television played preselected shows at certain times of day. A screen on another wall served as a digital noticeboard, updated regularly. Anyone could use the bookcase, stocked with everything from photo albums, to novels, to (precious, exciting) encyclopedias. Various doors led to the canteen, (no more breakfast in bed), other classrooms, the arena, and the dormitories, where her new bed awaited her. Someone would take her belongings over before long. (Belongings! It was still strange to own human things.) If she had questions or trouble, and Dusk wasn't around, the friendlier morphs would be happy to help, or there were always human staff at the reception who would help her out.

"Come on," said Dusk, who seemed to be somehow less tired after talking so much. "I'll show you around on our way to get lunch! Or, at least the places morphs are allowed to go. That's still a lot of places."

Lunch, huh. Good. Salem could do with some food.

XxX​

Salem had found the common room well-populated. The canteen held easily four times the number of morphs and humans present, and the cumulative noise of each spoken word, each clink of fork against plate, each hum of human technology, made a cacophonous attack on her ears. Plus she'd been walking around a building larger than she could get her head around for a while now, as Dusk taught her about places inside it that she'd already forgotten. She flattened her ears and crouched, trying to be lower to the ground than she could stoop to.

"Hey, it's okay," said Dusk, firmly. "You'll learn to be okay in this much noise. I say this… I didn't have such a problem, because in my old life I had dozens in my family, but I still understand. It is very new, very strange. Right?"

"Right," muttered Salem, nodding.

The canteen entrance faced rows of long tables with benches on each side, many of them taken up by morph occupants. A series of counters to the left – staffed by a human, and also by a pachirisu-morph, to Salem's delight – bore not only food, but a stack of trays, plates and so on. Dusk led her along to these, took up a tray, and gave a casual, confident demonstration of asking the human server – with emphasis – for meatballs, please.

Salem followed suit, her claws flexing into her palm as she did. "Meat-balls, pluh-ease."

Somehow, any kind of emotional reaction at all would have been less surprising than the way the young man in front of her dished out the requested food with a plain "here you go".

It smelled fantastic.

Suppressing the urge to start eating it while stood there in front of the human, she followed Dusk as she proceeded to the next counter, where she exchanged a few sharp bursts of speech and sign with the bushy-tailed morph stood there. Dusk laughed; the other morph smiled. Then they served up a small bowl of pale liquid and a beaker of water for them both.

Dusk took Salem to an unoccupied table and sat across from her. Her face beamed, and the gemstone set into her head caught the overhead lighting.

"More exciting food than you got in recovery, yeah?" asked Dusk. "One human thing at a time. This is next!"

Salem nodded, and stared at her plate. Humans used tools to eat. Was she supposed to do that?

Dusk answered her by spearing a meatball with one claw and holding it up between them. "Do as you like," she said, grinning. Then she ate it.

Salem followed suit.

The meatballs were warm.

"Not bad, right?"

She nodded, barely looking up from her food. It was not bad at all. The pale liquid turned out to be some kind of soup, which she lapped at, experimentally at first, then quite a lot more. It wasn't bad, either!

"Still hungry," said Salem, awkwardly.

"Makes sense. Long day! Want to get some more?" asked Dusk, flashing that fang of hers again.

"More?"

Salem tore into her seconds with as much gusto as the first serving. Dusk suggested other options to try, but she wanted the meatballs. They were the best food that existed, so why would she try anything else?

Dusk did most of the talking. No change there. Salem listened, ate her seconds, and mouthed the occasional word to try it out, and save for later. The sneasel talked about life in this place in a way similar to how Laura used to talk about college – excited, but a little forced. Dusk explained combat training with more relish than the rest. Battling... Salem had the opportunity as a kitten to get into some illicit playground scuffles, and more recently she would sometimes bully the snom outside or scrap with feral cat pokémon, but real fights were something she saw on TV. Strange that she should finally fight battles of her own in this place, with no particular human to be her trainer and companion.

At one point, Dusk simply flowed through a description of her favourite battle she'd spectated, with Salem listening, ears perked, the whole time. Dusk's eyes were bright and her feather quivering as she described the attacks involved with illustrative gestures and a few sound effects. Eventually she noticed Salem staring.

"Shit, sorry, I got excited," she blurted.

Salem didn't mind one bit.

"I like to listen to this," she said.

"Oh," said Dusk. "Okay, then." She had a different kind of grin, now. Something about the eyes. Brighter.

The conversation continued comfortably with Dusk doing most of the talking and Salem making remarks to keep the sneasel's momentum up. There was much to learn – about Perihelion, but also about Dusk. For instance, her feather vibrated excitedly whenever Salem learnt a new word from her. Salem liked that.

After a while, Dusk stood. Salem stood too, automatically, but Dusk waved her down.

"Nah, stay here. I'll be right back."

Salem nodded, and sat back down to wait. She would look around at the morphs in the canteen and listen to their sounds, maybe even learn their scents. After a minute of this, she smelled metal.

Salem looked around her for the source of such a strong metallic scent. She soon found it. Approaching her from behind was a pokémorph she recognised: the corviknight, bristling with feathers that may as well have been knives. 'Veracity'.

The bird was tall, even for one of the morphs who had been large in their old life. Although she'd shrunk from her former towering height as a full pokémon, she would come up to a full head above many morphs, and Salem felt tiny in her presence. Dark feathers around her shoulders came up past her neck, and gave off a metallic glint in the light. Her legs, still bird-like, ended in sharp talons that made a sharp 'kla-klack, kla-klack', with every step. The matte-black feathers covering her body clinked and scraped against each-other like a fistful of knives. Her beaked face managed, somehow, to produce a more severe scowl than any Salem had yet seen.

Veracity fixed her eyes on Salem intently. Salem pressed her claws against her palms. Claws could draw blood, but she doubted hers were sharp enough to cut metal feathers. And she hadn't used real attacks since she was small. If the bird started a fight, she'd have no choice but to run. Why was she so afraid of that? It wasn't just that the corviknight was a potential threat, Salem's appetite had vanished, completely. She glanced back at her plate, feeling sick.

The corviknight loomed even at a generous distance, and her eyes, a startling blue, seemed to be little fires of intellect in the darkness of her face.

"I am Veracity," she said, in a voice that sounded like it ought to have sharp edges, were it visible. "Tell me of yourself." Her voice was strained, almost a croak, and put Salem in mind of Laura's cautious footsteps around the creaky patch of the landing floor when sneaking downstairs late at night.

Tell me of yourself? Salem was a new morph, she didn't know herself. She didn't have words to answer that. And anyway, how could anyone answer something like that? Even if they had all the words they could want?

"…My name . . . is Salem," she replied, slowly. "I . . . was purrloin before now." It didn't seem appropriate to say 'hello' or make conversation.

"Does your name have meaning?" came Veracity's next question, the sharp intonation barely changing.

[I don't know the answer,] she signed. "Maybe."

Veracity barely considered her reply before she continued: "A human word. A species. This is not who you are. Tell me of yourself."

"I am a good learner," said Salem, thinking fast. "I have a lot of energy. I am always 'trying it on'."

She didn't know what that last one meant, exactly, but a human tutor had said it of her. Perhaps it would satisfy Veracity. Veracity peered at her with her beak slightly ajar.

"You were a pet," said the corviknight. It wasn't a question. No inflection at the end – just hard sounds and a harder stare.

Salem struggled for the right words. [Yes, but more than just that,] she signed, frustrated with her tongue. [I always intended to become a trainer's pokémon.] "We were going to travel together."

"You did not actually travel together."

"No, but..." Again, the short, hard words meant more than her own. [I do not believe she meant to let me down.]

"You may believe that. Yet, you did not travel together."

"No."

Maybe if she stared back into Veracity's eyes long enough, unblinking, that would be acceptable to the corviknight, and she would leave Salem alone.

"Your companion gave you reason to dream of a future, then failed to provide that future."

Salem kept her gaze steady. There was a growing feeling of tightness in her jaw.

"Your companion is a source of suffering for you," continued the corviknight. "Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?"

Salem's words melted in her head before she could say them – for every thought she had, she anticipated a cutting new statement from Veracity. She stared, growing painfully aware of her own silence.

"No remark," observed the towering bird. "And you are loyal to a human who has hurt you. Perhaps you will not have the strength for what is coming. Yet, there is still time to prove otherwise."

No remark. All Salem could do was stare up at those piercing blue eyes and the sharp-edged metal covering the unfamiliar morph's body. Every feather looked like it could cut to the bone.

Veracity narrowed her eyes. "Why are you here, Salem?"

A girl with dark hair, walking to a car. Speaking Galarish in her dreams. A cold night, sheltering from rain beneath a bench.

"I…"

"Something wrong, bird?"

Dusk! That was Dusk's voice! Salem remained transfixed on Veracity, but her ears swivelled to hear the sneasel's presence.

"There might be," said Veracity, turning to face the same way, "but it will not be solved by your involvement."

Salem finally looked round to see Dusk baring her teeth. Without a smile, her muzzle was all sharp points and predators' intent. Veracity didn't so much as frown. Nothing changed about her cold expression.

"I have done nothing wrong," said Veracity, coolly. "Your anger reveals a flaw in yourself. Go peacefully."

Dusk's eyes narrowed, and her lip curled further, revealing yet more vicious points. "Is that what you think?" she growled.

"I suspect you do not care what I think. I should pay little attention to what you think, in return," said Veracity, before returning her stare to Salem. "I value truth, and strength. Your companion here is a liar, and she is weak. Be truthful, and be strong, and I will be pleased to breathe the same air as you."

Salem swallowed hard. Veracity opened her beak again, but was interrupted by a chill scraping of claw-on-claw from Dusk. The sneasel's claws gleamed with energy; was Dusk using some kind of attack…?

"That's enough," snapped Dusk. "You've said enough words. We won't hear more of them."

"Do you intend to fight me if I choose not to comply?" asked Veracity, with almost no interest at all. "You would lose. Quite badly."

"Doesn't matter," hissed Dusk. "You'd be punished either way."

Veracity's beak parted slightly, and she tilted her head. "Yes," she said. "This is true."

And then she left, as abruptly as she'd arrived, claws clacking on the tiled floor.

There was a long pause as Salem watched the departing morph, and Dusk watched Salem, ear-feather twitching slightly, claws losing their gleam. Dusk's attention lifted the weight of dread in Salem's stomach; the unnerving sense of pressure left her shoulders.

"Good riddance," said Dusk, quietly.

"Will I see her more times?" asked Salem, daring to raise her voice above a whisper.

"If you both get put on the same unit," Dusk growled. Her expression dropped for a moment, then she redoubled her smile. "Who cares? We have nothing to worry about from the bird. It's fine."

Salem nodded vigorously, as if agreeing harder would make it more likely that Dusk was right, and the corviknight would leave her alone.

"She just likes to get under skin," said Dusk, rolling her eyes, dramatically. She'd probably picked that motion up from Alisha. Salem wasn't the only mimic around, then.

"I don't know what I did wrong," said Salem, quietly.

"Who says you did anything wrong?" replied Dusk, jabbing a claw lightly into Salem's side.

"But—"

"I say she's wrong! Not you," insisted Dusk, jabbing her again for emphasis.

Salem's face twisted up for a moment as she considered this. If other people were wrong, then she was right. That was good.

It also meant that being right didn't mean getting what you wanted. Or being happy. Or being safe.

And that was bad.

"Okay," she said, still uncertain.

"Come on," said Dusk, the grin hardly faltering. "Let's become away from here. I'll show you the arena! It's about time you learnt to throw a good attack. Help you feel better if you see her again, yeah?"

Salem pictured her own claws glowing like Dusk's had. She pictured them rending through Veracity's steel feathers.

"Yeah. Let's do that, please."

XxX​

Dusk had saved the 'Colosseum' for later in the tour, it seemed. A massive underground space where morphs could battle without worrying about collateral damage. Six-sided, large enough to host half a dozen simultaneous duels, and apparently available to first comers when not scheduled for lessons or tests.

Dusk led her onto a mezzanine that overlooked the arena. The platform was clear glass, and stretched the full perimeter of the Colosseum, with stands to seat a small complement of onlookers spaced evenly around it. A spot along the metal railing at the edge bore a control panel, which Dusk claimed immediately. Sat at the foot of the stands, Salem could see the battle below at a perfect vantage through the clear platform. Two morphs were battling each other in what amounted to a small forest, slinging ranged attacks at each other and ducking behind cover, with occasional flashes of other moves firing off. As she watched, one morph's body glowed for a moment, and a barrier of light appeared between them and their opponent.

"You might prefer ranged fighting more than me," said Dusk, offhandedly, leaning forward over the safety rail. "Maybe watch these guys. See how they do it."

"There's no trainer?"

"Nope. Don't need a human trainer to practice. We can train each other when we aren't in class."

Salem nodded, and watched in rapt attention as the figures below exchanged short bursts of water and electricity at each other, protecting themselves with energy barriers, or by stepping behind trees and rocks. It was like watching a league match with Laura, only as it actually happened! Her breath caught as fragments of a boulder shattered clean away from the force of an energy attack.

"You can tell they aren't trying very hard," commented Dusk. "But it's fun."

Salem wondered what morphs could do with effort. What she could do.

Eventually, the fighters walked off the arena, and Dusk straightened up off the railing. "Watch this," she said, a kind of wild glee on her face. "This is really fucking cool."

Dusk moved a slider on the control panel, slammed a fist down on one of the larger buttons, and fixed her gaze on the arena floor below. Salem stepped forward to the mezzanine railing by Dusk's side and looked over. As they watched, the arena dropped, descending like an elevator, and slid sideways into the far wall. In its place, from a space below the near wall, emerged a new battleground, with new terrain. Where there had been dirt and dust and grass, there was a rising circle of snow, in drifts and tiny hillocks, with a patch of rough ice around the sides.

"Pretty great, huh?" asked Dusk, practically vibrating.

"Like home," replied Salem.

Dusk was looking for joy in Salem's face. She offered a little up in gratitude, even though seeing the white surface of the arena meant seeing Circhester just before spring, before the first snowdrops emerged, snowdrops she hadn't seen in a long time. The snow was like home, yes. Not much else . . . but it was enough.

"How do we get down there?" she asked, making her face approximate a smile.

"There are stairs," said Dusk, airily. "But we don't care about that! Watch this."

Dusk hopped up onto the railing, turned her head back at Salem with her usual fierce happiness on full display, and let go. She dropped straight down, whooping as she fell, and landed in a snowdrift with a crisp fwumch.

"Come on!" called Dusk, laughing. "Easy!"

Something unfamiliar in Salem's brain insisted that the height was dangerous, that it would hurt to fall so far. But she'd never cared about such things before she'd changed. And Dusk didn't seem to be hurt at all. She licked her lips and put a hand to the railing.

Can I use the stairs? she almost asked. But that wasn't right. Becoming more human shouldn't mean giving up the splendid convenience of dropping from a height and saving the unbearable indignity of walking places when she could leap.

"Coming," she replied. And then before she could think it over again, she climbed the railing, let go, and pushed off with her feet. Chill air filled her eyes and ears. Instinct used her tail as a rudder, working despite her altered form. The snow filled her vision.

Fwumch.

"Fucking great, huh?" said Dusk, her words a little muffled by the snow packing Salem's ears.

First Dusk's, then Salem's laughter filled the silence of the snowy arena.

"You know snowball fights?" asked Dusk, smirking.

Oh, yes. Or rather: oh no.

Dusk's very first projectile hit Salem clean in the face. Ah. A ruthless dark-type after all.

XxX​

Dusk led her to their shared dormitory with a little more swagger in her step.

"Looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, huh?"

"Seeing a lot more," murmured Salem, a tiny chirrup of a purr in her throat.

Dusk showed her in and let her look around. Salem looked closely, but how could she even judge the room? It was better than a hedge on a roadside verge. It was better than the communal space in the pokémon shelter. Was it better than her old room in the recovery wing? She couldn't say. She wandered further in, slowly, while Dusk tumbled onto one of the beds and spread her limbs in every direction.

Dusk had claimed one of two ground-level beds, each of which had another bed mounted on the wall above it. One for her and one for Dusk . . . and the others would be for other morphs, she supposed. What else was here… A desk and chair. A radio. Some rolled-up foam mats, shelves bearing cups, stationery, tiny potted plants… Behind another door, a small bathroom. She'd figured bathrooms out already, but this one had a shower. That might prove challenging. And . . . there was a single sink, with a mirror above it.

A mirror.

She needed to look at herself in it. Properly. An anticipatory thrill ran through her skin and the back of her neck flushed with a sudden heat. So far she'd caught her reflection only faintly in poorly reflective surfaces. What did she look like?

Salem stared at the reflection, hypnotised by her own face. She reached up and pressed her paws against her cheeks, pushing the fur and skin beneath around in that way Laura sometimes used to. She leaned over the sink to examine her eyes up close. The same, as far as she could tell; bright green, with slit-pupils. Whiskers intact, and fur pattern unchanged, but structure somehow just a little closer to human in proportion…

"Try the shower," came a call from the bedroom. "I promise you'll love it!"

Dusk's tone of voice did not sound sincere, as best as Salem could tell. Still… Her room had a shower. That was a peculiarity she had not anticipated. She considered simply ignoring it and grooming herself as she had always done, the normal way, but two things persuaded her otherwise. The first was sheer curiosity; she could not go without knowing what it felt like to use it, how it worked, and so on. The second was practicality. Since her morphing, she couldn't reach every part of her body any more. She had never asked anyone else to assist her with grooming before, and she wasn't going to start now. Therefore: into the shower she'd go.

"Okay," she called back, "show me how."

Once Dusk showed her how to set the temperature and pressure, and to point the shower head away from her to test it before using it on herself, she was in control. Once she had control, the shower became useful, even pleasant. After some experimentation, she found the right degrees of force and heat, and the spray became a kind of massage against her back. The way her fur stuck to her skin wasn't half as tolerable, but during Dusk's brief tutorial, she'd assured Salem it was very temporary.

Whatever human created this device had thought of everything. Combs were kept in a tray on the wall to brush out excess fur. Bottles of shampoo, too, with a scent that did not overwhelm her nose and simple instructions printed in pictographs of pokésign. Nozzles in the shower walls blew hot air on command to help dry her off. A function on the controls activated a disposal unit for shed fur, which whirred and gurgled loudly when in use. She couldn't help examining it, both while in use, and inert. The cap over the drain came away easily, revealing the mechanism: an assemblage of small, sharp metal blades, housed inside plastic casing. That module, too, came away when tugged at, and underneath was the drain proper, with a small recess.

…It would make quite the hiding place for pilfered treasures.

She replaced the mechanism, her interference now invisible, and resolved to make no mention to anyone of the cavity beneath.

Once back in the bedroom, Salem elected to take the bunk above Dusk's. She carefully eased herself up the ladder, exhausted enough to seriously consider everyone's countless exhortations to take things steady, and collapsed into her bed. 'Her' bed. It was a new concept. A good one. She hadn't had any kind of permanent bed since home, and at home it had been Laura's bed…

Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?

She sprawled out, stretching every last limb and digit, and groaned dramatically.

"What the fuck does that mean," asked Dusk, from below, in a flat tone.

"Bad," answered Salem, voice muffled by her bedclothes.

"Okay. Bad why?"

Salem pressed her face into the bedclothes, and made a noise of pure discontent. She was physically tired, and mentally tired, and this good bed that was hers and not Laura's didn't help.

"Salem?"

She needed as few words as possible to sum up the entirety of her worsening mood and how badly she didn't want to discuss it. What was one good word? One that Dusk actually knew?

"Fuck," said Salem, with feeling.

For some seconds after that, Dusk kept silent. Had she said something wrong? What could she say instead—?

A light thump and a slight vibration of the bunk indicated that Dusk had rolled out of bed and taken to the ladder. The sneasel's head appeared over the safety rail, and her fanged grin with it. The mattress shifted under the extra weight as Dusk took a seat beside Salem and patted her shoulder, coaxing her to rise from her prone sulking. She obliged, with a whining growl.

"Earlier, you were feeling great," remarked Dusk. "What changed? It's like you suddenly got all..." The sneasel didn't have the words in Galarish, so she shrugged, made a face, and signed [run away] with a disapproving flair.

"Avoidant," said Salem, smirking to herself. If she couldn't be as fluent as Dusk, she could at least make up for it with a better vocabulary.

"Okay. Whatever. Tell me what's wrong."

Ugh. First she'd have to figure out what was wrong, and then she'd have to find the words to explain it, and then she'd have to get the energy to say those words. And then Dusk would just ask a follow-up question anyway and she'd have to do it all again. It was too much. But Dusk wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and Salem didn't want to fight. No, she wanted help. She wanted Dusk's help.

"Don't know," she muttered. "Everything is too difficult."

Dusk looked aside like she was recalling something. "It's alright if you're overwhelmed," she said. "Every morph feels this early on."

That wasn't it, though…

"Every morph doesn't feel this," said Salem, carefully. "Everything about being a morph is . . . a lot. I know this. But I also feel my own feelings."

Dusk nodded, and let her figure out how to say it. Salem's throat unclenched, and her shoulders sank into the mattress.

"I'm too tired," she began, "to not feel bad about Laura."

Dusk gave Salem's shoulder a squeeze, and nodded. "Okay. Who is Laura?"

Salem stared at her fidgeting paws. "Laura was my friend," she said, quietly.

"Your human?"

Salem nodded. "We spent every day together, before. We were going to go on a journey together. But she couldn't go. She had to go somewhere else. I couldn't go with her. I want her to be okay."

Dusk tapped her claws one after the other against the wall. "Okay. I understand you care about her," she said.

"Yes. Very much."

"But what will you do? What would make you happy now?" asked the sneasel, with a little force behind the words. Just enough to show she cared, without being demanding. It was a good question.

"Want to see her," said Salem, barely loud enough to hear herself.

Dusk shrugged and made a tired sound. "Not easy to do a thing like that. No morphs here can meet anyone outside, you know. Not even sending messages; it's not allowed. But if she is very important to you, maybe you will try this anyway. What makes this human so important? Explain to me."

Salem clenched her paws. She hadn't even thought about messages, and already she'd learnt they weren't allowed. Why? As for why Laura mattered... How to explain to Dusk? Everything the sneasel said suggested a former life without humans. Even if Salem talked about family, or friends, none of Dusk's words suggested she'd understand trainers. Still, she had to try.

"We did many things together, every day, and we were happy," said Salem, quietly, focusing on getting out any helpful sentence at all. "She cared for me. Watched out for me. Made me safe. And I made her smile."

Dusk's feather shivered, and she raised a brow, but she kept listening, chiming in occasionally with tiny signs. [Sounds nice.] [That's good.]

[Very good.] "She was the only important person who is not me, for my whole life until now."

"Until now?"

"Yes. But she is still important, and always will be important."

Dusk had thoughts behind her eyes that Salem couldn't even guess at, but just the loss of her ever-present grin was clue enough that something was eating her. Whatever it was, she didn't share it.

"So, Laura, she is your family?"

Family. That wasn't something Salem thought of often. She didn't know any of her relatives. "I don't know," she said. "She is very important, though. I think… I want to see her again."

Dusk nodded, slowly. "Okay. I'll help you find her."

Salem nodded, and signed a small thanks. Dusk didn't reply, but perhaps she heard Salem's steady purring and interpreted it as gratitude.

"Get asleep," said Dusk, gently, easing herself up and off of the top bunk. "Making schemes is better when rested."

Salem said nothing, but lay on her side with one arm draped over the edge of the bed. She curled and uncurled her paw in relieved contentment until she heard the sneasel snicker quietly to herself. It was nice, to be reminded that her new friend was still nearby.

Dusk fell asleep first. Salem had always been an easy sleeper, but the inside of her skull was too noisy with thoughts. Finally, enough excitement in a day. Enough to think about. She couldn't stop. She willed the morning to come sooner, so she could explore more, begin training, talk about everything they had yet to talk about. To meet more like them.

Dusk's unconscious breathing reminded Salem of Laura's, just a little, but also of her own as it had been before. Her own breathing must be like Dusk's now, too – partway human, but not all the way. Like so many things. She didn't notice herself drifting off, being so preoccupied with arranging every new fact and feeling in her end.

The morning ambushed her without her having dreamed at all.

XxX​
 

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Alright so I am here for cat nip and read this from top to bottom on my phone mind... So my experience was a bit jumpy... So bear with me. Heres a review from chapter one to present.

The introduction feels like a novelization of the first 'mon movie if the team that did Origins had taken the helm. Gritty realistic and detailed. You could see Fuji trying and failing to steer Giovanni away from a path of madness and could feel his frustration as he was undercut by Blaine.

As for Blaine's reasons/escape plan to humanize and encourage free will of the test subjects... Ohh boy there are so many ways that could have/can fail. Brainwashing and grooming leap to mind.

Giovanni doesnt personally need to interact with the test tube cat peoples to royally mess them up. Any resource\asset can do it for him in a heartbeat. The inclusions of the accidentally made ditto were a nice touch.. Seriously if someone figures thier breeding potential and cracks iv he'll/rocket have over powered 'mon in a trice.

The next Few chapter's shift from ominous secret lab to the hospital/habitation center of the 'morphs was a bit jarring. Because superficially it seems a total opposite of the stories start point. yes theres the metamorphosis. The slide between pokemon life to the outre hybrid state. Allusions of salem's past and what not... But after the supportive environment of psychological physical and mental development of the morphs... Introduction of their biology and seemingly streamlined creation process. The doctors who seem quite humane and the setting that alternates between sterile and modern.

The cast of doctors and treatment serve both as a contrast and backdrop to the cast. Dusk who seems to be wrangling with a rebellious streak and image issues (being part sneasel that mischiefs gotta come from somewhere) and Salem whos both hard working and stubborn as all heck. Both characters are endearing and relatable. Perfectly human despite thier skewed genetics.

Theres some hinting of things to come that I have been trying to dig at and put together as I read. Galar being the predominant taught language discussion of Galar meowths the map ect that initially made me wonder if thats the region they were in. But theres other hintings as well. I dont think the morphs are quite out of the shadow of thier originator from the first chapter. That this isn't some sort of benign off shoot to giovanni's initial program.

One thing I noted skimming a few other comments was pacing complaints. Honestly I dont see the issue because PT is obscenely slow paced and the tone and tale are striving for both the focus on character and thier experience and the pacing fits the experience they are in at the moment so I don't see it as a point to detract from. Just a good fit.

Thanks for sharing.

Kasan
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
As I was collecting things to quote and then put them all here, I switched back to check on what the latest reviewed chapter was an almost lost everything but luckily I got it back. Phew.

Anyways, without further ado, the long, gloriously awaited, chapter 3!

To begin broadly at first...

Chapter 3 is really cool! it progresses cleanly from where chapter 2 left off, and goes right into the meat of things, aka Dusk/Salem. The entire chapter focuses on their day together, meeting morphs, learning about the facility, and about each other. As a whole I felt incredibly engaged. A lot is happening and it feels almost overwhelming, but in a way that we're experiencing it with Salem. The cast of characters feels very unique already, and there's a lot of depth to even small interactions.

I feel like I have a good handle on Dusk and Salem from these few chapters. Dusk's more outgoing, risk-taking and rebellious sort of nature, contrasted by Salem's bookish, quieter and 'housecat' vibes. I really love them both so much. The few side characters mentioned already feel fairly distinct, by nature of their descriptions.

The pacing of the chapter, and the story, feels quite smooth to me. I can see this is a more slow burn story, so I feel that everything in unraveling nicely, with advancements in small plot stuff, as well as subplot focused advancements. What particularly shines to me in your writing of DE is your careful, methodical attention to detail. It feels like every single word was handpicked off a proverbial tree, ever so carefully sliced, and placed on a platter just so, a feast for the senses.

Word choice, sentence structure, world building, plot reveals, and so forth. Also really capturing sensation via words.

I have quite a bit of line-by-lines:

"Any bigger words than that?" asked Dusk, leaning her cheek against her clawed hand and maintaining her fanged smile.

"Encyclopedia," said Salem, without thinking.
You already know I love this and I think its absolutely adorable. :3
Also i picture Dusk's laugh sounding a bit like Catra's.

"I don't like that," said Dusk, her grin faltering. "You're not a child."

"Not a child," Salem agreed. But her tail bristled a little all the same at Dusk's disapproval of Laura.
I love how you hint towards Salem's displeasure here, as well as maybe hint at a bigger conflict that will probably arise, I wonder...

The boss bird, maybe."

Salem nodded, mouthing 'boss bird' wordlessly.
Sadly the only thing that came to mind here was 'Boss baby' :{. lol

"Today I am your communications tutor. On other days, I will be your combat instructor. You call me Whiskey to each other, and Sir to my face. I am here to help you make yourself understood, and to understand others. If you work hard to do that, I will be pleased. If you are not interested in that, I am not interested in you."
I already love him so much. So cool. Mad respect.

He doesn't like being called Sauce, so I will never stop calling him Sauce.
This. This is Dusk in a sentence.

to (precious, exciting) encyclopedias.
They were the best food that existed, so why would she try anything else?
awww Salem is too precious. These little moments are so charming and endearing.

"I like to listen to this," she said.

"Oh," said Dusk. "Okay, then." She had a different kind of grin, now. Something about the eyes. Brighter.
THIS is a really important line I think. I get the feeling Dusk has lots of friends, but also no friends. Dusk is passionate and loves talking and gets wrapped up in stuff and I get the feeling she wanted to be wanted. I also think that she isn't super close with any of the other morphs I think?

But this line here speaks volumes. To me it says Dusk is really, genuinely happy to find someone interested in what she has to say. This feels like a sort of conerstone of why they become friends. Friends who like to listen should be treasured.

put Salem in mind of Laura's cautious footsteps around the creaky patch of the landing floor when sneaking downstairs late at night.
oh my. oh my what a lovely vocal comparison.

"Your companion gave you reason to dream of a future, then failed to provide that future."

Salem kept her gaze steady. There was a growing feeling of tightness in her jaw.

"Your companion is a source of suffering for you," continued the corviknight. "Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?"
>:U
I despise Veracity in the best possible way yet also respect her yet hate her. She makes an incredible impression.

"And you are loyal to a human who has hurt you. Perhaps you will not have the strength for what is coming. Yet, there is still time to prove otherwise."
For what is coming? HMMM. A War against humans perhaps? World domination??? Stealing all the breadsticks???
sus

Dusk! That was Dusk's voice! Salem remained transfixed on Veracity, but her ears swivelled to hear the sneasel's presence.
I love the little detail of movement, jsut her ears moving :3. Also spellcheck tells me 'swiveled' is misspelled. Only one 'L'

"I suspect you do not care what I think. I should pay little attention to what you think, in return," said Veracity, before returning her stare to Salem. "I value truth, and strength. Your companion here is a liar, and she is weak. Be truthful, and be strong, and I will be pleased to breathe the same air as you."
I can vibe with a person who has standards tbh. I still wanna throttle her but I love her

"Doesn't matter," hissed Dusk. "You'd be punished either way."
>:} OH HO HO

It also meant that being right didn't mean getting what you wanted. Or being happy. Or being safe.

And that was bad.
I can't formulate words properly for this but this evokes deep thoughts

Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?

She sprawled out, stretching every last limb and digit, and groaned dramatically.

"What the fuck does that mean," asked Dusk, from below, in a flat tone.
Did Salem speak these words? I got the impression she thought them but then Dusk replies? Unless they suddenly became telepaths too lol.

Ugh. First she'd have to figure out what was wrong, and then she'd have to find the words to explain it, and then she'd have to get the energy to say those words. And then Dusk would just ask a follow-up question anyway and she'd have to do it all again. It was too much.
this is such an intense mood what the heck

the inside of her skull was too noisy with thoughts.
also mood what even

The morning ambushed her without her having dreamed at all.
WHAT A FRICKEN GREAT ENDING LINE

DONT TOUCH IT

LOVE
As a whole I genuinely can't find anything I take issue with negatively (sorry!(?)). Very good addition, your hard work as paid off. Uhm. Not much else to say, rly lov, PLEASE give me more
 
Chapter 4: Left Alone

unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Author's Note:

Told you this one would take less time.

dd56091c937aac000a53ccf466ed10c26ab0bcec.jpg


Chapter 4

Left Alone

Before she was a person, Salem was a cat.

Ever since she first understood this fact, she rebelled against it.

Salem first wished to be human many seasons ago, when Laura changed schools. Salem used to accompany her each day, but her new college didn't permit unlicensed students to keep pokémon on the premises. So, when Laura left for her first day there after a long summer together, Salem stayed home. And waited. She waited, and wished that she was a student there too, so she could stay with her human friend. She wished every day after, for so long that she began to think of herself as pre-human: only a pokémon while she waited for the day she evolved.

She would become human when she evolved, she knew. It was destined.

For now, she was a small, dark-furred pokémon, and the most human thing about her was her ability – the privilege of all purrloin – to walk short distances on hind legs. Having their front paws free made purrloin excellent thieves, a skill which Salem was happy to employ to obtain food. It was easy to walk into a shop and walk out with a bag of dried jerky, so long as you didn't do it to the same premises too often.

Otherwise, she was a typical feline. She had a dappled tortoiseshell coat (meticulously maintained), a warbling miaow with a quizzical inflection, and the talent of instantly appearing without a sound at the rustling of food packets.

Cats like routine, and Salem's was important to her. Her eyes opened at dawn, she stretched luxuriously, and she nudged a reluctant Laura out of slumber. A series of polite miaows sufficed to prompt Laura into drowsily pulling on baggy clothes left strewn on the floor from the day before, hastily brushing back her excessively long dark hair, and descending the creaking stairs to squeeze out a packet of wet food. Salem followed behind on silent paws, not wishing to trip her up.

Salem wolfed down her salmon while Laura toasted and buttered herself some crumpets. Salem prized her regular meals, but supplemented them with as many stolen or begged treats as possible. She had made the sign for 'food' so many times over many seasons that she did it on reflex when hungry: tilt head, reach paw above head, curl paw, paw to mouth.

Laura usually gave her a treat or two for signing this while she prepared for school, but on this occasion, she took a new bag out of the drawer, and left it there unopened. Perhaps she had been distracted. It happened. Still, she cuddled Salem goodbye as normal, and called her a sweet cat. Salem slow-blinked at her affectionately, and Laura slow-blinked back, her green eyes creasing to match Salem's own.

Salem purred boisterously, watched Laura take up her rucksack to leave, and waited until the front door closed to tear open the unsecured bag of treats with her teeth and gorge herself silly.

Salem spent school days waiting for Laura to come home. Laura's parents were usually out all day, and the family had no other pokémon, so she had the place to herself. She used this freedom to laze about uninterrupted. She took plenty of naps sprawled out in that one spot on the kitchen counter, where the updraught from the tumble-dryer kept her warm. From there, she watched taillow in flight and dreamed of pokémon battles and of a future with Laura in which they went on grand adventures. Sometimes, she was not the pokémon, but the trainer. Still, human or purrloin, she was always Laura's partner in her dreams.

Laura didn't come home that day until much later than she was supposed to. This was happening more and more often with each passing season, and 'normal' college days were already longer than they used to be. Salem managed to enjoy her time alone by keeping to a routine and sleeping heavily, but by late afternoon she was restless. She would pace through the house in endless loops, groom herself and groom herself again just to have something to do, and scratch the furniture over and over and over until her claws hurt.

Of course, nobody was around to see her behave like this, and her distressed scratch-marks were indistinguishable among years' worth of ordinary gashes.

When Laura finally came home, the sun had faded. Salem jumped up on the stand by the door, like always, to receive scratches behind her ears, like always.

"Hello, silly cat," Laura said, like always.

Salem's habitual reply to this was to turn her left paw pad-upward and curl it inward, approximating a human beckoning gesture, and then brush her own cheek. This was as communicative as she could manage in standard pokésign. She'd signed [WELCOME HOME] as best she could, like always. She was really good at signing that, after years of practice. Other than that and 'food,' her signing was stilted, and her vocabulary painfully limited.

Laura went straight to heat up a meal for herself, with Salem sprawled on top of the microwave, soaking up the warmth and purring to match the vibrations. Then Laura poured out a portion of dry food for Salem, and took the bowl to her room so Salem could eat nearby her as usual. Laura found an episode of Gotta Catch 'em All on her laptop and played it while they ate.

It was Laura's favourite show since childhood, and therefore a familiar part of their routine. Laura once spent a month mimicking the voices of the pokémon characters, most of which were obviously just voiced by humans. Laura said it was too expensive to animate pokésign or hire countless pokémon, and the show was only a marketing tool to sell merch to kids anyway. But she loved it, so Salem loved it too.

The show featured a villainous but endearing meowth who had taught himself to speak Galarish. At least every other episode, he was shown wearing clothes, working a job, or using tools. Salem thought he was practically human. He didn't have a name, just "Meowth," but he was still their favourite character. Laura used to encourage Salem to copy his example, and was only a little disappointed when Salem could only miaow, purr and chirrup. Salem persisted for weeks, until in frustration, she gave up on ever speaking a word. She never quite forgot her dream of talking to humans in their own tongue.

XxX​

The humans were arguing again.

Salem never intervened when this happened; she couldn't properly participate in such things. It wasn't as if a purrloin would be listened to, even if she knew what to say. Neither did she understand half the language or even the point of most arguments, so she was normally resigned to observe such scuffles at a distance, waiting anxiously for them to end. Lately, however, they were becoming louder, longer, and more frequent.

This one was the worst yet and Salem could tell from the lack of eye contact that Laura had little fight left in her at this point. Laura was standing in the middle of the downstairs room, still with her backpack hanging from one shoulder. They were sat on the sofa, her father cutting through her words at a raised volume. If you were ready to fight, you looked the other in the eyes. Laura was looking away from her opponents. That was a sign of unwillingness to spar, if not exactly surrender – but her parents weren't letting up.

Her father thumped the arm of the sofa. "It's not complicated, Laura! These companies, Perihelion and the rest, they just aren't paying the same kind of money as Macro Cosmos used to."

That was Gordon. He was quick to fight, would raise his voice in response to any assertiveness, and had a tendency to pound nearby furniture. That always made Salem jump. He was not at all her favourite human.

"You promised me, though. You promised I wouldn't have to worry, that I'd be able to do my circuit if I stayed in education until after my fucking A-levels—"

Laura was easily her favourite, of course. More important than anyone else, after years of friendship! She cared for Salem, understood her signing, and knew the best way to scratch behind the ears.

"Watch your language, Laura."

And that was her mother, Simone. Quieter, but as firm as Gordon. She wasn't around much, and she ignored Salem when she was, so Salem ignored her in turn.

"Swearing doesn't mean I'm wrong! We had a whole sit-down conversation about how long to wait to do a circuit, and I did what you said I should do 'cause you promised it would work out. Now you're saying that was bullshit—"

"Language, Laura!"

Gordon thumped the sofa. "That was when Macro Cosmos did things. This is now. Rose sponsorships are a thing of the past. If you apply with Perihelion you'll need money of your own to make up the difference."

Laura's voice was breaking now. "If you paid the League fees like you said you would—"

"That's not on the table any more. When we agreed to that, the fees were a fifth what they are now. Everything is different with Rose gone, and you have to adjust your expectations." Laura's dad thumped to emphasise every other word as he argued.

"I only expected that because you committed to it, if I—"

"We can't afford to support a jaunt around the country on the new rates, and that's that. If you're really so committed to this, then you'll have to earn what you need by working yourself!"

"Can you please just let me finish my side of the discussion—"

Salem could only make out every fourth word and half the meaning but she watched from the stairs all the same, peering through the banisters at the escalating fight. It was verbal, like all human scuffles, and Salem had never picked up on the rules and conduct for those. What she had learnt by now was that after such altercations ended, Laura never seemed to have won. This time was no different.

"This isn't a discussion, there isn't going to be a discussion."

"—always agreed I'd be able to, that's why I've worked so hard, and now you're telling me that— "

"Just calm down, you're hysterical. There's no need for that behaviour!"

No different overall, but perhaps a little more intense than usual.

"—will you just listen to me, let me finish just one—"

"We've listened. We have listened. You're not listening."

"—see, you're interrupting, like you always—"

"You're the one who isn't listening. You won't stop and listen."

It went on in this fashion, Laura shifting by half-step and small shuffles to the stairs. As she did so, her speech broke up, and her shoulders sagged. Eventually she abandoned the fight, scooped Salem up off the stair, and trudged to her room even as more words came from the parents below. Words like 'ungrateful' and 'responsibility', words that made Laura screw her face shut and tread heavier on the stairs. Laura swept into her room, and slammed her door behind her, prompting more shouting from below.

Salem allowed herself to be tossed lightly onto the bed, from which she watched Laura shrug her backpack, blazer and headphones onto the floor, where they would surely later attract more loud words from either parent. Salem miaowed a warning about the inevitable complaints, but Laura merely groaned and fell face-down onto the bed, where she made muffled keening noises of frustration.

Salem knew the drill by now. She bunched her body up against Laura's and rumbled loudly. This was the way to help. Laura didn't respond at first except to make the occasional heaving sigh, but Salem was content to maintain her purring as long as necessary. She pressed her body against her human and rumbled her sympathies. Eventually, a human face emerged from the mess of long black hair.

"It's bullshit, you know," she said. "They just don't want me to go at all. They come up with a new reason not to every two years. And Perihelion would cover almost everything, and Dad could just let me use my savings for the rest, but no. They even have a starter pokémon program now. I've read all about it, it's actually great. But they… They just don't care 'cause Macro Fucking Cosmos. They think all these other sponsorship options are shit, even the good ones. Which is bullshit. Perihelion's got a whole humanitarian thing going on that I could totally join if my circuit went well. It's, like, legit. They have wilderness ambassadors, and specialists in rehabilitating abused 'mon, and stuff. I want to do that a hell of a lot more than work in a bloody office."

Salem nodded solemnly. She got the gist. Laura knew how things should be, and other people – in this case, her parents – weren't sensible enough to agree. A terrible shame, but it only really mattered in that it upset Laura.

Salem's human reached out and pulled her close, and she allowed it with a soft chirrup. She kneaded the air slowly as they shared warmth and the pressure of close contact. It was good to comfort Laura, but it helped that such cuddles were soothing for Salem as well. They stayed that way for some time, Laura's body heaving a little at odd intervals and Salem nuzzling her in what she hoped would be a calming way. If this went on uninterrupted, perhaps she ought to start grooming Laura? It had worked before.

Laura released her before she could begin.

"I'm sorry, kitten," said her human. "I bet you're hungry, huh?"

She could eat a bowlful, but Laura's unhappiness was always a priority. Salem head-butted her human's face in a show of affection, but food was food, so she also sat up and signed a request. She tilted her head for a question, did the food sign, and then angled her head as if she were looking down at her paws, the sign for receiving something.

[FOOD FOR ME?]

"Yeah, Salem. I'll get you something nice in just a sec."

Salem trilled a happy purr, and signed by putting one paw to her mouth and bringing it directly away. It was sloppy enough that it could mean either [PLEASE] or [THANK YOU], but either would do. Laura would understand what she meant.

Laura pulled a packet of kibble from her backpack and unsealed it to pour onto the duvet. This was a traditional method of Laura's to avoid having to go to the kitchen, and so avoid walking past her parents. Salem took the food with a loud chirrup of appreciation.

"I feel like today was bad enough to qualify for a bit of really serious self-care," said Laura. She had that kind of smile where her eyes were watering just a little. It wasn't a common facial expression, but Salem had seen it often enough to worry. These moods usually lasted beyond the following morning.

Laura sprawled herself on the bed, hoisted her laptop onto her stomach and made room in the crook of her arm for Salem, who nestled in at once, as per tradition. On the very worst days, the comfort media of choice was always the same. Laura loved documentaries, especially about pokémon, and was always delighted at the way Salem's pupils involuntarily dilated at the sight of taillow, pidove and dedenne on the screen. But her very favourite of all wasn't about wildlife, or even non-fiction, but something much stranger.

Replica Heart was a live-action film with real pokémon actors, most prominently an alakazam wearing fur dye and other cosmetics in the role of 'Mewtwo', a powerful and intelligent pokémon with a tragic past. It didn't feature any purrloin, but there was a torracat with gorgeous fur sheen and really excellent pokésign at one point, which was something. Salem liked her.

Salem had seen this one with Laura so many times over the years that she could actually remember nearly every single scene. It helped that Laura liked to talk about it at length, and would sometimes pause it to explain her feelings about a specific moment or to tell Salem something she had learnt about the film since last time. It was this habit that had thoroughly taught Salem the meaning of 'actor' and 'character'.

The film starred an actress about as old as Laura was now, nearly an adult but still young. Her character didn't have friendships with other humans her age, and wished to meet someone who would understand and appreciate her. This pokémon, Mewtwo, fell from the sky into the outdoor pool by her house one night. Rather than show fear, she took Mewtwo under her protection, to secretly care for and help hide him from other humans who came searching for the missing pokémon.

The human and Mewtwo became friends, and understood each other, and each learnt how to trust another person. But Mewtwo had to leave all the same to keep his human friend safe. That part was the only part that unnerved Salem – she didn't like to think of separating from her own human friend.

There was something desperately appealing about it, all the same. Mewtwo made his own decisions, could communicate with humans with ease, and had a life of his own. He was more than a pokémon. Almost human.

Besides that, though, there was a lot of humans doing human things, running from place to place, yelling at each other. Salem didn't understand the appeal of these parts. Possibly she wasn't supposed to; it was a human thing meant for humans. Maybe an alakazam would enjoy watching human drama? She wouldn't know. But Laura loved it, and that meant Salem couldn't be happier to be watching it with her.

"It's not based on a true story or anything," Laura would say, clearly wishing otherwise, "but there's a ton of evidence that a mew clone was created in Japan in the 90s and I'm going to find out one day."

There was a lot Laura would find out one day. Such things included the existence of Mewtwo, corruption watchdog organisations not holding the League accountable for doping, and live pokémon experimentation by Macro Cosmos. All entirely meaningless to Salem, but she loved to see Laura full of confidence anyway. It made her feel like a trainer's pokémon, ready to get pumped up and fighting.

After the movie, Salem went to curl up by Laura's side and listen to her read stories, like she always did. Laura tickled Salem's chin and signed [NO] with her free hand.

"Sorry, kitten. I've had a long day and I still have homework to do! There was that big fight today too, which I've gotta think about. Can you chill while I get on with some things?"

An outrageous change to their routine! But Salem's indignant mewling and signing didn't stop Laura from moving her laptop to her desk and getting to work. This would not do. Laura tried to do whatever 'homework' was so important, but Salem kept butting her head against Laura's leg, and miaowed raucously, until her human finally relented with a sigh. Laura clambered into bed, leaning against the headboard, and opened the anthropology magazine that they'd started reading the night before. Salem manoeuvred her way into the crook of Laura's arm and gazed wide-eyed at the photographs as Laura read the accompanying text.

Salem spent all day every day waiting for this. Each night, without fail, Laura would read to her about countless subjects, from the natural world, to human history, to pokémon battles. With each bedtime reading, Salem would snatch a new truth, each one more precious than the last. There were great forests and plains in the world still untouched by humans and their cities. People had once lived in caves and hunted with traps and arrows, without microwaves and lamps and books to use. Humans could form bonds with their partners that made them more powerful than any wild pokémon.

At night, Salem would churn these ideas over and over in the mill of her mind, trying to grasp the big picture, to form a proper understanding of the world, and always having it slip away from her. She hoped that by learning everything Laura could share with her, that, like Mewtwo, she could teach herself to be more human. Being human meant never having to be bored and alone again.

Eventually of course, Laura tired of reading. It didn't take long this time.

"Salem, I'm done. Seriously, I still have way too much to do."

[WHAT?] signed Salem, cocking her head and chirping uncertainly.

"Mostly uni applications, since apparently a bloody League circuit is off the table after all. Plus my normal work. And I got home late and re-watched Replica again, too, so, just, ugh. Basically ugh."

That meant nothing to her. She cocked her head the other way and chirped again. If she did that, Laura would know to explain in a way she understood.

Laura groaned, and spoke with care. "Okay, how do I explain university to you? God… Right, you know I meant to run a League circuit after graduation after missing out twice already. Well, uni is what I have to do instead of that now that I've been completely fucked out of my sponsorship… It's basically more school, just . . . lots tougher, and I'll live away from home. Away from Mum and Dad, thank god. And I have to do a lot of work right now to make sure I can even get into a decent campus, 'cause that's the only way any of this shit will be close to worth it. And I just gotta pray I get into one that lets unlicensed students keep 'mon on campus. Fat chance of that, though."

Salem kept cocking her head. She didn't know how to ask 'but what about our adventure? Why are you doing this and not that?' so she just signed [TRAINER] in desperation, mimicking the overarm throw that humans used to release a pokémon from their ball at range.

"What? 'Trainer?' Oh. No, Salem, sweetheart." Laura brushed her dark hair from her face, which she always did when saying something important, and gently stroked Salem's cheek fur, which she always did when she was about to disappoint her. "I'm not going to be a trainer. Not anymore. It looks like there are a lot of things I'm not going to be able to do now. You need to start young if possible and get a sponsorship either way, and I didn't, and I can't." She signed some of the key ideas as she spoke. [NO TRAINER. I CAN'T.]

[TRAINER!] Salem signed again, harder this time. Her tail thrashed anxiously.

"No, kitten. I can't just . . . run away and battle with you. I don't have a sponsorship. I don't have my parents' permission. I don't… I don't know if I even want to. It's one of those things – kids all play at pokémon training, but barely any of them actually run the League circuit when they turn whatever age. Every kid wants to be an astronaut or whatever, but there's only been like, two astronauts from Galar ever. I think. Pokémon training is… I'm not meant for it. Those playground battles we had with other kids never meant we were going to travel the world doing it seriously. It's just not realistic."

There was something unfamiliar in Laura's weirdly calm voice, but the words didn't mean anything to Salem either way. She didn't understand 'sponsorship' even after many previous explanations. She didn't understand 'permission' or 'astronauts' or 'meant for it'. She didn't understand why Laura didn't care, didn't want this, didn't yearn for their shared adventure the way she always had.

She signed helplessly, every piece of communication a continuous struggle. Her paws and body gave her more range of expression than a seviper, or a lanturn, or a voltorb with no extremities at all, but they were still nothing to a human's hands and face. Her vocabulary was stunted, too; pokésign only accommodated simple ideas.'Yes, no, over here, I'm hungry, please stop.'

It was difficult enough to think of what she wanted to say and more difficult still to find a way to say it. Under normal circumstances, she was constantly distracted by the temperature, ambient sounds, loose threads of clothing. Even when focused as she was now, she could never hold more than one, maybe two ideas in her head at once.

When asking about their future adventures went nowhere, she tried to ask something else – [I COME WITH YOU?] – not difficult to sign, but difficult for her to ask with her hopes so recently discarded.

"I don't… I don't know. A lot of places don't allow pokémon in student halls, even for licensed trainers. And since Dad wants me to study finance, and then there's this bloody sponsorship thing… Yeah, that's probably not happening. Even then, I might have roommates that don't want pokémon around. 'Roommates,' that's like, friends who I live with, I mean. You might have to stay home. It's won't be up to me. Fuck, nothing ever is…"

Roommates. Friends who Laura lived with, instead of Salem. Laura already spent so much time with friends without Salem, now Salem would always be without Laura.

She tried to ask if she would see Laura – if there would be visits – and miaowed her general distress.

[I SEE YOU? YOU WITH ME?]

"What? Oh, of course I'll come see you! Everyone comes home from uni for winter holidays."

[MORE?]

"Every year, yes! Don't worry, I'll come back to visit every holiday, I promise!"

But not every day. Not enough to stop Salem pacing and grooming and scratching until her paws hurt for days on days on days. She thought of how hard it was each day just to wait for Laura to come home. Weeks on end without Laura, without any kind of stimulation… She was going to go half-mad.

It was hopeless. Salem resorted to sprawling awkwardly over Laura's arm, tail thrashing anxiously in the hope of being included somehow. Maybe Laura would read aloud what she was working on and give Salem something to listen to? She didn't know how to ask for that. Nothing was forthcoming either way; it was a miserable arrangement.

Laura evidently agreed, because after a few minutes of this, an alarm on her phone went off and she said "That's enough. Really. I really have to do my work, so please, please just leave me alone." She took off from the bed and threw herself into her desk chair, headphones on, fingers tapping at the keyboard.

Normally, Salem would have lain down by the laptop's fan for warmth, or batted playfully at Laura's fingers, or walked in front of the screen for attention.

But…

'Leave me alone,' Laura had said.

She had never said that before.

So Salem left her alone.

XxX​

This became the new routine on weekdays. Even the weekends suffered, as Laura threw herself into studies. Salem did her best to take comfort in lying pressed up against her human as she worked, even knowing that this would mean being able to spend less time asleep during the lonely hours.

Things got worse when Salem was unexpectedly barred from leaving the house. She went to the door flap one afternoon to make her scheduled exit and perform her rounds of the back garden, and found it sealed. To address this, first she scratched at the door. Then she yelled. Loudly.

"No, you can't go outside!" came the voice of Gordon Weir.

Salem demanded an explanation. An explanation was not forthcoming – at least from Laura's parents. That evening, she tried to pester Laura about it by leading her to the sealed flap, and found her uncharacteristically obstinate.

"Sorry, Salem. It's not safe anymore out there. You're going to have to stay indoors for a while."

Not safe? Why wouldn't it be safe? She pressed for information with questioning signs.

"Pokémon are going missing," said Laura. "Don't you listen to the radio when it's on? Hell, I've been talking about it to Mum and Dad, I thought you might have eavesdropped."

[WHAT?]

"Strays, outdoor pets, urban ferals… they're all going missing at a scary rate. It's even happening here, there're posters on half the street lamps between here and school. You know, 'missing pokémon, Hammershire Lillipup, call this number, hundred quid reward' type stuff. I'm not letting that be you."

Salem made a low noise of demand. She didn't see how this should prevent her leaving the house. She wasn't stupid enough to go missing.

"You can complain all you like," huffed Laura. "But you're not going out until it's safe. If you leave the house and never come back, I won't be able to forgive myself."

Fine. She would make do.

XxX​

Things were strained after that. Salem wanted to cling to Laura for every precious second she was available, before she vanished into 'student accommodation,' to return only rarely. Yet, she kept asking to be left alone. She spent most of her free time at home buried in her computer, and her books – books which did not get read out loud to Salem. It was bad to bother Laura, so she tried not to. Mostly she lay in sphinx-pose, as close to her as she could get without risking becoming bothersome.

Then one day, with painful quietude, she left. She packed her things, gave Salem a kiss on the forehead, and joined her father in putting her luggage in the car. She kept hoping for a long, heartfelt moment between them, like one of the goodbyes in their movies.

Salem imagined her best and only friend saying 'I won't be long. I'll miss you. Wait for me.'

What she got, before Laura went out of the door for the last time, was "Bye, Salem."

Quiet. A little tired, possibly. Sad?

If she wasn't happy to leave, then surely she would stay. Salem's human held her head low and did not smile, yet she walked steadily to the car and didn't turn to look back. Salem watched her climb into the passenger seat, and a minute later saw her gradually disappear from view as the vehicle pulled away from the curb, leaving Salem behind.

With nobody else in the house, Salem stayed watching out of the window for some time, imagining what it would look like when the car eventually returned. Would she hear it first, or identify it by sight, when it came?

Gordon Weir came home late that night, and Simone worked late just about every night in any case. By the time they were both home, they were both ready to go to bed almost immediately. Salem was not even spoken to, let alone played with. What was more, with Laura not around to put out supper, they did not remember to do so in her place.

Hungry, Salem scratched at their bedroom door and wailed until Gordon emerged in his bathrobe to hastily squeeze out half a packet of wet food for her. He shut the kitchen door as Salem ate, leaving her to seek out a comfortable spot somewhere. She eventually settled for the top of the fridge, as the warmest, most comforting spot available. If only by a hair.

She spent the night very still, conserving energy, alone with her thoughts.

XxX​

Was Laura as cold that night as Salem was?

Was she as lonely, if she was alone at all?

Was she thinking of Salem, as Salem was thinking of her?

XxX​

Gordon made a habit of shutting Salem in the kitchen after supper. He never slipped her any treats. Or played with her. Or anything, really. He didn't even speak to her except to whistle a short tune to summon her at mealtimes. For a couple days, Salem was able to slip the hook of her tail behind the cupboard door as he let it close, and pilfer an extra packet of wet food to enjoy, but he spotted her on the third try and made sure it didn't happen again. She tried at length to learn a method of opening the cupboards or the door, but they both closed firmly, and their handles were too awkward for her to get any purchase.

Salem tried signing at him, but he hardly knew any sign and didn't want to learn. When he talked on the phone with Laura, Salem could hear her muffled voice on the other end of the call, and miaowed loudly for her attention, but he would always move to a different room and closed the door behind him.

Simone's late shifts meant Salem didn't see her at all, only heard her leave the house before dawn, and return after sunset. Laura's room was off-limits; the door was kept shut. Her scent went stale after two days, and disappeared entirely soon after. Laura's parents had no pokémon of their own, and naturally she couldn't traipse outside with the door-flap sealed. The ways in which the house seemed to close in on her grew with each night.

It wasn't long before the boredom was more painful than the quicks of her claws as she scratched continually at furniture. Scratching to the point of having a perpetual dull ache in her ligaments was better than doing nothing.

Early on she started trying to force her way out of the kitchen window with physical attacks, as if she were in battle against another pokémon. But she was untrained, with no experience beyond trivial scuffles, and couldn't manage to charge her body with elemental energy. The frosted glass remained stubbornly intact, and the impacts she made against it merely bruised her body.

Eventually she began to feel she would rather not wake up tomorrow. Not if it meant another day like these. She no longer roused herself when she woke to sounds, trying to slip back into dreams of fighting, learning, running, anything at all.

One night, Gordon's phone rang as he was feeding Salem. He answered it – and he forgot to close the kitchen door as he left, speaking tersely to whoever was calling.

Salem abandoned her meal of meat and jelly at once to pad out after him into the lounge and squirrelled herself into the gap between the back of the sofa and the wall. Gordon doubled back and pushed the kitchen door shut with his foot, thinking Salem still to be inside, and went upstairs to continue grumbling at his phone.

It occurred to Salem that Laura's mother would be coming home soon. When she did, she would very briefly create a window of escape into the wider world.

In her secret hiding place, she waited.

The waiting was a pleasure in itself. It was different, at least. Anything different had to be good. Eventually, she heard footsteps outside matching those of Simone Weir. She went rigid, and gathered herself up on the pads of her paws.

The moment Simone stepped through the doorway, Salem was out in a sweep of shadow. Simone made no sound to indicate she'd noticed. Before the human could turn round and spot her by chance, Salem bolted down the street in the direction she always used to go with Laura, when they went to train together in Victors' Park.

She was outside! In Circhester! On a cloudless night! The air was even colder than she was used to, and it sent a thrill through her spine into her tail, upright and quivering with excitement. She ran to nowhere in particular along the low sandstone walls that enclosed the city's streets. She jumped over a curious snom and ignored a loose band of intoxicated young humans, only stopping once she felt the cool grass of the park beneath her paws.

She'd left her home behind, and as her wild eyes darted around at the fence, at the moon, at the rustling of the park's trees in the night wind, she knew that she could not turn back. Not for any amount of tinned food or packets of treats. Not if it meant she wouldn't get a chance to leave again.

She set off to prowl around the hedgerow perimeter, seeking out a replacement supper. There was no room for other intentions in her head until she was satiated.

Of course, once she'd caught a complacent squirrel and taken her fill, the thoughts came: should she go back for Laura's sake? She didn't know for sure if Laura was going to ever come back at all. Would she be able to keep herself fed once the local animals knew to run from her? She knew from experience that the snom were more trouble that they were worth to hunt, being made of so much ice and so little flesh. Where would she sleep where she wouldn't freeze alive? Maybe a passing trainer would try to catch her. Maybe she would have to hide from Laura's searching parents.

It made sense that there were no or few other pokémon like her out here. Just plenty of snom, and the occasional frosmoth, like a second moon, gliding over the rooftops.

She found a spot under a hedge and settled down for a different kind of cold and lonely night.

At least she could choose where she spent it, this time.

XxX​

She chose to become human because of too many nights spent half-starved, cowering and afraid.

The moon shone down on Circhester, and the winter chill was setting in. Beneath a car coated in early snow, there was a wretched creature that barely felt like a purrloin, crouched tense and shivering. She stared out at the street with wide eyes, shrinking back at every passing vehicle and every moving shadow.

If only she weren't a cat. If she were a human she would never have had to endure winter rain and winter cold and winter darkness. She'd have a home, or the money to pay for sanctuary and a voice to ask for it. Instead she was a pokémon – a tortoiseshell purrloin, distinguished by the long ears and hooked tail of her species – and she would have to resort to the pokémon shelter if she wanted to be somewhere safe and warm. There was a problem with that idea, though. Shelters fed you, but they also tried to get you adopted. And Salem didn't want that. She never would.

Want was one thing, and need was another. Salem desperately needed food, warmth, a roof above her head, and what more after that she didn't know. She curled her tail tighter around herself and glanced anxiously at the various flitting shadows and wind-buffeted leaves that haunted the pavements and the park across the road from her. Eventually she'd be hungry enough to try hunting again, or rummage through someone's trash for scraps of meat. Eventually she might be hungry enough for the shelter. But not yet. Not quite.

If only Salem were human, she'd be well-fed and warm.

If only she were human, she'd be with Laura.

Whole moons had waxed and waned since, but the time between then and now was unimportant. The only important days were those ahead. The most important day was the day, when it came, that Salem would have the nerve and need to go to the pokémon shelter for help. The time spent cold and afraid – that didn't matter. What mattered was that she was cold and afraid. Hungry, vulnerable, tired. Lonely.

If only she were human.

Being human would mean never being cold, or hungry, or lonely.

This was the moment where she stopped wishing, and now knew: she would become human, no matter what.

XxX​

Curled under vehicles and hedges to sleep, Salem was alone even in her dreams. She was alone, but she was always, always human.

XxX​

Salem watched the front window of the local pokémon shelter from the scant canopy of leaves she was hiding in – several shrubs clustered in the grassy median beside a small car park. It wasn't ideal. She had to press herself low to the ground, which was damp, cold, and shared with worms and insects. Her fur was dark and the winter sun was already retiring, so this hiding place would keep her well out of sight. Yet, it hardly felt like safety. The short flights of the winter sun and her ability to hide at its setting were not a nightly reassurance, but a reminder of all the other pokémon that could be stalking her from the same darkness.

The moon came out from behind the clouds, and briefly lit up the terrain. Salem shrunk back further into the greenery and glowered at it. Its illumination may have been a comforting constant from inside a house, but now it made her visible, and therefore vulnerable. It occurred to her that the moon had lived two full lives since she'd last eaten a proper meal. Slept on furniture. Been petted.

The moon withdrew behind cloud cover, and darkness returned. The pokémon shelter was brightly lit from inside, which gave her perfect vision of the interior. There was one human inside. A young man. After studying him for a few days, Salem felt she could read him well. He was a calm person, never moving suddenly or crying out. She liked that. She had begun to wait for a time when she was certain that nobody else but him was about. If she approached the shelter with only him present, she'd be less vulnerable. It only made sense to scout out the least off-putting opportunity to enter. Or maybe she was only waiting because she still needed to work up the nerve.

The first few nights she'd done this, a silver-tabby glameow tom had come to join her. He'd taken a perch on the wall around the car park, posed like a sphinx, watching her openly from his exposed position without regard to his own concealment, let alone hers. On one of these nights, he seemed to taunt her. A low, strained miaow, certain subtle flicks of his ears and tail. [BAD HUNTER.] An accusation.

She replied with mirrored gestures and a turn of the head. [NOT HUNTING.]

A brief, shrill chirrup, a certain blink: [YES, THAT'S IT.] By this he meant, "exactly, a good hunter would be hunting right now." Perhaps he was actually trying to be helpful, but even so he only managed to raise her hackles. If she knew how to use real attacks, she'd fight him. Too bad.

Salem focused her attention on the shelter rather than on him, and he seemed to lose interest for a time, only to return not long after with a dead mouse, freshly caught. The glameow offered her the first bite, nudging the morsel towards her with his nose. She looked away. She still hated to trade pride for food, even now. He persisted a little while, before finally eating the mouse himself within earshot, punctuating each crunch with small growls of enjoyment that made Salem's belly growl in kind. As he did this, the shelter lights went out. That was Salem's cue to leave.

Every time Salem got up off her haunches to turn away from the shelter, her stomach stabbed at her resolve. When she'd spurned the mouse it had been bearable. Now, she'd been doing this for days and it was a constant gnawing in her gut. There were never enough hunting or scavenging opportunities to keep her strength up. She had made no allies. She had found no home. She wished she had not turned down the glameow tom, for perhaps she would have had several more meals, by now. Food, but also a friend. Sooner or later she would walk through that door and face whatever consequence awaited, or she would give up on ever walking in and eventually meet an unambiguously grim fate.

Tonight the human in the shelter was doing his peculiar ritual with the machine at the front desk. Soon he would start turning the lights off. Last chance to go to him tonight. Last chance before another cold and hungry sleep. Somewhere in the street, she was sure the eyes of another local feral pokémon were trained on her. Last chance.

Salem emerged from under the bushes and approached the shelter door, feeling the moon's light on her fur like teeth.

XxX​
 

kyeugh

you gotta feel your lines
Staff
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. farfetchd-galar
  2. gfetchd-kyeugh
  3. onion-san
  4. farfetchd
3: first impressions

de poggies

i thought i'd have more time to review this before chapter 4 dropped but you are just chugging right along so here we are. this is for sure my favorite chapter so far! chapter one is very introspective, almost abstract, focusing on salem's shifting psyche and physical form; then in chapter two she's more actualized and we see salem interacting with alisha and the world around her, but for the most part the conflict and narrative is very much focused on her psychic and physical struggle. now, with control of her body and mind established at least to an acceptable degree, she's permitted to embark into the social sphere as well, and as a character she finally feels fully actualized. not devaluing the previous chapters here, as they were great for the purpose they served, but it was a ton of fun seeing salem here as a character who is at least partially-formed on all layers if not fully-formed. :p it feels like this is where we start really getting into the meat of the story, and i'm here for it. i'll add that the pacing is great so far, imo. it was really valuable to get a solid grasp on what kind of person salem is, past present and future, as well as the process of morphing (and her outlook on it!) before throwing her into the mix with a bunch of other morphs with their own thoughts and feelings and prejudices at various stages of development.

i was a little tripped up by the very beginning. i was expecting it to pick up after the last chapter and it took a couple takes for me to realize that we were actually dropped in right before the final segment of it. i admit i'm not quite sure what it added to structure it this way vs. simply including those elements in the previous chapter and then playing it straight. it was enough of a disruption that i had to go "wait, didn't these two meet already?" and then flip back to the previous chapter and then realize oh the verbiage is identical here, i see what's going on. maybe that just happened to me because it's been a long time since i read the previous chapter and it's not as fresh in my head, which won't be true of anyone who reads the chapters in sequence, but i thought it was worth pointing out—they payoff of this structure was unclear to me so imo it would be better to just kick that stuff back and keep it chronological.

that said, i think the way the rest of this chapter unfolded was excellent. in a vacuum i'm kind of unsure about stuff oriented around showing off a building and its rooms because, sorry, i'm not going to remember any of this—but that wasn't the point at all here, and amusingly enough salem felt the same way herself. the point was instead to show salem reacting to all these NEW and EXCITING stimuli, and you do a great job with that. she's at once timid and uncertain and bold and investigative, always pushing her boundaries and sometimes getting burned and darting back into her comfort zone. just as in previous chapters, her sense of curiosity and desire for knowledge feels very real and relatable.

i enjoy the contrast with dusk, who is more experienced and confident, but ultimately comes off very much the same way to me. she puts out this façade of total knowledge and control, but it's clear in some ways that she's still finding her way around too—taylor is hesitant to entrust salem with her, and sometimes her vocabulary fails where salem's succeeds. i'm unsure if she's intentionally trying to give salem the impression she's got it all figured out in order to impress her, or if she genuinely believes it, but either way salem is playing directly into it as the protégé, waddling around in dusk's confidently-forged trail like a duckling. i liked some of the little ways you exposed this dynamic: salem producing "avoidant" when dusk could only sign, but also standing up immediately with dusk in the canteen and dusk having to tell her to sit back down. i'm very curious about dusk in general. she seems really mischievous and plotting, and the way she's holding her cards to her chest for now about what she wants has me intrigued. despite following along with most of your character and worldbuilding musings on discord, i actually don't have much idea about what lies in store for this story, so i'll definitely be curious to see what role dusk plays in it. i think she's my favorite of the lot so far.

... except, of course, for girl boss veracity. 👑 a lot of new morphs are introduced in this chapter, and it's anyone's guess which of them will end up being relevant, but veracity's in there for sure, and she makes a super strong impression from the get-go. i think her confrontation with salem is probably my favorite writing i've seen from you so far. she just commands such an aura of respect and intimidation, in everything from her careful but precise speech to her imposing, very sharp physical figure. immediately you characterize her very strongly without making her feel archetypal or goofy, and the anxiety salem has in her presence feels so real in a way few characters manage to achieve for me. very well done tbh, and i'm excited to see where best bird girl goes from here.

veracity's issue with kittypets is pretty interesting and i wonder how it's going to develop—dusk suggests her bias isn't unique. would salem have been better, in veracity's eyes, if she'd actually been a trainer's pokémon and not just a housepet? is being wild the ideal? how exactly does this hierarchy look, and how does it actually manifest in the social structures within perihelion? unsure if this stuff matters deeply or if it's just an individual bias held by a handful of morphs, but i'll be interested to see how it plays out. salem already has this indomitable urge to prove herself, and now she's got a major hurdle to clear in order to do that in the eyes of those who she fears.

the ending is pretty unsettling. perhelion increasingly seems like kind of a messed up place below the surface—the morphs are all just stuck here (indefinitely, maybe?) and aren't allowed to contact anyone from the outside? what the hell? is this place being audited or inspected at all? what's the point of having morphs in the first place if you're not letting them out into the world—are these people that perihelion is creating just experiments to be observed and studied? something tells me the whole story is not going to take place within the confines of this compound. i'm very intrigued and interested to see what kind of muck salem and dusk end up in through their attempts to circumvent perihelion's draconian lockdown measures, as well as what exactly the organization's motivations are and what the future prospects of the morphs under its care look like.

overall, great stuff! things really seem to be picking up here now, and i can see some little threads emerging already. you've properly hooked me now, and i can't wait to see more from these delightful characters, particularly the many perfect birds you introduced in this chapter. hope to check out chapter four soon! <3

That's the morph common room, and it's where you should go if you aren't sure where to be. It's for morphs to meet and spend time together casually. Here is one place where morphs can learn as a group.
i never really thought about this, but it is kind of odd that the morphs are isolated during their physical therapy. it probably spares them embarrassment, but it also deprives them of contact and commiseration during a time where perhaps they need the sight of a like face most. i wonder if this is an example of perihelion being shitty, or if there's a sincere motivation for this.

A birdlike morph with strikingly metallic plumage stared at her from one table.
LETS GOOOO

"Not a child," Salem agreed. But her tail bristled a little all the same at Dusk's disapproval of Laura.

"It's okay. You'll pick up a sign-name soon enough."

Salem's tail shot up.
love the tail body language here

"You see the bird? Steel-type bird, looking angry? She is a corviknight. She is called 'Veracity'. She is sharp. I mean sharp, because she can cut you with her wings, but also her words, they are 'sharp'. All you need to know about her is she thinks she's the boss. The boss bird, maybe."
girl. boss. bird.

The sneasel didn't seem to tire from talking, but barrelled on as if in a hurry. She commented on each morph in the room in turn, giving Salem a basic description. Salem repeated the key words in her head over and over, determined not to have to ask again.
"that guy right there, with the dumb blond hair and giant honker? that's diglett. he's a diglett. he fucking sucks." "hey, i'm standing right here!" "fuck off diglett, no one likes you. anyway, moving on."

Salem peered through the door as Dusk held it open for her. It was full of morphs. Hybrids of every description sat alone, in pairs, and in groups, on comfortable-looking sofas. One at a time would be enough. If she made a mistake, it would be in front of so many… Then again, there were so many to watch and learn from. Her breathing sped up.
dang, there are a ton of these guys, huh. i wonder where they go. do they eventually go out into the world? or do they just stay here forever?

There was one morph, cross-legged on the floor, quietly reading a book Salem knew this one's species for sure: mienshao.
did you drop a period here?

He . . . also thinks he is the boss bird. Maybe this is just what birds are like.
yeah cause they're bosses.

Various doors led to the canteen, (no more breakfast in bed), other classrooms, the arena, and the dormitories, where her new bed awaited her.
i found the comma-bound parenthetical construction here kind of odd, i feel like it might flow better with a different structure. maybe: Various doors led to the canteen (no more breakfast in bed!), other classrooms, the arena...

Plus she'd been walking around a building larger than she could get her head around for a while now, as Dusk taught her about places inside it that she'd already forgotten.
i couldn't quite follow this. maybe: Plus she'd been walking around a building larger than she could get her head around for a while now, and she found herself forgetting the places inside it moments after Dusk explained them to her. or something like that.

... with Salem listening, ears perked, the whole time.
i think this would read a bit more smoothly to me as ... with Salem listening the whole time, ears perked or even ... with Salem listening, ears perked the whole time. the last one is a bit semantically different but the overall point comes across i think—either way the embedded participle was slightly clunky for me

For instance, her feather vibrated excitedly whenever Salem learnt a new word from her. Salem liked that.
omg. i like that too. good detail.

"I have done nothing wrong," said Veracity, coolly.
don't think you need that last comma there.

"Doesn't matter," hissed Dusk. "You'd be punished either way."
chad

Dusk's attention lifted the weight of dread in Salem's stomach; the unnerving sense of pressure left her shoulders.
omg, nice. didn't think about the possibility of them retaining their abilities, but i guess we've been shown already that they can still use attacks. iiiiiinteresting...

"She just likes to get under skin," said Dusk, rolling her eyes, dramatically.
i think this last comma can hit the road too.

Two morphs were battling each other in what amounted to a small forest,
the later description makes it clear that it's literally a forest down there, complete with dirt and grass and presumably trees, but i wasn't sure about that from just this description—the "amounted to" made me wonder if there were just a lot of pillars or something. i think a little extra description would really set the scene here.

Salem stared at the reflection, hypnotised by her own face. She reached up and pressed her paws against her cheeks, pushing the fur and skin beneath around in that way Laura sometimes used to. She leaned over the sink to examine her eyes up close. The same, as far as she could tell; bright green, with slit-pupils. Whiskers intact, and fur pattern unchanged, but structure somehow just a little closer to human in proportion…
not so different eyes i guess. 😎 is this her first time seeing her new reflection? ngl, i think i'd be super freaked out seeing a new reflection in the mirror and having to process that it's Me even if i was greatly looking forward to The Change:tm:.

…It would make quite the hiding place for pilfered treasures.
omg, i love this. great little character moment.


"Fuck," said Salem, with feeling.
omfg this is a 10/10 line


Salem clenched her paws. She hadn't even thought about messages, and already she'd learnt they weren't allowed. Why?
damn. why indeed...

"Making schemes is better when rested."
another banger line. god bless.
 

SparklingEspeon

Back on Her Bullshit
Staff
Location
a Terrace of Indeterminate Location in Snowbelle
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. espurr
  2. fennekin
  3. zoroark
~Review of Chapters 2 - 4~

Hello! I’m here for the BLEC review awards, and these chapters are very chonky so I’ll have a lot to say

This fic continues to surprise me with the uniqueness of its premise – I’ve seen pokemorphs before, but not a story done with the quality that this one has been done at. And definitely not like this. I don’t think I’ve seen one that actually wants to explore the idea of a pokemorph where it’s a process you can sign up for voluntarily before. It’ll be interesting to see the different angle you can take with this premise, especially since you seem to have thought a lot of this through.

A big plus is the attention you pay to all the subtleties and the ways that pokemon—either natural or morph—aren’t exactly human no matter how they’ve been trained or altered. I appreciated that Dusk, one of the more proficient morphs in the Perihelion facilities, still speaks without contractions the way that someone who’s not super used to using the language would, and the cat language conversation that Salem and the glameow have with each other. In the context of Chapter Two specifically, I very much appreciated that Salem isn’t able to just walk out of her tank and talk and do all the things a normal human/pokemon could do. Just. Immediately learning/knowing how to do stuff is a trope I hate so much and I’m glad you’ve sidestepped that.

Of the three chapters I read for this, I think that Chapter Four is my favorite. Mainly because it’s the chapter that established who Salem is and why she wanted to get this treatment so bad. Before we knew how badly she wanted this and that she was a bit indignant and very dead-set on being Human, but we didn’t really get a strong reason for why she wanted that. Now… we did! And though it doesn’t tell us the full story, like how Salem signed up for this treatment specifically (I assume there’s something hidden in that scene we weren’t supposed to see yet), it does show how agonized she was without Laura, especially when she was denied the option to go on a trainer circuit and more and more of her life got consumed by university. I think you did a really good job of painting her increasing desperation and living conditions of neglect before she eventually just snapped and ran off. A running theme of Salem’s character seems to be pride, and that’s manifested consistently throughout the story, even when she was a cat and being neglected and ignored.

and also don’t think I didn’t catch some scenes from the old prologue sneakily incorporated in after she ran off

But also, like… wow, Laura’s parents are just. I’m not sure what to think. They may care for Laura, but they sure don’t care for her cat. And I have to wonder if they were just prioritizing Laura over Salem and were actually somewhat reasonable people, or if they were the kind of people who seemed nice, and then are kind of just doing the bare minimum to make sure Laura is cared for and ignoring anything they considered unnecessary. Though Idk my interpretation may be colored by the fact that we only really get to see them denying Laura the trainer certification and then neglecting Salem.

Logistical issue I might have thought of with Pokesign – how do you co-ordinate such a thing for thousands of pokemon with different moving body parts? Is it divided by like, species/body type? It feels like a lot of different signs you’d need to learn of for hundreds of different ‘mon that would amount to basically the crude, broad gestures (Hungry, tired, welcome). It may not be something that needs a lot of explanation! Just something I thought I would mention.

But really tho you have to wonder how a pokemon with literally no extremities like voltorb even signs

And also at some point I hope we see like, a snom morph

And also it may be common tropes talking but god Perihelion I had to rehearse that name way too many times feels like the kind of company that’s got good PR but is actually Super Sketchy and definitely has an ulterior motive for making all these pokemorphs. Waiting for the plot twist where Salem and the rest discover some secret that paints the company in a bad light. (I also suspect they’re to do with the downfall of Macro Cosmos and why so many companies are pulling their trainer sponsorships – Has Rose gone to prison for being a colossal idiot in this canon?)

The tertiary characters here are interesting. I don’t know much about Siracha (?)/Sauce, but I already know from outside comments that he’s an arse. Skitty/Mightyena have had basically no screentime yet so they aren’t even in the frame of perspective, and Veracity… Well, she’s blunt. Kind of weird/prideful. I dunno if I’d call her a bully. Especially since there seems to be hostility between Dusk and Veracity—I’m to assume Dusk is basing her frame of reference off whatever beef they’ve got going on.

Direction so far… There hasn’t really been much of one. I’m aware this is going to go down a ‘schoolyard bullying’ phase, and I know Dusk gets mean later on, so I’m assuming something’s gonna happen soon. She seems perfectly friendly so far, and familiar with the terrain, so if I had to guess Salem is going to be a big factor in whatever falling out they have, rather than outside influences.

Though it also does have to be asked why Dusk is so dead-set on Salem (this may be a chapter one thing I’m forgetting). Perhaps she’s doing it out of some kind of loneliness. Especially since she seems to be on relatively icy ground with the other morphs here for the most part. It has to be asked whether she dug those holes herself, or if she’s just at the bottom and wants to make a friend. But Idk maybe I’m reading a tad too much into it.

Criticisms!

All of these chapters are pretty big, but Chapter Three in particular felt like A Lot to read through. There’s just so much packed in there at once and it honestly was a bit of a doozy to get through it all in one sitting. We had:

  • Salem and Dusk introduction
  • Talking about Boss Bird
  • Introduction to Absol Teacher Guy
  • Dusk agrees to take watch Salem for the time being
  • Aside about the skitty/mightyena people, Dusk talks about other Boss Bird
  • Salem and Dusk talk over lunch
  • Boss Bird #1 goes on her honor spiel, instills doubt about Dusk
  • Introduction to the battling arena
  • Salem doubts Dusk; they both talk about Laura
On paper, that doesn’t all sound so bad! But it’s just a bunch of new information that hits us all at once and by the time I was through with the chapter, I felt like I’d read nearly two. I think Chapters Two and Four don’t suffer from this despite having nearly as much or even more events than Chapter Three did because they’re covering large spans of time for a cohesive point—Salem’s recovery/learning process takes weeks to go through, and her backstory with Laura takes years. But they build to a single point: Salem is learning how to do everything all over again; Salem is gonna snap because Laura is effectively abandoning her for school. Chapter Three feels like the inverse—Short amount of time, lots of new stuff, and not all of it’s cohesive. It feels like a whirlwind. A feasible way to remedy this might be giving us some kind of singular point for Salem to build to over all this—like, maybe she just gets more and more overwhelmed from all this new stuff and doesn’t know what to think at the end of the day, rather than jumping into it headfirst and richocheting around Dusk, Laura, etc.

It’s a nitpick, but in Chapter Four I kind of felt like the slow eye-blinking session Salem and Laura shared near the beginning was a bit like a movie cliché. I don’t have pets/know if it was a pokesign thing, but… do people do that in real life? Like, with anyone at all, even their pets? Seems a bit on the dramatic side for a pet that Laura sees every day. Just something to consider
Though admittedly, there could have been some Unreliable Narrator here, since this is from Salem's perspective.

Plot hopes!

So far, we don’t really know where this is going to go, and it’s been confined nearly completely to The Past/the interior of Perihelion for all that I’ve read up to this point. This is still the beginning, so I won’t hold that against you just yet! I do hope there’s more of a direction/a broad strokes idea of what this is going to be beyond a ‘Heathers’ type social story. We have the first inklings of why Salem wanted to do this/her want to go see Laura at some point, but so far it’s pretty much centered around Dusk and the other morphs within the Perihelion confines.

So far Mewtwo/Fuji hasn’t shown up again… curious. Granted, there’s nothing guaranteeing we’re going to see this perspective again in the story! I am a sucker for stories that take place across time, though, so I would totally be there for flipping back and forth between Salem and Fuji. Not sure what you’ve got planned for this, though.

I also hope we get to see some present expansion on Salem’s character soon! And also maybe some of her decision to undergo the morph process not panning out super well for her. Not, like, it turning out to be a bad decision, but it not being a perfect decision that fixes all her problems. We’re still in the early game/she’s still in her honeymoon phases with her new abilities, but so far she does kind of read like she’s in a weird mental limbo between human and pokemon right now, and I think it’d be cool to explore the good and bad sides of undergoing a change like this. And also it would be conflict, which as we all know is wonderful for growing characters :evil:

Overall, I have high hopes for this fic! A bit undecided on where it wants to go so far, but I appreciate the level of detail that’s been seeded in so far. And this feels like a story to slowly spiral out and throw in the bits of information we need as it goes. It’s also made strides to be stunningly its own thing even within these opening chapters, so I’ll be interested to see the direction it takes!

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Beautiful - Heathers
 

Yodakage Kira

A man with a golden gun
Pronouns
he/him
Here for Catnip!

I read the prologue for this review. And I got to say that I enjoyed it quite a lot. The starting part being what is basically the end result of all that happens in the prologue is a wonderful beginning, and perked my want to read more from there on out. The wording was great, and the third person perspective was executed very well.

The characters, especially Doctor Fuji, were written really well. Each of them were distinctive, and very... well, full of character. For the brief time they were there, I could get a good sense of who they were and whatnot. From Fuji and his personal wants with his daughter... to Giovanni and his cold attitude. Honestly, great job.

Since this is a prologue, it is setting up the plot. And the plot it is setting up is very very well detailed to the reader and makes for a wondrous hook. A looming threat... and only one apparent way to deal with it. The journey will be hard and long and it only works thanks to a hope for it to have a kind heart. I found it extremely effective.

Overall, everything was very enjoyable and well executed. I look forward to potentially reading more...

Great job! And have a good [day/morning/night]!
 

canisaries

you should've known the price of evil
Location
Stovokor
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. inkay-shirlee
  2. houndoom-elliot
  3. yamask-joanna
  4. shuppet
  5. deerling-andre
Chapter Two

She signed furiously at him,

italian swearing

“Oh, I’m not telling,” Alisha teased. “I mean for one, don’t you remember what I told you when you woke up? You should have the opportunity to choose a new name to go with your new identity. I'll give this one the same choice when she’s conscious. Once she chooses, then you'll get to know.”

On the one hand this is thoughtful, but on the other I'd expect a lot of morphs named ShadowBlood DarkFury walking around

so she placed her pads on the floor

With how much description this scene had of Salem's sensations, I was expecting a mention of the floor being cold but it didn't come.

The thought was strange, that her eyes were different now.

*sighs, uncorks champagne*

In her dreams, Salem was running; running on two legs; running for miles and miles and miles; running, and never getting tired.

RUN, SALEM, RUN

Her uniform consisted of dark grey shorts and sleeveless white shirts.

Is shirts in plural on purpose? I guess this could be using uniform as a concept rather than a physical thing, having multiple pieces of the same clothing make up the resources of the uniform so to speak, but at least at first read I wasn't sure if it was meant to be implied that she would wear two sleeveless shirts at the same time, one as underwear and the other on top.

Salem wouldn’t have paid the thing any attention, but it made a pleasant ‘clink’ when tapped with a claw, and it reflected light as a tiny dancing spot on the walls. Making the little dot of light swim around the room provided considerable entertainment.

she has mastered the light spot... she has conquered it...

Often, she would stand in front of her bathroom mirror, and practice expressions in it. Some were easy, because they were similar to what she was used to. A snarl was a snarl, even to a human. Smiles were a little harder. Humans had been giving her odd looks when she smiled at them, but lately they’d been smiling back. More subtle expressions were more challenging, even frustrating, but there was a knack to them, and she was determined to get it.

hmmm sorry but this story is bad, you had a mirror scene but didnt describe how your character looked. i suggest you read more fic to learn the basics

“It will feel that way sometimes. Just keep up your exercises. Especially the breath work”

Missing punctuation at the end.

How the sentence at the bottom read “Cyndaquil's job with fake camps vexes Zygarde” and how that was a pangram.

pmd pangram makes me pog

Taylor, tale, lore, tayyy-lorrr,” she trilled, playing with the syllables

Missing an opening quote at the beginning.

Taylor nodded and began unfolding her chair.

Did you mean folding? If he's taking the chair, there's no reason to unfold it there, right?

She slowly performed a 360-degree turn, arms held out for balance.

YOOOOO 360 NOSCOPED

Since her morphing, she’d started to think about space and the relationship between places, and in an afternoon’s focused concentration she’d realised that the whole facility must be enormous.

salem realises, with great terror, that things dont actually disappear when you dont see them

He pushed the doors ajar and let her look past them into a space filled with pokémorphs.

this starts playing

Dusk tried to catch her eye, winked at her, and made a beckoning sign. [Come here.]

what a nice friendly greeting, these girls will become great friends :)

“Salem, huh? Nice to meet you, Salem. I’m Dusk.”

"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative"

---

I don't really have any critique to give on this chapter since I didn't notice any particular flaws. I do think this chapter spent a lot of time on details of the getting-used-to-your-own-body process like the first chapter did and I'd personally want to condense it somewhat, but it's ultimately subjective on how much focus on the sci part of scifi one likes in their scifi stories.

As there was little happening that was really new to me, I can't really give reactions outside the ones I already gave. I guess what I can do is briefly point out some things I liked:
- I enjoyed how the chapter both started and ended with Dusk. It bookends the chapter nicely.
- I liked Salem's loneliness emerged slowly as the chapter progressed.
- The chapter ends at an interesting point - I think I would have preferred it at the end of Salem's POV, but that would then lose the aforementioned bookending. And it's not like we're spoiled on the thing we were left waiting for, that being more information on the other pokemorphs, since Dusk doesn't describe those for us as she's used to them already.

I hope to continue to the third chapter faster than I did for the second one! This is one of those stories where the prose is so nice that reading isn't nearly the effort it usually is.
 

bluesidra

Mood
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. hoppip-bluesidra-reup
  2. hoppip-bluesidra-pink
  3. hoppip-bluesidra3
Hello Jackie! Better late than never – the catnip!

I’ve so far gone through the prologue, as published on AO3.

The prologue describes a meeting between Fuji and Giovanni back in 1994, when Giovanni paid a visit to Cinnabar Island to oversee his project of human-pokemon hybrids. It is told from Fuji’s perspective and showcases his inner struggles with what he is working on.

First off, I really liked Fuji’s voice and the narration style that came from it. Fuji seems to be a very perceptive individual, taking in many peripheral details as he and Giovanni make their way through the facility. This also gives the narration a lot of breathing space and hammers home just how threatened Fuji feels in Giovanni’s presence. Even though Fuji’s observations are very detailed, it never gets boring or dragging.

It also becomes apparent, that, even though Fuji is a very good observer, he tends to jump to conclusions quickly. He makes a lot of inferences from Giovanni’s (very muted and hard to interpret) behavior cues and often assumes things about the hybrid that he has no basis for (or at least no basis for why the opposite shouldn’t be true either). And to some level, he seems aware of it, because he second guesses those conclusions a lot.

When I listened through it, I had a feeling that the word “naturally” was repeated quite a lot. In text, that doesn’t seem to be true, so maybe it was just me hyperfocusing on that thing. I wondered if it was intentional and a sign of Fuji jumping to conclusions without proof, instead blaming it on “nature”. Especially in his assumptions about Giovanni’s character and motivations (things that, from what I could tell, he had no basis to assume anything) he uses “naturally” a lot. Which I find ridiculous. Giovanni is an outliner in the “human template” and to assume any of his (played) behavior is “natural” is hilarious.

I especially like that Fuji admits to his “I had no choice”-reasoning is just him trying to lessen his blame. Because usually, an internal monologue of this nature would prompt me to take it apart into its bits and pieces to argue why he had very much a choice. So as much as my devil’s advocate senses tingled during the main part, the fact that he already admits to his folly in the first scene made it “better” (at least for my sanity’s sake). The discussion presented here opens a lot of interesting issues itself, but later more on that.

All three named characters have very distinct personalities and are a far shot from their game counterparts. They feel like adult, fully fleshed human beings that are to be taken seriously. I liked what you did with their names – a mixture of Japanese and English ones – as well as mentioning the Japanese names for the locations and acknowledging the islands of Japan itself. All of this contributed a lot to the very “real” feeling of the setting.
The opening hits hard with the ‘Justify its existence to him’ part. It gets clearer in the flashback, but man did I hate Fuji for that line right out of the gates.

Then the whole part about it needing human DNA to be able to develop “intelligence, aggression, loyalty. The ability to use tools. Communication. Independent strategy” part got me thinking. Aren’t those traits that are already inherent to pokemon? (I know I’ve seen my cat and dog working together to steal a sausage, so we have independent strategy, communication and ability to use tools down. Loyalty is another issue though.) I understood the whole ‘we need external DNA to stabilize Mew’s DNA’-part, but the entire temperament-altering thing based on DNA? Left more questions than it answered with me – which is fine. But Fuji also – despite being horrified to learn about Giovanni’s plans the moment we did – accepts those as facts without questioning it. In fact, the “nature vs nurture” debate is only later brought up with Pryce, if I recall correctly. The “nature vs nurture” part is probably going to be a big aspect of your fic, but since I am firmly in the “nurture tops almost everything”-camp, this unchallenged assumption raised a lot of Mudwhat??? feelings in me.

Also, shoutout to Pryce, the only one who sees the obvious things. When Giovanni proposed using his DNA-sample and Fuji fell into a massive moral dilemma, even my first thought was “just use a different sample and don’t tell anyone.” It’s not like a run-off-the-mill paternity test would yield any results here. So I massively doubted Fuji’s competence. But luckily, Pryce had two braincells together. Also, nice to see Pryce as not the irredeemable bad guy that the manga depicts him. I quite like his reasoning and plans.

Then the entire ordeal about Ai. It seems clear that Fuji tries to recreate his recently deceased daughter. But I mean- how does he picture that? Making a genetically identical clone is one thing, but recreating a personality that was shaped by the experiences his daughter had is an entirely different thing. I guess everybody grieves in their own ways and cloning a loved one after I lost them is far out of my realm of ideas, but seems a bit of a stretch to me 😃 And since neither Giovanni nor Pryce challenges him on those plans, they have either given up already (Pryce) or seen a weakness to exploit (Giovanni).

On that note: Why is Fuji afraid that he might lose his funding? He managed to create life and clone humans. There ought to be some money for that, even if it was against ethic standards. I bet the healthcare sector would water its lips for free transplants and there have to be some other billionaires that lost their loved ones that would be enthralled by Fuji’s pitch. He doesn’t need to rely on a crime-boss that wants a sentient superweapon at his command.
I like the level of language used here. Not too simple, but not too difficult that I would have lost track at any point. One thing I noticed is that the characters’ dialogue is quite stilted. It seems unnecessarily complicated (for the characters to use those sentences). And while it may show how nervous Fuji is, Giovanni doesn’t seem to have a reason to hide behind big words and formal sentences.

So yeah, that concludes my thoughts on the prologue. I have yet to find out how cats factor into all of that, but I’m always open for cats. And kudos for making a “anthro”-story appealing to me. I have an (unjustified) bias against them, but what I’ve read so far, DE is really intriguing.

Cheers, blue

PS: The Dittos are the cutest thing on Cinnabar, period.
 

Sinderella

Angy Tumbleweed
Staff
Location
In Guzma's Closet
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. sylveon-shiny
  2. gothitelle
  3. froslass
  4. chandelure
  5. mimikyu
Happy Smeargle Swap! I had a lot of fun drawing ur baybeeeee~

I’ve included two versions here—the OG and one where the water effect isn’t as intense. I hope you liek it 🥺👉🏻👈🏻
 

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kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
hiya! here for a belated (Blitz) review/review in general. chapter 2~~

I admit this is a particularly fun experience to read this fic for the second/third time and to see what stays and what doesn't. I do stand by my original critique that the pacing of v2 was kind of weird--but in reading v3 (or whatever version you prefer to call this one/the one that isn't the 2012 one), I think it's a lot more clear that another solution to the pacing is to do the morphing first, and then coax out the backstory later. (I believe I suggested having more backstory focus? Regardless, I see now that this was a weird suggestion and this version's structuring works much better. Lol. So it goes.) The little glimpses we get of Salem remembering her past in the morph tank are strong enough to form an interesting story here, and it's true; we don't really need to know the specific details of her relationship with Laura/Alisha here to jump into the morphing parts of the story, Dusk, Perihelion, and such. It also flows a lot more smoothly from the first chapter--I wasn't sure how you'd go from Mewtwo/Giovanni to sad cat feels, but again, the seamless answer here is simply "do not". Really fun.

Your prose overall is really smooth and I like the flow here. Dusk is very observant, external, and anchored in visuals, which makes for a great contrast with Salem's introspective parts that are more symbolic/don't really have any sort of physical context to them. Dusk's intro in this version is a lot softer than what I remember, and I really like the earnestness of her wanting to impress Salem, wondering what Salem will think of her, etc. She's still a little spiky, but that feels a lot more earned this time, and it's tempered really well with her frustration of, well, being her. Word choice and detailing in general is really clean. I noticed a lot of water/flowing metaphors in this chapter; wasn't sure if that was intentional, but I thought it paired nicely with the whole tank vibes.

Structurally I liked how this chapter approaches both sides of the morphing process--I remember the tank scene being really striking in v2, but I think it lands more powerfully here now that we know what's coming next--Salem's optimism that this is her new body, her new hands, all these cool things that she gets to have~~ is contrasted heavily with Dusk's irritation at the non-Alisha human staff, her frustration with her body not performing as well as she wants it to, her disgust at seeing herself in the mirror. I remember the Perihelion stuff being a mix of sort of telegraphed for me (in that I thought, more or less, that it was going to be semi-sinister capitalist scientists who were probably raising a seal team six anti-mewtwo squad or something) while also being really vague (since there was actually 0 textual evidence to back up that theory)--but here the Perihelion involvement gets to be a lot less oppressive, and as such I found it working a lot better. Even if they aren't secretly evil because when is a science team in a morph fic never not the worst, it makes for a better structural take, not showing the monster in a horror film sorta thing.

Overall, a really fun chapter. Galpals for days~

some line-by-line thoughts, mostly small:
Dozens of them. Tanks just like hers.

That was it. She was in the tank.

She kept forgetting she was in the tank.
The "just like hers" after so much dancing around what she was in felt a little abrupt, and might read smoother without it/as:
> Dozens of tanks.
> That was it. She was in the tank.
> She kept forgetting she was in the tank.
She could go faster than that, she knew it.
Grammatically I think this is a comma splice and should be:
> She could go faster than that; she knew it.
“You under-stood I said ‘Doc-tor,’” Dusk replied between stretches, with exaggerated sullenness. “You are not my speech there-app-ist.”
Absolutely doesn't have to be answered any time inside or out of the text, but I'm deeply curious of you have any takes on sneasel languages, and if certain syllables and Galarian sentence constructs give them specific hiccups. I was trying to figure out if there were specific sounds or words that Dusk got stuck on (mostly bc I know you have conlang background and you might've done some research into this, not because I expect it out of a story lol).
In the mirror she saw something no longer exactly sneasel, but neither was it exactly human. It was unnerving, even after almost a moon, to look at herself at all. Let alone with the degree of attention Dr. Collett sometimes required of her.

“Dusk, I’d like you to describe what you see.”
I really love this setup, both in establishing who Dusk is, introducing a non-cheesey way to have a character look into a mirror, and also just general grounding for Perihelion. Of course they have therapists and are actually responsible for their subject's mental health.

I also like the visceral way you portray looking in the mirror and not liking what you see, of gradually not being disgusted by it. It grounds the themes/analogy in a way that didn't quite hit me in v2, I think.
It was always too warm in Collett’s office, and her blood-feathers could only do so much to keep her cool.
Would blood-feathers be for cooling? Had trouble understanding what benefits cooling would provide for a tundra sneasel.
Catching sight of her face, she could mistake it for that of an ordinary sneasel. Looking directly at it, she saw an otherness about her eyes, her mouth, her skull.
:(, see above
Every morph in the facility probably knew her: recruitment officer Alisha Renadier, the only human Dusk knew who continually communicated in pokésign. Dusk could recognise her by sight alone, not even needing to smell her.
Alisha!!

I like how she's explicitly liked in this version (and for very reasonable reasons; she approaches the morphs on their preferred turf.

The scent thing was interesting--is her sense of smell deteriorated as a morph now? Does she miss it?

I was curious about the implications of "every morph" vs Dusk's recurring loneliness--it seems like she doesn't have many close relationships to the other morphs, so it felt strange that she'd say all of them knew Alisha so confidently?
“Me neither,” said the human, with a smile of her own.
Totally an optional stylistic choice, but I think it'd be neat if Alisha spoke with ["Me neither,"] to emphasize that she's signing and speaking?
As social dark-types, your temperaments might be similar, and physically you’re pretty close. A feline-morph isn’t so different from a mustelid-morph. If you want a serious answer then you should ask one of the science staff, but I’m sure you two will hit it off just fine!
I was curious about the social dark-types bit in light of Dusk's later comments that she hadn't had many peers
Large, triangular ears and a flexible tail ending in a curved hook: not exactly what Dusk expected, but definitely the ‘purrloin.’
The ordering in this section was a little bumpy for me--first we see Salem, then Dusk comments that it wasn't what she was expecting, and later we see what she was expecting when she describes a galarian meowth, which I realized linked back to Alisha' comments that purrloin are close to meowth, but I think that would've read a bit more smoothly if we saw instead the paragraph comparing Salem to a Meowth, then we learned that it's not what Dusk was expecting.
Dusk wished this one would open her eyes so that she could see whether those, too, resembled her own.
or are they different hue hue hue i am SURE no one has made that joke here
But the human wasn’t paying attention, already lost in her work.
I liked this detail--pokesign is a powerful tool but it can be ignored in a way that a human voice can't ...
At least, she hoped so. She was used to lacking peers; it would be a worse loneliness to have a peer who remained a stranger.
Interested in the implications of this vs sneasel being social dark-types!
Her dreams poured through her head: human faces and her own; watching from a distance as her own body stood on two legs; needles; being held tightly, too tightly; blood and hunger and cold. Dreams of fighting. Dreams of losing.
I was curious where the dreams of fighting/losing come from, and what they mean. I interpreted it as pokemon battling, but iirc Salem doesn't really battle and didn't aspire to it? Wasn't quite sure what was happening here.
She tried to tell how long she’d been this way. Days? Moons? Seasons? Hard to guess, impossible to know. Electric lights illuminated the room from overhead in place of a dimming sun. No windows. No way to measure the suns and moons. As her ordeal went on, she tried to track time by remembering details: what level the fluid canisters were at, how many plasters she wore on her arm and where, how much further below her body her hind paws—feet—had stretched. She tried to count how many times these details changed and found that she always lost count after three or four.
I thought this reasoning was really interesting in light of the idea that she's gaining new thoughts with the transformation--how far into the process is this? The cognizance required to understand that X happens every so often is pretty low (i.e. cats know roughly when mealtimes are), but actually counting them and recognizing the reverse--that this is a way to measure time, rather than using time to measure the gap between things--seems like a really high-level amount of thinking for what felt (?) early-ish in the process. I like the way that you portray the difference in human thinking later on (having complex emotions/grief, being able to keep track of lists), but for me this was actually the most interesting gap in thought process/demonstration of elevated thought process.
More overwhelming still was the ability to think about both how she felt about something, and why she felt that way. The difference between remembering and understanding… She likened it to the difference between drinking water, and actually tasting it. For the first time, she could taste her thoughts. For the first time, she could ask herself…
I like the metaphor for "the difference between drinking water, and actually tasting it", but because her monologue here is wholly internal, it felt weird to describe it as "she likened"--it makes it feel like she's describing it to an external mind (which, in a sense, her real mind probably doesn't feel like hers any more), but in a way that broke up the narration for me, especially because I don't quite understand the difference to Salem between tasting and drinking water. Maybe something more like:
> [...] The difference between remembering and understanding ... [description of a time that Salem was really thirsty and drank water without tasting. maybe hunger would work better if you don't want to describe the specifics of the taste of water haha]. She hadn't even tasted it; it had just run down her parched throat in an endless, uncountable deluge.
> For the first time, she could taste her thoughts. For the first time, she could ask herself...
That was right. She had only ended up here in the tank, changing, because she’d left home however many moons ago. Why? Why had she done that? Hadn’t she realised that if she left, she might not ever find her way back? Of course she hadn’t. She’d been a purrloin. She couldn’t have known how to plan ahead for the consequences of her actions.
:(

This is a fun bit of fridge horror lol. I think part of why I was so hesitant of Alisha in v2 was because she was so insistent that this was Salem's choice, when I was more in v3 Salem's boat here--that as a purrloin she wasn't equipped to understand the consequences of her actions, and it'd be one thing if Alisha were offering this purely for Salem's benefit but it's clear that Perihelion is getting something else out of this. I'm intrigued to see that Salem does feel the same way here, how she's wrestle with the regret, if she thinks that all the morphs here were given a fair shake, if other morphs don't come to the conclusion Salem does and do end up regretting the choice they made ...
She attempted a ginger, awkward stretch
This might just be a me thing, but I didn't parse "ginger" as the adjective form of "gingerly" and got a little stuck here.
She could never fit curled up on a pillow now. Or squeeze inside cupboards. Or have her body stroked in one smooth motion from forehead to tail-tip.
CATTO.
Salem waggled her hind-paws like her hands and to her vague surprise, they felt much the same as they’d always done. She tried flicking her tail and found that it was still very much there, hanging weightlessly in the tank fluid. That came as a relief. She couldn’t have accepted the loss of her tail. It seemed her limbs stayed her own.
I liked the contrast in these paragraphs--she's okay losing her small size (although she recognizes what she's lost from it), but the tail! unacceptable! must keep tail! I was curious if there were other things that she would've deemed as critical components of herself, what bits she sees as Salem-core, so to speak.
She felt as tender as if her entire body was nothing but a person-shaped wound. But the important part wasn’t that she felt like one enormous wound. It was being shaped like a person.
:((((

The other thing that fascinated me from v2 and continues to in v3--she didn't see herself as a person before?
“Salem? Salem, can you hear me?”

Her tongue, finally at ease in her mouth.

“I hear you.”
I like the drama and weight of this closer. I think it'd be a little more clear if the non-Salem dialogue were italicized or something to set it apart from the final dialogue.
 

HelloYellow17

Gym Leader
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. suicune
  2. umbreon
  3. mew
HOWDY HEY, IT’S A BLITZING YELLOW COMING AT YA, FULL STEAM AHEAD :D

I honestly didn’t remember much at all from this chapter because it’s been so long since I’ve read it. And let me tell you, it was an absolute treat to read it again. Omg. I am extremely envious of your prose and I am now making plans to consume and devour your writing powers.

Now, I like to review by reacting to specific lines as I go, and then giving general thoughts at the end. So I’ll just dive right in!

At what point did a threshold in science become inevitable, however terrible it seemed? When someone first conceived of it? When it was no longer theoretical, but a practical possibility? Perhaps only once it became an irreversible reality, already in motion, and impossible to stop.

He knew the truth: this had been inevitable only so long as he'd remained committed to it. He could have turned back at any time, right up until the moment of genesis, but instead he had told himself, over and over, that he'd had no freedom to do otherwise.
Oh, I love this. Granted, I did have to read this a couple times to fully grasp what it was saying. I’m not sure if that’s because it is late, or if maybe the prose was just a tad too fancy here for me to grasp it easily. But once I understood what was being said, I loved it. Fuji knows that he could have turned back at any moment before this one, and he knows that “there was no other choice” is just an excuse. I love that you have him so aware of his own cowardice. He doesn’t try to defend it or hide from it, either—he knows what he’s agreeing to, and he despises himself for it, but he continues anyway because his desperation to bring Ai back runs that deep.
He knew well that this was a powerful man — someone who could afford to keep others waiting
“Someone who could afford to keep others waiting” is a fantastic line to describe one who is aware of their own importance.
Giovanni did not bow in return.
I’m enjoying the implementation of Japanese culture here! The fact that Giovanni does not bow here speaks volumes, and the fact that Fuji bowed so low also says a lot without actually saying anything outright.
When he moved, he did so with unhurried confidence. This was surely a man accustomed to commanding the patience and attention of anyone in his line of sight. Fuji was no scholar of psychology, but he found himself analysing his sponsor's intimidating persona even while hurrying past the man to open the door for him.

His face held no expression but the tense blankness of a person keeping their thoughts behind a mask. He maintained total control of himself. The pokémon was a persian, judging by the gem set in its forehead — a pedigree, no doubt — and it followed at his heel without a sound or a sideways glance. He must have trained it strictly. Despite the Italian name he used, Giovanni's accent, facial features and mannerisms all suggested a Kantō heritage. It was obviously a pseudonym for a man with secrets worth hiding, but he must have had considerable arrogance to disguise the truth with such an obviously fake identity.
*aggressively slams hands on table*

I. LOVE. YOUR. GIOVANNI. Omg it’s all just so—*chef’s kiss*— magnificent. His intimidating aura just oozes off the page (well, metaphorical page, heh) with how you depict his every action. I love that you don’t just tell us he’s a big, bad, intimidating man—you show it to us. In the way he speaks and addresses his employees, the way he only answers the questions he deems worthy of responding to, the way he moves and carries himself and moves forward without any need for permission or consent. This is some absolutely top tier characterization, and I am living for it.
"This genetic sample of yours," continued Giovanni. "It came from an authentic mew fossil, isn't that so?"

Fuji willed his heart rate to remain steady. This man had no reason to suspect any deception.

Besides, it was a subfossil, and the man would know that had he paid attention to Fuji's report.
Oh? 👀 subfossil? So…it’s not entirely Mew DNA? Perhaps they had to supplement it with human DNA?

(LOL I wrote this before finishing the chapter so I know now that this wasn’t the case at this point. Then…I’m confused what Fuji was lying about here. Since it sounds like they do have actual Mew DNA?)
Giovanni's gaze seemed to tug on the secrets in Fuji's heart, but he returned it evenly.
Don’t mind me I’m just gonna give a *chef’s kiss* to this line right here.
"Pokémon are strange beings, Mr. Giovanni. Their bodies do not behave as ours do, and so they have long been called magical beasts, fae, dæmons, and yokai.
Yokai! :D I love that in this universe, Pokemon are the mythical creatures you hear about in fairy tales and folklore—except in this case, they’re real.
He trailed off. The cultural reluctance to name uncomfortable things was strong, even as a scientist with international colleagues.
More nods to Japanese culture, I’m really loving it.
Their bodies were almost featureless, except for their odd little faces: beady black eyes and a darker line, like a seam, beneath them.

As they both watched the creatures, one of them transformed into a copy of its own water bowl. Another, into a stone.
Oh—OMG THESE ARE DITTO HAHA. I got so excited when I realized this.
Fuji sighed. Felt a tug at his heart.

"She left her ring with her last letter. That was some weeks ago, now. It's no great surprise; I did miss the funeral after all."
While I do like the way this information was presented—slowly, and through dialogue, not all at once—I can’t help but feel that Fuji would be doing a lot more than just sighing and feeling a mere tug at his heart here. His daughter has died, he missed her funeral because he’s in such denial, and his wife has left him. That’s…a lot of emotional baggage! Even if he doesn’t want to acknowledge it fully because he is so deep in denial, it would be nice to get just a little more elaboration or description here. Maybe even his chest tightening, and a determined, desperate inner mantra of This is going to work and everything will be fine, fine, just fine, I will prove everyone wrong.

Of course, if this doesn’t line up with your characterization you have planned for Fuji, then feel free to disregard. I’m just spitballing ideas!
"The principle difficulty in pokémon genetics is the 'instability' associated with their genetic codes. They change, they adapt, they break down with terrible ease. The mechanism of evolution is possible because unlike us, pokémon are somehow able to use the strange energy they rely on for all their powers to alter their very genes. This same process is what results in the 'ditto' you've seen today. Adding eukaryotic DNA from an animal, perhaps a human, would potentially grant the morphology of the donor to the specimen—"
Love love LOVE this explanation of animals (including humans) versus Pokémon. It makes complete sense and totally checks out with what we know about Pokémon from canon. Also I love the small hints that normal animals also exist in this world.
In addition to being a great scientific mind, Auguste Katsura served as Cinnabar's gym leader and Kantō's fire type specialist.
Oh!! I wasn’t expecting this guy to be Blaine. I’m assuming Katsura is his Japanese name? I noticed you also stuck to Japanese names for some of the towns (like Viridian) but not all of them (Cinnabar.) I’m curious what your reasons for that are.
Katsura shrugged. "It has to be. Ah! We will do our level best. And consider: it will even grow up alongside Ai, if all goes well. How could the sibling of your little Ai be anything but noble and kind, eh?"
Oh dear. If this is going to go anything like the way the anime handled it (and I suspect it will), this is only going to end in sadness. :(
"Even if it works… It disturbs me. This idea of giving a semblance of humanity to a pokémon. What kind of life will it have? What if it suffers because of our decision?"
The “semblance of humanity” line makes me wonder. How sapient are Pokémon in this universe compared to humans? Of course this line could be referring to more than just sapience, but from the way it’s been phrased throughout the chapter, it seems that ordinary Pokémon don’t have the same cognizance that humans do.
He thought of the mew he'd befriended back in Guyana.
Oh-ho! So he actually befriended a Mew? I hope this Mew reappears in the story someday.

Wow, I remember loving your prose a lot, but I still wasn’t prepared to be reminded of just how excellent it is!! This was a great chapter, a really colorful look into Fuji’s thoughts and motivations, and a fantastic introduction for Katsura and Giovanni.

I honestly can’t think of much crit to give. My only suggestion would be to make Fuji’s thoughts and reactions stand out just a little more. Compared to Katsura and Giovanni, he does seem just a little flat in comparison. I wanted to really feel his anguish at Ai’s loss and his desperation to bring her back, fo make his experiment work. I did get a good sense of his guilt behind the whole Mewtwo project—but it would be nice if there was just a little more to it than that. Perhaps some desperation to make Ai’s revival a success, which bleeds into his guilt over Mewtwo and mingles into this frantic emotion of “This is going to work, it must work, it has to work or else I am forever condemned for doing such a thing.”

Again, take this with a grain of salt if you don’t want to implement this. I’m just sharing my thoughts. :) Overall, I LOVED this, what a stellar introduction, and I can’t wait to read more DE!!
 

Panoramic_Vacuum

Hoenn around
Partners
  1. aggron
  2. lairon
Hello hello! I've seen Salem, I've interacted with her, now I get to finally meet her, the proper way! This review will be for the Prologue and Chapter 1, since it felt right to read these back to back.

Right off the bat I recognized the chapter art of Gio and the heliplane, and it got me thinking: I never actually knew the connection between Gio and Salem, how this all came into being. I now know that Salem is not Giovanni's super secret army of cat soldiers (because humans are incompetent and cats are love, cats are life), but in fact the poke-morph program has its roots in something far more complex than I imagined it could be.

I am an absolute sucker for canon characters and retelling or elaboration of canon-esque events. The conception of Mewtwo here is a delight from beginning to end (as in, the end of the Prologue). I've seen and read a lot of different versions of the story of Cinnabar, the clone of Mew, and Giovanni's involvement in the proceedings, and I have to say this is one of my favorites. The level of thought, detail, and intrigue surrounding this story is off the charts, and I love me a good double cross any day of the week. The twists and turns of the Mew genetic project were fascinating, and you kept me on my toes throughout. Fuji's personal involvement, Giovanni's smug confidence, Katsura's gamble, the incomplete clones, it's all brilliant stuff and interwoven together makes a delightful set piece to kick off the future events of DE's story.

The characterization is fantastic. Fuji's tumultuous and torturous existence really drives the prologue and the reader's perceptions. Should we feel pity for him and the things he's sacrificed to get this far? Should we be horrified at what he's doing, agreed to do? Should we cheer him on, trying to trick and defy a man who could erase his existence off the planet over his morning tea? It's hard to know, and that's what's so beautiful. At first I had no idea that Katsura was Blaine's Japanese name, so your description of him and his personality were a lightbulb for me, and I really enjoyed your portrayal of him here. He's not some goofy quiz-loving geezer. But he is clever and cunning, and I appreciate the way he seems to live on the edge and make bold decisions, unlike Fuji's more timid uncertainty. Quite a duo here, changing the fate of the world. And I couldn't forget to mention how Giovanni's cold indifference and overwhelming presence is spot on to a terrifying degree. The ultimate hubris cherry on top is his volunteering of his own DNA to make Mewtwo. Oh man what a twist, I love it so much. It's a recipe for disaster of the Nth degree.

The amount of meaningful moral and emotional stances by all characters are the driving forces behind all these decisions that snowball into the launching of the Mewtwo project (and what's to come). There's a lot of thinking about what science can do, what it could do, what it should do. (I'm noticing a theme here if Chapter 1 is any indication...) The way you present each part of Fuji's decisions in relation to Giovanni's ambitions is a delightfully cruel twist of the knife. A good(?) man is driven to do things he regrets for all the right(wrong?) reasons. The gray area is huge and lets us paint our own picture of morality. Do you take the favor of a criminal mastermind in order to save the life of someone you love? Does money soaked in blood have different worth when it's used to wipe blood from your own hands? Does the stain even come clean when you know what it is you're doing can lead to even more innocent bloodshed?

These aren't easy questions to answer, especially not when every resource you've ever wanted is dangling right in front of your nose. Change the course of history, not just for yourself, but for the rest of humanity, and not even just humanity, either! I enjoy this tracing back to one moment in time, one moment of weakness(?), when things could have been different. It's this delightful what-if rolled in chopped up regrets, drizzled in naive hopes, topped with too much emotion, and wrapped in science that should have never been more than theory. Now I'm hungry for more, and that's exactly what a prologue should do. Well done, I look forward to piecing together the ramifications of this opening segment throughout the rest of DE.

Speaking of the rest, I've rambled about the prologue enough (I really do adore it though!)

Right off the bat we're met not with Salem, but with another morph, Dusk! I know we meet Salem first through one of the dream-like sequences of her awakening, but the physical meat of the chapter takes place with Dusk. We see the world through her eyes first, move through it with her body. There's a lot of great integrated worldbuilding, like morphs needing speech lessons, and this cool pokemon sign language, as well as life in the lab outside the tank. We're learning a lot, and it's this really neat way to make a sneak peek for the reader as to what Salem's going to be in for once she's out of all that green liquid! I also appreciate that we're able to take interest in Salem not just because a narrator told us to, but because another character is interested in meeting her. It's a great way to create emotional bonds between characters and between the reader and the characters.

Then we really jump into Salem's shoes, err, paws. There's a lot of really visceral description, sensory things, mental things (curse you [affectionate] for that line about the position of Salem's tongue in her mouth, now I'm aware of my own tongue) The way you write really makes the reader feel every word. A little part of me wonders if the sequence goes on too long as there's repeat parts of things that hurt or are connected to her body, and panic about breathing happens several times during this sequence. But then a part of me realizes that it doesn't go on too long because this literally is Salem's world, this is all things her, and everything she thought she knew about herself is now different. As I reader I keep wanting her to wake up, and at the same time, so does she! I could see a world where this segment is shortened (or interspersed to other parts of the chapters to break up the big chunk, because all the words here are good an important), but also it works all as one big bunch, too, for the reason below. (spoiler, it's contrast)

Either way, what sweet release at the end of the chapter, Salem's progress up to this point, the day of awakening. I love the short staccato sentences after the waves of dream-like consciousness streams. It feels concrete, grounded, definite. It loses the floaty nature and grabs everything swirling about and plunks it firmly into reality. Curse you again [affectionate] for that tongue line, but it works so darn good leading up to her first words. :okgon: emoji here

I'm happy to finally have gotten the chance to meet Salem, and I look forward to getting to know more about her.
 

HelloYellow17

Gym Leader
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. suicune
  2. umbreon
  3. mew
AYO I AM BACK FOR MORE

I originally planned to review chapters 1 and 2 together, but honestly I’m my ADHD brain won’t hold all the thoughts I have for Chapter 1 once I finish Chapter 2, so I’ll do the latter in a separate review.

Let’s GO

It pressed her whiskers to her cheeks, and though she could breathe, the breaths came hot and stifled.
Lol insert some joke about COVID masks here

(Masks gud, though. Wear your masks, kids.)
“You under-stood I said ‘Doc-tor,’” Dusk replied between stretches, with exaggerated sullenness. “You are not my speech there-app-ist.”
This was something that stood out to me in my first read, and it still stands: you do a great job with writing a character with broken speech patterns. It‘s clear that her speaking pattern isn’t fluid, but she’s still easy to understand, and it’s not written in such a way to be distracting.
She saw a creature both profoundly strange and unsettlingly familiar, that she tried to think of as a separate being, despite it being caught in a mirror. She saw a body that was stretched out far past its natural height, clothed in the attire of humans like some tasteless joke—dark-grey shorts and a white sleeveless top; nothing like sneasel handiwork— and vulnerable for want of its naturally formidable claws. She saw herself.
Ah yes, the trans themes are very poignant here! And as always, you have such a succinct and vivid way of describing these kinds of thoughts that can be hard to articulate. I also find it interesting that the morphs have to wear clothes, despite most of them already being covered in fur.
“Didn’t choose to have the Shift to feel good about my-self,” snapped Dusk.
👀 verrrry curious about Dusk’s backstory.
As social dark-types, your temperaments might be similar,
Me, as someone who knows the basics about both of their personalities: Lol. Lmao.
There was no way this one would understand sneasel speech, and Dusk didn’t know if purrloin even had their own language, but either sign or Galarish would be a safe bet.
Ah, so Pokémon had their own languages from species to species! Very interesting, I honestly like it. It makes a lot more sense than just having a universal language understood by all mon.
This wasn’t pokémon evolution that she was going through. It was a slow and gradual change. Like ageing. Like the growth of trees.
I believe it should be spelled “aging” here—unless both spellings are correct! Now I need to look it up.
Her foreleg—her arm, it would be her arm—burned as she held her paw up,
I love these small details. Their entire bodies are different now, so of course they aren’t going to be thinking “my hands” or “my arms” right off the bat, at least not in a natural or automatic way.
If she could breathe freely, it would have stolen her breath just to consider something she’d heard and at the same time consider its context. At least, without the memory streaming out of her brain like water off her paw. More overwhelming still was the ability to think about both how she felt about something, and why she felt that way. The difference between remembering and understanding… She likened it to the difference between drinking water, and actually tasting it.
So this pretty much confirms my question from the prologue about whether Pokémon are on the same cognitive level as humans! This is such a difficult concept and transformation to describe, but you absolutely nailed it.
She couldn’t have known how to plan ahead for the consequences of her actions.
…oh. Oh. OH. This sentence alone filled me with such fridge horror. “She didn’t know how to plan ahead for her actions” can easily translate to “she understand know enough to give proper consent.”

Even if these mons did volunteer for the project, how much did they truly understand when they did that? It sounds like it wouldn’t have been difficult at all to manipulate them into giving consent, especially if these people are going to shelters to select already displaced and likely vulnerable Pokemon. Hoo boy.
A new brain. She would think differently now. Be different. A different person. That could mean anything. Now her new brain screamed at her with thoughts and memories and sensory input and fear and pain and tiredness and everything, everything, everything at once without letting up. She tried to gasp, but it died in her chest. She couldn’t bear to think about her own thoughts, not yet. Not for now.
What an excellent description of sensory overload. I could feel Salem’s discomfort through this whole chapter, it was all so vivid. Also, what an ASD/ADHD mood, hah.

She felt as tender as if her entire body was nothing but a person-shaped wound.
OH I love love love this line, what a great way to sum up wide-spread discomfort!
But the important part wasn’t that she felt like one enormous wound. It was being shaped like a person.
I was so impressed by the previous line that I literally added it to my quote list before reading this one. And I’ve found this happening more than once in just the two chapters I’ve read so far! I read one sentence, go “OH OH THAT IS GOOD,” quote it, and then read the next line and go “THIS IS SO GOOD TOO AND IT MAKES THE LINE BEFORE IT EVEN BETTER?!” It’s unreal. I love it so much.

Overall, I really enjoyed this chapter! Not too many events really take place here, but it’s still a solid introduction of both Dusk and Salem, dropping hints at both of their backstories while leaving tons of room for questions and intrigue. The only criticisms I have for this chapter are two things: one, in the scene where Salem is pacing the hallways before encountering Alisha, it would be nice if there were just a couple more sentences describing the scenery, or at least where she is in relation to other places in the facility. My mind’s eye just kind of had her existing in a blank space until Alisha came along.

Second, and this one I don’t necessarily feel too strongly about, but: it may be worth looking into trimming some of the Salem sections. We get quite a lot of detail about her physical sensations and semi-comatose state, perhaps more than necessary. That said, though, I honestly still enjoyed it a lot. It wasn’t just telling us “Salem is uncomfortable,” it was telling us about Salem herself, as we got to see her thoughts and reactions to each little thing. Really lovely stuff, and while it probably could be trimmed, I still say it’s high quality writing.

See ya next chapter! 💛
 
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HelloYellow17

Gym Leader
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. suicune
  2. umbreon
  3. mew
Aaaand time for chapter 2! Omg. This is by far my favorite chapter so far. This made me smile and giggle out loud more than once. The moral of this chapter is that SALEM IS PRECIOUS BEYOND WORDS.

She made a sign with one finger that he’d definitely understand, and stormed away.

Want-ed to give new morph some-one good to look at. Ha?”
Bwahahaha I love Dusk already.
Not brightness. Colours?

The world was different now. New colours. Bright colours. Her eyes swivelled in her head, jolting from one alien hue to another. That shirt. That hair. Colours she’d never seen. Never could have imagined. To see so many of them, all at once—too much to take in. She didn’t even face towards them, her eyes just raced—she was dizzy. She felt sick. Too strange. Too new! Too much!
Love this detail!! Animals don’t see color like humans do, and I love that you took this into account for Pokémon. Poor Salem, though. As if having your body completely altered and enlarged by several times wasn‘t overwhelming enough, now she has elevated cognition, more tastebuds, enhanced eyesight. It would be too much for anyone, all at once.
She tried to flip onto all fours, something she’d done countless times. Pain. Failure. Her body lurched and spasmed; her muscles screamed at her. She gasped, fell back with an audible thump, flinched, cried out in a voice that wasn’t her own.

The words died in her mouth. She was so close! It hurt to be so close. But even if she knew how to make the sounds, how could she have explained herself? She felt too much, too many things at once—a storm inside her head! Each sound and scent raised more thoughts and more memories than she could cope with, and emotions too, flowing and flooding and breaching every part of her brain with the weight of her feeling. Too much; too much!
:( Poor baby. I gotta say, your body horror is absolutely on point. I can’t emphasize that enough! It feels like I’m experiencing this right alongside Salem, and I want to just give her a hug. Thought that would probably just make things worse, hah.
Once the tide started to subside, it became almost… fun. Now fingers. Now toes. Now ears, still able to pin back against her skull and turn towards Alisha’s snapping fingers. Now tongue, strange and unfamiliar in her mouth, but nevertheless under her control.
I love that we get to see this little quirk of hers. She loves checklists! That sentence from last chapter, about “humans can feel satisfied about so many things at once!” Really got to me, haha.
She raised a weary arm and signed: [Thank you. Friends.]
So, question. If Salem is just barely morphed, how does she already know sign language? Did they teach her before the Shift? But how well was she able to actually understand sign at that point, especially without the dexterity she has now?
Salem had no energy left, but she wanted to do those things so badly she felt she could substitute the sheer intensity of her desire for actual bodily strength.
This is a moment where I look up from my page and glare at you, le author, because this sure does sound like something you do ALL THE TIME, JACKIE. *Smacks you affectionately upside the head* let yourself relax, you hooligan!
Paw to her chest, then a clutching motion. [I want.] A motion from her mouth, moving forward. [To speak.] Hand-over-hand motions. [To walk.] More subtle motions now, ending in a raised paw, high as it could go. [I will try as hard as I can.]
I love that you describe the signs occasionally, and you do it in a clear way that I can visualize. Also, with some background knowledge of sign myself (ASL, though I’m willing to bet there’s similarities between ASL and BSL, especially from what I’ve read so far), it’s quite fun.
If she couldn’t walk, she'd need something to do besides lying in bed. Some mewling and charades earned her a magazine belonging to a human, something with pictures to look at. Mostly pictures of humans. The nurse offered help turning the pages, and she signed a perfunctory [NO].
Hdhejejjdkek Salem is so adorable, omg I was not prepared for how charming she is.
Although this moment had no precedent in Salem’s life, the nurse seemed to think that he had more important things to be doing. It was a struggle to correct him on this point.
Ahahahaha
She found some satisfaction in forcing them to ask politely for each cooperative movement, rather than letting them handle her as they’d done when she’d been merely a purrloin.
Oof. This says something about how humans—or maybe just these humans—view and treat Pokémon.
Her uniform consisted of dark grey shorts and sleeveless white shirts. They were elastic, fit comfortably, and often had pockets, in which Salem had taken to keeping loose items, when humans left them unattended.
AHAHAHAHA cat is still gonna cat!
Salem wouldn’t have paid the thing any attention, but it made a pleasant ‘clink’ when tapped with a claw, and it reflected light as a tiny dancing spot on the walls. Making the little dot of light swim around the room provided considerable entertainment.
Jackie you are KILLING ME. My love for Salem increases by about ten levels with every sentence. SHE. IS. PRECIOUS.
Her first word was ‘hello.’ The first several times she said it it came out as ‘HEYiao,’ trailing off at the end like a miaow.
Agh I could HEAR this in my head and my heart exploded into a million pieces, how dare you write a character this cute.
Lots of things were important, because of what humans wanted. And because humans wanted them, so did Salem.
*insert MASSIVE UNQUAG here*
When she smiled or laughed the skin around her eyes would crease all the way up, like crumpled fabric. Salem tried smiling back, and learnt quickly that smiling was desirable only if you did not bare your fangs excessively when you did so.
Loooool I CANNOT
Saying ‘Salem’ properly for the first time (with an actual ‘mm’ sound!) made her so happy her eyes prickled at the corners. Seeing Jo’s delighted smile lead to tears. Another lesson: tears could come from joy.
STOP MAKING ME LOVE SALEM TO AN UNHEALTHY DEGREE, MY HEART CANNOT TAKE IT
“See-kret?”

“Something you don’t know about. Something hidden.”

“You know many seekret?”

“So many secrets, Kitten,” said Alisha, winking.
Ahahaha uh. Oh boy! *unquag* I really want to like Alisha because she’s so kind to the morphs and treats them like real people, but I don’t dare.
[Hello, it’s nice to meet you. My name is ‘Pickpocket’. How are you?] they signed in unison.
PICKPOCKET LMAO
How the sentence at the bottom read “Cyndaquil's job with fake camps vexes Zygarde” and how that was a pangram.
Ahahaha I love that you made a Pokémon pangram!! Now tell me, how long did it take you? 😂
Taylor, tale, lore, tayyy-lorrr,” she trilled, playing with the syllables and signing a needle and thread motion as she did.

“Watch me!” she said, resorting to a favourite stock sentence. She slowly performed a 360-degree turn, arms held out for balance.

“How was my thing?” she asked, eyes wide.
If anybody TOUCHES this priceless kitten child, I will reach through the screen and THROW HANDS. SALEM MUST BE PROTECTED.
“Salem, huh? Nice to meet you, Salem. I’m Dusk.”
Eyyyy there’s that double meaning from the chapter title! Ever since you told me you like to put double meanings in your titles, I’ve been searching for them as I read. It’s kind of like a puzzle!
 

windskull

Bidoof Fan
Staff
Partners
  1. sneasel-nip
  2. bidoof
  3. absol
  4. kirlia
  5. windskull-bidoof
  6. little-guy-windskull
  7. purugly
  8. mawile
Hi Jackie! Going to drop a short review over the first couple of chapters. It's been a while since I read the prologue so I gave it a quick skim and it's just as good as I remember, but let me talk about the content that's actually new to me.

These first couple of chapters feel pretty slow-burn, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Primarily, they focus on Salem's feelings as she goes through the process of changing and then adjusting to her normal body. And it's something that takes time. I actually like that it takes time, instead of being something she immediately adjusts to. It helps things feel more grounded and realistic. It gives it less of a general fantasy/urban fantasy feel and more of a science fantasy vibe. Which I think is a good thing, because the premise is already pretty fairly sci-fi, so I think it's good to make the vibes line up.

Because the beginning is as slow as it is, we get to spend a lot of time with Salem and as such get to know her personality pretty well. She's determined has a bit stubborn streak, sometimes to her detriment, but she's a hard worker and is willing to push herself to reach her goals. She also has a kind heart.

We know less about Dusk, but we still learn some tidbits about her. Her curiosity, her own stubborn streak, and the fact that she seems to want to put her past behind her. Or at least part of it, as her name change implies. (Or perhaps she's just embarresed by her old name? I could see it going either way.) We also get the vibe that she has a kind heart, with her considerate gift in mind.

The only nitpick I have is that I wish we knew a little more about why Salem chose to Shift early in the story. There are some implications here and there - that she wasn't quite happy with her life, that she was left under-stimulated, and such. There's also a mention that prior to becoming part human, she didn't really have the ability to make long-term decisions, which does worry me a bit for her sake. It raises some ethical questions about the recruitment process for the morph program (though it's certainly better than taking unwilling pokemon). I get the feeling this is going to get addressed later on, based on the summary, in some form.

A few stray thoughts:
- I love the use of a form of sign language. I rarely see things like sign language get brought up in fiction period, so it's nice to see it here.
- Dusk brings up that Salem probably wouldn't understand the sneasel language. I'm kind of surprised that pokemon don't have a common language, since I'm used to that being the norm.

I think I'm going to wrap here, but hopefully I'll be back before the end of the blitz to catch up. I really like what you've got going here, and I look forward to reading more in the future. Until next time.
 

slamdunkrai

bing.com
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. darkrai
  2. snom
Hello! For Blitz reasons, I thought I'd check this one out — I really don't think I've read enough pokémorph stuff (or xenofic in general, really), and your writing style from some of the screenshots you posted in the server yesterday had me, plus the premise of this one, intrigued me a lot. I'll be covering the prologue and chapters 1–3 here, but suffice to say, this was truly just a delight to get into. A lot of what I want to say came as responses to individual sections, which I don't feel fit in that much with my comments on the story more broadly, so I'll split this into two parts with the second one under a spoiler tag.

I'm always a sucker for Mewtwo origin stuff, and this prologue really scratched that itch for me. The dilemma you set up for Dr. Fuji is excellent, as is his suffering of employment under Giovanni; there's a lot of consternation over whether or not the decisions made here are wise or ethical, and yet ultimately, Fuji himself has little say over much of it — at least considering his goals for his daughter. All he and Katsura can do to fight back against Giovanni is their best. I'm intrigued that it's Gio's idea to splice human DNA into the process here, and that we skip straight from the creation of Mewtwo to 20 or so(?) years later and we pointedly don't see the immediate consequences of this decision, other than there being multiple pokémorphs and a whole organisation based around this. Clearly, the idea was feasible, but how did it turn out for Mewtwo, Fuji, and Team Rocket, etc.? I think my only trouble spot with this was that, while reading the three chapters that followed up the prologue, at times I found myself wishing for just a little bit more info about what happened in the 20 years since; there were some moments where I felt a little disconnected from the excellent prologue, and maaaybe an allusion here or there to the fate of that initial experiment couldn't go amiss. But also: that's just me, I think the story does flow really well beyond that, and it didn't really affect my enjoyment of this too much, so do with this info what you will. I also think that having the mystery hang over everything we're seeing here helps add to the intrigue, so I can't complain too much. :V

The three chapters after the prologue? Also great, for different reasons; I think the word that comes to mind in describing them (especially chapters two and three) is, as invoked by Salem when she starts to get to grips with her new form, colourful. It really shows how passionate you are about all of this — the characters themselves, their pasts, their goals, and the way they interact as people; the inner workings of our pokémorphs; the world outside the facility, which is only invoked by memories that are nevertheless greatly effective, and my favourite bit of all, the way that all of these characters interact with language on (for the most part) their own terms... there's so much going on here, and so much of it is just wonderful, I think. Not really 100% sure how else to describe it other than to say that the happier bits made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There is a lot of charm to this story, and I'm very glad I got round to it. To elaborate on specific bits I liked, here's that second part of the review:

A horrible thought; it would owe him nothing if it lived.

If it lived, perhaps it would be the first of many pokémon-human hybrids. Capable of sophisticated cognition — endowed with fantastic elemental powers.

…If it lived.

"No choice," he murmured to himself. He had been given no choice but to give life to this creature, or at least that's what he had believed all this time.
My favourite passage from an excellent opening. It's foreboding, it's fatalistic, and it's truly a tragedy; his own bad decisions have led him here, and by the time he has recognised this, there is no going back.

We will have to fill in the gaps with appropriate genes from other species — alakazam, for example, given their natural proficiency with psychic power."
Always a sucker for seeing the specific ways people just throw together different sets of genes when making 'Two. (But also: don't think I don't see you, my esteemed fellow No Culture enjoyer ;D)

"Pokémon are strange beings, Mr. Giovanni. Their bodies do not behave as ours do, and so they have long been called magical beasts, fae, dæmons, and yokai.
This hints at some really fascinating worldbuilding, I've gotta say. There is a very subtle othering here — "their bodies are not like ours" — which becomes pertinent given how quickly the story turns its attention to a synthesis of the two, but also... yeah, it makes sense that people in the past would look at these magic creatures for whom they have no frame of reference, and think "that sure is a fae, or possibly even daemon". I like this!

"Psychic power is only one of the many possible assets this being could have," said Giovanni. "I also require intelligence, aggression, loyalty. The ability to use tools. Communication. Independent strategy. An intimidating physical form.
You have Giovanni's mannerisms nailed down here, I think; he acts and talks like a mob boss with his undaunted swagger, his subtle cruelty, and his delusions of grandeur, but here (and with all his impractical demands he makes knowing Fuji cannot refuse), he comes across like a particularly unhinged regular boss. The way he speaks here really nails that vibe. Sad he stopped before busting out more words. "Synergy. Teambuilding. Resilience. 8% growth in the fourth quarter. Another tube that connects the head and torso, but isn't the neck." And so on.

Katsura shrugged. "It has to be. Ah! We will do our level best. And consider: it will even grow up alongside Ai, if all goes well. How could the sibling of your little Ai be anything but noble and kind, eh?"
Not a biologist, psychologist, or anthropologist, but Katsura is right; this will definitely be as simple as he thinks it will be. (This got an audible "oh no" out of me when I read it, so good job!)

Each time Salem woke from sleep (if she was sleeping at all—her dreams felt like memories, and when she woke, it felt like a dream)
This is a really good image, though I'll admit I'm a bit unsure about the wording in parentheses here; feels like it could be improved further with a bit more clarity; e.g., what is "it" here? Logically feels like it should be a memory, but "memories" being plural and "it" being singular made this feel a little imprecise. (Not a huge deal, of course; this is literally just one line.)

‘Why didn’t I wait for Laura? What if she came back and found me gone? Will I ever see her again?’
This was a very good and well-placed line. A nice reminder of the consequences beyond this facility.

“Oh, I’m not telling,” Alisha teased. “I mean for one, don’t you remember what I told you when you woke up? You should have the opportunity to choose a new name to go with your new identity. I'll give this one the same choice when she’s conscious. Once she chooses, then you'll get to know.”
I appreciated how much certain elements of this (Salem coming to grips with her new body, choosing one's own name, just the general focus on being one's true self with clarity) read like a trans allegory, at least for me. Not a 1:1 allegory, mind you, which is wise, but I think it made all of this just a little more relatable in a way that made the euphoria of it all just a little more delightful (and the elements of, say, Salem looking back on her old life despite her happiness here, just that bit more poignant). Really good stuff.

Her tail repeatedly thumped the bed in quiet anger. [Walk. I want to walk. I can.]

“No way.”

She yowled, signed. [I will walk.]

“Not now, Salem–”

[Now!] She hissed as she signed, showing off her fangs.
In which Salem is a cat

Saying ‘Salem’ properly for the first time (with an actual ‘mm’ sound!) made her so happy her eyes prickled at the corners.
Touching back on the trans allegory point: :')

"You see the bird? Steel-type bird, looking angry? She is a corviknight. She is called 'Veracity'. She is sharp. I mean sharp, because she can cut you with her wings, but also her words, they are 'sharp'. All you need to know about her is she thinks she's the boss. The boss bird, maybe."

Salem nodded, mouthing 'boss bird' wordlessly. She listened carefully, clutching at the information, but attentive also to the cadence of Dusk's voice. This was only the second time she'd heard another morph speak at all, and Dusk was speaking at length. Her phrasing, her timbre, her rhythm, were all unlike that of humans, and it was pleasant in the manner of a new toy, or petting from a stranger. Maybe 'fascinating', more than pleasant?
I think this example really drives home my favourite thing about this fic, which is a fairly simple point: words are just wonderful, aren't they?

"That's Sauce. I can't say his real name, but it's the word for a kind of sauce, so that's what I call him. It's, ah, 'suh-ree-racha' or something. He doesn't like being called Sauce, so I will never stop calling him Sauce. He's a blaziken. He . . . also thinks he is the boss bird. Maybe this is just what birds are like."
There are tensions in the nest :oops: there is rivalry between the birds (but also, lmfao Dusk you little goblin)

"…My name . . . is Salem," she replied, slowly. "I . . . was purrloin before now."
Not 100% sure what happened with the ellipses here — I like the spaced out ones to emphasise how slowly and deliberately she speaks, but having the two different types here threw me off a little.

"Your companion is a source of suffering for you," continued the corviknight. "Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?"

Salem's words melted in her head before she could say them – for every thought she had, she anticipated a cutting new statement from Veracity. She stared, growing painfully aware of her own silence.

"No remark," observed the towering bird. "And you are loyal to a human who has hurt you. Perhaps you will not have the strength for what is coming. Yet, there is still time to prove otherwise."
Interested to see what the deal with Veracity is, and where the points she raises lead to. She reads like she's well-meaning and wants to impart truth onto Salem, but she is very blunt about the whole thing and seems like a difficult one to talk to.

She dropped straight down, whooping as she fell, and landed in a snowdrift with a crisp fwumch.
Words are just wonderful, aren't they? [2]

"Fuck," said Salem, with feeling.
Lmfao

"But what will you do? What would make you happy now?" asked the sneasel, with a little force behind the words. Just enough to show she cared, without being demanding. It was a good question.

"Want to see her," said Salem, barely loud enough to hear herself.
Aw geez :(

On the whole, this was a blast to get into; I'll definitely have to check out chapter four at some point, and I'm really excited to see where this story is leading. I really, really liked this; cheers for writing it, and I can tell I'll be coming back to this whenever there's more! :D
 

Sinderella

Angy Tumbleweed
Staff
Location
In Guzma's Closet
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. sylveon-shiny
  2. gothitelle
  3. froslass
  4. chandelure
  5. mimikyu
HIHIHIHI Jackie! I went on a binge spree and entirely caught up to chapter 4, because, well...this story is fucking adorable so far (albeit I do feel like I have some inklings of whump and uh oh, but that could just be me projecting owo). I do have some line edits for the prologue to chapter 2, but chapters 3 and 4 I ended up listening to (and frankly I didn't even have edits in mind at that point because I would have just gotten repetitive), so this is a mass review for everything so far, but with only a few line reactions. Got it? Got it.

OKAY, so I don't know a lot about the Pokemon anime or things of that nature, so I ended up looking up who Dr. Fuji was and discovered that the prologue is essentially a retelling of Mewtwo's origin, which I found pretty cool! I like how you kind of wrote this in a sense of "This is the real world with Pokemon in it," with how Cinnabar is just a tourist name for a Japanese island, and so on and so forth. Also really liked how you combined two of Blaine's foreign names to create Auguste Katsura--thought that was ingenious, tbh. There were a lot of things that I was really gasp about in my line reacts but once I realized this was kind of a retelling, I toned back on that LOL.

Chapter 1 was...really nerve-wracking for me, if I'm being honest. I'd read it a while ago for Smeargle Swap, but rereading really reminded me how much my skin crawled through it, because I just felt for Salem. From the moment she woke up in the tank, you did a fantastic job of portraying this Purrloin going through this slow but steady shift into a morph, and the anxiety that gradually begins to come with her realizing "Holy fucking shit I'm not a Pokemon anymore, I actually have CONCIOUS THOUGHT??? And FINGERS???? And BACK PAIN???????" Gurl. My skin crawled at the image of just waking up in a tank and not being able to DO anything. She could breathe, but she couldn't do anything else but be alone with her thoughts...and that's fucking scary. I did start to wonder if that was some sort of case of, like, anesthesia awareness? Like, she WASN'T supposed to have gained consciousness at that point, but something malfunctioned? OR it could have been foreshadowing to her being an overachiever (lololol) what with how chapter 2 ended up playing out.

It was fun witnessing Salem come to in this new body of hers. As an overachiever myself, I really empathized with her absolute need to just be up and moving right off the bat. Fuck waiting around to "rest up," I want to be walking and talking RIGHT THIS FUCKING SECOND. There were some instances where Salem started to realize "wow if I whine enough I'll get what I want" and that had me a little "uh oh" because that's like, bratty toddler logic LOL. Like, no, don't give in to the tantrums, they'll never learn that way! But, after getting into chapter 4, with the return to Purrloin Salem, I fucking realized "WOW THAT'S JUST CAT BEHAVIOR." They meow and whine until we get up and feed them??? Everything just came around full fucking circle, didn't it? Wow.

Dusk is a damn. Bean. Love how she kinda went out of her way to be Salem's first friend, because she'd been so eager to meet her in the first place. I was so scared Salem was going to be released to the masses of Pokemorphs and have an immediate run-in with a bully (which kinda did happen, fuck you Veracity, Salem JUST GOT ACCLIMATED, GIVE HER SOME SPACE), but Dusk was the first one to be like "I gotchu bih" and it eased my nerves a little bit. Good friendship. Just gals being pals. I should also mention that I loved the unseen development Dusk had with her talking level--in chapter 1 it seems like she's still struggling to make up her words, but once Salem's out, clearly a lot of time has passed, and Dusk has gotten much better at speaking. Great subtle change!

Chapter 4 was just heartbreaking. I felt horrible for Laura, and I felt even worse for Salem. On one hand, I totally wholeheartedly rooted for Salem playing jailbreak and getting the fuck out of that house, because that life of sheer monotony and neglect just sounds downright awful, but also...what's Laura going to think when she finds out Salem's gone? It really stung how she kind of just left without giving Salem any more than a "Goodbye," and I have to wonder if it's because she legitimately stopped caring (as it was portrayed that her attention was going elsewhere as she studied for school and navigated away from the idea of being a trainer), or was just too sad to give much more? I could see it being a mix of both where she's so devastated about not being a trainer that she can't even look her lone Pokemon in the eye anymore? Then there was the passing mention of Pokemon going missing, and I have to wonder if this institution making the morphs has something to do with that >.> Might just be me looking for the underlying dark, but, uh...my radar's beepin'. Good fic, please write moar.

Didn't really have a lot of critique, honestly. These chapters seemed really clean and tightened up. Plus, we're still in the beginning stages of the story, so I can't really get into to much there. I guess the only thing I really have to comment on are the excessive scene breaks--some of them were definitely helpful in the showcasing of time passing, but others I somewhat figured didn't need to be there. But that's a massive nitpick, if I'm being honest.

Thanks for the good read, and happy blitz! Will be patiently awaiting update, but until then, line reacts! :D

Line Reacts Prologue through Chapter 2
"Of course," he said at last. Giovanni's smile grew wide, but it never reached his eyes. "Thank you for your time, Doctor Fuji."
monkaS monkaS monkaS Fuji's fuckin' dead

The pokémon was a persian, judging by the gem set in its forehead — a pedigree, no doubt
INTERESTING CONCEPT. Pokemon can be pedigree??? I love that.

"It came from an authentic mew fossil, isn't that so?"
Wait, so you're telling me there's more than one Mew??? Fascinating.

believe it to be the fossilised eyelash of an ancient mew.
Fossilized eyelash. That is so goddamn fitting for Mew, wow. How did they even find that????

Fuji prayed that his deception had not been a mistake. Oh, Mew. Perhaps you made a mistake entrusting me with that eyelash.
DECEPTION??? WATCHU UP TO HOMIE????

Each vivarium was a box with glass panels, housing one or more shapeless, pinkish masses. They looked almost gelatinous, each one's epidermis gleaming a little in the artificial light. They moved slowly, somewhat like that of a mundane snail, or a slugma: they stretched out their amorphous bodies and then pulled their mass forwards using the extended part. Their bodies were almost featureless, except for their odd little faces: beady black eyes and a darker line, like a seam, beneath them.
Oh hey Ditto

"Ditto? That's a strange word."

"It's Galarish, sir. It means 'that which has been said before.' I confess I quite like that one."
This is a hysterical and very subtle backstory. Absolutely iconic.

"She left her ring with her last letter. That was some weeks ago, now. It's no great surprise; I did miss the funeral after all."
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof. Press F to pay respects.

"Well. Good luck. May you meet with success in the due course of time, and have your daughter back once more. Just don't let it interfere with the project. Remember, I'm not in the business of human cloning."
wait. Linda WHAT.

Ah, well… in the metaphorical tree of life, animals — including humans, of course — and pokémon are considered two different 'domains' of life.
This is a cool explanation that totally explains the concept of other animals existing among Pokemon, and I quite like it.

Auguste Katsura
Ingenious cat, you.

Dusk paused her routine to sign [Thank you, Doctor,] in reply. She put one hand to her mouth and drew it away in the human’s direction, then touched her wrist as if taking her pulse.

“Come on, you can say that in Galarish.”

Ugh.

“You under-stood I said ‘Doc-tor,’” Dusk replied between stretches, with exaggerated sullenness. “You are not my speech there-app-ist.”
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I fucking love the emphasis on the syllables because she's still learning how to speak correctly.

her fur was too short, not at all like bedraggled, steel-wool meowth fur.
I really liked this take! Meowth fur isn't soft, this has been a PSA.

her mind clinging only to a droplet or two of memory from her dreams or her final days as her former self.
What were they like Salem? Was this willing???

Holding many memories in her head to compare thrilled her enough, even through the continual, subdued panic of her submersion. If she could breathe freely, it would have stolen her breath just to consider something she’d heard and at the same time consider its context. At least, without the memory streaming out of her brain like water off her paw. More overwhelming still was the ability to think about both how she felt about something, and why she felt that way. The difference between remembering and understanding… She likened it to the difference between drinking water, and actually tasting it. For the first time, she could taste her thoughts. For the first time, she could ask herself…
I just really liked this paragraph, and the way it so effectively portrays somebody with lesser intelligence suddenly being thrust into MORE intelligence, and not knowing how to handle it. Very well done.

She made a sign with one finger that he’d definitely understand, and stormed away.
LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUL DUSK

This was it—the whole point of being here. Her wish.
Oh good, so this wasn't forced, thank god (I think)

The thought was strange, that her eyes were different now.
Eyes....different?

Roll credits.

It turned out that getting what you wanted from humans wasn’t so hard, once you got the knack of it. If you made enough fuss, and persevered, they’d figure out what you wanted and let you have it.
TODDLER. LOGIC. DON'T GIVE IN, SCIENTISTS.

‘HEYiao,’
This is exactly how I greet my cats

“So many secrets, Kitten,” said Alisha, winking.
IS IT BAD THAT I THOUGHT THIS WAS OMINOUS????? Alisha seems nice, and I might just be paranoid, but I'm half shitposting that she's actually a psychopath.

She took every opportunity to complain and make demands, and the human staff patiently supplied her with diversion.
Slowly realizing this is actually cat logic.

“Cyndaquil's job with fake camps vexes Zygarde”
Good job coming up with this.

“No, I’ve decided already. My name is Salem. I’m Salem.” [And my sign name is Pickpocket.]
It's cool that there's a distinction between spoken and signed, but I wonder why? And why Pickpocket? Because she's a Purrloin?

Taylor, tale, lore, tayyy-lorrr,” she trilled,
Dropped quotation mark here.

“Watch me!” she said, resorting to a favourite stock sentence. She slowly performed a 360-degree turn, arms held out for balance.

“How was my thing?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Perfect, Salem!”
THIS WAS SO WHOLESOME, I WANT TO GIVE HER A HUG.
 

windskull

Bidoof Fan
Staff
Partners
  1. sneasel-nip
  2. bidoof
  3. absol
  4. kirlia
  5. windskull-bidoof
  6. little-guy-windskull
  7. purugly
  8. mawile
Hi Jackie! Figured I'd go ahead and finish getting caught up on Different Eyes. This will be covering chapters 3 and 4.

I don't have a lot to say about the general plot covered in chapter 3. It was a nice little chapter of Dusk and Salem getting to know each other, and introduced us to a few of the other morphs, but what it might mean for the plot as a whole, I'll have to wait and see.

Most of my notes on this chapter are just on little details of the story. For example, I found myself honing in on the mention of preselected shows. Maybe its nothing, and maybe they just mean like. You know, regular tv, but I find myself wondering if there's something suspicious going on here. Are they withholding information from the morphs What is the purpose of having the shows be preselected? Maybe this is just some tiny little detail but it has my speculative mind racing!

Regarding Veracity. Boy howdy she knows how to unnerve a gal. In more ways than one. The way you described Salem as losing her appetite while Veracity is around just because of her general presence works really well. It’s a game element - an ability - presented in a way that makes it feel natural. (At least, I’m assuming it’s an unnerve ability 8P)

Also I had the mental image of Veracity slipping and sliding on polished tiles and it gave me a good chuckle (and as an added bonus, made her seem less intimidating).

Moving on to chapter 4, I think it’s good that you didn’t start with this one. It’s a lot of backstory, and I feel like it would have made the beginning too slow. That said, I’m not 100% sure that this placement was better, since it still ends up taking the reader out of the current action. And I kind of find myself wondering if having the scenes be interspersed throughout current day chapters as they become relevant might have been better. All that said, the story is still in its infancy, if the Ao3 chapter estimate is anything to go by, so maybe I’ll feel different in the future.

As for the actual contents of the chapter…

Laura’s parents feel… stubborn, for lack of a better term. They feel like they have a specific image in their head of what they want Laua to be, like they think they know best and they’re going to make her do what they want. They also feel like they don’t really care about Salem at all, and like they’re only going through the motions of taking care of her because they care about Laura and are taking care of Salem out of a feeling of responsibility while she’s gone. I can’t help but wonder how hard they looked for Salem and how long it took them to tell Laura she was gone, though, considering Salem had been missing for at least two months before going through the Shift.

There’s one thing I wanted to get clarification on: the scholarship. Was Laura not able to pursue it without her parents permission? Or is this a situation where they would have refused to support her journey monetarily if she had gone through with trying to get one from another company. I feel like that could use my clarification.

Overall though, I’m having a good time reading this. Your prose is wonderful and your characters are fun. Looking forward to more.
 
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