Pokémon The Champion's Illusion

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero and Silver battle Archer in the Goldenrod City Radio Tower.

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The video begins with Illanero and Silver exiting the Goldenrod Radio Tower elevator, and emerging onto the observation deck, where a man with a Team Rocket emblem on his suit waits.

"So, you've finally made it here," the man says. "The Zorua who ruined everything, and the son who couldn't do anything right."

"He's not coming back, Archer," Silver says, glaring at the man. "Battle us. Now. If we win-"

"Ah ah ah, you're not in a position to make demands here," Archer says, smirking. "Neither of you are. He's coming, I know it. Giovanni will come back."

"But he said he's disbanding Team Rocket when I defeated him in Viridian City!" Illanero says, tail lashing.

"You really believe that? I know the truth," Archer says. "The whole 'disbanding' was an act. He's out in hiding, waiting for his opportunity to return, to lead us once more! And this is our signal to him, that we're ready for him!"

"He's. Not. Coming. Back," Silver says, starting to tremble.

"Afraid? Scared he'll see how weak you still are?" Archer says. "He doesn't need you, and neither does Team Rocket."

"Why are you doing all this for Giovanni?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head. "He's reallyreally weird and mean and bad!"

"Giovanni is perfect," Archer says. "He knows exactly what to do in any situation. He's what Team Rocket needs! We can't exist without him!"

"He's not coming back," Silver says. He hesitates, then adds, "You're probably too weak and pathetic for him to even consider coming back to you."

Muttering under his breath, Silver adds, "Like me."

Archer's eyes narrow. "I'm not weak. I'm not like you! I'll prove to Giovanni that I'm strong enough for him to return!"

"That's what I thought too, once," Silver says. "I thought that if I became the strongest trainer in the world, Giovanni would come back. But he's not coming back. And there's nothing either of us can do to change that!"

"How dare you! He...he's coming back! I know he will!" Archer yells. "He has to come back!"

"He's not!" Illanero says. "He said he was going to disband Rocket for good!"

"Lies! It was all lies! He was just going into hiding!" Archer yells.

"If he really was coming back, he'd have at least told his top executive," Silver says, standing his ground. "Face it, Archer. He's not coming back for either of us."

"No...no!" Archer yells, grabbing two pokeballs from his belt. "I'm not weak like you! I'll prove it! I'll prove that I'm strong enough for Giovanni to return!"

The video ends.

 

[canisaries]

Hey there! Here for Catnip. I read up to and including JOHTOVID - DOUBLE. Here are my thoughts.

Illanero is a Zorua in disguise.

Oh, it's an exposé. I thought it was just going to be a vlog. Interesting.

"Illanero!" a third voice rang out, as Professor Oak arrived in the room. "Congratulations on becoming Kanto Champion! You've come so far since you and Charmander left my lab."

Oh, xey're actually going through the storyline of each region, not just becoming the champion. Cool!

"I ran into him in the Pokemon Tower, and he was mourning one of his teammates, that Team Rocket killed! His Raticate!" Illanero said, tail lashing back and forth.

suuuuuuuuuuure it was team rocket

and a "human" with a Zorua tail.

I really found myself wishing that we'd gotten more physical description than just this. I had to kind of have a vague human-shaped character in my head the whole time instead of a specific look.

Cam says, standingt up.

Typo.

"If that's what you really want, who am I to stop you from spreading your wings?" Falkner says, walking to the other side of the battlefield. "Let the battle begin!"

Falkner speaking in flying-related puns feels fitting for his character. It's been too long since I played HeartGold for me to remember if he did that in the games, but even if he didn't, it works.

"Aw, you remembered me! I'm flattered," Proton says, grinning. "Do you remember my darling knife, Top Surgery?"

"Well," Proton continues, "This isn't it. This is Bottom Surgery, for naughty Pokemon like you."

I was caught pretty off guard by these knife names. Frankly, I really think you should have some kind of content warning in your author's notes. He's basically indirectly threatening to commit unwilling breast and genital surgery on his victims, and that's something that can be pretty upsetting to readers.

"Excellent," Proton says, pulling the knife away from Illanero's neck. "I hope you're not too fond of that tail of yours."

So he knows that Illanero is a Zorua? This threat wouldn't mean anything (or very little) if he thought it was just cosplay. I wonder how he found that out.

"I like your spirit! Bugsy says, "Reminds me of a Scyther, always wanting more foes to fight."

There should be a period after the "says" instead of a comma, as "I like your spirit!" is a complete sentence.

"Come to think of it, you never did battle Alder, did you?" Bugsy continues.

I'm unsure why he brings up Alder. It didn't seem related to the previous conversation, at least not directly. I would have expected Bugsy to more clearly acknowledge that his question was out of place.

"What?" Illanero asked, tilting xyr head.

Tense seems to slip to past for this one line.

"That hat clashes hard with the rest of your outfit, and that cosplay is just gaudy," Whitney says. "Did you take inspiration from Valerie? Her outfits aren't nearly pretty enough."

I'm glad that we find out that xey had a hat, but it kind of draws more attention to the fact that we really don't know what Illanero looks like or what xey wear. There are lots of different kinds of hats, after all. Did the original blog have art on it?

"What is crack-a-lack-ing, Anomaly?" the figure says. "I have been informed by 4Chansey of that being a polite way of greeting new people in this world."

well in all fairness, 4chan could have taught him to say far worse things

"If you leave, I'll tell you all about the legendary Pokemon Suicune!"

How's he supposed to do that if they leave? Maybe "if you leave with us" would make this clearer?

---

So this seems to be a small anthology of interactions that Illanero has had with gym leaders and rivals and other characters from the mainline games. It doesn't appear like there's really a plot, but you did say that this was just for fun, so that's understandable. I did wish I would have seen more sides to Illanero's character than xem being ambitious and nice, but it could also be that I just didn't read far enough.

I would also have liked this to lean more heavily into the exposé angle. If I was uploading existing footage of a person to expose something about them, I would call more attention to whatever proves my point. Like, a zoom-in on the tail when it wags, maybe a blinking red circle, or just a mention in the video description of "look at <timestamp> closely, you can see the tail wagging". Little things.

On a side note, it's pretty funny to think about how Illanero could copystrike these videos for stealing xyr content.

Anyway - while I think it could have done a bit more in a few places, I do think this is charming and works for what it is. I can also tell you had fun writing it which is really what's most important. Good luck in writing onward, and see you around!

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before lllanero battles Clair.

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​

The video begins with stepping off the last movable platform in the Blackthorn City gym, and stepping onto the battlefield.

"You're here," Clair says, cape draped over her shouler. "Lance told me about you. You and the previous challenger."

"Previous challenger?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"Yes, the red-haired child," Clair says. "Lance said that you put a stop to Team Rocket, twice. In Kanto, and here in Johto."

"Yesyes!" Illanero says, tail wagging.

"While I thank you for that..." Clair steps forward onto the battlefielod. "Your victory lap ends here. I don't intend on losing to you."

"Lots of people say that!" Illanero says.

Clair's eyes narrow. "I mean it. You may have come here for a gym battle, but I'm not giving you one, Champion. I'm giving you a real battle, where I hold nothing back!"

"Yayay!" Illanero says, smiling. "Let's battle!"

"I'm not finished," Clair says. "I heard about your encounters with the other gym leaders of Johto. They fought you like they would any regular challenger. But you're not a regular challenger, you're the Champion. It would be a disservice to both of us to give you a battle that you could win so easily."

"So hold nothing back in turn!" Clair shouts, thrusting her arm out. "Show me the might of the Champion, and let me show you how much you have yet to learn!"

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after lllanero battles Clair.

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​

The video begins with Acacia the Meganium scoring a fainting blow on Clair's Kingdra.

"Yayay! I won!" Illanero says, tail wagging as xe runs up to Clair.

Clair simply recalls her Pokiemon, and stares at Illanero, eyes narrowed.

A few seconds of silence pass, before she says, "No. You won the battle, yes, but you didn't win my respect."

"What do you mean?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"You didn't treat this battle with the respect it deserved. You just saw it as another stop on your victory lap. For that, I can't award you this badge."

"But...I won!" Illanero protests.

"There are certain values that the gym circuit encourages, that should be discarded. Such as going from battle to battle at a rapid pace, without showing those battles the respect they deserve," Clair says. "Every battle is important, every battle should have an impact on you in some way. That is where the League fails."

"But I..." Illanero begins, before trailing off.

"If you want the Rising Badge so badly, treat it with the respect it deserves. Not a fancy trinket to add to your collection, but the symbol and memory of a battle," Clair says.

"But how do I prove that?" Illanero asks.

"There's a sacred shrine at the back of Blackthorn City, across the lake, inside the Dragon's Den," Clair says. "Go there, and pass the test there. Only then will I give this badge to you."

Illanero hesitates, then nods. "Okok. I'll go there."

"Good," Clair says, taking a step back. "Don't disappoint me."

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place as Illanero encounters Clair in the Dragon's Den.

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​

The video begins in the Dragon's Den, with Illanero exiting from the shrine deep within it. Clair is waiting outside.

"That was quick. So you failed? You can try again tomorrow, but I advise that you think long and hard about..." Clair begins, before trailing off, seeing the cape Illanero now donned.

"Nope! I passed!" Illanero says, playing with xyr cape. "And I got this reallyreally cool cape!"

"I..." Clair sighs. "Fine. You win. Take this badge, and get out."

Clair extends a hand, holding the Rising Badge, but Illanero doesn't take it.

"What's wrong? Isn't this what you wanted? Your eighth badge, the end of your victory lap?" Clair says. "Don't tell me that you're giving up now."

"You seem reallyreally upset," Illanero says, tilting xyr head. "Why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you," Clair says. "Simply disappointed that I failed."

"What do you mean?" Illanero asks.

"My duty as Blackthorn gym leader is to teach challengers. If I fight a challenger, and they have learned nothing, like you have, then I have failed. You defeated me easily, and learned nothing," Clair says. "Apparently you already had those values I lectured you on, with how easily you passed this test."

"But I did learn something!" Illanero says. "I learned that I should treat battles with more respect!"

"Is that why you're not taking my badge now?" Clair asks. "Because you don't think you showed me enough respect to earn it?"

"Yesyes!" Illanero says.

"Well," Clair says, smiling a bit "That's enough for me. Go on, take it."

"But I didn't show you respect," Illanero says.

"You just did, by listening to me right now," Clair says. "You've earned this badge, and my respect. So long as you keep treating battles with respect from now on, you are worthy of this badge."

"Thankyou!" Illanero says, and takes the Rising Badge.

The video ends.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, took a while, but I’m here for that review exchange we set up with each other, and will be covering The Champion’s Illusion up to [X]. I went into this story pretty blind aside from knowing that it’s about a character from Eternal Shadows’ universe who winds up in the human world, so it’ll be interesting to see where you take this.

Channel About

Spoiler

About channel Zoruaspotting
​

I'm sure you've all heard the recent news, haven't you? Of Illanero the multi-champion, who's been taking Leagues by storm.

I've done some investigation, and have acquired these the following videos, that which shine a bit more light on the multi-champion.

Wew, so Illanero’s been busy over in the human world. I’ll admit it’s a bit surprising to hear since he wasn’t really played up much in Eternal Shadows, but I take it that this is basically your convenient plot hook to have him go globetrotting. We’ll see where this goes.

It seems xey have a strange device known as a Connection Device. It seems to act similar to a Poryphone, but can also detect and display connections between people. It also seems to let xem travel between regions at will.

Wait, that works outside of the PMD world? I wasn’t expecting that one, but if nothing else, it’ll make for an interesting connection tree. Though I’m just realizing, but where exactly is this preamble hosted anyways? For more immersion, it might make sense to more directly to allude to a website or platform that this foreword and linked videos are

However, it seems xey cannot bring xyr Pokemon team between regions. Instead, xyr Pokemon teams seem to be automatically transported to a Pokemon Professor when they travel to a different region, and transported back to Illanero when xey return to that region.

There seems to be one exception to this, though, an Archen-Amaura hybrid that Cara Liss has made. This hybrid seems to be able to travel with Illanero.

Oh, that one’s different, and I see that we’ll be going outside of just strictly canonical materials for this series. Though I wonder if it might have made sense to give a passing mention of who Cara Liss is since… I honestly kinda completely forgot about her from Sword and Shield. Like if this video series is aimed in-setting at an audience that is primarily non-Galarian, there’s decent odds that the channel owner’s audience wouldn’t reflexively know who Cara Liss is, and might be worth in-setting to bring up “oh yeah, she’s this fossil researcher who makes hodgepodge revived Pokémon”

But most importantly of all, I have discovered that the Zorua tail this multi-champion wears isn't just cosplay.

Illanero is a Zorua in disguise.

Enjoy the videos.

Aaaaaand there’s our reveal of the central premise to this series. So is there also one of these made of N in this setting, too? :V

KANTOVID - CHAMPION

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just as Illanero has won the Kanto championship, this being xyr third champion title.

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Wait, third champion title? What were the two that Illanero won before this? .-.

The video begins with the final stages of a Pokemon battle, between Blue Oak of Kanto, and a "human" with a Zorua tail.

Yeeeeeeeah, unless Illanero went around disguised as a Poké Maniac, you’d think that the “Illanero’s a Zorua” theories would’ve come fast and furious from Day 1. Is Illanero meant to be slipping up with xyr Illusion here? Or is this the norm?

As Voivick the Vaporeon landed a final Surf on Blue's Arcanine, knocking it out. Blue collapsed on the floor, and yelled out, "No! Why?!" as he clutched at his hair.

Wait, but this video is from the perspective of a third party watching it or else the channel owner narrating the video feed. How do either of those parties reflexively know the names of Illanero’s party members?

I also think that you’re a bit too barebones with describing the aftermath of the battle here.

Arcanine: “Um… Blue? Are you going to recall me right about now or what?”

"Blue?" Illanero asked, eyes wide as xe stepped closer to xyr Kanto rival.

"It's not fair! I just became champion, and you took it away so quickly? How? Why?! I trained so hard, and for what?!" Blue said, "I-"

Oh, so Illanero is the stand-in for Red in this setting. I definitely didn’t see that one coming, but duly noted. Wonder if that means we’ll have a Battle Tree episode in Alola much later in this series.

"Illanero!" a third voice rang out, as Professor Oak arrived in the room. "Congratulations on becoming Kanto Champion! You've come so far since you and Charmander left my lab."

Illanero's tail wagged a bit at that. "Thank you! But-"

Professor Oak then turned towards Blue. "Blue, I'm disappointed in you."

Yuuuuup, Illanero as this setting’s Red is confirmed. I think, anyways.

"Wha...what?" Blue stammered. "Why?"

Because you’re an obnoxious asshole who unironically tells others ‘smell you later’? I dunno, that seems like a pretty good reason to be disappointing with Blue as a grandson.

"Do you know why you lost to Illanero?" Oak said. "It's because you didn't treat your Pokemon right. You only wanted to be the strongest. As long as you have that attitude, you'll never be champion again!"

"I..." Blue stammered, looking on the verge of tears.

[ ]


"Come, Illanero. It is time to register you as Kanto Champion!" Oak said, turning away from his grandson.

Wait, how is Illanero reacting to Oak’s chewout and Blue’s reaction to it? Like is he just awkwardly standing there? Is he visibly feeling bad on-camera, or…?

"Wait!" Illanero said, running between Oak and Blue.

"What is it?" Oak said.

"Blue's not a disappointment!" Illanero said. "He can be reallyreally mean sometimes! But he's not bad! He really, really cares about his Pokemon!"

I mean, that’s definitely true of G/S-era Blue, but I distinctly recall him being a bit more wrapped up with the idea of being champion than really focusing on being buddy-buddy with his Pokémon.

Well, unless if we’re going with the “Blue’s Raticate died” route, in which case… yeah. Illanero has a point, there.

"...Illanero?" Blue asked, slowly looking up at his rival.

"I ran into him in the Pokemon Tower, and he was mourning one of his teammates his Raticate that Team Rocket killed! His Raticate!" Illanero said, tail lashing back and forth. "If he didn't care about his Pokemon, he wouldn't have done that!"

Oh, well. Speak of the devil there…

"Team Rocket did what?!" Oak said, eyes widening.

"And he came really, really far, too! He defeated all eight Kanto gym leaders and all of the Kanto Elite Four, just like I did!" Illanero said, eyes narrow. "Don't call him a disappointment!"

Wait, is the camera at a fixed angle for this video? If so, I’m a little surprised that it’s capturing all these facial expressions from the relevant characters like this.

Though you seem to have some typos that are popping up here and there in this video. Be a bit more careful about those.

"...I see," Oak said, turning towards Blue. "I'm sorry, Blue."

"I...I..." Blue began, before trailing off.

[ ]

"I'll give you two some space," Oak said, walking towards a doorway. "Follow me when you're ready to become Kanto Champion, Illanero."

And with that, the room was empty, save for Illanero and Blue. [ ]

This feels like another moment where you’re passing over a bit too much description. Like is Blue reacting at all at this moment? Staring vacantly at the ground, or….?

"...why?" Blue asked, standing up. "Why did you stand up for me?"

"Because he was being reallyreally mean to you!" Illanero said. "You didn't deserve that."

"...thank you," Blue said, before turning towards the opposite doorway from the one Oak went in. "Don't think this'll make me go easy on you next time, though! We'll battle again, and I'll win! Just you wait!"

Okay, given that ‘reallyreally’ keeps coming up over and over again, I’m going to stop assuming that that’s an error and just assume it’s a stylistic thing. I do think that this is another moment where you want to describe more of what’s happening in this exchange, whether it’s from a dispassionate summary of body language or something in the style of a commentary over the video’s events by the channel creator.

Arcanine: “Also, you never recalled me from being fainted on the ground right now, just saying, Blue.”

"And...to all you watching our battle from home," Blue said, looking at one of the cameras in the corners of the League room. "Smell ya later."

The video ends.

I’m honestly surprised that Blue would just roll with having thousands of viewers watching him having an emotional breakdown on livestream instead of trying to cut the feed.

GALARVID - MISTAKE

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after Illanero had given a Plume fossil and Sail fossil to Cara Liss, and received the result.

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Oh, so this is the update where that hybrid in the channel summary first shows up, huh?

The video begins in the middle of a conversation, between Illanero and a regular human trainer. The two are sitting near a tent, and a certain terrified-looking Archen-Amaura quivers near Illanero. The name "Cam" is emblazoned on the tent.

"I'm reallyreally scared," Illanero says. "I hurt them and now they're stuck like this and I don't know how to help and-"

Illanero, what on earth did you do?

"Hey," the other trainer, Cam, says. "You didn't know. It's not your fault."

"But it is! It reallyreally is!" Illanero says. "I shouldn't have given the fossils to Cara Liss. If I didn't, then..."

This feels like another spot to show off a bit more body language from the various parties involved here.

"Hey now," Cam says, before ruffling around in their giant backpack, pulling out two fossils of their own. "It's not just you. I was planning on giving her these fossils after I rested a bit, until you showed up. If you hadn't told me what happened, I could be in the same situation as you."

[ ]

"But I still..." Illanero trails off, looking towards the recently-revived chimera.

I’m a little surprised we’re not seeing more of this hybrid interacting with the others given that this is the introductory video here. Like what is their personality like, and how are they reacting / interacting with Cam and Illanero right now.

"I know. Best you can do for now is make sure they're kept healthy and happy," Cam says, standing up. "And a good way to do that is with some curry! Why don't we make some together?"

A few seconds pass, before Illanero nods. "Okok. Thankyou."

The video ends.

I feel like there was a bit of a missed opportunity to show the hybrid starting to warm up to Cam and Illanero here, but I’ll withhold judgement since for all I know, that’s going to be the topic of one of the later videos.

JOHTOVID - SCAFFOLD

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero's battle with Violet City's gym leader, Falkner.

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​

Oh, so Illanero basically does a reverse G/S in his continuity where he beats the Johto half of the Indigo League after Kanto’s, huh? Duly noted.

The video begins with Illanero in human illusion, nimbly traveling across the scaffolding that is the Violet City gym puzzle, a Chikorita and Sentret following after xem. The glass shortcuts lay untouched. Down below, a certain Archen-Amaura can be seen, waiting for Illanero to return.

Wait, is it obvious somehow in the video that Illanero is under an Illusion? Or is this video meant to be narrated? Since you’d think that if it’s not obvious that Illanero is a Zorua in a guise that it doesn’t make sense to blatantly say that in the narration at this point.

Soon, xey make it to Falkner, who watched with a difficult-to-read look.

… Actually, wait, is this camera meant to be something like a Rotom Phone following Illanero around? Since from the narration thus far, it doesn’t seem like this is meant to be a fixed camera since we can see Illanero going through an entire gym.

[ ]

"Not using the shortcuts?" Falkner asked. "Afraid of heights? Or just wanted a little extra training before you reached me?"

[ ]


"Extra training!" Illanero said. "I'm gonna win!"

[ ]

"Illanero, right?" Falkner said. "The tri-champion who's been all over the news lately?"

Some more spots where IMO, it would make sense to describe the characters’ reactions to each other.

"You've heard of me?" Illanero asked, tilting xyr head.

"Yes, I have. Hoenn, Kalos, and Kanto, you flew through the Leagues and became champion of each," Falkner said. "Here to take on the other half of the Indigo League?"

Yeah, I knew it.

"Yesyes! I'm gonna be champion of Johto, too!" Illanero said, tail wagging.

Does the Indigo League work differently in this setting, or…?

Falkner simply stared. "Johto and Kanto share a champion. You've already accomplished it. ...or do you want to soar to even higher altitudes, and do a victory lap?"

Oh, I see. Illanero was just in the dark there.

[ ]

"I'm reallyreally confused, but I'm here to battle you for a badge!" Illanero said, getting into position for battle.

Another spot where it makes sense to show off Illanero’s reaction, since I didn’t really get a strong vibe of him being confused outside of his dialogue.

"If that's what you really want, who am I to stop you from spreading your wings?" Falkner says, walking to the other side of the battlefield. "Let the battle begin!"

[ ]

The video ends.

IMO, this would’ve worked better showing Illanero taking his place on the field and about to send out his Pokémon or something, since this feels a little abrupt as an ending.

JOHTOVID - WELL

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero's battle with one of Team Rocket's admins, Proton.

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I mean, if Illanero fits the role I think he’s intended to fit in this series, this encounter’s going to be… something.

The video begins with Illanero in xyr human illusion, traversing through the Slowpoke Well in Azalea, when a knife is suddenly pressed up to xyr neck.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" a certain green-haired Rocket executive says, smirking as he holds the knife. "It's the Menace, back for round two!"

This again feels like it would be a bit hard to pull off for camera placement. Like whose camera even is this feed even coming from right now? Since just about the only camera that could move around with Illanero like this would either be on a drone or something like a Rotom Phone.

"Proton..." Illanero says, eyes wide with terror, tail between xyr legs.

"Aw, you remembered me! I'm flattered," Proton says, grinning. "Do you remember my darling knife?"

This sure would be a good time for you to have one of those Pokémon on your team out right now, Illanero. Though I actually never recalled Proton being depicted with a knife in HGSS. Is that a thing in Special or something like that?

[ ]


"Well," Proton continues, "This isn't it. This is a different one, for naughty Pokemon like you."

[ ]

"But I'm getting a bit tired of chopping off Slowpoke tails, so I'll cut you a deal," Proton says. "Win a Pokemon battle against me, and I'll leave. You only have one chance, though."

[ ]


"If you lose," Proton says with a twisted grin. "I'll tie you up and take you to my hideout, where you can be reunited with my other knife. And then you can choose which knife I use on you! Aren't I generous?"

Illanero hestitated, then said, "I'll battle you."

I’ll admit, this one kinda took me out of things in terms of a logical thought process. Like why is Proton even offering Illanero a chance to escape instead of taking him straight to the experiment table? Since Proton literally is just one step below having a gun at Illanero’s head in terms of degree of mortal peril and xe is in no position to resist at the moment.

I think that there was probably some sort of thought process about how Proton specifically needs Illanero to first show something off that xe can’t while being held at knifepoint and that Proton thinks that Illanero doesn’t have an alternative means of escape, but they should likely be built up a bit more or else have Proton out-and-out spell things out, since without them, it kinda feels like “Proton decided to give Illanero a fighting chance just because”.

"Excellent," Proton says, pulling the knife away from Illanero's neck. "I hope you're not too fond of that tail of yours."

The video ends.

Illanero: “Um… why am I even accepting this challenge right now instead of running far, far away at the moment?”

JOHTOVID - BUZZ

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero's battle with Azalea Town's gym leader, Bugsy.

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The video begins with Illanero stepping off of the web platform, and walking up to gym leader Bugsy, who's smiling.

Well that’s certainly a change of pace from the last video. Though I wonder when this is occurring relative to Illanero’s run-in with Proton, since there’s no timestamps provided.

Also, getting in a reminder to be a bit more specific about where your camera is oriented for this scene.

"Hi!" Bugsy says, setting the end of his net on the ground. "Good of you to stop by! Was meaning to thank you for driving Team Rocket out of town, but I was busy with gym duties."

"It was scary seeing Proton again, but I did it!" Illanero says, a toothy grin on xyr face.

Oh, so like a day or two afterwards. Duly noted.

[ ]

"Didn't expect the tri-champion who beat Rocket before would come back to stop them again, but I'm glad," Bugsy says, offering their free hand for a handshake.

Illanero steps forward, and returns the handshake. [ ]

"Guessing you're here for a battle, like with Falkner?" Bugsy says, ending the handshake.

"Yesyes! I'm gonna win against all the Johto gyms!" Illanero says, tail wagging.

IMO, it makes sense to describe the body language of these two a bit more, especially for the equivalent of “visual glitches” for Illanero. Recall that the central premise of this series is that it’s found footage on a website outing that Illanero is a Zorua. Little “Zorua”-isms popping up here and how Illanero navigates them is probably worth drawing attention to.

"I like your spirit! Bugsy says, "Reminds me of a Scyther, always wanting more foes to fight."

[ ]

"Come to think of it, you never did battle Alder, did you?" Bugsy continues. "I looked everywhere online for a fight between you and the bug-specialist champion, but all I could find was reports that some Team Plasma guy interrupted the match before it could begin."

"Yesyes...I don't think I'm Unova champion yet," Illanero says. "But soon!"

Oh, so Illanero’s technically a quad-region champion given that xe’s also the B1W1 protagonist. That actually makes me wonder if this is a shared continuity with Eternal Shadows or an AU, since while Illanero was also there, he was a very recent arrival to the human world.

It does make me wonder if there was a bit of a missed opportunity to have Illanero go through different guises from region to region akin to how players cycle through Player Characters between games and it’d potentially have allowed Illanero to wash xyr paws of any disguises that had epic fails at preserving xyr identity, but eh. You stated upfront what the central premise of this series was, so I won’t criticize it too much.

Though does that mean that N is also a Zoroark in this continuity like the internet crack theory?

"Good luck with that!" Bugsy says, "But before then, we have a battle to do. I'm not a champion like Alder, but I do know a lot about bug-types!"

Bugsy holds their net tighter, while taking a pokeball from their belt. "Get ready, tri-champion! Let me show you what I know!"

The video ends.

Yeeeaaaah, I’m not holding my breath on Bugsy not getting stomped there. Especially if Illanero is reusing Pokémon between regions.

JOHTOVID - CHARM

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero's battle with Goldenrod City's gym leader, Whitney.

=====​

The video begins with Illanero walking up to Whitney, who looks upon xem with scorn.

"So, you're the fabled tri-champion I've been hearing about from Falkner and Bugsy," Whitney says. "I expected someone...prettier."

[ ]

"What?" Illanero asked, tilting xyr head.

So I take it that you were a big fan of Whitney when you ran into her in your Johtogame run, huh? /s

"That hat clashes hard with the rest of your outfit, and that cosplay is just gaudy," Whitney says. "Did you take inspiration from Valerie? Her outfits aren't nearly pretty enough."

[ ]

"Can we do the battle?" Illanero says, looking nervous with xyr tail between xyr legs.

"Oh! The battle!" Whitney says, perking up, taking a pokeball from her belt. "But I don't plan on becoming fodder for your victory lap. Get ready!"

The video ends.

I kinda wonder if this would’ve been more interesting to see either during the battle with Whitney or just afterwards given that you’ve this is the third gym encounter with Illanero where xe banters with the Gym Leader before the challenge, so doing something different might have been a nice change of pace, especially when Whitney is a meme in the fandom for:

A: Her cow
B: Her reaction to losing

But eh, for all I know you actually have a “video” of that later on, so I won’t judge too hard. I did notice that all this time, you haven’t really been showing off the sorts of Pokémon Illanero is taking for these Gym Challenges since you allude to some very non-standard antics in your preamble (e.x. switching out between regions with an implication that they’re being pulled from the PMD world, but up to this point, we’ve only gotten to see Illanero’s team on two occasions and not a whole lot about their personalities.

JOHTOVID - CRACKALAK

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place soon after Illanero had received a badge from Whitney.

=====​

So… she’s going to bawl and throw a tantrum on camera? ^^;

The video begins with Illanero exiting Goldenrod City onto Route 35, when xey notice a strange figure, clad in a white-and-navy suit. And just as Illanero notices them, they notice Illanero as well.

"What is crack-a-lack-ing, Anomaly?" the figure says. "I have been informed by 4Chansey of that being a polite way of greeting new people in this world."

Illanero:

"Hihi!" Illanero says, tail wagging. "You're reallyreally weird. Who are you?"

Yeah, I figured. Even if Illanero was nicer about it.

"I suppose you are not from this world either, so it would make no sense to you..." the figure says, sounding disappointed. "Very well. I am Rhi, of the Ultra Recon Squad, and I have come to assuage your mettle as a Pokemon trainer."

Oh, so the fabric of timespace is messed up in more places than Alola in this continuity, since I was going to say, Johto’s a bit of a journey from there.

"I'm reallyreally confused," Illanero says, tilting xyr head.

"In short, I wish to do a Pokemon battle with you," Rhi says, sounding even more disappointed. "Perhaps 4Chansey was the wrong place to ask for help with blending in..."

Gee, ya think? Though at least Rhi didn’t get that deeply ingrained with imageboard culture, since that sounds like a fast way to have problems applying that in a real-world setting.

"Okok!" Illanero says. "Let's battle!"

The video ends.

Wait, does Illanero make a deliberate point of not having Pokémon out with xyr around other humans? Is it because they can talk? Or something different? Since that feels like a bit of a strange choice given that we’ve literally only seen Pokémon from Illanero’s team twice up to this point of the series.

JOHTOVID - DOUBLE

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after Illanero entered the Burned Tower of Ecruteak.

=====​

… That actually makes me wonder if Illanero should’ve alluded at some point as to what regions xe’s a champion of by this point (even if the lack of Unova championship is on a technicality) or else hinted at it through stuff like patches on a jacket / mementos that Illanero plays around or something like that

The video begins with Illanero entering the Burned Tower of Ecruteak, the wood creaking underneath xem.

Nearby, voices could be heard, and Illanero turned to look.

Okay, how on earth is this video being taken? Since this is literally in the charred husk of a building that if my memory of canon fluff serves me right, was literally built years ago.

Like is Zoruaspotting stalking Illanero around to take these? Or is this found footage that Zoruaspotting is scraping from some combination of Illanero’s vlog and Gym/League feeds? It might make sense to have the source of the video that Zoruaspotting uploads be mentioned in passing in the summary (e.x. if one came from some silly Not!TikTok video riddled with obnoxious filters and effects uploaded by Bianca or something like that)

"What you did was wrong," a man with a purple headband said, arms crossed. "Disrespecting a sacred site such as this is not a light crime. You are lucky I was the one to find you, the police wouldn't be so kind."

"Let me go down there!" a child with red hair said, eyes darting around. "I saw strong Pokemon! I need to be stronger!"

Ohai, Silver. Is he going to do his infamous costume-wrecking routine that he does in HGSS later on in this series, too?

"Suicune doesn't let those impure of heart to approach it," a man with a cape said, blocking the ladder to the downstairs. "I have devoted my entire life to it, to try to teach it that it doesn't need to be afraid of humans anymore. And still it remains distant from me. You'd scare it off in an instant!"

And Eusine, too. At first when I read the description, I thought it was Morty, but I suppose Eusine does make a bit more sense for someone who’d be chasing around Suicune.

"Maybe you're just wrong about it," the red-haired child says. "It's just a Pokemon anyways."

The caped man's eyes widened. "I...how dare you say that about Suicune!"

"Eusine..." the headband-wearing man said, sighing. "I don't think we're getting through to him. We might have to call the police."

"Morty, we can't do that!" Eusine says. "He's a kid! An extremely disrespectful kid, but still a kid!"

Nevermind, Morty was there all along. Though I’m wondering why the narration isn’t having more mention of what Illanero’s doing right now at the moment. Since while this is neat to see play out, you’d think that the channel that’s about “this multi-regional champion’s really a Zorua” would make Illanero front and center for these videos.

"I don't care what threats you make to me, I'm going to catch that Pokemon!" the red-haired child says, taking a step towards Eusine.

"Wait! Silver!" Illanero calls, running over, causing the three humans to look at xem.

Yeah, I kinda stand by my earlier comment that you should’ve kept Illanero more ‘in-frame’ up to this point, since I didn’t really get the sense that xe was getting bothered at all up until this point.

"More children?" Morty says, shaking his head. "This is a dangerous and sacred site, you're not supposed to be here."

"If you leave, I'll tell you all about the legendary Pokemon Suicune!" Eusine says, before pausing. "Wait a second, do you know this kid?"

[ ]


"I came looking for someone named Morty since the person at the gym said that he was here!" Illanero says. "But I'll look for him later! I need to talk to Silver!"

I now have the mental image of Zoruaspotting stalking Illanero with a drone to make all these videos.

"Stop saying my name out loud," Silver says, stepping over. "What do you want?"

"Why do you want to catch Suicune?" Illanero asked.

"Because it's strong," Silver says. "None of my Pokemon are strong enough. They're still weak."

Silver’s Sneasel: “Wow. Rude.”

"Why do you need to be strong?" Illanero asked.

"I'm not telling you. Now leave me alone," Silver said, turning back towards Eusine and Morty.

I’m honestly surprised that Silver didn’t launch into a tirade about “what would you know / easy for you to say” given that Illanero’s status as a multi-region champion appears to be semi-common knowledge at this point.

[ ]

"Pardon me," Morty says, "But I have an idea."

"What," Silver said, looking away from Morty. [ ]

"I am Morty, gym leader of Ecruteak City, and this is my friend Eusine," Morty says.

"You're Morty?!" Illanero says, eyes wide. "I was looking for you!"

IMO, you’re missing some opportunities to depict body language for your characters here.

"...yes, I heard," Morty says. "Now, Silver and...the Zorua-tailed human, you two are rivals, are you not?"

I’m honestly surprised that Morty’s reflexive assumption isn’t that Illanero isn’t a Poké Maniac or the Zorua-themed equivalent of a Pika Girl, since there’s canonical trainer classes where going around with a Zorua tail wouldn’t really move the needle all that much.

"Yesyes! And my name's-!" Illanero begins, before Silver cuts xem off.

"Not important," Silver says. "What do you want?"

"Eusine and I are both powerful trainers," Morty says. "Would you like to prove your strength against us in a double battle?"

"What are the stakes?" Silver asks.

"If you both win, you each get a badge from me, as well as a special prize to make you stronger," Morty says. "Eusine will decide the prize for if we win."

Silver: “This sounds like a scam, just saying.”

Illanero: “I dunno, this sounds like it’s fun if you ask me!” ^.^

"If we win, I get to tell you all about Suicune and the other legends of Johto!" Eusine says, smiling. "It's a win-win even if you lose!"

Silver: “... Yeah, I knew that this was a scam.”

"...fine," Silver says. "Let's battle."

"Yesyes! Let's do it!" Illanero says, tail wagging.

Wait, but Illanero never explicitly agrees to go along with this double battle offer. Even if I’m now belatedly realizing that it’s a bit of a divergence from the canon plot

"Not here," Morty says. "Meet us in the Ecruteak City gym."

"Okok!" Illanero says. "Thankyou!"

[ ]


"Follow me, I'll show you to the exit," Morty says. "And please, pay a bit more respect toward our legends."

The video ends.

It might have made sense to show off a bit more of Illanero and Silver’s chemistry with each other at this point, especially since they both explicitly agreed to work with each other for this gym challenge.

JOHTOVID - DIM

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero and Silver's battle against Morty and Eusine.

=====​

The video begins with Illanero and Silver traversing the Ecruteak City gym. Despite it being near pitch-black, Illanero doesn't stray from the path once.
Silver simply follows behind Illanero, copying xyr movements.

Right, I suppose that I should be less surprised that Illanero would have an edge up in low light environments. Though how on earth is there anything visible in this video if it’s explicitly pitch-black? Like unless it’s an infrared/night vision camera, you’re going to see a lot of black with maybe a couple small objects reflecting light as they move, and as such as a viewer of this video, one wouldn’t be able to tell that Illanero’s sticking to the path.

"How can you see the path?" Silver asks, after a minute of silence.

"Can't you?" Illanero asks. "It's reallyreally easy to see!"

"It's not," Silver says. "I can't see a thing in here besides your stupid tail."

"My tail isn't stupid!" Illanero says, just before the area around the two lights up.

Okay, so if this video is meant to go from “no light” to “ample light”, it might make sense to play that up where the viewer up until this point can barely see anything, and then suddenly a bunch of detail fills in.

A Pokemon battlefield is revealed, with Morty and Eusine standing at the far end.

"Congratulations on making it through my gym!" Morty says, bowing. "It's not an easy feat."

"Save your canned congratulations," Silver says, gripping a pokeball. "Let's battle."

I’m just going to go with “Illanero has a Rotom Phone and is livestreaming” as an explanation for why the camera for these videos is constantly moving around wherever Illanero does. If that is indeed what you were going for, you probably want to make that explicit from the jump in the series.

[ ]

"Hey, we haven't even had the pre-battle banter yet! You don't even know what you're fighting for!" Eusine says, eyes narrowed.

"Yesyes! I wanna hear about it!" Illanero says, tail flicking.

"You already told us what we're battling for, back at the Burned Tower," Silver says, not looking at any of them. "Not having to listen to a lecture about Suicune, a badge, and something to make me stronger."

I think I’m with Silver on this one, just saying. Since once you start getting into the realm of repeating text boxes, you find yourself mashing the ‘A’ button pretty frequently.

[ ]

"Two badges, and something to make you both stronger," Morty says. "Don't forget your rival."

"And it's not a lecture!" Eusine says. "It's a privileged lesson from Johto's Suicune expert!"

"Can I listen to it even if we win?" Illanero says.

Silver:

Illanero: “Because it sounds fun!” ^.^

Eusine's eyes widen, and soon fill with tears. "No one's ever asked me to tell them about Suicune before...of course I will! In fact, we can do it before the batt-"

Illanero’s camera can capture this with sufficient visual fidelity from all the way across a battlefield? I honestly wasn’t expecting that.

Silver gritted his teeth. "Enough. Let's battle already."

"I see," Eusine says, looking despondent again. "Very well. Morty?"

Morty nods. "Let us battle, then. Test your strength against us."

The video ends.

Okay, so I get that these were meant to be light vignettes that were casual to write and casual to read, but I’m a little surprised that the only Pokémon battle we’ve seen in all of Zoruaspotting’s videos up to this point is the very tail end of Blue’s L to Illanero.

I do also wonder if Zoruaspotting’s videos up to this point are riding a bit heavily on “look at xyr tail” as “proof” that Illanero’s a Zorua and if there should be other little Zorua-isms that should’ve come out at this point such as Illanero inadvertently revealing by xyr actions on-camera that xe has much more sensitive hearing or smell than humans or stuff like that.

JOHTOVID - BELL

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after Illanero and Silver's battle against Morty and Eusine.

=====​

The video begins with a Furret dealing the fainting blow to a Haunter. Morty sighs, and recalls his last Pokemon.

Oh, well. Speak of the devil. Looks like we’re getting onscreen battling again after all.

[ ]

"Well done, both of you," he says, bowing once more. "You have bested me and my friend. Victory is yours."

[ ]


Eusine briefly looks downtrodden, but quickly perks up. "Yes! But I still get to tell you about Suicune, don't I?"

Illanero tries to speak up, but before xey can say anything, Silver cuts in.

"We proved we're stronger. Where's my prize?" He asks.

This feels like something where it makes sense to show off the characters’ reactions a bit more, especially since I take it that Silver and Illanero are supposed to essentially be at opposite poles for how they’re reacting to this win at the moment.

"Your prizes are these," Morty says, handing both Illanero and Silver a gym badge and a TM. "These TMs are for Shadow Ball. With it, you-"

While Illanero was happy with what xey received, Silver's eyes narrowed. "This is just the stuff you give every trainer who beats you."

[ ]

"That's because that's not everything!" Eusine says, taking out a soothe bell. "Here, for...Silver, right?"

Eusine’s just blatantly digging out stuff he bought at a truck stop the other day, isn’t he?

Silver takes it, before staring at this. "This is just a Pokemon toy. How is this supposed to make my Pokemon stronger?"

"Power of friendship," Morty says, a small smile on his face.

Silver: “... Just give me my badge so I can get out of here.” >_>;

[ ]

"'Friendship' isn't going to make me any stronger," Silver says, eyes narrowing. "Where's my real prize?"

"That is your real prize," Eusine says, tone becoming serious. "Have you ever heard the story of how Leon became champion of Galar?"

By Dynamaxing his Charizard and getting stronger by constantly bumbling into battles by having no real sense of direction?

"No, and I don't care about some Galarian's life story," Silver says, clenching the soothe bell in his hand.

"Too bad, I'm telling you anyways," Eusine says. [ ]

"Leon was in a rough spot against Mustard, the champion before Leon. He had already used up his Dynamax, and Charizard was his only Pokemon left."

"What happened next?" Illanero asked, head tilted.

Another spot where it probably makes sense to emphasize the difference between the two trainers’ reactions.

"Mustard Gigantamaxed his Urshifu, and it barraged Leon's Charizard with a series of Rapid Flows. By all accounts, Leon's Charizard should have fainted after the first. And yet..."

"And yet?" Illanero asked.

"And yet, once Mustard's Gigantamax ran out, Leon's Charizard was still standing. Just barely, but it was enough for it to score a winning blow on Mustard's Urshifu," Eusine said. "Do you know why Charizard could withstand so many super-effective hits and still win?"

Because of that one RNG ‘toughed out the attack’ effect that kicked in for Leon there? Though I actually completely forgot about Dynamax being a timed gimmick in Sword and Shield… which probably goes hand-in-hand with how I forgot a lot about Sword and Shield in general. ^^;

"...because Leon's team was just that strong?" Silver said, uncertainty in his words.

"No. By all accounts, Charizard was weaker than Urshifu," Eusine said. "It was to the point where some people thought the match was rigged, but an independent inspector proved that it wasn't. Someone who could hear the hearts of Pokemon was called in, and listening to Charizard's heart, they discovered why it withstood the impossible, and won."

a.k.a. the reason why the final boss fight in S/V is literally impossible to lose even if you go out of your way to try and throw it. Though I can tell that many a tournament fight in this setting has ended with a dismayed cry of ‘I call hax!’

Eusine paused, and then said, "Charizard withstood all those blows...because it didn't want Leon, its friend, to feel sad."

[ ]

"Wow!" Illanero exclaimed, tail wagging. "That's reallyreally cool!"

"It's one of Eusine's favorites," Morty says, a soft smile on his face.

I’m a little surprised that these two would default to an example from Galar instead of something closer to home, but I suppose Lance wouldn’t be a natural candidate for ‘the power of friendship’, especially if you’re carrying over elements of his Special depiction.

Silver didn't say a word. [ ] Instead, he turned around, and began walking along the now-lit path, to the exit of the gym.

[ ]

"...he has much to learn," Morty says, before turning towards Illanero. "Now, I don't believe I ever heard your name?"

"Yesyes!" Illanero says. "I'm Illanero!"

I’m a little surprised that Morty didn’t even check in Illanero’s name as part of his challenge since you’d think they’d need that for bookkeeping purposes, but I won’t question it too hard.

[ ]

"The tri-champion!" Eusine says. "I should have known!"

[ ]

"As I suspected," Morty says. "Congratulations on your victory. And good luck with the rest of your victory lap."

The video ends.

Some more spots where it probably makes sense to show off the characters’ reactions a bit more, especially if they’re visible on-camera at all.

JOHTOVID - ELEVATOR

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place soon after Illanero enters the Olivine Lighthouse in search of Jasmine.

=====​

Amphy video? This sounds like an Amphy video.

The video begins with Illanero emerging from the elevator into the top floor of the Olivine Lighthouse, only to run into a certain red-haired human. [ ]

"You again?" he says. "Will you ever stop getting in my way?"

"Hihi Silver!" Illanero says, tail wagging. "What are you doing here?"

One of those moments that IMO would be a lot more expressive with a bit more focus on the characters’ reaction, especially when you’re using “videos on the internet” as a framing device.

"Leaving," Silver says, pushing past Illanero into the elevator.

"Wait!" Illanero says, hurrying back inside the elevator just as it closes.

Silver sighs, presses the button to go down, and says, "What do you want."

Boy that Rotom Phone or whatever that Illanero has with xyr sure has a thing for cinematic camera placement.

[ ]

"I wanted to make sure you're okok!" Illanero says, grinning. "You walked out of Morty's gym without saying anything to me or Morty or Eusine! You missed Eusine's story about Suicune!"

"Good. I didn't want to hear it," Silver says. "Have you considered that I don't want to talk to you?"

[ ]


"Why not?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"You're..." Silver sighs again, and shakes his head. "Nevermind. I'm not in the mood. Not when I've just become some gym leader's errand boy."

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

Illanero: “... Errand boy?”

"What do you mean?" Illanero asks, as the elevator continues to descend.

"You just don't quit, do you?" Silver says, eyes narrowed. "Fine. The Ampharos at the top of this lighthouse is sick, and gym leader Jasmine isn't taking any challengers until she gets some medicine for it. So I'm going to get the medicine for her."

"Wow! That's reallyreally nice of you!" Illanero says, tail wagging.

Silver simply looks away from Illanero. "A sick Pokemon is worthless. I couldn't care less about what happens to the Ampharos. I just don't want to have to wait any longer to challenge Jasmine."

Illanero: “... Yeah, I was probably tootoo quick to call you nice there.”

"Oh..." Illanero says, xyr tail stopping its wagging.

"So now I have to find a Pokemon capable of Surfing, go all the way to Cianwood, get the medicine, and then come back and give it to Jasmine," Silver says, looking back at Illanero. "And then you come along, and won't leave me alone. Do you see why I'm not happy?"

Illanero looked downtrodden for a few seconds, before perking back up. "I have an idea!"

It’s going to be “I’ll get the medicine for you”, isn’t it?

"I don't want to hear it," Silver says.

"But Niko, my Furret, knows Surf!" Illanero exclaims. "We can go to Cianwood together! And it'll be faster!"

Silver hesitates, going silent. Several seconds pass. Then, finally, he says, "Fine. But you better not slow me down."

"Yayay!" Illanero says, as the elevator doors open. "Let's go together!"

The video ends.

Well, not quite what I was expecting, but I suppose that this is a bit more in-character for Illanero’s personality.

JOHTOVID - MEDITATE

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero and Silver's battle against Chuck.

=====​

Aw. No Amphy video… :<

… Unless that’ll come later on in the series, since you did say this was a series that was written out of chronological order…

The video begins in Cianwood City gym. Illanero is at the top near the waterfall controls, and Silver is waiting at the bottom, glaring at Chuck's meditating self.

"Just stop the mechanism already," Silver says, looking up at Illanero.

"Okok!" Illanero says, and pulls the crank with all xyr might.

Huh. I didn’t realize that Illanero and Silver did other gyms as joint challenges aside from just Morty’s. I wonder if it might have made sense to mention or foreshadow a bit more explicitly before this point.

It takes a few seconds, before the wooden channel supplying the waterfall begins to tilt upwards, stopping the flow of water.

As the last few drops of water hit Chuck's head, his eyes open, just in time to see Illanero clambering down from the controls to stand by Silver's side.

"So it's you two who interrupted my meditation!" Chuck says. "That impatient, huh? Would do you some good to try some meditation."

“My meditation” and “some meditation” feel a bit repetitive in such tight sequence with each other. I would suggest doing something like changing the second one to something like “it sometime” or something like that.

[ ]

"We're on a time limit," Silver says. "The forecast says the storm on Route 40 is stopping soon. We need to be back in Olivine as soon as possible."

Wait, they are? Is that meant to just be Silver being impatient? Since was never communicated in this series earlier that Silver had a perceived source of time shortage.

[ ]

"So, I'm a timewaster, eh?" Chuck says. "Be careful who you say stuff like that to. Some people don't like being thought of as just a diversion."

Illanero's eyes widened, and xe took a step back.

Remember to keep Illanero’s pronouns consistent in the narration. Though this would be a moment where showing off Chuck’s reaction a bit more would help make the moment a bit more expressive.

[ ]

"Don't worry, I'm not one of them!" Chuck says, laughing. "Now, which of you am I battling?"

Ditto here.

"Both of us," Silver says, taking a pokeball from his belt.

[ ]


"I see, I see!" Chuck says. "I don't normally do Doubles-"

[ ]


"I thought we were going to fight you one after another?" Illanero asks.

"You're in a hurry, right? I might as well speed it up for you both!" Chuck says. "Means I can get back to meditation sooner!"

Also here too, since I actually didn’t realize that Illanero and Silver weren’t planning on doing a joint gym challenge up until this point.

[ ]

Silver nods. "Fine. Us two against you."

"Sounds like a plan!" Chuck says, grinning as he takes out a pokeball. "But don't expect numbers to help you here! Our fists will do the talking!"

[ ]


The video ends.

IMO, you kinda missed an opportunity to end the video on a more “cliffhanger” note like Silver and Illanero sending out their Pokémon or something like that. Especially since we haven’t seen much of Illanero’s team (e.x. is that hybrid a major member of it?) in the videos up to this point.

JOHTOVID - REMEDY

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place as Illanero and Silver deliver medicine to Jasmine.

=====​

Ah, so there’s our Amphy video in this series.

The video begins with Illanero and Silver entering the top floor of the Olivine Lighthouse. The latter was carrying the Secret Potion, the medicine from Cianwood City.

I feel like unless if you’re going the very specific route of having these videos be narrated by Zoruaspotting in-universe, that it might not make sense to bring up “external to video” knowledge in these snippets.

As they approach Jasmine, Silver steps forward, holding out the Secret Potion, and says, "Here's your stupid medicine."

[ ]

"Thank you...thank you very much!" Jasmine says, not at all phased by Silver's words, as she takes the medicine. "I thought I was going to lose Amphy. Thank you!"

This is another moment where seeing Jasmine’s reaction would go a long way to setting the mood of the scene. Though I’m a bit surprised that if things with Amphy were that serious, that she didn’t check him into a Pokémon Center for at least providing palliative care. I won’t question it too hard, though.

Silver doesn't say a word, simply looking away. A few seconds pass, then he says, "It wasn't just me."

[ ]

"Thank you both, then," Jasmine says, as she applies the medicine to Amphy. Amphy's tail orb was beginning to shine again.

I just realized that you actually didn’t establish that Illanero was here with Silver all this time. Like it’s implicit from the video summary, but it might be worth explicitly pointing out here, especially if Illanero’s doing something like just walking up or something like that.

[ ]

"You reallyreally care about Amphy, don't you?" Illanero says, smiling.

"Yes, I do," Jasmine says. "I've cared for Amphy since childhood."

[ ]

"So then why do you still have Amphy? Why haven't you given up on it yet?" Silver asks.

"Pardon?" Jasmine asks, eyes narrowed.

Well, it was nice knowing you, Silver.

"Parents throw away their kids when they're too much of an inconvenience," Silver says. "Why are trainers any different towards their Pokemon?"

Illanero and Jasmine both stare at Silver with wide eyes.

"That's...not supposed to happen," Jasmine says, standing up. "Did someone do that to you?"

Silver turned away, and says, "I'm not telling a stranger."

I feel like the bit in underlined is cutting to the chase a little too quickly. Like if nothing else, you want to show the proverbial wheels turning in Illanero and Jasmine’s heads about ‘oh, he must not get along well with his parents’ instead of them having them instantly assume this. Especially since IIRC, Illanero might not be immune to family troubles himself since back in Eternal Shadows he left the Pokémon World getting outed as a serial liar, which might’ve had some knock-on effects for how he was seen by others, including his own family

"What about a friend?" Illanero asks, stepping towards Silver.

"We're not friends," Silver answers.

"But-" Illanero began to protest, before Jasmine cut in.

"If that happened to you, you did not deserve that," she says. "Who are your parents?"

Silver: “Okay, now I’m definitely not telling you!”

"Again, I'm not telling you. Either of you," Silver says, starting to walk away. "I was weak, so I was punished for it. That's all there is to it."

"[ ] But that's reallyreally bad!" Illanero says, as Silver opens the elevator doors.

I feel like Illanero’s interjection here is missing something to the effect of ‘but that’s not normal’ / ‘that’s not the way things are supposed to be’ or something like that.

"Whatever," Silver says, as he presses the down button, and the doors close.

The video ends.

I’m honestly surprised that Illanero didn’t make more of an attempt to stop the elevator / Silver to talk things out, but I suppose you can’t say that that’s not a decent ending note there.

JOHTOVID - REDDISH

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place as Illanero arrives at the Lake of Rage.

=====​

Oh boy, this is potentially going to be a wild one.

The video begins with Illanero arriving at the Lake of Rage, to find a caped human staring out at the lake, with a Dragonite by his side.

"Lance?" Illanero asks, approaching the caped human. "What are you doing here?"

Lance turns around, and raises an arm in greeting. "Champion Illanero! Good to see you! How's your victory lap going?"

"It's going great!" Illanero says, tail wagging. "But why are you here?"

Huh, surprised no acknowledgement of his interactions with Silver. Guess that’s ultimately just a subplot for him or else he’s not comfortable talking about it casually with third parties.

"Ah, that," Lance says, turning back towards the lake. "Come by my side, and look at the distance. Can you see it?"

Illanero runs up to Lance's side, and looks out at the lake. [ ]

"The red Gyarados?" xe asks.

Does the Red Gyarados actually show up on camera? If so, you probably want to make an explicit note about it in the story narration.

"Yes," Lance says. "I've heard reports of swarms of Gyarados here, far more than normal. And look what we have here, a very prematurely evolved Gyarados."

"Isn't the Gyarados just shiny, though?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"Not quite," Lance says. "A shiny Gyarados is more of a ruby red. This one is more pinkish, like a Magikarp."

Huh. Is that actually canon to the anime? Or was that cooked up wholecloth for this story? Since it does feel like a handy differentiator.

"Wow, how did you notice?" Illanero says.

I mean, he does have at least one Gyarados of his own canonically.

"You tend to notice these things when you're a dragon master," Lance says, chuckling. [ ] "But have you heard the rumors about Team Rocket being in Johto?"

"Yesyes! I ran into some of them on the way here! They stole some money from me!" Illanero says. "And some of them were hurting Slowpokes in Azalea!"

Lance's eyes widened, before narrowing. "I'll be right back. I need to go to Azalea immediately. Stay here-"

Well, I suppose that that’s one way to tell that Lance doesn’t take after his Special incarnation in this setting. Though I kinda wonder if the narration should note Lance’s mood shifting a bit while the topic of Rockets come up, since you’d think he’d be more opinionated about them.

"I already took care of them!" Illanero says. "Proton was reallyreally scary, but I defeated him, and Team Rocket left Azalea!"

Oh, so this is shortly after the whole “Proton and his knife” video… I think.

[ ]

"I see," Lance says, before patting Illanero on the head. "I suppose I should have expected that from the Champion. But next time, don't go after Team Rocket alone. They won't hesitate to hurt a child like you."

I mean, Proton literally demonstrated this in vivid detail back in the video with Illanero’s run-in with him, so…

"But..." Illanero protested, before trailing off.

[ ]

"I'm going to go to Mahogany. I have a bad feeling about that 'gift shop'," Lance says, climbing onto his Dragonite. "Care to come with me? Nitenite's gentle, and won't mind another passenger."

Wait, does Illanero know about that “gift shop” himself? Since the way Lance brings this up implies they’re both familiar with it. If Lance doesn’t think Illanero already knows about things, it probably makes sense for him to take a sentence or two to bring Illanero up to speed.

"Okok!" Illanero says, stepping towards Lance and his Dragonite, before pausing, and looking out at the lake. "Do you think the red Gyarados is in pain?"

"Unfortunately, it's near certain," Lance says. "But unless someone's willing to catch it and bring it to a Pokemon Center, there's not much we can do."

What even makes it occur to Illanero that the Gyarados might be in pain? Is it visible on-camera? Does xe see something about their behavior that reminds him of how a similar Pokémon might behave when hurt?

It probably makes sense to elaborate on that a bit more, since right now it kinda feels like Illanero magically knows what’s going on with the Red Gyarados in spite of having just run into this situation at the start of the video.

"I can do it!" Illanero says. "Niko knows Surf! We can go try to calm it down!"

Lance's eyes widen, before he smiles. "Knew you had a caring spirit. But I'm going with you."

"Okok!" Illanero says, walking towards the lake. "Let's go help the Gyarados!"

[ ]


The video ends.

IMO, it makes sense to be a bit more “active” here like showing Illanero putting away xyr recording device to avoid getting it wet before heading out onto the water or something like that.

JOHTOVID - HEIR

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place as Illanero, Lance, and Silver encounter Petrel.

=====​

Ah yes, the part where Silver’s deadbeat dad problems come out in public for everyone. I’m sure this one will be quite something.

The video begins with Illanero and Lance entering passwords into a locked door. It isn't long before it opens.

"Alright. Stay behind me," Lance says. "We have no idea what traps lay on the other side-"

Suddenly, a red-haired kid runs past the two, and into the room. [ ]

"Silver!" Illanero exclaims, before running into the room after him. Lance doesn't hesitate to follow.

It’s probably worth showing the characters’ surprise a bit more, even if I’m a little surprised that Illanero in-setting would choose to record xyrself at this particular moment… unless this is meant to be pulled from the Rocket base’s CCTV.

Inside the room is...Giovanni? [ ]

"Wahaha!" Giovanni says, sneering at Silver. "So, the heir has come at last."

I was going to complain that you were missing the leading ‘F’ for Giovanni’s laugh, but no, Petrel actually does this in HGSS. Good eye for detail.

"Cut the act, Petrel. We both know Giovanni speaks nothing like that," Silver says. Upon closer examination, Silver seems to be trembling slightly.

Not sure the ‘Upon closer examination’ makes sense in the context of internet videos unless Zoruaspotting is meant to be narrating the videos as they play.

[ ]

"Fine, fine. Just for you, heir," Petrel says, ripping off his Giovanni disguise.

[ ]


"Heir?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"What's going on here?" Lance asks, taking out Nitenite's pokeball.

Another spot where adding character reactions would go a long way to adding a bit more to the tone of this video.

"Stay out of this," Silver says, glaring at Illanero and Lance.

"Oh, no. I feel like our guests deserve an explanation," Petrel says, stepping forward. "So, heir. Do you want to do the honors? Or will I be the one to unveil your weakness?"

Silver's trembling gets more noticeable. [ ]

"Shut up and battle me already."

Are Illanero and Lance having any reaction to this? If so, it might be worth showing off, especially if one or the other (realistically, probably Lance) has put two and two together as to what ‘heir’ Petrel is referring to.

"Oh, but I'm unarmed!" Petrel says, raising his arms. Sure enough, there doesn't appear to be any pokeballs on his person. "You wouldn't hurt an unarmed person, would you?"

Silver hesitates, then lunges for Petrel, attempting to punch him.

Unfortunately for Silver, Petrel easily catches the punch, and quickly grabs Silver in a chokehold.

Petrel:

Since… yeah, taking a swing at a grown adult wasn’t exactly the smartest idea in the world for a pre-teen.

Illanero yelps. "Silver!"

Lance's eyes narrow, and he releases Nitenite from their pokeball. [ ]

"Careful. You wouldn't want the heir to end up as collateral damage, would you?" Petrel says, tightening his hold on Silver. [ ]

"Now, since you're being so uncooperative, I'm going to tell the fine fellows here how weak you are."

[ ]


"No...no, you won't...you wouldn't dare..." Silver says weakly, eyes wide with terror.

Another spot where character reactions would probably go a long way to setting the tone of the scene. Or if Illanero is somehow holding a recording device, showing him getting shaky with his grip or something.

"Let the kid go," Lance says, stomping a foot into the ground. "Or I won't show mercy."

"I already warned you about collateral damage. But he's probably worthless in your eyes, anyways, since he's Giovanni's kid!" Petrel exclaims, causing Illanero to gasp.

The bit in underlined probably works better formulated more along the lines of something like:

“And here I thought that you actually cared about who your Dragonite’s Hyper Beams hit. Though I suppose I was foolish to think you’d care about him,” Petrel sneers. “After all, why wouldn’t Giovanni’s son be worthless in your eyes?”

Or something like that, especially if Petrel is meant to be more of a ‘cold’ operator.

[ ]

"Giovanni is Silver's dad? But..." Illanero says, before Petrel cuts xem off.

Actually, what is the rule behind when ‘xem’ versus ‘xyr’ is used to refer to Illanero? Since you kinda toggle back and forth between the two a lot in this series.

[ ]


"That's right!" Petrel says. "Gold star for you, Zorua!"

Illanero's eyes widen, as Silver and Lance look at xem.

"What are you acting so shocked for, Zorua?" Petrel says. "We at Team Rocket all know what you are. Do you really think I just got lucky with that disguise of that kid from Hoenn? No, we know everything about you."

Yeah, this would be the part that blows Illanero’s alibi wide open. Unless if “... Yeah, he was just crazy” is a valid excuse to get people off Illanero’s back.

[ ]

"I..." Illanero trails off, tail between xyr legs.

"You're...?" Silver says, eyes wide.

Lance grits his teeth. [ ]

"But back to the most important person here. Giovanni's heir," Petrel says, looking down at Silver. "Giovanni abandoned him because..."

You want to make a bigger deal of the character’s reactions here, both because this is a more emotional moment, and because you need a device to turn the “camera” back to Petrel.

[ ]

"Stop...stop..." Silver begged.

"Too bad, heir," Petrel says, smirking. "Giovanni abandoned him because he was too weak. And that's why he stole from Professor Elm, to become stronger. But we all know he'll always be the weakling that Giovanni grew tired of and threw out."

Wait, Petrel knows about that? How?

Silver had gone completely silent, aside from the sound of his breathing.

"Aw, stunned into silence? Didn't want me to tell a Champion and Elite Four that?" Petrel says, mock concern in his voice. "You're more tolerable that way, anyways. Now, you're perfect bait for Giovanni, so-"

Lance, finally, speaks up, and commands, "Nitenite. Hyper Beam."

And then Petrel suddenly became an ex-Rocket. Even if he kinda has spent half this video bringing things down on himself.

"Oh, so you agree the heir is worthless?" Petrel says. "I'm calling your bluff. I'll stand right here, and nothing bad will happe-"

A concentrated beam of energy hits Petrel in the head, knocking him to the ground, and leaving Silver unharmed.

Oh, so Hyper Beam can come in different sizes beyond “big beam o’ death”. Though I suppose I should take the under on Petrel ever being well enough to pose problems after this.

"How did you...?" Illanero asks, looking between everyone present.

"Nitenite is very precise, especially with Hyper Beam," Lance says, stepping over to Petrel. "He'll live, but he'll be unconscious for a while. Long enough for us to turn off the radio transmitter and escape."

Silver slowly stands back up, looking between Illanero and Lance. "What do you want now. Are you going to arrest me?"

I was going to ask ‘for what’, but then I realized that Petrel outed that Silver burglarized Elm’s lab, and… yeah. Though just mentally noting that League members have law enforcement powers in your setting.

"And am I going to stop being Champion?" Illanero asks.

"No, and no," Lance says. "Who you were in the past doesn't matter. What matters is what you do from now on. And besides, being the son of an evil Team leader, or being a Zorua? Those aren't crimes. You're both people."

Silver: “Wait, but Petrel very clearly mentioned that I stole from-”

Lance: “Petrel sure said a lot of things. It’s a good thing that that was all obviously defamatory nonsense… right?”

Silver: “Okay, you know what, nevermind. I’m going to take the hint and stop while I’m ahead.”

Silver hesitates, then says. "You're such a bleeding heart. I'm leaving."

He walks past Lance, Nitenite, and Illanero, and exits the room.

I’m honestly surprised that this video turned up, since you’d think that Silver would have issues with law enforcement after it went viral on the internet unless Elm very pointedly declined to press charges. ^^;

A few seconds later, Lance says, "I will need to have him apologize to Professor Elm later, but that can wait. For now..."

Lance walks over to the radio transmitter, turns it off, and then looks back at Illanero. "Are you alright?"

The underlined was never mentioned existing, much less what it looks like. To the perspective of the viewer, unless if it has something that makes it really obvious it’s a radio transmitter, it likely looks like a random box.

[ ]

"I'm reallyreally worried," Illanero says.

"You're not going to stop being Champion just because you're a Pokemon," Lance says. "Trust me."

[ ]


"I'm reallyreally worried about Silver, too," Illanero adds.

"Ah," Lance says, nodding. "I'm worried too. But I'm sure he'll be ok."

Actually, wait, how does Illanero behave when he’s stressed/worried while under an Illusion. Like does it visibly start breaking down/spazzing out due to lack of focus? Does it drop entirely such that the camera can just blatantly see that he’s a black-and-red fox?

Lance: “... Eventually, anyways.”

"Okok," Illanero says.

"Come with me, Champion Illanero," Lance says, offering a hand to Illanero. "Let's get out of here."

Illanero hesitates, then takes Lance's hand.

The video ends.

Wow, that’s the most personable depiction of Lance that I’ve read in a long while. Not really complaining, though, since it’s nice to see something a bit different from his more ‘stock’ depictions.

JOHTOVID - CHILL

Spoiler

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before lllanero battles Pryce.

=====
​

Well, fortunately this series seems to not be drawing off Special depictions of League members, otherwise… yeah, this would get hairy fast. ^^;

The video begins with Illanero approaching Pryce, in the depths of the Mahogany Town gym. [ ]

"Still on your victory lap, I see," Pryce says, petting his Swinub. "I don't suppose you have time for a story before your battle, Champion?"

[ ]


"Yesyes! I can listen!" Illanero says, tail wagging.

[ ]

"Alright," Pryce says, a small smile on his face, as he rests his other arm on the side of his wheelchair. "Have you heard of the mythical Pokemon Celebi?"

It probably makes sense to do a bit more scene-setting and description of body language or stuff like up to this point, since this felt kinda “disembodied talking in a room” at the moment.

"Yesyes!" Illanero says, sitting down to listen.

[ ]


"I once had an encounter with Celebi, you see," Pryce says. "I was...in grief, and Celebi appeared to me."

"In grief?" Illanero asked, tilting xyr head. "What happened?"

[ ]


"I...used terrible judgement, and two of my Pokemon, La Pris and La Prus, paid the price for it," Pryce says, looking away. "It was a dark time for me, and I...considered going to drastic measures."

… Well. Maybe this Pryce did have a Mask of Ice phase after all.

"When Celebi appeared to me...I was tempted to try to catch it," Pryce continues. "I thought, if I could catch the Pokemon who could travel through time...I could go back in time, and rescue my beloved Pokemon."

Pryce sighs. "But Celebi wasn't willing to be caught by me. And so, I turned away, giving up."

"And yet, Celebi seemed to sense my plight," Pryce says. "Just as I turned away, a crack in time appeared before me...to just after I had lost La Pris and La Prus."

Wait, what were those two Pokémon anyways? Since Pryce has never mentioned their species so this kinda means nothing to me as a reader right now.

"I tried to run inside, to do something, anything, but Celebi stopped me," Pryce continues. "I tried to fight it, to make it let me through...but Celebi simply pointed at the crack in time, and showed me what I needed to see."

"Just after I had lost my two beloved Pokemon, an egg I had been incubating had hatched, the child of La Pris and La Prus," Pryce says. "La Glace, a baby Lapras. And Celebi showed me their egg hatching. New life, even as old life was lost."

Oh, so that’s what they were. Though I’m just realizing that all these names are meant to be plays off of ‘Laplace’, the JPN localization name for Lapras. Cute touch there.

[ ]


"It was then that I realized, that all was not lost. I still had La Glace, even though their parents were gone," Pryce says, a wistful look in his eyes. "It was like the changing of the seasons. Winter's harshness leads to despair and desperation, but it always blooms into spring, where new life flourishes."

[ ]


"So promise me, Champion," Pryce says, looking Illanero in the eyes. "You're young, and have barely started your life. You have much ahead of you, both wonderful and terrible. Promise me, that you won't let the winter claim you. Don't lose that hope you have. Don't let what nearly happened to me happen to you. Cherish the time you have with those you love."

We don’t really get to see how Illanero reacts to any of Pryce’s story here. Like it’s technically possible if the camera is oriented a specific way, but you never establish that up to this point.

"I promise," Illanero says, nodding.

"Thank you," Pryce says, smiling once more. "Now, shall we begin our battle?"

The video ends.

I’m honestly a little surprised that you made a point of depicting Pryce having a Pokémon out for this exchange, but not Illanero. Like unless there’s a very specific reason why Illanero deliberately tries to avoid having xyr Pokémon team out (e.x. they all talk like xyr), you’d think that this is a bit of a missed opportunity.

Alright, things took a bit for me to get through for my end of our review exchange. As you could probably tell from the writeup above, I thought that things were a bit of a mixed bag, but I figured it made sense to start with the parts that I felt that your series did well. There were some times when I thought that your vignettes were a bit too short, but otherwise their length makes them easy to digest, and approachable reads for times when one’s short on time and energy. It took me a little while to pick up on it, but the premise of Illanero being a “multiple champion” who went through multiple games’ plots is actually a pretty cute central gimmick that mirrors players’ own experiences with the series. That’s exactly what the readers following along went through playing one game after the next, and like Illanero, a decent chunk of them didn’t go through the “games” in a rigid chronological order. Like his own experience was actually not all that different from mine, where I didn’t play the Gen 1 games until their 3DS VC re-releases.

Unfortunately, there’s a few recurring issues that are holding back your fic at the moment, or at least the parts of it I read. I felt that you had a bit of an issue with having too little description, especially in a series whose central premise is that we’re watching videos on the internet, which made it a bit hard to get a read on what was going on or what the intended mood was at times. Even if you doubled the length of your vignettes across the board, they’d still have felt quite digestible. There were also a few vignettes where the characters’ behaviors didn’t feel like they fully made sense in-setting and basically did what they did to reach a predetermined destination. It was especially noticeable in the vignette where Illanero runs into Proton, where Proton gloats about the experiments that he’ll do to Illanero when he defeats xyr in a Pokémon battle… when Proton literally had Illanero at knifepoint less than a minute beforehand without any Pokémon out to defend xyr and was in prime position to just force Illanero to come along. I also thought that some of your videos were a little same-y to each other in terms of framing, since a lot of Gym walkups were essentially “Illanero comes up, talks briefly, video cuts away right before battle” and didn’t have strong standout events / Zorua-isms to distinguish them.

Veering off a bit out of mechanical quibbles, but I unfortunately felt like you left some things on the table in terms of execution. One of the bigger things was that we actually don’t get to see a ton of Zorua-isms in the video by Illanero outside of antics involving xyr tail or the darkvision moment in Morty’s Gym (which to its credit, was pretty cool), which you think would get played up a bit more on an internet video channel that’s intended to out Illanero’s true identity to the whole world. You also passed up an opportunity to have Illanero literally be a proxy for the player character and cycling through different “Player Characters” per region. Not strictly wrong as a narrative choice, but it does feel like a missed opportunity meta-wise, especially since if this is the same Illanero from Eternal Shadows it wouldn’t be the first time he’s slipped up with pretending to be someone he’s not. I also thought that you missed a lot of opportunities to show off Illanero’s team a bit more. Like the pre-amble even mentions ways that they basically just blip into existence including a one-of-a-kind fossil Pokémon at least in the part that I read, basically got 3 blink-and-miss moments of screentime. We also didn’t get much attention to Illanero’s Connection Orb either, even though it’s explicitly mentioned by Zoruaspotting’s preamble as a thing Illanero’s known for that lets xyr blip around from place to place and whips up holographic projections… which I never actually got to see in the vignettes that I read up to this point.

Lastly, the really, really big “missed opportunity” that I see from this series thus far is that you unfortunately didn’t really lean into these vignette’s framing device of these being internet videos gathered by someone trying to show off Illanero’s true identity. Like are these all pulled from xyr Connection Orb? Are some of them taken from fixed cameras in gyms? From a social media account that Illanero has with a ton of obnoxious filters and emojis? Like the behavior of the camera feels more like camerawork done for a TV show or cartoon where it constantly moves with the character and towards specific plot-important events, that footage drawn from “real life” doesn’t do as consistently. Keep in mind what sort of camera is capturing each vignette, and what sort of details can come through through that style of “camera” framing. e.x. the name of Illanero’s Vaporeon teammate probably makes more sense to just have Illanero explicitly namedrop it instead of mentioning it in the narration. Alternatively, if you do want to keep the angle of a narrator explaining what’s going on and background context, consider making Zoruaspotting the narrator and highlighting moments / parts of grainy footage / etc while these different videos play in more of a “Youtuber” voice.

I’m a bit loath to be too critical about things from this series since these are basically all drabbles as part of an experimental fic, but as of the moment, I feel you have a really unique idea for a fic, but you’re not really leveraging its possibilities as much as you could. I like your concept, and not many people even try to attempt ‘story put together with snippets of footage’ but at the point I read up to, it didn’t really play around with the whole “we’re seeing things through out and out camera footage” angle in a way that felt like it was coming from some trainer’s shakycam or CCTV footage as opposed to the “camera” of a cartoon or TV show, and there’s entire parts of Illanero’s life as a trainer that was alluded to in the preamble that are basically ignored outside of singular videos. Fortunately for you, you explicitly built this series as being non-chronological, so you have a way of filling in that “missing content” in future updates even if you opt not to try and tweak existing updates. I honestly wouldn’t begrudge you for going that route, but I hope the criticism helped a bit.

Thanks for your patience, @IFBench , and I’ll be looking forward to crossing paths with you again reviewing-wise in the future.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place soon after Illanero returns to New Bark Town, after receiving a call from Professor Elm.

=====​

The video begins with Illanero running into Professor Elm's lab. It seems to be in disarray, and Elm seems panicked.

"Illanero!" Professor Elm says, running over. "Thank goodness you're back!"

"What happened?" Illanero says, tilting xyr head.

"Remember the thief that stole Cyndaquil from my lab?" Elm asks.

"Yesyes?" Illanero says.

"He returned. And stole the master ball I had," Elm says. "I ran after him, but he was faster than me. But I heard something!"

"Heard what?" Illanero asks. "And what's a master ball?"

"A master ball is a special type of pokeball that can catch any Pokemon without fail," Elm says. "They're only for research and safety purposes! They're not supposed to be given to any ordinary trainer!"

Illanero's tail went between xyr legs, as xey asked, "And what did you hear?"

"The sound of a bell. I know the exact bell, too. I heard it during a Kimono Girls show once," Elm says, before taking a deep breath.

"What bell?" Illanero asks.

"The Tidal Bell, an artifact tied to Lugia," Elm says. "I'm afraid the thief might be trying to catch Lugia."

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place soon after Illanero enters the caves of the Whirl Islands.

=====​

It's a bit hard to see, but Illanero is running through the caverns of the Whirl Islands, in xyr Zorua form.

Xey run as fast as xey can, looking around, before spotting someone. Suddenly, where the Zorua was, a Zorua-tailed human stands.

"Silver!" xey call out. "Stop!"

Some footsteps echo, before a young red-haired human steps out of the darkness.

"What do you want, Illanero," he says, frustration in his voice. "I don't have time for this! How'd you even know I was here?!"

"Professor Elm told me you stole something called a 'master ball' from him, and you're trying to catch Lugia!" Illanero says. "I thought you had stopped stealing!"

"I...what are you talking about?!" Silver asks, eyes narrowed. "I didn't steal anything from Professor Elm besides Typhlosion, and that was months ago!"

"Professor Elm told me!" Illanero says.

"I..." Silver begins, before his eyes widen. "Petrel...of course he'd disguise as me."

"What? What are you talking about?" Illanero asks, tilting xyr head.

"Petrel's trying to catch Lugia," Silver says. "I ran into him, and he spilled his plan to me. I'm here to stop him."

"But what about what Professor Elm said?" Illanero asks.

"Petrel must have stolen the master ball while disguised as me, to make everyone think I did it," Silver says.

"That's reallyreally mean of him!" Illanero says. "Let's go stop him!"

Silver opens his mouth, as if he was about to protest Illanero coming along, before closing it again, and walking deeper into the Whirl Islands caves.
Illanero follows after him.

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just before Illanero and SIlver battle Petrel again.

=====​

The video begins with Illanero and Silver traveling down the slopes towards the deepest depths of the Whirl Islands.

Aside from the two's footsteps, the sounds of the various Pokemon, and the distant sound of rushing water, it's very quiet. Neither of the two are saying a word.

At least, until they arrive at the bottom of the slopes. Illanero turns to Silver, and asks, "Ready?"

"You don't need to ask," Silver says, and steps into the tunnel to Lugia's area. Illanero follows close behind.

Inside, is a certain purple-haired Rocket admin staring at the waterfall. In one hand, he clutches onto a master ball, in the other hand, he rings the Tidal Bell. "Come on, come out...I know you're there, Lugia!" he says.

And yet, the other nearby bells, wrapped around the rocks, refuse to ring. The waterfall continues to roar, with no shadow behind it.

"Why isn't it working?!" Petrel yells, stomping a foot into the ground. "I have the Tidal Bell!"

"It's because you're too weak, Petrel," Silver says, causing Petrel to jump in surprise, before turning around.

"You two again," Petrel grumbles. "But I see your Hyper Beam-happy friend isn't here to help you this time."

"We can take you on our own!" Illanero says, taking a step forward.

"Can you now?" Petrel says, a twisted smirk on his face. "Giovanni may have given up, Archer may have given up...but not I."

"We'll take you down, the same as we did the other admins," Silver says. "I challenge you to a battle!"

"To 'prove your strength?'" Petrel asks. "We both know already how weak you are, heir."

Silver trembles a bit, before yelling, "Battle us, and we'll see how true that is!"

"Very well," Petrel says, as he takes a pokeball off his belt. "You'll regret this, heir."

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after Illanero and Silver's battle with Petrel in the Whirl Islands

=====​

The video begins with the last of Petrel's Pokemon, a Weezing, fainting. He recalls it, but his twisted smirk doesn't fade.

"We won! We proved our strength to you!" Illanero says, tail wagging. "Now leave Lugia alone!"

"Now where was that in the conditions?" Petrel said, shrugging. "You proved your 'strength'. Now, let me prove Team Rocket's!"

"What are you-" Silver begins, before his eyes widen, as Petrel releases all six of his Pokemon from their pokeballs.

The six Koffing-line Pokemon look on the verge of fainting, but as soon as Petrel snaps his fingers, they swarm around Illanero.

"What are you doing?!" Silver yells. "We won the battle!"

"Yesyes! We won!" Illanero says, as xey try to push Petrel's Pokemon aside. "So you can't attack us now!"

"Oh, how naive you are," Petrel says. "You should know by now, that Team Rocket doesn't play by the rules!"

"That's reallyreally mean!" Illanero says.

"That we are, Zorua," Petrel says, before turning back towards Silver. "Now, if you don't want me to blow your friend to bits, you'll do exactly what I say."

"And just what is that?" Silver asks, trying to hide the fear in his voice.

"Turn yourself in to the police. Show the world how weak you really are," Petrel says, a cruel look in his eyes. "I've already done a fair few crimes while disguised at you. It shouldn't be too hard."

"Silver..." Illanero says, fear in xyr eyes, but also determination. "Don't listen to him!"

"Oh, I believe he should listen to me. Unless you want to go kaboom," Petrel says.

"I..." Silver looks around, between Illanero and Petrel, before he spots something on the floor.

The master ball and Tidal Bell, dropped by Petrel during the battle.

Silver runs over, picks up the Tidal Bell, and rings it, calling out, "Lugia!"

"Still seeking strength to the very end, even at the expense of your friend's life? That's too funny!" Petrel says, laughing. "You know what? I'll let you try. You're far too impure of heart for Lugia to ever..."

Petrel trails off, as a shadow appears behind the waterfall.

"Lugia!" Silver calls again, continuing to ring the Tidal Bell. "We need your help! Stop Petrel from exploding my friend!"

"Change of plans!" Petrel says, panic in his voice. "Explosio-"

Before Petrel can finish his sentence, Lugia emerges from the waterfall, and it begins to rain inside the cavern. Petrel's Pokemon are quickly drenched, preventing them from exploding.

Eyes wide, Petrel recalls his Pokemon, before turning towards Lugia. "Now, Lugia, we can be reasonable about this..."

Lugia roars, and with a flap of her wings, Petrel is picked up by a whirlwind.

"This isn't the end, you hear me? Team Rocket will return! Just you waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..." Petrel trails off, as the whirlwind carries him away, to who-knows-where.

Illanero runs over to Silver, tail wagging rapidly, and says. "Yayay! I knew we were friends!"

"Don't push it," Silver says. He looks back towards Lugia, before turning towards Illanero. "Let's go."

"Okok!" Illanero says. "Thank you Lugia!"

"Wait," a voice echoes through the cavern. "Do not leave yet."

Illanero and Silver look at each other, before turning towards Lugia.

"Was that you?" Illanero asks.

"Yes," Lugia says, before perching on a nearby rock. "I would like to speak with you."

"Okok!" Illanero says. "What is it?"

"Not you," Lugia says. "The human."

Silver hesitates, then says, "What."

"I would like to battle you," Lugia says. "You speak much of strength. And I would like to see what it means to you."

"...fine," Silver says, taking a pokeball from his belt. He briefly glances at the master ball still on the ground, before looking back at Lugia. "Let's battle."

The video ends.

 

[IFBench]

Description from Zoruaspotting: This video takes place just after Silver's battle with Lugia.

=====​

The video begins with Silver's Crobat striking at Lugia, as Silver keeps glancing back and forth between his Pokemon, Lugia, and the master ball on the ground.

"Enough," Lugia says. "That was a fulfilling battle, human. Well done."

"What will you do now?" Illanero asks.

"I believe I will resume my rest," Lugia says. "I commend you on your strength. But now, I would like to be left alone."

Silver hesitates. He looks over at the master ball once more, before running over and grabbing it.

"Silver!" Illanero shouts, eyes wide. "What are you doing?!"

Lugia doesn't say anything, simply staring at Silver.

Silver doesn't say anything either. He simply holds the master ball in his hands, glancing back and forth between it and Lugia.

Then he gets into a throwing position...

And throws the master ball at the ground, destroying it.

"What was that for?" Illanero asks, head tilted.

"I don't want that strength," Silver says. "I'm not like my father. I do things my own way, with my own strength."

Lugia...laughs. It's a strange, chirpy laugh, but it's a jovial one. "I see. So that is what strength means to you."

"What do you mean?" Silver asks.

"Zorua, please take one of your empty pokeballs, and give it to the human," Lugia asks.

"Okok!" Illanero says, reaching into xyr bag, before pulling out a premier ball, and giving it to Silver.

"What is this about?" Silver asks, eyes narrowed.

"I am letting you capture me, human. You have impressed me greatly," Lugia says, before poking the premier ball with his snout.

A single shake, and the premier ball clicks, with Lugia now inside.

"Yayay! That was reallyreally cool!" Illanero says, tail wagging rapidly.

Silver stares at the premier ball, before nodding. "I won't let you down, Lugia."

He then turns to Illanero, and says, "I'll meet you at the Indigo League."

"Why there?" Illanero asks.

"I'll be challenging you for the title of Champion," Silver says. "Don't lose to anyone else before me."

"Okok!" Illanero says. "Goodluck!"

Silver nods, and walks out of Lugia's chamber.

The video ends.