Pokémon Gods and Demons

[WildBoots]

Hey Keleri! I've been meaning to make time for Gods and Demons for a while--sorry it's taken me so long to get to it!

As I was reading, there were definitely a few things that caught my interest and a few things that gave me pause. I feel like I remember that this is a completed story with a sequel, so I totally get if you're not super interested in addressing any of the crit here: feel free to skim over it. It's fun to see a project that's been so lavishly developed! (I can't imagine how you've been running this sucker on FFN all this time without being able to add in external links.) Lots to sift through! I haven't really dug through what's on your deviantart and only glanced quickly at what was immediately related to the chapter. I don't doubt that your region design and choice of fakemon tells a good part of the story and lore by itself, but for now I'll only be commenting on what the text presents. I also saw your end note about how it takes a while for the events of the prologue to fold into the main story (hahaha, love the teasing self-awareness there), so I'm kinda treating this like a one-shot in the same universe; I'm betting I'll get to chapter 24 eventually, but it might take me a while.

Your prose is pretty and reads very much like a high fantasy book, though there were a few places where I felt it was clunky. (See below.) What I noticed most strongly here was the sense of rhythm. It adds to the feel of an ancient world with solemn traditions and duties underlying the televised surface-level stuff. That divide is almost like a character unto itself here, with the Nocturna/Gen split, the stage above/the magical prison below.

I actually think I got a stronger sense of those oppositional forces than I did of Gen herself in this prologue. She likes dark-types, she has an at-home Peter Parker persona, she competent, and she feels a connection to Old Duties. In all of those aspects, she's more of a symbolic figure than a person. That might be alright since she's not one of our main three. Presumably, she's just here to tease The Big Bad. (Which makes me wonder what this chapter would've looked like from the POV of Totally Chill Mystery Friend. We'd miss a little of your world-building ... but I assume there will be other opportunities for Trainer Stuff in the first few chapters, and it seems not-as-relevant to the problem of the Thing Sleeping Below.)

The exploration of social media, crowds, and sponsors was really fun though! I love seeing that stuff play out, both the on-screen drama and glory ... and the drain of it. The fans to generate photo-worthy cape fluttering was especially nice, kinda funny and distasteful at the same time.

I was pleasantly surprised to see callbacks to familiar regions and pokemon. It's a nice grounding force in this original setting with original pokemon and original characters. I hope it's a continuing thread!

Spoiler: Line Reactions

Prologue
Prisons / Vigils / Preludes and Nocturnes / A Warning / A Fall, Down Into the Dark

I see we're doing the Going Postal method of chapter naming. 👀

leaving broad gouges in the substrate or floating above it.

Gouges floating above the substrate? Also worth noting that "substrate" is one of your frequently used words. (That and gout.) A good word, but might be worth mixing up.

her cape and robes billowing in timed gusts from carefully placed wind machines.

Oh, I love/hate this detail.

rolled to a stop and turned to energy, fainting, the mega evolution falling away.

I was a little unsure what happened here. Is the "turning to energy" just reverting to its base form? It sounds like it's being recalled.

Nocturna shut the door on her last few guests, pulling off the mask of her gym leader's costume and becoming Genevieve Park again.

Nice. Masked Royal vibes, huh?

Gaiien's original inhabitants, the people of the Second Crossing.

👀
(Wait, if the Second Crossing = the first inhabitants, what's the first crossing??? 👀 )

but more importantly, the match had been well-attended and appreciated, and the audience thrilled by the ripples of power and skill of the trainers.

Priorities! This is probably one of the clearest character moments we get for her.

Orthrus stumped over. "Good fight?" they chorused.

Gen petted the zweilous's heads as she waited for the dizzy spell to pass.

I wish the species name had been dropped when we first got their name, because I wasn't sure what to picture when ... something ... lifted its heads.

There had been a crackdown recently on nepotistic gym appointments,

!
Really taking a step away from canon here, lol. 👏

several of those pokémon had since left, amicably traded,

This is an interesting dynamic. Feels fitting since the pokemon here seem to be able to speak in plain English* (Common?). Though oof at "trading" paired against apparent sapience. I guess I'll have to see how that plays out!

She didn't need a constantly rotating roster to keep everyone below level thirty,

Hm, skeptical of "levels." For me, it immediately puts things in a gamey space. I'm not sure I know what it means to be level 30 in a narrative sense.

so their strength would decline naturally after the rush of the summer season.

This makes sense, though. Interesting!

Porphyry City's steady rains might be preferable to the meters of snow and brutal wind that would turn the old mountain castle icy, and leave her alone in its echoing chambers as the staff departed.

The previous gym leaders always had.

Always had ... what? Unclear from the previous sentences.

The bipedal griffin straightened, looked at her sternly. "Don't do this, Gen," he said.

"I know, Albus. But I can't not."

Beyond the door was a vertical tunnel, and on the caligryph's back she floated down, down, down.

Another weird sapience moment. I wanted to see this argument play out a little longer or at least see Albus sigh, eye roll, because otherwise it's strange to me to see an intelligent plea not to do something that melds immediately into following her orders anyway and literally carrying her.

It hit the barrier and hissed.

I had a little trouble picturing where this was in space since it's juxtaposed to the movement of Gen and her pokemon descending the tunnel.

From her pockets she produced a plate and a vial, and she spilled the vial on the plate, and with an iron rod she pushed the plate across an invisible line.

The rhythm didn't work for me here. I wanted this to be split into at least 2 sentences.

The creature licked at the blood, dragging the plate across the stone.

Oh, weird that you withheld that it was blood in the vial. Made this sentence land weirdly because it made me double back to see if I'd missed something.

Things could pass the shield, but not it, not pokémon.

This was a little hard to parse.

scanned it with her pokédex and deleted the scans before she went back up, before it could sync.

Why delete the scans exactly? It seems like getting as much information about this thing as possible would be good, especially since it seems like "They" definitely already know it's here?

But a gym leadership was more than a cushy summer position, more than teaching, more than battling. Type specialists had stood as bulwarks against strange and terrible things, once. They still could.

I liked this sentiment! I suspect this will be an ongoing theme in G&D.

One last thing: throughout, Gen references her feelings about duty ... but it wasn't clear to me whether she thought that was a duty to keep the thing locked up or to heed its requests to be freed. I would've liked to know more clearly where she stands.

Predictions: it seems obvious that Blue Friend will inevitably escape, and probably that won't be a problem at all, knowing how much it likes blood. Sounds great. I've got a lot of questions about what it means to be an actual god in this setting, given how powerful regular pokemon are (even being able to casually and commonly grab hold of lightning "like a god"). Definitely sounds like something you'll explore in detail throughout the story with a title like that, lol. I'm also hype to continue to watch the interplay between conflict with literal gods and the more mundane logistics we're already seeing. I really enjoy that juxtaposition, and you're bringing it to life with lots of nice sensory detail. I'm hoping that the first few proper chapters give me a birds-eye overview of this region. As much as I admire the amount of multimedia work you've put in, I hate having to flip pages to look at a map even in a published novel, let alone a fic I'm reading on my phone. T^T It'll be interesting to see how our main trio compares to this godly figure we've glimpsed and this powerful gym leader. Something tells me you won't be starting the kiddos at "level 30."

Alright, see you sometime soon for the first full chapter!

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Hey there, dearest Keleri~ Can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to actually reading some G&D, but Hell Year is what it is. I could use some crazed god-and/or-devil-punching energy at this time in my life, so I hope this is just the start of my getting really stuck into this. I've been looking forward to this, not least because what I've seen of your prose to date is genuinely exquisite. Hope it's as evident here as it was last time I glanced at an RP post of yours~

Always a cool move to open with some sick art. I like the energy in that pic, good stuff, and looking forward to getting to know these poor bastards who find themselves in a Kel fic.

(Looks like there's meant to be another pic at the head of the OP, but it's broken as I write this, just to let you know.)

Also, nice A/N in general, but specifically I wanna say that's a hell of a lot of fakemon, good lord. And a sick map, love to see a sick map. And the words "Unincorporated Territory" on a map. Hhhngh.

Anyway, the goddamn prologue, let's fucking go.

First up, that gorgeous prose is very much in force here as I'd hoped, as is that Keleri-core sensibility about pokémon battles and worldbuilding. I instantly fucking loved those electivire and drapion mega evolutions, holy shit. Incredible stuff. I like the way 'Nocturna' is Gen's gym leader persona, I like the way you allude to regulations and PR, I like the tiering system, I like that long winters without battling lead to level-decline, I like the flow of the prose. This is gorgeous stuff and appeals to me, specifically, very much. Nice work hyperlinking to the fakemon, by the way. Nice work on the fakemon, too. Fascinated by the imprisoned 'mon. Fascinated by the worldbuilding of the Crossings. And absolutely thrilled with... I was gonna say the final passage and its exquisite drip-feed of dread, but honestly? The whole fucking thing. Good shit. Good shit.

Consider me hooked by this thing that will be irrelevant for another 24 fucking chapters, you motherfucker. <3