Blitz 2024: Hype and Rec Thread

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, sliding in a bit late for this. I honestly had trouble settling on just one story plus four honorable mentions to highlight for this week, but after handicapping slightly for less popular (by views) fare that I read, I wound up going with my heart in the end:

Weekly Fic Rec: Week 2​

The Foolish Oddish by @Negrek

This is actually one of those fics that I started in Week 1 where the only reason why I didn't mention it in my recommendation then was because the author wasn't new to me. Well, fortunately for me, this is a week focused specifically on catching up on stories we've already read, and I was fortunate enough to have the time to come back to it and give it a bit of a spotlight.

The Foolish Oddish is a three-part short story following Ragweed, who starts out as an Oddish who wants for nothing in her life as a Mystery Dungeon encounter beyond stories to collect, and Elkesiss, a fidgety and hyper Zubat with his (nonexistent) eyes set for one day seeing the world outside their dungeon through the cave exit far, far below. One thing leads to another and the two begin to form a budding friendship based on the promise of a grand tale that will last all the way to the journey to the outside world, which works swimmingly... at first.

It's a very well-done story showing life through the eyes of a character where even things we take for granted like sunsets and not having half your neighbors vanish off to parts unknown when you wake up are alien concepts, and at various points, it will make you smile and laugh, and wince and start to grow misty-eyed in others. It has a lot of worldbuilding and lorecrafting all put together for characters that would quite literally be disposable extras in most others from its genre.

Everything about the story just oozes polish, and the prose does an amazing job getting readers into the head and thought process of Ragweed while breathing what would otherwise be samey procedurally generated environments with their random encounters to life. It might be a bit of a lift to still grab a repeat bonus for Week 2 from this story, but if you're into PMD stories and have the time and energy to throw at a 12k three-parter, this one's well worth your attention.

Honorable Mentions:

I, Isobel by @NebulaDreams , The Origin of Storms by @Sike Saner , Making It Big by @Pen , What the Gods Gave Me by @tomatorade

 

[windskull]

Week 2 recs! This time, my top rec would be Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Path of Valor by @Ambyssin

At the time of writing, I have read through chapter 32. Up to this point, PoV has already been a zaney, fun, and quirky adventure full of memorable characters. It already had a lot of moving villainous parts, something that I really enjoyed. But the chapter I just finished throws a whole new wrench into things and into everything I thought I knew about the story. And from I heard, it only gets wilder from here (in a good way!) I definitely want to come back and read more before the end of blitz, even though it'll be out of theme for the remainder. And I highly recommend it if you like your action/adventure with a slice of comedy.

Honerable Mentions:
1. Hands of Creation by @Namohysip
2. Warped Skies by @Team_Ion
3. Fledglings by @Spiteful Murkrow and @Virgil

 

[Ambyssin]

So, if you were paying any attention to my week 2 output, it should come as no surprise that my recommendation is @SnapDragon's PMD: Flowerbeds. In some fit of craziness I managed to catch up on the entire thing this week. Which, given the meaty chapter sizes, is no small feat. It therefore speaks to the degree that Snap's A plot has my attention. Despite a smaller core cast by typical PMD fic standards, there are a number of moving pieces that interact in interesting ways. It's an original PMD world where there's an alluring blend of human technology with things like a big castle. There's a good deal of politicking happening in the background that's threatening to boil over and swallow up our humans.

It's also unique in that it is a slow burn romance story. Not usually my sort of thing, but the fic does use it to grapple with themes of self and identity in a way many PMD fics don't tend to touch on. Particularly with their human characters. It's also very, very gay. I feel that I should warn interested readers that, despite the more mellow sounding premise, there is a certain level of violence here that isn't typically depicted in PMD fare. And it's not for the sake of "Ow, the edge," either. The fic wants this stuff front and center as its lead character has to grapple with these elements as part of the identity themes. In all, there are a lot of unique elements that make for an enjoyable read.

 

[Arukona]

My rec for Week 2 is @Ambyssin's Path of Valor! This fic is a wild ride - more than 100 chapters long, but each chapter is a modest 5k-ish, so it does make it easier to get through than it might seem at first. It has a lot to like about, key among which for me is the humour that gets a good laugh out of me, something I don't tend to get a whole lot of out of fics. It also has a big cast, a lot of whom I'm very fond of, and characters that are plenty likeable and easy to gravitate towards. There's also an abundance of references to other media in here, namely Final Fantasy, and without spoiling too much, in the later chapters there are some mainline Trainerfic elements brought into the fold, something PMD fics don't tend to do a whole lot of, and I know that might appeal to the more mainline-oriented writers on here.

Certainly looking back at some of the early chapters from where I am in the fic - precisely at Chapter 100 - it certainly feels like a completely different fic from where it starts out, in a good way. How a fic goes through its metamorphosis is always a key curiosity for me when I read fics, and honestly? For me, the feeling of seeing that development play out, looking back to the early chapters and thinking, "We've come a long way since the start, haven't we?" is enough of a reason to get through a longfic like this one.

 

[Negrek]

This week's Blitz theme is one-shots! These bite-sized stories can sometimes go unnoticed alongside sprawling epics, so we'd like to give them some love this week.

Where can you find one-shots to review? One place is from our most recent writing contest, which was focused on daily life in the Pokémon World! You can find links to all the entries that have been published in this round-up post.

Drabble collections can also count as one-shots if you review the drabbles as a set (and they add up to at least 250 words total)! People often publish drabbles after our annual Anniversary Drabble Bingo event, and you can find a list of all of them from 2024 in this post.

And of course, people post new one-shots to the forum all the time! Here's a list of other Pokémon one-shots that have been posted on the forums since the start of last September:

- "Somehow I Created the Universe" by StolenMadWolf
- "You Can Always be Found" by Inyssa
- "The Road to Cinnabar" by windskull
- "Perigee" by windskull
- "To the Letter" by ErazonPo3
- "Wild Horses in Winter" by icomeanon6
- "kaeru" by kintsugi
- "The Perils of Pumpkin Spice" by SparklingBlue
- "Bruxish's Lament" by KandyKorn
- "Fifty Glimpses in Fifty Sentences" by Audrelite
- "Curse of Void" by Namohysip
- "Gakutensoku--A Little Something Extra" by Blackjack Gabbiani
- "The Last Baron" by Arukona
- SVTember Drabble Collection by Blackjack Gabbiani
- "Let's Meet on the Moon" by Nonakin
- "Too Damn Early" by Raindropcroptop

We've also had some fun non-Pokémon one-shots posted recently, so if you see a franchise here you love or just feel like taking a break from Pokéfic, give them a try!

- "a love (not really) like a rebound spike" by lisianthus (Haikyuu!!)
- "Since the World Was Born" by love (Okami)
- "The Beast and the Beast" by NebulaDreams (Darkstalkers)
- "An Unbreakable Bond" by ShinyMachoke (Cuphead)

And of course, if you have one-shots you'd like for people to check out, feel free to highlight them in the Self-Promo Thread!

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, sliding in fashionably late in the week and walltime-wise. I honestly had trouble settling on two particular choices for my top pick that both dealt with different but related flavors of heavy themes, but in the end, I wound up going with the one of the two that also had coffee in it:

Weekly Fic Rec: Week 3​

Gathering Moss by @NebulaDreams

Alright, so a decent chunk of you might have already seen or heard of Gathering Moss since it was one of two first-place stories in last year's writing contest here onsite. From what I could see from it, the story quite earned the accolades, but let's get into the nitty-gritty of why you should read this thing:

So for the uninitiated Gathering Moss is a story about coffee, and the almost 2000-year old Golurk who soldiers on making it in a café they keep open in memory of a recently deceased trainer, up until the day they're forced to content with their own looming mortality that suddenly isn't just a distant hypothetical. So, you know, less about coffee, and more coming to terms with death, the fleeting nature of life, and its purpose. All as the hired Mogrem baker turns the kitchen in the back into a perpetual disaster zone.

For those of you who read some of @NebulaDreams ' fare in the past, you'll likely find the general contours of the world quite familiar since it's effectively a spinoff to I, Isobel, but the worldbuilding is quite imaginative, and the characterization is on-point throughout. It effortlessly weaves the past and the present together in different scenes and pulls off a surprising mix of levity and somberness with a convincing and heartfelt exploration of what it's like to realize that your days are numbered and then trying to come to terms with it.

It's a bit up there in terms of length at around 9400 words in length plus a foreword and an afterword, but nothing about the story ever feels superfluous or out of place. If you happen to have time to spare for it, make a cup of coffee and dig in sometime before Week 3 ends. Just check your eyes for stray moisture at the end.

Honorable Mentions:

Searching for a Resolution by @JFought , Day by Day by @windskull , Go by @Dragonfree , A Perfect World by @BestLizard