Pokémon the envy of eden

[WisteriaFlowers]

Hope this is allowed, cause I'm basically necroing the thread.

I first read the Envy of Eden on fanfiction.net when 2024 amid the Pro-Palestine college encampment on my Campus and then I found this again on here when that Trump was inagurated in and I know this was written around the time of the 2020 BLM protests.

Because of the context that I found myself in while reading these works, my favorite and least favorite chapters are simultaneously vii. nonconformist and xi. necktie because of how upront these chapters are about dealing with real life issues through the lens of Pokemon.

A lot of EoE is about these real life topics (abuse, institutionalized inequality, how easy it is to depersonalize a group who humans have told is other, the "right" ways of protesting, etc), but these two chapters could have left out the Pokemon and it would still be pretty applicable (ACAB, miscommunication through cultural difference; colonization and acceptability politcs). However, because of how relevants it's been (how from 2020-2024 the police state has gotten more brazen about their abuse of power), it hits all that much harder and more importantly (to me) the catharsis seen in some of your pieces isn't there and it leaves me shaken after reading it.

My favorite of the new chapters is Nepeta because Tourmaline was one of my favorite POVs and my favorite of your OCs. The art performance in Nepeta was also appreciated. Art as a form of resistance is one of my favorite things and I'm glad that N's Team Plasa was able to do stuff like that so Pokemon were able to perform without the expectations of human-centric guidance, that it was Pokemon-lead. Pokemon Contests and Pokemon Musicals may not necessarily have the pain aspect in the games, but they are human-driven endeavors intended for human consumption.

xvii. enharmonic (end) was a new ending for me. xv. nocturne was the traditional ending for me. I do like that enharmonic has given Hilda some spine, something more concrete for her to be the Hero of Ideals, but I think N's sacrifice was only a reprieve for humans and hopefully cartharsis for Pokemon to finally have their voices heard (even if humans may not understand). What this story has been telling me is that half of the battle of understanding one another (pokemon-pokemon, human-pokemon, human-human) is the willingness/desire to understand or allow for communication and Hilda/Cheren/so many of the humans in the world just do not. The Bisharp gardening Lady not included, she was willing to try to understand the Bishard and they reach consensus/understanding of what the Bishard wanted. However, my pessimism was informed by the fact that Trump got elected again and how a lot of POC were voting for him. I hope that people will start to the listen, that the shock of hearing Pokemon voices is enough, that they don't only listen to pokemon like Ace (ACAB) or Vaselva (groomed from birth), but to disenting voices as well. And that this will give way for Pokemon to understand each other, since their dialects have been a barrier to Pokemon-Pokemon communication.

xv. nocturne did feel like a good place to stop when I read it, as the origin of the Nocturne Lament and as the origin for multiple understandings of the same event/story/myth.

Sacrifice (Nocturne Lament) is another constant theme in this story and N reverses the constant Pokemon sacrifice by sacrificing his Voice, but what about Hilda? Pokemon (Dear Amara) were sacrificed for her, but they are not her sacrifices to give. I do think it was significant that it was her mother's story that convinced N to reconsider what exactly he and Reshiram (and Zekrom) would do. It paralels with Vaselva who earlier (in the second chapter) remember her mother's warmth and trying to remember the name her mother gave her. I guess the sacrifice then for Hilda was forgetting her mother's stories because they were not what the dominant culture wanted (if I remember correctly, her mother was Native). However, she was still able to remember in the end, but Vaselva wasn't. Imbalance still reigns.

I wonder than, if the human equivalent of the Nocturne Lament is Might Makes Right, since it seems to be the Ideal that Hilda has accepted and aspired to achieve. Like the story of the sundered dragons is great, but those are two pokemon who are each other's equals. As it is now, Pokemon are not equals to humans aside from singular instances (and the human-pokemon dragon culture that was razed by other humans). Might of course, refers to human-decided might. Political and Pokemon Fights, not physical might. Which ties in to the whole strength = Pokemon, Power = Humans thing that xv.nocturne discusses.

Sorry that this isn't as detailed an analysis as so many of your wonderful commenters have done, but Envy of Eden when I first read it a year ago has rocked how I've understood Pokemon and has currently shaped how I see the franchase and how I interact with Pokemon fanfic and the games. Like when I was playing Legends of Arceus and there was a little voice in my head how maybe the Pearl and Diamond Clans had the right way of Pokemon-Human interactions and maybe the Galaxy Team and their invention of Pokeballs should have been shunned. As for fanfic, this was the first of the Pokemon have intelligence and have unequal relationships with human style fanfics and inspired me to read more from your suggestions list (I call this N Was Right-lite fanfics in my little bookmarks folder). I read this fanfic more than a dozen times and each time it has shaken me to the core. Thank you so much for writing this and sharing this wonder work of fiction.

 

[kintsugi]

alright, we end at the beginning--or I guess, not literally the beginning, but that's on-brand enough that it's gotta count for something ...

@SparklingEspeon

Spoiler

Hi, really appreciate you stopping in and also reading all the way through to the end--I remember not thinking I had nearly enough BLEC's banked to earn that, but I appreciated the kindness. That, and it does make things easier to discuss (for both of us) in whole, like you say. I also very much understand your closing bits on [but I promise, having this much to say means the story made me think, which is how I know I liked it]. Suffice to say I've been in that boat many times, so I understand! Long comments are my love language, though I know they often are not received as such.

On evil and pokemon POV--I think it's a fair crit for sure; I've spent a lot of time softening up Hilda (and some of the others, though she's the human with the most spotlight outside of N) before and since, to help balance things. I also do try to have more [Partners vs Trainers]--Mina/Bisharp, Iris/Sienna, and Rhea/Tourmaline all have relationships that go much deeper than what one offers the other in battle, for example--but I agree that these don't really feel satisfying, in a sense, because it's still impossible to imagine them outside of the framework of their world, which casts them as unequal. I don't really know if there's a satisfying way around that.

This doesn't help the "all the humans are evil in narrative" so much as the "Team Plasma does no wrong in narrative", but I-the-author-slash-person do think Ghetsis is, like, unquestionably doing evil things when he tries to light a child on fire to prove a political point, even if he is saying convincing things, and I think it goes beyond the acceptable "you made a good point but took it too far". This didn't fit in neatly anywhere else, but it's a common enough question that I feel like it needs to be answered directly.

I do think the story tries to portray pokemon as less than perfect, though perhaps it gets buried. re: specifically "So to say that one side has no unjust blood on their hands": Zahhak kills Amara; they are both POV characters. In his POV, Zahhak explains that he is choosing the violence he inflicts, and while Ghetsis gives him the platform, Zahhak is the one performing it willingly (by his own admission). In her POV, Amara explains that she is afraid to die. One of these characters must be wrong. (I think, death of the author out the window, I feel the need to clarify that I think Zahhak is wrong.) I realize that the "blood" in your words might be metaphorical, referring to how exclusively humans would be the architects of the systemic injustice, but 1) there are several pokemon who end up being very pro-training or otherwise unwilling to act against their current situation (Vaselva, Ace, Reylin Amara, Munny), even acting in favor of upholding the injustice when asked; and 2) I do think there are some unfair situations where one side owns a lot more of that unfairness than the other. They aren't happy either, which perhaps is more what you're asking for? While it sometimes makes for less morally ambiguous storytelling, it was the setup I chose here, and I'm not sure what specifically the ambiguity would've added beyond perhaps some plausible deniability to individual trainers (which, death of the author aside, I tried to give them anyway).

I also think part of the hardship is there isn't really a clear antagonist, human or otherwise; there's no one guy who's really causing everyone to suffer. Even the really harmful humans, like Cheren or Tim, are children--they act selfishly because they are children, but their harm is also limited because they are children. Tim getting locked up doesn't help Cheren’s pokemon; it doesn't even help Tim's pokemon. The pokemon are kind of inclined to be less sympathetic to the humans, but at some point I think it's hard to ask too much sympathy of someone viewed as property, towards the people making them property. In in-progress drafts I'm working on tweaking the zoroark chapter + Hilda's arc a little more, hopefully to help with some of this sentiment. Humans do get the shorter end of the stick as far as positive portrayals here, and I see how that can make the story feel imbalanced in a certain light, but at the same time I don't really think there's a lack of human-centric trainerfic in other stories/worlds that tells the kinds of narratives that you're asking for--at that point it's easier for me to give recs than try to contort this story into something it's not.

On ends--this one's hard for me too. I much agree with your thoughts on this.

It feels like the fic’s final thesis of giving pokemon voices is a solution that is fitted well for our world and our politics, where voices are one of our most important tools, but then it’s applied to a situation that’s different from our world and our politics, and the message comes out muddled to me. [...] But we’re already there. We live in a world where everyone has a voice, and the injustices of our society are amplified into our ears from every angle. And with that comes a new set of problems—what if some voices are louder? What if certain voices are silenced? Will the right people listen? Which voices can be trusted in an ever-more chaotic world? At the end of the day, who can step forward and solve all these problems? Can anyone?

I like the way you put this; the last series of questions especially is something I struggled with in telling this story to its end. Though I don't quite follow the connection--in the beginning, it feels like you think the issue is that the ending here falls limp because it's too close to a solution to real world politics; but at the end, it feels like you emphasize that having a voice doesn't fix our real world problems (I agree). I don't want to pretend like I think this ending by any means offers immediate and undeniable equality for pokemon. Like you say, we're still in quite the same hole. Just a little less deep. But it's a start.

I realize that having this message at the end of a story with no sequel in sight isn't necessarily the most satisfying ending, that lovingly crafting a story whose antagonist is the world itself makes it hard to end the story in a clean, let alone hopeful, way. Part of it is meta, which I realize is unsatisfying--but now the Voice is given to you. This is just the beginning; the final chapter is called "new". I've had a lot of authors talk to me about how they've changed their thoughts on pokethics, BW, etc from reading this, and how they've changed the pokemon characters/training/worldbuilding in their stories as a result. which, idk, was kind of the hope, but it was wild to see it come true. That to me is powerful, but also gradual, like a lot of change is (since! it seems I've also poisoned that well pretty thoroughly for myself). And, like you say, it's not empirically better for people in our world, and the story doesn't necessarily feel satisfying, and me gesturing at another author or the reader to keep telling the story I started is not really good storytelling lol. I think, ultimately, if I had a concrete, one-chapter solution to what individuals can do about inequality, I would not be living in it. :c (realizing this paragraph is also in the "themes are for 8th grade book reports" tier of unhelpful authorial responses lol)

-

because the present and future lose a lot of their meaning without what came before, right?

I could/did wax eloquent on why I picked this specific formatting, but it's basically for this reason, and I love seeing that conclusion reached organically. Makes me feel like I've done a clever thing! I'm glad that you still really enjoyed this (though of course, even if you didn't, I'm beyond grateful that you took the time to read to the end and write out your thoughts). It's especially fun to get to read some of your earlier thoughts and watch the progression to the end. It sure would be unsatisfying if the answer was just to rewind things or separate people forever, and I hope the final answer steered firmly away from "maybe we'd be better off apart"; even if it didn't, it's always really reassuring to me as an author to see these kinds of questions written out, and know that I've chosen to steer away from these kinds of things.

I'm glad the xeno and worldbuilding hit too. I think, initially, I thought I was interested in PMD as a concept because I was so curious about all the different ways that pokemon might think and behave, and how those differences could intersect within a story. The format here also kinda forced me to start using a lot of skrunkly guys who I eventually grew to love, like klink or boldore, so it's fun to see that you enjoyed reading them as well.

I'm sorry that it seemed like I was making blanket statements on canon, or at least gave enough paint to make a believable enough picture of me as a monster. I'm sorry that you got dragged into some of this as well. It's hard. Suffice to say it was not my intent in writing or reviewing, and also still not really something I perceive as the outcome within my control, but here we are.

Thank you again for taking the time to put all this together. Really appreciate you sitting through to the end, and especially writing out all your thoughts--in some regards I think we have different takes, but I love hearing them. Thanks for stopping by <3

@slamdunkrai

Spoiler

thank u for stopping in. I did laugh at your jokes ofc <3

This is the result of a fairly ordinary guy placed in a situation where he can exploit and hurt people, and he feels inclined to do so. [...] Think it further emphasises how ordinary the whole horrible ordeal is, because all it really takes is for Tim to act on his impulses... and there's nothing to call him out on it if he hides it, and it's not like Samson really has options here...)

it's so heartening to see this written out, honestly--sometimes it feels like I did not quite get the Point across to everyone, but this is more or less the issue with training as I depicted it (and the issue I have with how the games seem to depict it to me). There's nothing inherently evil about the one kid making a bad decision, but the people he hurts are not going to be inclined to see it like that.

I did kind of struggle to end the story, both with nepeta and enharmonic and the third ending. How far back do you have to go in time before things feel good again? And it was cool to handwave around that when I was drafting stuff, but then I actually started writing the ending and realized I had to find a good answer. If it helps, this fic's bastard stepchild cousin krookodile tears is literally the chapter that came after nepeta, with connective tissue to eoe removed, though I will certainly say that I don't think it will feel any more conclusive (which is why it ended up cut out).

Thank you for your kind words here--it's lovely to see both 1) that the ending hit for you and that 2) it stays with you in the rest of your fic journey. Unsubtly/metanarratively, I think part of what I wanted the ending to impart was that the Voice is shared with others now; the story that comes after, that makes the world better, can't be told alone. So if Ponty gets more rights in the rewrite, or gets more voice, then it makes me feel like I've done something kind of magical here, and that's really more than I have any right to ask for in fanfic.

Thank you for catching up and leaving your thoughts, here and before! always a treat to hear from you.

@Dragonfree

Spoiler

thank you for all this! I hope, one old forum wanderer to another, it's understood that I moved so slowly in answering these not because I wasn't incredibly grateful (seriously!! thank you), but more just getting old/busy/my circadian rhythms of writing fanfic took a hard reset after COVID lol. I'm so flattered and thankful that you went through the entire fic, and that you even liked it a little (or a lot <3). I think I discovered Morphic at or around the same time that I read Foregone Conclusion--which is to say, I did spend a lot of my early writing time wishing to write a story that had as much of an impact on someone as yours did, so it's kind of surreal to find ourselves here all those years later.

xiii. nightmare (musharna)

I'm guessing humans asking Pokémon their names is just not something they do, but Munny has just made an excuse for her not doing so, hence "too busy to ask". [...] (Now I'm curious where the name Tourmaline came from; that's one where I could theoretically imagine her pointing to the actual mineral and being understood that way, even if Rhea can't make the Liepard language sounds for the word.)

You're correct that humans normally don't have a way to ask this--Munny just doesn't have a way to know that Bianca's not the only person not to ask. Tourmaline is a special case, yeah (a fun example of watching the liveblog of the story being read in reverse).

Broadly I still pick at this chapter a lot. I think it's missing a good middle/motive, and I haven't really settled on a satisfying area to focus on rewriting quite yet. I'm intrigued by both the things you point out though--Plasma, or at least N, should be trying to make this more of a conversation here, and I think the Munny/Bianca relationship could be fleshed out a lot more clearly + sympathetically to Bianca, both inside and out of Munny's POV. These are really cogent lines and feel the most promising for a slow cook out of this, heh.

xiv. nocturne (sigilyph)

I'm not 100% sure if this is an intentional reference to the Pokémon theme song but either way it made me smile

one of the stealth tells of my writing is that I've got like a 50/50 chance to slyly reference the pokemon theme song. this is not a joke. send help.

This is a really beautiful throughline in the fic and I'm having emotions about it.

<3 writing this during my big cluster of a NaNoWriMo sprint was where I think I really coalesced around the story I wanted to tell + thought it was worth telling, so it's always so heartening to hear that this is a moment/sentiment that sticks with readers, too. Genuinely such a surreal feeling re: "when you get me you just really get me"; it's always so good to hear. There's undeniably a lot of me in this story, and I'm glad it reached you.

xv. na-šāyad (samson/timburr)

Excellent/helpful (as always) nits re: conkeldurr understanding of human culture feeling inconsistent and some of the circular logic in Amara's words; thank you! I think that's pretty fair + there's enough inherent trainwrecks in this chapter that it doesn't need more. I haven't quite finished pushing edits to these chapters but did add them to the internal version.

Love this Herdier going a bit too hard on the fake blood

heh yeah this to me is like equally explained by theater kid Herdier or Herdier trying to open the paint bottle with their mouth and having a terrible time, both of which were too good not to include.

xvi. nepeta (tourmaline/liepard)

Given she's hesitant about catching her because she can't afford it, though, it feels kind of weird she then immediately moves on to giving her free food so casually? [...] That just feels kind of strange to me when she's just been carefully rejecting the opportunity to capture her because she can't afford extra Pokémon? Maybe it's just me, but I feel like it might be worth giving a little bit more of a sense of what Hilda's thought process actually is here.

Ah yeah totally fair + I think does set up Hilda as more condescending (and somehow stupider?). Added to the internal edits/haven't pushed the changes, but my thought process here was that it's cheap to give away small amounts of food and is an easy way to avoid a confrontation/battle, but it's expensive to feed a pokemon for a long time. Kind of the inverse of "give a man a fish" lol. None of this was clear in the original narration.

There's the patented kint emotional punch. The cat Pokémon owned by wealthy humans hiding her kitten from them reminds me a lot of Shadow from the Myths and Legends contest - an inspiration, perhaps?

Kind of! I was gonna say I think this predates it, but not really via timestamps. Tourmaline's definitely a modge of Pen's glameow in Let It Ring, OSJ's Gibbs in Continental Divides, and probably a little Shadow too.

Can't help but notice the contrast between Tiallys's own introduction of his performance, only heard by the Pokémon and N, and what the program for the humans says [...] Or the Pokémon themselves were timid about revealing more intimate details about themselves and their performances to humans, because they didn't feel safe doing so, and asked for the program to be limited to this?

I think it's kind of a mix of the two reasons you give--from N's perspective, it's Tiallys's sorrow to tell, so N doesn't say anything. And Tiallys does think he's getting an audience that will help him! It's definitely not the solution that gives the greatest odds of success to the mission :c

but he just errs on the side of taking her words at face value anyway. Maybe that's easier for him, too? Casts it in an interesting light how quickly he decided Munny was going back to Bianca even when she hadn't quite made a final decision on it - maybe he doesn't quite have the courage to really try to probe these Pokémon very hard about what they truly want, terrified that he'll be accidentally pressuring them, but in the process allows the prisons they've built for themselves to persist.

this is exactly what I was going for so I'm glad it got across!

xvii. enharmonic/the rest

I think broadly an area of the story that needed improvement was nailing down Hilda's ideal world + presenting it clearly (she's so not inclined to talk to it with literally any of the narrators, but I think I just needed to power past that haha). In my head (this is not conveyed well in narrative lol) her ideal world is pretty close to an optimistic interpretation of the games/anime--pokemon have the power to leave bad humans whenever they want (since everyone now has that power!), and those who are strong are always able to protect those who are not. Humans typically act in goodfaith, and the ones who don't do so because they live in isolated cases of badfaith + their wrongs can be immediately and entirely reversed. This is not explained well in the current text of the story so far lol.

(neither here nor there, but I don't at all/never considered you as part of the stress in my commentary + I'm sorry I gave that impression--absolutely a peril of me just putting that entire sentiment on main like that. Reviews are kind of a different world to live conversations anyway, and even if they weren't, I have always felt like you approached the story on its own terms, which is all I can ever ask. I actually remember a lot of times that it felt like you stepped in out of nowhere and defused some of that tension when it was directed at me + I wasn't able to deescalate it myself, and I'm incredibly grateful for that)

I'm glad the ending hits so well for you, and it's always such a good feeling to see readers outlining the reasons I wanted to do something + agreeing that it makes sense to do it that way. There was definitely a sadder version of the story that ends with N in his childhood, leaving things inevitably leading to this point like you say; I don't think I'd ever really planned on it ending there + always wanted it to loop back around, but I don't think I really settled on where it would loop to until I finished the Meloetta chapter, and things really clicked into place in exactly the way you describe it landing.

To write my own idea of a pretty equitable Pokémon world at all robustly, I need to think about the same questions you tackle in this story of a monstrously unfair world, contend seriously with the same topics that come up here, even if obviously the conclusions I come to about what I want my world to look like are very different from this one. And even when I find myself frustrated one way or another by how this story and world is answering a question, mulling over and understanding and articulating what's frustrating me is helping me shape my thinking on it.

This is honestly part of the dream, unrealistic of me as it is to have. Their Voice is in the world now, and maybe we can all tell the parts of the story that come next a little more equitably, a little more hopefully.

Thank you for these reviews--seriously, such a treat and one I never expected when you rolled me in catnip all that time ago. Your insight is so good and it's really helped me unpick at some of these little knots. Thank you! <3

@Sinderella

Spoiler

Hi Sind! Totally feel you on the spoons bit.

I did hit another snag because I 100% forgot that N's MIDDLE name is Harmonia, not his first name, so up until the Ghetsis name drop, I was thinking it was N, because I'm what the kids call fucking stupid 🥲 Once again, entirely my fault.

This one is kind of also on me tbf! But we can probably agree to just blame Nintendo for making N/Ghetsis's actual last name Gropius in literally every language, which. I sort of just didn't want to address. So for the purposes of taking my drafts seriously, their last name was Harmonia, which is not at all something that a reader should know lol.

BESIDES that, though, once again, this chapter was fucking something. Like. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh, I do not condone a goddamn thing Ghetsis did to Alder and Hilda and Caitlin and whoever other's Pokemon but DOUBLE sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh why was his evil monologue making so much damn sense???? And my god, the sarcasm he was spewing as he was like "oh nooooooooo bad hydregion why'd you do that where's my card oh noooooooo" had me SO👏FUCKED👏UP👏 kint I could not breathe.What a scumbag. But also, HIS. POINTS. MADE. SENSE.

I'm so glad this got that kind of conflict from you! I wanted to keep Ghetsis being an absolutely shitty guy without just having him monologue stupidly about [his ... i mean ... team plasma's] goals for [world domination]--a way to make him still an antagonistic force to most of the people in the story without him just doing a 180 on everything he claimed to be about (which would be kind of confusing in literal chapter 2 of the story + would be kind of unsatisfying for the rest of the story I wanted to tell).

thank u for your live takes here! I'm pretty proud of how things turned out in this chapter and it's rad to watch the shocked liveblog rolling in! Thank you for stopping by! <3

@sun

Spoiler

I'm like, incredibly old and sentimental rn, but it really means a lot to me to hear that this is the straw that made you join the forums and leave these reviews ;-; It's kind of the dream I think we don't let ourselves believe we're allowed to have. AND THEN all of these nice words AND art?? legit on cloud nine and these are the kind of thoughts that warm my heart all these years later. <3

"trying to hold an entire storm in my hands" your words are never inadequate tbh this is seriously such a kind and thoughtful review. I'm also so glad that I was able to kind of put BW into a nicer space--it felt so impossible at the onset, but I'm glad that it landed. Thank you so much for stopping by <3

@bluesidra

Spoiler

At first I was kinda disappointed that little Timmy (rly? we have cool names like Tourmaline and Rhea in this story, and then he's called Tim?) survived. Mostly because it didn't sound like he had a chance. But then I realised that that's necessary for Mina to have any sort of good relationship with his pokemon at all. If there was the murderer of your son standing across from you while you chat on the phone, you'd probably be uneasy, no matter how bad said son has been.

(his name is tim burr and he punches the shit out of his timburr. 2020 kint was really on something.) I do think it'd be less satisfying if Tim died here--both because it'd make things weird with Mina, like you say; and because it'd kind of undermines Bisharp's story. I find myself debating if it's possible to have closure without justice, but that's what the world so often demands of us, and it felt almost unrealistic, in a sad sense, to portray it in too different of a way otherwise.

The nocturnal vow is very powerful. I haven't thought about it that way, but yeah, "forgive me, siblings" is what most martyrs (well, especially the ones that go out action-hero-style) say. And that their reward is not seeing the miserable future of the ones they tried to save with their sacrifice. Definitely going to embed that into several of my own worldbuildings >:) (not like I haven't already stolen tons of stuff and ideas for eoe, I really adore your work!)

glad to have contributed! <3

So Tourmaline getting taken away from her feels somewhat cathartic. It's probably unfair on many different levels and all, but also "let's she how she feel about her pokemon being 'liberated'" was just to satisfying to pass up. It all makes Tourmaline's and lil Boldore's meeting later/earlier all the more ironic. I should probably go back and reread that chapter.

I think it's kinda fair--Rhea's definitely not trying to be liked by people, and unfortunately this has the super unforeseeable affect of people not liking her and leaves her with no cards at the end. I would disagree on a factual basis that Tourmaline ends up "liberated" at the end, since she's seized via civil forfeiture (like property) and then given to Cheren without her consent (like property). If viewed entirely from a human POV, pokemon liberation probably is just equivalent to removing pokemon from their trainers, sure; so Rhea loses Tourmaline here and that could be seen as ""liberation"". But viewed from the pokemon's POV, I hope Tourmaline's chapters make it more clear that there's more to it than that.

It is a very different feeling from most trainerfics, even the ones with a lot of emphasis on the pokemon. It's even different from how most DnD-parties operate. At a certain point, you start to think of the group as a separate entity that exists besides your personal ones. Group goals and personal goals and such. Your usual adventuring party would never ask "Does anyone else want to come?" Because everyone coming along is expected.

But N's team doesn't have that group identity formed whatsoever. They share a close bond, but not a common goal.

heh, yeah, I think the DnD comparison is honestly pretty apt. For me a lot of breakdown in DnD storytelling and pokemon teambuilding share the same root--there's kind of a meta expectation that these guys are all expected to be besties, so we skip over establishing it in the actual story. In a closed-room tabletop setting or in headcanon I think that's fine, but when that story gets shared with other people who don't share the expectation that everyone is ride or die, it does feel kind of strange.

And yeah, N's team falls apart much for the reasons you outline; the ones who stick with him to the end are the ones who share his common goal, and the ones who stay along for the fun of it just like the vibe. I don't think he's wrong to offer them the choice though!

On that note: The last I know of Carnel from nondeterministic is that he wanted to stay with N for a while. Did N really allow Carnel to be snatched from under his nose? It strikes me as odd that he didn't go to Cheren and explain the situation.

Yeah, in nondeterministic, N explains to the team that he won't force them to ask him to leave, because he's fresh off his battle with Hilda that he incited by conveying Reylin's desire to leave and he's feeling all sorts of conflict on how that went down (and how his friends got hurt as a result of how he handled it). So he specifically says that if anyone doesn't want to have to have that conversation, they can just dip, no questions asked. And then Carnel is gone, so N assumes Carnel didn't want to stick around and didn't want to talk about it. N's approach here is incredibly naive and completely ignores the possibility that other humans may not respect a pokemon's agency.

This is also a strange case. In nondeterministic, Spur knew that N was special in his ability to talk to pokemon. But Carnel seems completely naive in the human world. He has seen N and Hilda interact, at least in their battle before, so N can't be the only human he ever knew.

N's really the only human he's gotten to know well. Hilda's not interested in talking to Carnel, so any weird things she does could be written off as things she does around N only.

Hm... since the main issue with the humans in this setting seems to be that they don't consider pokemon as their equal: wouldn't a better approach to what Plasma wants to achieve be to raise awareness for these rich cultures? N can translate, after all. I'm sure that would help a lot of people see boldores as more than a weird formation of sentient rocks.

Sure! I think we go back and forth on the proper way to fight depersonalization every few years lol. I do also think last we talked you were fed up with folks like Tourmaline who were just focused on "spreading awareness" rather than doing anything--which, fair; at some point words aren't enough--so I'm not sure if N would have meaningfully better traction here unless he managed to completely fairly and honestly convince everyone to just come around from owning people.

On a more general note: How does language in this setting work? Pokemon speak different languages, or at least very heavy dialects, but can understand human tongue. Can they all understand human intuitively? If a pokemon can learn other pokemon languages, would that mean that human can learn these, too? What's holding humans back to learn pokemon languages? (I mean, in krookodile tears its very obvious that human and pokemon can speak the same language, but its not quite a "normal" learning process? Like, if dad wanted, he could teach his son or the village the tongue of the desert. btw it's suNday. Yk, krookodile tears pt 3...)

This was a huge question for me too!! This actually started after I watched the Zoroark Movie--there's a huge plot point that Suicune/Entei/Raikou are being framed for their crimes by Zoroark, so they show up and reach Zorua ... who can't talk to them at all. This is probably because the movie would be quickly solved if anyone involved actually talked to anyone, but it was fun to imagine that the Johto guardians are just old and speak a different language, yeah.

But humans are universally understood--this is kind of also loosely accepted canon, I think. Why this happens in this universe is pretty core to the fic tbh, and does get answered in later chapters.

Thank you for swinging back around. Lovely as always to hear your thoughts.

@aer

Spoiler

Hiya! As always, thanks for stopping by <3 Appreciate your little pickups on all the little parallels I make in these.

I think the conversation a little hard to follow - I don't quite get what the klang is trying to say, and the double layer of the gear metaphor and the odd speech pattern and N not understanding either.

This one is certainly something that was ambitious to explain. Spur is trying to explain the differences in nondeterministic problems. Effectively there are some kinds of mathematical, typically programming, problems whose possible solutions are linearly related to how many inputs there are (let's call these P); and there are some kinds of programming problems whose possible solutions are exponentially related to how many inputs there are (let's call these NP). So in P problems, 3 inputs might mean 3 possible solutions; while in NP, 3 inputs might mean 9 or 27 possible solutions.

In word problem terms--let's say we have a list of numbers. A P problem would be "how many numbers in this list are less than 7"? And we could solve this by going through the list one time and checking each number on the list. The number of times we'd have to check a possible solution is equal to the length of the list. || An NP problem with this same list might be "how many combinations of numbers on this list can add up to 7"? And depending on what's in the list, this can get very complicated.

... this is a lot, even before Spur begins to take this out of mathematical problemspace back into social justice space lol. 2020 kint was on something.

Appreciate the emotional temp check on Zara's stuff. I'm not pushing edits to these chapters right now, but I've flagged these for my internal draft! The Zoroark chapter is definitely one that I'm still fiddling with, even after all these years, largely because I still struggle to land some of the aspects you pointed out.

Thank you for stopping by! Always lovely to hear from you. <3

@AbraPunk

Spoiler

Hiya, here a few years later. I did enjoy reading this back when it posted, but thanks for your patience while I finally got around to it lol. I should've mentioned this back when you started (it kind of slipped my mind + I had some irl stuff going on, sorry), but please don't feel pressured to power through things like this out of obligation. I understand the pressure of wanting to do the cool thing, but in this case I really don't want to make you feel like it's worth it. Story's not your cup of tea! Totally okay. Thank you for stopping in, and I'm glad to hear about the parts you liked!

@myuma

Spoiler

Hiya, thanks for stopping in! I love to see that the POVs are working + serves to tell a better story here. It was kind of a longshot idea when I started, and it took a lot of time to hammer into shape, but I'm glad it worked out!

I did end up doing some reoordering to make the meta-arcs flow better, like you said. The middle bit is still a little under construction (even after all these years! rip lol), but I do like the point to rearrange the middle narrators to help them read more smoothly relative to one another. I do think the story ends up a little stagnant around where you dropped off.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving your thoughts!

@love

Spoiler

Hi love! Wonderful to see you here again.

I think you're fair to say that the ending feels incongruous, or at least conflicted. It's hard for me to sell the format--first to have people agree to wind all the way back, and then to snap forward and use that context to do something new. And so much of this story involves fighting, idk, the disjointed concept of societal oppression, which I didn't want to give an allegorical figurehead because I found that also kind of limp, but which leaves me with a lot more hairy questions at the ending. I like your points about consent and understanding going hand in hand (and it's cool to see your own unpacking of these in your other works, whether or not I got you thinking about them--I'm so bad at reviewing and I think it'd be dishonest of me to promise a review in a timely manner, but I thought they were really fun reads).

If humans in EOE can be excused for not listening to pokemon because they are voiceless, that sends a bleak message regarding animal welfare in the real world. Can we be excused for disregarding animal suffering? Or am I meant to take away that humans should give animals voices somehow?

I think the latter is impossible with the tools we currently have available to us, but would be closer to what the ending here is trying to suggest. Obviously this story is not 1:1 with suffering in our world, and there's no literal way to give animals voice (yet), but we as humans could be better stewards and stop inflicting suffering upon them. So we don't literally give them voice ig, but we stop driving them to extinction with habitat destruction, we stop factory farming, etc. I think the metaphor falls apart with explicitly real world animals, since I can't really claim to know what they'd actually want + to what degree their situation/deserved rights parallels the pokemon here--but I guess the takeaway would be along the lines of wanting to give them the same rights we give ourselves, which is kind of tied up in the idea of capital V Voice, the unspoken words we all carry and understand.

It's kind of ugly too, but at the end of the day I don't know if I have the idealism to imagine a fully happy ending that wouldn't be laboriously entrenched in an ongoing battle of miscellaneous legal rights and more tiny, slow victories. Even with gods on the table--at the end of the day, I have to close shop and go back to 2020 (now 2025, and god that sentence does not feel at all any better to say), and idk as the world heats up around me it feels even less satisfying (or possible?) to imagine that the gods can step in and make things right, and that they are the only ones who can. I agree that humans in this scenario don't have to take their turn beneath the wheel, and that part doesn't feel terribly fair either. I'm reminded of how often real world change is demanded from people on bottom but given from those on top--however unfair that is, that's unfortunately the framework I'm returned to.

To speak broadly for a moment, this is one reason why I think stories are important—they invite us to imagine better futures, to want things we didn't realize we could want.

<3

I'm glad the other bits hit, and they stay with you! I'm incredibly grateful that you stuck it out to the end, and that there were some bits that made you think + that you enjoyed. I know you say the review feels kind of disjointed to you, but it was certainly a delight to read. Thanks for stopping by!

@WisteriaFlowers

Spoiler

hiiiiiiiiiiii omg. I don't think there's rules against thread necro at all. This was such a treat to read. I'm, largely, withdrawing from this forum for the time being (I'll eventually get to updating my ao3, and god, that poor FFN posting), but it was still a delight to hear that my work is still echoing in people's hearts. It's also kind of gut-wrenching to know/watch the kinds of horrors that inspired me echoing in the world as well, but there's always work to be done, isn't there?

re: catharsis--I think you're right that a lot of my other work focuses on having a hope spot, some sort of beauty to take with the pain. It's in the username after all! And at some point there's too much ugliness that can't be made brighter; it can only be fought. It was wild watching real life poach my ideas for these chapters even in 2020.

Nepeta is a favorite of my chapters as well. Tourmaline offered so many ways to poke at the story I was telling. I'm so sorry that I never updated the FFN posting ;-; but I'm glad that you made it! The Pokemon Musicals is such a deep cut to me haha--I played through the entirety of Black when I was kicking this idea around in 2020, and the musical bit was such a weird experience. I knew I wanted it to be involved somehow, even if Snivy looked killer in his top hat.

re: endings--I think you're right that it's kind of just a weight off humans, and still leaves pokemon in the lurch, and most humans don't have sacrifices to give in kind. And I don't quite find that fair either + I don't think our world has proven your pessimism wrong. At the end of the day, I don't know if the moral arc of the universe feels fair to me either though--the people who sacrifice the most are rarely the ones who deserve it. Change usually comes as concession from people in power (when their hands are forced). It's ugly, and perhaps an ugliness that even I could undo if I had better imagination and the will of worldshaping dragons. Like you say, imbalance still reigns.

Please don't apologize for this review! I think it's wonderful and it's so lovely to hear your thoughts, even if a lot of our conversation has to by nature center on the whole thisisfine.jpg reality we share. I don't think it'll really answer your questions in a satisfying way, but I did used to have a really long and self-indulgent author's note on my reflections when finishing this story + the questions I left with--I ended up deleting this from the thread a few years back when I was feeling kind of self-conscious and tired of baring my heart like that. Sorry for the aside--all this to say, reading your review sat with me, and helped me reevaluate some of those feelings into what's probably a healthier state, and at least gives me the confidence to not stifle my own voice here.

It's also so humbling to hear as an author that this story changes how you interact with the franchise. I think that's part of the unspoken meta of the ending: Voice is released into the world. All people can speak for themselves now--maybe the story we tell can be a little brighter, a little more fair, now.

Thank you for taking the time to write this out! It means a lot to me, and it was really lovely to read. <3