Pokémon NEO-A-LIFE

[K_S]

Hi , here for the last gasp of week one. Tango mentioned this fic, so i thought i'd say hi via review and a warm welcome to the forum.


Aww our first white collar crime story. And non-trainer centric. Sounds like a blast. Lets see how it goes.

Chapter 1: White Paper
-Cassandra-​

Who was I? I was a faceless employee in the Celadon City branch of some company you’d never heard of that sold widgets to another company you’d never heard of. I’d have stated my job title, but to state your employment like that involves some degree of identification, and I did not identify myself with them

Love how smart she is. Going independent in a tight nit world like this screams ambition. But it also cuts off the perks of portfolio and networking. Still the distancing between swlf and corperate identity is a gutsy one that i think most of your okder readers are definitly going to grasp.

I personally like the fact that she's being so careful about it too

. I am not an “accounts receivable representative.” I am a researcher on artificial Pokemon.

This is what I repeated to myself as I came home from another uninspiring day at work. The view of my studio apartment was hardly a balm to the soul. The corner of my workdesk was occupied by a used cup of ramen, broth droplets solidified into a cloudy paste. The white refrigerator in the corner froze everything I stored on the top shelf. My tower of folders had toppled and the papers fanned out by the leg of the desk.

Instead of dealing with any of this, I tiptoed over the pool of notes into my office chair and began copying my annotations from Stolringer’s “Problematic Methodologies in Porygon Protein Synthesis” into my text editor. I’d gotten this copy from Saffron University’s library, the school where I’d been a researcher working on Castform generation. It was only a few years ago that I was in a lab working with the lead of the Castform project before our project was declared obsolete and budget cuts eliminated our department

I wouldnt count her as a failure as she was cut off from resources from higher powers (aka money bags). Thats chance not error.

. I couldn’t justify paying Saffron rents anymore, but I had no plans to return to Ecruteak, city of conservatism and stagnation. Celadon rents were more affordable, and I could at least bike to Saffron to borrow books from their library.

I finished copying my annotations and posted them to my blog. Just because I couldn’t research in a university didn’t mean I couldn’t research at all, right? It was amazing how many people cared about it. “Porygon Revival” was the leading blog on documenting the original Porygon project. But perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me, for Porygon had a unique allure. Other artificial Pokemon, once generated, were no different from any other Pokemon. Porygon alone could be connected to a source, be de-synthesized and re-synthesized elsewhere, and even execute commands in virtual space. It was this trait - decompositionality, we called it - that eluded us enthusiasts.

My lips cracked from thirst. I pulled out a near frozen bottle of soda pop from the fridge, and cracked it open. It was in some horrid state between slushie and liquid, but I drank it anyway. It didn’t taste good, but it was a welcome sensory novelty. Thirst quenched, I checked the comments on the blog. The regulars were here, posting links to journals I didn’t know, correcting my errors, and, most importantly, there was Antoine, the man who had one-sidedly declared himself my rival. I propped my chin on my hand to see what he’d written today.

“When are you going to stop this nonsense? Artificial Pokemon generation is extremely dangerous. We barely know anything about how Pokemon physiology works and you continue to have the gall to try your hand. You’ve learned nothing from the failures of the Aether foundation. Porygon’s extensibility is not a toy.”

Love how the trolls just make her sink her claws in deeper. She will pwrsue this potential spawning of a legendary be hung...

He’d left one hundred such comments on my blog. This one was concise - he would often leave page-long screeds on decision theory and how artificial Pokemon synthesis was objectively foolish. I felt flattered, really, that he thought I had the know-how to create a Pokemon that could destroy the world. For just a moment, I felt I wasn’t a failure from some backwater town trying to edge my way into a world that clearly didn’t want me.

Having finished the comments, I turned to my emails. I rarely got any, but today there was one bolded title.

Sender: NEO A-LIFE
Topic: Porygon White Paper
Body:
Dear Cassandra,
Your research on the Porygon project is truly astonishing. You’ve made incredible progress on reconstructing the details.
My name is Emily LeVant, and I am the founder of NEO-A-LIFE. We’re a startup that focuses on Porygon generation. I’m looking for a researcher who knows their Porygon stuff, and you seem like you fit the bill. We have access to documents you may find intriguing. I have attached, for your eyes only, a snippet of the original Porygon white paper. This is the intellectual property of NEO-A-LIFE. Do not upload this anywhere.
I’d like to meet with you to discuss the possibility of you joining our team. I will be in Celadon City for the weekend.
Yours,
Emily

I ran the attachment through the antivirus. No hits.

My... inner computer nerd is dying. Theres so many other tests you should use to check... but i'll leave my vermersitude obsession on the back shelf.

Opening. “Towards the first virtual Pokemon: Porygon. Authors: Anisha Abad, James McClinton, Marcello Garcia. We present here a novel method for creating the world’s first decompositional artificial Pokemon, named Porygon. Using this method, Porygon is able to both keep a physical form and move in the digital world…”

My hands felt numb. There was no way this could be it. And yet, it seemed to be. The authors were legitimate; I’d read about most of them beforehand. I’d never seen this abstract, and what they described made sense, but without the methods, it wasn’t entirely clear. It was inconceivable. Who was Emily, and was she seriously pitching me to join her company?

I looked them up on the internet. Emily herself was apparently related to the head of a prestigious mining company in Hoenn. Her headshot on the website for NEO-A-LIFE showed a woman of small stature with glossy black hair, pink cheeks, and a big smile. She seemed… adorable? Anyone can start a company, but she seemed a little sweet-looking to be a startup founder.

Snorts. Those are the dangerous ones. They commit crimes, look innocent, and you feel guilty for blaming them...

Its a perfect workaround stratagy.

There wasn’t as much on NEO-A-LIFE. Just about everything on the company seemed to be made by Emily herself. A slick webpage with stock images of skyscrapers taking up half the page, bold font saying “Pokemon. Reimagined,” “The world is dynamic. Your Pokemon should be, too,” and more vague copy that didn’t really say anything but sure sounded enticing. “Using decompositional biology and identity-preserving eigenstructures, NEO-A-LIFE delivers scalable solutions at an affordable price.”

It was weird. It was obviously weird. Okay, maybe it was a real startup, but who just emails people out of the blue asking them to join their company? Or is this normal?

It can happen if youre outstanding in certian internet domains... but nine times out of ten its schmuck bait. Wonder whixh way this will tumble?

I’d never been part of the corporate world. I forsook money to make a difference (although I ended up not doing that, either). Maybe I was the one who didn’t get it.

My heart raced and I had to get up and pace from one corner of this room to the other. I wove around the backpack and folders scattered carelessly across the floor, occasionally brushing my ankle against them. It couldn’t be real. It was too perfect. But it seemed like the real Porygon white paper. Where did she get that? How could I read the rest of it?

A familiar pressure pulsed in my temples. I grabbed the Pokeball I always kept in the bowl and headed out for fresh air. I let Magnezone out of his ball. I saw his silhouette in white before his features became clearer, and he rotated his magnets in happiness at seeing me.

“Nice to see you too,” I said. “Wanna go for a walk with me? I need to clear my head.”

Aww she's got a Magnezone rubber ducky (tech geek term, basically shes using her mag' as a vent device) how fitting

Magnezone made his affirmative sound, and I raced him to the ground floor down the stairs. He won, of course, because he can just float down, but it’s a habit we established, and it got the blood pumping. I emerged from the stairwell to see him at the exit, screws tightening and loosening in anticipation.

“Oh, you won again!” I said in mock horror. “How will I ever catch up to you?” I scratched my ear. “Let’s take a walk to the department store.”

It was cloudy out, but I didn't mind. Harsh sunlight would reflect off Magnezone and I didn’t think to bring my sunglasses.

“Okay, so Magnezone, I need you to hear me out. I got this email from some lady who’s starting a company. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention to it, but she has the original Porygon white paper. And you know how much I want to make a Porygon.”

Magnezone buzzed.

“This company, it looks like it’s real. But I don’t know about this. Like, do you really think that I should meet up with her? What if she’s crazy?”

Magnezone made another sound. I wished he had a human understanding of the world. I felt his judgment would be fantastic. But his world was not my world. He’d been my companion since he was just a little Magnemite, and I would always talk to him when I needed a sounding board. He didn’t fully understand; I once caught him falling asleep when I explained the complexities of academic funding politics. But whether he got it or not, he was still my buddy, and it felt good to share these things with him.

My lips cracked again - apparently soda pop didn’t really quench your thirst. We finally arrived at the Celadon department store, and I headed to the water fountain by the side of the building. “So,” I asked between gulps, “should I do it?”

Magnezone stared at me with his unblinking red eye. I wiped the water on my chin off with the back of my hand. It was not fair to expect Magnezone to make such a decision for me. His world was electromagnetism, battle, floating, not major career decisions in your late twenties. Still, I wished he could talk to me like those Rotom talk to humans in Alola.

I stopped, stepped away from the water fountain, and closed my eyes. Pros of meeting with Emily - I’d get to learn more about this mysterious Porygon white paper. Con - she could be a serial killer (epistemic status: unlikely) or a weirdo (possible?). Pros of not meeting with Emily - I’d get to stay home. Cons - I would never know what’s in that paper.

My teeth chewed the inside of my mouth. “I can’t spend the rest of my life not knowing what the deal with this paper is. I’m going to set up a meeting with her.”

Did curiousity kill the cast, well this cast member/ cat, only follow up reading will tell!

He seemed pleased with this, though for what reason I could not say. I loved his joy anyway.

I prompted him to enter his Pokeball before entering the department store - he was a little too big to have floating around in cramped spaces. I bought some of his favorite Poke Puffs and felt his Pokeball rattle as I passed through the automatic doors. I tapped the ball twice to let him know it’s safe to come out. He wriggled in anticipation and I tossed him his cupcakes. He ate them in his inscrutable way as we returned home in the setting sun’s light. All I could think of was what I was going to write:

“Dear Emily, I’m interested. How about this Saturday at 3:00 PM at the cafe by the department store?”

Overall this work is a wonderful, and incredibly real feeling, slice of life drama in a real 'mon world backdrop. I loved Cassandra's bond with her 'zone, theres a ton of unspoken story there, as well as to how she got here in a gen sense.

What made her not journey, what was the social fall out, ect... and thats actually a good thing since theres future chaptwrs to hopefully answer some of that and describe her dwscent into the madcap world of artificial mon spawning.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, came back for more of this story since I liked what I saw of the first chapter, but felt like I needed to bite off and chew a bit more to see where things were going and form an opinion about things, so I’m here for the next two chapters to see where Cassandra and her saga trying to make custom Digimon drinky birds goes:

Chapter 2

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

-Emily-​

OwO

What’s this?

It was 3:15PM, and my interviewee was late. I figured she’d be punctual since she said she lived close, and yet I was alone at this fashionable cafe with a room temperature latte. I checked my phone and caught a message from her:

Cassandra: Sorry, got caught up in something, I am on my way!

inb4 her Magnezone accidentally fried her computer or something like that.

Nothing to do but wait. I slipped the phone back into my purse and decided to start on the coffee. I tugged back the cuffs on my blazer - I really did need to get it tailored - and took a sip. Lukewarm, yet delicious. The roast was neither too acidic nor too bitter, and the ratio of coffee to milk was divine. Saffron may have been the center of technological investment, but Celadon remained the best city for food.

I mean, it’s also got game dev offices chilling there, so it’s not as if there’s no tech to be found in Celadon there. Though the ‘best city for food’ probably explains a few things about that tea sidequest in FRLG.

What I was doing - waiting for someone I'd cold-emailed to show up - was admittedly a little nuts. The fact that she agreed to do this was full on coconuts. I had been firing off emails to potential collaborators, but most of them got no response or polite dismissals. One person informed me that I was “stuck in the past” for wanting to continue the “failed paradigm” of Porygon research.

Cassandra was an intriguing deviation from the norm - years and years of obsessive posting on Porygon, trying to piece together the original paradigm. I’d spent hours reading her blog, until I got all the way back to the first post she made. It felt like a dream come true - someone invested in Porygon, with lab experience, and living in Celadon, to boot.

Would recommend hacking up Emily’s paragraph into two here and tweaking the wording slightly.

The dream was still a quarter of an hour late. I checked my phone again to see if there was any response. I looked up from the ‘no new notifications’ screen to take a sip of my coffee when I saw a woman with a frizz halo and bagged out chinos hovering over my table.

“Hey, are you Emily?”

I felt awkward trying to finish drinking my coffee and talking at the same time. Her gaze hung on me as I finished swallowing. “Yes, Emily LeVant. You must be Cassandra.”

Okay, yeah, Magnezone totally electrocuted something in her apartment, I can already tell.

“Yeah, I’m Cassandra,” she said, and she stuck her hand out, still standing. I shook her hand and was surprised at how firm her grip was. Was this a power play, or did she not realize this was over the top? “I’m sorry I’m late.” She took a chair across from me. “I don’t live far from here, so I got a little too confident about how quickly I could get here.”

There was no photo of her on her site, yet she didn’t look how I expected. Her chestnut brown hair was gathered in a ponytail, sneaking out and curling behind her ears. Most noticeable about her were her eyes, which seemed to focus on me as if I were the most interesting person in the world. I felt like a bug under a microscope.

Huh. Guess I misunderstood what was meant by “frizz halo” there. Though I find it interesting that Emily is a lot less skeptical about Cassandra than the other way around.

“I’m glad you could make it,” I said. “I’m really excited to talk to you about this. I’ve read your blog top to bottom.”

“Seriously? I’m happy to hear that!” The comment had rosied her cheeks. “I’ve been interested in Porygon for basically my entire life. I don’t even really understand how anyone can not be obsessed with Porygon. We synthesized a Pokemon. In the 90s. This should have been a revolution!”

So what was the thing that killed Porygon’s momentum anyways? Seizure-related lawsuits?

“Trust me, I’ve heard it all. When the Porygon2 project didn’t even make it into space, it killed investor interest in custom synthetic Pokemon.”

Ahhhh. Yeah, that would do it there…

Cassandra giggled awkwardly. “There’s this guy on my blog who’s constantly telling me that my research is going to lead to some Type:Null-like disaster. Dude, it’s Porygon. It’s such a mild Pokemon!” She looked at my empty mug of coffee. “Oh yeah, do you mind if I order something?”

Again, let’s not even get into how if we take Porygon’s game behavior at face value, that it’s dangerously close to being able to create a Gray Goo scenario if Porygon instances don’t die faster than they can lay eggs for new ones.

“Not at all,” I said, and she promptly placed an order, coming back with a number. I couldn’t tell what her gimmick was. Chatty, unprofessionally dressed, and unpunctual. Perhaps some kind of wunderkind cosplay?

No, this is just your archetypical amateur developer. ^^;

[ ]

“So,” she said, “I would love to hear more about this Porygon white paper you messaged me about.”

I tapped the handle of my mug. [ ]

“Before we get into that, I want to talk to you about this venture I want to build. I think it will help you understand.”

I think that it probably makes sense to give a bit more detail about the way that Cassandra is reacting here and the thoughts going through Emily’s head about how everything’s going at the moment.

She nodded, and I took a deep breath. Pitch time. “So, I’m sure you know what makes Porygon special among artificial Pokemon. The fact that we can upload its consciousness, have it work in the digital world, and then come back to a physical form…”

“Decompositionality, yes,” she said, a little impatiently.

“Exactly,” I said. “Porygon is much more flexible than any other artificial Pokemon. We only began to explore this functionality with Conversion. But I think we can go further. We can make Porygon with custom typings, stats, moves. Porygon can be something that we build for your use case in particular. Instead of having to go through the hassle of dealing with Pokemon breeders, why not just get what you need, right away?”

Wait a minute… isn’t this basically like two steps removed from the way all those Mirage Pokémon in that one anime special worked?

Cassandra watched me as I spoke, her eyes never leaving mine. I found it hard to tell if I was reaching her.

“So, your goal is to make custom Porygon? And sell them?”

“Yes. We at NEO-A-LIFE want to create Porygon for specialized applications. Rescue teams, security guards, industrial settings, you name it. We could have a ghost/dark Porygon for a security team and built in data-monitoring to improve security routines. We could have Porygon with particular move combinations that no organic Pokemon could have. We’re targeting institutions that need to work with Pokemon at massive scales.”

I mean, that does sound pretty nifty. And not far removed from that one protean “Pokémon that tracks its trainer’s attributes” or whatever that was allegedly being played around with internally at Game Freak according to leaks earlier this year.

She nodded slowly, her gaze loosely hanging over her coffee cup. “I never really considered joining a company, but … it’s interesting… I mean, I think that the issue with the Porygon project and space was just that they didn’t realize what they had on their hands. There was this big ambition about sending Porygon to space and when it didn’t work out, instead of pivoting, it’s like everyone lost their imagination and stopped using it entirely.”

[ ]

“‘Oh, artificial Pokemon aren’t really useful.’ It’s nonsense, but the paradigm just lost steam. I think… making it more about customization could be a good idea.” Her eyes snapped back. “But without knowing how to make Porygon, I’m not sure we can move forward with this.”

I feel that Cassandra’s dialogue is long enough that it’s probably worth dividing into two and dropping something in between the two halves. Though I have to wonder if the reason why Porygon flamed out was because of just how much money it took to make the first one. Since a number of R&D projects IRL ultimately wind up faltering and not making it over the finish line because they stumble at the part where they need to figure out how to actually make their product affordably enough to be commercially viable.

Still focused on the white paper. That obsessive focus wasn’t just for the blog. “Of course, without access to the source code, we can’t make any Porygon and our project’s dead in the water. That’s why getting this made NEO-A-LIFE possible.”

I opened the binder I had placed on the table and turned it to Cassandra. She read intently, and I could tell there was no point in trying to talk to her as she scanned the paper. I waited, though not for long; she read quickly. She finished the first two pages and turned back to me.

Oh, so they’re basically attempting to rewrite the source code for Porygon to make a new batch. Or at least I think that’s the implication there.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before. How did you get this?”

“I did a lot of research on people who worked on the original Porygon project. One of them was willing to send me a copy of this. He was very passionate about continuing research on Porygon, but he told me his days of science were over. He wanted us to carry the torch.”

Cassandra curled her lips inward. [ ]

“We don’t have the source code, do we?”

I smiled. “Actually, that was another one of his parting gifts. We have the source code. What we need is someone who knows how to interpret it, and how to work a lab. We need someone who can create new Porygon. Someone like you.”

Well then. Though I’m unsure whether or not it makes more sense to talk about ‘interpreting’ source code versus ‘analyzing’ or ‘documenting’ it. Since if you have the source code and a suitable compiler and IDE, you can look at it just fine. But you won’t necessarily be able to make heads or tails of it in the absence of documentation explaining what does what in it.

She was trying to stay composed, but she was blinking a lot.

“That’s… wow. That’s amazing. You have the source code… but why do you need me? I’m not the only person who’s worked in artificial Pokemon synthesis,” she said. She wasn’t hooked yet, but she was looking for a reason to be. [ ]

“You’re right. If you want someone to generate Castform, you can easily go to the Hoenn weather institute. But I’m not looking for Castform. I’m not looking for someone who breeds Porygon. I’m looking for a person who is passionate about synthesizing Porygon, who knows everything about it, and has the skills to bring it to life. The number of people meeting my requirements is quite small. You are part of that number.”

I feel as if it would make sense to bring up something from Emily’s perspective about how Cassandra just needs a little extra push or something like that.

[ ]
“What exactly do you want me to do? As part of this NEO-A-LIFE.”

“I want you to be my technical lead. You will be in charge of a team of scientists tasked with making the Porygon we need. You will receive equity in the company.”

Translation: you’re going to work cray-cray hours and earn peanuts in the way of actual pay in the hopes that this startup makes it long enough to get to an IPO.

[ ]

“Where is the money? I mean, how are we going to get the money?”

I liked that ‘we’. “I don’t know if you know my father. Michael LeVant. He runs a successful resource extraction company in Hoenn. My two older brothers work with him. I wanted to go my own way. He’s funding our research and development. Once we get a viable product, it’s off to the races.”

I feel like it probably makes sense to show off Cassandra’s reaction there, since I assume that she’s intended to be a bit skeptical at the moment here.

I waited with bated breath. She seemed to be weighing the options. “I… this sounds really interesting. But I don’t know if I’m ready to join a startup. It wasn’t in my plans…”

“What else have you got going on?”

Silence. “Well, I’m working as an… accounts receivable representative at…” She trailed off.

Wow, she realized in live-time just how terrible and unimpressive her job sounded while getting the words out, huh?

[ ]

“Think about it. I’ve already got lab space rented out in Saffron.”

“Saffron?” Her eyes bugged. “No way, I can’t afford that. You don’t seriously expect me to commute there every day? I mean, I bike there every now and then to check out the library, but it’d kill my legs.”

[ ]

“You can room with me,” I blurted. “Just temporarily. You can sleep in a room in the lab. Startup life isn’t always glamorous, but we have options.”

[ ]

“Look,” I reached across the table, “Cassandra, this is going to be big. There are massive inefficiencies in the current Pokemon breeding paradigm. Everyone’s so focused on battling that nobody thinks about the institutional applications. I believe that Porygon can change the world. Do you?”

A few more spots where I feel it would be worth touching a bit more on how the characters are reacting and what’s going through Emily’s head here. Though does that mean that NEO-A-LIFE will eventually wind up making those Poryphones that are around in Masters? /s

Our eyes locked, and the world seemed to go still for a second before she broke gaze. “I will think about it.”

I pulled back. “Of course. It’s a big decision. I hope you’ll think it over carefully.” I pulled out a business card - one of a few I had - and handed it over for her. She read it. [ ]

“Well, thanks for waiting for me,” she said. Her eyes flicked to the binder. “I can’t get a copy of that, can I…?”

“It’s property of NEO-A-LIFE.”

I mean, really, Cassandra. What on earth were you expecting there?

She puffed out her nose a little. “Mmm, I see. Well, thank you anyway. I’ll sleep on it.” She waved awkwardly before walking away.

I waited for her to leave before I went to the counter and ordered a big mug of coffee and banana nut bread. I sat back down and took out my list of leads. If Cassandra didn’t join, I didn’t have a lot of options. I tapped my fingers on the walnut furniture, surprisingly tasteful for a cafe in a department store. She’ll join - she has to. This project couldn’t end before it even began.

Cassandra’s going to come back in about 10 minutes and accept the position, isn’t she?

The coffee and bread arrived, both steaming hot. The bread was so moist I could easily carve a chunk off with my spoon. It tasted as sweet as it smelled, though the crust was a touch burnt. At least Cassandra picked a decent place. My overgrown gel manicure caught my eye as I tapped the mug; it could use a touch-up too. Thankfully Cassandra didn’t seem like the type to get caught up on appearances. Then again, that would be a problem if I really brought her on board. She would definitely need to be polished before I showed her to any investors…

Not sure if this is exactly a good sign there given that Emily’s already talking about changing the way that Cassandra presents herself before others.

With the mug emptied of its contents, I stopped to consider my next move. The coffee shop was full of customers, several of whom had their Pokemon out, and I decided to join them. I released Clefable, who materialized on the chair next to me.

“Clefable!” she chimed, looking at the leftovers of my banana nut bread.

“You can have it if you like, glutton.” She took it in her little paws, sat down, and carefully began eating. She looked comically disproportionate in the human-sized chair with her stumpy legs.

Oh, so Emily’s Clefable does this on a regular basis, huh? :p

[ ]

“I’m staying in Celadon for one more day,” I explained. “It would be more convenient that way if Cassandra decides to hop on board.” I checked my phone on a hunch, but nothing from her. “If nothing else, we can get some shopping done. I need to freshen up my shoe collection a little. And you’d look adorable with a satin ribbon, wouldn’t you?”

I think that it probably makes sense to have some sort of interaction between Clefable and Emily before Emily speaks up, e.x. if Clefable is shooting a puzzled look at her or something like that.

Her eyes lit up, as I knew they would - Clefable’s vanity outmatched mine. “Finish up your snack and we’ll have a little budget-friendly shopping spree. If things work out, we’re going to have to keep tightening our belts.”

Small typo there.

Clefable narrowed her eyes at me, but there was no arguing the point. She wasn’t paying rent - she didn’t even understand the concept. I’d probably pout too if all my housing were taken care of. Well, this was the first time I’d had to actually pay rent; daddy always took care of that sort of thing. I saw why the general population was so stressed all the time.

She swallowed the last of the dessert and stood up, excited to browse the stands. We headed to a trendy store for Pokemon accessories. The selection of ribbons was much nicer than anything else they had at Saffron - colors, materials, trims. I spotted a gorgeous magenta ribbon in a smooth finish - genuine silk. It would make a striking contrast to Clefable’s bubblegum pink fur. But real silk was expensive and a hassle to clean. Clefable looked cute and played mean; she’d tear through this in nothing. I put the spool back on its hook.

I mean, I buy it given that positioning-wise, Celadon’s a bit closer to Shibuya than Saffron is. Yes, yes, I know that it’s closer still to Setagaya.

Clefable found an emerald green ribbon in a nylon - a tasteful and durable choice. “You want this one?” I asked. She nods, placing it behind her ear to show where she wanted to wear it. I purchased it and checked my watch. It was late. My shoe shopping spree would have to wait for another day.

Well, that’s one way to stick to a budget. Though I wonder just how late in the day her meeting with Cassandra was, since this sure didn’t feel like a lot of time had passed.

<><><>

I returned to the cheap hotel room I’ve paid for. Minimum amenities. I kicked my shoes off on the bed, and I checked my phone again. Nothing. I took a shower, changed into my pajamas. Clefable’s ball was on the headstand, next to the alarm clock and next to my head. I wished we could have had the chance to battle in Celadon. She was a scrappy fighter. She’d make a hell of a negotiator. Maybe that’s what she was in her previous life.

I feel like there’s enough of a jump in time and place that it probably would’ve been worth considering making this a separate scene, especially since we very abruptly leave the department store from the last chapter.

I tucked myself into bed, and reached to turn the phone vibration off when it buzzed.

I unlocked it. One message.

Cassandra: It’s Cass. I’m in.

Wow, that was fast there.

There's a recurring theme in the Pokedex entries for Porygon2 that it was somehow planned to go into space. Obviously one should take Pokedex entries with a grain of salt, but it would actually make sense that a Pokemon like Porygon(2) would be meant for space. It has no need to breathe or eat, for one. Some of the entries suggest that Porygon2 was prepared to go into space, but most of them say it say failed.

I pulled up Porygon2’s BP page and… huh, interesting there. Though if you wanted to sprinkle in a specific callout to why Porygon2 apparently failed for its intended purpose, you might find this ‘dex entry handy:

Even though it doesn't die in the vacuum of space, it can't move around very well in zero gravity. - Ultra Moon

Some food for thought anyways.

Emily awkwardly waiting in a cute Celadon cafe to interview some rando on the internet. Incredible life decisions on display here.

Truly a good omen for how this startup is going to wind up being run.

Chapter 3

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

-Emily-​

Oh hey, we’re following Emily’s perspective again. Guess we’ll see how things wind up going from here, since I admittedly was expecting things to toggle back to Cassandra here.

Everything happened so quickly, yet it felt like we’d been living like this for years. Cassandra informed me that she was ready to join the company “because working on Porygon is the chance of a lifetime.” Her landlord was alright with subleasing, and we were lucky that an aspiring gym trainee desperately wanted a place not far from Celadon's gym. The only real furniture she had were bookshelves, a desk, and a bed frame. Even with that, it was too much for us to lift on our own, and so we hired the Machoke Moving Company to help us out.

Ah yes, rooming with someone that you’ve met for all of 30 minutes for the sake of your startup. If nothing else, you can’t say that Emily isn’t daring about the way she runs NEO-A-LIFE.

They made fast work of packing and unloading in the Saffron office. Her new home would be a spare room in the lab, her office/bedroom. Not too different from my own sleeping arrangement. Once the Machoke had left, she ripped open the boxes to try to bring order back to this new place. Her books were in complete disarray - we had to pack them so quickly that we couldn’t preserve the meticulous shelf order she’d come up with.

Whelp, that’s one workday lost there.

It must have been crazy for her. This was what I had wanted, and yet it was objectively insane. We barely knew each other beyond a shared passion for Porygon and now we lived under the same roof. We needed something to mark this occasion, a ritual - something I had already planned, of course. The mini-fridge in the empty main room was stocked for just this occasion.

So what’s the over/under of them eventually getting a barrel full of Atomic Fireball candies sometime around the first crunch period? /s

I walked into her office/bedroom, my hands cradling a cool bottle of prosecco. “Hey, think you can take a break? We've worked pretty hard today. We should have a little drink.”

She was trying to figure out where to shelve “Principles of Pokemon Linguistics” and “Magnemite: A Concise Introduction,” her blue eyes scanning the haphazardly stuffed brown bookcase for a meaningful slot.

I take it that that prototype translator rotting in Devon Corp’s basement must’ve gotten impressively far into development given that there’s out and out academic literature devoted to the study of Pokémon language.

“Sounds good,” she mumbled. “Just give me a minute, I don’t remember if I put these together under ‘social science’ or if the Magnemite one goes under ‘pop history’...”

I bit my lip. Turned out the whole twitchy neurotic thing wasn’t an act to look like a crazed genius. I suppressed a sigh and said, “c’mon, there’s nothing urgent about getting these books in order. Magnemite can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?”

Sure is a good thing you committed to staying under the same roof with Cassandra for the foreseeable future, huh?

She rested her head against her inclined pointer finger, which in turn bent back to a ferocious degree. “You’re right. Magnemite can wait.” She lifted herself off the floor and clapped her hands together. “We should celebrate! I mean, I’m here, I made it!” She laughed nervously. “Quit my job…”

“And good riddance, I say. You’re wasted as an office worker. One day we are going to be the ones hiring accounts receivable representatives.”

I jerked my chin towards an empty corner of the main room. I’d set up some cheese and crackers, the absolute cheapest I could find at Saffron Grocery prices. I wished we could have had a tasteful brie, but bargain bin cheddar would have to do. I twisted the cork off with a napkined hand and watched the topper ricochet against the wall before falling ignominiously to the floor. The froth rose and I quickly tipped a tipple into our two plastic champagne flutes.

I like how Emily very clearly is used to a much more extravagant lifestyle but is having to heavily reel things in because “lol, no budget” at the moment. It definitely communicates quite a bit about her in between the lines.

“To NEO-A-LIFE. To Porygon. To the future,” I toasted, and the glasses clinked in union.

“To the future,” said Cassandra, and we both took a sip. It was not very good, but she smiled and said it was tasty. [ ]

“Hey, come to think of it, do you have Pokemon? I don’t think I’ve met yours.”

I think that it probably would’ve made sense to give a bit more of a transition into things before Cassandra speaks up again. e.x. Something showing off her mood or else of Emily’s internal thought process.

“True,” I said, and I walked to my purse and released Clefable from her Love Ball. She took form before Cassandra, her green nylon ribbon tied into a bow behind her ear. “This is Clefable, one of my longest-tenured Pokemon partners.”

I feel that you’re missing something along with “longest” here in context. I wasn’t sure what the best option for it was, but something along the lines of “tenured” likely would’ve fit well.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Cassandra, who knelt and held out her hand. Clefable extended her paw and the two participated in a fascinating facsimile of a handshake. Cassandra then got up.

“Well, you showed me yours, I’ll show you mine. I’ve only really got Magnezone. Normally I wouldn’t let him out indoors, but this place is plenty spacious.” Her voice reverberated in the unfurnished room as if to prove a point.

She headed to her room and returned with a Great Ball. She clicked the white button and released Magnezone. She wasn’t wrong - it was a biggun. Clefable was relatively tall, but Magnezone was broad and dense, and its floating in space somehow made it seem to occupy even more vertical space.

Emily:

“... How did you get by living in a studio apartment with him anyways?”

“Magnezone, as I told you, this is Emily,” said Cassandra. “We’re going to be working together.” Magnezone rotated its enormous body towards me, staring me down with its three eyes. I rarely felt intimidated in the presence of Pokemon, but this one had the same potency of gaze as Cassandra, and I got the distinct impression that I was being judged.

Magnezone: “*I am judging you, just saying.*”

“Magnezone!” I said, eager to make a good impression. I wondered if the handshake thing was something Cassandra expected Pokemon to receive, and I foolishly held out my own hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Magnezone tilted itself towards me and rotated its enormous magnets near my hand before returning to its original position.

“I’ve had Magnezone since I was a kid,” said Cassandra, walking up to the beast. “He’s honestly like a confidante. He was actually a Magneton for a long time, and we were planning on keeping it that way, but I got to do a field trip to Mt. Coronet once and I told him and he really wanted to go. And how can you say no to a face like that?”

Oh, so that’s how she has a Magnezone. I hadn’t really questioned it, but I suppose that Cassandra really did hit the jackpot there.

I could think of a thousand and one ways to say no to a face like that, but I nodded at this story. I felt something at hearing her call this expressionless creature her confidante. Like calling a potted plant your best friend. Perhaps I was rushing to judge because an unblinking red eye and a pair of pinprick pupils were locked on me constantly and I swore I felt a negative vibe emanating from the Steel-type. Or perhaps the prosecco was hitting. I made a mental note to google “are magnezone good judges of character” before going to sleep.

Oh, so ‘Google’ exists in this setting, duly noted.

Clefable walked up to Magnezone. “Clefay!” She twirled her finger, eyes glinting. [ ]

“I think she wants to battle,” I said.

[ ]

“Oh,” said Cassandra, “Magnezone isn’t really for battling.”

Mental record scratch. “Pardon?”

I think that you have a couple points here that would likely benefit from showing off more of Emily’s thought process playing out.

“I mean he can. He has. He’s not half bad, if I say so myself. No, I’m just kind of a terrible trainer. I did the whole rigamarole of your Year of Training. I don’t think I have the stuff for it.”

She had finished the glass and was halfway through a second one I hadn’t seen her pour. [ ]

“Look, it’s never really been my dream to become the champion, right? Honestly, the closest thing I had to a dream at that point was to get the hell out of Ecrutreak.”

“Now that, I didn’t expect. You are from Ecruteak?”

She rolled her eyes and took another gulp. “Yeah.”

Oh, there’s a story behind this one, I can already tell.

[ ]

“But it’s so…”

“Stuffy? Conservative? Backwards? Yeah. Yeah, I know.” She scratched her temples. “I stopped leading with that. If you’re from Ecruteak, everyone expects you to be into legendary Pokemon. ‘Oh, you’re gonna study Suicune? Ho-oh? Gonna meet a legendary?’ Like no, I’m not stuck in the past, shut up!”

I feel that it probably would’ve been worth showing off a bit of Emily’s internal thoughts and initial judgements regarding Ecruteak play out in her thought process before Cassandra speaks up here.

I grinned, sipping my prosecco. “Okay, no Ho-oh, but I feel like you could be a kimono girl. You’d look so elegant in a Bellosom print kimono.”

Her expression suggested this line of teasing wasn’t something she was interested in exploring.

So just how piercing is that glare coming from Cassandra right now? :p

“I have nothing to do with anything from that town. Nothing but a monument to worshiping the past. We’re here because we want to create the future.”

Damn, I can already tell that whatever story Cassandra has with Ecruteak, that it’s unhappy, to say the least.

“Hear, hear!” I said, raising my glass. “I’m from Rustboro. Not as stuffy as your Ecruteak, but it’s hard to escape the shadow of the Stone family. The LeVant family is as successful and yet nobody has ever heard of us.”

[ ]

“Same line of business?”

“We’re not quite as diversified as they are, but we are trying. Mostly resource extraction. My dad runs it now, and my two older brothers were groomed to take their place in the company.”

Could be worse, you could be from whatever family Riley is from up north in Sinnoh where… I have no clue what Riley does for his day job given that he apparently owns the defunct mines that are on Iron Island.

[ ]

“Is your dad a chauvinist or something?”

I laughed. “Not quite. He wanted me to take my place, too, but I didn’t want to just take something he’d made. I wanted to make my own thing. Although when I told them I wanted to start my own company, Larry said, ‘what are you doing, cosmetics?’”

Another spot where it probably would make sense to drop in a bit more of a reaction from Cassandra here.

Cassandra stuck out her tongue.

Cassandra: “Sure sounds like he’s a chauvinist to me, just saying…”

“And when I said I wanted to do tech, he said, ‘oh, so wearables?’ He’s a piece of work. They knew I’d been obsessed with Porygon since I was a little girl and they couldn’t connect it to this startup.” I shrugged. “I guess I can’t complain too much since they are still funding this.”

I kinda wonder if that could’ve been played up a bit harder in Emily’s thought process up to this point in the story, since admittedly I didn’t get the vibe that she cared as much about Porygon as Cassandra did up to this point.

[ ]
“I was wondering how you were able to afford all this. I thought maybe you were blowing your life savings on this.”

“I am using a lot of my trust fund,” I admitted. “But my dad liked the gumption to start something of my own and said he’d help. It’s not enough to fund the whole company. But look, Cassandra, if we can get that proof of concept, the first Porygon, and get some investors? We won’t need to rely on him. Well, he is technically an investor and he’s owed a share of profits, but I mean, he won’t be the majority shareholder.”

That sure sounds like you’re dependent on your dad, just saying, Emily. ^^;

[ ]

“He’s majority shareholder? Umm, I’m sorry, I don’t really understand all this… startup language,” she said, embarrassed. I’d forgotten in our tipsy zeal that her background was in academia (and apparently silk kimonos), not business.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We need to get some helpers to help you in the lab, and then we get our proof of concept, move towards the minimum viable product, and we can start working towards the fundraising round.”

Oh boy, I can already smell the shenanigans since startup culture can be wild in the tech space.

She nodded along, seemingly ignorant of everything I’d just said. [ ]

“When did you get into Porygon?” she asked. “I got into it as a teen. Honestly, not too long after meeting Magnemite. I’d made a trip into Goldenrod to their library and I read about the work Silph was doing in the 90s.”

[ ]

“I gotta say, those guys were visionaries. I think I felt my stomach flip when I read that they made a Pokemon. They made a Pokemon! This wasn’t altering a Pokemon that wasn’t already there, no Mewtwo, no Genesect, this is a Pokemon from scratch, and everyone seems to just… not care?”

“Porygon wasn’t exactly a strong battler,” I pointed out.

Cassandra: “Yeah, well so are Pikachu, but that doesn’t stop everyone and their grandmother from having some piece of merch with that yellow rat’s mug on it.” >_>;

“I feel like everything revolves around battle sometimes. Yes, sport is good, we get it, how about like… research? Knowledge? Wisdom?” She reached for the prosecco bottle only to find it empty. “Dangit."

I went to the mini-fridge and fetched us two beers. I’d been saving these for Friday wind-down, but I figured as co-founders we should get to know each other. As I walked back into the room, I saw Clefable and Magnezone had settled into a corner, having their own chat. Goodness only knows what they’re saying about us. I shook the thought out of my head and handed the opened bottle to Cassandra.

Whelp, I suppose that’s a sign that Cassandra is really out of the loop from the professional battling circuit.

“Thanks,” she said as she took the stout. “To be fair, it was not just the battling potential. Silph was really gung-ho on this idea that Porygon was going to take us into space. It was ambitious, really, but it didn’t work out. They poured all this money into making Porygon2 to go into space, and yet when they collaborated with Mossdeep Space Center, the Pokemon can’t even move in zero-g. Really embarrassing.”

Ah yes, there was our reference to the Ultra Moon Pokédex entry. Cute working it in there.

“And you know what incredible, paradigm-busting artificial Pokemon we got after that,” I said, setting up the beat…

“Castform!!” we said in uniform and collapsed laughing.

“Can’t go into space? Why not track the weather?” she giggled.

“Castform - the Pokemon that’s as effective as opening your window and looking at the sky! Only millions of Pokeyen to research!” I add.

I can already hear the frustrated seething from those meteorologists in Hoenn right about now.

“Castform - even worse than Porygon at battling.”

I wiped a tear from my eye. [ ]

“Castform. Yeesh. You want to know why I love Porygon? Say what you will about version 1, but I saw Porygon2 in battle and I was stunned. I’d never seen such a Pokemon like that before. And Porygon-Z is a machine. I knew we were leaving something on the table by not going further with it. Beautiful, incredible, unique.”

And also a glitchy, erratic mess there. Though I actually wonder if Porygon-Z was an official unreleased Silph product, or if it was someone’s homebrew that wound up getting popular.

“I’ve never owned one,” admitted Cassandra. “They’re… not easy to get a hold of in Johto.”

“I had one,” I said. “Didn’t work for my team. I did try the whole League thing out. But I couldn’t bear to get rid of it. It’s… gorgeous. I knew it was the shape of the future.”

I kinda wonder if this should’ve weighed on Emily’s thought process at all up to this point.

We stopped on that beat. She didn’t say anything, but I had the feeling that we were on the same wavelength for the first time. We came from opposite backgrounds, but we shared a vision, an obsession, and the audacity to bring it to life.

"They poured all this money into making Porygon2 to go into space, and yet when they collaborated with Mossdeep Space Center, the Pokemon can’t even move in zero-g."
A reference to the Pokedex entries such as the following from LeafGreen: "This upgraded version of Porygon is designed for space exploration. However, it can't even fly." My first thought for an organization that had gone to space would be Mossdeep, since they have rocket launches. I like to think Porygon2 got put on a test-flight but disappointed by not being able to move. It didn't die from not needing to breathe, which is good, but I guess they wanted full motion in space.

I was thinking more the UM one, since it basically says the same, it’s just more ambiguous about how bad Porygon2’s movement in 0G environments is.

Porygon received no further software updates from Silph, suggesting development on the program was halted. There was an unofficial update from Team Galactic engineers to produce Porygon-Z, but Porygon has seen no official or unofficial work since.

Huh, I completely forgot that you can find a Dubious Disc in the Team Galactic HQ. Not sure if I personally put stock in it being a TG invention since they become fairly widespread, but I could see an argument for TG having a role in things given that Charon’s antics canonically formed the basis for Rotom appliances in more recent generations.

“I stopped leading with that. If you’re from Ecruteak, everyone expects you to be into legendary Pokemon. ‘Oh, you’re gonna study Suicune? Ho-oh? Gonna meet a legendary?’ Like no, I’m not stuck in the past, shut up!”
I am actually a big fan of fics dealing with legendaries, but I thought it would be funny to have Cassandra be sort of ideologically opposed to being into legendaries, especially once associated with Ecruteak. She's just tired of the stereotype 😩

For what it’s worth, it makes for a pretty fun character dynamic to behold there.

No offense to Castform enthusiasts - I love Castform! But I always thought that it was very funny that this Pokemon was created to help with tracking climate, and yet its primary function is changing form based on the weather... which you can do by looking outside. Weather enthusiasts sometimes say if you want to know if it's going to rain soon, you're better served by looking out your window than checking an app. Castform feels a little overengineered in that regard. :P

I mean, that’s how you know that it was made by engineers outside of a business. Since engineers in general are infamous for overengineering in the absence of someone sitting on their shoulder and telling them to stop.

Alright, I think that I’ll leave things off here for now. But these were a neat set of chapters that helped introduce us to the face behind Cassandra’s cold email from the prior chapter. It’s certainly a fun contrast given how different of a background Emily has to Cassandra, and you got a lot of mileage from bouncing the two off each other in spite of them both being a bit nuts for Porygon there. The champagne scene in the Saffron office was an especial highlight in that regard. I admittedly found myself wishing we could’ve stayed in the technical weeds a bit more, but what was there was already fairly convincing, and we got introduced to the intricacies of the brave new world of startup culture… which I can already tell is going to lead to some scenes to behold down the road. I also liked how you worked in all the little bits and pieces of series lore about Porygon and its line into this story. It’s a refreshing deep dive for a Pokémon line that’s basically a novelty outside of Porygon-Z for most people in the games.

In terms of things that didn’t quite stick the landing for me, while I enjoyed these past two chapters, I did find a number of spots where I found myself wishing that we could’ve seen more of Emily’s thought process playing out. Especially in light of some of the big character reveals about her that come out in Chapter 3 such as her being similarly a fanatic about Porygon and once having a Porygon-Z that she’s at least in some respects trying to recapture the magic of, or her relationship with her father and brothers that feel like they should’ve been things that colored her thought process well before when they get revealed in her back and forth with Cassandra.

But even what’s there before any further revisions was already a lot of fun to read, and definitely one of the most refreshing fics I’ve read in a while (I’m biased towards the premise, sue me). Hope the feedback was helpful, @Goolix , and I’ll be looking forward to coming back for more sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future.

 

[Dragonfree]

I figured it would be nice to try to review at least one actual new face for this week, and this one is an intriguing premise that also comes highly recommended by several people around me, so here's a review on chapter one!

This is what I repeated to myself as I came home from another uninspiring day at work. The view of my studio apartment was hardly a balm to the soul. The corner of my workdesk was occupied by a used cup of ramen, broth droplets solidified into a cloudy paste. The white refrigerator in the corner froze everything I stored on the top shelf. My tower of folders had toppled and the papers fanned out by the leg of the desk.

Great example of scene-setting and characterization by just choosing the right details to describe. This is a bit of a human disaster living in a dinky apartment where things sort of work and she doesn't bother with trying to go beyond that.

Thirst quenched, I checked the comments on the blog. The regulars were here, posting links to journals I didn’t know, correcting my errors, and, most importantly, there was Antoine, the man who had one-sidedly declared himself my rival. I propped my chin on my hand to see what he’d written today.

“When are you going to stop this nonsense? Artificial Pokemon generation is extremely dangerous. We barely know anything about how Pokemon physiology works and you continue to have the gall to try your hand. You’ve learned nothing from the failures of the Aether foundation. Porygon’s extensibility is not a toy.”

He’d left one hundred such comments on my blog. This one was concise - he would often leave page-long screeds on decision theory and how artificial Pokemon synthesis was objectively foolish. I felt flattered, really, that he thought I had the know-how to create a Pokemon that could destroy the world. For just a moment, I felt I wasn’t a failure from some backwater town trying to edge my way into a world that clearly didn’t want me.

Oh boy. Definitely making me think of AI doom discourse, but also, this feels like foreshadowing that they will in fact be biting off way more than they can chew here.

There wasn’t as much on NEO-A-LIFE. Just about everything on the company seemed to be made by Emily herself. A slick webpage with stock images of skyscrapers taking up half the page, bold font saying “Pokemon. Reimagined,” “The world is dynamic. Your Pokemon should be, too,” and more vague copy that didn’t really say anything but sure sounded enticing. “Using decompositional biology and identity-preserving eigenstructures, NEO-A-LIFE delivers scalable solutions at an affordable price.”

Hahahaha, amazing. Corporate slop in the Pokémon world.

I'm enjoying the portrayal of Magnezone, and of the narrator's relationship with Magnezone, so far. Having a little race down the stairs that he always wins but gets her blood pressure going is cute. I'm a fan of well-characterized Pokémon who feel like more than an accessory to the trainer, and it's lovely to see especially with a Pokémon that's not as easily anthropomorphized as many other species.

He seemed pleased with this, though for what reason I could not say. I loved his joy anyway.

It strikes me that it might have been fun to hear more about exactly how a Magnezone expresses joy here! It's an unusual Pokémon, so in a story where it seems like an important character it feels appropriate to develop its body language a bit.

I prompted him to enter his Pokeball before entering the department store - he was a little too big to have floating around in cramped spaces. I bought some of his favorite Poke Puffs and felt his Pokeball rattle as I passed through the automatic doors. I tapped the ball twice to let him know it’s safe to come out. He wriggled in anticipation and I tossed him his cupcakes.

I like the portrayal of the Pokéball here; it's lowkey but the way that both sendout and release are something the Pokémon has to choose to do and the trainer just prompts them to is neat and not how you usually see it being done in fanfic.

A short and sweet opening chapter! There's not too much happening, just yet, but with the space you had, you've done a nice job of introducing and characterizing the main character and her Magnezone, introducing the premise of trying to create a new Porygon, and creating intrigue. Emily's vague corporate placeholder website and how she got her hands on the original Porygon whitepaper (which she's claiming as NEO-A-LIFE's intellectual property, hmm) sounds super sketchy and weird, and Antoine's concerns feel like they're going to mean considerably more than the protagonist thinks. And yet, of course our narrator is intrigued: she's been researching artificial Pokémon, holds out a blog on Porygon, and regardless of the sketchiness, there's the whitepaper, and of course she's dying to know where Emily got it.

It's hard to say too much more just yet about where things might be headed, but it's an intriguing start. I don't know exactly how much time I'll have over Blitz, but hopefully I'll be able to return for some more next week (though I'm also working on Will Somebody Stop These Kids?). A few nitpicks below, mostly about tenses and grammar.

Spoiler: Nitpicks

It was only a few years ago that I was in a lab working with the lead of the Castform project before our project was declared obsolete and budget cuts eliminated our department. I couldn’t justify paying Saffron rents anymore, but I had no plans to return to Ecruteak, city of conservatism and stagnation. Celadon rents were more affordable, and I could at least bike to Saffron to borrow books from their library.

With the overall narration being in the past tense, this bit becomes a bit ambiguous - it's actually referring to an even earlier past (a few years ago), but still uses the simple past tense to talk about it as if it's referring to the current past, which legitimately confused me a little as to whether she's currently unable to justify Saffron rents (and thus is currently living in Saffron but planning to move to Celadon) or at the time the project was discontinued was unable to (and thus already moved to Celadon). I think what you're going for should be something like:

It'd been only a few years ago that I'd been in a lab working with the lead of the Castform project before our project had been declared obsolete and budget cuts had eliminated our department. I'd been unable to justify paying the Saffron rents after that, but I'd had no plans to return to Ecruteak, city of conservatism and stagnation. Celadon rents were more affortable, and I could at least bike to Saffron to borrow books from their library.

I pulled out a near frozen bottle of soda pop from the fridge, and cracked it open.

Generally, when you have the comma-and construction, there should be complete sentences with a subject and verb on either side of it; if what comes after the and is not a complete sentence, you don't want the comma there.

Sender: NEO A-LIFE

In both the title of the fic and later references, it's NEO-A-LIFE, with hyphens between all three words, but here in the sender there's a space...? Maybe it's intentional as a first-name NEO last-name A-LIFE thing, but it made me pause.

I let Magnezone out of his ball. I saw his silhouette in white before his features became clearer, and he rotated his magnets in happiness at seeing me.

The "I saw..." filtering feels a bit noticeably odd to me here, I think because it sort of calls special attention and weight to the "seeing his silhouette in white" bit, as if it's something unusual for her to witness, only for it to then turn out to just be the routine way that Pokémon come out of a ball, something the narrator would actually presumably barely even notice.

He won, of course, because he can just float down, but it’s a habit we established

With the past tense narration, again, you want "it was a habit we'd established".

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Review for Ch1-3

I've had this recommended to me by the lovely @Flyg0n, who deserves some kudos for bringing it to my attention. With no exaggeration, it's extremely much my jam.

For starters, I deeply enjoy the specificity of the premise. Like, sure, I do have a soft spot for Porygon myself anyway, but even if that weren't the case, it's just kinda delightful how unique it is. It's almost audaciously unlike most any pokémon fanfic concept I've seen, and not in a glamorous way, but by being about an ostensibly dry topic. Although, of course, both Cass and Emily are passionate enough about ~building the future~ for it to be infectious. I'm rooting for them! It's hard not to root for them, honestly. You've got me rooting for a pair of weirdos doing a tech startup. Nice.

About those weirdos. Cass is, of course, not the first endearingly awkward nerd gal I've taken a liking to in fic. I write plenty of neurotic failgirls of my own. However, I think what I find particularly charming about her is her unapologetic resentment of everything from Ecruteak to Castform, and her... I wanna say, singlemindedness? Stuff like pressing Emily for the white paper, making all her bold declarations, ignoring the obnoxious reply guy, etc. and especially her flat refusal of the request to battle. It's refreshing that she comes off as unconcerned with how she's perceived by others, and that in some sense Emily is the more anxious and people-pleasing of the two. It doesn't really strike me as confident self-assuredness so much as intellectual conviction and knowing very much what she does and doesn't like.

I love that she has a somewhat bizarre objectmon for a partner. and that he's characterised so well. The confidante thing, the judging stare of discernment, the rotating magnet appendage to 'shake hands', and so on. The way his bulk is described as taking up so much office space as to be intimidating, the evo backstory about Mt Coronet, the stair-racing tradition. He gets so much individuality, it's delightful. I also love how the partnership seems almost to be one of peers, despite the compelling way he's said to be thoroughly uninterested in and incapable of appreciating human workplace politics and suchlike – it's not so much that they're colleagues or anything, it's more that I just appreciate any human/'mon dynamic where casual communication and attentiveness demonstrate real consideration for the partner. I love this sort of stuff.

Clefable we've seen a little less of by Ch3, I think, but she's also charming. In particular, I enjoy that she has a taste for certain attire, and no appreciation for budgetary realities when shopping. Kinda like having a child capable of combat sports hanging around with you. I'm curious about the Porygon that Emily previously had, and wonder if we'll see them show up.

And as for Emily herself, I figured she'd be a little bit of an oddball when Cass identified her picture as being adorable. Of course her lexical register and general concerns are those of a business heiress and entrepreneurial CEO, but she's sweet. And a little neurotic in her own right, mostly in that she really wants to connect personally with Cass. I like the little details that show this, like the way she just immediately cracks open the beers instead of calling it at the prosecco, or that she hypothesises that Cass' disheveled weirdo schtick is a bit, rather than just what Cass is like. (Emily, darling, she's just autistic. It's fine. Most everyone in your setting is, anyway.) I think one of my favourite moments from her was when she launched into a canned spiel about the venture, the pitch, and immediately bores/frustrates the woman whose obsessive special interest blog she just spent hours reading and knows all this already.

I deeply enjoy the verisimilitude of this fic. I'm no expert in tech startups or anything else, but I'm broadly knowledgeable enough to clock the stuff in the prose as being realistic. The bit about scalable solutions at an affordable price struck me as being a standard bit of worthless marketing copy that basically translates as "you can pay us to do things at scale". The type of shit you see on generic corporate websites with all the individuality of meticulously-mown suburban lawn grass. Ironically, put here in contrast to Emily's passionate weirdo Porygon fixation, that bland jargon becomes another example of characterising specificity – Emily is a person who tries to meet expectations. Cass is not.

In general, the prose is fuckin great, too. It's got texture. Plenty of little details that efficiently set the scene while also telling us about the characters (I spent a few minutes losing my mind last night after discovering – by way of Cass – that too-low fridge settings are a real problem for some people) while also being very good technically. Small note: few instances of present tense fossilisation in the final paragraphs of Ch2. Anyway. It's good writing, chief.

Naturally, I will be reading the rest of this~

 

[Chibi Pika]

Hi there! I've been wanting to check out your stuff for a while since I just generally enjoy your takes on writing and worldbuilding in the chat, and now seemed like the perfect opportunity! Let's dive in~

First of all, I really like the focus on what life in the Pokemon world is like for adults who aren't involved in training culture, it's something I'm always thinking about in my portrayal of the Pokemon world (despite writing a very standard trainerfic lol). I feel like it's so easy to fall into the trap of "there are Trainers™ and there are normal people" but I love seeing the mundane ways that Pokemon shape people's lives and interactions even and especially when they aren't on a trainer journey. Even aside from the obvious of "this is a fic about two gals making a bunch of Porygon" I'm really liking the charming specificity of the interactions with Magnezone, for instance.

Anyway! Cassandra comes off as very specific right off the bat, you do a good job of indirectly conveying the type of person she is from pretty much the get go, and the relatability of "I am not my job title" is a huge mood. Nice bit of flavor with the online comments having That One Guy who seems to think you are somehow capable of enacting some crazy hyperbolic result that can only be stopped by a noble internet keyboard warrior (although the funny thing is that she actually is about to wind up in the position to make some waves in the artificial Pokemon scene, lol).

The fact that Cassandra regularly gets big mad about how people invented Porygon in the 90s and no one cares is just such a great detail. I feel like a lot of world-changing science very quickly becomes very mundane according to everyday people, even when it really is a big deal! Also, the emphasis that even among artificial Pokemon, Porygon is unique. I feel like Gen 1 made a big deal about omg wow an artificial Pokemon!! and nowadays we just have so many artificial Pokemon, from the dubious side-cases of "Pokemon that arose naturally in response to human enviromental influence" to "genetic freaks (affectionate)" to "oh wait no people just went and made Golett like a thousand years ago, ok." But Porygon still stands alone in the being able to stay conscious and do stuff in cyberspace front, and--okay wait yeah canis is right, Porygon is just a Digimon.

At first I thought that Emily had sent the entire Porygon white paper, which is... quite a showing of trust! But nope, it's just an enticing excerpt--just enough to make it clear that this is the real deal, while also tempting her with the promise of more. Getting to stay home and not leave the house is a compelling pro... but nah, of course she's gotta jump on it. I like to think Magnezone approves of this. Side note, but I liked getting a very clear mental image of Emily from the description about her looking too adorable to be a CEO lol. Also, I think we have all seen that exact stock website template one billion times. Tbh I can't blame Emily for just going for the default Squarespace vibe on that, it's obviously not her main focus here.

I wasn't expecting the switch to Emily POV for chapter 2! I was gonna say she's more analytical than Cassandra, but that's not quite right... I guess she feels analytical about different things. It's fun to get an outside view of the character whose head we've just spent a chapter in, in a way that makes them feel like a bug being studied (affectionately). She comes off as very likable and reasonable while also being very clearly privileged in a realistic and grounded way. It's also convenient for the reader to not have to wonder about how the protagonists' shenanigans are being funded--it's covered, moving on! I enjoyed the two girls bonding over drinks and getting more loose with the banter and rambling in a way that felt very natural and gradual than a lot of media that tends to be like "whoops I am now drunk" as if simply being tipsy weren't a thing.

More fun details: Cassandra did the Year Of Training which is normal and unremarkable for pretty much everyone, and the vibe that even non- Trainers are expected to battle Pokemon every now and then, so it stands out that it's not Magnezone's thing. Love that. Also, getting big mad at Ecruteak culture is fun, even though I'm over here like "history and culture are important!" but like, characters having a canned rant that I disagree with is good actually, and it makes perfect sense for her to overreact after being asked the same questions a zillion times. Also canned rants are a really good way to make characters instantly memorable, I always say that the best way to write someone being a fan of something is to have them get big mad at some aspect of that thing that other people are oblivious to, although that's more relevant to the 'artificial Pokemon' side of things here. See also, Castform being a marvel of science and inferior to an open window.

Anyway, good fic, will be back soon enough~

 

[Nekodatta]

Catching up with the new chapter on Week 2!

Spoiler: Chapter 6

It was so compact, so pale. I focused on it to avoid the stone in my heart from knowing I hadn’t brought it into the world.

I feel so bad for Cassandra, this is her lifelong dream and yet she can barely enjoy the moment!

“I have Mimikyu,” said Antonio.

“Arcanine,” said Kumiko.

This is an amazing coincidence, but I'll have you know that in Timeslip I *also* have a guy with a Spanish sounding name part of a research team that has a Mimikyu and this part made me lol
Well.... fanmade Future Paradox Mimikyu, to be exact, but what are the chances...
Also not sure if you did it intentionally or not, but I like that Kumiko has a Pokémon that's supereffective against Magnezone.
Just that little extra thing to subconsciously weigh on Cassandra's mind...

“It’s pretty exciting,” I admit, shoving my hands in my pockets and feeling the miniaturized ball there.

A tense slip here

The saucer-shaped creature beeped,. I

Punctuation typo!

This was old-school. Modern Porygon tended to have more moves at this age. This Porygon was unaltered from how they made them in the 90s.

Ahah, I love this explanation of the different movesets in different gens.
It's the one Pokémon were "moveset changes" in different gens can literally be canon in universe, just make it different patches/updates.

That was a little curious - even among older Porygon, they tended to have a deeper magenta coloration. This sky blue and cotton candy pink color scheme was more reminiscent of a baby’s crib than the average Porygon. A variant I’d seen photos of before, but not a common one.

I'm trying to think back if the different coloration is a reference to an old sprite... Is it referencing the Stadium games model? That one does look much paler than its usual depiction.

Steel types like him were not considered easy Pokemon to keep in a city. I kept him anyway. What wouldn’t you do for a buddy?

That's a good point, but I also like Cassandra not caring about it because she loves her Magnezone so much.
However it does feel a bit strange to have the narration switch in first person suddenly with the "I kept him anyway"

I leaned my head on my hand, incredulous at how the people at Silph created a being with what appeared to be so many emergent characteristics. For a Pokemon meant to go into space, there’s no reason to need to taste, but it sure acts like it can taste.

I really liked this part, mostly because I like thinking about little things like these. It tells a lot about the *people* that created Porygon that they decided to program those little "useless" things that however make it that little bit more life-like. If Porygon couldn't enjoy tasting things, it would act a little less like a living creature and a little more like just a machine.

What value did I add to the team as someone who had last worked in a lab several years ago? I thought back to Emily’s little wink and grin; was it pity that she assigned me the role of Porygon minder?

I think her value is going to be that she's the only one that actually sees Porygon as a living thing and not just an opportunity for money. Emily's reaction was kind of strange: she did have a Porygon in the past yet barely wanted to even touch it, and even Antonio and Kumiko didn't look that eager to do it...

So, this chapter was a lot of fun with Cassandra's first interactions with Porygon. It's so cute! It's quite interesting because it's technically a newborn Pokémon having literally just been "born", but since it has preprogrammed knowledge it doesn't *quite* act like a newborn Pokémon would. It's interesting. I also really liked the detail that since this is a original 1.0 vanilla Porygon with its Gen I moveset, its move literally work differently from how they do in the present.
It's really cool because again, Porygon is maybe the only Pokémon where you can play around with things like that and give them an in universe explanation.
The chapter ends on an exciting note, with them ready to tackle custom typing, so I'm really curious to see how that will go... and also a bit worried, because Kumiko has been commenting and studying the code until now so she would be looking for the function that handles how Conversion works...
Also figuring out how to add the dual type will be a big hurdle they need to overcome!
I'm also kinda worried if messing with the code is going to create some accidents in other Porygons...

 

[Negrek]

Hey, Goolix! I enjoyed your contest entry earlier this year, so I was excited to check out the expanded version once you began posting it. That was a great decision! I've been having a lot of fun with it so far.

I love the idea of looking at startup culture in the Pokémon World. It's a world that definitely has an, uh, interesting relationship to science, technology, and research ethics, so there's a lot of room to explore there, I think. I enjoy the classic "charismatic co-founder who gets the business side of things" and "technical co-founder who does the actual product part" dynamic you've set up with Cassandra and Emily, and the relationships you've already set up with the rest of their small team.

You've done a great job of capturing the feeling of a tech startup in general, from the "sharing an apartment and cooking on a hot plate because we don't actually have any money" aspect to the long hours to the endless pitch decks and marketing. I loved the struggles with the obtuse error messages and the rounds of failure necessary to get to making the first Porygon--very true to the cycles of disappointment and problem-solving that characterize this sort of endeavor. And I really loved Kumiko's whole, "Oh, you literally don't know what source control is? No worries, I can handle that for you :) :) :)" while obviously being inwardly a bit horrified. TOO real.

Emily's a very interesting character to me. She's a keen judge of people, and she's been raised in a monied environment and expected to make her way in the business world. She clocks Cassandra immediately, while Cassandra's out here not even understanding herself. She's been fun so far, and her intentions seem good, but she's clearly manipulative, and I always hear a little scare chord when she refers to what her father does as "resource extraction." (So weird to me that that's the popular euphemism; "mining" sounds so much less sinister to me!) Basically, she strikes me as someone who's been raised to keep people at a distance, to treat them more as tools than equals, and I wonder whether those tendencies might surface and cause problems down the line. How far might she go to ensure her big business idea succeeds, because she loves Porygon, yes, but also because she doesn't want to be branded as a failure in what's almost certainly a very competitive family?

Cassandra's struggles with self-worth, meanwhile, are heartbreakingly understandable. It's frustrating to watch her self-sabotage trying to prove she's worthy of being the technical lead, and to agonize constantly over not being "good enough" to be in the position she is, feeling like she needs to prove that she deserves to be here somehow. But in a good way! It feels very true to life for someone who's been trained to expect that any boon in life is sure to be followed by some kind of punishment, and that she can't really ever succeed, that other people are bound to catch on and realize she sucks, actually, and then where will she be? Meanwhile, it's so incredibly obvious why Emily insists she be the one to take the first Porygon--her passion shines through and makes it clear why she's such a good fit for the team. Rooting for her to learn to recognize in herself the value others see in her.

Meanwhile Antonio's just here for the paycheck, lol.

It's funny, I think Emily's use cases for manufacturing custom Porygon make sense from a business standpoint, but the first place my mind goes when she starts talking about Porygon's unique ability to upload itself to a digital format and then re-compose itself physically elsewhere is the transhumanism angle--like, that "upload consciousness to the matrix" is tech a lot of people are chasing even in our own world! Getting into that would be a very different sort of company, more focusing on how that's actually possible and whether there's a way of making the same thing possible for organic pokémon/humans than on manufacturing Porygon, but it's kind of surprising to me the tech has fallen so by the wayside with that option out there. It's like Emily mentions, I guess, that Silph seemed to have a weird lack of imagination about what the product could be useful for ever since the space ambitions failed. (Silph: "No space? Oh well. :(" Me, shaking Silph by the lapels: "Hello? HELLO???")

The most recent chapter, where the first successful Porygon is produced, is a highlight of the fic so far for me. Cassandra's interactions with it are adorable, and it's fun to see you bringing in all kinds of Porygon lore (how many people even remember that Sharpen exists, or existed, or that the way Conversion works has changed multiple times?) as well as putting your own spin on how it works. Cassandra observing that Porygon doesn't eat in the sense that it doesn't consume food, but that it has flavor preferences and therefore probably has some sense of taste, is really interesting, and the scene where she experiments with it is very cute. The question of what Porygon actually "knows" already, what's been programmed into it, versus what is emergent behavior, is a very interesting one. As well as types and moves, changing what knowledge comes pre-loaded on Porygon would also be useful to adapt it to different situations...

I'm guessing Cassandra will need to spend quite a bit of time with Porygon to properly study its attributes, and I'm looking forward to it! Really curious to see your take on Porygon, how it differs from organic pokémon, and how it interacts with the world around it.

I'm intrigued that Cassandra refers to the Porygon as an "it," while Magnezone is "he." Is it possible Cassandra's going to start referring to Porygon by a gendered pronoun as she gets to know it better and maybe feel more like it has some kind of gender identity? Is "he" a preference Magnezone has indicated somehow? Or is Porygon just inherently more like an object and therefore genderless in her mind than a non-synthetic (but "genderless") pokémon?

I'm also kind of fascinated by the references here and there to Porygon breeding, and also to Silph still manufacturing Porygon. I guess it would potentially be a violation of copyright regardless of whether or not they still made any, but yeah, given that the Porygon whitepaper wasn't public and the source code was DEFINITELY not public, I wonder whether NEO-A-LIFE is opening itself up to lawsuits when it starts marketing its own Porygon? Like, they're definitely operating off of what would be called stolen intellectual property, no?

All in all, I'm really enjoying the story thus far. The chapters have been easy, breezy reads, and I love the dive into an area of the Pokéworld that's so rarely explored in fic. Any story that gets me itching to dig into the worldbuilding is worthwhile in my book. Great work so far, and I look forward to keeping up with this one as it updates.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

GOOD FIC PLS UPDATE
STRONG REVIEW TO FOLLOW

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

my honest reaction to Chapter 6

 

[Goolix]

Many thanks to everyone who has left a review! You've all left really useful, encouraging, and just plain fun responses. I've been meaning to respond to reviews and now... finally... I am responding. I didn't respond to everything for length's sake, but I've definitely read (and appreciated) all of your reviews! For readers - there will be minor lore drops and metacommentary in the review responses but none of it is necessary to understand the fic.

FLYG0N

Ohoh, a dash of political/economical drama! I like these, this makes the world pop and feel more alive.

An early idea I had was that the Pokemon games are real in this world and the LeVant family is annoyed that the Stones got into the Pokemon games and they didn't 😭 Don't know if I'm doing that going forward but that's the spirit they have hehe

TANGO

Huh? So her title is 'account receivable representative', but that role has her researching artificial Pokemon? Or is researcher what she wants to be but isn't currently working in a job for? I assume it clarifies further down, but I like to speculate as I go.

She works as an account receivable representative, but she doesn't feel like that's who she is in her heart. She views herself as a researcher even though she hasn't really done that work in years and is, at best, just running a blog.

Was Magnezone causing the pressure in her temples? I'm not sure if she is describing a headache in terms of that maybe they are something she sometimes has or if Magnezone was doing it from inside the Pokeball as a way of asking for attention. (Probably a headache I'm guessing since Pokeballs are supposed to completely contain Pokemon at least by my understanding of them)

Ah no, she was getting a migraine and decided to go for a walk with Magnezone to alleviate it, but I see how that could be confusing. Need to fix up the phrasing.

Ok, now I have to ask, how old is Cassandra? And How old is Emily? I was imagining them both to be 28, but I'm confused now. I can't remember if you indicated it earlier in the fic. Also, did you ever disclose what the year in the fic it currently is? How long ago was their 90s? (Apologies if you already mentioned these things. If you did, I must have already forgot... ☹️)

30s! Fic vaguely takes place in present day.

CANISARIES

this is a really shitty meme edit but i just had to make it

yessss

This expression puzzled me for what it meant for a while. I now assume that it meant, like, that thing you do when you kinda suck your lips in? I don't know if others had this problem, but if they end up pointing it out, another way of expressing this could be looked at.

I never actually knew what 'suck one's lips in' meant, but I looked it up and yeah, I think that's the more common expression for what I mean. Like curling your lips inward so the darker fleshy part can't be seen.

I also like how Emily isn't immediately placeable as an archetype (that I would know of, anyway), making it harder for the reader to say "oh, I've figured out her deal", but her character is still informed through her interactions and contrasts with Cassandra. You kind of get the feeling of getting to know a real person rather than playing Spot the Character Trope.

I'm glad it lands! Emily is hard to write in that it's easy for her to fall into archetypes that don't really capture her.

Antonio.... Antoine.... hmmm...

This is actually a complete coincidence and I might change one of these names in the future ^^;

Castform was written in code? Not genetically engineered? Huh.

I'm assuming that there's some amount of code required to at least operate the machines that allow you to genetically engineer Pokemon. I also fully admit that my knowledge of genetic engineering is quite lacking; for a future revision, I might want to brush up on that and be more particular about how the process works.

NEKODATTA

In this moment I've realised with a touch of horror that yeah, Clefable probably has fur. I've always pictured them with a very rubbery hide, like dolphins. Which is strange, since the other pink blob of Gen I, Jygglipuff, is explicitly mentioned having fur and I never had trouble picturing that one with fur...

I had the same experience with Chibi Pika's Legendarian Chronicles when Lugia is described as having feathers and I'm like "but isn't Lugia like a seal?" I honestly try not to think too hard about what Pokemon feel like because they're so cartoony in my head that it gives me a little whiplash to see them with fur and scales (see: Detective Pikachu)

Also not sure if you did it intentionally or not, but I like that Kumiko has a Pokémon that's supereffective against Magnezone.
Just that little extra thing to subconsciously weigh on Cassandra's mind...

Kumiko is a competitive battling nerd and her having an Arcanine was me attempting to give her a 'good' Pokemon that would make sense for a Kantonian to have. That symbolism was entirely unintentional but I'll take it

I'm trying to think back if the different coloration is a reference to an old sprite... Is it referencing the Stadium games model? That one does look much paler than its usual depiction.

Yep! The Stadium games were my first games and in my mind, Porygon is this color.

I was surprised to find in just about every other iteration that Porygon has a bolder pink and blue.

SHINJIGOJIRA

Oh my god lol, is Emily a sheltered shut-in? 'cause that's hilarious and adorable

She's not quite as worldly as she thinks she is. More than Cassandra, but that's not a high bar

Huh... That's weird. Doesn't Porygon levitate or float? Why would it even fail in zero g?

I don't know enough physics to come up with a pseudo-scientific explanation, but failure to move of its own accord in zero g is in the 'dex entries. My take is whatever it is that lets Porygon levitate on earth only works because of the gravitational field of earth and Porygon has no way to propel itself in space. But again, I don't know enough physics to know if that's at all feasible.

Would Machoke even know how to read it if he stole it?

She's being paranoid because she misplaced it and her instinct is that the Machoke stole it, even though Pokemon can't (or don't) read in this world.

So typical first timer's working a full-time job giddy?

Kumiko's more like trying a little too hard to be professional. She's definitely very excited by this opportunity! In her head she's in a fun workplace comedy while everyone else is in a different genre entirely

I personally don't think it's that big of an issue but it'll probably look better if the narrative didn't randomly switch tenses and all that stuff, and... yeah...

Yeah, this is something I need to fix for future light revisions! Thank you for the heads up!

SPITEFUL MURKROW
Before I continue - thank you for the in-depth reviews! You gave me a lot to think about and which I will keep in mind.

Wait, without the methods of what now? I think you might have accidentally cut a word or two here.

"methods" as in methodology.

I think you have a wrong word there. Also:

"copy" in the sense of 'marketing copy': "Marketing copy is persuasive written content designed to promote a product, service, or brand and drive specific actions (like buying, signing up) by educating customers, highlighting benefits, and creating an emotional connection, appearing across ads, websites, emails, and social media with a clear, benefit-focused message."

a part of me wonders if there was an opportunity to go a bit further into the technical end of things for the time that Cassandra spends on Porygon Revival through something like showing some unholy mess of a decompiled code snippet spat out by bland-name Ghidra or something like that that she was in the middle of trying to determine what on earth it was doing originally in the absence of original documentation / code comments that would’ve been in the original source code

I imagine what the bloggers were doing is more like what video game fans were doing prior to decomps: empirical analysis combined with official commentary from creators and a touch of lore about how x mechanic obviously works like this (it does not but now it's community lore). Point taken though that the amateur research work could be demonstrated earlier; I mostly show her referencing existing literature as a shortcut but it could be fun to sketch some of the actual reasoning (and also showing people attempting to reverse engineer Porygon and not even knowing what to do with the binary dump or whether it's meaningful data because nobody knows what architecture it was made for).

That being said - I purposefully kept the actual language related stuff underspecified to not write myself into a corner later or require too much knowledge from the reader ahead of time. In the same vein as fleshing out the genetic engineering pipeline for future revisions, I may go back and commit harder to what the project would look like, how it's organized, the kind of work that the bloggers were doing, etc. The feedback so far tells me I haven't gone too far to alienate non-tech readers and it could be rewarding to go deeper.

In terms of things that didn’t quite stick the landing for me, while I enjoyed these past two chapters, I did find a number of spots where I found myself wishing that we could’ve seen more of Emily’s thought process playing out. Especially in light of some of the big character reveals about her that come out in Chapter 3 such as her being similarly a fanatic about Porygon and once having a Porygon-Z that she’s at least in some respects trying to recapture the magic of, or her relationship with her father and brothers that feel like they should’ve been things that colored her thought process well before when they get revealed in her back and forth with Cassandra.

That's fair! One of my bad habits is writing chapters that sort of get to the point a little too quickly. This is definitely something I'll keep in mind for future chapters (and far off in the future, revisions - but I don't want to seriously revise anything without completing the story first).

K_S:

Overall this work is a wonderful, and incredibly real feeling, slice of life drama in a real 'mon world backdrop. I loved Cassandra's bond with her 'zone, theres a ton of unspoken story there, as well as to how she got here in a gen sense.

Thank you! I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far; it does have a "slice of life" aspect to it in that it's about normal people doing normal-ish things. I was concerned it might be boring.

DRAGONFREE:

Definitely making me think of AI doom discourse, but also, this feels like foreshadowing that they will in fact be biting off way more than they can chew here.

I feel like there should be a lot of [legendary/genetic engineering/just about any topic] doomer discourse in the Pokemon world considering how often things go catastrophically wrong, but the idea of an AI doomer ranting about Porygon was especially hilarious.

With the overall narration being in the past tense, this bit becomes a bit ambiguous - it's actually referring to an even earlier past (a few years ago), but still uses the simple past tense to talk about it as if it's referring to the current past, which legitimately confused me a little as to whether she's currently unable to justify Saffron rents (and thus is currently living in Saffron but planning to move to Celadon) or at the time the project was discontinued was unable to (and thus already moved to Celadon).

I did not realize it came off like that 🤔 Definitely something I will need to fix.

I like the portrayal of the Pokéball here; it's lowkey but the way that both sendout and release are something the Pokémon has to choose to do and the trainer just prompts them to is neat and not how you usually see it being done in fanfic.

Yes!! Cassandra is unusually concerned with Pokemon consent and agency. Other trainers are more likely to just send and retrieve when convenient, but her relationship with Pokemon is almost human-like.

UNREPENTANTAUTHOR:

I'm curious about the Porygon that Emily previously had, and wonder if we'll see them show up.

In this world, I imagine that most trainers only really have 1 or 2 Pokemon with them (like many of the trainers we see hanging about in routes) because it's just time-consuming and expensive to have more than that; only competitive trainers will have 4 to 6 Pokemon on their team. An idea I was playing around with is that unlike the games, boxes are kind of like subscription services where you pay for someone to take care of your Pokemon for you while you're not using them. Porygon-Z could well be there, or traded away - I originally thought that Emily traded away most of her Pokemon after winding down with the battling part of her life, but she could afford to keep it there 🤔 Things I shall consider in the future...

The bit about scalable solutions at an affordable price struck me as being a standard bit of worthless marketing copy that basically translates as "you can pay us to do things at scale". The type of shit you see on generic corporate websites with all the individuality of meticulously-mown suburban lawn grass. Ironically, put here in contrast to Emily's passionate weirdo Porygon fixation, that bland jargon becomes another example of characterising specificity – Emily is a person who tries to meet expectations. Cass is not.

I'm glad that came across! It's challenging to walk the line between a character who knows how to play a game without being necessarily a believer in its tenets. Emily has gotten the most diverse response of all the reviews and it's really interesting to see how she comes off to people.

CHIBI PIKA

I really like the focus on what life in the Pokemon world is like for adults who aren't involved in training culture, it's something I'm always thinking about in my portrayal of the Pokemon world (despite writing a very standard trainerfic lol). I feel like it's so easy to fall into the trap of "there are Trainers™ and there are normal people" but I love seeing the mundane ways that Pokemon shape people's lives and interactions even and especially when they aren't on a trainer journey.

That's something I really like exploring! Pokemon are so integrated into the Pokemon world in a way that animals aren't into our world that it makes sense to me that they've touched just about everyone's life in some way. Even if you never touch a Pokeball, there's such a strong culture of Pokemon training and battle that you can't live life unaware of it.

I feel like a lot of world-changing science very quickly becomes very mundane according to everyday people, even when it really is a big deal!

Yeah, it's very easy for something futuristic to become mundane! LLMs were kind of stunning to me because for years, machine learning struggled with consistently producing grammatical sentences. From a linguistics perspective, I'm still stunned at the ability of LLMs to parse and respond to human sentences. It is not a trivial feat! Yet it feels like after the first week that ChatGPT dropped, people got used to it and sort of took it for granted that this sort of thing is possible.

NEGREK

I love the idea of looking at startup culture in the Pokémon World. It's a world that definitely has an, uh, interesting relationship to science, technology, and research ethics, so there's a lot of room to explore there, I think.

The Pokemon world's complete disregard for things like "regulations" and "licensing" is one of the things that got me thinking about this story. You can just have rogue scientists working on things like Genesect or even institutions working on Mewtwo and people are just kind of tsk-tsk-ing about the fact that the resulting Pokemon rebelled or was uncontrollable rather than the actual ethics of doing any of this.

I'm intrigued that Cassandra refers to the Porygon as an "it," while Magnezone is "he." Is it possible Cassandra's going to start referring to Porygon by a gendered pronoun as she gets to know it better and maybe feel more like it has some kind of gender identity? Is "he" a preference Magnezone has indicated somehow? Or is Porygon just inherently more like an object and therefore genderless in her mind than a non-synthetic (but "genderless") pokémon?

Referring to Pokemon as 'it' is standard in this world, although those close to gendered Pokemon may refer to them by gendered pronouns. Cassandra calling Magnezone 'he' is her being affectionate towards it and mentally elevating Magnezone to the level of a human-like friend. Why she chooses to gender him in the masculine (which is ultimately arbitrary since Magnezone are sexless) is related to her upbringing. I'm not sure if I will go into that backstory in-depth in this fic, but there is a reason for it!

 

[Flyg0n]

Spoiler: 5 & 6 Commentary

I thought she was regretting hiring her for some failure of skill. But the dark expression on her face as she watched Kumiko working on the codebase told me it was the opposite issue. Kumiko threatened her.

Oh :(

Also I did have to read this line twice, originally I misread as Kumiko had literally threatened her as opposed to Cassandra feeling threatened by Kumiko. The next line did clear it up more though, and whether or not you feel the need to change it is up to you, seems very minor but figured I'd mention my impression.

I took my sage green mug out with a Sprigatito on it and decided more was more when pouring.

Oh this is so cute I want one

I decided to try to do some team management and check up on her.

“How’s work going?” I asked, trying to keep it casual and non-judgmental. She startled and turned to me.

Something about the very measured way Emily is trying to wear the persona of being a good boss is very characterful. Its not instictual but she is also very aware and able to read the dynamics and then take action. Action in a more 'scientific' way though. I find it relatable actually, thinking through what you want to say carefully to try and achieve a desired result.

“This is good stuff,” I said. “But I’m gonna be a little crazy and say food is better in Celadon.”

“Yeah,” she said, “if you can afford it. I survived working in Celadon on ramen, microwavable broccoli, and frozen shrimp.”

Oh man I love mundane moments like this so much, its one of the many bits this fic excels at. Having opinions on little aspects of daily life like what food is better in what city. Makes the world feel lived in and the people feel real. I am Taking Notes.

She forced a smile, but her eyes were focused on the food. “You’re from Hoenn, aren’t you? What’s it like?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, one place is like another. Rustboro’s a nice place to grow up in. It’s not Mauville, but I think one day we’ll overtake them.”

Some more good subtle worldbuilding and characterbuilding

trading back and forth observations on Hoenn and Johto and what we both thought was good about Kanto (sense of vitality) and bad (uninspiring radio shows).

From what little I recall from the games this is pretty funny to me and probably true.

My cofounder’s arms were crossed high on her chest. “I suppose we can try Kumiko’s idea,” she said dryly. Kumiko immediately slinked into her chair and began pulling up some documents.

ouch. Man I really feel for Cassandra here, it sucks to have one thing you're just really passionate about and studied at only to get upstaged

100%.

The sense of building anticipation and tension and then the payoff here was phenomenal 😭

It did it it really did it

When the centrifuge came to a stop, the safety shield retracted. We saw it clear as day in the tube: our first synthesized Porygon.

“Arceus alive,” whispered Antonio. “We did it.”

“We made a Porygon,” said Cassandra.

YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY

And the breakthrough was Kumiko’s.

genuinely crushing and even though I'm happy man do I feel awful for Cassandra. Your own private dream for ages and the breakthrough wasn't yours... jeez.

Chapter 6: Hello, world

I love this chapter title reference its adorable

I focused on it to avoid the stone in my heart from knowing I hadn’t brought it into the world.

aauuuggghhhhh

“I think you should be in charge of studying this Porygon,” said Emily. “Consider it your own. Might wanna get it in a Pokeball,” she winked.

I appreciate Emily here, giving her the Porygon. Whether out of pity or strategic or a genuine move to cheer her, I think it was a nice move.

“Why don’t you do it outside?” she said. “Magnezone might want to meet Porygon.”

Good on Emily again

“Go, Porygon!” The digital duck formed before us. My throat caught seeing Magnezone, my oldest friend, meet the fruit of our labors.

Love how she views her pokemon as friends and considers them so much and gets emotional

“Magnezone,” I cried, “help me with something.

I did find 'cried' here an od choice, I personally would have used 'called'? Cried always sounds a bit more anxious or high pitched but that doesn't seem to fit the tone of the situation. Just a thought though.

Amazing. Conversion was a move that had changed its function throughout the years - Silph Co was apparently unsure how it should work. Not since the days of Team Rocket swaggering through Saffron did Conversion take on the type of the opposing Pokemon. Were this a modern Porygon, Conversion would have kept it at its normal typing since all its moves were normal-type. This was intriguing.

Ohhhh that is some really interesting worldbuilding for the changes to the move conversion. I actually really think thats clever to make it diagetic to Porygon's code.

I checked again with the Pokedex and saw that Porygon had an “ATK +1” next to it.

I think its really cool how the Pokedex tracks this information!

What wouldn’t you do for a buddy?

awwwww yeah i would. I love Cass so much.

“Magnezone, sun’s a little bright right now, take a break,” I said. Magnezone nodded and I recalled him into his ball.

So sweet and thoughtful

Trust me, I was once biking with him and he reflected a beam straight into my eye; I nearly drove off the road.”

This is so funny to picture but also such a fun mundane detail of pokemon care. I am so used to thinking about pokemon in an anime way and kind of forgetting biological details, so I really love the consideration here of how something simple can affect raising a pokemon. taking notes!

The Pokemon looked each one over, “sniffing” each one, until it stopped at the citrus and began to dig into it with its beak. It was making a right mess, with cake filling spreading all over the table, but Porygon appeared to be enjoying it; its eyes were closed in satisfaction as it dug into the orange-flavored pastry.

this is so cute im gonna die

What value did I add to the team as someone who had last worked in a lab several years ago?

:((( noooo Cassandra noooo. You're still valuable! Also I'd wager her way with pokemon would also be a valuable skill. Its possible the other people are perfectly good with their pokemon but I think Cass has an extra edge here.

She saw what I was getting at and her eyes brightened. “We can work on custom typing.”

ohhh this is really cool, I wanna see if they can pull it off.

Man these two chapters were such a delight, really building up to the big moment very effectively. Constantly impressed at the way you manage to paint such an interesting and effective picture of the pokemon world for adults, and how pokemon factor into every day life. The way all the charaters feel so tangible and real, the world is mundane without falling into misery.

I enjoy Cassandra and Emily's dynamic and contrasting views in these two chapters a lot. Emily reads so... clinical, but not in the cruel scientist kind of way, just that she's clearly not a emotional people person. And yet she's got competence still. She can read dynamics and discern what the issue is, and try to make attempts to fix it and cheer Cassandra up. She feels like she really cares honestly, and cares more about Cassandra than even the other scientists, as she worries about her more than Kumiko, even as excited as she is.

Cassandra meanwhile, is such a good bean. Feels more emotional in a way than Eily in her outlook, thinking about Porygon and having such a curiosity, but even going as far as to take it out for food, even though its completely unnecessary. It says a lot about her that she really is interested in Porygon the idea and person beyond just tech capabilities (whereas Emily feels more focused on the business parts entirely).

These two are so interesting. Also we've overcome the first hurdle and made thr Porygon. So now what? I'm fascinated where this story will lead because for once I can't see it or predict anything. They're sure to run into hiccups modding Porygon. But beyond that I wonder if they will not see quite so eye to eye on what they will use Porygon for. Whatever happens the tension and playout seems like its sure to be fun!

Also I need so much more porygon in my life aahhhh.

Art, because oh no this was cute. I dont draw much at all but I got procreate recently and wanted to practice

 

[Tango]

Many thanks to everyone who has been reviewing for review blitz!! I'm really humbled and grateful at the attention and reception you've all given this. I've been in a writing funk this month, but I really wanted to get what I had written out after seeing all the lovely and insightful comments you all have given. The next three chapters were some of my favorites to write.

Ooo! I can't wait to read them, then!

Chapter 6: Hello, world​

- Cassandra -​

Apologies it took me so long to tend to this, but I'm eager to see what you've got!

Good! I was hoping to get another Cassandra POV. The chapter makes sense because its time to interact with the Porygon they made!!

Spoiler: Line by Line Reaction

It took a while for the liquid to drain from the tube. I watched as the water gently receded, with Porygon tucked in at the center. Its eyes were closed, and I’m sure anyone watching would have thought this was an object from how motionless it was. I had never come so close to one as at this very moment. It was so compact, so pale. I focused on it to avoid the stone in my heart from knowing I hadn’t brought it into the world.

Emily was congratulating Kumiko, who of course deserved this. She figured it out and I did not. Figures. She’s younger and faster than me.

Owch. That has to sting to see that...

My lungs felt leaden seeing Antonio pat her on the back and Emily praising her. I knew I should congratulate her too, to not let my envy curdle this moment.

Easier said than done, but lets see if she can muster the will to do it anyway.

My lips just felt too dry and my throat too tight to be able to say anything right away. I stretched the corners of my mouth and dipped my chin down a few times and hoped this got across a celebratory emotion.

“This is amazing,” I said, trying to join in the revelry.

Wow, the way this happened totally annihilated the moment for Cassandra. At least she is able to try to pretend otherwise...

Antonio had headed to approached the machine to and initiated the exit procedure.

Editing suggestion. Will use the following symbol to show that going forward: 📝

The liquid had drained, which meaningt it was safe. The tube lifted; the glistening Porygon lay there. I turned to Emily.

📝

“Have Clefable out. We need defense if it’s not stable. I can’t have Magnezone; his electromagnetism will interfere with the machines.” I looked at Kumiko and Antonio. “You guys have Pokemon?”

“I have Mimikyu,” said Antonio.

“Arcanine,” said Kumiko.

“Those should be fine. Let them out.”

“I don’t think a feral Porygon needs to be controlled by three Pokemon,” said Antonio.

Daaang now Cassandra has Antonio questioning her on top of stuff. Questioned by Antonio, thunder stolen by Kumiko, and her own Magnezone is no good for this. I bet Cassandra is feeling like some finely chopped liver right now.

“Better safe than sorry,” I said.

The two employees looked to Emily, who nodded.

Wow, neither of them trusted her and needed approval from Emily. Cassandra is going to be in a fowl mood after this. Poor Cassandra.

Kumiko got her Pokeball from her backpack; Antonio kept his clipped to his belt. Mimikyu and Arcanine appeared in the lab; Clefable joined right after. I wished that Magnezone could have joined them, but even with his electromagnetism restrained, I didn’t want to risk it.

I walked up to the Porygon, my heart in my throat. I held out a gloved hand, trying to focus the tremors. I made contact with its baby blue wing and stroked it gently. Its eyes slowly blinked open, and it looked at me.

“Pory…?” It looked around, and then its head snapped back on me. It began to hover off the platform, its wings, head, and tail stretching out. When it had finished its stretch, its limbs snapped back into position, and it assumed the rocking motion typical of Porygon.

“I think we did it,” said Emily.

I nodded, my eyes watering a little. It was here, a real life Porygon, right in front of me. I brought my hand to cover my mouth.

I guess even with all the other stuff, this was still a highly emotional moment. So much planning, time, and effort went into this with no guarantee of success and here they are!

Mimikyu trilled. It moved closer to Porygon. Porygon tilted its head and hovered closer to Mimikyu. Arcanine bowed its head to make closer eye contact with Porygon, and Clefable jumped up and down. Nobody said anything as we watched the Porygon we had made interact with these real Pokemon.

I knelt down to get closer to Porygon’s level. “Hi,” I said simply. I removed my glove and held out my hand. “I’m Cassandra. It’s nice to meet you.”

Porygon hadn’t been socialized at all yet, so it didn’t attempt to shake back with its wing. It looked at my hand and then hovered closer, making contact. It felt smooth, cool, like plastic. I gently stroked its wing and it pulled away. I retracted my hand slightly. It instead tilted its head towards me, and I stroked it between the eyes. This time it closed its eyes in relaxation and I smiled.

Aww, cute! 🥰

I turned to Emily. “It’s safe to touch,” I said softly. “I think it doesn’t like its wings being touched.”

Emily blinked at me in incredulity, but she saw Antonio and Kumiko looking at her and she seemed to feel she had to set a good example.

Wow. And again they don't seem to trust Cassandra unless Emily approves.

She awkwardly bent down in her pencil skirt and heels and tentatively placed her hand over the Porygon’s head before patting.

“There you go,” she said, clearly wanting to pull back.

Antonio and Kumiko did not seem to feel inclined to join in petting Porygon yet. I stood back to my full height.

“Guys, we did it,” I said, trying to fight back a smile.

Well. Good. I'm glad she is able to smile and I'm surprised she seems to feel ok with the other two always going over her head for stuff.

“I think our next step is to see what its capabilities are. Run a Pokedex scan, test moves, see how it acts.” I couldn’t help but turn to it; it was waddling its wings back and forth.

“I think you should be in charge of studying this Porygon,” said Emily. “Consider it your own. Might wanna get it in a Pokeball,” she winked.

There you go, Emily! That ought to make Cassandra happy! At least, I hope it does!

I nodded and ran to my backpack in my little studio to get the extra Pokeballs I stored there. I had seven ultra balls and, at the bottom, a premier ball I had gotten as part of a promotion. I reached for it, looking at its white halves joined by a red seam. This was the ball for Porygon.

I approached the Porygon, floating innocently in front of Arcanine. I kneeled again. “Hey Porygon. I’m going to take care of you from now on… if that’s okay.” I held the milk-white ball out in my hand. “I can watch over you more easily if you’re in here. You’ll be safe here.” The Porygon looked at the ball seriously, and tapped on it with its beak, causing the red laser to encompass it and suck it into the ball.

Aww, such a peaceful and well mannered Porygon! What a special addition to her team! 🥰

The ball twitched once and twice before resting. I released a sigh before realizing everyone’s eyes were on me. I felt the blood expand in my cheeks as I stood up. I minimized the ball and slipped it into my pocket, feeling its cool texture against my palm.

“Everything’s under control,” I said.

Emily gave me a curious look before smiling. “Well, we’ve got a Porygon. This is a big deal, everyone. We’re that much closer to getting a custom Porygon made. Let’s keep this momentum going. Kumiko, I want you to keep organizing this code, commenting, anything that we will need to know in the future. Antonio, review the data from our successful synthesis, I want a report on what we can improve.”

Hmm... Sort of feels like something Cassandra could have mentioned. I think I get a little forgetful over what Cassandra's role is at times. I wonder if reminder thoughts on that from Cassandra might be helpful to readers?

I waited until Kumiko and Antonio had gotten back to their stations to move. I walked back to my own desk, but Emily hung behind me with a knowing smile on her face.

“Your first Porygon,” she chirped. “Your heart must be leaping out of its ribcage.”

“It’s pretty exciting,” I admit, shoving my hands in my pockets and feeling the miniaturized ball there. “There’s so much to test. I mean honestly, I could run the Pokedex test here, get some stats and confirm typing, moves…”

“Why don’t you do it outside?” she said. “Magnezone might want to meet Porygon.”

Hmm I wonder if Emily is trying to get Cassandra to leave the building so that she can talk to Kumiko and Antonio without her around for some reason? If so, it would probably be some kind of plan to help Cassandra feel better about how Kumiko was the one to deliver the final breakthrough?

Emily is sneaky sometimes and thinks things that are less nice than what she says, so that's what I wonder. (Though if I'm being honest, isn't that what lots of people do anyway?)

However, I think Emily would also sincerely want Cassandra to feel happy about Porygon being made, so I choose to interpret her actions here as innocent positive suggestions.

I blinked. “You’re right! He hasn’t met Porygon!” I reached for my backpack and checked that Magnezone’s ball was in there as well my Pokedex and my note book. “Alright, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what to study. I’ll report back soon.” She grinned, though I don’t know why.

Well, Cassandra. I think it's because Emily was worried about how you were feeling and is happy to see you in a better mood.

I walked outside the lab, both Pokeballs at my palms. I sprinted to the park.

Magnezone was first. His large, metallic body hovered over the manicured grass.

“Magnezone, something amazing happened today.” I grasped the ball. “The porygon synthesis worked. I… I’d like to introduce you to Porygon.”

The saucer-shaped creature beeped,. I slipped the ball out of my pocket and pressed the button at its center.

“Go, Porygon!” The digital duck formed before us. My throat caught seeing Magnezone, my oldest friend, meet the fruit of our labors.

“Porygon,” I said gently. “Oh, your name is Porygon. And this is Magnezone. He’s my friend.” I gulped. “I hope you can both be friends.”

Porygon turned to Magnezone and chirped. Magnezone twirled his saucers and buzzed in return. The two made such noises back and forth, a conversation I could not be privy to. I felt my tendons relax a little when Porygon and Magnezone began to play what looked like a game of tag. They weren’t enemies. Thank goodness.

Huh. I'm not sure how often mon from the same trainer become enemies, but I guess it could happen and judging on Cassandra's reaction, its not even something that is uncommon.

I took out my Pokedex and scanned Porygon. The device beeped and flashed a red light before its display refreshed with the information I needed: “Porygon, the Virtual Pokemon. Normal-type. Porygon is an artificial Pokémon created using advanced scientific means. It can move freely through cyberspace. Moves: Tackle, Sharpen, Conversion.” This was old-school. Modern Porygon tended to have more moves at this age. This Porygon was unaltered from how they made them in the 90s.

Well, you've got to start somewhere.

“Magnezone,” I cried, “help me with something. Let’s try some moves out.” He nodded, and I turned to Porygon. “Porygon, use tackle.”

Porygon contracted its parts together and then threw its body forward at Magnezone. Magnezone barely took a hit from it.

“Porygon, conversion.” I wanted to see if my theory were right. Porygon turned to Magnezone and contracted its body again. Its body took on a metallic sheen. I checked it again with my pokedex - it had turned to steel type.

Amazing. Conversion was a move that had changed its function throughout the years - Silph Co was apparently unsure how it should work. Not since the days of Team Rocket swaggering through Saffron did Conversion take on the type of the opposing Pokemon. Were this a modern Porygon, Conversion would have kept it at its normal typing since all its moves were normal-type. This was intriguing.

Oh! That's a nifty bit of lore! I assume it is a reference to how things changed in the games over the years?

And most fascinating of all was that Sharpen. They didn’t even make it anymore. Not much special about it, but worth a shot…

“Use Sharpen, Porygon!”

Porygon furrowed its angular brow and its edges grew sharper and longer. It threw itself against Magnezone again. Magnezone was too powerful for this to make much of a difference, and Porygon had now lost its STAB advantage with Tackle.

Oh! I like your use of some meta lingo, STAB, here!

I checked again with the Pokedex and saw that Porygon had an “ATK +1” next to it.

So it was true. This really was the original source code for Porygon, unaltered since the 90s. No Porygon Silph Co made today would be like this one. I looked at my Porygon, at its pallid coloration. That was a little curious - even among older Porygon, they tended to have a deeper magenta coloration. This sky blue and cotton candy pink color scheme was more reminiscent of a baby’s crib than the average Porygon. A variant I’d seen photos of before, but not a common one.

So interesting what kinds of difference there are between this one and more modern ones. I bet you looked up pretty much everything you could about Porygon before making this fic!

I took notes on its stats and nature before just sitting down and watching it play with Magnezone. It had only existed for an hour and yet it was so adapted to the world already. Did Porygon learn quickly? It was good news for the company. Porygon was not a trembling babe, but already formed for the world. Remarkable.

And quite marketable! Well, once you get the customization part figured out...

The sun was high in the sky, and sweat pooled at my brow and armpits. I knew Magnezone didn’t like being out when the sun was so bright, and worse was that his metallic coat reflected the light into everyone’s eyes.

That it would

Steel types like him were not considered easy Pokemon to keep in a city. I kept him anyway. What wouldn’t you do for a buddy?

Yeah!

“Magnezone, sun’s a little bright right now, take a break,” I said. Magnezone nodded and I recalled him into his ball. Porygon hovered, head tilted to the side as if unsure where Magnezone went.

“Oh, he’s okay,” I said. “It’s just too bright to have a steel type his size out. Trust me, I was once biking with him and he reflected a beam straight into my eye; I nearly drove off the road.” I took a deep breath looking at Porygon again. It was just it and me now. I’d collected the data I wanted to, but I didn’t want to go back inside yet.

Such a nifty detail to include and so realistic too!

“Would you like to eat something?” I said. Porygon don’t need to eat, but if you offer them food, they like to nibble at it. Nobody was quite sure what this means for the phenomenology of Porygon taste, but I liked to imagine that they got some fun out of it.

“Poryyy,” it cried. I gestured to it to follow me as I headed for the Poke Puff store. It hovered right at my side, taking in all the sights of a city like Saffron. It must have been seeing so much for the first time. Whatever information Porygon had pre-programmed into it, it doesn’t compare to your first sensory encounter with the world.

Yeah, seeing everything for the first time.

I ordered a sweet, frosted Poke Puff and was handed a Pokemon-friendly cupcake. I wanted to order one of the confectionary monstrosities, where each puff was topped by cherries and rainbow sprinkles and girded by fluted buttercream frosting. Best to taste it, though.

📝 confectionery

Also, I'm sure what the last sentence above is trying to convey. I think it's saying that before ordering something more complex, it's best to try something less complex to see if it is any good in order to prevent wasting money?

I sat at one of the tables for two, with Porygon hovering by my side. I offered it the Poke Puff and it made a slight jerking motion of the head reminiscent of sniffing before turning away. “You don’t like it?” I asked. I smelled the puff myself. It smelled like the color pink. Nothing wrong with it, but perhaps Porygon didn’t share my sweet tooth. Magnezone always preferred mint. I sighed and left the puff on the table to take back later.

I ordered plain mint, citrus, mocha, and spice Poke Puffs to see if I could divine the secret of Porygon’s taste preferences. The Pokemon looked each one over, “sniffing” each one, until it stopped at the citrus and began to dig into it with its beak. It was making a right mess, with cake filling spreading all over the table, but Porygon appeared to be enjoying it; its eyes were closed in satisfaction as it dug into the orange-flavored pastry.

Ugh! Stop it Porygon! You are making me want to get orange sherbert to eat!

“You’re cleaning this up, I suppose,” I said. Porygon instead moved on to the spice Poke Puff and repeated the same routine, turning the cupcake into a mix of baked batter and moist frosting. No cupcake matter actually entered Porygon’s body, yet it seemed as delighted as if it had swallowed the thing.

This is simultaneously adorable and hilarious at the same time!

I leaned my head on my hand, incredulous at how the people at Silph created a being with what appeared to be so many emergent characteristics. For a Pokemon meant to go into space, it didn't need a sense of taste, there’s no reason to need to taste, but it sure acteds like it couldan taste.

📝

It had been a mystery to me in my blogging years, but remembering the process, I wondered if something about the very base used to synthesize Pokemon caused leftover features of Pokemon biology to appear in Porygon.

Ooo! I bet this might be the angle used for attempting a process for customization!

Once the duck had finished smearing to its delight, it chirped. I sighed at the awful mess it had left, and I’m pretty sure it took half a container of paper napkins to restore some sense of dignity to the table.

I got to-go boxes for the untouched Poke Puffs and then turned to Porygon. “I need to wipe your nose; I can’t have you in the lab looking like you got cake’d.”

Porygon hesitated before leaning forward, and I steadied the underside of its beak as I wiped the cake remnants off its beak with a moist napkin.

“Good as new. Can’t say the same for the table. But let’s head out.”

Love the humor.

We began the walk back to the lab. I kept looking at Porygon, which floated serenely over the sidewalk, avoiding fire hydrants, trash cans, and misplaced umbrellas. I wished so badly I could ask it directly how its source code worked, what was safe to change, what were all its secrets. It was a foolish dream, I know, about as useful as asking a human how meiosis works. Unlike humans, Porygon did seem to come pre-programmed with knowledge, and there was some faint hope a conversation with Porygon might reveal this, but Porygon was as mute as any other Pokemon was.

Thinking back to the lab, I felt a little sick. Porygon was my test subject, sure, but it wouldn’t be here without Kumiko. What value did I add to the team as someone who had last worked in a lab several years ago? I thought back to Emily’s little wink and grin; was it pity that she assigned me the role of Porygon minder?

Oof! Poor Cassandra... Seems like her confidence is taking a hit...

I didn’t want to feel bad. I didn’t want to distrust my colleagues. I didn’t want to be anxious with Porygon around. At the same time, this was a startup of which I was allegedly cofounder, and there’s no reason for them to keep me here if I didn’t pull my weight.

I recalled Porygon as I entered the space we were renting. The team was still working on something; Emily had told me one lunch that ‘there’s no such thing as leisure time’ in this lab.

During lunch? Really? How wonderfully exploitative-like. No wonder Cassandra is feeling anxious...

“Cassandra,” said Antonio. “I’ve been reviewing the logs for the Porygon synthesis. I have an idea on how to speed up synthesis down the line. It’ll be a little more expensive, but it could help the entire Porygon generate itself more quickly.”

“Very nice,” I said. “You’ve told Emily?”

“Of course. I figured you should know as well.”

Meanwhile Kumiko was continuing to document the code. “It’s a mess,” she said, running her hands down her face. “I think I’m just starting to really get it. I’ve got it all on our dev branch.”

“Excellent. Keep it up.”

Emily was at her computer, typing. “Cassandra! Tell me what you’ve learned about Porygon.”

“Well, this is about as old as it gets. The source code you have is a pretty old build. We’ve got moves like Sharpen on it. They haven’t made them like that for several years.”

She frowned a little. “So it’s out of date.”

“Meh. All the moves functioned as they should. Including Conversion, which changes typing.” I smiled. “This means somewhere in that code is something that can control Porygon’s type. It’s set to copy the other Pokemon’s type, but I don’t see a reason we shouldn’t be able to change it.”

She saw what I was getting at and her eyes brightened. “We can work on custom typing.”

I grinned. “We certainly can.”

Ahh!! There we go! Customization is what they have been trying to build towards. It should be very interesting how that process starts!

Closing thoughts:
Porygon was adorable. 🥰 Cassandra was feeling a bit anxious for a bit, but I think things are going in a direction that will let her move past that... hopefully. 😅 I'm looking forward to seeing them start to experiment with customization!

Until next time!

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Right, finally reviewing the second batch of three chapters.

Kumiko and Antonio are a good addition, even if we haven't seen much of them (particularly Antonio) compared to the main gals. However, I'm thrilled at just how fucking insecure Cass is about Kumiko. To the point where it even sours the big win later on, even! It's genuinely so good to see a character get such a genuinely rubbish flaw as 'being jealous of the intern'. It gives Cass so much more character, especially when she's so forthright in general, to be neurotic about this. Emily's smart to diagnose this correctly so quickly, I thought she'd read it as disdain at first, or something – she's pretty good at people, apparently. I also enjoy that Cass' sudden feeling of irrelevance and failure (unfounded in my opinion but understandable) is then ameliorated with the assignment to look after Porygon, a task none of the other three are suited for, apparently. And of course, Cass thinks it's a pity assignment, because she's not good at people~

Cass and Porygon (and Magnezone!) spending time together is an absolute delight, a highlight of the fic so far. The duck smushing bits of food around was especially adorable, (as was Cass' attentiveness to consent and how softly she spoke to this brand-new lifeform). I'm not surprised you got fanart of that moment~ I also really enjoy the way you've incorporated actual IRL lore about Porygon into the fic diegetically, like the colour palette thing, the moveset, the way Conversion works, and so on. It's neat, and helps contribute to the wonderful verisimilitude the pokémon characters have, but also doing double-duty as yet another reason for the team to feel like they're a step behind, since their code produces only G1 pory. Which reminds me, I still love the concept behind the startup itself – custom Porygon really is a super neat idea, it feels entirely fitting and to behonest it feels plausible to me that a startup could be founded on that premise, struggle, and succeed.

They are going to succeed, right? They have to. I'll be devastated if this ends badly for them. You have to write a happy ending for me, okay?

There is actually a solid throughline of uncertainty and stress regarding their potential success or failure. Emily's musings about not wanting advice or bailouts from her dad, Cass' fretting about the code, the doubt about whether quitting her job was justified, the frustrations with the errors none of them have institutional knowledge to solve, it all feels terribly stressful despite knowing from the goddamn Index that they'll succeed only 1-2 chapters later, (given the title Hello World). The suspense! The use of specificity in the details, like the protective shield being a bit opaque, really made me feel like I was experiencing the same agonising anticipation. Great stuff~ And of course there's been plenty more verisimilitude in all the programming stuff, the business terminology, that sort of thing. Even the sun glinting off Magnezone – I genuinely enjoy how inconvenient he is as a companion in an urban environment. Little details that make the world feel lived-in, my beloved.

For that matter, and I may have said this before, I like how unglamorous a lot of this is. I don't just mean the ramen noodles and sleeping at the office, although that's great too. I mean how much of what's being done is documenting the codebase or trying to sort out a filing system for Cass' bookshelves, or writing marketing copy for investors (who, as a social class, have the taste of abject morons). I'm the type of person to be immediately bored or frustrated by tryhard epic stuff on the other end of the dramatic spectrum (at least until it's well-earned), but having so much monkeywork not be abstracted away into the aether delights me. Yes, please, do put these gals through more long hours or staring at bullshit computer files that don't tell you what the fuck Parameters (Normalized) are. I really do strongly believe that things should be dumb and annoying in fiction sometimes (where appropriate).

The main gals continue to delight me. Emily's pessimistic dread being so intense that she won't even watch the Porygon get made in the centrifuge, Cass casually asking Magnezone if he wants to revisit her old campus, these little moments make them feel real, and resonant, and easy to like. I think we've had a little less of them together since the interns showed up, which tracks – gotta see them doing their own thing – but I'm looking forward to how their successes and struggles will inevitably give them some character development and continue to shape their relationship. It's a compelling relationship, with plenty of potential – I notice little things like Emily's internal monologue catching on the success being Kumiko's (and not Cass') not out of disappointment, but out of concern for Cass' self esteem, and it endears her to me very much. Meanwhile I love Cass easily because she's such a good partner to her massive sentient magnet and her duck made of software. I want to watch them bounce around the lab and irregularly into each other like drifting icons on a screensaver.

Anyway, good fic pls update

 

[Chibi Pika]

Alrighty, back to Cass POV, and we've got some new employees! Woo it's starting to feel like a real company. Except, they are actually qualified, unlike Cass, who is a talentless hack with no redeeming features beyond running a blog. Alas, imposter syndrome is very real and Cass is gonna be feeling it big time for the next few chapters. Flubbing the response to seemingly-basic questions is gonna have her replaying the convo at 3am isn't it. Thiiiis is probably gonna take her a while to work through, alas.

I really enjoy how... mundane the whole process feels. Like sure, there's a little bit of technobabble but it all feels very grounded and archaic at the same time, despite the fact that they're technically doing something completely fantastical by our world's standards. Taking Magnezone for a stroll was a cute and much-needed reprieve for Cass, plus a nice way to drop some college memories.

Ahh, the dreaded indecipherable error message. Of course it would have been too easy to have it work on the first go, but it's understandable that this would be a crushing turn for them. It's fun to see Cass's insecurity here through Emily's eyes after we just spent a chapter with them on full-display. Emily's of course going about all this from the logistics perspective, focused on the flowchart of steps, how to go from making a Porygon to making a business out of it. I like the bit about wanting some of her father's advice but knowing she can't rely on him, she's gotta be independent. At least Cass isn't so wound tight that she can't enjoy a bit of small talk over dinner.

Anyway we got the error figured out and PORYGON REAL. Again loving how grounded the whole process feels, the method for debugging the error makes perfect sense and now we've got our polygon bird! It really sells just how wild it is that they made this thing. A living creature, technically made of organic material, but basically just a reflection of what would happen if you used programming to make raw biomass evolve into the shape of something alive. It's a really interesting take on artificial Pokemon and not one I would've considered for Porygon (I guess would have expected something adjacent to a mineral mon?) Anyway, point is it's different and different is interesting.

Porygon has obviously come pre-installed with some basic knowledge of how to exist, but still has a lot of learning to do. I really love how one of the first tasks is to let Magnezone meet Porygon. Since he couldn't be present around the sensitive electronics indoors. And they can communicate in their strange way and try out some of Porygon's moves. Enjoying the fact that because this is the olllllldest version of the Porygon generation code, some of its moves are out of date. It's a clever nod to how movesets have been altered and rebalanced over the years, and honestly I could never keep track of what Conversion actually did, so it's nice to know that it actually did change at one point lol.

For some reason I'm tickled by the fact that Porygon can't eat even though Magnezone can. And yet it can still taste. Strikes me as one of those "this feature is only present because it's just one of those things most Pokemon can do" kind of features as opposed to something that was deliberately designed into it. But it's very important because without it we wouldn't have gotten the wonderful scene of Porygon smooshing cupcakes around on a table. It has taste preferences! This is very important. [nod nod]

Anyway, Cass probably doesn't feel like she's done anything all that technical on this outing, but this is good data! And it's clear that Emily knew how much Cass would benefit from getting to step back from the labwork and get some practical experience with Porygon. Heeerres hoping the imposter syndrome lets up a bit in the coming chapters? Although given that they just had a major success, there'll be plenty of hurdles ahead when it comes to getting the customization and mass-production down, which means more opportunities to feel inadequate. Ah well.

Anyway! That was delightful, and I continue to love all the grounding details in the way you portray the Pokemon world, and how well the Pokemon come across while still being weird little very-not-human guys. I always appreciate when 'mon personalities come through without making them act too human. Can't wait to read more!

 

[Dragonfree]

Back for chapter two!

Rotating first person POV is a bold choice! It's challenging to juggle multiple first-person POVs and make them distinct, I think, but it'll be interesting to see how you pull it off.

“Trust me, I’ve heard it all. When the Porygon2 project didn’t even make it into space, it killed investor interest in custom synthetic Pokemon.”

Didn't even make it into space (Legitimately curious about the story behind that one.)

Cassandra giggled awkwardly. “There’s this guy on my blog who’s constantly telling me that my research is going to lead to some Type:Null-like disaster. Dude, it’s Porygon. It’s such a mild Pokemon!” She looked at my empty mug of coffee. “Oh yeah, do you mind if I order something?”

Also intrigued by the Type: Null disaster alluded to here, though that one's more straightforward to imagine based on canon.

“Yes. We at NEO-A-LIFE want to create Porygon for specialized applications. Rescue teams, security guards, industrial settings, you name it. We could have a ghost/dark Porygon for a security team and built in data-monitoring to improve security routines. We could have Porygon with particular move combinations that no organic Pokemon could have. We’re targeting institutions that need to work with Pokemon at massive scales.”

She nodded slowly, her gaze loosely hanging over her coffee cup. “I never really considered joining a company, but … it’s interesting… I mean, I think that the issue with the Porygon project and space was just that they didn’t realize what they had on their hands. There was this big ambition about sending Porygon to space and when it didn’t work out, instead of pivoting, it’s like everyone lost their imagination and stopped using it entirely. ‘Oh, artificial Pokemon aren’t really useful.’ It’s nonsense, but the paradigm just lost steam. I think… making it more about customization could be a good idea.” Her eyes snapped back. “But without knowing how to make Porygon, I’m not sure we can move forward with this.”

Interesting - exiting Cassandra's POV for this is kind of a fun choice for the way we see this from the outside. What I'm getting from Cassandra here is that she's wary of Emily's business-oriented pitch about mass production (as you mentioned in your response to my chapter one review, Cassandra seems pretty big on Pokémon agency, and that seems to run pretty counter to it), but sees the 'they can be customized' thing as possibly the only workable way to get the project funded at all, at this point when there's little interest in artificial Pokémon and they're not seen to be useful.

Thankfully Cassandra didn’t seem like the type to get caught up on appearances. Then again, that would be a problem if I really brought her on board. She would definitely need to be polished before I showed her to any investors…

Well, that's a bit of a red flag :copyka2: Perhaps she's just being practical, but nonetheless, internally putting it as "polishing her" before "showing her to investors" is not the most humanizing way to think of a potential partner.

Clefable narrowed her eyes at me, but there was no arguing the point. She wasn’t paying rent - she didn’t even understand the concept. I’d probably pout too if all my housing were taken care of. Well, this was the first time I’d had to actually pay rent; daddy always took care of that sort of thing. I saw why the general population was so stressed all the time.

Emily's clearly very sheltered - paying rent for the first time, only now feeling like she understands why the general population is so stressed - and still calling her father "Daddy" reinforces that. I guess this suggests her father's reluctant to help her out with this project at this point, if he's always paid for her housing until now.

This was intriguing - another short chapter, but we're again getting some characterizational mileage out of it. Emily seems kind of naïve, sheltered, very business-focused, intrigued by Cassandra but mostly invested in using her for this. She's less interested in the actual science of it and more in how the company could make money - probably part of how she was raised, given her father, and possibly a bit desperate to prove herself to him. It's fun to see her with Clefable after Cassandra with her Magnezone last chapter - she seems less actively about agency (it sounds like she just plain sends Clefable out) but still seems to have a pretty good sense of what Clefable likes and wants and wants to make her happy.

Cassandra is probably rightfully wary here, given the business and mass production angle, but of course she can't resist when not only the whitepaper but the original source code is right there. The project of her dreams! Just has to tolerate some businesswoman hovering over it trying to make a commercial product!

I was a little confused by Emily offering to let Cassandra room with her, sleep in a room at the lab - initially I took this to mean Emily was also sleeping in a room at the lab, but then we learn Emily's staying at a hotel, so rooming with her versus sleeping in a room at the lab seem like two very different things, but initially they weren't being presented as two possibilities...?

Spoiler: Nitpicks

It was 3:15PM, and my interviewee was late. I figured she’d be punctual since she said she lived close, and yet I was alone at this fashionable cafe with a room temperature latte. I checked my phone and caught a message from her:

Think the tenses are tripping you up here a little again and it'd more appropriately be "I had figured she'd be punctual since she'd said she lived close".

This project couldn’t end before it even begins.

And here you want the past tense - this project couldn't end before it even began.

Well, this was the first time I’d had to actually pay rent; daddy always took care of that sort of thing.

When treating it as a name, "Daddy" should be capitalized.

She nods, placing it behind her ear to show where she wants to wear it.

Sudden full-on present tense sentence in this past-tense narration.

I returned to the cheap hotel room I’ve paid for.

Should be "I'd paid for".