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kyeugh

you gotta feel your lines
Staff
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. farfetchd-galar
  2. gfetchd-kyeugh
  3. onion-san
  4. farfetchd
hellooo! i'm finally back for another review. i don't remember where i left off but i binged through a ton of this fic recently so i'm just going to pick up at the most recent chapter you posted here so i can review as you release from now on! that brings me to:

chapter 10

i really like this chapter because nate kind of just feels like a guy. his back and forth with the child even almost feels like banter for a lot of it. nate gets put through a lot, and the child is constantly getting into trouble, so it's nice to see them sort of just hanging out and doing normal stuff for a little bit.

it's also good to see the child get served a little slice of humble pie, even if it's still too stubborn to admit it lost (how topical!). spending so much time inside the child's head, you start to think that its inflated assessment of its own abilities is accurate, and it's not hard to see why given all its wacky powers. but it does have significant shortcomings, so seeing them fail at something was nice.

it's nice to see absol back too—god knows nate and the child really need a goddamn adult in the room.

as usual this chapter is packed full of fun little details that make it a joy to read. titan's discarded ice cream tubs and the befuddled crowd in the cafeteria come to mind. your prose can really hit hard when it wants to, but even in the lighter moments there's all kinds of little tidbits to enjoy.

looking forward to reviewing the next chapter once it's posted here!

Togetic whips past overhead, trailing a streamer of joy dust. You reach up to pass your hand through it, enjoying the tingle of the glowing flecks against your skin.
is joy dust a drug? it kind of seems like joy dust might be a drug. is togetic raining magic cocaine on everyone.

"Tell you what, let's make a bet out of it, huh? Some jackass took all my fucking cash, you might have heard, so why don't we say this: if you beat me, I'll be quiet the whole rest of this fucking stupid trip."
X to doubt

The charizard's sunning himself amidst a litter of empty ice cream cartons.
hahaha. oh, titan. i love this. "litter" is a fun word choice.

"I guess," the charizard says, ducking his head in a nervous nod.
loved this part, he's so weirded out to be part of this. titan has a great personality.

They're not even half as fast with their whiskers damaged.
i didn't know this about raticate, but lo and behold, it's in the pokédex! fun little detail to implement.

"Not that I blame you for having trouble with it," the great Nathaniel Morgan goes on, stickily. "I swear to God I've never met a dumber pokémon in all my fucking life. I could barely get it to understand even real fucking simple instructions."
aw. that's really mean for no reason. i'm kind of surprised he goes for a lowblow like this, given how defensive he is of his own pokémon. i suppose i shouldn't be surprised the great nathaniel morgan is not a man of upstanding moral character...

"This center silverware," the great Nathaniel Morgan says blithely. "Completely shitty, am I right?" He's gone back to eating.

You wince as a young girl bangs her fork experimentally against the edge of her table.
lmfao, didn't notice this the first time. absolutely perfect.

Without looking at you, she asks, "Do you think killing him will solve anything?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have to listen to him anymore."
well, it's not wrong about that.

Absol grows bored of wandering and jumps back up on the bed, stretching out across its full width. "Do not be stupid. Of course my brother is not the Champion," you say. "My brother is Mewtwo."
ooh! bombshell. this was a big "oh shit" moment for me. awesome way to end the chapter.
 
Partners
  1. skiddo-steplively
  2. skiddo-px2
  3. skiddo-px3
  4. skiddo-iametrine
  5. skiddo-coolshades
  6. skiddo-rudolph
  7. skiddo-sleepytime
  8. snowskiddo
  9. skiddotina
  10. skiddengo
  11. skiddoyena
Almost Orre time! Let's see if the child has to put that Excellent Idea into action...

Two days from now, if the great Nathaniel Morgan hasn't been found, you have no doubt that you'll return to find the clearing empty of anyone but perhaps a sad and bewildered Titan, Duskull and Togetic watching from the margins.

So Titan wasn't already in on Rats's plan, then. Or, at least, the child is assuming he'll side with it.

"Nate would do the same thing if I was the one who was lost. You know that."

the goodest girl

"I want to go home!" Togetic says, louder, rising into the air

Dropped a period. (And woof...)

Hadn't really thought about how tricky it would be to care for such an emotionally-sensitive pokémon, haha. I mean, it'd be ideal if we could be happy all the time, and this is an unusually stressful situation on top of that, but people get angry sometimes! and having a pokémon that can't deal with that would be a bit of a challenge.

maybe you should be asking yourself why your 'good trainer' is working so hard to get them back with the Rocket grunt.

Ouch. And man, Titan's babey is really showing through here, aw.

Nate and Mightyena's argument seems like such a long time ago, and it was never really resolved, was it? I find it so interesting that she still really wants to do right by him, even though she's seriously considering not sticking around, whether she might in fact be better off without the friend she's had for so long. It's fun to compare with the child's pokémon, here because they feel like they have to be, because they have to help others, but evidence of actual friendship still feels kinda like hearsay sometimes. They want to help—Rats at least seams earnest about that—but if the child went missing now, would they look?

Nate isn't part of Team Rocket anymore, and he won't be ever again. They tried to kill him for sabotaging their missins. Don't talk to me about helping Team Rocket, Nate and the rest of us have done more than any of you to stop them!

👀 Ah, I don't think this little nugget has come up before! (Or maybe my memory is still garbage, haha.) No wonder they wanted to beat him to death. Definitely looking forward to hearing more about this, although getting Nate himself to open up about it will probably be like pulling teeth. The contrast between Nate obviously being someone who's made (and continues to make) bad decisions and seems to have trouble relating to other people and also someone who tries so hard to be good to his pokémon—he's not perfect, they do fight, he has dragged them along to Rocket stuff, but it's so clear that he cares—is just excellent.

Aww, Steelix just wanting to help him grow as a person is precious. Big noisy metal snake seems a risky choice for stairs when you need to be sneaking around, though. :P "Oh, pardon me! Make way there! I just need to give my trainer a little boost! Terribly sorry about those trash cans, I didn't mean to dent them, just need a moment..."

-Aaaaa, I love Rats's rat's-eye-view retelling, haha. Seeing and interpreting human-sized spaces and human problems and human meddling through the eyes of a small pokémon is something I love thinking about.

Finally we get the details behind why the child's pokémon are sticking around! It's interesting that all (most) of the pokémon, even Steelix from his practically alien underground world, revere Mew the way they do. She lived so far away from here! Do legends travel further among pokémon? Or is there more than one mew?

If you were gone, would they try nearly as hard as the great Nathaniel Morgan's pokémon to get you back?

Ayup. There definitely is a loyalty there, at least to memories and to Mew, but there's no way this doesn't sting. Could the child even go back to being Sara if it wanted to? Really go back, instead of just being the same sort of awkward imitation Mew tried to be in Little God?

There are too many police here, and too many people milling around, too much chance that someone will get hurt. But this is the next spot, so here you all are.

I am immediately nervous lol

"What were you trying to steal around there?" you've asked about each new target. It's almost never actually stealing: ...

More evidence that he was really trying to keep himself out of it, heh. I wonder what Steelix is remembering about the last one?

"Two eevee!" she'd said cheerfully. "Two, can you imagine that? And one of them actually cried when he saw me. It was great."

easy there Pixie

Holy shit their awful plan actually worked, haha! Nate! :D :D :D

With a cold flash you realize she's worrying about the same thing as you.

D: D: D: Of course, I doubt he'd have quite as much dislike for Mightyena as for the child, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't still be assuming the worst...

and you know from the news that a lot of people hope he knows some way of stopping Mewtwo.

well golly gee i wonder who might actually have an idea about that

the joke is that the child actually doesn't

-Man was I confused for a moment about what Nate was doing after they got back, but of course—forget whatever the freak wants for a minute, Mightyena's back and they gotta clear the air while they have the chance. And then it just. It just turns into anger management counseling, my god. Didn't come into this chapter expecting someone to confront Nate about his assholery, but I'm not gonna pretend it didn't need to happen sometime!

I guess I still don't know... where to even fucking start.

that's it, that's the whole fanfic

But for real, Positivity Doggo is just. So good.

When you fight with your pokémon, everyone just ends up feeling bad. Not that you should care about that. You don't.

-Ohhh, shit, the punch I felt when Togetic came darting out of the trees to celebrate because Nate and his team were so happy. How it must sting to see your own pokémon happy about a bunch of people you don't even like(?), and feeling like you can never have that with your actual friends(?) again. Oof.

You consider him, his thinness and his furious appetite, and quietly set aside another pack of hot dogs for him.

Aww. Also trying to stay on his good side for Orre help, but awwwww.

-The bit with Nate and his pokémon just curled up and drowsing is so good

There is no one else for me to ask, and I... I thought maybe we could be friends. Maybe. I want you to come. I do not want you to go away again.

like genuinely i am making "awww" noises out loud right now and then it's all going to go to shit

But yeah. I can't quite buy that this is the last we'll see of Nate, but there was no other way for this to go, was there? The child got away (or "got away") with a lot for so, so long, and the repercussions of not thinking through its actions or considering what it was doing to "less special" people are all just piling on now. Good thing there's still a bit of warmth left in Rats, at least. (Probably more than a bit, tbh, but it's not going to see things that way, is it.)[/S]

[You change into your other self, and abruptly the whole situation is completely stupid.

Then we just dive into being Mew and other people (and other selves) don't matter any more.

Well, this was a rollercoaster. So much genuine sweetness and vulnerability, reconciliation and attempts thereat, but then bitch you thought. Woof.

I feel like the main thing this chapter has shown me is that I never really know what to expect next out of Salvage. So many things happen and then are undone, and every time there's the tiniest hint of progress the parties involved take about two hundred steps back in response, and then it's just, like, what do we even do now? Still no sign of how Nate is relevant re: "shadow on the water's face", which is why I just can't write him off entirely even after scenes like this. What could that possibly mean? What ties him to anything at all, aside from maybe helping the child realize how thoughtless it can be (before promptly ignoring/forgetting that lesson)? And what is the endgame even going to look like? (My guess is that Mew will be found, presumably freed if she still needs to be freed, but what even is that going to mean for any of the characters?) It's almost a little frustrating, haha, but I know it's going to pay off spectacularly down the line, so I'm content to wait and watch every frame of this slow-mo train wreck as it unfolds.
 
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Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
Aww, Nate's Pokémon starting to break under the stress. They're so good.

"I want to go home!" Togetic says, louder, rising into the air
Missing a period at the end there.

There's Titan's trumpeting indignation, raised in opposition to Mightyena's growls, there the wheedle of a raticate voice. The great Nathaniel Morgan's raticate. Rats doesn't wheedle.
Love this.

Oh, Titan, so naïve. I enjoy the way the child sits back and listens to hear Titan talk about why it's a good trainer, only to of course wind up hearing about how well, they're there less out of personal loyalty to who it is and more out of this sense of duty and, in Titan's case, lingering loyalty to Sara.

For now you simply slide down against your tree and sits where you are, cold and cramped and all.
Presumably you want "...and sit where you are".

this an old garage repurposed first into a warehouse and then into nothing at all, the doors all chained up and rusted. "Ah, that one," Steelix had said, gaze going distant. "That one was... bad."
Is that the one with the Gastly? :3

There hadn't been much resistance, but Mightyena looked back fondly on terrorizing the employees' ragged teams. "Two eevee!" she'd said cheerfully. "Two, can you imagine that? And one of them actually cried when he saw me. It was great."

There's no reminiscing now.
It's a bit unclear here exactly when this reminiscing did happen; the natural interpretation of the way it's written out is that it was happening just earlier, but "There's no reminiscing now" suggests that's because of the mood of the group, which makes it sound like it must have been sometime way earlier when they were more optimistic. All in all trying to figure out if there was any indication when this happened took me out of it a bit.

I'm a bit surprised by the way the crowd seems to disappear when the big reunion happens; one moment there's a lot of people fleeing from a rampaging Steelix only for this guy to step up in front and yell at it, and I expected the next thing to happen would be everyone immediately noticing, reacting, and Nate trying to slip away with the Pokémon somehow, but instead it kind of feels like suddenly they're alone? A bit jarring. Of course the police do arrive shortly afterwards, but I would've expected the narration to mention the reactions of the crowd, looking out for whether the police are here yet, etc., rather than entirely ignoring the presence of a load of other people for a while.

Love Nate's affectionate scolding, though.

"Please come. It is safe, and there is food," you say, and somehow that finally gets the great Nathaniel Morgan's attention.

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snarls.
Poor Nate, reduced to "he'll come if there's food".

Of course the very first thing Nate does immediately is drag the child off to translate while he apologizes to Mightyena aaaa

The great Nathaniel Morgan's gaze flicks over to you when you repeat the question, but he never turns away from Mightyena. "Uh, what now?" Whatever sort of response he was expecting, apparently it wasn't that. He rubs the back of his neck and says, "I mean, I kind of figured that was up to you? Like I said before, I get it if you want to leave. I know this ain't the kind of thing you come back from. It's just, whatever happens, I at least wanted to fucking apologize. Because otherwise... I couldn't let that be the last thing I said to you."
look at himmmm

The great Nathaniel Morgan grits his teeth, and you close your eyes, just waiting for the explosion. "Look, it's like I said before, all right? This is the way it is. You don't gotta hang around if you don't want to. You don't gotta put up with my shit. But if you stick around, what the fuck else are you expecting?"

"You'd rather have me leave than even try to change?"

That silences the great Nathaniel Morgan for a moment. There's desperation in his voice when he says, "I mean, no. Of course not. I want you around, really, I don't—I don't want you to leave. And, I mean, I'll try. Obviously I'll try. But let's be real about this, you know?"
Naaaaaaate he's so resigned to just being a fuckup and being unable to change

"I guess. I guess I still don't know... where to even fucking start." The great Nathaniel Morgan shakes his head and lets out the weak shadow of a laugh. "Jesus, Pooch. I really do wish you'd been able to talk all this time. You'd have gotten me straightened out ages ago, wouldn't you?"

Mightyena's tail wags faintly, and only once.
<3

"I will," the great Nathaniel Morgan says after a moment, and you can practically see him struggling to leave it at that.
So proud of him.

You should feel good about finding the great Nathaniel Morgan even though Rats and everybody didn't think you could.
What a way to frame it. Not "You should feel good about reuniting them" or even "You should feel good about finding him" but "You should feel good about finding him even though nobody thought you could".

Et tu, Togetic? Poor child.

"Hey, it's Titan!" The great Nathaniel Morgan says cheerfully. "How's it going, big guy?"
Awww, after Titan was calling him mean earlier.

Even Titan, accustomed to simply breathing on any food he wants cooked, can't resist giving it a try. He holds his own hot dog high above the fire, constantly looking around at the others to check if he's doing it right.
D'awww.

You consider him, his thinness and his furious appetite, and quietly set aside another pack of hot dogs for him.
Aww, something actually kind of thoughtful.

"So what have you been up to, Freak?" he asks, and you find yourself blanking, caught by surprise.
Look at him just making conversation, like it's a casual acquaintance. (Although he may have an ulterior motive in trying to find out what's going on with Mewtwo.)

The great Nathaniel Morgan wedges himself into the space between two of the steel links, what looks to be a favorite spot, and lounges there.
Oh my god, I love that he has a favorite spot to rest against a goddamn Steelix, that can't be that comfy but he is Nate

The great Nathaniel Morgan alternates between stroking the two of them with one hand and digging in the chinks between Steelix's segments, sweeping out pebbles and chunks of dirt. Watching him makes you queasy. If Steelix shifts even a little bit, those metal links are going to grind together and crush the great Nathaniel Morgan's hand, like really crush, turn it to the kind of pink paste even a soft-boiled won't be able to put back right.

But Steelix doesn't move. He lies with his head towards the fire, eyes half-closed, making faint humming noises that resonate pleasantly in your chest. You don't think you've ever seen the great Nathaniel Morgan so content: actually smiling, no trace of cynicism about him.
Oh no I love him so much

You are, you know you are. But: "Great Nathaniel Morgan. I need to ask you something."
Actually addressing him as Great Nathaniel Morgan like O Great and Mighty Ruler, I am dying

Silence stretches out. "What, is that it?" The great Nathaniel Morgan asks. Your stomach curdles with dread at his curt reply, but you nod. "Damn. I was expecting something more like, 'Great Nathaniel Morgan, will you assassinate the prime minister for me? Also I need you to wear this magikarp costume while you do it, it's really important,' like that seems more like the kind of shit you're always getting into."
accurate

You swallow down your sadness, which settle in your stomach dark and heavy like a stone.
Settles, presumably?

"Fuck your mission!" The great Nathaniel Morgan yells. "It's bullshit, and you know it! You ain't no hero, you're a fucking freak of nature who ought to be dead!"
Ouch.

After a few seconds the great Nathaniel Morgan scrubs his hand over his face and says, in a much more normal voice, "And look, Freak..."

"Do not call me that! I am not a freak! I am not a freak and I am not going to listen to you say it!"

The great Nathaniel Morgan glances at you from the corner of one eye, then looks away again.
Bet he feels kind of bad about that one; as much of a disparaging nickname as it is, it's one he's used kind of affectionately, and certainly here didn't mean it in a bad way.

Raticate hesitantly settles down with his trainer again, but stays wide-eyed awake, unable to relax. Mightyena lies on the great Nathaniel Morgan's far side, head resting on paws, staring out into the dark of the woods. The great Nathaniel Morgan himself stays scowling, stroking Raticate's fur in a distracted way.
Oof. Bet Mightyena's been enjoying this, huh.

Well, this was a ride. Nate and his Pokémon are a delight to read about as always.

The talk with Mightyena was really good and satisfying - his desperation to apologize to her and conviction he doesn't actually deserve her or to be a trainer at all and maybe she should just leave, her imploring him to actually work on himself, his chronic nonexistent self-esteem convinced he'll never be able to change but agreeing to anyway because Mightyena. And then, of course, after that brief happy reprieve, he's right back to being a dick. Mightyena must be feeling pretty dispirited right about now.

He has kind of solid reasons to be a dick here, of course; the child has legitimately subjected him to seven kinds of hell, and presumably that's how his Pokémon justify it, and why only Steelix, who literally doesn't know half of what it's done, actually objects. Sometimes they deserve it, indeed. But at the same time, it was reaching out about as genuinely as it's capable of, and that's the bit he threw in its face - he refused the offer without much vitriol but got vicious specifically when it said it'd hoped they'd be friends, showing a vulnerability that he just stabs. And once he does so, and the child is hurt and vulnerable and sad, it too retreats right back to calling him stupid and weak and evil and unimportant and saying it hates him. The whole thing hurts. These two are ever doomed to backslide. (And unfortunately, Mightyena can't quite have much of a talk with him about it now, can she.)

It'll be interesting to see how the child does trying to head to Orre alone. Last time you started the Orre arc it had Mewtwo with it, right? Wonder if we're going to get some complications such that he ends up coming along again, or if this'll just be an entirely different take on it.

"Jesus, Pooch. I really do wish you'd been able to talk all this time. You'd have gotten me straightened out ages ago, wouldn't you?"
Just bringing back my favorite line in this chapter. Nate actually imagining he could have been a better person, and by extension that maybe, just maybe, he can be, because with the ability to actually talk to him Mightyena'd straighten him out. Ohh, my heart.
 
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Starlight Aurate

Ad Jesum per Mariam | pfp by kintsugi
Location
Route 123
Partners
  1. mightyena
  2. psyduck
Okay, I can’t copy/paste from FFN so it looks like I’m not pointing out my thoughts line-by-line so this will be shorter and more cohesive than my usual reviews. My apologies for getting this Blacklight review to you ludicrously late! I figured the least I could do was at least give you a solid, meaty review with all of my thoughts. It’s also been a while since I’ve read Salvage, so some of it took remembering and I felt a bit lost at points (but that’s totally my fault).

The plot is super thick at this point and, in case you couldn’t tell by my following it all of these years, I’m certainly hooked. I believe that what you posted to Serebii was a bit further along plot-wise, so if things end up aligning, then I have an idea of what’s ahead—which only makes me more eager for more chapters! Looking forward to seeing The Three Musketeers ;P

And since it looks like EVERYONE is putting later chapters all in spoilers, who am I to break tradition?

If you want a tl;dr version, here it is: good fic update moar plz

Chapter 35

I was sad to see that Mightyena and The Great Nathaniel Morgan still ignore each other and are hurt by their last interaction ☹ Poor precious pupper doesn’t deserve it

I love how Mewtwo is convinced he knows what’s best for all Pokemon and that his thoughts and opinions are right, and that those who disagree with him are wrong.

The back-and-forth about turnips gave me a chuckle :P

Love the child going around in the grocery store—whoever works in produce is going to be in for an unpleasant surprise when they find the bite marks on produce XD

The conversations on hacking remind me of that one early episode of YuGiOh Duel Monsters when Kaiba hacks Pegasus’s computer in a few seconds and manages to save Yugi’s duel at the last minute, heh. Sounds like Leonard Kerrigan could use some lessons from him!

I love Graveler’s characterization: her affectionate back-pats that nearly break Nate’s back and accepting the rock but then immediately setting it aside for a different one :P She’s sweet and caring but at the same time has no problem with shunting aside peoples’ gifts for what she REALLY wants.

I’m impressed the child knew to look at the index and was able to figure out the computer organization from there; I feel like figuring that out would take a modicum of experience using computers or researching.

I hope Leonard Kerrigan’s eyesight isn’t TOO bad, or else being stranded in the middle of the woods is going to be even harder D: And that’s already a difficult situation on its own.


Chapter 36

Any reason why you switch from Mewtwo’s dialogue being in italics to being in quotation marks at the beginning of the chapter?

The child’s decision to return to Rock Tunnel the next day doesn’t sound too promising, considering how long Onix take to think and make decisions. I can’t imagine communication would be much quicker! Overall, I liked the way you characterized the Onix/Steelix as a species and the worldbuilding you gave to Rock Tunnel. It’s sad that it’s thought of as exile, but when Onix said he wanted to take at least a century to think about who his trainer would be, I thought it was cute (if a bit naïve about human nature)!

I liked the addition of this chapter and the child’s new quest to find Steelix. When I left off, I believe the child was in Orre and met the Three Musketeers. This was a nice, quiet interlude after the wham reveal that Mew was in Orre and that the rest of the story would take place there. This chapter was cute and shows a bit of softer emotion, which I think is a nice breather after the turmoil of last chapter.


Chapter 37

In a way, it’s kinda cute that the Great Nathaniel Morgan accepts the child’s sandwich and starts talking to it after he sees the child crying.

Funny scene with the child and Onix! Nice to see he has a lesson to learn in patience, heh :P

I don’t know why, but reading about the child trying to find Steelix and thinking of where he could be reminds me of Seaking getting lost in my fic. If I was going to make this parallel, I feel like I would’ve done so earlier and am not sure why I’m just doing it now XD

Interesting how Onixes still have concepts of time in the same vein as humans and trained Pokemon do, especially considering how slow they live their lives.

The child’s journey into the Rocket base reads like something out of a horror novel—you do a great job setting up the eerie atmosphere, where the silence and absence are more terrifying than any monsters that might lurk down there. And I was so sad when the child found a Pokeball and Steelix wasn’t inside ☹ Should I have expected it? Probably not. But for the child to have kept thinking back to this exact place, I was hopeful that maybe it was a sign Steelix might be there.


Chapter 38

I can see why you had been looking forward to writing and sharing this chapter! It’s definitely an emotional one. The fear that Mewtwo incites in others is definitely palpable, and your descriptions of the moonlight and darkness help solidify that. I have, once again, found myself feeling sorry for the great Nathaniel Morgan—learning that they do not have Steelix and watching Mewtwo take his Pokemon away is hard ☹ I also have a hard time watching him physically exert himself when he’s so weak. I know he’s been doing it for the entirety of this fic, but that almost makes it worse, in a way XD Gore and body horror definitely make me queasy, but I’m so far into this fic that I’m not backing out now. Definitely looking forward to seeing how things shape up from here! Perhaps Nate will be capable of finding Steelix in the rubble of the Rocket base?

Also, just a question that arose as I was reading: Nate uses religious swears a lot (Jesus Christ or something along those lines). Does that mean that Jesus (or at least Christianity) exists in this universe? If so, that raises SO many more questions for me (because I definitely overthink things in worldbuilding in this sense XD)


Chapter 39

This might have appeared earlier in your fic, but I’m only just now noticing that Mewtwo refers to Nate as “it.” Interesting!

I learned a new word today! Rictus!

Ha, you were right when you said that this chapter was not warm and fuzzy. I certainly don’t get that vibe at all with a battle and Mewtwo endangering the child’s life :P

I like your writing style when you describe battling. You use a lot of words with strong description but also manage to convey the sense of urgency and panic. It’s something I try to take after; I used to be “too many big descriptive words” and now I’m “too many em dashes,” so I’m trying to hit that nice middle!

I was a bit more hopeful when Absol showed up that Mewtwo would stop fighting—but I suppose that’s just my over-optimistic attitude, heh. I really should know better after reading this far in. I see this was another turbulent chapter after the quiet one from before! I don’t have much to say aside from what I already have, except that I feel more sympathetic to Mewtwo since I know what’s coming to him in future chapters.


Chapter 40

Some of your descriptions of injuries are so vivid that they make me squirm—feeling like vertebrae are splintering? *shudder*

Oooh child, snagging Nate’s Pokeballs from Mewtwo. I think that isn’t a good idea on the whole, but considering that neither of them are willing to meet on middle ground to solve everything and that they both have a “my way or the highway” attitude, I don’t see anything getting better for either of them no matter what.

I hope Jade Winstead isn’t too old, because if the child transformed into a girl who’s only wearing mangled swim trunks…

How did the child/Jade leave money when snagging clothes? Can it conjure money, or did it have some in its swim trunks?

Heh, looks like the child inherited (what I assume to be) Jade Winstead’s tastes: doesn’t like flip-flops or candy and gets bored with toys.

Oh nooooo, the child has been captured! I admit, I did not see that coming! I suppose this is from the manga canon where Koga is a (former?) member of Team Rocket, correct? So he would’ve known about there being a genetically-engineered child of Mew. Quite a cliffhanger to end on! I was planning on stopping here tonight but might have to keep reading!


Chapter 41

I really appreciate the bits you pull from the manga canon and put in, like with Will, Karen, Koga and Lance being part of Team Rocket. The manga canon may be my favorite, and I love seeing how you’ve incorporated it here! (We’ll leave out the Rocket acronym, though ;P)

I kinda see where the “I want a lawyer,” line was coming from with the child’s thought process before it, but it was still felt a bit out-of-place, like it was supposed to be something comedic in what’s otherwise a fairly tense (and horrific) scene.

Interesting that the Master balls are causing the child so much pain. I thought the one used at the end of chapter 39 was faulty, but apparently not. I take it that it has to do with the nature of what the child IS, perhaps?

The child losing its Pokemon right away is sad. There’s not as much of an emotional punch to it as I would otherwise expect, though this does go along with the child being fairly emotionally detached. It certainly shows a lot of attachment to Pokemon in later chapters, though, so this one has me thinking a bit.

Why can’t the child go fully incorporeal without dying? Does it not have the full power of Ghost-types, or are Ghost-types in your fic all deceased?

Grammar note: you capitalized all Pokemon names except “muk” and one instance of “dragonite” in this chapter.

Noooo, reclaimed by the Master ball again! I guess I was too optimistic to hope that the child might manage to defeat the Elites’ Pokemon and make it out of there. Sounds like its in for a REAL interrogation session now!


Chapter 42

Gotta admit, I jumped when Lance was standing right outside the child’s cage XD

And ughghghgh the descriptions of the child losing parts of its body every time its released from the master ball X( And when the child’s body parts go numb brings me back to the times I’ve had sleep paralysis or felt my own limbs paralyse—it’s so strange seeing your limbs but not being able to feel anything.

Seeing Officer Feldhorn stand up to Lance and try to protect the dignity of Jade’s life was surprisingly sweet—I didn’t expect to be so touched in such a hopeless scene!

And wow, sympathy for the child evaporates right when he knocks out Officer Feldhorn, steals his identity, and only holds himself back from killing because it’s what Mewtwo would do.

And it ended on an ominous note! Did the child fully destroy the building? What happened to those inside? I have a feeling that Lance and his Dragonite are too powerful to be taken down so simply.


Chapter 43

Okay maybe I’ve missed the entire premise behind the fic so far, but I either did not catch on or forgot that the child has been collecting the souls of peoples that die. That adds several more layers of horror to this.

Oooh, “querulous,” that’s another new word for me!

Interesting take on Tentacruel suffocating out of water; since they’re based on jellyfish, I’d expect them to just kinda lie on the ground like blobs, and maybe eventually desiccate, but it looks like War can even prop himself up and speak for a few seconds!

*sighs* I wish more people thought that talking out solutions would be a good idea, like Rats does.

Oh! Steelix is back! And he’s with the rest of Nate’s Pokemon! That, at least, is a happy note in this fairly bleak part of the story!


Chapter 44

I notice that the child keeps feeling “wrong” every time it’s in a new body. I wonder if something is up with that.

Oh my gosh, Steelix is so adorable. From the way he announces his rampaging, to accidentally being better at it than he intends to be, to becoming super apologetic when it works too well—it’s so cute! Such a polite (if hazardous) guy.

I liked this chapter; even with the rampage, it felt quieter and calmer. Rats saying she would leave the child to prevent Mewtwo from killing more people definitely brought on a lot of emotion that, I think, was warranted. Considering how cold-hearted and callous we’ve seen the child so far, having him break down sobbing at the thought of losing its Pokemon AGAIN was (in a way) good to see. I’m also a sucker for human-Pokemon relationships, and seeing how much trainers care about their Pokemon and want to protect them is a big hit for me.

And going to Orre alone! If this iteration of the story lines up with what I’ve already read, then I know this won’t be the case. But if it’s what gives the child strength to continue on, it’ll definitely cause more conflict, internal and external, for the chapters to come.


Chapter 45

I may be late on the uptake, but I’m noticing for the first time just how much more mature the child is when Nate and Mewtwo aren’t around. When it’s only the Pokemon, the child shows a lot more care and puts thought and effort into problem-solving instead of jumping at the first solution that comes to its mind.

I also love how you utilize the Pokedex flavor here, with Togetic avoiding and being scared of negative emotions. But Mightyena’s loyalty really shines through—even after getting into fights with Nate and not talking to him, she’s defending him more than anyone else is, even to a point of him not leaving Team Rocket soon enough. Such a good girl :3

Pretty rich of the child to be shocked at Nate’s Pokemon for being okay with Team Rocket hurting people WHEN THE CHILD IS ENABLING MEWTWO TO MURDER ENTIRE CITIES WORTH OF PEOPLE.

Cute to see Rats’ heroic streak and desire to see through this ordeal to the end! She really has more of a hero/heroine personality that shows more than the other characters do, so far.

Oh my gosh, I love Mightyena reveling in the Eevee being terrified of her. Looks like she puts that Intimidate ability to good use!

New words I learned today: wheedle and limned.

I really like Nate’s reunion with Mightyena and how she teaches him to be a better person. I think it’s a beautiful display of repairing a friendship and pointing out the others’ flaws and helping him move on, as difficult as it is. I love how she teaches him and makes him face his own choices; it’s definitely something I can resonate with.

I like this chapter quite a bit! In general, I prefer the past few chapters to the ones where the child is stuck with the League (probably no surprise there). The reunion between Nate and his Pokemon is very, very sweet and I think warranted. He’s been through so much that, criminal and jerk that he is, I think he deserves to be with Pokemon who love him again.

The ending is very bittersweet; on the one hand, you’ve got Nate reuniting with his Pokemon, but on the other hand, you’ve got the child’s Pokemon going after Mewtwo and the child choosing to go to Orre alone (for now). And even with how cold-hearted and callous the child has been for the past several chapters with trying to kill the League members and allowing Mewtwo to murder thousands, I do genuinely feel (a tiny bit) sorry for it when it has to leave most of its Pokemon and Nate rejects it. I don’t really pity it too much for the Nate aspect, but again, human-Pokemon relationships are my soft spot!

Ten chapters later, and still no sign of Leonard Kerrigan… I’m a bit suspicious…

Well, now that I’ve actually written and put the review together, it turns out that it is NOT more cohesive than my usual reviews! XD Thanks again so much for sharing this work; it definitely makes for an intriguing read! I’m glad you’ve successfully devoted a couple of NaNos to this, and I’m hoping that we end up seeing more before too long! I’ll try to do a better job with keeping up with it from now on (but my fic list is as long as my arm, so I’m not sure how many promises I can make there, heh). Best of luck, and looking forward to more! :D
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
Dropping a review on chapter 46 here! And hoping you actually catch this thread up sometime. :P

Love the child deciding Melanie Roth isn't a serious trainer who's done anything to be able to tell her Pokéballs apart, as a weird measure of comfort, making it into just something about this character it's playing rather than a result of a series of uncomfortable events.

Look at it actually promising to listen to Titan and telling him he doesn't have to do anything just because it's his trainer! Man. You have come so far.

"We can try, Titan," you say at last, and begin that try by mustering a smile, the best one you can manage. Your mind keeps going back to Absol, waiting patiently in your cabin with the master ball between her outstretched paws. But your face you can make still, and show only what you want.
Love how achingly forced this smile sounds.

Of course it thinks Shadow Pokémon sound awesome, what a child.

The ship shakes and bounces its way through storms, rocking so violently you can't even stand up. At first it's fun, like being on some kind of carnival ride—you put up your arms and make fake screams when the ship rolls so hard your stomach drops.
Delightful. I love how Salvage captures that particular child mindset where everything is novel and cool and fun and exciting.

You make yourself heavy, so you don't go sliding when the deck pitches and rocks.
Huh, I was under the impression altering its mass was one of the things the child couldn't do?

You they must be as tall as houses, made small only by the boat's immense size.
Typo!

The casual theft of a bunch of stuff, after the times it's declared Team Rocket are evil for stealing, is gloriously hypocritical.

"You have five minutes, Ms. Roth! Five minutes and then we'll have to send Boris in to get you."

"Me?" Some rough pokémon voice from the far side of the door. "You're going to make this my problem?"
Poor Boris. Always love the characterization of incidental Pokémon.

Love the agonizing tension of the stalling towards the end. Poor child wants so badly for this to just not happen.

In a way the putting off talking about much of substance is the whole point of the chapter, but I still found myself a little dismayed that neither Titan nor Rats (nor anyone else!) wanted to discuss much of what'd happened with Mewtwo or the Elites. All Titan divulged was they weren't hurt, and then the conversation with Rats started and I was sure now we were going to find out why he'd been so reluctant to talk about it anyway, but it took a swerve back away from that and we never actually go there. Feels like a bit of an arbitrary tease, kind of - none of the Pokémon wanted to discuss this, at any point in ten days?

Nonetheless, a nice bittersweet chapter of the protagonist clinging to this last small measure of joy. Looking forward to things going down in Orre (again).
 

Experidenzel

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
He/him
Hello and welcome to Salvage, my big fic project of many years! In the aftermath of Mewtwo's escape from the Cinnabar lab, Mew was lost, and another creature was born. Neither human nor pokémon but wielding Mew's powers, it's vowed to find its mother and free her from imprisonment, no matter what it takes. This is a dark fanfic, which I'd say would be rated "R" or "Mature." Specific content warnings are under the spoiler below.

Content warnings include a large amount of violence, blood, death, and body horror; discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation; depictions of physical and psychological abuse and torture; and a lot (a lot) of strong and at times bigoted language.

New chapters once a week on Friday! If you've read this story before, expect only minor edits up until chapter ~10. I don't expect super major restructuring after that (e.g. cutting out or merging entire chapters, changing what happens/how things happen), but some scenes will have substantial changes. I'll call out anything I think particularly important in the author's notes for each chapter.

This is an old but still-in-progress story, and I appreciate all feedback, whether it's criticism or a quick "I liked it!" All that said, I hope you enjoy the fic.

Chapter 1

In the conversation they can't have, the child would apologize for letting him die. "Sorry I can't help you, but this is how it has to happen," it would say. "This is how it's supposed to be. Don't worry. You can still be useful, even if you're dead. I'll take your name and I'll take your face and I'll take your pokémon"--the one that is mine, the one that was stolen from me--"and I'll go and make things right. That's what I'm doing, and you're helping me. It's not all bad."

The child can't say anything like that, of course. It can't say anything at all. Absol is very strict about interfering with Fate. She's beside the child now, breath misting white in the chill air of the cavern, watching the human. That's what she does: watches. She watches to be sure that Fate plays out how it's supposed to, and she doesn't interfere.

Usually the child doesn't mind. The dying people are foggy memories at best. It has nothing to say to them. But this one it thinks it remembers. "I know you," it might say. "You used to make little origami sculptures for your desk, didn't you? I always liked those, especially the pokémon ones. They were pretty." He must have been an intern, then. Not someone who was around for very long. He's uncommonly old to still be training, but perhaps he decided to take a break after Cinnabar. Maybe he decided science wasn't for him.

Because the child has other memories, too, memories from a different life, and they whisper, "I know you. I remember you. I remember your face as you wrote the numbers down and lined the needles up. I remember your fear, human, and your shame, but I remember too that it did not stay your hand."

There wouldn't be time to say all that anyway, not even most of it. In movies it seems like there's always time for last words, but here it's all over quickly: the human slips from the edge of the path, down here where everything is glitter-slick from the river's spray. He falls funny on one arm and doesn't even cry out as it snaps, just grabs for an icy rock with the other.

"You don't have to be scared," the child imagines itself telling him as he hangs there for a terrifying second, still thinking he might pull himself back up. "I died once. It wasn't so bad."

His fingers find no purchase on the ice, and the incline keeps him sliding. His hand goes next to the pokéballs on his belt, but it's too late, too late. The river grabs his legs, pulls him down and under, and in no time at all he's gone.

Absol goes forward, thick claws splayed wide to steady herself on the ice. She paces at the edge of the water. The child imagines the human being swept along by the rushing current, slammed against submerged boulders and carried over hidden waterfalls. The river will take him to the depths of the cave, where stories say Articuno's nest resides, delicate spires of ice and cast-off feathers among the rocks. The human will never see it, though. He'll be much too dead.

Absol stops her pacing, turns back to the child and nods. It scrambles out from behind the boulder and joins her at the water's edge, peering into the dark, racing flow. Its shadow stretches over the water, rippled and frayed on the turbulent surface. There are lights behind it, illuminating the slushy path where it's safe for trainers to walk. Where the child's going there will be no light at all and only the bravest humans tread.

The child sits perched on the edge a moment longer, readying scales and gills and webbing. "I will meet you later," says Absol, and the child nods, not really paying attention. Absol probably likes it down here, where it's deathly cold and the shadows lie close at hand. She might stay a while, vacationing, but the child still has work to do. It hesitates, watching how the water froths around the jag of a half-submerged rock, then throws itself in.

Even prepared for the shock, even insulated against the water's bite, the child still feels the cold like a hammer blow. Its gasp pulls in a mouthful of water, which goes sliding over the child's gills like a deep and icy breath. The child lets the current carry it along, clicking and squeaking to conjure a radar map of the riverbed. It makes a game of dodging rocks at the last possible moment, twisting away with lazy kicks of webbed feet. Then the riverbed drops away and it's falling, flailing at air and spray with a whoop of delight. It hits a couple rocks on the way down, jarred but not broken, and plunges back into the river with a thundering splash. It drifts down until the current grabs it again and pulls it along.

Down and down, around tight bends and through surging rapids, over more falls into the heart of the caverns. The child rolls and tumbles along until the current slows and another drop brings it to the final basin, where the river stops and water seeps out through hidden cracks and fissures. The child strokes downwards in the pitch dark, ignoring translucent swimming things, ghostly in its echo-sense, and a few pokémon, wary, staying out of its way. There at the bottom it finds the corpse.

The child grabs it and kicks back to the surface, eyes opening to stare at nothing in the deep-dark. There's a shelf of rock against one wall, it remembers, and it gropes its way over blind until it bumps up against the lip of rock.

There's barely enough room for it to perch out of the water, and it hunches on the edge like a gargoyle, snorting the last of the water out of its nose while its gills close up. The corpse lolls next to it, broken arm tangled in the straps of its backpack. The child ignores the bag for now, and the clothes, and even the pokéballs. Greedy with anticipation, it fishes the trainer's pokédex out of his pocket, working by feel. It flips the machine open and squints into sudden LED brilliance.

The child ignores cold and cramping muscles, scrolling through menus, flipping through page on page of data. It learns as much as it can about the trainer's life, then snaps the device shut and in the darkness changes. Crouching there in another's skin, the child tells itself the story of who it is now:

You are Nicholas Garrett. Around eight years ago you were interning at the lab on Cinnabar Island--maybe. Something to do with the lab, or you wouldn't be here now.

Four years ago you began your journey. You're a slow trainer, but a thorough one: four years, five badges. You have a charizard--your starter--nidoqueen, primeape, rhydon, and several others of little consequence.

Today you came to the Seafoam Islands. Why, you don't know--looking for a seel, maybe, or just out for an adventure, maybe seeking the legendary Articuno. Whatever you were seeking will have to go unfound.

Because you died down here, Nicholas Garrett, in the darkness and the deep. You were twenty-six years old.

What do you do no

Hello and welcome to Salvage, my big fic project of many years! In the aftermath of Mewtwo's escape from the Cinnabar lab, Mew was lost, and another creature was born. Neither human nor pokémon but wielding Mew's powers, it's vowed to find its mother and free her from imprisonment, no matter what it takes. This is a dark fanfic, which I'd say would be rated "R" or "Mature." Specific content warnings are under the spoiler below.

Content warnings include a large amount of violence, blood, death, and body horror; discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation; depictions of physical and psychological abuse and torture; and a lot (a lot) of strong and at times bigoted language.

New chapters once a week on Friday! If you've read this story before, expect only minor edits up until chapter ~10. I don't expect super major restructuring after that (e.g. cutting out or merging entire chapters, changing what happens/how things happen), but some scenes will have substantial changes. I'll call out anything I think particularly important in the author's notes for each chapter.

This is an old but still-in-progress story, and I appreciate all feedback, whether it's criticism or a quick "I liked it!" All that said, I hope you enjoy the fic.

Chapter 1

In the conversation they can't have, the child would apologize for letting him die. "Sorry I can't help you, but this is how it has to happen," it would say. "This is how it's supposed to be. Don't worry. You can still be useful, even if you're dead. I'll take your name and I'll take your face and I'll take your pokémon"--the one that is mine, the one that was stolen from me--"and I'll go and make things right. That's what I'm doing, and you're helping me. It's not all bad."

The child can't say anything like that, of course. It can't say anything at all. Absol is very strict about interfering with Fate. She's beside the child now, breath misting white in the chill air of the cavern, watching the human. That's what she does: watches. She watches to be sure that Fate plays out how it's supposed to, and she doesn't interfere.

Usually the child doesn't mind. The dying people are foggy memories at best. It has nothing to say to them. But this one it thinks it remembers. "I know you," it might say. "You used to make little origami sculptures for your desk, didn't you? I always liked those, especially the pokémon ones. They were pretty." He must have been an intern, then. Not someone who was around for very long. He's uncommonly old to still be training, but perhaps he decided to take a break after Cinnabar. Maybe he decided science wasn't for him.

Because the child has other memories, too, memories from a different life, and they whisper, "I know you. I remember you. I remember your face as you wrote the numbers down and lined the needles up. I remember your fear, human, and your shame, but I remember too that it did not stay your hand."

There wouldn't be time to say all that anyway, not even most of it. In movies it seems like there's always time for last words, but here it's all over quickly: the human slips from the edge of the path, down here where everything is glitter-slick from the river's spray. He falls funny on one arm and doesn't even cry out as it snaps, just grabs for an icy rock with the other.

"You don't have to be scared," the child imagines itself telling him as he hangs there for a terrifying second, still thinking he might pull himself back up. "I died once. It wasn't so bad."

His fingers find no purchase on the ice, and the incline keeps him sliding. His hand goes next to the pokéballs on his belt, but it's too late, too late. The river grabs his legs, pulls him down and under, and in no time at all he's gone.

Absol goes forward, thick claws splayed wide to steady herself on the ice. She paces at the edge of the water. The child imagines the human being swept along by the rushing current, slammed against submerged boulders and carried over hidden waterfalls. The river will take him to the depths of the cave, where stories say Articuno's nest resides, delicate spires of ice and cast-off feathers among the rocks. The human will never see it, though. He'll be much too dead.

Absol stops her pacing, turns back to the child and nods. It scrambles out from behind the boulder and joins her at the water's edge, peering into the dark, racing flow. Its shadow stretches over the water, rippled and frayed on the turbulent surface. There are lights behind it, illuminating the slushy path where it's safe for trainers to walk. Where the child's going there will be no light at all and only the bravest humans tread.

The child sits perched on the edge a moment longer, readying scales and gills and webbing. "I will meet you later," says Absol, and the child nods, not really paying attention. Absol probably likes it down here, where it's deathly cold and the shadows lie close at hand. She might stay a while, vacationing, but the child still has work to do. It hesitates, watching how the water froths around the jag of a half-submerged rock, then throws itself in.

Even prepared for the shock, even insulated against the water's bite, the child still feels the cold like a hammer blow. Its gasp pulls in a mouthful of water, which goes sliding over the child's gills like a deep and icy breath. The child lets the current carry it along, clicking and squeaking to conjure a radar map of the riverbed. It makes a game of dodging rocks at the last possible moment, twisting away with lazy kicks of webbed feet. Then the riverbed drops away and it's falling, flailing at air and spray with a whoop of delight. It hits a couple rocks on the way down, jarred but not broken, and plunges back into the river with a thundering splash. It drifts down until the current grabs it again and pulls it along.

Down and down, around tight bends and through surging rapids, over more falls into the heart of the caverns. The child rolls and tumbles along until the current slows and another drop brings it to the final basin, where the river stops and water seeps out through hidden cracks and fissures. The child strokes downwards in the pitch dark, ignoring translucent swimming things, ghostly in its echo-sense, and a few pokémon, wary, staying out of its way. There at the bottom it finds the corpse.

The child grabs it and kicks back to the surface, eyes opening to stare at nothing in the deep-dark. There's a shelf of rock against one wall, it remembers, and it gropes its way over blind until it bumps up against the lip of rock.

There's barely enough room for it to perch out of the water, and it hunches on the edge like a gargoyle, snorting the last of the water out of its nose while its gills close up. The corpse lolls next to it, broken arm tangled in the straps of its backpack. The child ignores the bag for now, and the clothes, and even the pokéballs. Greedy with anticipation, it fishes the trainer's pokédex out of his pocket, working by feel. It flips the machine open and squints into sudden LED brilliance.

The child ignores cold and cramping muscles, scrolling through menus, flipping through page on page of data. It learns as much as it can about the trainer's life, then snaps the device shut and in the darkness changes. Crouching there in another's skin, the child tells itself the story of who it is now:

You are Nicholas Garrett. Around eight years ago you were interning at the lab on Cinnabar Island--maybe. Something to do with the lab, or you wouldn't be here now.

Four years ago you began your journey. You're a slow trainer, but a thorough one: four years, five badges. You have a charizard--your starter--nidoqueen, primeape, rhydon, and several others of little consequence.

Today you came to the Seafoam Islands. Why, you don't know--looking for a seel, maybe, or just out for an adventure, maybe seeking the legendary Articuno. Whatever you were seeking will have to go unfound.

Because you died down here, Nicholas Garrett, in the darkness and the deep. You were twenty-six years old.

What do you do now?
My favorite part of this chapter was when the kid was going down the waterfall it was a mix tension and some action
The character's are well written
The writing was good for a dark story like this without going over the top or being edgy for the sake of it so far
The story goes into great detail which is something I hope to improve in my own writing down the line
I did find it confusing of what characters was who, but this is mainly because I am not used to this kind of point of view as of now so it's not really a fault of the writer
I am curious about what happened to Mewtwo after his escape from the Cinnabar lab
Sorry if this review is not the most detailed or critical, this is the first time I ever reviewed a fic so depending on the story my review can vary in detail, but I hope this helped. Good luck on your story and keep up the good work.
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
Well I will just have to keep awkwardly posting reviews for chapters 35 chapters ahead of where the thread is >:/

The child's thoughts on hover-cycles are a delight. Of course a hover-scooter is nothing special but the big proper ones are!

The magneton floats over the fence to join Rats on the far side, and with a fizz of electricity spotlights glow from its three eyes, sweeping up and down ruined factory's face.
Think you're missing a "the".

The fence rattles and scrapes, and a second later Rats is next to you, sniffing at the master ball in the dust. "Would you like me to I do the honors, Boss?" she asks.
And an extraneous "I" here.

It's nice to see a bit more of Thunderstorm than I feel like we have usually; it's been a bit neglected compared to Rats and Titan but its contributions are interesting.

"Homey?" Does it feel like home? Mewtwo's mind seeps down to you from above.
Missing italics on this.

*Here we are, in your "Orre." You will tell me of it. We will plan. I suggest you not make me wait."
Here you've got a closing quote instead of an asterisk for the italics.

The factory is huge and tall and Mewtwo is always there above you. You try not to look around. You try not to think of anything but how to get to the stairs, how to reach the next level.
Sudden PMD vibes

Rats is so good, I love her. I enjoy her conflict with Thunderstorm here too; always good to see characters on the same side just disagree on a thing. Mewtwo's presence is so tangibly suffocating and oppressive, this constant naked disregard for others mattering at all - he can just mow down people with abandon, so why shouldn't he?

I don't remember the disappeared chapters very well but this feels quite different from what I can remember of when they went to the lab in the old version. A key difference, if I recall correctly, would be that in the old version Mewtwo hadn't tortured the child into a state of permanent terror in his presence, so all of that was a lot less intense, which changes things a whole lot! Looking forward to how we proceed from here and how different it is. And how Nate is going to get dragged into this again.
 

Dragonfree

Moderator
Staff
Location
Iceland
Pronouns
she/her/hers
Partners
  1. butterfree
  2. mightyena
  3. charizard
  4. scyther-mia
  5. vulpix
  6. slugma
Back for chapter 48!

so we don't any to work with at the moment.
Missing a word here.

You idiot, don't provoke him, Mewtwo hisses, but Professor Krane laughs.
Super telling that Mewtwo thinks this would provoke Professor Krane. (Although this feels a little incongruous, maybe, with the fact Mewtwo wanted to just blast in here and threaten him into telling them what they want.)

Feeling groggy and wanting to go back to sleep after being hypnotized makes so much sense and is delightful. Love the child hoping it looks as cranky as it feels.

Hypno's trainer assuming she just wants a battle in the background, oh dear. Would normal people not recognize what a Master Ball looks like, though?

The human's mouth goes thin, but after a moment she turns and says to Hypno, "If Professor Krane's mad at us for being late, you're taking the blame, okay?"
Oof, so they're the ones he was meant to be meeting.

"Really?" You scrutinize Hypno, who's still deep in conversation. She doesn't even have fangs or anything.
Shadow Pokémon have fangs, the way scientists wear lab coats

"Oh?" The human turns back to you. "And it's in a master ball. Where did you get one of those? They're restricted."
Oh, there we go. Still, seems sort of funny to not think "Hmm, maybe Hypno's behaviour here is related to the fact this person is using a Master Ball".

Mewtwo raises his arms, which is more expressive than you think you've ever seen him. With hands spread he entreats the Relic Stone again. Celebi! Hear me! I am Mewtwo, Mew's son! A pause. I know you're listening!
Mewtwo just wants Celebi-senpai to notice him :sadbees:

Answer me! Mewtwo howls. I know you're listening! Do you think you can ignore me? That I'm less than you because I was created by humans? You think I'm some common pokémon come to beg a favor of its god? I'm more powerful than you could ever hope to be! You will aid me now, or when the time comes, when my mother is released, I'll find you. I'll find you, and I'll make you pay for sitting idle while she suffered. I'll make you pay for ignoring me in my time of need. I ask you one final time: answer me!
Man, Mewtwo's blend of childish insecurity and threatening torture and murder sure is something.

I like the little background story of the woman knocked unconscious (love the child figuring eh, that's fine, whatever) and her kids/little brothers/etc. trying to help with their Pokémon. I thiiink that's new since the old equivalent to this chapter (?), and it adds a bit more investment to the whole bit with the shrine, over the old version where (if I recall correctly) it was just Mewtwo destroying scenery.

For a second horrifying calculations pass through your head—Mewtwo's right, you can't have any witnesses.
What a horrific line.

And then his voice blares in your head, a response to something Absol said. Mocking me! Mewtwo snarls. Thinks he's better than me because he's one of the originals. I'll show him. I'll show all of them! Idiots! They stand by and do nothing while Mew suffers, and then they make fun of me... They laugh at me... I'm stronger than any of them. I'm the strongest! And they act like I'm nothing!

This is so tragically childish, and lays bare how Mewtwo's just fixated on power as some kind of proof of his worth and everything falls apart once there's a situation where he feels powerless.

Truly a story about too-powerful children with mommy issues, huh. The sibling jealousy the child has going on at the end is something.

This chapter was pretty familiar for the most part, but I feel like it has just a bit more punch and direction now, off what I remember of the old version. Feel like there was more to Hypno's conversation with Mewtwo than her directing him to some other former Shadow Pokémon; will be interesting to see if she comes up again.
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Hrrrk, I really don't want to keep leaving people to review into the void. It's been way too long since I've done replies! So I'm going to start going through them now, a couple at a time, most recent first.

I'm sorry I can take an unreasonably long time to reply to reviews--I always do read them, and they bring me a lot of joy! Even if I haven't said anything about your comment (yet), know that I really appreciate it, and I hope to be able to get back to you sometime before the heat death of the universe.

Anyway, to begin...

@Dragonfree

Chapter 47

It's nice to see a bit more of Thunderstorm than I feel like we have usually; it's been a bit neglected compared to Rats and Titan but its contributions are interesting.
They're pretty quiet! I think we'll be seeing more of them in this arc than we have before, yeah. Unlike War, who unfortunately has the most bit of all bit parts. RIP pokémon that don't function well on land, I feel your pain with gyarados there.

Sudden PMD vibes
And we'll be seeing more of those, too. :P

All typos zapped, except:

Missing italics on this.
Not sure what wants to be italicized here. ^^;

It's a lot of fun getting to write Rats again, and I'm glad you enjoy her! There are going to be a number of different people with different ideas of how the whole Mewtwo/search for Mew situation ought to be handled, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun to bounce them off each other and explore some of the different viewpoints on the situation. Mewtwo doesn't exactly leave a lot of good options open, so there's plenty to disagree about! :P

You're correct, there hadn't been a huge blow-up between Mewtwo and the protagonist in the old versions of the Orre chapters. There really wasn't one planned at all! So the tone is definitely a bit different, and a lot of my editing has been cutting down on arguments between the two of them, since the protagonist can't really hold its own against Mewtwo anymore (or Mewtwo won't indulge its attempts to, anyway). I'm feeling pretty okay with that overall; this story has had far more than its share of bickering at this point, after all. :P

And how Nate is going to get dragged into this again.
Oh, you think we'll be seeing that guy again? I dunno, he was pretty adamant that he was out. :P

Chapter 48

Super telling that Mewtwo thinks this would provoke Professor Krane. (Although this feels a little incongruous, maybe, with the fact Mewtwo wanted to just blast in here and threaten him into telling them what they want.)
Yeah, I think this was more Mewtwo being exasperated by the protagonist being bad at this (at least from Mewtwo's perspective!) than him being worried about Professor Krane getting mad. If anything he'd welcome the excuse to blow some shit up, but honestly, how dumb can the protagonist even be?

Feeling groggy and wanting to go back to sleep after being hypnotized makes so much sense and is delightful. Love the child hoping it looks as cranky as it feels.
I enjoyed this quite a bit, too.

Oof, so they're the ones he was meant to be meeting.
In this version, yes! Previously Krane blew off a meeting with somebody else to talk with the protagonist. I'm unreasonably pleased with this little tweak.

Shadow Pokémon have fangs, the way scientists wear lab coats
The protagonist is just super disappointed that not every shadow pokémon is like Shadow Lugia. :P

Oh, there we go. Still, seems sort of funny to not think "Hmm, maybe Hypno's behaviour here is related to the fact this person is using a Master Ball".
That's fair. I don't think it would hurt to rearrange things a little so the woman pounces on this earlier.

I like the little background story of the woman knocked unconscious (love the child figuring eh, that's fine, whatever) and her kids/little brothers/etc. trying to help with their Pokémon. I thiiink that's new since the old equivalent to this chapter (?), and it adds a bit more investment to the whole bit with the shrine, over the old version where (if I recall correctly) it was just Mewtwo destroying scenery.
This section was actually pretty much unchanged from the original version!

What a horrific line.
Thank you! >:D

I enjoyed digging into Mewtwo's issues a little this chapter--they'll be a major component of this arc, so I hope you don't tire of "tragically childish" too easily! Mewtwo is exceedingly terrible, but I find "has nothing but power, therefore clings to power as the thing that makes him better than everybody else" very interesting, so I'll be playing with that a lot.

Truly a story about too-powerful children with mommy issues, huh.
The original title for this story was going to be "Children of Mew," so, yeah, pretty much! Thesis: don't give wounded children superpowers, it ends Poorly.

We'll most certainly be seeing Hypno again! Next chapter, even. Thanks for reviewing all these recent chapters, and I hope you enjoy where the story goes next!
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
@Experidenzel

Thanks for the review! I think this is excellent for your first time reviewing something. It's always nice to hear what people pick up on in the story. I'm glad you liked the bit with the waterfall; it was definitely fun to write. We'll certainly learn more about what happened to Mewtwo after he escaped Cinnabar, but that'll be a few chapters yet!

The beginning of this story is definitely confusing--like you said, the POV is confusing, and we don't know who the main character is! But thanks for sticking with it and leaving a review for me.

@Dragonfree

Chapter 46

Love the child deciding Melanie Roth isn't a serious trainer who's done anything to be able to tell her Pokéballs apart, as a weird measure of comfort, making it into just something about this character it's playing rather than a result of a series of uncomfortable events.
A spontaneous detail that I also rather like! The child's mood is definitely reflected in who it's choosing to be here.

Look at it actually promising to listen to Titan and telling him he doesn't have to do anything just because it's his trainer! Man. You have come so far.
Character development! Took it long enough. :P

Of course it thinks Shadow Pokémon sound awesome, what a child.

Delightful. I love how Salvage captures that particular child mindset where everything is novel and cool and fun and exciting.
Thanks! It's fun to think about the things that would have excited me as a kid and capture some of that enthusiasm.

Huh, I was under the impression altering its mass was one of the things the child couldn't do?
It can change its mass within a certain range, so while it can't get as heavy as a snorlax, it can add a fair amount of weight. Not sure how much that would stabilize it, though, looking back.

The casual theft of a bunch of stuff, after the times it's declared Team Rocket are evil for stealing, is gloriously hypocritical.
Some things never change. :P

Love the agonizing tension of the stalling towards the end. Poor child wants so badly for this to just not happen.
Thanks! I had fun with that section. Really wanted to capture that "countdown towards the thing you're dreading" feeling.

In a way the putting off talking about much of substance is the whole point of the chapter, but I still found myself a little dismayed that neither Titan nor Rats (nor anyone else!) wanted to discuss much of what'd happened with Mewtwo or the Elites. All Titan divulged was they weren't hurt, and then the conversation with Rats started and I was sure now we were going to find out why he'd been so reluctant to talk about it anyway, but it took a swerve back away from that and we never actually go there. Feels like a bit of an arbitrary tease, kind of - none of the Pokémon wanted to discuss this, at any point in ten days?
I think the problem here is that I know nothing of particular substance happened there--it sucked (or in the case of Mewtwo, was weird/alarming), but nothing very interesting happened. These were both events that didn't happen originally, and were "things that would logically happen" rather than "things that happened that would be significant to the characters." Since I don't have much to say here, the characters don't, either! It may be worth going back through and put less emphasis on those bits or otherwise try not to imply that there's something interesting there that's going to be addressed later.

This isn't my favorite chapter, and like you said, it's mostly delay and avoidance! I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway, though, and thank you for all the feedback!
 

SparklingEspeon

Back on Her Bullshit
Staff
Location
a Terrace of Indeterminate Location in Snowbelle
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. espurr
  2. fennekin
  3. zoroark
~Review of chapters 6 – 10~

Hello! I arrive with a marginally fashionably late review of Salvage, for the BLEC Review Awards! For this one, I reviewed to the end of what’s currently published on TR, which seems to be to Chapter Ten.

Last time I read, I left off on that I was a bit disappointed that this fic seemed to be going in the direction of being a standard journeyfic. And in some ways, I wasn’t wrong. It definitely uses the journeyfic premise, at least for a while. What I wasn’t expecting was… everything else.

Partnering the Child up with the Great Nathanial Morgan (as the narration refers to him) was an interesting choice that transforms this fic from what I thought it was going to be about (the Child going on a trainer journey on their own as we’d seen them before) into something that’s a lot different from your average trainerfic. Having someone for the Child to bounce off of works wonders for making the story less dense then it is when we’re solely in the Child’s POV, and Nathaniel bounces off the Child spectacularly. He’s loud, brash, and aggressive, foiling the Child’s quiet, sneaky methods quite nicely. It seems there’s a lot of character development to be had between these two as well, for as much of a quiet, apathetic sociopath the Child is, Nathanial isn’t an angel either.

I should also compliment the world you have set up here too. It’s the canon Kanto that we all know and love to varying degrees between “favorite region” and “the boonies”, but it’s been filtered through a lens that makes it seem authentic to real life. Team Rocket isn’t an organization with fantasy designs on world domination—or at least there are, we don’t see it. We see the bottom line, grunts pulling off poaching missions that sustain the organization’s bases. Cinnabar Gym isn’t a fantastical platform in a volcano anymore, it’s a normal gym with crowds like the ones in Galar. Even the more mundane things like pokemon centers feel more realistic, like including a cafeteria instead of it just being a small, café sized building. Despite that, it doesn’t feel like that big a departure from the games. It actually reminds me a lot of what the official feel for pokemon was in those first two gens, before they began undoing all the Early Installment Weirdness they had. Makes sense, considering that this is an older fic. Either way, I can appreciate the balance you seem to have struck here between filtering the world to be more reasonable than the games and anime portray it, but still managing to keep that “pokemon” feel.

Chapter ten was ultimately what threaded this entire batch together, I think, and I’m glad that I read all the way to the end for this review. At the end of chapter Nine, I was expecting the Child to get thrashed. Then they didn’t, and I was surprised. I didn’t know what to expect going into Chapter Ten, except that I was sure the Child needed to get knocked down a peg. And then they were, and this ended up being more satisfying than if they had lost the Blaine battle. I feel like if they had lost, Nathanial would have gotten to gloat, but the Child wouldn’t have gotten a proper demonstration. They’d just insist it was an accident and try again. And while they didn’t really take it to heart here either, it pushed both characters farther than the alternative could have. Nathaniel got to show why he’s actually kind of worth his salt, and the Child’s childish tendencies turned violent present themselves clearly once they’re pushed out of their comfort zone enough. This chapter is possibly the shortest one of the bunch here, but it was the strongest of them IMO.

Criticisms…

The main criticism here from me is that the dynamic between The Child and the Great Nathanial Morgan gets kind of repetitive, and then very repetitive. It’s funny at first to see Nathanial Morgan find more and more creative uses of using the word “fuck” while the child acts grumpy and apathetic and quietly tries not to blow a gasket, but when that’s basically all their dialogue for the next three chapters with minimal development, I find myself tiring of it quickly. This didn’t bug me as much in Chapter Ten, which I think is because Nathanial isn’t just being snide, he’s telling the Child that they’re a legitimately bad trainer who won on a fluke. Which is true. And makes their dynamic deeper than *Child does extremely weird, nonhuman thing* “Hey what the FUCK was that”

A secondary criticism was that I remembered it dragging a lot around Chapter Eight. I think it had something to do with how static the dynamic I mentioned above was, but also that there didn’t really seem to be anything major happening in that chapter, and so I ended up getting bored.

For story trajectory from this point onwards…. I’m assuming we’re either going to spend a lot of time getting to the Champion so we can see Mewtwo, or get to it within the next few chapters or so. Doesn’t seem to be an in between there. Regardless of which one, though, I do hope that we get to see Nate and the Child stuck together for a longer while. It feels like there’s still more to mine in their relationship, and we’re only really scratching a portion of it as of chapter ten. I also find myself wondering if that’s the reason Absol refused to let the Child kill him—not because he’s some grand savior or something, but because he’s the one who ultimately needs to get the Child to reflect and grow up a bit. Possibly before the Child destroys something or makes Big Time Trouble somewhere. Which, might make him an indirect savior after all.

Considering the general tone/trend this fic has taken so far, I could be completely off the ball. But given that it’s about 50 chapters currently, I imagine we’ll be seeing them stick together for a while yet.

Overall, pretty interesting! I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything like this before, especially something that plays around with Mew/Mewtwo in the way that this fic does. (We never really learn what the Child is—are they Mew reborn, or something reborn from Mew?) I think these ten chapters have hooked me, so I’ll be waiting to see where this goes from here! …Once it’s all uploaded. :P

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Release – Afro Celtic Sound System
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
I plan to continue publishing here as long as it's feasible, but if something happens where the site becomes completely unusable or disappears off the internet entirely, I will shift to publishing on AO3 instead.
this hurts me loooooool

"I don't understand why I always have to be the one to rampage," Steelix grumbles.
Mentioned this elswhere but Steelix is probably my favorite character in a fic full of characters I love lol. Almost everyone in the fic (besides like? Leonard Kerrigan I guess? and Absol?) can be characterized as just, not really Getting one or two things that end up really fucking them over, but Steelix not Getting that he's fucking enormous absolutely slays me. Raticate should be able to rampage too! Justice for Raticate! Why is everyone running? Excuse me, look out! Poor baby my god. I really love this in the mainstream of like, aggressive property damage all the time--it turns out that the opposite of that, which I absolutely love, is just apologetic property damage.

as if wondering whether he'll be able to slip away without anyone noticing
fiction has peaked my god.

This is a quieter/bridge chapter, but I think we really needed it lol. A short breather between blowing up the League's super-fucked experimental facility and blowing up Orre's super-fucked experimental facility, where everyone gets along great and no one's still angry at each other, yesirree. I love the image of Titan offering chicken and fire to Nate's pokemon lmao. Everyone needs that one friend who's unapolagetically nice to both warring factions of the friend group so they can be reminded of how awkward it actually is that they don't like each other.

"Oh, gonna leave Absol out to dry on that one?" Rats asks. She passes Absol a wink, and Absol stares serenely back.
god i love them

"Her point is that this is what it means to be a hero. Sacrifice." It's Absol. The child starts in alarm.

"Oh, uh, no, I mean, I don't think I'm a hero or anything,"
I really love how we're gradually working down all the permutations of character interactions here. It's genuinely so much fun to see Absol and Rats's worldviews go head-to-head here, and Rats is like, no boss, my name is literally Rats, I'm not here for this heroic shit--it's a really fun flip of the child's earlier conversation with Absol about heroism, how the child grudgingly seems to accept the answer from authority, whereas Rats really isn't here for any of that but is definitely sure of what she is here for.

And Rats denying that she's trying to be a hero before walking headlong into fucking Mewtwo because sometimes being an adult means is picking the lesser of two evils, and that's normal life and not heroism--oof. And then the child taking this conversation and deciding that, yes, curling up alone in a forest and being said is what it means to be a hero, because heroism means feeling like this--it's admittedly really fun to see a more adult perspective debating the nature of heroism with Absol, and I think in general that's why none of these chapters really feel like filler or anything even if it's just people eating chicken--there's still fascinating ideas being thrown around here at every turn.

Rats stares at her pokéball, held aloft but wobbling. "Really, Boss?" she says quietly. "Aren't you always going on about what a good trainer you are?"
hey we aren't supposed to break my heart in the filler let's eat chicken chapter that's actually against the fanfiction rules, thanks.

with the ruins and the ash and them still pulling corpses out of everywhere
OH MY GOD YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THIS WAS AN ASH FIC
 

WildBoots

Don’t underestimate seeds.
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. moka-mark
  2. solrock
That feeling when you remember you haven't reviewed the latest chapter of Salvage yet. What better way to kick off Blitz? Though I'm pretty late to the kickoff, holy cow, everyone.

This review is mostly scattered line reactions!

Chapter 49

This was the chapter in which I noticed something that Mewtwo and the child have in common: they're both bad at lying. I'm thinking about this moment with the fish:

"I got those from Agate Village," you say. "They're good, aren't they?"

"Passable," he says, tearing into the last one with his teeth, scraps of skin and translucent little bones scattering on the metal around his feet. You think they were somewhat better than that. If Mewtwo were even a little dissatisfied with them, you'd know.
That's obviously not a very big lie, nor was he trying hard to be deceitful. Nevertheless, this is somebody who, like the child, can't help but be what he is. (Funny how that feels true for the child when mutability is their Thing.) I'm also reminded of his surprise at the child's ability to change its own brain structure. He can't help but put his thoughts and feelings out there. It makes me wonder what would happen if he ever did have to lie for real, and I suspect the answer is ... it would go badly! :devilish:

Another detail I really appreciated was the strangeness of the cafe that wasn't built with pokemon in mind, with Thunderstorm jammed under the table. Of course, in my settings that would be the default, but you're always serving us these lovely scenes of pokemon and humans eating together. It really highlights the cultural otherness of Orre. It also made me think about what cafes in Kanto must look like. They must have bigger tables and larger rooms for most buildings than we'd be used to! And all of the furniture is either crazy expensive because it's made of triple reinforced magic steel to prevent being destroyed every two seconds or made super cheaply because it's going to get destroyed every two seconds (as evidenced by, like, everything the child and Mewtwo do just by existing...).

I also continue to love how the child quotes movies or fails to see distinctions between real life and movies. Both very childlike and also adds to the sense of not-quite-human. It doesn't get the real human world.

That's the problem with getting a psychic picture for your directions: you'll know the place immediately when you get there, but until you do, you're going to be lost.
You're always so great at making psychic pokemon interesting! There's just enough weirdness that it feels deeply Other and the protagonists don't get anything for free, but it also makes sense.

Its main street runs through in place of the river that once carved out its sheltering canyon
Yes!

"It's not supposed to be cheerful, Rats. This is where the bad people in Orre live." At least most of them.

"Oh, really? They've got a whole town for that? Mighty convenient. Makes you wonder why Kanto doesn't just round up all the bad eggs and chuck them somewhere grimy, too."
🔥
I love how Rats continues to have the most based takes. Figures that the pokemon with the baseline lowest fighting ability of the main cast and therefore the least power to force her worldview is the one with the best takes.

Maybe she's even around here right now." It's funny. You hadn't even thought that today, at last, you might find Mew. After everything else, could it really be that simple?
Flashback to the much simpler quest of finding Steelix.
... Yeah, kid, I'm sure it'll go exactly like that.

"I thought Mewtwo wanted to be discreet about this."
LOLLLL. Excuse me. A little late for that.

glassless window-scars
:love:

You follow, grinning. This feels furtive, and illicit, and very appropriate for Orre.
The child: That's illegal! You can't do that!
Also the child: Hee hee hee, crime!

what you recognize with a fascinated shiver as a needle shoved up in one corner.
Damn. Hard times for former shadow pokemon.

But then there's the heracross, who slurps loudly from a can of soda
!! The heracross who was foretold!

Mewtwo radiates catlike satisfaction.
A thesis statement.

uhhh, was she called Lovey?
WOW, they truly have no fucks to give in Orre, do they.

"And there's loads of other things we can help out with in the meantime," Heracross says. "You're new to Orre, and we know plenty about it. You need a place to stay, a hover cycle for getting around on, anything like that, we've got you covered."
It feels like we just discovered a new shop menu in the sandboxy world that is Salvage. Here you can restore health by sleeping on a mattress full of cigarette burns lovingly rendered in pixels or sell random small things you've stolen (because the main, shop screen with all the default options is far away in Kanto).

"Hello," Titan adds, cheerfully.
This pure, sweet, baby.

"Pyrite used to be much larger," Noctowl says. "When the mines were open, people came from all over the world to try their luck."

"People built shanties out of whatever they could find. Most of them didn't last, but a lot of these places started out that way," Hypno says.
Tale as old as time. I grew up in an area like this. I guess my hometown would fall under the umbrella of Orre.

You're surprised Hypno hasn't gotten tired of carrying him by now. He's nearly as tall as she is, and holding him on her arm can't be comfortable. Why doesn't he just fly?
👀 Hmmmm!

Ugh, teasing us with Mirror B content. I'm dying to see what you'd do with him in a scene.

Also, wow, Pokemon really loves to lean into gambling as a gateway drug to worse crime, huh?

"Well, it was unsafe," Noctowl says quietly. "But what happened down there still happens. Just aboveground now."
👀 👀 👀

Love this description of Battle Square! So much personality.
You clench one hand into a fist, anger backing up your throat. You want to say you're not going to use your friends as bait, but you can't, not out loud where everyone can hear you.
I want to say yay learning .. except we literally just did that with Nate lol. (Though it was their idea and they agreed to it.)
"The Three Musketeers? Like from Unova?"
👀 McDonalds, McDonalds!

"It's us three. We're the Three Musketeers. Of Orre," Heracross says. "I'm Virizion, obviously. Noctowl's Cobalion."

"So that makes you... Terrakion," you say to Hypno, uncertain.

"It's not a perfect metaphor," Heracross says. "But don't underestimate her. She kicks harder than you might expect."
Aww this is so cute.

It's a good thing the shadow pokémon can't feel the anger surging from the master ball. Or maybe Hypno can; she gives you a puzzled look, as though trying to focus on some distant noise.
Is it psychic sensitivity or proximity that makes him audible inside his ball?
"We're going to fight in another tournament?"
MCDONALDS, MCDONALDS
 

Sinderella

Angy Tumbleweed
Staff
Location
In Guzma's Closet
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. sylveon-shiny
  2. gothitelle
  3. froslass
  4. chandelure
  5. mimikyu
Hi hi Negrek! Been eyeing Salvage for a while, because based on what I've heard about it, I figured it was right up my alley. And boy, was I fuckin' right! Got started with chapters 1 and 2, and I have some THOUGHTS.

So chapter 1 was very interesting, because I went into it having barely any idea what was going on, and the more I read, the less sure I was. Who was the child, what were they going on about, what did Absol have to do with anything...there was a lot happening and not enough basis to go off of, so really the whole time I kept going "What? What? WHAT?" Especially when this poor trainer died, like...I didn't know the guy from Adam but shit, that's a rough way to go. Then right at the end when this Child went and basically took over the homie's identity? Taking identity theft to a whole new level, my god. BUT, it was in those last couple lines, when the Child was going through the motions of figuring out their new persona that everything sort of clicked. I went back and read the chapter again, and it was just a MASSIVE lightbulb moment--the Child and Absol were watching this trainer die, the Child was kind of sort of acting as if they were talking to this trainer and I guess taking in his memories...and it all made sense (I say lightly LOL). I love stories where you're damn clueless the whole time, but something happens and suddenly everything you read makes sense, and that's a lot of what this chapter was. I dig!

Chapter 2 was interesting because of the POV switch--I've been running into a lot of second-person stories lately (hey eoe!) and I'm really liking how this one is getting started. We had that switch right at the end of chapter 1, and kept it going into chapter 2. Even so, I found myself confused all over again, because I was at a complete loss of what was going on. Absol had gone off, there's now a Raticate, and the Child (as Nicholas) now wants to speak to one of Nicholas's pokemon specifically? I wasn't shocked that he knew the Charizard's name was Titan, because taking over Nick's mems and all that, but the more they spoke, the more I was getting the gist that they knew each other? Which just had me going "HUH?????" all over again. I suppose that explains why the Child was watching Nick in the first place, but like...why? What's Titan's place in whatever the Child's up to? And why was Titan acting like (at first) he didn't really know what was going on? I have so many questions.

Of course, none of this is a bad thing! I'm extremely invested now in figuring out what the fuck is going on, because there's obviously some bigger thing (presumably involving Mew based on the dialogue) afoot. Being that I feel like I'm still in the dark here, I don't think I can adequately provide much criticism yet. The prose is great, the characterization is fantastic, and this is very obviously a story that is going to make more sense the more I read...which I'm all for! I love that stuff. I think my only real, and very minute, gripe so far is the POV switches. Between the end of chapter 1 and chapter 2, that was great, but the switch to third person at the end of chapter 2 was a tad jarring. Then again, I can't really say for certain what the point of that might have been, because yes, I am still kinda in the dark!

Good stuff! Will loop back around a lil later! :D

Chapter 1 Line-by-Lines:
the one that is mine, the one that was stolen from me
Okay HERE I assume this was regarding Titan? However, the swap between third person and first person caught me off guard a little bit!

"I know you," it might say. "You used to make little origami sculptures for your desk, didn't you? I always liked those, especially the pokémon ones. They were pretty." He must have been an intern, then. Not someone who was around for very long. He's uncommonly old to still be training, but perhaps he decided to take a break after Cinnabar. Maybe he decided science wasn't for him.
HMMMM at first I was very confused by this, even after I'd read through it the second time, but now I'm hypothesizing that the Child had been watching Nick for a while and just kinda knows this stuff?

The human will never see it, though. He'll be much too dead.
*sweats* Man, the chills I got.

You are Nicholas Garrett. Around eight years ago you were interning at the lab on Cinnabar Island--maybe. Something to do with the lab, or you wouldn't be here now.

Four years ago you began your journey. You're a slow trainer, but a thorough one: four years, five badges. You have a charizard--your starter--nidoqueen, primeape, rhydon, and several others of little consequence.

Today you came to the Seafoam Islands. Why, you don't know--looking for a seel, maybe, or just out for an adventure, maybe seeking the legendary Articuno. Whatever you were seeking will have to go unfound.

Because you died down here, Nicholas Garrett, in the darkness and the deep. You were twenty-six years old.

What do you do now?
This was SO GOOD, I literally cannot fawn enough. Just the right mix of interesting and fucking creepy.

Chapter 2 Line-by-Lines:
The first thing you do is stop home. A moment's concentration takes you from cold and dark to the warmth of your living room. Even the dim, leaf-edged light is too much for your eyes after the total darkness of the cave, and you open them slowly, blinking away tears.
INTERESTING, so the Child doesn't live like a hermit in a cave, but in a nice house? I dig.

That gives Rats enough time to hide whatever she was chewing on, so when you turn to her it looks like she's just relaxing in her nest, half burrowed under shredded pieces of newspaper and drifts of insulation. "Uh, hey, Boss. Back early, aren't you?"
Can't tell if Rats is adorable, or well...a fucking rat.

You haven't been Nicholas Garret long enough to get the details right.
Man, you capture the subtle creeps really well, fam.

"Ooh, so that's how it is, huh? Well, how about this, Titan, would just any raticate remember that time you got beat up by that magikar--oof!"
Titan pins the raticate under one foot and stares down at her, smoke streaming warningly from his nostrils. "You say we're old friends?" he growls. "A real friend would tell me what happened to my trainer."

"Well," Rats wheezes, "that's actually a bit of a difficult question. Maybe if you could let a rat breathe a bit here, we could--" Her voice cuts off in a squeak as Titan leans down on her, and then she glows red. Titan's foot lands heavily in the sand, Rats pulled safely back to her pokéball.
I don't know what it is about this interaction, but I could picture it so vividly that it made me audibly laugh. Very nice job!

"You remember me, do you not? You remember the promise you made with us. Rats was there, too. And War and Thunderstorm. You know all of them."
"Stop pretending! I know you remember. You promised the same as the rest of us. Someone has to save Mew. We failed last time, but we can't give up. I'm your trainer, Titan. I say we're going after her. Are you with me?"

The charizard's eyes show white. "I can't."
"Please... You told me you would save her."
So up until this point I couldn't tell why the Child was going out of their way to talk to Titan, especially because it was almost apparent to me that Titan had no goddamn idea what was going on, but around here is when I started to realize they had some history, and I guess Titan was trying to forget about it? I. HAVE. SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

Hours later, when the child's resting in bed, it hears the door bang open and something large blunder inside. It smiles and clutches the sheets tighter around itself. It knew Titan wasn't in any real danger, not with how short the rainstorm was, but it's glad he managed to find his way here, where he will be safe.
And this was the POV change that tripped me up. I couldn't quite grasp the reasoning for it, but then again, I'm still struggling to grasp the reasoning for anything happening at this point, so I'll take it LOL
 

slamdunkrai

bing.com
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. darkrai
  2. snom
Hello! I think I read the first five chapters of this when I initially joined the server, but forgot to leave a review or pick it back up. What better time to amend that than now? Except I've only got time to cover the first four today; I'll definitely have to come back later in the month to cover some more of this... and I'll probably be coming back after the month's up, too, because this (plus what I remember of chapter five, in which the extremely good plan with no moral repercussions outlined at the end of chapter four is carried out) is an interesting enough start that I simply have to see what's going on here. Even if it means braving FFN.

It should be fairly obvious that I've not yet tackled Little God as of my writing this, which — going off some of these early reviews — it might be a wise idea to fix, but it didn't feel like I was missing out on too much context when I was reading this. If you recommend going back and reading that one, however, then I think I'll get on that!

Chapter one is excellent — not really got much to say on it, in part because a lot has been said by others and in part because of its length, but I feel as though it sets up pretty much everything it needs to. It's an unforgiving and cold situation, best highlighted by how the child does not (cannot?) offer a justification or comfort to Nicholas for what's about to happen, even though that comfort feels a little hollow given that "what's about to happen" is a rather unceremonious death and then a case of having someone take his identity. There are some callous lines in here that really help build on that unforgiving tone; the one that stood out to me was "several others of little consequence" as a shorthand for describing the rest of Nicholas's team. Is it the child's deduction, or is it something Nicholas wrote in his files? I wasn't sure, and I liked that; really, what does it matter at this point? I appreciate how vague everything is before the 2nd person narration kicks in, and that shift is really well done. As has been commented on before, your prose is excellent in this one; it's well-polished, and it helps carry everything along nicely. It's snappy, too.

I did find chapter two more difficult to sink my teeth into, though, and I think that had to do with the elliptical nature of the back-and-forth between new!Nicholas and Titan; for a good chunk of the chapter I didn't feel like I was learning more other than "Titan knows that this isn't the same Nicholas who trained him, Nicholas keeps insisting that for all intents and purposes he is — and then starts insisting it doesn't matter anyway — and Titan really doesn't like that". Rats trying to intervene does help to alleviate that, I thought; it tells us more about the relationship between these two, and I think you do a good job of making Titan come across as a bit of a childish goofball who just so happens to also be a massive fire-breathing reptile (which helps in making the way he comes across in chapter three more believable after his massive freakout here — it's still slightly jarring to see him just eating ice cream in ch3 and being a certified Goofus Maloofus none of this being acknowledged again, but there's only so much space you have to tell the story, so I get why you did this and think I would probably do the same). I also think that the little snippet of combat we get when the tensions between our POV character and Titan really peak is well-done, and it helps make our big charizard friend's sobbing as he comes to terms with the way things are now. As I was typing out my thoughts on it, I think I did understand why you made the decisions you made here, and it's still a pretty good chapter even if I felt that it was a little too focused on the one thing.

I don't have quite so much to say on chapters three and four! I don't think I had the same issues as I did with ch2 with either of them; chapter three was short, snappy, and I liked what it told us about the world as well as how it conveyed that information — in particular, I think you do a good job of setting up Leonard Kerrigan and what his deal is while maintaining a good distance from him. We learn about his dead son and get some hints as to how that tragedy went down, we know that he is a driven and pretty powerful man with whom confrontation is inevitable, but at the same time, he's a bit of an enigma because we don't actually know him, do we? It's a case where describing him works better than showing him, I think, so good decision there. Similarly, I liked how tense chapter four was as the story starts to look towards dealing with Leonard, both in terms of figuring out an approach for this and really highlighting how myopic the child can get when it comes to things like revenge — that nearsightedness came across well in the first chapter, of course, but I think Absol objecting to it and insisting that any decisions made here are probably unwise and require some more forethought makes it the key point of the chapter, imo. It's also great, and in fact very wise, that the child is like "actually? That's dumb, fuck that, I'm just going to do this anyway" before launching into the territory of tormenting a man by impersonating his dead son. Which is just. Mmm. That sort of thing is a really wise idea that I'm sure will not backfire!

Under the cut are some individual line comments and things that just didn't really fit in to the rest of the review:

One thing I did pick up on was that the spelling of "Garrett" switches to "Garret" after chapter one, which was a little disorienting. Given the nature of chapter two focusing on the POV character being-kind-of-Nicholas-but-not-really, I wasn't sure if this was intentional, but I felt compelled to point it out here.

Back when he was an arrogant teenager they'd given him a choice: prison until he was old enough to be worry about his prostate, or a second chance defending the computer systems he'd spent most of his adolescence attacking.
I think "to be worry" might have dodged an edit there. Part of me also thinks that this doesn't land in quite the way it should — feels like the prostate joke is supposed to be a morbid punchline, but I think having fifteen words between it and the end of the sentence dulls that effect. I wanna suggest swapping these two options around and making the "second chance" one a bit less wordy, because it feels just a little awkward here. But that's up to you, really.

Absol hates it when you buy things. But no one ever has to tell her about today, not ever.
It's me; I'm both Absol and myself in this situation (the humour in this one, I don't think I've said much about beyond that previous nitpick, but I like it a lot. I think it is a little jarring sometimes with how quickly it goes from things like this and the premise of "your big charizard named Titan is eating ice cream and being a goober" at the end of ch3, to more grim stuff like, say...

Your friends rest exhausted in the pokéballs at your waist as you wander Cinnabar Island's hot, twisty streets, headed for the Pokémon Center. Not far away, perhaps, your water-bloated corpse rests at the bottom of Seafoam Caverns.

to open up ch4, but at the same time, I think that's just part of this story being told the way it is with such concise chapters, so, it's not that big a deal when the humour tends to land more often than not. Besides, I think how out-of-nowhere this line is comes as part of the charm.)

No. "They" aren't coming. Leonard Kerrigan is.
Using the same quotation marks for emphasis and speech is a little confusing, imo; 'they' or they might serve you better here if you want to keep the emphasis, but I don't think you need to emphasise "they" here at all, personally.

On the whole, I'm definitely intrigued by all of this, and I'll definitely have to pick this back up later on in Blitz — this is all clearly going somewhere, and I think I simply have to find out where. It's not really like any other fic I've ever read, and I'm happy whenever that happens. Cheers for writing this!
 

Umbramatic

The Ghost Lord
Location
The Yangverse
Pronouns
Any
Partners
  1. reshiram
Hey, I'm here for Review Bliitz! I finally FINALLY got around to reviewing this fic! Only chapter 1 for now though - it was pretty short yeah but I alas have a headache. :(

But this is a very super duper intriguing opening for this fic! I've heard about (and attempted to draw) the Child's weird shapeshifteriness before but it's intresting to see it play out in the fic itself. Seems it CAN control it to some degree? But also even though it has the thought processes capable of language it can't speak at all. Huh. How ios it gonna impersonate the dead dude then? Guess I'll have to find out.

Also intresting that it uses it/its pronouns. You don't normally see that in fic protagonists.

This Absol I've only heard vague things about. Seems like they're the Child's babysitter who tells them to do TERRIBLE THINGS, as babysitters do. How did the Absol get into this position? Who hired them? Team Rocket? Mewtwo?

Speaking of Team Rocket, apparently The Child has memories from A PAST LIFE where they got POKED WITH NEED|LES and I doubt it was for COVID. I heard there is a Theory the Child was Mew once and I'm already buying into it.

Intresting you set this opening scene in the Seafoam Islands. Not a place usually highlighted in Pokemon fic. Probably won't stsay there, but.

But I did it! I finally read your baby! Well, started it. Apparently this is a long, long boi and I will have to make many more visits back to experience the Salvaging in full.
 

windskull

Bidoof Fan
Staff
Partners
  1. sneasel-nip
  2. bidoof
  3. absol
  4. kirlia
  5. windskull-bidoof
  6. little-guy-windskull
  7. purugly
  8. mawile
Hi Negrek! I've been meaning to check out Salvage for a while and the blitz was the perfect time to jump in. I'm only covering the first three chapters in this review, but I enjoyed them enough that I suspect I'll do another review before the end of the blitz.

These first three chapters felt like they were mostly setup. We get to see some of the child's abilities and get a good idea of just how much they can do. The first few chapters do a good job of showing of their relatively loose moral compass and the kinds of things they're willing to do to achieve to reach their goal. I wonder if they'll slip further down the slope as the plot progresses.

We get a rough introduction to the plot - though I'll admit I understood the plot better through the summary than the first few chapters themselves. It makes me wonder if it could have been introduced more clearly in the story itself. Maybe it is later, but introducing it early on is typically better, I think.

Regarding the second person pov... I like it! I'm always a sucker for good second person.
I find Titan's claim that he doesn't remember anything interesting, especially if he made a promise. Was he so young that he honestly doesn't remember? Has he blocked it out somehow? Is their foul play involved? Right now, I'm inclined to believe that he blocked it out, as he mentions that he doesn't like the name Titan.

On that note, the entire interaction between him and child really helps the child feel not quite human. They act like Titan has no reason to be upset that the trainer he's grown up with died, just because they can assume Nicholas' identity and because of some nebulous promise Titan made at some point in the past.

The fact that Rats seemed so certain she can get Titan to listen was interesting to me tbh. But it also is part of what makes Titan's lack of memory interesting.

Speaking of things that were interesting to me, I find myself wondering why they seem to be expecting the pokemon Leonard has to just come back to them. I wonder if this pokemon remembers anything more than Titan does. If not, then I wouldn't expect them to come back on their own, and I wonder if they'll want to come back at all. Titan certainly didn't.

At this point in the story I have a lot of questions about the child's purpose beyond finding Mew. There's a lot of other questions, as well. Like why they exist in the first place, the specifics of the promise they made - was it just a promise to find mew, or something more? And other things, as well. But we're only three chapters into a long fic, so I suspect my answers will come as time goes on. And with that in mind, I'll hold off on trying to figure the answers out in detail as I go along.

I think that's about all I have for now, though, so until next time, happy writing.
 

Panoramic_Vacuum

Hoenn around
Partners
  1. aggron
  2. lairon
Hello hello! So I've read some of Salvage before (when I was frantically figuring out how to be Negrek for a day), but I never left any thoughts on it, and it's high time I did so.

Unfortunately, a lot of my thoughts surrounding the beginning of this fic are all confusion. This is, I think, my third time reading the first three chapters, and I'm just starting to sort out a clearer picture. Chalk it up to this one probably being one of those "too smart for me" fics. There's certainly no lack of clarity in the text and action itself. The death of Nicholas Garrett, the battle with Titan, the casual newspaper reading in the Fuchsia Pokecenter, that's all clear to me what's happening. What's lost on me, however, is just who "I" am supposed to be.

I think at this point I've sorted it out for the most part. The child (and in some narrative cases, "me") is a hybrid creature from a former human and some kind of all powerful pokemon (probably Mew DNA?), which makes this a pokemorph fic, which I had no idea going into it that that's what it would be. Also please correct me if I'm wrong because I've really struggled with understanding this part of the fic. (Or if this will be explained later and I just have to be patient, which could also be the case, though in this case I think it does hurt my enjoyment a little, at least in chapter 2 because I was so puzzled as to who "I" was that the action become secondary, despite being amazingly written.)

And maybe the problem for me is the use of second person here. In Chapter 1, I was able to follow what the child was doing, thinking, feeling. Wild that it just watches someone die and then assume their form. The morphing, and then later in Chapter 2 the ability to manifest pokemon moves while in human form, is really interesting. But then, suddenly "I" am the child, and the narrative in Chapter 2 switches to second person and I'm wholly confused. Suddenly the child is in a home, but it's some random home, and at first I thought it might be Nicholas Garrett's but then there's pokemon there that know the child. Then the child has a charizard that suddenly was their former pokemon?? That's the part that baffled me the most. If the child is a former human, and the charizard was Nicholas Garrett's starter, once the child vanished from the human world (obviously a former trainer of some kind) do they re-use trainer's pokemon as starters for other trainers?? I think by the end of Chapter 2 I sorted out what was going on, but I still can't get over how puzzling the segue from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 is without knowing greater context of the child and their circumstances. I'm all for a good mystery and putting the pieces together, but for some reason this one's remained out of my grasp.

That being said, though, there's really something beautiful in the "breaking" of Titan. The showdown between him and the child, and how, in some ways, Titan is just as confused as I am as to what on earth happened to him in the span of a few minutes. It's this bizarre kind of gaslighting feel that Titan fights, both figuratively and literally, until something clicks and he's left exhausted in both mind and spirit. Kind of terrifying that the child has to beat him into submission to "undo" what seems to be years of history Titan has accumulated. Even now I'm still baffled as to how exactly Titan and the child knew each other in a former life. The action is very well written though, with the very up close and personal nature of an exchange of attacks and even choke holds between Titan and the child. At the end, I feel bad for Titan, for what he's found out and how. The child, what it has in power, certainly lacks in tact.

At least in Chapter 3 things have more or less smoothed out between them. And here I think is where I finally figured out the child's MO of going around collecting identities of dead trainers, though I'm still not sure why some seemed to be chosen randomly, while others were very deliberate choices. Interesting coincidence, too, that the only person who is sort of onto the child's tail owns one of its former pokemon. By my count we're up to four pokemon back with the child: Rats, Titan, the unnamed Togetic, and Absol. Then two more still at large, for a full team of six. That being said, Absol feels like it's not really part of the child's team, taking on more of a parent/guardian/oracle kind of role. With how submissive Titan is to the child, Absol definitely doesn't have that deferential vibe. Curious how their relationship evolves over the course of the fic.

Of course, all of this is probably explained later and I'm not being patient enough. Either way, the opening, while gripping, did leave me with a lot more questions and confusion than answers. I'll certainly be reading more, but I did have a harder time hanging on to this fic than others I've dived into. But that's the beauty of fic reading: patience is rewarded, and there's lot more chapters to go.
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
Hello! Finally getting around to reviewing this! I've been meaning to for quite a many weeks now.

So, I don't have any critique, just a lot of flavor and plot thoughts and temperature reads I'll give. I'll cover chapters 1-6 for now. I'll go chapter by chapter and give some summary thoughts too.

I've tried to read this like 3 separate times probably, but this time it finally kind of stuck. A big struggle for me sometimes is 2nd person as a whole, but that's purely subjective. My brain has to take a lot of time to adjust to second person writing. I think I sometimes find it hard to follow, and due to the already mysterious nature of this premise it really made it a little hard to get into for me (again, subjective).

I will say that the few times I read the 1st chapter, I did just feel very perplexed and confused. Not due to poor writing, it seems to be the intentional nature of this story that it's a bit of a mystery that's being unveiled and unraveled as it progresses. But I just struggled to get into the story or understanding the why of what was happening (and some of the what). I eventually realized this was a pokemorph sort of story about a shapeshifter child, the product of some experiment (probably by TR) but I didn't really know what this story was doing. Honestly it was the summary here on TR that made it clearer.

Going back and rereading it again to review and stuff definitely made it easier. Once I got into the swing of things with 2nd person and adapting to it, I found myself drawn in, despite my hesitation. I can't say that there would be any way to communicate things easier. Obviously you can't change tense, 2nd person is intentional, and the mystery is intentional. This might come down to flavor and subjectivity at the end of the day.

On a purely personal level I gripe at fics where it feels 'nebulous' or mysterious, since it just frustrates me and makes me feel like like I'm out of the loop (especially when the 'PoV' seems to know exactly what they want. But I also think it works to good effect here in some ways, especially due to the unusual nature of this tale. Identity theft, murder, violence, and fighting (presumably) TR or evil scientists?

The opening chapter seems to cover The Child as he watches this trainer die, Nicholas Garret, then takes a pokeball from him, and his identity. The Pokedexes in this world are clearly advanced, and seem to record just about everything, kind of like that 'journal' function from like... DP games? That's cool. They're serious pieces of hardware.

And for various reasons The Child is accompanied by a mysterious Absol who is in charge of Fate. I wonder if every Absol is connected to fates, or just this one?

The prose here was pretty cool, and there's a lot of tasty lines!

Chapter 2

So, chapter 2 gives us a little more context and develops this strangely unveiling plot further. The Child was after seemingly a specific pokeball. Titan, a Charizard. They also have a a Raticate names Rats. Clever names only here!

There's a heck of a lot I loved about this chapter, namely being the fight between Child and Titan, and the way its so well described, even though its very short. I could visualize the building tension and Titan's distress really well.

Also, I get the impression I guess that? Titan belonged to someone else previously, as did... the Child? Like the Child had an identity before all this, I guess. And Titan was their pokemon, along with Rats, I guess. All of it was very confusing because if Titan really knew the Child formerly, why didn't the child just show themselves or explain who they are? And Charizard seems to be skirting around the fact...

And Titan made a promise previously to help the Child, who is trying to rescue Mew. HMM

Chapter 3

In chapter 3 we get a glimpse of Child doing what appears to be their normal routine. They go Fuchsia sometimes, hang out at the pokemon centers, and chill while reading the newspaper. I loved the prose and way you weave worldbuilding small plot details through Child's perspective while allowing the reader to understand a little more about whats going on.
Namely, the Child is trying to acclimate and get better at passing as being human, while also keeping an eye on people.

We also see Leonard Kerrigan, who I refuse to see in my brain as anyone other than a very sad Looker, idk. Thats just how I see him in my head. And a little insight into how the Pokedex and recording system works. And that leonard is clearly doing Fine and not having a bad time at all.

I liked the little insights into the childs character, like how they seem to callously regard death, and don't seem overly concerned with the trouble they have caused. Really liked the little analogies of how Child views it as putting on an elaborate play, like setting a scene, talking just right, and doing all the motions of being 'human' just so.

Also, Titan is super chill here. I guess he accepted things.

Chapter 4

My gosh what a chapter, heh. The beginning of this was horrifying in a way, but funny. The Child lives up to their name here. They get panicked and throw a fit upon losing their Pokedex, but it seems understandable, since the Pokedex is like, everything tied to a trainer's identity. But also, the Child is just some poor kid(?) that freaks out, since for them the Pokedex is like a soul to them. Interesting comparisons. My guess here is the child copes with their loss of identity by highly valuing the identities of the people they steal.

Then the chapter progresses to Child discussing with Absol about their plans and desire to go after Leonard. They blame Leonard and his machinations for the loss of their Pokémon it seems. I guess that Child had a team before, and they were seemingly taken away and put in league storage (harsh?).

Also, Child had a little munchy munchy of a human. Just a bite, as a treat. No biggie.

And Child got back one of its pokemon, a Pokemon named Thunderstorm. We finally get a bigger picture scope of the plot, and that it seems to be Child's goal to get its old team back?

This child is a real gremlin.

Chapter 5

In chapter 5, the Child takes the form of Matt Kerrigan and nothing goes wrong, and everything is Fine.

Anyways, all that said, this chapter was very nice. It was tense, sad, yet eerie all the same. From the Child's perspective this is just What Needs to be Done. Yet as a reader we also contemplate how terrible and sad it must have been for poor Leonard to see something wearing the face of son. To believe for a moment his son was really back, yet slowly come to realize he was not. oof. bad Child!

The slowly escalating tension as Leo goes from being overjoyed to clearly suspecting something is wrong, then finally outright calling him out. The Child trying is best to appear normal but then talking in a way no human really talks is amusing in a way. Also, despite it being established that the Child can make themself look and smell and sort of talk like a person, it seems Pokemon can always see through them.

Intriguing....

I'm rolling with the theory for now that Pokemon can passively sense aura (which I've always thought) which is how Ash can recognize an imposter pikachu or pokemon can sense their trainers I think. This is why Titan knew he wasn't Nick, and Persian also knew he wasn't Matt.

Anyways the end of this was great, with Child getting all creepy on poor Leonard.

I feel bad for Leonard here though, and Child is such gremlin, but I am also fascinated by them.

And then we cap the chapter on Absol's fascinating description of Fate and the reveal of what the true overarching plot here seems.

The Child needs to get the badges and get to the Indigo Plateau to see a particular trainer. In light of chapter 6, is it perhaps the champion? Lance or something.... HMMM

Chapter 6

NOW things are really moving! We meet the Great Nathaniel Morgan who I am Sure will not be showing up again, definitely nothing to see there.

I really have to say again how much I enjoy the prose, and how there's little glimpses of the pokemon world woven into dialogue, narration and such. They offered wonderful little peeks into your takes on the Pokémon world, which I am enjoying so far.

The Child follows Duskull to some Team Rocket members who are apparently about to off one of their own. Their plan was to agitate some Mankey's and get them to do half the dirty work, and then finish the job. Oof! Then the Child creates quite the distraction and snatches the pokedex only to be unceremoniously stopped by Absol. Once again because of something with 'fate'. Very interesting.

I also dig all the various descriptions of moves and pokemon biology, like how soft-boiled worked, or Rain Dance or other moves. It also seems like the Child absorbs certain traits of pokemon they morph? They seemed to enjoy lazing around in the sun as a Grovyle. Intriguing.

I'll move to some line-by-lines

I remember too that it did not stay your hand."
I loved this line. Very telling. I guess also the Child was kept at the labs then? Anyways, showing that the Child seemed to realize that the scientist guy was scared but it wasn't enough to stop him from doing something terrible. Nice. Love the phrasing.

I'll take your name and I'll take your face and I'll take your pokémon"--the one that is mine, the one that was stolen from me
So yeah, after reading up to 6 I guess the Child was previously a trainer and was experiemented on or something and died, then lost his pokemon?

It seems they were given to other trainers.

The child sits perched on the edge a moment longer, readying scales and gills and webbing.
This is a swampert and I refuse to believe otherwise (pls tell me this is a swampert).

"I thought you said we were going to Cinnabar,"
But Nicholas was in Seafoam.

That's kind of sus!! Did Nick lie to his pokemon, or was he going to go to Cinnabar after Seafoam? Hm.

"Why are you calling me that?" The charizard tucks his wings in close and stares at the beach around you like he's expecting someone else to be there. "I don't like that name."
Huh! So Nick would call him Titan, but he never liked that name. Makes me wonder if Nick called him that anyway? But he talks almost like... If he asked why 'Nick' called him that then maybe Nick doesn't? Hm.

"That's right," Rats says. "Been a long time, hasn't it, big g--whoah
Ah so Rats and Titan were on the team together too....

"I just told you. I look like him because I am him, now. He does not need his life anymore. Now it is mine. And now I am your trainer again.
Again.

So why doesn't he tell Titan who he used to be I wonder? And I'm very curious about who Child once was. And the way he very much convinces himself he is that person.

"You remember me, do you not? You remember the promise you made with us. Rats was there, too. And War and Thunderstorm. You know all of them."
Fascinating... Rats, Thunderstorm and War... HMM I see a pattern.

I wanted to settle this like a human. But if you will not listen to me, we can settle this like pokémon instead.
This line has to actually be my absolute favorite from this chapter. It says so much about pokemon vs human culture, and how differently they approach things. I've always thought battling is culturally significant to pokemon and their lifestyles, so seeing it makes me pleased.

A glittering barrier hangs in the air in front of you, brilliant streamers of light peeling away from its surface and arcing towards the charizard, searing his scales and flashing raindrops into steam.
MMMMMM Love this description.

You promised the same as the rest of us. Someone has to save Mew.
Hmmmmm So a long time ago, I guess, Titan made this promise. As did the rest of the child's team? Still trying to decipher this.

It's hard enough to keep your head when you've been fighting, but as a pokémon, it's even harder.
Another lovely line. The implication here (and one I agree with) is that Pokemon's instincts and emotions run 'hot' so to speak, meaning they feel things almost stronger, and act on them quicker. I really vibe with this and it roughly lines up with how I see pokemon too.

"Please... You told me you would save her."
Okay but why does Titan act like he doesn't remember. Later context makes me think that maybe Titan just got used to living the nice life as a trainers pokemon and forgot the promise?

Today you are Jade Winstead, and you are no one.
AHAH I knew it Salvage and LC are in the same universe

You're about halfway done reading it, and your mind is starting to wander. You already checked all the good bits--the funnies, the training section, and, of course, the obituaries. You even choked down most of the boring stuff, the news-news about people who do things other than train pokémon, like you have any reason to care about them
I love the the Child thinks that comics, training and obituaries are the "good parts". In general I enjoy how you highlight the child's immaturity without outright saying 'they're super immature' all the time.

Pokémon and humans have different ways of learning things,
:okgon: once again loving this. I've always been a huge personal fan of when Pokemon and humans can be two distinct species that are both spaient but have completely different life outlooks and approaches.

Leonard Kerrigan sits at the nerve center of the League's great digital brain, watching data flow in from all its sensory organs, the pokédexes every trainer must carry to be considered legal. The pokédex observes everything, records everything, surely knows more than the trainer herself about everything that has happened on her journey: every pokémon captured, every item purchased, every visit to a pokémon center
Loved this prose, describing the Pokedexes and the systems like a brain and nerves.

tearing your eyes away from Leonard Kerrigan and only just remembering not to bare your teeth.
Pokemon instincts I see!

Only two of your pokémon are left, and you know Leonard Kerrigan has one.
WHO!!!

Maybe it's that this is where the child died--that's kind of hard to overlook.
So, I guess they really were human before this?

Who are you without it? Who are you now? Who are you?
I have a feeling this will keep coming up. This poor child clearly places a high value on their stolen identities.

You turn around, grinning. It's okay. You have it again. It's safe. And your eyes meet the horrified stares of every trainer in the place, most now on their feet. A couple are releasing pokémon.

Your smile only gets wider. Something seems to have come loose in your head. You can't think. But you feel you ought to say something into the stunned silence, something apt and witty. You flip through your mental notebook, looking for the right phrase.

And there it is. Still grinning, you say, "Don't worry, I can pay for that." Then you lean forward over the pokédex and charge for the doors.
Ok, idk why but this made me chuckle. It's both disturbing and utterly ridiculous. Continually amused by this child constantly trying to do 'human' things.

"Did you eat the human?"
Child: :oops:

casting his incantations over the computer.
Love how he's described as 'casting incantations' over his computer.

you can just taste the edges of his dreams
Hm! Dream powers? or maybe just psychic powers? I guess the Child has Mew-ish powers, which might allow some glimpse at dreams. Curious.

There's only one of everything here: one coat hanging on the hooks by the door, one umbrella in the holder. The smells of unwashed human and dishware overwhelm your sensitive nose; you can see the kitchen down the hall, stacks of plates piled in the sink and garbage overflowing from the can.
I like how you show the messiness here instead of just saying 'the house looked depressing and messy'.

Secret agents are cool, after all.
Once again, the Child lives up to his name

He's been in storage for a long time, and you wonder whether anyone even bothered to explain to him what happened before putting him away.
Okay but this raises a lot of questions like.... is the PC system just awkward stasis then, with the pokemon wasting away obliviously? That's harsh!

Your grin stretches wider and wider, splitting Matt Kerrigan's face ear to ear as jaws reconfigure to accommodate the new rows of teeth forcing their way out of your gums, gleaming sharp in the dim light. Fingers grow claws and irises bleed to red as you stare into Leonard Kerrigan's eyes.
A friendly smile!

It is like the way shadows bend when they flow over blood?
I like that Absol kind of makes no sense here because I wouldn't expect it to be something easily explained

Only later would the child wonder how Absol managed to find the pokéball buried in a pile of soot in some no-account corner of Cinnabar Island.
:absus:

The child will win those badges. It will enter the tournament. And it will meet the trainer who holds the key to its future--its future, and that of its mother.

But first, someone else will have to die.
To be the very best, like no one ever was~

ohohohoho

"Aww, what's this, now? The great Nathaniel Morgan running scared from a few angry monkeys?"
THERE HE IS

If that fails, he'll be on his own and you'll look to your other, dwindling options.
I'm sure we'll never see him again.

I think that concludes my thoughts. I hear the story really picks up after this and doesn't hop around quite so much, so I look forward to it! Happy Writing!
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
Arguments, even quiet ones, are obvious in clipped and angry voices, and anytime Steelix weighs in, even at what he considers a whisper, his voice shivers everything in the clearing.
goddammit, I realize the obvious addition to Salvage mafia should've been Steelix and the only reason Pen didn't suggest it is because she doesn't understand the untapped goldmine that is I AM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY WE ARE VOTING?

In general I think it's a testament to the cast/characters here that a chapter about people yelling next to fires, after a chapter about people yelling at people and running away from fires, continues to have excellent moments and a really engaging premise. I like how Mightyena's trying to solve things on her own, how she's desperate to prove she's still got faith by inadvertently doing the thing that means she doesn't have faith, how Raticate responds about care. Titan not getting why Nate's pokemon love him (he's mean! and part of team rocket! who could like mean people!!?!?) is such a good way to run back into Mightyena/Rats conflict, how Mightyena's willing to forgive and ignore, how Raticate isn't, the slapback when Titan has to justify why he wants to stay with the child, how for once the child is just watching and observing, lesson learned from Rats. I really wasn't sure how the conflict would go for these sections in the woods where there isn't really a clear cut goal or solution, and the answer is, people argue, it's really sad, I watch with rapt attention eating popcorn and trying not to linequote every line.

(the battle in the second half is still sick, and I love the image of arcanine riders vs Steelix)

And Titan, baby, still using "she" for his trainer even when it doesn't remotely see itself as her any more ...

"Maybe you don't actually steal things or crush people or whatever, but aren't you kind of Accomplice #1: The Stairs?"

"What do you mean? Do you mean lifting Nate up if he needs to go somewhere up high? Of course I help with things like that." Steelix hums for a long moment, as if thinking. "Why? Is that—that's not a bad thing. What do you mean?"

"Anyway," Raticate says
steelix is the best character i am not accepting arguments to the contrary, thank you
(except also both raticate are great for having the all-eternal all-suffering role of trying to explain basics of how the world works to their super powerful friends and then being like, yaknow, fuck it, pick your battles)

The great Nathaniel Morgan grits his teeth, and you close your eyes, just waiting for the explosion. "Look, it's like I said before, all right? This is the way it is. You don't gotta hang around if you don't want to. You don't gotta put up with my shit. But if you stick around, what the fuck else are you expecting?"

"You'd rather have me leave than even try to change?"
"I don't know," the great Nathaniel Morgan says quietly. "I don't think I know how to be different."
Oh hey I hope these themes aren't important ever

Finally he manages to extricate himself from Raticate and Mightyena and drape himself over Steelix's snout like someone trying to hug a car hood, still laughing and now rubbing at the divot between the steel-type's eyes with his knuckles. Steelix's pleasure-rumbles make your molars vibrate, and it's too much.
This continues to be the best image in a sea of best images.

But Rats doesn't take no for an answer, just climbs into your lap, shoving her face up against your chin. You wrap your arms around her and squeeze tight, grateful for her warm solidity despite the whiskers jabbing at your face. A smoky smell settles over you, and here's Titan. The charizard makes nervous grumbling noises and nudges at your shoulder, and a faint drone and tingling on the back of your neck say Thunderstorm's here, too.
For all of the hurt everyone goes through (I think the hip cool kids call it whump? I do not know), it lands a lot better when it's balanced by the few wins they manage to scrape. Even if it totally lasts.

concluding thoughts: Togeticcccc, baby. I may have revisited this chapter for Reasons anyway to see if she and Duskull have spoken dialogue. I didn't remember her having any, but somehow reading it here makes it so much sadder--a smol friend just whimpering that wouldn't it be great if we weren't dicks to each other? And in a brighter world that could mean something, but she's talking to the child, and I've read the next few chapters and people continue to be dicks, so here we are. Overall I was most struck by the image closing the first scene, of the child and Togetic caught in their natures and yet both unable to bring themselves to face the conflict--it makes for a good mirror for the Nate/Mightyena conflict/resolution.

Breaking here before the Orre section. Curious when we'll see Nate/crew again; I can't imagine you'll let him be happy for too long.
 
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