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Pokémon Postcards

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Chapter 14 review

Sigh its a world wide (well cross dimensional one now i guess) pheonom in which people are judged by the waist line it seems. I was kinda hoping this verse was exempt but meh i guess not.

While were pointing out the obvious as heck pokeballs can we point out waters wet? I mean how unobservent... This is going to devolve into a backhanded compliment thing isnt it?

Well not as tactless but still pretty bad.

Please tell me pov trainer isnt getting this with every interaction? Amd the scene where she was treated as invisible by another competitor at the event and literally prodded... I cant figure which one is worse. Being ignored to invisibility or being talked down by people who are clinging to thier assumptions...


I like how supportive and fond she is of her pokemon. The contest hall sounds like a riot to be in and i can only imagine the insanity of organizing such a mad house... But as a contest specialist why would she need badges? I have to admit i never did contests in game so the mechanical aspects of it skate over my head...

So pov trainer has an azu'... Nice... Wonder about the rest of her team though....

While the fashion scene wasnt frankies cup at least the pov character found something shes passionate about...

Even if the allure is a bit baffling and it seems azu' s appreciating the life style too.

Laughs and i suppose the joy of that setting is you get to meet the fans. Not only of her azu but of herself. Hopefully its the first selfie of many to come.

Thanks for sharing..
 
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K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Well at this point most of the trainer povs are something of loners. Something i think the journey encourages i think. Or the experiences and take away from the journey...

And the loss of stability appears to be a risk for those who wander and it seems to have some long reaching effects.

Though i can respect that anxiety list.

Big cities can be bad like that...

Lovely name for a liepard. The coloring alone makes it doubly hilarious. Still for some sometime mon/animals arent enough... But when people areound you arent on the same wavelength you are thats its own agony.

But discomfort of this level speaks of possible rebound from a bad experience.

And being shy to that level any loss or bad experience is going to cut in deeper... And per your characters bad experiences with poison types and thier trainers i get suspicious vibes off of ms viper tatoo even if its by accident...

Thats a horribly bat pun.. Horrid i tell you...

Huh the lack of share and care is jingling a interest in a casual fling... While not bad per say i dont think thats what pov is aiming for for her first (or maybe one of her first) explorations in her own preferences...

Drowning in emolga merch... Drowning...

Im glad she kinda didnt and gets a chance to heal without another encounter to dig wounds deeper. Still poor guy trainer. A mix match of barking up the wrong tree and really barking up the wrong tree.

Interesting that the really dedicated trainers are thier own breed. With set clothes and patterns that were easy to pick out of the crowd of electric critter merch..

(And i gotta wonder do the other towns get awash in thier gym leaders main point pokemon or is it just that gym leader?)

As always thanks for sharing.
 

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
I wondered if we were going to get a fic focusing on post cards since the title and all that.

And here it is.

It is a struggle between obligation, picking the experiences to share, and encapsulating that experience when the pov character does not want to. I get a strong sense that the pov character just wants to baste and absorb her experiences rather than talk about them. Its a reasonable shift that seems to hit almost everyone who leaves home for the first time and the homesickness fades. And honestly i think if the pov character actually said something the others in her life might cotton on...

Especially if they went on journeys themselves.

Still the drop off of intenscity is shown well. It happens in bits amd bobs. Submurged by packages sent ahead. Long letters from those back home inspire her to write letters back. Her apathy is reignighted by how tacky the standard form and file post cards can get... The realization that guilt more than fondness is whats driving her sendings. But then the urge to not send gets stonger and stronger as the want to just be overwhelms obligations to report...

Its not the first time a trainers had money problems but this one seems to be dealing with different currencies.. I wonder if poke money is only usable in certian places and mainstream currencies are used elsewhere. That ornthis trainer has a few bad run ins with trainers that drained her dry of funds.

I'd say haikus are a fair middle ground if she can keep churning them out...

Well thanks for sharing.
 
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K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Its nice to see the progression from city slicker to wilderness embracer. Even if its a tame little splash fest.

I could see a furret (or rather a rl ferret) joining in that splash event. They are playful fuzz slinkies.

I can only imagine the itchyness of that skinny dipping session if its too salty. Makes sense for the tokens of their wanderings.. The scratches ect... Start stinging. Though with some big bites i can only imagine the itch factor going through the roof.

And i see we evolved from splash to a dip.

Still with furret on watch i doubt anyone will catch our pov trainer.

And with furret wandering off well that pokes a hole in that idea... Oh well. Hopefull he can swim and enjoys his little romp.

And with a low vanity score she might not care if anyone sees her as long as they are civil about it.

Wow a dewgong is an ambitious catch. And a chill one. Perhaps a one piece would be a more practicle than a bikini.. With layers...

No reason to be dogged about beauty standards unless you are a beauty trainer that is. Or a contest specialist maybe? This trainer doesnt seem the type and is happy tussling with flora and fauna.

And that well wish for the romp went bad fast. Gotta wonder though how often that hapens in the trainers journey..

Ah man fur slinky.. No.. Don't get eatten!

Well at least she dodged that bullet with a quick use of a pokeball. And lucky the pidg' s moody rather than murderous. Small mercies.

Welp thanks for sharing this tale.
 
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K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
For nostalgic reasons i am fond of viridian. Also i like weedles.. Go figure its a good place to get then and yeah... Fond of the place.

Ah so the focus is less the place and the relationship breakdown.

Its a shame but its logical. Olivia is a challenge. Per differing goals personality and the like. You get nurse nurtuing vibes under the chattery rough and tumble. Pov trainer seems kinda the opposite really. The only part they connected on was the past and battles and even that wasnt enough to carry them veey far.

Pov just checked out during her friends charity runs. and later down the line Olivia descided it was time to move on and they thats how it went.

Still i think pov is missing it. The companionship and rough and tumble of being on the go with a challenger that could challenge. I suppose if the pov trainer had just kept up a base interest up things could have lasted longer. A middle ground between thier wants and needs that they discussed could of kept things more cordial.

But neither were up to that talk. So they didn't and things fell apart as a result.

And i can kinda see the ung reaction toward the sickly if it was say brought up over dinner... But beyond that its kinda a knock against povs maturity.

And funny she muses on her solitary status while playing solitare... So many types of solitare. Ironic that. Im left feeling a bit bad for her and wondering how olivia's doing amd wondering if thier bond ever really recovered.
 
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K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
In which camping food is both nostalgic and horrifying. I mean when you think of how the stuff is made and reacts to water (fluffing up and becoming familiar in shape and texture) and yeah. The hard sciences of it are bith fascinating and kinda scary.

But the day to day convinece sorta balances it out... And then there is that nostalgia. Well this characters bonding food being MRE bought from the flea market... Weird but works and give the pov a leg up on adjusting to the rigors of on the road life... Wonder what dear old dad did or experienced to give him a hankering for that type of chow though? Previous military service or trainer perhaps? I suppose the right personality might make a dooms day prepper seem approuchable. Granted the pov character kinda has an inside angle with them being thier father but still...

Ah the joys of having to par down to almost nothing... And the rigors of a life path that push you to boiling down your prefences to "warm" and "min effort". Especially when chasing a gible down.. I can only imagine the horror a dedicated fire.type trainer is going to have to go through to say... Get a magmar or something...

And it makes sense old comfot food and SUGAR are a things you cant get. though if you over do it it can go bad fast when switching diet gears...

Oh no please tell me she didn't... (Keeps reading) nevermind for that well wish. That went bad. Glad she had the sense to reschedule rather then power through or things could have gotten worse still...ouch.

Thanks for sharing.
 
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bluesidra

Mood
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. hoppip-bluesidra-reup
  2. hoppip-bluesidra-pink
  3. hoppip-bluesidra3
For Blitz purposes: Number of Reviews per chapter!

Ch11 through 15 and 17 are eligible for Blitz 22/23 week3 bonus!​
1673381584170.png
 

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Glad it didnt devolve into an argument of "my tree my tree!" Between the pov trainer and the birds. I guess when.theres enough it turns into share and share alike?

Well begrudging share and share but still...

I'm curious as to how those pechas tasted but ah well. Ectuteak feels something like an entertainment hot spot and something the furrets trainer would love to nope out of. Well at least theyre rolling with type advantage/immunities when theu get to that gym.

I can imagine morty now. "Oh goody a normal type user" i'm sure fighting type users get sick of birds too...

Its nice that theres no real pressure in the system. That you can just go. Stay out as long as you need/want too and then pick up your life afterwards withiut any over arching stigma and pressures.

Though gotta wonder how many trainers go naturaliatic in thier travels and if its a statistic society has resources set aside to accomidate those peoples.

And we are revisiting the temptations on a micro scale as well as a macro. Its a nice pattern that we see the base question revisited so many times in different ways.

Do i have to go to town for supplies i am tech nically doing om with these berries now?

Do i have to continue the gym challenge i am techncially doing well now with my team at the moment?

You can tell this trainers slowly wearing down thier social contract in bits in bobs. Not the morality version but the "how much do i want to participate" variant and its in interesting process to see in action.
 

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Chapter 6 review

(Wow did i do these out of order!)

Um why is pov with these poeple? Because really this is a recipie for drama.. And not the fun kind. Lana seems more suited to the safer routes and slow paced journey. Cliff (possible bf) would seem happier on them too.... And pov is a rugged scrapper who just wants to go and cant stand the other two.

I kinda can see pov trainer refusing to go back to camp with them after her walk. While i get card games ect are probably good distractions the fact that the other trainers dont focus on thier teams kinda saya a lot. Also the "nah we're not going an inch" despite the opportunity being right there. That scene nicly highligths thier more relaxed mentalities vs povs more vigerous nature. And I didnt expect that walk to get so dicy. Winces tjis scene adds a whole new weight to the geo/graveler pokedex entries doesnt it?

Also is a good argument against angry hiking.

Still shes got smart support and that helps this from being a total disaster. And i can imagine her chasing down a flying type as a just in case fail safe before the next outing...

Though how her hiking partners are a) mising her being missing. B) missing her screaming. C) not sending thier own flying whatever types to look bare minimum... Well that says volumes...

Normally with an ending like that i would suspect this trainer might not make it but considering this is entry 6 of 17 i figure even odds for her pulling through a bit scared but fine.

Wel thanks for sharing another snap shot of this tale.
 

K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Review lucky 7... Well not seventh done bit chapter seven? Anyways...

I suppose this is a case of home is where the heart is. And her hearts very much on the road... And this seems to be a transition piece where she realizes that thats the case... Still i was curious to her feelings about that transition and didnt get much from the text besides "this is how it is now" and low level confusion about that being the case...

I mean modern society doesnt really encourage this lifestyle and choice even if the mon world can make it easier still hearing her reasoning migjtnof been interesting alongside the showing of the process.

And like her idea of home her grip on language is as fluid as her circumstances as she tries to balance need to want and her lifestyle choices. She seems lonely but the nature of her choices puts her in a select group of people very uninclined to gather in easy to find spots. And shes grappling with mortality and the grand scheme of things. Weighty topics for sure where guildence might help but she isnt around others to even bounce ideas off of.

Its an interesting study. First night to now. How the little things of back then have been replaced with the little things of now... All wrapped in a skien of practicality. Yes the birds are pretty but we gotta know type and intent as well.

And seriously i can see her selling that radio per the life shes picking... The sounds of nature are safer to focus on if nothing else and help keep her safe as well as being a comfort.
 
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K_S

Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
Yay saved the last for last...

Normally i would say best for last but the quality of these tales is pretty top notch and unwavering across the board so i cant pick a fav chapter here and when i realized that... Well i descided to end at the end and call it even instead of judging a best one.

Meh habits are hard to break even when renaming habitats. Still i really suspect "home" is really not home anymore after everything.

Maybe nostalgia magnet... But not home. Though the fair sounds kinda fun.

Wonder how the meat up with jackie is going to go? And yes the pun was very premeditated as i couldn't think of a potatoe joke so i went the other route.

Oh no jackie is expecting small talk is she not aware of the many shifts in povs perspectives? And jackie isn't a trainer? double whammy that.

And by accident she regulates herself to the nostalgia pile of home.. Thats gotta hurt. I wonder if jackie knows or cares that things have turned out that way.

I mean in a pinch you can leave a passive aggressive note on the pokeball?

And we get that really awkward nostalgia boost of meeting a school teacher... Poor pov trainer is getting no breaks today.

And wow. Things deteriated fast. And hiw could her mother not get that shes changed so much. I mean a knowing look is one thing but responding to that knowledge constructivly instead of round about driving her off by trying a guilt trip with ties that have no allure. I bet the pov trainer didn't even two weeks all things told.
 

bluesidra

Mood
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. hoppip-bluesidra-reup
  2. hoppip-bluesidra-pink
  3. hoppip-bluesidra3
Booooooots! Bootsbootsbootsboots! 😭 How dare you pretend this as a cute little worldbuilding practise when in reality it is the very essence of melancholy?!?!?!?!

Ohmigosh, I'm so smitten! I've read through it twice now, once in chapter order and once in the custom order, and I'll probably go with chapter order once more. It's so beautiful. And sad. And alive. And real.

At first, it made me nostalgic for a time I never had, what with being out on the road and such. And then, as the chapters kept coming, so did the memories, because, yes, for a very short while, I have been there, sleeping in trainstations and hugging my backpack because my life sure depended on it. And it's that exact same sweet, incredibly sad moment in a life that all your povs go though -- when school is over, and you begin to go your own ways and slowly drift apart from the people you knew and loved. And omg, all the broken promises to stay in contact. The snippet about slateport hit so very hard, because damn, I do have some letters from friends that I no longer have the rights to call so which are still unopened because I didn't know what to write them. But it's so free of judgement. It's just a thing you feel awkward about in the moment, and then life moves on to the next postcard. It reminded me about how life is not a series of missed chances but a string of choices.

The alternating pov reminded me so much of the incredible freedom that the anonymity of train-stations gives you. Because nobody knows you and you can invent yourself to be anyone. And with every chapter, there's a new perspective, but it could be anyone. We don't know this person, only a small snippet of their life. And then they move on. Maybe we meet them later, but we can't tell, because we never really got to know them. It makes you feel both less and more alone, knowing there are so many other snippets out there.

It never shies away from the ugly side of trekking, what with all the bruises and fatigue and wetness and having to ration everything. But there's so much joy found in the little things and the fact that all of these people, when asked, would choose the same lifestyle again, no matter how frustrating their situation might be. Maybe learning that things will change if you just walk for a while longer is the first thing you learn.

Oh, but there were chapters that did not end in me close to tears. Namely Route 34 and Lilycove. Body-positivity is the buzzword, but I've rarely seen it applied so well. These two chapters convey a sense of freedom and acceptance, and I lovelovelove how suddenly a woman's body takes somewhat center-stage, but without any shame or overly focusing on. Idk. Never had that experience before when reading something. Same with the casual mention of the same-sex couple in Nimbasa.

With Postcards, the connection between Spring and Continental Divides finally clicked in my head. Spring had this clear love for nature and solitude, while CD is based in cities and thrives in relationships. But Postcards examines this balance between solitude and company, and I can't even begin to tell you how comforting this feels. To know that other people, too, shy away from company and retreat more and more, while others get overwhelmed by being alone all the time.
God, I'm getting so emotional, even now, and I can't really get a straight thought out.

Here's something light tho. Fan-theories:
- I like to believe that the pov from Driftveil is the girl with the serpiver tattoo from Nimbasa. They just kinda fit
- Olivia from the Viridian Forest chapter sounds super sweet. (Well, that's not a theory, it's fact)

Wait, maybe I can conjure up some concrete thoughts, too
- Viridian Forest: Such a nice observation, someone wishing to be alone because they vibe better with just themselves, but also occasionally getting angry about their own company. Pov sounds like a jerk, but also, I had a roommate for a year, and the last two months I got a headache when hearing her name. She's one of the people with the unopened letters.
- Route 205: The food described sounds both super tasty and awful. And very #relatable eating 10 cupcakes and then being sick for an entire month afterwards.
- Slateport: Moms are the best.
- Goldenrod: I noticed that my Goldenrod and your Goldenrod are painted in different colours, despite there never being much of a description of colours :D
- Liminal Space: :D Other people who set up tents in their gardens too!

Okay, need to draw this to a close. After all, I want to reread it and I can't do so while typing.
I think the prose is great. Second person is the supreme choice, as always. The attention to detail that feels a tiny bit dragging in a longer format is exactly right in this sort of flash-fiction. Straight into my veins please. And you did great with the details. Them and the little memories that are dispersed through the writing. They are what makes these snippets feel so real. Like, these are real people, with other real people back at home, who have real and complicated relationships and troubles all on their own. I hugely enjoy your writing in CD (which I'll review some time, when I finally finish it) where I can get immersed and attached to the characters. But here, there's a sense of comforting impermanence that keeps me from attaching myself to a character and instead focus on my own, similar experiences. It's very meditative.
As for the order: I do think the suggested order is good. It places the chapters in a way that the emotional blows of being alone in a city vs being not alone enough in the great outdoors are softened a bit. Though, I would definitely start with Liminal Space and put Coffee-shop closer to the end, before Home. It already has this finality to it, where the pov has mostly accepted that they've outgrown their home.

Ohmigosh, I'm starting to get emotional again. So I'll end this rambling mass of a review here. Thank you for bringing back some old memories and making me cry several times over the span of one and a half hour.
Please keep up the good work! Cheers - blue
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. quilava-fobbie
  5. sneasel-kate
Heya, dropping in with what’ll be my last review of Review Blitz, which between the time crunch and happening to stumble on this story at the tail end of Week 3 and finding the elevator pitch a bit interesting, felt like as good a reason to cap things off with a dive into Postcards to see where things landed:

Postcard 1

Leaving there and continuing east, you eventually reach a plateau that overlooks the clouds. A rainbow arcs between two clouds where the waterfall splits them. Beads of moisture cling to your eyelashes and stream down your rain poncho. Below you are the miles and miles of gentle but insistent rain you’ve been hiking through for two days.

And there are still miles left to go.

Wow, I’m impressed at how much you managed to bring an otherwise throwaway feature of a part of Pokéworld that people otherwise overlook beyond it being an annoyance for Waterfall to deal with to life. A good sign already for what this series is going to be life.

On either side of you, your mightyena and sceptile are like living sculptures, glittering with each movement. Predictably, your mightyena shakes himself, casting off mini rainbow sprays and the smell of wet fur. You cover your face, but not quickly enough. All week, everything has been damp, so it shouldn’t matter. But the endless cold and wet began to wear at you quicker than you expected. Any patch of you that you can keep dry is precious.

I mean, it could be worse, this trainer could’ve had a Blaziken and he could’ve seen:

1k80wk.jpg


all week with crabby chicken noises to accompany it.

You wrap your backpack in a second rain poncho to keep it dry (you hope) while you take a break and enjoy the view. You alternate between doing shoulder stretches, munching on jerky, and tossing a mini frisbee for your mightyena to catch in the air. Each time he makes an impressive leap or catch, you toss him a piece of jerky. Your sceptile carves strips of inner bark off a nearby tree and eats them before shimmying up its trunk.

All around, water drips and plinks from every surface.

I can already tell that that second poncho won’t keep that bag dry. Though again, I’m impressed at how much you’re bringing what’s essentially a “stop and smell the roses” moment to life right now.

Then there are new sounds behind you: crunching footsteps and rustling leaves, heavy splashing, a trumpeting cry.

Wildmon? Or another member of this guy’s team?

You turn in time to see a tropius come swaying out of the jungle, so close you could count the wrinkles around each eye. Your mind boggles at the creature’s proportions: it’s the size of a car, and yet it somehow nearly snuck up on you. It glances at you briefly and continues walking past unfazed. Before you can make a move to grab a pokeball, a second tropius pushes its way out of the trees, and then a third, and then a fourth.

Yeeeeah, probably don’t want to be trying to catch them right then and there. But this sounds like quite the sight to behold, assuming the Tropius are in a good mood.

A herd of tropius makes its way onto the plateau, first stepping with surprising gingerness for their size and then picking up into a gallop. They move with no regard for you or your pokemon, forcing you to dive out of the way or be crushed. One thunders over the place where you crouch. You watch as each one reaches the cliff edge, spreads its enormous leafy wings, and glides over clouds broken by snatches of rainbow. They call to one another as they fly. The power and joy of that sound immobilizes you with awe.

Ah yes, so Tropius also fly together in groups in this setting. I’m tempted to ask if they ever stop at motel pools in this continuity too.
:loltias:


You army crawl to the edge of the cliff and watch for over an hour, chin resting on your fist, as the tropius herd sink and rise and wheel about. You don’t care at all that you’re soaked by the time you stand up.

Boy are you giving me a good feeling about the rest of the “postcards” in this series if they’re similarly going to play up that “wonder of everyday life” thing that this one did. Let’s go ahead and see how that shakes out.

Postcard 2

Route 34, huh? Kinda wonder if this is going to be a Day Care episode, but I suppose we’ll find out one way or another.

The northbound route to Goldenrod is pocketed with pools. You can’t see the ocean yet, but you can smell it. Unsurprisingly, the water is too salty to drink or refill your water bottles, but you leave your boots and socks among the reeds to wade into one pool and you find it’s delightfully cold. Not so long ago, you would’ve been put off by the pond skaters and the prospect of mud between your toes. Now with sweat dripping between your shoulder blades and two days of dirt on your face, you crave it.

Wait, as in Surskit or as in the proper bugs? Since I actually can’t tell here, but I suppose it works either way even though I don’t recall Surskit being spawned on Route 34.

Once your feet are wet, you carry your shoes under one arm and squelch father through the salt marsh, your furret darting a few paces ahead, until you find a pool deep enough to submerge yourself completely. No longer caring who might see, you go in nude.

Wait, these are the pools by the fenceline on the route, isn’t it? Though sure hope nobody walks in on the protag right about now since boy would that be awkward to explain.
:copyka2~1:


As the water closes over your head, you think of the bikini wadded in the bottom of your backpack. You remember telling your sister that it was a practical choice (even as you scrutinized your shape and tan lines in the mirror) because it wouldn’t take up much space. You imagined swimming laps at a gym with the dewgong you hoped to train, inventing a need for the purchase. You haven’t used it once since you started your journey. You’ve become less vain.

So the protag has spent all her time out in the boonies during her journey so far. Guess that’s a line of commonality with the first half or so of your series since they’re all explicitly dealing with the wilderness from their titles.

However, you can’t help but wince looking at yourself more closely. Tens of bug bites and tiny cuts sting as the salt water washes over you. The bruise on your hip is turning yellow, a sign it’s healing but nasty-looking all the same. It’s been months since you’ve shaved your legs or painted your chipped toe nails.

And why would you out here? Maybe you’ll treat yourself when you get to the city, look impressive for your next gym challenge. You clamber onto a rock with your cake of biodegradable soap and scrub at the dirt in the cracks of your callouses until your skin burns.

IMO, this paragraph would be worth breaking up into pieces. Though I have to wonder if it was a particularly smart idea to just jump into this pool without doing a spot check for any Pokémon first, since this feels like a terrible time to get surprised with something like a tackle from a startled fishmon.

The scream of a predatory bird makes you look up. You spot the pidgeotto circling overhead. Not until it dives, surprisingly close by, does it occur to you to scan for your furret. You hear a squeak of terror and your stomach drops.

:uhhh:


Oh boy, I did not expect things to be taking a turn like this. Though I knew that not doing a spot check for Pokémon was a bad idea.

You splash to the edge of the pool and snatch your belt off your pile of clothes. As you raise the pokeball, the pidgeotto flashes past with something wriggling in its talons. You manage to recall your furret to her ball, and she dematerializes out of the pigeotto’s grip. The pigeotto visibly falters, off-balance at the sudden change in weight. With a scream it wheels and flies past you so closely you’re forced to duck. For a moment you worry you’re going to have to fight off a wild pokemon in the nude, but the pidgeotto pushes higher into the sky to continue its circling search.

Well, that got dark quickly. Hopefully that Furret can get patched up alright in the next Pokémon Center.
:ScaredCabot:


Chastened, you towel off and throw your clothes on with your hair still dripping and the taste of salt water in your mouth.

Yeah, that feels like a pretty thorough “time to move on” from nature, even if I have to wonder if her Furret’s going to have some issues with being on its own for a while after this, since boy that must be a traumatic experience.

Postcard 3

>Viridian Forest

Oh boy, this place. Though time to see whether it’ll feel more ‘wonderous’ or every bit as annoying as its game counterpart in this continuity.

When you walk a long time through the wild, you begin to crave a city.

Can’t tell if this kid’s gotten lost in Viridian City, or just never set foot outside of Kanto where the routes on average are much longer.

It’s not loneliness. Or… not only that. You’re fine without playing another game of Twenty Questions or I Spy.

For several months you traveled with a girl from your hometown named Olivia. “Challenge accepted,” she said when you invited her along. And it was a challenge. You’d been friends for several years, through high school and the trainer certificate program, and had spent most days after class at your house or at the arcade together. You were unprepared for how different it would feel to have only her for human company all day every day and all night every night. Even the silences were different, more crowded.

Oh yeah, I’m sure that Olivia’s gonna love hearing this once the protag blurts out “yeah, I think we should part ways”. Though I’m guessing that the chemistry between these two wasn’t as good as protag thought it was before setting out.
:copyka:


The two of you had a routine: You packed the tents while she made breakfast (usually oatmeal) and cleaned the cook gear. She made camp while you cooked dinner (usually EZ-Mac with soy protein bits and dehydrated greens). After dinner you ran your pokemon through drills together and sparred. You miss that the most. She trained a delcatty (Darcy) and a swellow (Lurie) that paired perfectly against your manectric and golbat, blow for blow. You haven’t had a partner as driven and eager without taking losses personally, and you know your team was leaner and faster when she was around.

This kid’s gonna part ways with Olivia and then immediately regret it within a day, isn’t s/he?

But with Olivia there was always too much else going on. She masked her sentimentality with bathroom humor and punches, but she constantly took on strays. She would catch a pidgey with a broken wing or a rattata missing a fang sooner than something she actually wanted to train — she had a sixth sense for finding them, whether it was in a back alley of Saffron City or under a rock ledge.

They were endearing to her because they were pathetic, and her fascination with the sickly repulsed you. She named them after her favorite movie characters and athletes (like a scrawny rattata she inexplicably named Tebow), and had detailed theories about what flavor of retiree or housewife in the next city would be best to adopt each of them as pets. She dragged you with her to knock on doors and make adoption pitches only once — you didn’t allow a second excursion. You spent a lot of time reading junk magazines and waiting for her when you traveled together.

Another paragraph that I would recommend breaking up into two. Though boy is that second half of that paragraph not endearing me to the protagonist right now.
:judgemander~1:


One day, after a fight about Darwin and ecology, you told her you were going ahead and you’d meet her in town. You both knew without discussion that you wouldn’t meet up again. You also knew you both accepted the loss.

You still exchange emails when you pass through a town.

Oh, so protag already parted ways with Olivia and is starting to regret it, huh? Though I can already imagine what that fight was about given that the protag didn’t think much about Olivia taking in down-on-their-luck Pokémon.
:copyka2~1:


Since then you’ve shared your campfire a few times, but never for long. Always when it was someone who was headed the same way on the same trail and it would be more uncomfortable not to speak.

Those two were just [absus]-ing at each other the entire time every time they crossed paths, huh?

Tonight you sit on a blanket next to your fire, shuffling cards furiously and slapping them down. You hum a few lines of a song that was popular before you left home, but your voice sounds tiny and silly against the enormity of the forest at night. Maybe even disrespectful — of what, you couldn’t say. So you stop. Insects spiral in your lantern’s light, flinging themselves at the cards and at your hair, but you ignore them. Pokemon call to each other far off in the darkness, but you don’t even notice it anymore unless you think about it.

I knew it, the Protag is regretting parting ways with Olivia. Since that entire paragraph basically screams “god, I wish someone else was here with me right now”.

You like the heat of the fire along one side of your body and the cool air through your unzipped parka. Your manectric rests his head on your thigh while your golbat hunts moths and maybe bigger things. You’re comfortable, but you wish it were a bar.

… Wait, how long has this guy been traveling in life right now? Since I didn’t think s/he sounded particularly old from the recounting of the earlier part of the story.

It’s not the crowd or the noise or even the alcohol you’re aching for but the choice. To talk to the person next to you or not. To have an IPA or a cocktail. To play pool or watch. To stay or go outside and experience something completely different: a bar with better music, a quieter bar, an empty street, a room with a door that locks.

The only way for you to exit this still night in Viridian Forest and choose something else is to walk. A lot.

Sure is a good thing that you nuked your friendship with Olivia, huh?
:copyka:


For hours, you play solitaire by campfire light. You play so much solitaire lately you’ve invented a few versions of your own. (In one, the suits represent wild pokemon of either advantageous or disadvantageous typing, pokeballs, or potions, and must be defeated or avoided.)

What you want more than anything tonight is to play poker, not for the chance to win cash but for the thrill of an intellectual challenge, an ending you can’t guess by yourself.

You want someone to say challenge accepted.

I mean, you can always call Olivia on your phone and try to shoot the breeze and try to patch things up, though I kinda gathered that the protag is both a touch too prideful to do that and likely lacks the self-awareness to even consider the idea.

That turned out a bit different than what I was expecting from the first postcard, but I gather that this is basically snapshots of “a day in the life” of various trainers in parts of Pokéworld. To your credit, I think that the scenarios that you rolled for them are pretty distinct from one another: one about basking in the beauty of nature, one about getting burned by nature from lack of conscientiousness that it’s not just your living room, and one about being alone in nature when you don’t want to be. They all did a lot for breathing otherwise overlooked places from the games to life, which makes me wonder if these characters are similarly derived from NPCs from those routes, since if so, that’s quite the fleshing out you’ve done there.

Other than the occasional paragraph that I thought would’ve worked better formatted as a couple smaller ones and the stray typo here or there. I… honestly can’t think of anything to really complain about from these chapters I read. They’re small, self-contained snapshots of life from various moments of the setting as seen by traveling trainers. Which I suppose is thematically apropos for a series called Postcards.

Very well done, @WildBoots . I will have to come back to this series sometime after Review Blitz, since these little stories were fun to just soak in with, and seem like they’d be great companions for tired nights where one’s reading brain just needs a little morsel to dive and unwind with.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. quilava-fobbie
  5. sneasel-kate
Heya, it’s admittedly been a while, but I suppose “late” is always a better time than “never” to come back to a fic. Let’s dive right in with a fresh batch of these postcards:

Postcard 4

Most of your diet comes from boxes and bags: shrink-wrapped blocks that become noodles and ground meat when water is added, dried sauce in separate cellophane with flecks meant to represent vegetables, smoothie powder. You don’t mind it.

Words don’t begin to describe how unhealthy this sounds right now.
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Re-hydrated meals have a limited range of flavors, but they remind you of childhood and the time your father bought several crates of military MREs at a flea market. He kept things like that around for the same reason he ran weekly drills with his hoary old luxray — “Just in case,” said with a wink. You ate one under your bed with your pikachu plushie, unwrapping each inscrutable component with rabid fascination, and imagined yourself camping in a distant forest.

Ah, so our protagonist’s father was a survivalist. Wonder if that means we’re going to see him/her do some more dangerous than normal antics.

You’ve become an expert in repackaging meal kits for maximum efficiency. For example, the cardboard wrap is always the first thing to go. It takes up too much space, and even the lightest stuff can weigh you down if you have too much of it. Instead, you write labels and expiration dates on the cellophane in permanent marker. Sometimes you dehydrate your own food at a trainer supply store in town to save money (and you know folks who do it for their pokemon too, especially when preparing to travel through low-forage zones) but you prefer to skip the extra work if you can.

I was going to say that I was surprised that Pokémon would be okay with food like that, but then I remembered that they all happily snarfed down on kibble in the anime. So good enough, really.

Even trainers who gripe about re-hydrated food have to admit to one truth you learned early on: most nights, you’re so tired it doesn’t matter what you’re eating. After walking for miles with a backpack so heavy it bruises your collarbones, until you eventually get used to it— after your pokemon accidentally singes off your eyebrows or tries to eat one of your other pokemon— after crawling through brambles chasing a gible that eventually gets away— after making camp and then immediately sitting on a stump and staring into the canopy for half an hour because you’re too tired to move… anything hot tastes good. Or tastes like nothing at all.

Yeeeeeeeah, I see that some of pops’ habits have been rubbing off on this guy. Not really sure if that's a positive sign or not there.
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What you do miss, almost to your embarrassment, are sour straws, poke-O’s cereal, and especially cupcakes. Trainer meals are designed (yes, definitely designed and not cooked or crafted) with consideration for vitamins, minerals, and calories but not much else. They’re uniform in color and texture. Every now and then a meal pack might include what’s optimistically labeled as a “brownie,” which is firm, dense, and dry. (It contains ten percent of your daily recommended iron and protein intake though.)

It doesn’t satisfy the craving. You lie in your tent at night, listening to the kricketunes and fantasizing about your last birthday at home with the frosted funfetti cake. The luxury of sprinkles! You want cake so badly your stomach almost hurts from it.

I think that this paragraph might work better as two smaller ones since it’s functionally a half about how trainer meals are different and then how they’re unsatisfying. Maybe it's just me being a bit nitpicky, but it's something worth considering, at least.

When you finally arrive in Eterna City, you buy ten Hostess cupcakes at the first convenience store you pass. You plan to ration them out — and indeed, you start by pulling the first one apart and eating each layer slowly, licking icing off your fingers — but instead eat all ten in one sitting, wrappers spread around you on your hostel cot. The next day your stomach is so upset you reschedule your gym challenge.

Ah yes, such is life when you binge on an entire stomach’s worth of junk food all at once.
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You never eat another Hostess cupcake again — the smell alone is enough to make you sick.

Well that’s one way to stick to a diet. Don't think that it'd be one that I'd recommend, though. :V

Postcard 5

Leaving there and continuing north until golden light streams between the trees, you come across a grove of pecha berries. They are sun warm and so ripe they burst upon your lips. Up to your waist in weeds and leaves, you fill an improvised sack you’ve made by tying together the ends of a handkerchief. In delirious joy you fill your stomach with at least as many as you put in your bag.

Oh boy, inb4 we have a repeat of the Hostess Cupcakes incident.
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The pidgeys watched you from the edge of the clearing at first, making low sounds of displeasure, but after a time they got over themselves and alighted on the nearby trees. Now, a few of them are so close you could almost touch one. For the moment you’re equals, just a bunch of creatures eating from the same tree.

Cue the fight over the final berry in 3… 2…

At sunset, licking your sticky fingers, you come to the top of a hill and see the tower peeking above the distant trees. You’ve been told some of the best restaurants of the region are in Ecruteak. There are several famous theaters with something to watch any given night, though they say the dance hall is the one that truly cannot be missed. The hostels, you know, will be pretty to look at — traditional style — but pricey, and the bars too. This time of year there will also be lots of tourists. And you.

Wait, us the protag still covered in berry juice right now? ^^;

“Do we really have to go?” you say to your furret, who only scratches her ear. “Yeah, you’re right. Only place to get a Fog Badge."

Though, you have to wonder… would it be so bad to stop at three badges? People do it all the time. Get bored or homesick or hurt, retire. Some go for years, others hardly go further than a few towns away before doubling back. No one would think less of you if you stopped here.

I mean, it does seem to make a lot of sense that the average journey would flame out well before the regional E4. Maybe that’s just bias speaking since my own headcanon isn’t far removed from this, but it’s interesting to see things play out in the protag’s head.

But no. You’re not actually ready to be done being a trainer yet, even though sometimes you think you might be ready to be done with civilization.

[what_could_possibly_go_wrong]

Before the daylight disappears, you make camp in a clearing where the tree branches reaching overhead are almost like the arms of a protective parent. You unpack your tent, start a campfire, and take stock of your rations. You sigh. “What do you think, Gretel? Crisp N Creamy Pasta Primavera or Hearty Beef Stew?”

So does he have a “Hansel” on his team, too? o<o

You should head to a trainer supply store first thing and get some new flavors. Probably some batteries and duct tape too. Though… You reach out to touch the knotted handkerchief, bulging with fresh-picked fruit.

Do you really have to?

Yeeeeeah, this guy’s not even gonna bother getting that Fog Badge, is he?

Postcard 6

Lanna complains she has a headache, and of course Cliff is at her side in an instant, one hand on her shoulder and the other holding a water bottle out to her. You roll your eyes. She repeats several times, “I think it’s altitude sickness. I really do.”

Oh, a group journey. That’s a new one and something that until very recently we didn’t see in the games. Color me interested in where you take this one.

There’s no point in saying you think she’s being a baby, even though you do. The three of you are obviously stopping here regardless of what you have to say about it.

Keep going with that attitude, and you’ll be camping on your own soon enough, buddy.

You make camp and, because there are still hours of daylight left even after you run your team through drills, you break out the cards. The deck is well-worn and missing a couple of green sevens, but it still works.

For a second, I thought this was going to be a TCG cameo there.

Miracle of miracles, Lanna brightens when the cards come out and manages to win the first two games.

“So,” you say, “you guys think we might be able to get in another mile before sundown?”

press-x-to-doubt-la-noire.jpg


“Nah, I think we should take it slow and easy. Eterna isn’t going anywhere, ya know?” says Cliff.

Lanna purses her lips and says, “Yeah, my head’s still hurting.” Then, “Oh, you can’t play that. You have to draw.”

“No, Cliff does.”

Yeeeaaah, I smell conflict a-brewing.

She daintily plucks your card off the stack and holds it out at you. “You can’t put a plus two on a plus four.”

You can’t keep your voice from rising. “Since when?”

Protag:
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Lanna winces and brings her fingertips to her temples. “Oof. My head.”

Cliff says, “Just draw your cards already. Jesus.”

You slap down your hand. “You two play. I’m taking a walk.”

Not convinced that this is gonna end well, but you do you, buddy.

You’re angry at Lanna for being Lanna, angry at Cliff for dragging her along, and angry at the mountain for being so much to deal with. And it makes you careless.

Yeah, see above, really.

Doubling back the way you hiked this morning until you can no longer hear your traveling companions, you come to a place where you can peer over the ledge and into the misty foothills far below. It’s pretty up here. You almost forgot to notice. To one side of you there’s a craggy boulder and you reach up for a handhold, wanting a higher vantage point. No sooner than you lay hands on it and get one knee up, the boulder groans, shifts, and blinks.

There is no time to grab a pokeball or even to think. The graveler grabs your leg and —with a bellow you feel from the soles of your feet to the tips of your fingers — sends you tumbling.

Well, things went south a lot faster than I thought they would. Even if I suppose I should’ve seen this coming from the short overall length of this postcard.
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When you wake up, you find yourself in the dirt looking up at a sky framed by branches. Your head is throbbing, but nothing feels broken. All three pokeballs are thankfully still firmly hooked to your belt. And you see nothing you recognize.

At first you’re annoyed. It’s going to take forever to hike back up to where you were. When you find that graveler again, you’re gonna kick its ass all the way to Hoenn.

Sounds more like a way to break your foot, but you’re welcome to try, at least. :V

As long as you keep heading uphill, you’ll find the path again. You just have to keep moving.

At least you’re not without water. You ask your floatzel to spray water into your cupped hands. After, you’re left with wet shoes and socks, but you won’t die of dehydration at least. You wish bitterly that you would’ve caught a starly when you had the opportunity so you could send it scouting ahead. Thank gods you’re not alone. You notice your aipom plucking berries from a nearby bush and you eat some too, crouching among the scrub grass.

>drinking water spat up by a Pokémon

That doesn’t sound remotely hygienic there. Unless the idea was that protag was washing himself with that water. .-.

But as the sun begins to set, leaving you in the maddening criss-crossing shadows of the trees, you’re panicking. Delilah, your luxio, lights the way—much good may it do you both when any direction you choose everything looks the same. You might as well be doing this with your eyes closed. And your wet feet are cold. You shout and scream your throat raw, but hear no answer except the screech of a hunting noctowl.

The temperature plummets. The tent, your backpack full of food and warm layers, and Lanna’s heavy-lidded numel are all lost in the dark distance.

Sure hope that walk on your own was worth it, buddy.

What a stupid way to die, you think over and over again.

I… actually can’t tell whether or not this postcard is going to go there or if Cliff and Lanna will come to the rescue.

Finally, you’re too tired and miserable to do anything but curl up under a tree with your pokemon tucked against you for warmth…and for protection against anything that might be prowling in the dark. You desperately miss Cliff’s snoring, but you don’t die. You don’t really sleep either. The hours ghost past, sleep and not-sleep blurring: The cramp in your legs. The bark against your cheek. The dream of your little brother folding origami. The stars between branches. The dark. Bolting upright at the sound of leathery wings — no, only leaves. The smell of wet earth. The dream of more stars.

Ah yes, another sign that leaving your traveling companions behind at their tent was totally worth it™. Not.

A fog creeps in before sunrise, and you stir from half-sleep to the most perfect calm you’ve ever experienced. The only thing you can hear is your teeth chattering. For a moment you wonder if you’re in purgatory or someplace stranger. Years later the memory still gives you goosebumps. You do the only thing you can: you rise and start to climb again.

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Well that was definitely a different ending note from past updates in this series. Guess it’s up to the readers to decide if this ended well for the protagonist or not.

Ah yes, it’s been far too long, but I’m beginning to remember why I enjoyed this series from the prior Review Blitz and regretting not getting to things sooner. The snapshots of life you showed off here all seem more focused on being off in the boonies and away from civilization, but they do a good job at remaining distinct from each other in terms of premise and events. There’s not a lot of stories that can make me laugh and be suspenseful in the same span of 2000-ish words, but this one did, and it did so quite well. Their prose is also nice and smooth, too, which made the different postcards nice and breezy reading.

It’s genuinely hard for me to think of things that I’d criticize these three Postcards for. Maybe they could’ve had a bit more environmental description, but these things are deliberately short and lightweight by design, so I can’t harp on you for sticking to your guns too much.

Good work, @WildBoots , and if all goes well, this won’t be the last I’ve seen and reviewed of this series before Review Blitz ends this year.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. quilava-fobbie
  5. sneasel-kate
Heya, I decided to come back for another block of these since I had fun with the last batch of three that I read, and they’re pretty good light reading for more tired nights. Though seems like these postcards will be taking us out of the boonies and into the big city. Let’s take a look at what that looks like:

Postcard 7

Home means two different things: there’s the place you came from, and there’s your faded red tent. Or, the place you left and the place you return to each night. The place where you feel…content, perhaps.

It’s hard to describe.

I wonder if that has any implication for how the author views the place he came from given the ending note of how home is ultimately where s/he feels content.

You’ve lost some of your skill with words. They’re not so important in your trade. When you meet new people, you find yourself either too eager to share your thoughts, having held them to yourself for days or weeks, or too impatient with small talk. But others don’t seem to know what to say to you either, so you hardly see it as a personality flaw. Being with pokemon, being in wild spaces, you’ve stopped expecting perfect understanding of anything. The world doesn’t need your understanding for it to keep turning.

For a second, I thought that this was going to be Red from that thought process, but no, this protag’s still too chatty to be him.

Sometimes as you lay in your sleeping bag you imagine you can almost, almost hear it, that turning.

The first night on the road, the very first, it was too quiet to sleep. You hadn’t realized how accustomed you were to sounds of traffic, humming appliances, and your neighbor’s teenage son practicing guitar. You hadn’t even noticed those sounds until they were gone. All that space, the quiet, all the things it could be hiding—it frightened you. The radio was the only thing that got you through that night, an unfamiliar station that didn’t come through to your side of the mountains back home.

I think the implication is that the protag is from either Kanto or Johto and hopped the line of mountains. Dunno, might be reading too much into things.

You can’t remember the last time you played the radio. You’d rather be able to listen for sounds of an approaching trainer or pokemon. A nearby river. Thunder. You’ve learned to recognize more than ten bird pokemon by their calls alone, and you know the difference between mating calls and songs that warn others from their territory.

I wonder if the protag can also recognize other Pokémon cries from being out in the boonies so frequently, or if that’s a subtle tipoff that s/he’s a Bird Keeper.

When you enter a city now, first it’s too loud. Then, in your hostel bed, it’s too quiet. Or, the wrong kind of quiet. It’s not an absence of sound, it’s an absence of life.

Most mornings, the birds sing you awake. The drone of bug pokemon in the bushes sings you through the day. The wind in the trees sings you to sleep. And you, in return, keep your peace.

Yeah, this really does feel like it could’ve been written about Red with a couple details changed. Or else just assuming that this is earlier on in his time before he went full hermit on Mt. Silver. Dunno if that was intentional or not, but it’s a thing that I noticed.

Postcard 8

Summer is around the corner, the nights are still chilly but not too cold to pitch the tent in the backyard. Mom supervises the setup, just in case, but you’re proud to do it without help. Well, James helps, but that’s different. The tent pops up more easily with two pairs of hands stretching out the corners, but he doesn’t tell you what to do.

You know, of course, that you are still lying only feet away from the barbecue, the chair where your mom smokes and watches the sunrise every morning, the empty cola can where she stuffs the butts, your father’s zucchini plants, the neighbors’ always barking growlithe, the off-key wind chimes your aunt sent as a holiday gift last year. But once you’re inside the tent with the door flap zipped shut, you can imagine yourself elsewhere.

I did a double-take briefly there since I actually have a story with a human child character named ‘James’ in it. The other details are definitely a reminder that this is some other kid. Though backyard camping in Pokéworld, huh? It feels at once familiar, though I wonder if there’s things that will be different by virtue of living in a setting where even alley cats can trash your porch without much effort.

Summer means freedom from homework and early mornings waiting for the bus. But it teases you with bigger, truer freedoms, held still out of reach. You used to imagine you would start your journey close to home and return often with souvenirs for the entire family. Now, you imagine Hoenn, Sinnoh — the furthest places you can think of. The greenest places. The wildest places.

I take it that the protag is still fairly young given that s/he’s apparently still tethered fairly close to home. Either that or s/he’s very “lol, no money” to cut those dreams of interregional travel short.

You know James is thinking about it too because he says, “My brother is leaving next week.” There’s a flashlight between you and James, propped up on the tent floor with a pillow and a book, and he makes hand shadows as he talks. Swanna. Cloyster. Scrafty.

“It’s not like you’ll never hear from him again.” You make your hand into a growlithe, moving its mouth along with your words. “That’s what vidphones are for.”

Oh, so these two are Unovan, huh? Or at least I think that that’s the implication. Boy is that a funny coinkydink if so considering where my own ‘James’ hails from… ^^;

“I know, but… still.” He makes a numel, one hand becoming the curve of its back and the other its mouth and ear. “Things won’t be the same.”

It’ll just be James and his dad after that.

… Do I want to know what happened to James’ mom?
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“Yeah. I guess not.”

Your butterfree hand-shadow suddenly twists on the tent wall, even though you haven’t moved.

You and James look at each other, wide-eyed. In a whisper, he says, “That’s not me.”

The butterfree-shadow jerks and becomes long and toothy — an impossible shape to make with human hands. It forms eye-holes and winks.

Well then. I had a feeling that things weren’t going to stay peaceful in this backyard camping episode. I suppose we’ll see if the protag’s mom left a guard Pokémon around to watch over these two.

Protag + James:
You sit up and grab your water bottle, the closest thing to a weapon in arms’ reach, as you calculate how quickly you could get to the back door if you run. Probably not fast enough — whatever it is, it’s close.

Before you can decide whether to throw something, bargain, or shout for help, the shadow moves again. For a moment you can see the outlines of the gastly’s vaporous body passing outside the tent, and then it rearranges itself into a thumbs up sign.

You and James stare.

Ah yes, even Ghost-types are being infected with emoji stupidity in this setting. Though it makes sense if this Gastly has been in contact with humans regularly.

After a beat, the thumbs up flickers and becomes a question mark.

James whispers, “What is it doing?”

The gastly-shadow reforms itself into a copy of the butterfree hand shadow you made before. After a moment of waiting, it dissolves. Then out of the haze a butterfree again, a bigger one this time, wiggling its finger-wings.

Oh, so it wants in on making these shadow-figures, huh? That’s a lot more wholesome than what I was expecting a wild Gastly to do.

Tentatively, you reach across the flashlight beam. “Playing…?”

You make a two-handed magcargo shadow, and the gastly rushes to copy you. Abandoning its pretense at having hands, it shapes itself into a slugma to go with your magcargo, complete with bubbles shifting across the surface. It blows a smoky kiss to your magcargo.

How many times has this Gastly done this, anyways? Since that transformation was fairly effortless on its part.

“I’ve got one!” James pushes you aside and makes a hand shadow of the head and horns of a sawsbuck. The gastly becomes flowers bursting and falling from its antlers.

You’re not sure how long the game lasts, only that you and James are both laughing all through it, and there’s a third, almost-human voice laughing too. Finally, the gastly mimics a hand again, fingers spread. It waves, and then it’s gone.

Protag: “Aw… so soon?” :<

You and James signal shadows into the night for a while, but it doesn’t come back.

Protag: “Darn it, I should’ve brought a Pokéball with me.” -_-;

Summer is almost over, but it’s still warm enough to pitch the tent in the backyard one last time. You’re clumsy handling it alone, but you manage. Just as well that you start getting used to it now.

With the door flap zipped shut, the tent feels both smaller and larger than it used to. You’ve grown taller, but now there’s empty space beside you. You’ll lay your pack there each night. Maybe your starter will curl up there too.

Wew, that was certainly a busy summer for our protagonist here. Unless if we timeskipped ahead more than later on in the same summer.

James agreed weeks ago to join you out here, for old time’s sake, but you’re not mad he canceled. It’s a family thing. You know how that goes.

The closer you get to graduation, somehow the more there is to do. Finalizing paperwork. Accommodating family members from out of town. Farewell dinners. Posing for photos — struggling suddenly not to cry even though you’d been fine a minute before.

Okay, yeah, this is a jump ahead of multiple years since the protag is clearly in his/her teens now.

In fact, you remind yourself, it’s good to have a moment to yourself for once. Time to sort out your thoughts.

Staring at the tent ceiling, you think about the stories you and James used to tell together, imagining your future journeys. He would talk until he ran out of ideas, and then you took over, inventing encounters with wild pokemon and discoveries of ancient treasure. Then it was his turn again. You haven’t done that in years — way before the last time you pitched the tent — but you miss it now. Dreaming up the future is frightful work by yourself.

Especially when you’re staring down the prospect of standardized tests and college. Since boy was that a source of stress later on in high school. https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1105356025936228434.webp?size=44&quality=lossless

You haven’t changed your mind about your journey. But now there are logistics to consider, details that hadn’t factored into your childhood fantasies. Have you packed enough food, the right kinds? What if you need to take a bus when you get to a city — how will that work? Will you be able to get your pokemon to listen to you? And then there’s James.

Stretching towards the empty space to your side, you grab your book. It’s just dark enough to need the solar-powered lantern, which you prop at an angle with your folded sweatshirt. The words slide past you, each one forgotten the moment your eyes move on to the next, but it’s still something to do.

Protag: “Who… isn’t here right now.” https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/401083507872366598.webp?size=44&quality=lossless

When you’re on the road for real, is this how nighttime is going to feel, like time to fill?

The Gastly’s going to come back and play around one last time, isn’t it?

Maybe it’s intuition that makes you turn your head, or maybe it's just a flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. All you see is your own shadow cast on the tent wall. But you close your book and say, “Hello?”

You think you hear a ghostly giggle.

Yeah, I knew it.

Very slowly, you sit up. “I’m leaving in a couple days. For an adventure,” you say. And then you wait. Your shadow is still just your shadow. Maybe you were too slow. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

You keep talking anyway, in the same low voice you used late at night to avoid waking James parents.

I don’t really know what it’s gonna be like. I could get lost out there. Sometimes people don’t come back. It’s risky, traveling alone.” You stop to pick at a loose string on your pants. “We used to talk about treasure, like it was a guarantee. One per trainer. Sounds stupid now, but I guess part of me still believes it, in a way. Maybe not treasure but… something. Secrets. Forgotten places. If I don’t go, I’ll never find out what is out there.”

When you look up again, your shadow is lying on its side to watch you, head propped in its palm, even though you’re sitting up cross-legged. Goosebumps run down your arms, but you smile and ask, “Have you ever been past the city limits before?”

Ah yes, so our protagonist’s getting a new buddy to go along with his starter for the big journey, huh? It was definitely a cute ending note, and the format of two vignettes connected by a timeskip is pretty unique relative to the prior ones in this series thus far.

Postcard 9

On your way to the coffee shop, you pass a sunburned trainer playing ukulele on the corner. She’s taught her combusken a few dance moves, modified from battle tactics and even punctuated with some pyrotechnics. The performance would be better suited to drums or even a violin —anything more aggressive than a ukulele— but it’s charming all the same. After the chorus, you’re not the only one inspired to drop a few bills into the open ukulele case.

Ah yes, firedancing poultry. That makes me wonder how an Alolawak would react to coming across this sight if there was a background tourist who trained one nearby.

You’re still humming it to yourself as you enter the coffee shop. You pay for thirty minutes of computer time and a caramel macchiato to make the task of checking your emails less… You sigh as you approach the monitor and bolster yourself with a sip of the sugary drink.

Bruh, get a better coffeeshop to leech wi-fi from. >:V

Unless the implication is that the protagonist is buying the caramel macchiato to get a spot and use the wi-fi, though I can’t say that I’ve ever been shooed out the door in the span of 30 minutes when doing that before.

First is an email from your mother, which isn’t so bad. With a little distance — or, okay, a lot — you’ve begun to appreciate her more. Your emails tend not to follow a cohesive narrative, less like conversation and more like volleying stories at each other, back and forth across the void. You like it though. You learn more about her this way than you ever did when you were living at home arguing about the merits of different brands of dishwasher detergent.

I actually wonder if this is meant to be interpretable as the protagonist from Postcard 8 doing this, since we did see that one right on the verge of setting off on a journey as a trainer… https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/636782104289476608.webp?size=44&quality=lossless

[QUOTE]
She never was a trainer, but she has stories of her own. Her latest email is the story of the time your father convinced her to go skydiving with him and how, no, it did not cure her fear of heights. You know this is her way of saying that your last report had worried her— you told her about the battle from the back of your altaria with a would-be thief, [U]omitting some of the details you knew would upset her[/U] — but that she trusted you.
[/QUOTE]

Oh boy, I see that [I]someone[/I] has been living life on the edge during his/her journey.

[QUOTE]
You trade her the story of your arrival in Slateport, including the ukulele player. The locals walking barefoot, flip-flops in one hand, unbothered by the hot sidewalk. The wingull that tried to steal your lunch. “With love,” comes easily at the end.

After that, there’s an email from the bank, a few from mailing lists urging you to donate now to save this-and-that forest from development, and one from the insurance company. Nothing too scary.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, the “nothing too scary” remark makes me think that this is about to become a jinx.

[QUOTE]
Then you scroll back up to the one that makes your stomach clench just looking at it, the one you knew you’d find waiting in your inbox. Jess wants to know when you expect to arrive in Slateport because she wants to hire a local trainer with a ludicolo to ferry her across the river so she can meet up with you [B]i[/B]n the city, see the sights together. A couple days ago, a reminder: Not sure if you saw my last message…
[/QUOTE]

Well, that was fast. Time to see what about this is so stressful to the protag, since this at least [I]looks[/I] innocent enough.

[QUOTE]
You skim, catch yourself, and drag your eye back to read more carefully. You know what you ought to say, but your hands freeze over the keyboard. Moments later, you catch yourself tying knots in the straw from your drink. It shouldn’t be so hard. It’s only words. It’s only pixels.

[B]Y[/B]ou slurp down the last of your drink and muscle your way through a clumsy explanation of your feelings and, sheepishly, your whereabouts. You end, “With love,” but after staring a moment at the screen you erase it. Then you erase most of what you typed.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, so somebody’s trying to put the kibosh on a relationship. Or at least I [I]think[/I] that that’s the implication behind that mention of “your feelings”

[QUOTE]
Over and over, your gaze drifts to the people sitting nearby. Some look like students. Whatever the contents of your bank account and your inbox, you smile thinking that at least you’ll never be expected to write a paper about [I]The Kanto-Berry Tales[/I]. You wonder if they think something similar looking at you with your dusty boots and scars.
[/QUOTE]

>The Kanto-Berry Tales

That pun is awful. Amazing, but awful. :V

[QUOTE]
To your right is an old man who wears a feather in his cap — a real dandy. You notice with a start that he’s also wearing a trainer’s belt, all six slots filled. He types slowly with two fingers and you wonder who he’s writing to across the void.
[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, I found your old man here minus a few effects:

[IMG]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fe/8b/0b/fe8b0bdd63a3f18afef5b0570a2a5c4c.gif

You accidentally lock eyes with a pair of girls curled up in arm chairs against the far wall. They’re trainers too, possibly waiting for their chance on the computer. You offer a small smile, which sends them waving and giggling, clutching each other’s arms. They’re young — they have neon green and pink hair respectively and in their laps their backpacks are swarmed with buttons and patches and sequins. You shake your head but keep smiling.

Actually, wait, I just realized, but is this computer meant to belong to the café? Since if this is a combination internet café and normal café, that would explain the time limit. And it probably would be less of a gamble than attempting to lug along a laptop while going out into the boonies where thar be (pocket) monsters.

When you return your gaze to the screen in front of you, twenty-seven minutes have gone by. Rather than paying for another half hour, you save your email as a draft, promising yourself to finish tomorrow.

Narrator: “He will absolutely not finish that email tomorrow.”

Outside, the sun is beginning to sink. The cars and buildings are cast in sherbert pink and orange. The air is warm and smells like the ocean. Tomorrow you’ll walk the shoreline until you win enough battles to earn back the money you lost in Mauville. Tomorrow you’ll have to figure out how to tell Jess about all the ways you’ve changed. For now, there’s just this.

Watch as Jess just happily comes skipping around the corner in about 10 seconds.

While you wait for the bus that will take you back to the hostel on the other side of town, you watch the people on the sidewalk: lawyers, poets, trainers, joggers, thieves, surfers, and who knows who else. Each of them passes without knowing or caring who you are, and with each come snippets of stories whose endings you’ll never learn. They delight you and also make your heart ache, all those unfinished stories. All those possibilities.

How is it that — even now that you are finally free to go anywhere and do anything you want with your time — you’re still looking for something else, something just out of reach?

Again, this really feels like bait for the protagonist to just awkwardly run into Jess right about now.

Maybe the beachfront battle scene doesn’t matter. Maybe you should continue on to Dewford, where you’ve heard interesting rumors of caves and tiny islands, each with their own micro-climates…

The bus finally comes. You sit near the back. Fine white sand scatters the floor. At the front, you see the ukulele girl sit, placing on the seat beside her a bulging backpack with the ukulele case strapped to the outside with bungee cords. Go figure. You smile, close your eyes, and lean into the seat back. Only the drumming of your fingers on your leg belies your racing mind.

Oh, hello, chicken lady. Didn’t think that we were going to see you again from earlier.

For tonight, the noise of other humans is enough to distract you from yourself. As the bus rips through the dark, the hum of traffic and unintelligible chatter and ringtones carries you to a place that might not be home but is as close as you need. For all the thoughts churning beneath… there’s always tomorrow.

Whelp, no awkward run-in with Jess there. The protagonist is safe for another day… probably.

Well that was definitely a different spread than normal. I’m not sure if it was a conscious part of your design for this story, but you’ve been doing a good job at keeping all of these Postcards feeling very unique from each other in terms of scenario and vibe. Postcard 8 in particular was probably my favorite of the bunch, since the the ending note that it went with was one of the more touching things that I’ve read from this fic so far.

I don’t have too much to complain about barring a couple sections reading like they might have worked a bit better with a bit more explanation, or a couple spots where I thought that one large paragraph might have worked better as multiple. But in the end, those are minor quibbles, and I felt that they didn’t really get in the way of what your different vignettes were going for.

Good stuff as always, @WildBoots . I’ll be looking forward to reading more of these in the future. ^^
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. quilava-fobbie
  5. sneasel-kate
Heya, dropping in for another tranche of these Postcards, since they’re kinda addictive to come back to, and a good buddy for those tired nights with lower energy. I’ll be doing a bigger than normal tranche, since I’ll be aiming to get through the rest of this series in a 1-2 punch this week, so splitting the difference and doing the first half of outstanding entries seems like a good place to start:

Postcard 10

Water, you thought, implied beach.

Where on earth did this protag grow up in order to think that anyways? Since where I grew up, it was basically a coin toss as to if any given patch of seaside would have a beach or not.

You stand beneath a sign that warns against swimming and diving, wondering who would dare. Oil shimmers on the water’s surface. Plastic bottles and Rage Candy wrappers mass beneath the pier. Your rain coat is zipped over your swimsuit to hide your error, and your belt is clipped over the coat for ease of access. It’s not raining hard, but it’s enough to soften the city’s electrical buzzings and distant sirens. You’ve been here for over an hour, half-waiting for someone to challenge and half-waiting for a better idea to come to you. It’s only been raining for fifteen minutes, and you can’t decide if it’s worth waiting for it to stop again.

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I see that some of Kanto’s bad habits have been rubbing off onto Johto in this setting. While it’s not presented as a grody industrial wasteland from what I can recall, given how big Goldenrod is, this is a pretty believable outcome for its waterfront.

At the sight of a growlithe you straighten, but you quickly realize it’s a pet, leashed to someone who looks like one of your mom’s friends. An occasional jogger passes. Not as many now as there were earlier.

The city is perhaps ugliest at twilight, when the shadows writhe with unpleasant possibility. The odds of earning a quick buck from a battle are waning fast. But as the orange streetlights come on, you watch another trainer approach from across the street. You count six pokeballs on the studded belt that shows under his hooded sweater. You guess he’s in his mid-thirties or early forties—not the oldest trainer you’ve encountered but still outside the norm—and has a strange, asymmetrical hairstyle. He stares straight ahead at you.

… I just realized, but why are you doing this in a dimly lit environment at night in a major city. Since this feels like a fantastic way to get jumped by a Team Rocket peon or something like that.

You try to guess what type of trainer he might be based on his clothes and gait. Perhaps dark-types? You palm your poliwrath’s pokeball. Then again, what if he favors electric-types and the rain drew him out to take advantage?

I mean, if your own initial assumption was that he was a Dark-type trainer…
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As the trainer draws closer, you realize what you mistook for his hair was actually a facial tattoo: a line of bones and barbed wire along his jaw and hairline. There’s an unpleasantness in his stare, communicating something beyond a challenge. It occurs to you that he might not be looking at your belt but at your body. If there were other people here it wouldn’t feel so creepy, but there aren’t and it does. He smiles, and it’s not a friendly one.

Again, you could’ve issued this challenge in front of a Pokémon Center, Protag, but nooooo...

It’s the smile that does it. You jump up from the railing where you’ve been leaning and tug your raincoat down over your belt. You start speed walking away, head down. Your pulse is loud in your ears.

“Hey!” he calls after you.

Protag: “(Don’t turn and look back. Don’t turn and look back. Don’t turn and look back.)”
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You release your haunter to cover your back. “Let’s go, Keats!” you call, and you break into a run. Keats makes no sound — you have to trust he’s there. You dash through a red light, grateful the rain has slowed the traffic.

Five blocks pass before you turn to see no one is chasing you, maybe never was. There’s only you, Keats, and the rain.

Protag: “Okay, yeah. Next time, I’m just issuing challenges from inside the lobby of a Pokémon Center, since screw that noise for having run-ins like that.”
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Postcard 11

“You have a light?”

A younger or drunker version of you would’ve brought out your typhlosion, delighting both in watching the large pokemon perform the delicate task and in gently threatening another trainer. Instead you hand over your lighter and accept it back without comment.

Oh, so our Protag is (or at least was) a Roughneck, huh? Since this definitely feels very “Roughneck” in vibe.

You lean against the back wall of Judo Cufflink, a bar and music venue locals call simply The Cuff. Like every Driftveil joint you’ve been in, it’s a dive with cracked leather booths and peeling murals out back. You’ve heard it’s also known for occasional fights (both the kind that involve pokemon and the kind that involve just fists), but the courtyard is calm now, hazy with smoke and conversation. You don’t smoke anymore but it’s cooler out here. Quieter too. The first band of the night — Something Punch, or maybe Punch Drunk Something — sucks. Too nasal, not enough bass.

I’m honestly a little surprised that this isn’t set in Virbank given how this vibe definitely feels very “Roxie’s hangout spot between Gym Matches” right about now, but eh. Driftveil is just up the river from it, so close enough.

You hoped to run into the cute girl from the hostel front desk who’d recommended this place to you but no such luck so far. It was a long shot anyway. You remind yourself, turning and turning the lighter in your pocket, that you’re almost certain to make a new friend or two in the next city. There are usually at least a few trainers from other regions on the gym circuit this time of year, easy connections over shared nostalgia-mixed-with-defiance for your respective hometowns.

If you could lock eyes with someone who isn’t that drunk or who’s the right kind of drunk and muscle your way through the small talk, you could probably find several such friends here in the courtyard, or maybe even something more. Flashing your badge collection has gotten you far before. Tonight though, the possibility and potential sits sour in your stomach along with the cheap beers you drank earlier. You’ve talked to so many people exactly like the ones here before. You’re weary of temporary friends, of not knowing what to put in letters to your old friends.

Have you considered using Embr like a normal person, buddy? >:V

From inside you hear the lead singer howl, Shallow, shallow, shallow! I don't care if you don't care.

It doesn’t matter that you already paid to see two more upcoming bands, you decide. You stand suddenly and walk through the wooden gate, down the sidewalk, past giggling punks and posturing trainers, past the convenience store, past the empty football field — you walk until the music and shouts fade into the distance and your stomach settles somewhat.

I sure hope that this guy isn’t also doing this in the dead of night, since this feels like a great way to get into a bad situation, just saying.

You find yourself in a new part of town, far from the gym and the hostel. Here feels more real, and also like a secret. You’re off the tourist track now. For a moment, you allow yourself to feel curious again. In the middle distance you can see some kind of complex, like a modern castle, and it draws you closer. You step softly as if to avoid startling away the stillness, to allow the moonlit path to reveal itself to you.

Churches and homes give way to rectangular concrete buildings, suddenly, as if they’ve abandoned you to this cold truth. Warehouses under harsh light cut sharp shadows. The lights, you imagine, are to dissuade thieves and pot-smoking teens from coming too close.

Oh, he headed south towards Cold Storage, didn’t he? Though that really doesn’t feel like the sort of place you want to be rooting around in the dead of night.
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These are factories, you guess, or shipping centers. It doesn’t matter which. These walls will always be closed to you, and there’s nothing inside you’d want to see. This place — the entire city— is designed to house machinery, not to inspire. No matter how far you walk there is no other hidden beauty to discover here. Only unrelenting purpose.

You stop, hands in your pockets, unsure where to go next.

Yeeeeeeeah, should’ve made your way towards the Charizard Bridge, buddy.

At a flicker of shadow in the corner, your hand darts automatically to your belt. The motion sensor lights hit the trubbish before you can. With an unsettlingly human-like grunt, it bustles down a side street and out of sight again.

In a flash you remember the summer Goldenrod City was so overrun with grimers that the city actually paid trainers to catch and remove them. The sour-smelling air gave your mother headaches, so she spent most of that summer in a dark room with a wet washcloth over her face. One grimer managed to ooze its way up the pipes and into your bathtub. An exterminator with a slowbro had to be called, and there was still a purple ring around the tub for weeks. After all this time, you’ve still never caught a poison-type.

You’ve worked so hard and crossed oceans…and still. There’s only more of this.

Yeah, environmental damage be like that. Though I’m not sure if it was a conscious decision or not, but this actually dovetailed quite well with the prior postcard where Goldenrod’s grungy environment was a major part of the background scenery. It’s fun to see it called back to like this.

Postcard 12

Oh boy, Saffron. I wonder what sort of environmental nightmare we’ll come across this time.
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At first, it’s just another battle, if a frustrating one. Sure, your opponent is dressed shabbily, but so are you. Your nice shirt is for gym battles and important events, not fast cash battles in the parking lot of a foreclosed grocery store. You assume he wants the same thing you do.

You’ve fought his skarmory and now his weezing, both surprisingly good at taking multiple hits and slowly wearing your pokemon down. Very slowly. You made the mistake of thinking one or two good blasts from your magmar would be enough to knock the skarmory out of the sky—quick and forceful. But your magmar never landed more than a glancing blow, and the head-on approach only tired him out faster.

I actually wonder if there’s a general relationship between being a more successful trainer and antipathy towards urban areas, since this is the third entry in a row where we’ve found ourselves in one of the shabbier parts of town. Though I suppose traveling on a budget will tend to shunt you to scruffier places.

“How long do you want this battle to go on?” you asked, half-joking, while you contemplated who to send out next.

The other trainer smiled and shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

To win, you thought he meant.

Oh lordy, I just realized that this poor sod is being Toxic stalled. Boy is that strategy a blast from the past.
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So now you’re fighting on his terms. You don’t have a choice — smoke hangs over the field and your hitmontop can barely see where she’s aiming her kicks. Each collision between your hitmontop and his weezing is brief — hit, pull back, hit pull back. It’s less of a race and more a test of stamina, slogging towards the gradual accumulation of small wounds and hoping your pokemon can wait it out longer.

All that’s missing is for the Weezing to twist the knife with Toxic at this point, really.

It’s not the quickie you planned on, but now seeing it through is a matter of pride. You’d hate to lose to some nobody this way.

Finally, there is a muffled slap and another burst of foul smoke as your hitmontop’s foot flies through through smokescreen and connects with the weezing, hard. The weezing falls, dented and deflated, and you let out a sigh of relief.

Great job, Paladin! You finally did it.”

Whelp, I guess our stall trainer has some work to do with his strategies there.

The other trainer seems unfazed though. “Last one,” he says with that same infuriating smile and the same drawl. “How are you feeling?”

“Great,” you say, too quickly. “You ready?”

de7.png


On three, you each release your third and final pokemon for the tie-breaker. You send out your xatu and grin at the sight of his rhyhorn. This won’t be the same kind of fight as before with a pokemon like that. He’ll have to deal with you directly.

“Alright, Wicked! This one’s all you, baby,” you call out. “Blast its brains out!”

As your xatu begins beaming psychic energy across the parking lot, plastic bags twisting through the air in its wake, your opponent commands, “Knock it down. You know what to do.”

inb4 his Rhyhorn uses Horn Drill or something like that.

With a roar, the rhyhorn stomps and thrusts its horn into the air. The asphalt quivers, cracks, and heaves. Some big chunks are already lying loose from past battles, and those shoot into the air right away, towards Wicked. She flaps out of the way, eyes glowing white as she turns the smaller chunks aside with her mind. But soon there are more, coming down like hailstones. Wicked bobs, weaves, and occasionally cries out as one finds its mark.

Oh boy, Stone Edge, that’s gotta be fun to deal with. Not.

Though I just realized that this is the first Postcard all this time that has dealt with a trainer battle as its primary backdrop. Talk about a change of pace there.

You watch with clenched teeth, waiting for an opening to give the next command.

The other trainer shouts, “Now, Zodiac!”

A weird name for a rhydon—

… Wait, as in ‘Zodiac Killer’, or…? .-.

You don’t realize what’s actually happened until you see the umbreon flicker into view from out of the other trainer’s shadow. In its mouth, you recognize your distinctive orange wallet, a gift from a friend back home.

Your backpack — still at your side, but hanging open.

Oh, well then. I mean, I suppose you should’ve expected something like this to happen fighting in front of a shuttered grocery store, just saying.

Your mouth flies open, but nothing comes out.

The trainer grins, pats the umbreon’s head, and palms your wallet. “Smash it, Bruce!”

You finally find your voice again. “Wicked!” She swoops to your aid, but a falling asphalt boulder cuts her off.

At this rate, this guy isn’t going to be content with just that wallet, is he?

All etiquette thrown aside, you send out your last two pokemon, a flaaffy and a krabby. “Stop him!”

But the massive rhydon has no problem keeping your pokemon at a distance. With a stomp, it sends seismic waves rippling across the parking lot and upends flaaffy, krabby, and you. Then it turns and slashes Wicked as she passes, knocking her aside.

Wait, Rhydon? Or Rhyhorn? Since Bruce is referred to as a Rhyhorn earlier on.

Though somebody never bothered to study how to triple battle effectively. Since leaving Bruce out on the field without someone like that Krabby to try and deal with him was always going to end poorly.

The other trainer calmly trades out his umbreon for a kadabra. He salutes in your direction and smirks one last time before linking hands with the kadabra and laying his other hand on the rhyhorn’s haunch. The air begins to shimmer and, in an instant, all three are gone. Your krabby’s water gun splashes onto nothing.

Of course you cry.

Eventually you stop, stand up and, because there’s nothing else to do, drag yourself towards the pokecenter to heal your team and file a police report.

Whelp. I’m beginning to understand why trainers tend to spend more of their time out in the boonies in this series. .-.

Postcard 13

Cities, like dreams, are expensive. Tonight is your eighth night in a row of beans and rice for dinner. You eat with your badge case next to you, “for flavor,” and as a reminder.

You’ve got work to do.

I’m… not sure if I even want to know considering what the last three city-focused postcards have been like.
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There are still some things you won’t do to save money or for convenience. You never eat street food anymore, even when it’s cheap — especially not when it’s cheap.

Bad experience with gastroenteritis before, I take it?

A few months back, after eating a bad sausage roll, you spent most of a night either kneeling over the toilet or half-dozing on the tile beside the basin. One of the other girls who shared your room at the hostel banged on the door for almost ten minutes straight before leaving to fetch a manager. While she was in the shower, you threw up into a grocery bag next to your bunk.

Yeah, I knew it. That would definitely be a fast reason to nope out from eating street food.

But there’s a lot you will do to support your lifestyle.

For the past few weeks you’ve been pitching your tent in the hinterlands at night, spending $3.50 in quarters on a hot shower and laundry every other day or so, and restocking shelves at a VitaShop in the mornings. VitaShop offers employees a fifteen percent discount, climbing to thirty once you hit the three month mark, which is nice but unlikely to do you any good. You don’t plan on being here that long.

For a second, I thought that the protag was hawking stuff related to niche Sony handhelds. Though I presume that that’s meant in the ‘Life’ sense, there.

Though it could be worse, Protag could be working at McDeino’s. :V

A not-so-nice thing about working there is the bag check at the end of each shift. Your backpack is your entire life and livelihood. You don’t think there’s any shame in that, but still you hate having to let your manager see your entire existence laid out like that, rummaging through your clothes and mementos because you can’t be trusted not to take company property.

It’s definitely a temporary situation…but you also definitely need the extra cash right now. The journey from Pastoria wasn’t kind to you. Two potions and a rare stone lost in the muck when the seam in your bag burst open. And those two kids who wrung out your team and your wallet. Now you’re just this side of dead broke and therefore stranded until you can recover your funds and, with luck, climb back up the ranks of the battle-for-cash scene.

Wait, just how frequent are robberies on the training circuit, since this is the second guy in this series that we’ve seen who’s gotten robbed while on the journey.

After your VitaShop shifts, you wad up your apron and head to an abandoned bowling alley turned casual battle arena to train. There’s a different name on the side of the building from when it was still a bowling alley but now locals call it Trash Canyon. Sometimes you walk to the gym instead, but only to watch. Maylene herself is lithe as a cat, and her pokemon are almost unnervingly graceful even when they’re hurt and slow. You’re seeing some progress in your team, you think, but not like that. You wonder what she gives them — there must be something.

Huh, wasn’t expecting to see a canon character cameo in this thing, but I suppose that it makes sense since it’s everybody’s goal to take on Gym Leaders like Maylene.

The front of the shop, where you’re usually stationed, is all general supplies: gauze wraps, multivitamins, both Silph and value brand potions, key chain fobs. The back is where they stock stranger goods. One aisle carries the things you used to laugh at in infomercials: vegan protein powder, seaweed extracts, fibrous dried kelpsy berries (imported from Hoenn). The remaining aisles are subdivided by pokemon typing, with a few lines of supplements that claim to be calibrated for individual species, all the most popular ones.

It sounds impressive, and you might have been tempted by it once, but you’ve started to wonder how delicate the constitution of a wild-caught creature could really be. By far, the formulas advertised for dragon-types are the most expensive, some literally worth their weight in gold. You’ve never been close enough to a dragon-type to be able to see eye color, let alone catch one, but you understand why someone would steal the stuff for the resale value alone. Each bottle bears an electronic lock that explodes if not removed before leaving the store, spraying thieves with red dye.

Is this going to be a shoplifting episode? Since this feels like we’re rapidly moving towards a shoplifting episode.
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You see all kinds of trainers in the checkout line. Some approach the register with a single precious pill jar and others, astoundingly, with shopping baskets full to the brim. Most manage to seem both bored and anxious. You’re practically invisible to them in your apron, leaving you free to size them up.

How far behind have you fallen?

If you have to ask the question, you probably don’t want to know. Just saying. ^^;

You used to feel more disdainful, more jealous. But after a while you realized they’re no different from you. None of you knows what you’re doing, not really. You’re all just trying and hoping and pushing through as best as you can. You all want the same things: to win more than to lose, to be seen, and to earn enough money to keep going. You’re all still hoping, in your way, for miracles.

I… take it that the protagonist’s story is not a particularly unique one. The unskilled labor market in this Pokéworld must have some serious problems what with the massive pool of transient labor willing to work for the equivalent of couch change. .-.

Well that was a bit of a downer compared to prior chunks of this story that I’ve read before. Though I suppose that part of a Trainer journey is the times when things go wrong, and even if they all seemed to share a general overarching “downer” theme, the individual scenarios were still nicely varied and leaned on their surroundings pretty effectively.

There were a couple small quibbles that I had here and there, primarily with paragraph formatting. Beyond that, I think the only thing that I’d have changed would’ve been to throw in a city-themed entry that had a bit of a more uplifting ending note somewhere in the mix as a contrast. Though I suppose we do have three more of these “Cities and Hunger” entries left, so perhaps I’ll get my wish soon enough.

Good work as always, @WildBoots , and I’ll be looking forward to knocking out the last of these postcards later this week.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
Pronouns
He/Him/His
Partners
  1. nidoran-f
  2. druddigon
  3. swellow
  4. quilava-fobbie
  5. sneasel-kate
Heya, coming back around to round this series out. Things went off in a bit of a downer direction in the last batch of postcards that I read, so I'm actually kinda interested in what direction these last four will wind up going.

Only one way to find out, I suppose... :V

Postcard 14

Oh hey, Lilycove. That's a bit nostalgic since I have a bit of experience of writing for it... granted, it was more a kinda sucky hotel room in it, but close enough. Though let's see what part of Lilycove you'll be showing off this time.

You never see fat trainers on billboards or magazine ads. LeyLine is just as interested, if not more, in selling to fashionistas and to the young hopefuls who quit after a few weeks, the ones who are more dedicated to dressing like a trainer than to doing the work. Those kinds of girls don’t aspire to be fat. By the time you earn your third badge, after all the hiking, you should be in the best shape of your life — you’ve never actually heard anyone say it in so many words, but everyone knows it. That’s how it works.

And yet here you are.

Well, I suppose that's a sign of the times for when this postcard is set. Since while it's still not common, you do indeed see girthier people in advertisements nowadays, or at least in Western countries, anyways.

Sometimes people don’t believe you’re a trainer. They certainly don’t assume it. “You in town for work or for fun?” the clerk asked when you checked into the hostel. “Most of the folks who pass through here are doing the gym challenge.”

“Yeah. I’m a trainer,” you answered, pointing towards your belt.

The clerk politely tried to hide her surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t notice! Silly of me.”

Wait a minute, I just realized, but our protagonist is meant to be one of those Backpacker NPCs, huh? Since they were definitely on the chunkier side for a trainer class.

“Mm. So, which room did you say I’m in?”

You used to work hard to disappear. Now you’re on display, online and in the flesh.

Today the contest hall is packed with trainers, pokemon, and spectators alike. All down the long hallway to your left and to your right other trainers stand at attention beside their pokemon, smaller ones placed atop a pedestal draped in a tablecloth in the color of their contest category. A few water-types occupy enormous tanks instead. Behind you is a second row of trainers and pokemon. The trainer behind you keeps bumping into you as he animatedly answer passing spectators’ questions about his loudred. You’re wearing shorts because the city is hot and humid this time of year and a halter top with horizontal stripes because it’s your favorite shirt. You don’t care if people look at your thighs or your jiggly arms. You care that they look at Squish, playing with her own tail on her pink-draped pedestal, and vote for her to win.

Huh, a trainer chasing the contest circuit. This guy (or gal) is definitely an uncommon bird between his/her motivation and body type. Wonder if s/he'll give us any other surprises before this postcard's up.

Joining the contest circuit wasn’t part of the original plan. The first time you registered for one had been because of Frankie, your high school friend and traveling partner. She had been curious — mostly interested in hearing praise for her spinda, you observed but didn’t say — but too nervous to go it alone. And you thought, Why not. You thought your azumarill was pretty cute. Frankie quickly decided she hated the scene: the waking up early, the paperwork, the constant repeat questions from spectators, the standing and waiting for things to start. She never signed up again. You, however, thrive in it.

Oh, so that's what Squish is. You can't say that the name's not fitting, since that big tail does look like it'd be pretty soft to the touch.

You still battle sometimes, mostly to earn quick cash to pay for Squish’s special skin oils and other accessories. Never with Squish anymore, though — you can’t risk her scarring or bruising. She wasn’t a bad battler, especially in gym battles where the hard floors let her roll around and pick up speed, but it delights you to pamper her instead. She’s silky soft and fat and happy.

Ah, so like Pokémon, like trainer, huh? Though it hadn't occurred to me that people who are really serious about the contest circuit would shy away from battles. Since all it takes to permanently handicap oneself in the visual judging category is one ill-placed scar from a rougher-than-normal battle.

It’s not that contests are easier, just a different kind of work. Different drills, different supplements. More time on social media. Fewer rolled ankles, more carpal tunnel.

“Oh my gosh,” you hear through the crowd. “Aren’t you MissSquish on the Trainer Network?”

Can't tell if that's a sign that our protag's a girl or a GIRL. The latter is kinda awkward-funny to imagine being the case.

You flash her your brightest smile and stand straighter. “Yeah, that’s us. Did you want to meet Squish?”

“Yes! I love your feed so much. I was actually hoping we could take a selfie? For my blog?”

“Oh, sure. Just make sure to tag us.” You sidle out of the way and gesture towards the azumarill as if to say, all yours!

Wow, I wasn't expecting "MissSquish" there to actually have some level of notoriety. Though I suppose we have been a bit overdue in seeing a trainer who's been "making it" in this series thus far.

“You should be in it too!” She steps close and digs into her purse for her phone, which you notice has a case shaped like an azumarill, ears and all. “I love that top.”

“Oh! Okay.” And you smile for real, because this is the first time this has happened, but the way things are going… you’re not afraid to hope that this won’t be the last.

Be careful what you wish for, buddy. Since fans have a way of wearing out the subject of their followings pretty quickly. >:V

Though I see that we're already mixing things up vibe-wise already. Let's see what you have in store for the next postcard:

Postcard 15

When you walk a long time through the city, you begin to crave wilderness.

I mean, considering how we've been like 2/6 for actually enjoyable experiences in cities in this series, I can't really blame the protagonist here.

It’s not anxiety, even though cities do make you anxious. All those other trainers vying for crumbs of fame, the violent crime in the headlines. Or, at least, it’s not only anxiety.

Yeah, QED. Especially in light of Postcards 10-13.

You just want something that lasts. There’s comfort in seeing a tree that was planted long before you were born, in knowing the rocks will outlast whatever legacy you leave behind.

The trees and the rocks can’t keep you warm at night, but your pokemon do. Your liepard, Prince, has claimed one side of your tent as his, and Swift, your whimsicott, likes to sleep at your feet. You get lonely sometimes anyway — they’re not much for conversation.

Sometimes talking to strangers makes you lonelier.

I take it that our trainer protagonist is more of the introverted type, huh? I can kinda relate to this feeling, even if I'm not exactly an "outdoors" person most of the time.

New trainers, all wide eyes and new clothes, stop you and your pokemon on the street to plead for advice they’ll ignore. In bars, trainers lonelier than you tell you things they ought to keep to themselves. There are others you could talk to, maybe even some you’d like to travel with, if only for a little while. You know you hold other trainers at more of a distance than you have to. But…

Huh, so this is another trainer with local notoriety. I wonder if it's a canonical character or another OC like MissSquish.

You haven’t forgotten last year in Nimbasa City. The trainer with the seviper tattoo winding down her leg. She caught your attention the second she strode into the hostel common room. First her foreign pokemon, a big one — a crobat, dozing atop her backpack. Then that look in her smoky eyes, wordlessly daring the world to just try her. You didn’t have the guts to talk to her — what would you say to someone like that? But when she caught you sneaking glances, she came to you.

“Where I come from locking eyes is a surefire way to start a battle.” She didn’t sit, forcing you to crane your neck to look at her. “What kind of pokemon do you train?”

Cute reference there. Since I certainly remember that line from the games that Miss Seviper is referencing there. :P

You battled more with Prince and Swift, but her crobat stirring awake and stretching its wings prompted you to answer, “I just started training a woobat.”

“Then you must be batshit crazy too.” She grinned, and immediately it was like the two of you were the only ones in the room. Electric. “I was thinking about checking out the amusement park later. You been yet?”

Oh, this is going to be a Ferris Wheel episode, isn't it? Since it sure feels like we're headed to that direction in short order at this rate.

You hadn’t been planning on it, but now you were.

At first you were shy, but she wasn’t. She took your hand as the roller coaster started its slow climb. Her hand was surprisingly cool. Later, behind the popcorn vendor’s stall, you kissed until you were dizzy with it and the vendor’s assistant came out to chase you away. The two of you ran laughing between the aisles of flashing lights.

“I feel like I’ve known you for years,” you told her.

She laughed. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

Well, no Ferris Wheel yet, but this certainly is very 'Nimbasa' right now given that the entire city in-game is basically the amusement park and the stadiums to the north.

“So tell me.” You asked where she grew up, her favorite movie, her biggest fear. One right after another. You also wondered but didn’t ask whether kissing strange girls was something she did a lot — because you sure didn’t.

Oh, so the protagonist is female. Duly noted, then. Though "female, has local notoriety in Unova, and has a Leopard" huh? It kinda reminds me of Bianca, except I could've sworn she didn't have a Liepard on her team.

She only laughed again and silenced you with another kiss. “Questions later.”

You weren’t so naive that you expected it to become something, at least not right away. You hadn’t even found out yet whether you were traveling the same way. What you hadn’t expected was for her to leave before you even woke up the next morning. No note at the hostel’s front desk—nothing but a memory of the smell of popcorn.

Huh. maybe our protagonist isn't locally famous and just has issues opening up to others or something like that.

Your return trip home for your sister’s high school graduation takes you back through Nimbasa for a night. You can’t resist the call of the amusement park. Wandering slowly through the arcades and past the rides, you tell yourself you’re just people watching. The popcorn stand is gone, or maybe you’ve misremembered where it was. You find a bench shaped like a scolipede and sit.

The people of Nimbasa dress loudly, many of the girls choosing fashions inspired by the local gym leader. Emolga is a popular pokemon here, both as a companion perched on the shoulder and as a design motif: emolga-head purses, emolga-patterned tights. You see lots of couples.

Well, I suppose we know an easy way to tell if a Pokémaniac is from Nimbus or not. :V

Of course, you see no sign of the girl with the seviper tattoo. You didn’t really expect to.

Okay, see, now that you're explicitly mentioning it, I'm now half-expecting her to show up in like three paragraphs. Since I know how stories tend to work.

There are other travelers here though, and they stand out. They’re quieter, dressed mostly in shades of brown, charcoal, or sage. You try to guess which ones are from Unova and which ones have come from farther away. Even with their rugged simplicity and clothes full of patches, each of them seems lit from within. You recognize that fire in their eyes. You see it in the mirror, sometimes.

For someone who allegedly doesn't like talking to strangers, our protagonist certainly seems to be managing fine watching them. It's an interesting dichotomy to observe.

Someone drops onto the bench beside you, and you look up with a start. Another trainer, you see by his belt. “Hey there,” he says.

“Hi.” For a moment he only looks at you with an odd smile on his face, so you add, “I’m not really looking for a battle right now.”

“Oh, no.” His smile falters for a moment. “I just wanted to meet you.”

Okay, yeah. Our protagonist is famous locally, or at least relatively, anyways.

“Why?” You don’t mean for it to come out like that, but you’re startled and put-off by how close he’s chosen to sit. Something about this reminds you of a con you’ve witnessed once from a distance — one person to distract while the other sneaks up behind. You drape a protective arm over your pack and put a hand on Prince’s ball.

The trainer leans away reflexively but doesn’t stop smiling. “When I saw you here I thought, that girl’s too pretty to be sitting by herself. Thought I’d see if you wanted to ride the Ferris wheel with me.”

So... how many trainers before this one have you tried this blind flirting routine on already? Since I get the distinct feeling that this guy's batting average is pretty bad.

You don’t mean to laugh. When his face falls you do feel a little bad, but not bad enough to stop you from standing and shouldering your pack. “No. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

The path out of the park takes you past the Ferris wheel, and you stop for a few minutes to watch it cycle round and round. You’re sure that trainer will find someone to ride with him. This city is dependable for at least that much.

Well, that's definitely very true to the games, since... yeah, I remember that there were a lot of random strangers that were in the mood to split a car and chat each other up in Nimbasa.

Postcard 16

>Coffee Shop

Huh, not a specific city this time. I definitely wasn't expecting that, but let's see what this place is like.

There are two ways of describing a postcard: a gift or a burden. One for each city, you told your best friend before you left. You made too many promises.

... How many cities has this trainer been to, anyways? Aren't there like 10 that matter in a region, tops?
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The first few were easy, because you thought of home everywhere you went. You composed long letters in your head as you walked down unfamiliar avenues and stared out bus windows. You couldn’t wait to write to your cousin about a cafe whose walls were papered with drawings by previous guests, the way sunset glinted pink and gold on the harbor, the food. You told your mother about your visit to a famous shrine and how much you missed her.

But, little by little, the writing begins to wear you down.

Again, just how many places has this trainer been to? Since you think that it wouldn't be that hard to basically just pull a "dear diary" on these postcards short of getting squeezed on time and energy by the grind of the journey.

Though then again, I suppose I can empathize with the "not knowing what to say" factor. Since boy is that a familiar feeling every time it comes time to sign birthday or holiday cards. ^^;

Flicking through the spinning card racks is tiresome. Your mother would love this photo of the skyline at night, but you wrinkle your nose at it. Certainly you have never seen the city looking so tidy and still. And everywhere you go — scattered between the postcards featuring landmarks and famous residents — there is always the same saccharine pikachu, photoshopped with sunglasses, a pool float, and a margarita. Wish you were here. Many of the souvenir shops are cash only, forcing you to turn out your pockets for change or walk out empty-handed. Once, you were already at the city limits before you remembered you’d forgotten to buy any cards and had to double back.

Okay, yeah. That sounds like it could get annoying fast. Though if you don't mind it being a bit corporate and "everybody and their mother has one of these", you could always just pick up a canned postcard from the likes of CVS or something like that.

Every so often, you arrive at a pokecenter to see a pack of letters and cards sent ahead by your mother. Your best friend includes stickers and drawings in scented marker. The notes are sweet, but you inevitably have to recycle most of them to save room in your bag. Sometimes they do spur you into a burst of letter-writing, but other times even guilt isn’t enough motivation.

Aw. Though I suppose that is a valid consideration for having to constantly travel and dip in and out of towns and boonies fora journey.
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Now, at a cafe with mosaic-topped tables, you flip through the stack of cards you bought around the corner. It’s a haphazard selection, and you’re surprised by your own choices. Is it better, you wonder, to begin with an apology? Or you could jump to the highlight reel. But even as you start trying to distill your last gym battle into the space of a postcard, you have to stop and put down your pen. There’s too much to say, and yet too little.

Finally, you improvise a haiku about the cobblestone streets and people passing on the sidewalk. There. Done. You push the card aside and start on the next.

Oh, so our protagonist just has a ton of friends and family that s/he writes to. ... Yeah, I can see how that'd wind up becoming an issue really quickly short of just picking one message to recycle across all the postcards being written up at a given stop.

Though hey, haikus are cool and definitely easy to reuse across messages. Maybe our protagonist should consider doing more of them.

Alright, last postcard, and we seem to be headed back to where every journey starts. Let's see what "Home" in this series looks like.

Postcard 17

Leaving there, you finally arrive once again at the place called home. It’s not home anymore, not really. But you’ll never be able to call it anything else.

When you walk a long time through the wild, you begin to crave home. The annual county fair. Your dad’s spaghetti and meatballs. The old fashioned candy shop where you can still buy a giant jawbreaker for less than a dollar.

You wonder if this place has always looked so small.

Getting some very "player character" vibes right now, since this definitely feels very much like the obligatory "tiny boonie town" that the games start you out in.

When she hears you’re back in town, your high school friend Jackie invites you out to the diner where you had Saturday brunches with your family growing up. Seeing her is both weird and nice. You order pancakes with bacon and sausage and a side of hashbrowns. When it comes to meals made to order rather than on your camp stove, you’ve never been able to control the impulse to eat like it’s your last chance. Jackie orders coffee.

I mean, if protag's diet was like some of the ones we were seeing in the wilderness entries... yeah, I don't blame him/her at all for setting on that diner breakfast like a starved Mightyena. :V

“How’s training?”

It’s a big question. Too big. You know she expects you to say something innocuous — “It’s good!” — or that you’ll take the leap and add your own details. She can’t help that she doesn’t know enough about it to know what questions to ask. But still. You shovel hashbrowns into your mouth to give yourself time to think, to wrestle your frustration into a reasonable answer. Jackie stirs creamer into her coffee and watches you chew while you weigh stories you could tell her.

“I mean… it’s a lot of things.”

Sounds like if nothing else, it was exhausting for you to be back here again.

You try to tell her some of the highlights, but the cities and the wilderness, like dreams, are hard to describe after the fact. It all feels like it happened a thousand years ago, or to someone else. You try anyway. Jackie listens politely, but you can tell you’re losing her in the specifics. You wind down with a helpless shrug and, “I guess you just had to be there.”

For a while, you switch to talking about your history together, which is both easier and hollow. She catches you up on your mutual friends: Louisa moved to Unova for work. Jenny and Alex got married and have a toddler. A toddler, already. You can’t decide whether to feel more repulsed or left out.

... Just how long was protag out on his/her journey? Since this feels like some Ash-tier absence from surrounding society. .-.

Jackie is working as an administrative assistant for a construction company, and it’s as hard for you to relate to her office politics as it is for her to relate to your travel stories. Your coworkers, so to speak, are your pokemon. They don’t gossip or leave passive-aggressive notes on the coffeemaker. There is no coffee maker.

She insists on taking the bill, and you let her without protest. Her income is steadier than yours. You part ways on the sidewalk, saying you’ll have to catch up again soon. Even if you probably won’t, you have to say it.

I take it that there wasn't reception while out in the wilderness a good chunk of the time? Since you'd think that depending on if video call-capable devices are decently common at the time and place this postcard is set, that it'd help keep him/her up to speed with how life's going for everyone else.

The supermarket is on your way home — to your parents’ house, that is — so you stop there for detergent and toilet paper. You haven’t bought such heavy or bulky items since before you left. It feels opulent, but you know Mom will be pleased with you.

You accidentally lock eyes with a woman as you squeeze your way past her cart. It takes you a moment to recognize her as your middle school math teacher, Mrs. Briggs. She looks the same, only older and deflated. When she sees you she breaks into a grin, and your gut seizes with irrational panic. You let her envelope you in a squishy hug.

I take it that protag wasn't exactly a teacher's pet while growing up, huh?

“Back from training, eh?” she says.

“Just home for a few weeks.” Your badge case is at home, but you run her through the checklist of which ones you’ve collected. “Still a ways to go…”

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I mean, you could just... like... quit your journey? Since that is the fate of most of them canonically and sometimes you just need to admit when a certain lifestyle is just not for you.

She pauses, adjusts her glasses. With a faraway smile she says, “I always knew you’d do great things.”

You’re pretty sure you never got higher than a B minus in her classes. But you thank her all the same before saying you really should get going.

I can't tell whether or not becoming a pro trainer is big deal™ in this setting, or else if Mrs. Briggs is just being nice there.

When you walk a long time through your home town, you begin to crave the world again.

You only last a couple more days at home before you and your mom start arguing about stupid things — the name of the neighbor’s skitty, the correct oven temperature for a baked potato, the capital of Hoenn — and you know it’s time to go. She tries to convince you to stay a little longer, listing friends you should visit and an upcoming church picnic, almost certainly knowing it won’t work on you.

Well then. Guess that sense of wanderlust just isn’t quite dead then. Though I suppose that it kinda echoes how the canonical starting towns have almost nothing to really do in them to motivate you to come home for longer periods of time.

While you repack your beat-up old backpack, she leans against the doorway and watches. She asks where you’re headed this time. You lie so she doesn’t worry, but the truth is you’re not sure yet. You don’t know how to make her understand your destination isn’t the point.

Sometimes being on the road feels like searching for some unnameable thing that doesn’t exist, getting lost in ways a map and compass can’t resolve. Other times, you know uncertainty is just the price of freedom.

END

I suppose I should’ve seen it coming that there’d be an “and the adventure continues” style ending for this story. It’s definitely very thematically fitting for a story that’s all about snapshots of the life of traveling trainers. The one thing that I’d have done differently here is maybe render it as END? to emphasize that the sense of wanderlust that compels trainers to hit the road in this world never fully dies and leave an out for a continuation if desired, but it feels nicely complete as it stands.

Though that was a fun sendoff to this story, and a nice contrast to the last stretch of the story emphasizing the doldrums of life on the road. I’ve always been a sucker for “everyman” stories, so it was a lot of fun to get to see glimpses of life of normal people in Pokeworld and how varied and “this could actually happen” they all were.

I… honestly don’t have a lot to complain about other than a couple minor typos or paragraphs that I thought were a little too chunky. Maybe it’d have been nice to see more of these vignettes and to drill down stuff like particular trainer classes, but what’s there is really good. You covered quite a few bases just between the 17 Postcards that are there, and this will be going on my shortlist for fics to recommend for people looking for more slice-of-life style fare.

Kudos, @WildBoots . While I gather that most of your works are a bit less bite-sized than this, it’s a pretty effective advertisement for your talent as a writer. I suppose that's a strong sign for me to try out some of your other fare sometime. ^^
 
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