Pokémon the envy of eden

[slamdunkrai]

Hello again! Coming back for the last three chapters to reiterate and underline my previous point.

Spoiler: My previous point

ah, geez

These last three chapters are great, of course. To go through them in order: na-šāyad is as effective as it needs to be, I think. One of the most striking chapters in the story, and the one that I feel probably best ties in the overall themes to the mechanics of the games — by which I mean, it plays out beat-by-beat like an early gym battle, which makes it feel very familiar, which in turn helps in making the unfamiliar aspects (specifically, the depiction of abusive trainers) so effective. I think that effectiveness is in large part down to how mundane this all is, and this is another aspect where I think the story playing out in reverse is so effective. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, this is much less relevant to the fate of the world than, say, the grand showdown between the heroes of truth and ideals or the defeat of Ghetsis at the hands of Hilda, but it's just as much a climax for Samson and Tim — and, as the poem makes out, a wound to one of Earth's children is a wound to all. 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. (Samson, of course, was mentioned in narsil; I wasn't expecting that story to be anything more than a self-contained vignette, but I think this one is welcome, actually. 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...)

As for nepeta: literally my one extremely minor snag with this story being told the way it is is that I think I would have preferred something a bit more emphatic as the last of the chapters told in reverse, mostly because it felt slightly jarring going from that to the next one. Just from a matter of tone, I don't think I 100% got this being where the going-in-reverse stopped. However, I do wanna stress that this is a) quite likely me just missing or overthinking something and b) basically not a big deal at all, because as this chapter ended and I noticed I only had the one left, I did find myself feeling that this chapter was very much welcome and the story was basically complete by this point. It's still an excellent chapter and I really don't think I would change much at all about it. As has been said before, you nail Tourmaline's feline POV, and the note that this one ends on (with her having to confront the fact that her and N are basically incompatible as trainer and pokémon — they'll both grow, change and come across new things on their journeys, but as things are, this arrangement is not gonna work out... but she is tired, and at least there's tonight) is excellent. Equally, her rivalry with the pidove she nearly kills is... I don't think endearing is quite the word I want here, but it's close enough. It's a good device for showing and commenting on her character arc; she's determined to hunt, and to prove herself for a trainer, even when it's both unnecessary and comes at the cost of someone else's well-being. She's a bit of an asshole, and I love and forgive her.

This brings us to enharmonic and new, doesn't it? I don't actually have all that much to say on this one that hasn't already been covered. It wraps up the story nicely: there is nothing more to say here, and funnily enough, N has given up the Voice as sacrifice — he is, after all, able to make that sacrifice for those who cannot. There is no simple answer as to who is right here, because things aren't that Pokémon®️: Black and White (2011) please laugh, and that ultimately doesn't matter so much as moving on towards a future with the goal of trying to make things better. It's an excellent place to end, really.

I don't really think I have much else to say about this to wrap things up as a summary. I just really loved this story. I'll definitely be revisiting it. I feel like I've said this eight times now, but I've really not read much else like it and I'm so glad I came across it. It's one HELL of a testament to your ability that you managed to get it finished, and it's a cohesive statement that I don't think will quite leave me in how I view pokémon fic. Thanks a whole bunch for writing it, and congrats! (To both of us; I'm amazed I actually managed to get myself caught up with a fic for once. :V) I wish you the best of luck in all your writing going forward; I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it, and I really doubt this is the last you'll hear from me during Blitz.

 

[Dragonfree]

All right, chapter xiii finally! Hoping to do another tomorrow and then at least one more next week.

That night her dreams are muddled. There’s a male human you’ve seen before, his figure big and hulking like Teppy after he evolved into an emboar. The human’s face is in shadow but his eyes blaze red, so bright it pierces through the murky dark, and he’s angry and he’s frustrated and it’s always something new. Will he yell this time, or will he explain how he feels in other ways? His fists were loud the last time you saw him.

Hmm. Bianca?

He’s with you now, trapped in your shared nightmares. All that matters is making sure he doesn’t reach her. He howls in anger. Fueled by her imagination, he seems to grow another thirty feet and charges towards you. You’re scared. But you can take it. You have to. For her.

Oh nooo, does Munny fight her nightmares in her place. What a tragic brave Pokémon.

Your name is Munny. You had a name at some point, but it isn’t one that your Bianca can pronounce, and besides, she was too busy to ask, and besides, at this point correcting her would be terribly rude and you don’t want to bother her.

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". It does tragically seem like asking for a Pokémon's name here would be kind of futile, as much as it'd be the more respectful thing to do - as best I can tell there just isn't any way for Pokémon in this universe to communicate their names to humans in a way they have any hope of imitating in an intelligible manner, unless they're N? Is there? (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.)

I like the Munna mythology and how they see the Moon's phases of waxing and waning as analogous to sleeping and waking; feels pretty true to life.

But … maybe your Bianca is right? And maybe the dreams she’s been having, the ones she’s asked you to help forget … maybe those don’t count as nightmares. There’s another pokémon, the one who tries to eat the Moon, and he’s pitch-black, right? So it would make sense if he sent bad dreams and made them out of black mist, yes. That’s very true. Your Bianca is very smart, and you’re not. She knows these things. You’re just not strong enough to know what a real nightmare is.

Oooff

Makes me curious what's really behind different mist colors. Surely even if humans are wrong about the cause they wouldn't just make that up out of whole cloth if it really were just always pink.

You look up in alarm. Oh, good. Her Cheren wasn’t talking to you. You resume looking back at your paws.

Enjoy how Munny calls him "her Cheren".

“Alright, Munny! We can still do this!” Right! You can! You have to. You puff up your body as big as it’ll go. His simisage doesn’t seem intimidated in the slightest, and is waiting patiently for its next command. You wish you could do that. Waiting patiently. But sometimes you’re anxious and doubtful, which is bad, because who could ever doubt your Bianca when she says—

“They can’t hit us when they’re asleep! Use Hypnosis, Munny!”

This strikes you as a particularly bad idea, because his simisage is quite agile, and it does seem like he’ll be able to dodge out of the way again. Hypnosis travels faster than Psybeam, and you haven’t quite done the math and you do trust your Bianca, of course, but—

Oof again. Painful to read. Cheren really is picking fights he knows he can win; Munny is so obviously outmatched and Bianca just sort of tries to stay positive anyway despite not really being any good at this.

Oh. Oh no. {My trainer,} you say, floating closer to her now. She seems friendly enough. You get close enough that you can see the pattern of her own flower-spots on her cheeks, freckled bits of brown. {Is she okay?} No, you’re so stupid! Of course your Bianca is okay. She’s not weak and dumb like you are; she would never end up in this situation. {Where is she?}

:(((( Munnyyy

You shake your head. {My trainer.} You vibrate up and down for emphasis, cycle a flash through all your flower for emphasis. {Trainer.}

All your flowers, presumably?

“Hmm. Okay. Do you want to go somewhere in the main city, or maybe by the docks?” The smudge of her face fiddles nervously with her hair. “Actually, scratch that. Do you want to go downtown? One chirp for yes, two chirps for no.”

Oh, that’s actually really clever of her! You like this human. That’s a very smart idea. From what you’ve heard of downtown, it’s noisy and smells bad. Two chirps.

“The docks?”

What’s a dock? Um. No chirps. That’s a strange word. Dock. You know that audino sometimes work for humans called doctors, but you’re feeling quite fine—

“Oh, sorry, the ocean. There’s a nice lookout of the ocean.”

Ah. That does sound nice. One chirp.

Some actual good effort at human-Pokémon communication! Buuuut on the other hand this person has made zero attempt to explain what on earth is going on and why she has Munny to begin with, which is a pretty critical communication failure. Judging from the having a friend who can translate, presumably this is a Plasma member, but surely if she's just abducted a Munna from a trainer to free her she should know to explain that and not just be there nonchalantly suggesting things to do like this is all perfectly normal and not alarming?

The girl looks up in alarm suddenly, and she’s quick to stand at attention. Her back is as straight as the lamppoles dotting the pier. “My Lord N!” Her voice is higher-pitched than before. Almost a squeak. You like her. “I didn’t mean for you to come out this way. I apologize for interrupting; I thought you were going to call.”

He waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it, Rhea. I was in the area anyway. How are you?”

Huh, my mental image of Rhea firmly had blue hair for some reason but I guess my brain just made that up.

Interesting how she's reacting to N like she's almost afraid of him. Maybe it's just hero-worship nerves.

They’re talking in some strange code. Why do they have so many schedules? Your Bianca came and went as she pleased, and was much happier for it.

Aw, Munny is pure.

“Hello,” the new human says. He’s a smudge of green and white on the horizon, and if not for the accessories he’s chosen to wear, you’d think he were a tree.

Hmm, I'm a little confused they can tell he's wearing accessories if he's a smudge on the horizon? Are they just calling clothes accessories and referring to the fact there's this white blob that wouldn't be on a tree?

The features of his face flash and knit together for a moment, and then he says, “Ah, that’s a very nice name. Haven’t heard that for a munna before.” His teeth glimmer from beneath his smile, but it doesn’t seem like he fully means it.

Oh no

“Rhea over there tells me you’ve been very agitated. I wanted to ask you why. Are you hurt? Are you satisfied with how she’s taking care of you?”

I like that N's first concern is whether Rhea has been treating them okay - no assuming automatically that Plasma members are good guys - but I'm again puzzled there's no explaining what on earth is going on at all. Maybe he's just assuming Rhea must have?

{No, I’m fine, actually.} You normally wouldn’t push confrontation, but luckily you actually are fine, so this is a good day for everyone.

Oh no Munny thinks "No, I'm fine" is confrontation

The N quickly shutters his eyes, and you aren’t quite sure what he means by that. He steeples his fingers across his nose and exhales sharply; you recoil in alarm as tendrils of his emotions suddenly flare out, big enough for you to see. You aren’t a good empath yet and you really can only sense things when humans are asleep, but he’s angry and he’s frustrated and it’s something you said and you want to shout sorry sorry sorry but won’t that just make it worse and—

:(((

You nervously peak one eye open and uncurl a little, just a hair.

I like how you don't describe Munny curling up or closing their eyes, just this. That said, is "peaking an eye open" actually a thing? Is that meant to be "peek"?

He apologizes quite a bit to you. That’s normally your job. {It’s okay.}

noooo

Oh, that’s very nice of them. Why would they waste them on you, thought? Bianca had explained this once—they did sell Potions and Revives but they were very expensive, and to buy them you had to be good at battling, but to be good at battling your pokémon had to be healthy, but for your pokémon to be healthy you had to buy the items, so. It was a circle and the two of you were on the outside.

Eugh. Initially I assumed normally they go to the Pokémon Center and they're just staffed with Audino so that's why Munny thinks only Audino can heal (and presumably that'd be why Munny mentioned it was good they were having the battle close to the Pokémon Center), but the "to be good at battling your Pokémon had to be healthy, and for your Pokémon to be healthy you had to buy the items" makes it sound like they weren't even getting Pokémon Center healing. (I guess maybe you can't get that without having some legal certification that Bianca doesn't have because her father doesn't want to let her be a trainer?)

Either way, something something capitalism Big Pharma overinflated drug prices uuugh. (But also, wtf Bianca, if that's the case why on earth are you agreeing to "practice matches" with Cheren who's clearly going to win, that's going to seriously hinder your own progression as well as hurting your Pokémon)

Oh, that. Yes, it’s quite embarrassing. You don’t really know the numbers but you’re quite sure that, of Bianca’s team, you’re the one who’s knocked out the most. Even Mienny, who’s the newest and the youngest.

Munny sure seems pretty young, so Mienny being even younger makes me :(((

{She heals me up right after!} Okay, not right after. Sometimes not for a while, and your bones ache and your mist is more of a wisp, but that’s not her fault either! She tries her best, and it’s not like you could do any better anyway. {And it makes her happy, so I’m happy as well.}

Oh, never mind, I guess they do go to the Pokémon Center. I guess it's mainly that in real life you can't return to the Pokémon Center after every fight so most of the time she's ultimately hobbling around with weakened Pokémon? Still, means Bianca's exaggerating the cycle: her Pokémon are presumably just as healthy as anybody else's when they've just been healed, so she should absolutely have a chance to win battles when that happens, if she had any idea how to pick them.

Either way, Munny nooo

“A lot of the details are blurry, though. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it was even a dream I had to begin with.”

It is dialogue, but the repetition of "even" there feels off.

{Your trainer,} he says, and a little chill goes down your back as you realize he’s not speaking with a human tongue any more. There’s suddenly layers that the human tongue never has, the way trainer has the same cadence as friend.

Huh, wouldn't have imagined that here but I guess enough Pokémon think fondly of their trainers for it to be baked into the language in spite of all the... everything.

You hover perfectly still, the munna equivalent of a blue screen, and by the time you can scrape together some words, the N is standing up; the Rhea is back.

The reference to a blue screen feels a bit funny in Munny's POV.

“Thank you, Rhea, for escorting her to her trainer,” the N says. “And thank you for your time, Munny.”

Mmmm, he's not going to ask Rhea to just hang on a while longer while they finish the conversation? At least waiting for Munny to say what they have to say? He's kind of making the decision for them here - sure, he'd gotten the sense Munny was never actually going to leave Bianca, but still.

She scooped you up into the air, her hands far, far too tight around you, and then she held you close, smiling, the way only your parents would, and she whispered a name for you. She became your whole world, your Moon, plucked you from a dark night and made herself into your light.

Hmm. But why did she become Munny's whole world? Just grabbing them out of the Dreamyard and making them uncomfortable doesn't sound like a recipe for instant loyalty.

I enjoyed seeing Team Plasma actually attempt to free a Pokémon and how they go about it, how N speaks to them and wants things to be better for them and ultimately they take them back to Bianca, even though Munny's clearly suffering in their situation but unable to properly even conceive of leaving her. I did find it pretty weird and questionable that they don't really try to explain to Munny what's even going on and why they've taken them, though - just suddenly abducting someone and then casually asking them what they want to do, as if them doing anything with you when you took them away from everyone they know with no explanation is just a given, is pretty bizarre.

I think my main issue here is I can't get a very good grasp on Munny's relationship with Bianca, though. You indicate Bianca picked Munny out of all the other Munna in the Dreamyard - so it doesn't sound like Munny was orphaned or without a family or anything. Bianca, apparently, just picked them up and squeezed them in a way that they apparently found deeply uncomfortable. And yet apparently they instantly decided she was their world now? I can't tell what ever made them feel that way, from how you describe it, and this (being squeezed uncomfortably!) is apparently the one defining memory that they call up when trying to explain they love her.

Meanwhile, Munny acts constantly worried Bianca will be mad at them. They absolutely panic when they feel that N is frustrated and are desperate to apologize for it. The impression that gives is that they're used to being subjected to constant blame and anger, right? But from the little we actually see of Bianca, she doesn't really seem to have much of a temper; at the end, rather than being angry with Munny, or even with Rhea who just excoriated her, Bianca is just sad and insecure, and that in general seems to rhyme with her canon portrayal. It's really hard to picture this Bianca actually having treated them in a way that'd make them so on edge about making her mad. I guess mayyybe it's meant to be influenced by Munny experiencing Bianca's nightmares about her dad? But there's nothing to really suggest this, and it's being mostly directed specifically toward the meek Bianca instead, that she'll be mad. If Bianca actually routinely gets mad at Munny in a way that's conditioned them like this, I think ultimately we'd need to see more signs of that.

All in all, then, the characterization of Munny here just doesn't quite hang together for me. Their general mental state and justifications are pretty tragic and heartbreaking, but based on what you show us I don't feel like I understand at all why they care about Bianca in the first place or why they seem terrified of angering her. Mostly Bianca feels like just another trainer who loves her Pokémon as pets but doesn't really give a lot of thought to how they feel at all or even attempting to actually communicate with them, and her abusive father feels like kind of an afterthought that exists for the sake of giving her nightmares for Munny to consume, which is a shame. It would've been really interesting, I think, to explore cycles of abuse in this context - Bianca as well-meaning, genuinely loving at times, having actually done something to make Munna love and trust her, but one way or another ultimately replicating her father's abusive tendencies against her Pokémon - but as it is I'm not actually getting that from the text because the actual portrayal of Bianca doesn't really feel like it rhymes with that.

N is good, though.

 

[Dragonfree]

Goosebumps at the opening scene here. Always love these mythological angles from different Pokémon, touching on the same clash between the dragons.

You were made to protect.An obsidian knife flashed across an open palm, calling blood to rise above skin.

Missing a space between these sentences.

From her rose hundreds of species of pokémon, who travelled far and wide across the lands.

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

Love the idea of humans as the forgotten child of the Dragonmother, who received no gifts. Feels very appropriate for Pokémon to think of it that way.

“Forgive me, dear sibling,” said Stormdancer, bowing low. “This is all I know how to give.”

Ooohhh. Chills. In a story with disparate narrators and the chapters not sharing all that much content among them, this kind of moment of abrupt realization of how things fit together really packs a punch.

“My sweet sibling.” Stormdancer smiled. “Listen to yourself. You already have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come back to me on this day each year, and I will sing for you my aria, and so share with you my gift of Voice. When I sing, the world has no choice but to stop and listen.” Stormdancer swept out one leg and curtsied deep. “The same holds true for you now, dear sibling. When you speak, all creatures in this world will listen. This is the gift we share.”

Aha. Love to see some lore for Meloetta.

Of course, implicit in Human gaining the gift of a voice that all creatures in this world will listen to is that most creatures don't have that power. Which sure is what happened! Pokémon speak but humans at least cannot understand them (and they have some different dialects among themselves, so presumably their languages aren't always mutually intelligible either). Pokémon always understand what humans have to say, but not the reverse, and this is to a large extent what creates the ugly disparity we see - most of the trainers we've seen aren't malicious, they just don't understand and it doesn't occur to them that they could even try to understand. If Pokémon were able to speak to them plainly and always had been, this situation would never have turned out like this - which isn't to say there wouldn't be oppression, but it'd look pretty different and probably take somewhat less pernicious forms.

“I always heard there was a different ending,” says a voice, and you and the zen ones all turn to see a human emerging across the moonlit dunes, casting a sharp shadow on the fuzziness of the sand.

{A different ending?} Three asks.

“Yes, one that a hydreigon told me.”

ohai N

{Oho!} Three chortles. {You are a feisty one indeed. Look at this human, my brethren. One gifted with a voice, deigning to speak to the voiceless. See how he claims to know the secrets of dragons and tells us a new ending to our own story. You humans are all the same, trying to put words into our mouths while claiming to listen. But we are of the sands, foolish boy, and we will not sit quietly while you reshape our history to us.} One laughs whole-heartedly alongside, and Five chuckles, but Two and Four are silent. Curious. Like you. He heard your story, but it’s more than that—he speaks like someone who understands what it means.

Always enjoy these different perspectives where Pokémon resent Plasma speaking for them, and N of course respecting them and leaving when they ask.

This human reminds you of the stone carvings your old human once made of the Dragonmother, her chest a writhing mass, the edges of her body sharp and jagged from the chaos she can’t contain.

Beautiful line.

You bob up and down expectantly. But when he doesn’t take that as affirmation, you quickly chime in, {Of course.}

Enjoy this little bit of innocuous culture clash.

{Do you think they would? I find that many humans already think they have this gift. They listen and think this precludes them from understanding.}

On the one hand I think get what N is trying to say here, because it's what I thought in response to Sigilyph's question - that humans broadly really don't appreciate how wide the gap is between what they simplistically assume their Pokémon think and what their Pokémon would really like to say. But I'm having real trouble parsing They listen and think this precludes them from understanding in a way that makes sense. They listen, and think having listened prevents them from understanding? Wouldn't it be more like that they think the listening they do is enough, and never bother to actually try to understand?

The human continues: {When I set out, everything seemed so simple, so black and white. But the more I speak to humans and pokémon, the more I realize they are both afraid to change. My voice alone cannot convince them. I wonder if a better human might be able to do more; or perhaps if a pokémon with the power of Voice might’ve been a better messenger than a human with the ability to listen.}

Aw, N. So full of self-doubts. I like that he wonders if a Pokémon with the power to speak human would've been better in this role. (In some ways, probably - easier for Pokémon to trust them - but in other ways not, I imagine. N does probably benefit from human privilege in that humans take him more seriously than they would a Pokémon who can speak human.)

Fight. You’ve seen what these humans and their pocketspheres call fighting. It does not strike fear in you. These battles, at least, are survivable. No longer do they call fire and thunder as they once did. These fights do not leave scars in the earth that will last for a thousand years.

Enjoy this perspective - for this Pokémon thousands of years old, who's been through actual large-scale warfare, Pokémon battles just seem kind of quaint.

You were forged for a war. You know that much. They painted you with their colors, but they shaped you with their hands. And the shape they gave for you was one for violence. You had eyes, to take in the battle. Wings, to fly above. A great magic, sealed within you, to unleash in rippling waves on the unprepared.

But the war came and went, and all those who started it went as well, but you stayed. Without the war, what purpose would your Red have given you?

And with the war, if that was all you had, what would you become instead?

Perhaps as if to answer your question, your gaze drifts northward, to the crumbling ruins of a desert tower in the sand.

Oof. Being created as a soldier sure would do a number on you. Sigilyph seems to have cared for their human, but ultimately they were created to be used.

An interesting assumption, one you never would have made. You were shaped with many purposes, but the one you wanted most of all was a mouth. They forged you for a purpose, but that purpose was not to speak. If you could steal his Voice by simply tearing out his throat, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anyone?

This is a powerful line, but it does feel a little undermined by the fact Sigilyph doesn't seem any less able to speak than any other Pokémon that does have a mouth?

{When she was the first to invoke the nocturne lament. Do you think she knew what it would come to mean?} The questions spill from him with the force of having been pent-up for centuries. This strange one carries the sandstorm inside of him. {Stormdancer gave her greatest gift to help those who would never understand the true weight of her sacrifice, what it would one day cost her to share her Voice with those who envied her gift. And she helped a lot of people, yes, but do you think she knew how much it would hurt her?} You watch. He swallows nervously. Looks off into the distance. {And if she knew, do you think she would’ve done it anyway? Or would she have held her tongue, and simply watched the human suffer?}

Aw. Enjoying how N's spilling some of his worries and vulnerabilities to this Sigilyph in the desert.

{In both of our stories she lost a part of herself. But which is truth? I have seen two thousand years and I could not tell you which is which.} You look at him and his sad smile. {I prefer to think she knew, and gave of herself anyway. Stormdancer had two gifts, after all. From her the humans received their voice, and with it the power to be heard by all. But to pokémon she gave the nocturne lament, and with it the strength to see things through to their bitter end, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Her words carry great power—across all of Unova, no matter what language we speak, every pokémon can recognize the nocturne lament, and we know what it calls us to do, and what will become of those who steel the courage to invoke it.}

Oh man. The concept of kafara from Amara's chapter is the same thing, isn't it, even though I don't think that chapter ever used the words nocturne lament. To protect those who could not protect themselves.

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

Perhaps unintentionally, he has betrayed his thoughts. He cannot fathom a world in which Stormdancer would choose to give of herself; the only one he could believe in is the one in which her gift was taken from her.

So you tell him what you learned then, what kept you going even after your red vanished into the desert sands. {When you love someone more than you love yourself, you give it power over you. Whether Stormandancer sang until her voice grew ragged and her gift flowed out of her, or whether the humans one day crept up and stole her song for themselves—I think she knew what her fate would be. The truth is she did not care what it would cost her, and not caring destroyed her. That was the price she paid for us to receive of her gifts.}

Interesting angle. Maybe it's hard for N to appreciate the possibility of some Pokémon choosing to give of themselves to humans, and that's part of what makes this all so hard.

The green-haired human goes completely motionless, and it is when he stands still that you sense it fully: a sandstorm rages within him, so great that he will consume the whole world, forge it anew. His hands are practiced, calloused, careful, gentle—he will shape this world, surely, someday.

Lovely callback.

After the war, you became the loresinger. You decided it for yourself, without your Red, because that was who you wanted to be.

agencyyyy

From that day forward she was never her whol self.

Typo.

{In her generosity,} you continue, {Stormdancer was swallowed by time. History is unkind to the voiceless. But across the sands I have heard many stories of Stormdancer and the Dragonmother, from many who wander.} He may be the first human in many suns to trade stories with you, but he is certainly not the first person. {For some, Stormdancer is a great ocean spirit, who at the change of the tides switches skins between a man and an enormous turtle and ferried many people away from the first flood. For others, she is the trickster, who took pity on a human child and taught them how to lie. For others still, she is the bravest of their clan, marked with the stripes of the storm to symbolize how they stand apart from the rest.}

Hhhh, there it is.

Stormdancer’s gift to you was a personal one, even if she didn’t know she was giving it: she reminds you that a word is only as important as those who will listen. You were not made to speak, but that does not mean you cannot find your voice on your own, that you cannot recount the voices of others.

Ahhh. Good. They just found their own voice, in spite of not being made with a mouth.

I have a lot of feelings. One of the things I've always thought were really well done in this fic is the various Pokémon's mythology and lore, and this one is not only more of that but also takes all of that previous lore and ties it together and it's beautiful. Sigilyph's own story is a resonant one - forged for war, loved their human who ultimately died for them, but found their own purpose and voice for themselves. And meanwhile there's N, doubting, distraught, trying to work out what to do.

The way the Nocturne Lament echoes throughout the story, even where it wasn't named, is striking and powerful. You have a real way of tying together themes and creating strong emotional resonance out of it. I may have a lot of issues and nits to pick with this story some of the time but when you get me you just really get me. I have experienced the entire spectrum of human emotions over this damn fanfic.

Looking forward to finally making it to the end/beginning (and maybe rereading some earlier/later bits).

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter xv

Oops I meant to cycle around to other fics first but then I accidentally started reading this one last night and then I read the whole thing. Some way or another I didn't actually make the connection to the abused Conkeldurr from the Bisharp chapter until the end - it's been a while so I'd forgotten what their names were, but probably should've figured it out anyway. It was lovely to see Samson come back, at any rate, as heartbreaking as it is.

As usual I really like what you've done with the Timburr culture. They're an easy species to sort of stereotype but you've built something distinct with a lot of flavor here out of it.

By afternoon, you see the one you want. A young human boy—a timber of his own in his hand, which he uses to swat the grasses out of the way.

{I want this one,} you tell your father.

{That one?} He pauses and considers carefully. {He does not look kind. See how he hits the forest, because he does not believe it would hit him back.}

You turn back. The human looks young, which you respect; he will understand what it means to want to prove himself.

{I want this one,} you repeat.

Aw, baby. Insistently picking someone his father warns him against simply because he is young. Not unreasonable to think that he'd be able to relate to him some way, I suppose, but still, veeery naïve. I guess he doesn't spend enough time with other kids to realize not all kids are going to be nice. They seem pretty solitary.

You straighten your back. Chin up. You have to impress! {Hello! My name is Samson!}

“I’m Tim,” says your new human. “Your name is Charlie.”

That isn’t quite a pronunciation you’ve heard before. {Samson,} you repeat. A little slower, for emphasis.

It feels kind of hard to buy that, given their family seems to interact with humans plenty, and Samson's father has been telling him about humans and becoming strong with a human, Samson seems to have entirely missed the memo that humans can't understand Pokémon? Feels like a pretty big thing for his father to just entirely fail to mention throughout all of the times he's talked about humans, and for Samson to fail to notice when his father's human has visited (although I guess maybe he was just never really around for that?).

You hurry after him. The city is interesting. It’s your first time in a human city; your father always told you to stay away from this city until you were older. You take in every detail that you can so that you can explain it all back to him and tell him what you’ve learned. There are many more sights and sounds than you’ve seen in the forest. Mostly humans on the path, which is wider than any path you’ve ever seen. They’ve got a strange ground-covering here that’s simultaneously smooth and rough on your feet. The most amazing thing about this place are the sounds—people chattering everywhere. You can’t quite catch the human conversation passing by you (they speak quite fast), but there’s a pair of pidove overhead discussing the wind patterns, a purrloin calling out mockingly to a lillipup as she turns tail and climbs nimbly up a gutter.

A nice lively bit of scene-setting (and characterization with what he pays attention to).

“C’mon, Charlie,” Tim says. You’re too short for him to reach his hand, but he grabs the top of your beam and drags you forward.

You almost stumble in shock—he doesn’t realize the disrespect, you have to tell yourself quickly. He doesn’t understand what’s being said when he lifts your load as if you aren’t strong enough to carry it yourself. {I’m strong enough,} you reassure him, and raise your bough out of his reach.

Love this cultural detail. Samson, bless him, is conscious enough of humans as another culture to wave off the insult.

In front of the one closest to you is a sign. Your father taught you how to read human when you were young, swapped his cement for a stick that was dwarfed by his enormous hands and carved each letter into the soft dirt after a spring rain washed over the forest. It was slow work, but deeply important, he’d said. If you ever wanted to work for a human, help them shape great things, you would have to understand their drawings as well as their voices.

Love the idea of a wild Pokémon teaching his son to read human to work with humans. It's also just nice to see a species so often dismissed as brawns-no-brain knuckleheads doing it.

I enjoy Samson's experience of the protest, innocent earnest confusion and curiosity. The poem is powerful, and I like the phrasing you went with for it; not sure if it's your own or based on another translation, but either way, good words. The way the lines are spread out one at a time with Samson's questions to the protesters is effectively structured.

Next to him is the small form of a herdier. You almost mistook it for something else; the red paint changed his coloration so much that you can barely see the navy and tan beneath.

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

What had Tim said about her? She was a book person. Not a traveler, not a builder. He’d said it disparagingly, but you weren’t sure what that meant or where the shame came from. Your father was all three—he had his books, his travel, and his building. But from his general disdain for her you’d expected someone weak, inexperienced—but she seems confident, imposing. You haven’t seen many humans before, but it looks like her forearms are more corded than Tim’s.

Again, refreshing to see Conkeldurr have a rich many-faceted culture, where building is important but so is travel and intellect.

So you do, and tilt your head around to look at the rest of the room. It has nice construction. The lighting hits it in all the right ways; the wooden beams in the ceiling lost their scent of pine long ago, but they stand strong.

Love him noticing the construction of the room.

I find myself again wondering how Samson just seemingly has no idea about battling or what it entails, given his father's close relationship with a human and clear belief that teaching him about humans is important. Samson is expecting it to be like sparring with wooden beams, seemingly having given no thought to the fact no other Pokémon carry those - excusable for a young child, perhaps, but it's hard to imagine his father just never thought to point that out or prepare him for it in any way. I guess the most reasonable interpretation is his father didn't know what battling entails either...? But when he used to build houses for humans, have trainers and what they do really just escaped his notice altogether? Especially when they live right near a town with a gym? Mayyybe Pokémon training as we know it is very recent and just wasn't a thing back in his day, and his only interactions with humans in decades have been with his one human partner, who isn't a trainer and hasn't talked about it? I think whatever's going on here with that, it should probably be more obvious, one way or another.

{Oh, that one again. Back so soon,} says the watchog, her eyes fixed not on you but on Tim behind you. She almost sounds sad. {Listen. That tympole is terrified and you can’t take two of us alone. I’ll go easy on you. Mig and Lenora will not. Save your strength.} The yellow rings of fur around her body begin to glow again, and your eyes are inexplicably drawn to the way that the light chases down her body from stripe to stripe. {Look away. My attack will stop in five seconds. Look away, and then do whatever your trainer tells you. You’ll be okay. You can do this.}

Petra is good.

Migaloo leaps into the air, each leap clearing five feet at a time, and in an instant she’s removed the space within you and slams into you head-on.

removed the space within you?

You and your bough go flying back, but Migaloo was smart: she hit you in the head, not your feet, so your momentum sends you straight down instead of arcing up.

This choreography confuses me a bit. He goes flying back, but also straight down? And his momentum is downward because she hit him in the head, as opposed to being upward if she hit his feet? I can't picture hitting his feet as giving upward momentum either way.

Your father, standing strong above you. The corded muscles of his arms stretched taught like stone as he helps you pick out a bough that’s too heavy for you to carry, watches you with pride in his eyes as you struggle against it anyway. This is the way in your family. You have to get up.

<3

Still no blood on her, you notice absently, but then—you rub the back of your head from where she slammed you into the ground and it comes back wet, sticky.

I'm understanding this to mean these more experienced Pokémon legitimately don't bleed during routine battles? Unsure if there's a level gradient where already at second-gym levels they're tough enough it takes a lot to draw blood, or if it's mainly that the gym leaders' Pokémon specifically are that tough by virtue of their experience, without the Pokémon they face necessarily getting to that point.

You. There’s.

You feel sick.

{I don’t want this. I want to go home.} You try to keep your voice firm, but you can’t keep the tears out. You. You don’t want to do this any more. You want to go back to your father, the forest. You’ll get stronger a different way, find a different kind of strength—what this human wants to teach you isn’t what you want to learn.

Aw, baby.

{Is Petra okay?}

What a good, caring about her first.

I like the tactile sensory details about the healing; small thing, but they make the whole thing feel real.

{I can pass a message on so my human talks to your trainer,} she says in her soothing, reassuring voice. Has she always talked this slowly? {She’ll make sure he knows that you’re new to this, and ease you into things better. How does that sound?}

That sounds like a good idea. You nod.

On the one hand, it's good that a healer Audino can notice a Pokémon in obvious distress and pass on a message to have someone talk to the trainer, etc. On the other hand... she's only offering to tell the trainer, and not asking if he wants to not go back to him. Even as a Pokémon, she takes it as a given that of course he's going back to his trainer. And so, even though earlier he wanted to leave, he winds up just sort of agreeing to this because it's what she says.

I like that she actually offers to check if Petra's there, though.

And then she’s already sweeping away, muttering under her breath, just a child how could they possibly—

And yet, she doesn't do all that much about it - offers to talk to the trainer but that's all. Too ingrained in the system, I suppose.

The door swings shut behind her, and you’re left to hug your bough and scoot closer to the wall. The wall. You desperately look at it to distract yourself, does it have nice architecture, who do you think built it? But it’s white, and the paint is fresh and covers up any clue you possibly could’ve gleaned from it.

One of my favorite bits, I think. Wants to distract himself with the craftsmanship of construction but he can't even get that.

You don’t like the tone of her voice, but you want to know. Your father had never mentioned anything like this when he reminisced about his human. Was he just covering up the truth?

I feel like what's being implied here is his father got lucky, that his human wasn't a trainer, or not the battling kind. But one would still have thought he'd be aware they existed, right? Even if he wouldn't say it when reminiscing about his human, one'd think he'd say something about it when telling Samson about the general concept of working with humans to become stronger.

The blitzle stamps her foot and flicks her tail. She’s growing irritated, you sense. Perhaps pokémon back here weren’t meant to talk to one another, just like they weren’t meant to talk on the battlefield in the gym—but where were they supposed to talk, then?

Oof, but - "maybe Pokémon aren't meant to talk to each other back here" feels like a strange assumption to jump to here as an explanation of why she'd be irritated, of all things. Surely normally when someone becomes irritated talking to you you figure they were irritated by something you said, or something it brought to mind, rather than instantly jumping to thinking they're irritated because maybe you aren't allowed to talk in the place you're in. It'd probably make more sense if Amara just said something to that effect.

{And strong people can’t be hurt,} Amara concludes proudly. {Think about it. Lenora’s pokémon fight all the time. They simply can’t be hurting any more; there’s no way they could bear it. They got better, until they were too good for their pain to really hurt them.}

This really feels like Amara is meant to be saying tragic circular nonsense - there's no way they're still being hurt, because that would be bad! - but as best I can tell the fact Lenora's Pokémon don't bleed seems to be suggesting this is in fact true, in the sense that battling legitimately hurts less or at least causes less significant injuries with more experience (as opposed to the Pokémon just getting used to it over time)? So if it is, the fact her reasoning for thinking so is so obviously wrong feels kind of weird - why isn't this just a simple known fact, then, and not something she's apparently just personally theorized out of nothing but just happens to be true anyway? Not sure which you were going for - if she is meant to be talking wishful nonsense then I'm really confused by why you went out of your way a couple of times to point out that Lenora's Pokémon don't bleed at all.

It feels a little weird to me that Samson doesn't comment at all on the assertion that obviously he's strong because he beat Lenora's Pokémon, and also strong people can't be hurt - he definitely knows that he was hurt earlier, so shouldn't he be questioning at least one of her conclusions at least a little? I gueeess he figures it's fixed now, but she didn't say it could be fixed, she said they couldn't be hurt.

This doesn’t feel like anything your father ever told you, all of these questions of hurt intertwined with worth. You know he wooed your mother by stacking stones taller than the oldest pine tree until they formed a spire in her craggly image, with his twin concrete columns at the base. Surely that was strength, lifting all those stones up so carefully, and then even more carefully bringing them down to earth to build the walls that became your home.

Love this again. Construction to impress, and then reusing the same stones to build a home.

{We’re fighting for them,} she says simply. {They are too fragile to do it alone, so we help. That’s our duty. And that's what we all want, right? A duty.}

That does make sense. Your father spoke with pride about how he learned to lift blocks of concrete, and enormous steel beams, how one day with enough practice you’d be the same way. A human could never do that alone, not without help from someone very strong. But you think of Petra laid out on the ground, and Migaloo, and all of the humans and pokémon sprawled out around the gym. {Do you … are you proud of your duty, then?}

{To protect my trainer? My partner? Am I proud?} Amara bows her head, her mane sparking fiercely. {More than anything.}

Oh, you confused children. I do piningly wish they'd see the distinction between protecting their trainers and something like gyms that the trainers walk into voluntarily and could just not - but they are children, and unfortunately I can believe them not being able to articulate that.

Crack.

The first thing you register is something warm and wet dripping out of your nose. The pain comes shortly after, and then lastly there’s Tim, your trainer, your partner, solidifying in your vision. He’s breathing heavily and the hand he used to strike you is clenched into a fist.

“Embarrass me like that again,” he says coldly, “and losing will be the least of your problems.”

Ooooff. Poor Samson.

All in all, I found the POV very evocative here - Samson is pure and lovable and feels coherent and I care about him, I really enjoy the glimpses into their culture, and you make the battles feel brutal. It was a good, gripping chapter and held me reading on the phone in bed.

The main thing that gave me pause was I have a hard time reconciling his father's longstanding relationship with and apparent understanding of humans - right down to teaching his son to read human - with just how naïve and ignorant Samson is about humans regardless when his father sends him to partner with one. At face value, it feels downright neglectful how unprepared Samson is when his father pushes him to find a trainer. (And maybe there is meant to be a shade of that in here - the Audino mutters about just a child, but it's Samson's father who ultimately decided he was totally ready to get a trainer right now, not Tim who was merely passing by when Samson chose him.) There are explanations where he isn't, but the narrative doesn't really suggest them as far as I can tell.

I must admit I was surprised by Amara's role here - it's been a long while since I read her chapter, and it's definitely one I'd want to reread, but wasn't her thing that she tried to escape Hilda multiple times as a Blitzle? Sure seems like she had a pretty quick turnaround somewhere in here, if this is how she thought at some other point as a Blitzle. But maybe I'm forgetting some subtleties that were already explained there! If I reread nothing else I'll do her chapter, probably.

 

[Sinderella]

Hiya Kint! Back again for Chapter 2. I wish I had the spoons for more but I am just REALLY burnt. I actually had to read this chapter over twice to understand what was going on, by no fault of your prose or exposition or dialogue, but more because my brain is not screwed in LOL. I'm going to try to make this review as lit as possible but I apologize in advance if I commit headassery and ask some dumbass questions kekw.

Simply put, this chapter was a lot and I was left feeling extremely numb afterward...which doesn't happen a lot. So. Fantastic job.

I was confused toward the beginning because it took me a beat to realize this was from the POV of another Pokemon--a Rotom. Idk why I went into this chapter thinking this was going to be from N's perspective but I guess I just had that idea going, so that's entirely my fault. Once I got into the groove of "oh this is a Rotom" it all flowed really well. 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.

However, I was getting confused at the different uses of the names--Markus was mostly referring to Ghetsis as Harmonia, but there was once or twice where he calls him Ghetsis. Likewise, it struck me as odd that Wave would know that Harmonia's name was Ghetsis if the whole time he'd been referred to as Harmonia...if that makes sense at all? I don't know, all in all, the passing around of names from Ghetsis to Harmonia was just sort of hard to keep track of and jarring whenever there was a switch.

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. People were tryna get in there when Volcarona got torn up, but nobody thought to dig in there until Hilda was about to get Einsteins Bro's Bagel toasted??? Bruh.

I deadass thought Wave was about to go rogue and like throw something at Markus's head, because it felt like a whole buildup to Wave realizing "wait a goddamn second this psychopath do be spittin' bars I'm out." Like, the whole train of thought of "wow Markus is safe up there, he gets to look away, but I'm stuck down here having to get all the good stuff for him or he'll yell at me" is like a fantastic parallel to all the shit going down in front of them, as Ghetsis makes this speech. It's about battling, of course, but it plays into the situation with Wave too. He's stuck there watching this absolute freak horror show and Markus is up in the announcers box like "WAVE GET THE DAMN SHOT" like bruh. I do love a good juicy parallel like this. So good.

So yes, thank you for making me feelsbad about fictional characters before bed! Really got a strong emotion out of me, which I commend. This will probs be my last review here for blitz, but I'll be looping back later to finish. Until then, line-by-lines of just me tiredly babbling!

Spoiler: Chapter 2 Line by Lines

Line by Lines

“And Saffir's Protect shatters under the devastating force! We'll need confirmation but—yes, that was quite a spectacular knockout; Alder's recalling his accelgor now. What a comeback from Harmonia! Alder’s down five pokémon, though we’ve seen him come back from worse before—it’s anyone’s game still, but this is certainly a close one!”

I love announcers in Pokemon battles. Gives that sports-like feel I like seeing in fics.

“And, here it is, folks! Alder’s anchor, the volcarona from ancient history. It’s … Ghibli!”

Iconic name.

You’re only a rotom, and a mere camera drone at that, but you understand by now how to draw out the drama.

But Wave, you're a great Rotom, give yourself more credit bb

. You remember Markus’s glee when they finally banned live audiences from his matches for safety reasons—“they need us more than ever, Wave!”—and they finally got better protections for Alder and his challengers, but it’s dangerous to have anyone, even the camera rotom, in the same room when Alder starts calling out massive field-clearing attacks like this.

Wow I had a lot of thoughts here. 1.) Cool worldbuilding!!! Digging the idea that Alder is just so out there battling that he's been deemed a fucking hazard, so much so there can't be audiences and 2.) It's dangerous for people to be present, yet....nobody bats an eye at the idea that the Rotom still has to be down on the field? Huh.

Interesting.

Which is good; panning back and forth across a scene like this would be unprofessional, and you’d probably get told off for giving viewers vertigo.

Hahahahaha as a film major, this made me laugh a lil

Tricky things, dark types.

Dark-types are tricky

These were two descriptors of Dark Types that happened in close proximity to one another and just read a little repetitive.

You sense the cracks in his persona; you zoom out a little so they don’t show.

Ooooooooo I fuck with this heavy. Love this emphasis on the idea that high profile trainers be putting on shows just like an A-list moviestar or something of the sort.

One side of his mouth twists into a smile, and when Ghetsis speaks, his words are for his hydreigon, for you, for everyone watching.

wait....HEY GHETSIS I THOUGHT YOU WERE N FOR A FEW PARAGRAPHS WOOPS

That’s what rotom are good for, after all.

WAVE NO YOU'RE SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT

“Very bad. Bad, Zahhak,” Ghetsis admonishes. He points his cane lazily towards the hydreigon. “Very naughty. Bad pokémon. You know better.” He looks back at Alder and shrugs.

This fucking guy.

Alder already used the legal number of healing items this battle.

Ohhhh I liked this teeny worldbuilding! Never thought of implementing the idea that there would be a cap of healing items in a fight, but I love that sentiment.

“Zahhak, again? We’ll have to talk. Two cards in one match? That’s only happened fifteen times in League history.” Ghetsis doesn’t smile. He makes a show of looking at his empty hands instead. “But no one’s even given me my first card yet! How could I possibly know that this match is too violent if no one tells me? How could anyone else in those fifteen matches have known either?”

This guy. What a motherfucker. STOP BEING RIGHT, YOU DICKASS.

and it sounds like the words are being wrung out of him like water from a wet washcloth.

I just really liked this simile :)

Alder defeated Maevis

IS THIS A BURNER CROSSOVER???????????????????????

more lax laws for gym licensing, relaxation of punishments on possession of Class C pokémon without proper permits, blanket defunding of conservation efforts for endangered species. And where was your outrage? Was the Champion’s throne not a position of power not two decades ago, when the man who wielded it only had quiet ideas that didn’t conflict with your own? Why didn’t you fear the regime change then?”

Alder you're lookin' pretty fuckin' bad rn, what do you have to say for yourself??????????

The volcarona is lucky; his trainer is wealthy and high-profile, and as such can bypass the normal waiting times that such an intensive operation would require. Is that what you want to hear? Is that the truth you would rather know? Forgive me if I fail to stay quiet, Unova. For you it is just another match; for pokémon, who must live in the gaps between your bursts of glory, the violence is all they know.”

I am viciously sweating, but also, eat the rich. Alder gets access to fancy shmancy treatments but what happens to lesser trainers who's Pokemon also be getting this fucked up? Sheesh.

[“Hey, it’s me, I can’t answer the phone right now, so leave a message after the beep!”]

[“Hilda, honey, are you okay? Please call me. I’m watching the news right now.”]

waiwaiwaiwaiwait is Hilda the character death, did somebody fucking kill Hilda???????? Is that why she's not answering?????

Bruh I am TIRED oh my god

“Hyper Beam, Vaselva,” says a child’s voice,

OH THANK FUCKING GOD SHE DIDN'T GET FUCKING MURDERED.

As if the pain was somehow less if it was inflicted on accident.

You want "by accident."

“Hang on folks, I’m getting information from downstairs right now, it looks like someone has broken through the cofagrigus’s trick room and is fighting Ghetsis! Wow, and she’s certainly putting her serperior through its paces tonight; it just narrowly dodged another Fire Blast from Ghetsis’s hydreigon here.”

“I don’t believe it! It would seem that Harmonia is attacking her directly!” Whatever brief burst of energy Markus got back from Hilda’s arrival has dissipated immediately; the tense, terse air is back.

This was one of those name switches that threw me. I was under the impression that Markus only knew that the challenger's name was Harmonia, but Wave was the first to think of him as Ghetsis, so like, did everyone know his real name was Ghetsis and was just going by Harmonia, or??? I'm thinking a lot about this and I might just be Losing It(TM)

“If she burns, will you cheer her on to fight through it? If she falls will you beg her to fight through the pain so that you can watch it happen, safe and comfortable from the sidelines? If she faints, will you shout to her, ‘Come on! Get up!’? Which one of you will run into this room and card me for excessive force?” The one eye he has left is furious and wide, and yet—you can see it perfectly—there’s no madness in there. This isn’t a madman. This is someone who knows exactly what he’s doing. “Minutes before, Unova, you cheered when this very same thing happened to Alder’s accelgor. Will you do the same now? Don’t worry, she’ll only pass out. I will be lenient. My hydreigon is well-trained; there is only a minimal risk of death. With a bit of healing she should be as good as new. I’ll even be generous and pay for the cost of her treatment myself.”

GHETSIS STOP MAKING SENSE WHILE YOU'RE TRYING TO GENOCIDE THE BUILDING IT'S MAKING ME REALLY HARD TO AGREE WITH YOU.

And Markus isn’t doing anything either; you’re the one who has to get close while he stays safe behind the protection of the box and its layers and layers of deflective shields, and that hardly seems fair; you can’t help but notice that he’s only nervous when the humans are in danger, a discrepancy that he’s surely unaware of and surely doesn’t mean—

You don’t look at Hilda. Instead you look at the volcarona, six bloody crescents lining the scaly down on his back; you look at the zebstrika slumped in a pile in the wall, her legs so mangled she’ll probably never walk again; you look at how Shauntal’s chandelure is twisted into an almost unrecognizable wreck of wrought iron with purple fire barely flickering at the core—

Is Wave going to go rogue???? I feel like he's about to totally go rogue.

The ceiling plummets. There isn’t time to move, to speak. You watch one set of eyes look upward, widen in alarm, and then the hydreigon vanishes from your view, replaced with a pile of concrete and rebar.

The sound from Ghetsis’s mouth is inhuman, too.

i--
wow, fucking rip bro.

Neither will his bouffalant or escavalier, or Hilda’s zebstrika, all three of whom passed away due to the injuries they sustained

PRESS F TO PAY RESPECTS, HOLY FUCK I--

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter xvi

The human has pulled out her pokédex and is pointing it at you. She’s not even looking at you; she let’s the machine do that for her.

"lets"

The human has pulled out her pokédex and is pointing it at you. She’s not even looking at you; she let’s the machine do that for her. That’s fine. You’ll pose for it as well. “Purrloin, huh? Tricky to raise, average offensive prowess, and a few warnings for mischievousness. Oh, and if that’s not ironed out, that could manifest as extreme aggression after evolution. They will disobey trainers they do not respect. Yikes.” She looks down at the simpering, smug one by her feet. “Still, not a dealbreaker. What do you think, Vaselva?”

Ohh, so this is the backstory behind why Tourmaline was so insistent she'd never be Hilda's specifically, isn't it. (Oof, that 'yikes' at the notion that they might not obey the every command of a human child unless they respect them.)

You’ve done it! You have a human! She will be yours! You will call her something witty, clever. Hummy, perhaps. Brownie? She has the hair for it.

Something delightful about this after "Munny". (Kind of sad it only comes up once here and is then forgotten about - she goes on to call Hilda Hilda despite her trouble getting her mouth around it, and never gives N a nickname at all.)

Wait, no. The human is shaking her head. She’s already put the red device away. Still isn’t looking at you. “Sorry, Vaselva. I think we’ll pass. Bianca says there are blitzle in the grass outside of town, and I think that’ll round out your flying weakness better. It’s not worth the risk, and, I mean … we can’t really afford to have extras right now.”

Guessing that's a literal 'afford', isn't it, if I recall Hilda's disadvantaged background correctly. The offer to feed herself sadly just never gets communicated to Hilda, which is on Vaselva's intransigence, I guess, more than anyone else. (Though keeping a Pokémon probably has costs beyond food - if everyone in practice needs healing items as suggested in the Munny chapter, that'd definitely add up.)

“Awww, aren’t you the cutest!” says the human. “Do you want a snack?” She’s reaching into her satchel now.

No, you want a trainer; you do not want a—

She pulls out a berry and you salivate immediately. You’re hungry. You’ve been hungry for days. You—

Are eating ravenously.

When you look up, they’re gone.

Aww. Admire her tenacity insisting that's not why she wants a trainer, though.

I was kind of surprised at Hilda's reaction of just calling her cute and offering a snack here, to the point of almost thinking it was a different human somehow. Giving it some thought, I'm guessing the intention of it is to show that it hasn't even occurred to Hilda that Purrloin wanted her to train her at all, that wild Pokémon's wants are just so far from her mind that she never even wondered if the Purrloin was confronting her because it wanted her as a trainer, and instead she was approaching the whole interaction purely from the perspective of whether she or Vaselva wanted it. Which does seem to check out.

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? There's no hint of tone or body language suggesting she's at all reluctant about wasting food/healing, or that she's making the call to do that because she's not sure how else to get this Purrloin to leave them alone, or would like to give more but can't, or even that she notices the Purrloin is starving and needs it more than she does - the line feels, at least to me, like there's zero thought on her part behind it, and she'd be liable to just randomly give out berries to any cute Pokémon without a thought. 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.

You’re more careful choosing the next one. The rejection stings. The human you’d chosen didn’t look particularly powerful; she certainly wasn’t that much stronger than you. So for her to say that you weren’t good enough? For her?

She looks like she crawled out of a gutter. Your mother belonged to one of their elites. Her trainer was one of the best in Unova, and she taught all of her moves to you before old age took her. So what does this little human girl know about dealbreakers?

Nothing. She knows nothing, you have to remind yourself. You don’t need that particular human to know you’re worth something. Your mother belonged to one of their elites, until he gambled away his fortune, and his fame couldn’t protect him. He sold the expendables. Her new life wasn’t so bad; the humans who bought her were wealthy and took good care of her. But when she grew out of her prime, they discarded her like an old toy. She scrounged for a new home, and her once-proud head bowed for scraps, which she ferried back to you.

The anger festers, but the message is clear time after time: humans determine your worth in this world. If the little girl who rejected you doesn’t understand your worth yet, you will have to find someone who does. It’s that or go hungry.

Really interesting POV with a lot going on here. She's got a sort of classist pride going on because of her mother belonging to an elite, and looks down on Hilda a bit because she looks like she crawled out of a gutter (but only after she's been rejected, of course). And of course, for all her pride in her mother's elite trainer, he gambled away his fortune and sold the expendables. Then other wealthy humans who seem to have treated her as a status symbol. The humans who supposedly gave her worth sure didn't treat her like she was worth much at all, but she clings to that notion anyway.

(And of course here comes the "It's that or go hungry". Poor girl.)

So you watch him watch them. He has a strange gait, you decide. He doesn’t walk like a human, all confident and loud. He pads around, always nervous, always gentle, always quiet, as if he knows he doesn’t belong and is trying to draw as little attention to his outsiderness as possible.

I like how much this feels like a description of N without a single mention of green hair etc.

He bares his own teeth in amusement—the smile seems genuine. He looks around, almost guilty, almost amused, and, when he fails to notice you through your perfect stealth, he shrugs and deftly begins to peel it.

Excellent. You are bonded for life now.

What a cat. This thing of giving gifts without ever letting him notice it was even her and treating it as bonding is cute. N leaving half the Oran is very cute, too! What an N.

You deposit the second gift while he’s alone.

You sort of have to, you see. It’s not by choice. You’d much rather give it to him where he and everyone else with eyes can see what a good hunter you are, to bring him so many gifts. Then everyone will have no choice but to be amazed at your prowess, and they’ll all be jealous. Everyone wins.

Was kind of surprised at this, though - just earlier she was clearly very preoccupied with making sure nobody knew it was her at all, when she easily could have just presented it openly, but now she's apparently regretful of the fact she can't present this gift openly. If that's actually desirable, why did she actively go stealth with the first one? (I guess maybe they think of hunting gifts as something to be shown off and berries as something to be given as stealthily as possible, but it doesn't quite feel like she's making that important of a distinction between the two.)

What does he see out there? He still hasn’t fought, or battled, or done anything in this strange town except watch. You’re beginning to wonder if you made the wrong choice.

No. You would never make the wrong choice.

You deposit the broken-winged pidove on the steps behind him. You’ll leave him with the honor of finishing it off. He is a frail one. You are the better hunter. And now you can make good on your promise: no birds will bother him, or any of the others he seeks to protect. You curl up around the balcony railing and blend into the shadows.

Such a cat. Interested in the "any of the others he seeks to protect" - suggesting she thinks of trainers as the ones protecting their Pokémon, and not the other way around? There's not really a parallel being drawn to the nocturne lament per se, but given that seems to be behind the general notion shared among most Pokémon about the value and virtue of protecting those who can't protect themselves, it's tempting to think of that.

There is a child with a fidget-cube. Her fingers are too chubby to manipulate it properly; she’s too young for it. That’s what you tell yourself, at least, when you approach her. All fluff and smiles, something big and purple and colorful to look at, and when she throws her arms around you, you endure it. One moment, maybe two.

Yes, this is all part of your plan. She has to hug you for at least five seconds. Or ten. Yes, when she’s nuzzling her head into your neck, mixing strands of her hair with your fur. This is part of your devious plan as well. She has to get her guard fully down, this miniature human, or else you’ll never succeed. Absolutely.

“Purr! Purr!” she says, an utter butchering of your name. Despicable. How can you stand her, the way she squeezes too tightly, lets her warmth and love bleed into yours? Thank goodness you’re so strong.

Oh no, proud touch-starved kitty. I am kind of surprised she approached the child here given a moment ago she was so fixated on N and could have been approaching him instead, but I guess she's just being a cat?

You look up guiltily. The big human has business clothes on; you recognize the flappy bit of fabric around his neck as plumage that only the adults have. On his face is carved a scowl, also the kind that only the adults have. “Riley! Get away from that!”

Enjoying her observations generally.

What a silly, silly trainer he’ll make. Of course you want to fight. Why else would you seek out a human?

Why else indeed. Totally not because otherwise she'll be alone and touch-starved and hungry.

He’s lying, even if he doesn’t know it. No human is honored like this for long. New pokémon are prizes to be won, interesting at first and then lackluster if they can’t prove their worth. You’ll lose his fascination and he’ll put you up on a shelf when you start losing. You know this. Your mother knew this, and taught you all too well—she was a trainer’s pokémon once, until she wasn’t.

You won’t make the same mistakes. You won’t be useless.

:(((

N talks to you more than you thought a trainer would. He has too many questions—where are you from? what’s your name? what interests you in battling? am I talking too fast?—and at first you think it’s part of a test, so you answer him honestly. Accumula. Tourmaline. Strength. Yes, absolutely, do you ever stop?

Well, that's another way for Tourmaline's original name to be communicated to humans.

The snivy nods, and then extends two thorny fronds from her backside—where was she keeping those??—and launching them towards you.

You want "and launches" there (or a rephrasing).

You file him out as background noise for the moment and study the snake. Her vines have a predictable attack pattern to them. Left, right, left. There’s an arc and a sway that they all share; she hasn’t yet had her human point that out to her and train her out of it. You duck under the first, and then start running headlong in. The vines chase you, but you’re moving fast—they don’t retract as quickly as they extend. You get in close, and you rake your claws across her face. She manages to close her eyes and shy away just in time to protect those big, ruby eyes from the worst of it, but drops of red start sneaking down her face. She screams. You go in again. And again. Your claws ache under the impact of her skin. She’s got scales, and they’re still soft, not yet battle-hardened, not meant for this, like your claws, but if you can rake fast enough, you’ll win. You have to. Your chest aches and your head throbs and your paws are weary but—

Brutal. I like the bit about the predictable attack pattern that Tourmaline thinks Hilda ought to have trained Vaselva out of a lot - shows she knows her stuff and expects humans to do so too, which makes sense given her mother grew up with an elite.

She looks up at N, one leaf on her tail torn. The fronds around her neck are in disarray, and she shakes them out disdainfully before answering. But she doesn’t meet his eyes. {She told me to. For her and her dreams, I would do anything.}

“But … why?”

Vaselva flicks her tattered tail dismissively, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. {Because that’s what pokémon are for.}

Vaselva whyyy

The pidove is still quailing in its roost at the pokécenter, but you won’t sit around quietly. You’ll be the most useful member on his team, and then he’ll see. But he doesn’t go near the trainers, even as you follow him resolutely through the streets, down the streets, across the streets. For a while, he’s silent, his hands shoved deeply in his pockets. You imagine a miniature thunderstorm brewing around his shoulders. A few blocks in, he stops and crouches, as if to tie his shoe; though it fills your heart with shame, you accept his offer and perch around his neck. There’s still a dull ache in your legs from the battle, and all this walking isn’t helping anyway.

He must’ve been expecting it, because he doesn’t shoo you off. He doesn’t say anything else though, either.

It feels a little incongruous that first you say Tourmaline accepts his offer, so clearly she regards his crouching as an offer to let her curl around his neck, but then in the next paragraph she seems surprised he was expecting it and doesn't shoo her off - surely, if she knows it was an offer, she should already know he was expecting it and wouldn't shoo her off?

(I like that we saw N with her around his neck in the Samson chapter, though, and now we're seeing a bit more of how that developed.)

Humans are strange. They rearrange all of the furniture into a grid shape, and you have to move twice (twice!) until they’ve gotten all the chairs in a layout they’re happy with. The joke is on them though; all of their furniture is so mismatched and slapped together—there’s no way to arrange two dozen chairs that look like they came from two dozen places nicely. At the center they put up a little makeshift stage, and N is fussing with some cords on the ground when the others start to trickle in.

Enjoying the cheap, makeshift feel of all this.

You snatch it from her waiting paws and frown at it, trying to trace over the symbols with your tail. Belatedly, you realize you should’ve asked, What are they for? but she’s out of hissing range and if you shout at her they’ll all see how stupid you are for not knowing. So you curl your tail tightly around your paws and trace over the strange symbols.

oh noooo

“You’re right on time!” N says. “Could Vaselva make it?”

Hilda blinks politely. “Pardon?”

N flinches and seems to catch himself. “Oh, pokémon are welcome in this space. If Vaselva would like to join us, we’d love to see her.”

And once again it doesn't even occur to Hilda that a Pokémon might want to experience the thing too. Sigh. N's obviously so jarred by it, too.

Your claws sink into the wood of the stool. {I’d be happy to entertain our guests,} you say frostily to N, and he flashes you a grateful smile.

“Thank you,” he says. “Oh, and Tourmaline, could you save me a seat?”

Oh no. N may understand Pokémon but he's not good at tone, is he.

Before you can find an answer, more people begin filling in the seats behind and around you. There’s a commotion as some of the chairs have to get rearranged to make room for a venipede, and a human boy tries to take the seat you’re saving for N, so you have to yowl at him until he stops. By the time you turn away from that, Vaselva has nuzzled up against Hilda’s leg, her eyes half-closed as Hilda gently strokes the yellow scales beneath her chin.

When you look at them, it isn’t anger that fills you. That could’ve been you. If you were—

No. You have your own trainer. This is what you wanted.

;;

When he sings, his voice resonates in a deep vibrato, one that you wouldn’t have believed could fit in his tiny body. The words are lost to you, but the melody settles around your shoulders like a heavy blanket, warm, comforting. It lilts in a strange way, with pauses that feel like they should be filled by another. But it happens all at once: he’s halfway through threading a lyric, some stupid rhyme about “my love” and “stars above”, when—

You’re curled up against your mother, in the rare shared moments she had with you. Her humans couldn’t know about you, she’d explained. They’d make you fight. So she hid you carefully in the alleyways during the day while she fawned around her humans, and ran to you at night. {But I was thinking of you the entire time, my love,} she whispers with a soft laugh, her tongue rasping against the fur on the back of your neck. Her breath is warm, and you’re bundled tightly to her flank, and as you drift off to sleep, she begins to croon a lullaby—

Short night, good night,

Find your way in the moon’s soft sight.

You blink back to reality. It’s a different song; a simple one, like Tiallys said; roughly half the pokémon in the room have joined the rat on the chorus. You want to focus on how they aren’t as good as he is, how they’re distracting from the real talent in the room, but you can’t. You can’t even bring yourself to join them; you just stare, stare at the stupid rat as he finishes his song with his eyes closed.

Short night, good night,

May we meet in the morn’s sweet light.

Your heart feels like it’s sunk all the way to your paws, and there’s a heavy weight on your shoulders that forces your head down, your ears back. The snake’s got her tail curled tightly around herself, and she clutches it like it’s something precious.

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?

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, which is "First performer, Tiallys of the Yarrow Clan, from Lostlorn. He wants to be an idol performer, like Roxie, to catch the attention of his family." Presumably catching the attention of his family actually means finding them again after they've been torn apart, but the humans in attendance don't get to hear about that part. I'm kind of surprised N wouldn't try to give space in the program to actually explain the Pokémon's situation? (One would think he was involved in getting the program made at all.) Maybe at this stage of things he's just too timid about rocking the boat much at all? 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?

Hilda scrutinizes the flyer in her hand—what, does she think it’s going to answer for her? “I think I will.” She swallows. “I learned a lot tonight. And you had a good time too, didn’t you, Vaselva?”

Feels like the fact she even asks her that is kind of significant - maybe seeing Pokémon performances, and seeing her Pokémon reacting to it, made her a little bit more aware, at least in this moment.

He leans back, but his back stays hunched, like he’s some sort of misproportioned sawk. He’s much too tall for the chair he picked, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it.

Love the ways you depict N from all these different POVs.

When Brex sang, a human girl drummed the sides of his bucket. When the tympole dove underwater, the warbling effect from his voice echoed with the rhythmic rapping sound from the metal. It was a nice duet, you remember, but by that point your heart and your mind were far, far away. {There were some humans up there as well.}

He smiles stiffly. “That’s true.” The smile fades. “But I’d much rather watch.”

Doesn't like to be in the spotlight, eh.

{You lost to that girl. I was humiliated.}

“I’m sorry you were hurt, Tourmaline. That was my fault.”

{I don’t want your apologies. I want to know how to get better.}

N swallows nervously. He’s staring into the fire, so all you can see is the bottom of his chin, the way it throws different shadows alongside the flickering light. “I think you did a really good job. You tried your best.”

Oh, N. He's not really answering her here - she says she was humiliated but he responds apologizing for her being hurt. She asks how to get better and he says she tried her best. He doesn't really know how to talk to her and address the way she thinks. I'm thinking of the Klink chapter and how very carefully he paid attention, listened to exactly what they were trying to tell him - seems that's a skill he developed better later.

“That pidove you left me.” He pauses for a while, eyes distant into the open flame. “Why?”

{You knew it was me?}

The next long pause tells you all you need to know. “You were very stealthy,” he says, very carefully. He’s a very bad liar.

Made me smile.

{No. Territorial spats, sometimes. I would wound them or chase them off. In times of great famine, perhaps. If there is no other choice. Otherwise, no. They are irritating and more trouble than they’re worth.} So loud. Your mother picked the loudest spot in the alleyway to hide you when you were younger, where the pidove screamed at all hours of the day.

Hmm. Something feels lost if she doesn't actually consider Pidove passable prey. If she wouldn't consider eating one outside times of great famine, when there's no other choice, doesn't that make it kind of a crappy gift? It's hard to reconcile her placing such a great value on hunting if she finds it more trouble than it's worth and wouldn't do it unless she had no other choice at all. (The scene where she presented him with the Pidove also didn't make it sound like her catching it was anything remarkable or unusual, which I guess could have just been because as a narrator she would want to make it sound that way, but the lack of any hint otherwise, as far as I could tell, makes this feel kind of jarring when we get here.)

“I think we’re both realizing I can’t make you strong the way you want, Tourmaline. I apologize.” He’s still petting you, and with your eyes closed the world is reduced to just the warmth of the firelight, and the pressure of his hand on your back, and the softness of his voice. “But I respect your desire. If you wanted to train, I have a few friends who have more courage than I, who can stomach violence. I think you would like them. They could help you become strong. Or, if you’d like, you can seek out your own trainer until you found one who fit.”

{Are you …} The anger crystallizes through the exhaustion. {Are you rejecting me?}

sadcat emoji

An interesting chapter, exploring a Pokémon who believes she actually wants a trainer and battling and strength, but mostly because she's internalized that worldview where humans and Pokémon each have their place and worth and safety comes from having a human, and she's ultimately just terrified that not battling would result in rejection and solitude. She and Vaselva are not really so dissimilar - both miss their Pokémon mothers who loved them, both misguidedly believe in a hierarchy where humans call the shots and Pokémon must fight for them.

It's simultaneously heartening to know she winds up with Rhea and discovers she mostly doesn't like battling but prefers ranged attacks, etc. - and also heartbreaking that in the end, whoops, she ends up alone again, doesn't she, because N tears the world apart.

It's interesting to watch N here - so confused and reluctant to take action, significantly oblivious to what Tourmaline is really feeling and telling him. All the pieces are there for him to tell she doesn't really want another trainer to make her strong at all, I think (and is already having significant internal doubts about exactly what it is she actually wants), 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.

 

[sun]

I was waffling on making an account here for a few months, but upon finishing this, I broke. So thank you, and also hello!

The amount of stories that have hit me this hard is minimal (and a disproportionate amount of it written by forum members here!!! wow!!!). This piece, in particular, is so complex, so laden with life and love and loss that I'm struggling to even speak about it; I feel like my words are callous and inadequate. I feel clumsy, or maybe that I'm trying to hold an entire storm in my hands.

Either way, I wish I had had the foresight to register when I was partway through, so I could give a blow-by-blow or something!!! Because this was full, just chock-full of POGGERS lines and ideas and execution, if you will excuse my french.

I'm a huge fan of the way you told these stories -- I love, as I think I saw WildBoots put it? as perhaps a criticism? "jumps in logic." This sounds like a bad thing, but for me, who lives in her head and relishes the chance to jump ship into someone else's, I love nothing more. To me, the ability to weave so many disparate thoughts and ideas into a tapestry, left on the cusp of being spelled out, as per the protagonist's history/motivation/ideals... There's nothing better. Your writing is full of tiny little "a-ha!" (or "OH NO!") moments and I looooove it. The reading between the lines, the words left unsaid due to shared history, the muted body language of a conversation... It speaks to your skill, that it seems so effortless. It makes your prose snappy while still being appropriately verbose, with the added bonus of making me feel like a smart cookie. (I believe WildBoots mentioned it in reference to their own work as well? which is funny because I also adore their style, so... ha!)

I've never been a huge fan of this kind of timeline format, but im convinced now. 100%. The perspectives were so unlike anything else I've read, and I'm just. SO happy. to have found such stellar writing for N, and the BW plot as a whole. This fic addressed every issue I had with BW's rhetoric vs its core game philosophy. It always rankled, but I'm not much of a writer, and struggled to put into words. I'm at peace now. Thank you

I need to sleep (and cut myself off before I write more of an essay) but really, thank you for sharing this. It really is something beautiful, I think. This breathed life into my cold, shrivelled little soul, in the most bittersweet and destructive way possible. By god I'm going to re read this whenever I need a blast to the chest. And/or inspiration! Because wow. holy smokes. Yeesh! I'm beelining to your other works ASAP!

 

[Dragonfree]

Chapter xvii

Every victory, every defeat, every pain—it all gets wound back until everyone is smaller and simpler and less violent, until no one can hurt anyone else ever again. There is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than their innocence.

Perhaps selfishly, you focus on a very small child with green hair who watches with wide eyes as screams to turn cheers, who lays down his burdensome mantle of being the hero and closes his eyes in a peaceful world.

Brilliant opening to this chapter; got goosebumps at that whole description, of N imagining everything just quietly undoing itself into a world with no violence at all where he doesn't have to be a hero. Really brings full circle why the story is told the way it is.

Unbidden, the memory surfaces. Your father played chess with you when you were younger. You asked him in a very clear voice why he insisted on playing you, because that you thought it was silly and he was always going to win. And the rules were quite foolish. Some pieces could belong on some squares; everything had to be divisible. You’d asked him why black and white had to be cordoned off into their own boxes.

And Ghetsis had coldly answered all of your questions at once: “Because some people don’t have a choice.”

You hated that game, how every piece had only its one set of moves, how kings could go nowhere at all but were somehow the only piece that mattered. But you hated most of all how the board reset like nothing had ever happened, as if a dozen pieces hadn’t fallen for a polarized victory. At first you thought you disliked the game because you kept losing, but you once you tasted victory you hated winning even more, because it never felt like success, not when there was simply an endless string of games ahead.

Love this contemplation, especially in light of the whole Black and White theme and all. N just hates the idea of this game where a bunch of imaginary people are all cordoned into boxes and limited and made to fight each other arbitrarily and then in the end it's all for nothing because you're just going to play another game.

I guess secretly, what N's really been hoping to do here has been to rewind everything back to when things were simpler, before Pokéballs. That seems to sort of rhyme with the bit in the Reuniclus chapter where his ideal future was just an image of the past, which I remember being confused by (the image he was imagining was from his personal past, though, wasn't it, which is of course way after the invention of the first Pokéball - but I guess that's just symbolic of the general desire to return to the past?). I definitely remember having the general impression N really was going to forever separate humans and Pokémon, though, which definitely isn't the same thing as that. Reread will probably be useful to be sure if I just made that up based on the games or if that was in there somewhere.

Zekrom breaks your gaze. {You are not the one I have chosen, but I respect the goal that you seek. When I was reborn amidst a battlefield and the very first thing my Hero of Ideals did was command me to attack another one in suffering, one who would invoke my daughter’s words in the face of certain death, I understood: even her Ideal world would involve pain for the innocent. Perhaps not for everyone, perhaps only for a few, but pain enough that I hesitated then. Pain enough that I believe I could shelve my conflict now with you and my sibling to break us from this cycle. And, of course, even I understand the other simple truth—if I do not try to intercede here, you will act anyway. I cannot stop you.}

Hmm. I still kind of question this. The reason Hilda was commanding Zekrom to attack there was because she was there in the real, non-ideal world where Ghetsis was murdering people, right? I guess it hurts this that I'm not sure exactly what Hilda's ideal world actually does look like, so it's hard to correlate it to that situation or understand why her ideal world would cause more pain for the innocent than some other hypothetical world. Maybe this was covered back in the Reuniclus chapter and I just don't quite remember because it's been a while?

and it felt in that moment that his words were for simultaneously for you and for all of Unova: forgive me, dear sibling.

Something's funky with the phrasing here; too many "for"s, and "it felt in that moment that" feels off. (Shouldn't it be "it felt in that moment like..." or "he felt in that moment that..."?)

Your brow furrows, but you understand before you have to ask for clarification: the tongue of dragons has no word for civil war. It is a purely human construct, to pretend that wars could be civil. Zahhak once—

I like how he cuts off there after thinking of Zahhak. Also like that sentiment of pretending that wars could be civil a lot.

“N,” she says suddenly, voice shaky. “Do you … do you trust us?”

Behind the dragon, one hand outstretched, one tear tracking through the ash smudged across her cheeks—Hilda has been here this entire time. Watching, silent, listening.

While it's meant to be abrupt to suddenly remind us Hilda is there too, the sudden "she" just threw me off - I felt as if it was referring to Zekrom somehow for a moment. I'd suggest rephrasing to avoid the pronoun there - "N," says a shaky voice, suddenly, or something.

It’s such an innocent, impossible question. How could she trust you? That night you did nothing but watch as Zahhak ripped Amara to shreds. She couldn’t have known that that was the last thing you’d wanted, that half of why you’d tried to hard at Dragonspiral Tower was because you knew what Ghetsis would do when you failed—but you couldn’t ask Hilda to separate you from them. Indirectly or not, you’d known that was the inevitable end to the path he’d set himself on. He was a dragon, after all. A dragon who thought that the only gift he had left was violence.

The sense of near-miss here is palpable. Kind of wish we got more of N's conflicted feelings on Zahhak - he obviously cared deeply for him but also feels his actions were deeply wrong and misguided, and that feels like something we only sort of brush past here. Maybe there was more of that in earlier chapters, too.

In the frozen moment that follows, you want to tell her so much. Of Stormdancer and the Dragonmother, of a chord the two of them had formed on a starry night in a time long-since dead, of the gift your ancestors stole to get you both here today. But your words die in your throat.

Ghhh. He wants so badly for them to just understand each other.

The translation is imperfect, but we picked it for a reason.

Something slightly off with the italics here.

There is a conjugation in our language the means you and I, without them.

That means, presumably?

Zekrom shifts their weight. Blue blood leaks from one eye. {So be it,} they growl. {You are true in saying that change requires sacrifice. But my Hero and I believe in the ideal that there will always be those strong enough to shoulder that sacrifice onto themselves, so that those who are unable to sacrifice will not have to. She and I could not stop you, but it was wrong of us to even try—all of us must work together once more if you and yours, and me and mine, are to get our wish.}

Nnnnn, good. Again on that theme of the willingness to sacrifice, to protect those who can't protect themselves. If anything's been shown in the story it's how many people are ready and willing to do that.

“We stood for the Unova that is becoming. My sibling is correct. We both forgot this. Even if we had the power to split these worlds, to return all of you to a universe in which pokémon live on their own and humans are kept far away to make their own disasters—we could not without first giving everyone a fair chance to make things right. Pokémon never had a chance to dictate the terms of their partnership. Humans never had to listen for an answer. That much we understand now. We could not ignore your plea, but nor could we ignore our own. And so it is quite simple. From N we took, and to pokémon everywhere we humbly returned—the gift that humans stole from the gods at the dawn of time. We gave Voice.”

Ahhhhh, this is so good. The voice was always the problem, always the answer, and N sacrificing his for all the Pokémon of the world, so that all humans and Pokémon can understand each other and maybe try to build something better together - perfect. That's what this has all been building to.

I'm not 100% clear on exactly what became of N at the end (did he become Kyurem...?), but I find the way the whole thing plays out very resonant. I wasn't actually expecting the story to return to the prologue - The rest of the story will be told backwards always made me assume it really did begin with the end, and the final chapter would be, perhaps, about N in his childhood, with Ghetsis and Zahhak. I fully expected it to be good and wrench at my heartstrings, and make me feel the tragedy of why things inevitably spiralled the way they did until this woefully unsatisfactory conclusion. But instead you go back to that ending and give it a second chance for hope and cooperation, the realization that there was another way after all, and that was really beautiful. One of the things that do become so achingly clear in this story as it proceeds, behind the many tragedies of the narrators, is that things probably could have been different, better. The whole recurring theme of Pokémon and humans just failing to successfully communicate again and again with heartrending consequences; the lovely times that they do manage to communicate and connect. I'd be surprised if anyone could get to the end and not deep down wish something like this could happen. And then it does, because N and Hilda and Reshiram and Zekrom are all willing to reach out and listen to each other, and N is willing to sacrifice the voice that he has to make it happen, to let Pokémon finally speak for themselves.

As the dragons say at the end, of course this is only the beginning. We've seen a lot of humans just not even remotely trying to listen to their Pokémon. But... at the same time, I think a lot of them probably really would be better now that their Pokémon could speak actual words they understand instead of just pretending they can't communicate at all. Bianca, say - there didn't seem to be a malicious bone in her body, just total obliviousness. If Munny could just talk to her, in her polite, unassuming way, I can only imagine Bianca would try to be a better trainer to her. Cheren's worse, and would undoubtedly be stubborn, but it'd be a lot harder for him to refuse to listen. And Pokémon and the humans who do listen can keep fighting, together, for change and a better world. I choose to have hope for that future, and for the value of N's sacrifice.

I've been kind of hard on this story at times, and I'm sorry if I've played a part in some of the stress you describe in your commentary. As a narrative I do have various niggles with how it plays out at times, but I think it's a beautiful piece of work, full of great xeno POVs and perfectly executed emotional highs, and the questions it raises are good and important to grapple with and take seriously, as fans of the franchise and as human beings. Even when I have disagreements with something about how a chapter plays out, this story has consistently made me think; each chapter is its own little braintease, calling for the reader to just consider and sharpen their thinking on whatever the chapter's chewing on. 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. I've gotten a lot out of reading this, all in all, even or perhaps especially where I've been critical of it.

I still really want to reread; I kind of want to do a skim-reread in reverse order, to find out once and for all how the story would play out when read chronologically. There are a lot of things I remember vaguely that I'm itching to revisit in light of where you went with the story afterward and the final thesis of the whole thing. But it's getting late, and I've written a lot here, and all in all it's going to have to be another little (probably not very little, you know me) bonus review, another day. Thank you for writing this; it's been a great ride, and the way you wrapped it up was really cathartic, building beautifully on everything you'd established.

 

[System Error]

Crosspost. Powered through from having read P and C1 way back when, due to unusual circumstances.

C2
- Protect shattering is the worst trope
- Good thing N wasn't using Stealth Rock here, because that is just poison. Also make your own Studio Ghibli joke here.
- Second person from a fricking Rotom. I'm surprised though, there's no Pokemon language in here given a Pokemon is the viewpoint.
- Interesting interpretation of Alder leaving a lot of collateral. I imagine the custodians hate him.
- With how crazy Alder is, maybe N's accusations have merit.
- Man imagine commercial breaks and then coming back to the battle being over
- Truth/ideals coming up.
- How coincidental the whole thing had cut to commercial during this time.
- Rotom thinking about lightning
- BAH GAWD KANG WE GOT INTERFERENCE IN HERE SOMEBODY STOP THE DAMN MATCH
- Pokemon cameramen, so unreliable. Shaking my smh...
- You know with how much of a sociopath Ghetsis is I don't buy that he'd nickname his Pokemon since that gives them an identity beyond the tools he sees them as
- Ohhhh, plot twist, Ghetsis was the one battling. Didn't see that coming, and was obfuscated by just calling him Harmonica.
- Wait now I'm confused. Alder was down to his last Pokemon, now he's suddenly using more?
- How much can it take to open one door?
- Meh, Ghetsis isn't anywhere near as convincing as N. Also heh, the commentator falling right into the trap instead of treating it as an emergency
- Oh there's the Poke-speak.
- I guess N failed to awaken his dragon here??
- Ded

C3
- More Poke-perspectives I see.
- I do like the concept of Pokemon not knowing other species' names that humans have given, and in fact would use it myself if ever going wild Pokemon persepctive.
- Hm, going to Cheren and his wanting to fill the Pokedex, I guess.
- I also like the concept of trainer nicknames not lining up with what a Pokemon wants to be called, would use that myself, and am surprised it doesn't get used as often
- Ahh, I kinda figured he caught one of N's Pokemon, but I was thinking it didn't line up with plot.
- Interesting that you had Cheren choose the one weak to the protagonist's starter here.
- Shoutouts to IVs making someone selectively catch
- Man this Boldore is going to have one bad time when he finds out how he has to evolve. I hope Cheren finds someone to tradeback
- That feel when caring about inanimate rocks. And that freakier feel when they answer you
- WILLLLLMAAAA
- Being not with the protagonist is suffering
- So I guess this Liepard isn't he first of N's Pokemon Cheren's grabbed
- Human/Pokemon communcation is pain
- Well this a cynical way for Pokemon to talk about trainers
- And verifying Ghetsis claims from the last chapter, the fuck???
- Fucked up.

C4
- Ahh, I see it now, we're going full Pokemon perspective except for the first chapter. Hey! Why didn't N get an icon for his chapter!?
- It's sometimes hard to tell what's a Fakemon and what's not from disciples of lowercase
- Let there be light, with electricity, because I guess batteries are unreliable
- Man, that feel when Hilda didn't catch anything until after Striaton. One way to avoid being given a monkey, I guess.
- What a flowery title.
- Of course the electric type would be swayed by the electric god.
- I guess N can brainwash even Pokemon
- A bit of Poke-racism with hating on being raised in a cage
- It is neat if almost a little bit corny how the Pokemon talk in elemental terms
- Interesting to think about how Pokemon sometimes don't get a choice in their trainer
- Why does a Zebstrika need to clop in order to light itself up??? Unless they're separate things, in which case, I think the Flash would also be just as telling of their position
- Wow ordering an attack on a human, this is serious. But given how serious a threat he posed and how he won, maybe it was legit
- Well I guess this explains how N failed. Makes more sense that Reshiram!N would fail, actually.
- Untranslatable words are fun. Although that said now that it's absolutely clear that it is one, those are usually italicized.
- N has been judged, and Amara is the executioner, I suppose.
- I guess this explains how N randomly has a fossil Pokemon.
- Glad at least some of the Pokemon are seeing how warped this is instead of all of them being easily brainwashed or hating everything
- Seeing right through the illusion. Like the concept that it'd be imperfect
- Interesting use of Defeatist
- Sponsorship??? I guess in this world, Britain took over and pushed their ways on everyone?

C5
- Hello? Moe's Tavern? Yeah uh, Mina Burr! Phone for Mina Burr?
- In a world where for equity's sake, the plural of trainer is also trainer
- Ever had your mom take away your video games? Try having her take away your Pokemon, permanently.
- It's kind of awkward to see them calling their trainer Trainer. Also that feel when that can get capitalized
- Interesting to think about the consequences of releasing. If only there were people willing to take abused Pokemon in, huh?
- I mean the King/Queen vs. King endgame would beg to differ on having no pawns. This is some Code Geass level of chess logic here. Well, maybe not that bad.
- I wonder if females always take lead just to keep the chess metaphor these Pokes somehow know about alive
- Ah so adoption's an options after all
- I guess that partially answers my question, not thinking of the King as the leader to protect
- And enter N
- Many years before wanderer’s birth <- Missing word
- This is certainly not the story in game
- Well there's Trainer's problem, he was ignoring type disadvantage
- You know it's a shitty world of a kintsugi fic when Pokemon violently turning on their trainers is a common occurance
- The trainer got maimed by his own Pokemon and he somehow survived and got arrested? Yup. This is a kintsugi fic all right.
- Aww, the Bisharp does something nice
- That feel though when a trainer falls from grace and becomes and abusive shit...
- I mean certain humans do wear helms, but I guess this Bisharp is uncultured
- Wow the kid punched hard enough to break Pokemon bones?!
- Oh, the Bisharp rescued Trainer. That makes more sense.
- That feel when Pokedexes are pretty much government spy cams.
- Hey, a way to communicate!! More need to think about this, really.
- And the Bisharp finds something else, something that doesn't involve fighting.
- Hee, being confused over tea.

C6
- And I see we're over to someone unidentified given the lack of a thing at the top of the chapter. But it does seem tentatively to be Ghetsis' Hydreigon.
- Ah, that might explain the nickname a little. Respect might do it, but I still think it's out of character
- And then the dragon met the fairy and got beaten into submission, the end
- Very interesting and unique relationship between trainer and Pokemon here. Maybe Ghetsis and his Hydreigon were made for each other considering he has the same opinion on N
- I guess N finds it hard to accept sacrifice
- Yes, this thing very much takes after Ghetsis
- Interesting twist, laying clear Ghetsis' real intentions to N directly
- Man, Zahh- even gives the same kinds of speeches as Ghetsis. Not so different indeed
- You know this far in I have to question, how long has this been going on and if Pokemon hated it for so long why hasn't revolution ever happen? Who even set the so-called rules?
- Moving goalposts. This story isn't going to end well.
- I like to think that he's pretending fairies simply don't exist when he's alluding to their weaknesses
- Yup, I knew it. Just took what she wanted by force once she realized the fix was in
- The truth will set you free, as they say.
- I do like this. A sad truth is, nonviolent protest rarely amounts to anything. You need something a lot worse than words to make true change happen in most cases.
- Interesting concept. N better fitting the hero of ideals, even though they're grooming him to be one of truth.
- Oof, that is a sad and painful question indeed
- Awww, hugs

C7
- Hm, and here I thought it was the LAPD, not the NYPD, who were infamous for police brutality. She was standing down.
- Wow going to jail for accidentally cutting a gas line or something
- I guess the gas suddenly doesn't exist when the cop goes to arrest her?
- Oh, a Plasma member
- I have no idea what to make of the Gym Leader running the city and letting open challenges happen everywhere besides "kintsugi fic"
- Man, Cheren getting arrested??
- So uh is she propping herself up as a kidnapper instead of a thief?
- Tying to a stick hypothetical again
- Ohhh I guess the cops were the ones doing the gassing. This is uh way worse than tear gas.
- And the police get slapped down. I feel you're kinda getting political with this, but...
- The problem with names like those, of course, are that they put pressure on the owner to live up to them. For all you've done I'm surprised that hasn't come up in the fic - maybe not yet, at least.
- There's N coming up again, and more of his Pokemon
- With all the licensing stuff and limitations, I feel it's injecting a lot of buruecracy into the world. It's interesting to think about, but going too far you can see just how much real world stuff doesn't work with the Pokemon world...
- Plus, bred moves??? Dude, that's just common to find in the games these days. It's not so illogical for Pokemon to just end up with eggs moves from being in the wild
- The ever lawful dog who does what he's told.

C8
- Okay, listening to Kirby music as I read this. Good background music to counteract something so cynical.
- It can be a bit funky adjusting to the differing terms different Pokemon use, like Leader/Follower here, but I like it. Gives each species their own identity, rather than typical PMD humans in Pokemon form even leaving aside when that's literally the case
- Ahh, the fossil. Thought it was Hilda for the briefest of moments because of Thunderlegs, but the others (and gender) don't line up. But I guess the fossil is going to explain the other fossil of N's
- Rushing river, yup. There it is.
- Also I guess Hilda is involved after all. And I guess since there's communication, this was N after getting the turtle, sometime in Chargestone Cave
- Huh, I guess this Joltik had some other random trainer who was able to understand Pokemon too.
- Based N, happily willing to introduce Pokemon to good trainers
- Things I like, certain species of Pokemon just not using names for themselves.
- I'm guessing Leader/Follower here are the two gears? Or is it N/Klink?
- And he will walk a million miles and he will walk a million more...
- Not everything would take flashing the teeth to mean not upset!
- Huh, and so dropping an intruiging twist: Hilda also wants to change the world.
- I like how the untranslatable word problem actually comes up with N.
- This Klink has an adorable speech pattern
- Ahh, so Leader/Follower is the two separate pieces. Which is interesting, since this thing's consciousness seems to be of a third party.
- Ah, numerals to the power of themselves.
- Interesting take on the Yin/Yang becoming Leader/Follower, even though in terms of their power it doesn't really make too much sense. And we haven't even factored in Kyurem yet.
- Ooo, an explanation for why he has a random Klingklang at the end. Although ironically for all he's presented as good, N doesn't seem to understand that a Pokemon might want to willingly help. Goes back to not understanding sacrifice.

C9
And reading this one with a...somethingache after eating KFC.

- Archen though, this one is definitely going to be telling
- Man, these N and Hilda interactions seem great
- Huh, challenger sending out Pokemon first?
- Well this is not creepy at all, the fossils calling out to each other by serial numbers
- BACK TO THE LAB AGAIN????
- Again, like the idea that understanding a Pokemon language isn't so simple, given all the different accents, dialects, and terminology
- Hilda seems surprisingly tolerant of N even if she doesn't trust him as far as she can throw him. If this wasn't a fic of yours, I could definitely see it going in a romance direction, or even a romcom
- And they just let the Tirtouga escape???
- I kind of do wonder, random thoughtcrafting even though you seem to just be ignoring anything from beyond BW in this plot: would the living fossils on the Crown Tundra speak modern? What about things like Relicanth that have been around forever?
- A dragon friend he would like? Oh no...
- Wonder how Tirtouga comes to evolve, if not through experience?
- I like to imagine Hilda just sitting there bitterly the whole time while N listens in on the fascinating story that takes half an hour to tell.
- Huh, the Great Dragon? Definitely doesn't seem to be either of the two Unovan dragons, until later shows it was all three together
- Either way, this dragon seems kind of a jerk to flood the world. Shades of the Wind Waker
- When N is hesitating to ask a question - N who doesn't know human interaction very well - you know it's going to be a juicy one.
- Yup, that's a juicy one. So juicy she gets defensive.
- Hilda is certainly this super hot blooded character who would fit in your average world, but not in this world!

C10
- I thought that was a Veilstone myth, though, and was more one against senseless killing
- A lot of old myths tend to make no sense
- Man Pokemon myths are pretty brutal, at least this one is
- Her revenge? Seems like she was more being a whimsical bitch to me, since the young boy never did anything to wrong her
- That feel when Zoroark knows about human burn degrees
- Welp here comes G-Cis
- Hasn't this Zoroark ever heard of ape does not hunt ape?
- I'd like to think it would be far harder to fool a nose than the eyes...and yup, a couple bits later there it is
- Oh the guy is actually named Blue? That's confusing since canon characters
- Now we remeet the Liepard from before, and Rhea too
- Pokemon to Pokemon trust, I suppose
- There's something amusing about turning berry names into compound words. Although I imagine it wouldn't work nice with all of them
- Man if they have a deragotry name for Zoroarks, wonder how bad actual skinchanger Ditto gets called
- Guess Plasma is a worldwide cult movement given there's protests in Hoenn too
- Kobo, Kobo, Kobo. This fox is obsessed.
- Aha, tying in to N
- But what if Pokemon never tell lies is in itself a lie? Huh???
- Was wondering if Bianca would ever show up
- Interesting way to add on to her convincing herself to give up
- The orb itself was boobytrapped!
- Oh dear, we have an identity for this thing now, N's Zorua's pissed off brother. Explains things.
- Hm well that didn't go as poorly as I thought, although man still stuck up. I guess N has doubts too though

C11
- And Iris all of a sudden? Well the last character I was expecting to show up here.
- Meh, coffee
- I guess this immediately preceeds the previous chapter
- Well I suppose Iris would be another person able to understand Pokemon, albeit maybe only dragons
- Hmhmhm, this Fraxure is familiar with Juniper
- That feel when Gym Leaders get sources to scout trainers' teams in advance
- The Fellowship of the Juniper, evidentally
- Corrin? Corn? An idiot royal from a seemingly nameless continent full of bad writing?
- Seems the Unova League was steeped in family tradition wherein only the rich and privileged could be involved.
- I do like the subtle implication that given Cheren later in canon, the League challenge is used to get new Gym Leaders
- Iris being concerned with how people dress is kind of amusing. And thinking how someone dresses is how they are...hasn't she ever met a contradiction who dresses like a bum but carries themselves well?
- I guess like N, these two are firmly on the side of Truth
- I'm guessing Fraxure's idea of human battles is basically a courtroom. I misread that intent but it's still a funny mental image of it thinking they fight with words
- Hey, I was only half joking, but it seems the League was indeed rigged all along.
- Suddenly breaking to mention that the next chapter is slightly concurrant!! Kind of sticks out, actually
- Debate about class difference. I should've seen it coming.
- Nativity debates too. Jeez.
- Iris accusing Hilda of being involved in Pokemon Liberation, when she herself is involved. Maybe it was the halfheartness. Actually, would make sense for some of the leaders to be involved.
- Hm, with that sudden rock throwing erupting into chaos, gotta wonder if it was intentional sabotage to start a riot
- I wonder what the cops would do if they pulled out Pokemon immune to tear gas and turned violent
- Heroic sacrifice!!
- Well! Drayden's kind of an ass. No wonder Iris joined Team Plasma.
- I like the idea behind the various meanings of We. But who is we?

C12
- I guess Noah was American. That seems such an American thing to do, actually.
- Yeah, we are suddenly getting biblical here. Or planning on breaking the walls down.
- The second Emolga is pretty hilarious when you put it into writing
- The eternal, everlasting carnival...
- It seems there's no apparent language for Solosis, at least not presented to the reader yet
- The Pansage? But he should have a Pansear.
- Is a bit weird for her to be using game mechanics talk like a build given this world has otherwise stayed away form those
- Man instead of ferris wheeling with a cute guy or hot guy or that one girl, she's riding with her cell Pokemon.
- Odd changeup from the games where Elesa is fourth and she uses it, but I do like acknowledgements of Gym Trainers being able to adjust their power level
- Heh, tying this into the Zoroarks
- Oh, I guess N is at the ferris wheel. From context this happened after the initial reveal there.
- Ah, so Solosis does have a language. I'm sure there are some voiceless ones out there. I mean, there are in the games.
- There's that semantic argument about liberation again. I don't get what they were going for with that insistant terminology.
- Man if this N wasn't a pure ball of kindness, asking what they'd want him to know about Hilda would be a fantastic villain line
- And just when it looks like things might work out, bam. Who would've thought a reporter would've been the one to fuck everything up?
- There's hot blooded Hilda, forcing N to make a choice.
- He isn't even trying. She's almost making him look bad. While maybe making herself look bad, if this wasn't a crazy psychotic world that accepted this.
- Suddenly, flashbacks and flashforwards. Wonder if N was somehow responsible.
- I was confused but it seems to be an evolution? Even though that normally requires a stone? Or maybe the Solosis line are simply weird like that. Might make sense given they're splitting cells.
- And the premonition of doom.

C13
- And I am reading this one hungry but not able to eat for another half hour, yet wanting to kill half an hour. So let's murder it with a Munny chapter, cha-ching. Funky intro.
- Hey, at least they get a dream smoke umbellical cord, Bianca!
- Neat connection with the spirit of the moon, since they evolve with Moon Stones
- I always like hinting at different appearances for Pokemon rather than all uniform
- I have a funny mental image now of all Pokemon reading the Pokedex and being all "what the FUCK" and going to see whoever made the dex entries
- Shoutouts to Darkrai
- Her Cheren, pretty funny misconception
- Somebody found an early Leaf Stone. Actually I think you can get one in the forest?
- INSTEAD OF AIMING WHERE HE WAS, YOU SHOULD'VE AIMED WHERE HE WAS GOING TO BE! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
- That feel when Pokemon use the smelly Imperial system!!
- And suddenly, kidnapping by Rhea. And don't you forget it's kidnapping.
- One chirp, two chirp, red chirp, blue chirp.
- I guess this Munna has a small - sensible - range of knowledge given it doesn't know about Chansey. Does make sense it may know about Darkrai
- Hee, having to explain potions. I guess Bianca never used one? Explanation a little later but I'd like to think some for the road would be important
- Wow, Bianca has a stalker. And I guess Bianca really did never use any healing items
- I like the small allusion to N speaking quickly.
- N being respectful as always. Too pure for a kintsugi world.
- Sudden change in tongue. I wonder how he trained himself to speak like that, since some conflections are just too hard to do so.
- Hee, making Rhea rethink her position with some mist?
- Oh it seems Bianca took the insulting words to heart eventually.
- Living yet benign dreamcatchers. The archnemesis of Drowzee. Shoutouts to Munny.

C14
- You were made to protect.An <- Aha! Was wondering if I'd find a typo during my speedreading, and did! Missing space!
- I see we got an oldtimer here
- I think this is my favorite identification among Pokemon yet, simply numbers. And making sense for them to be numbers here too since they're the five statues
- OOoo story time!
- Going back to the old myth about the flood. Is guardians of the winds/earth supposed to be about Tornadus/Landorus? Also this one aged well with the new one if so.
- I guess in this world, it's all but confirmed now that the Original Dragon was the true creator. Makes me wonder the nature of Arceus then.
- Stormdancer, pirouetting? Nice way to identify it's Meloetta without actually saying so. Same way for Aria and voice.
- Oh dear, the Hydreigon. And wow, wasn't expecting this conversation to turn so uncouth.
- N, a voice who can hear the voiceless. He is in a way the voice of the voiceless. In other words, he's raging against the machine.
- Well at least the Sigilyph isn't a prejudiced one
- There goes Pokemon never tell lies again. If that's true, I imagine they like to twist things and tell half or technical truths.
- Even in death, Meloetta is smooth.
- You know, random musings just now. Humans are being put on the EVILLL pedestal, but as evident from Zoroarks or Ghetsis' Hydreigon, territorial disputes and cruelty aren't unknown among them either.
- Hm, an interesting bit: back then, humans and Pokemon indeed could simply understand each other, until the war and Meloetta's throat got ripped out Mortal Kombat style. Intrigue!
- Shoutouts to black and white. And shoutouts to the main theme of change and the difficulty of it.
- Oho, this puts Sigilyph in an interesting position. They were made by humans. Never mind their purpose for a second, but that means they owe their existences to them. And throw in the questions being posed and...
- Give some insight into how N's heart wavers. He's asking for an ideal, even though he later becomes a hero of Truth
- Hm, an intriguing alternate ending with a different result. Given Sigilyph's history and my own conspiracy theorying/refusal to accept Pokemon are pure balls of pureness, I'm willing to bet the war thing was spread by antihuman extremists, or that the murder did happen but it happened after Meloetta had already lost her gift of Voice.
- Yeah, it's looking more likely like Pokemon aren't as pure as N thinks. Plus with all the bigotry, they might make things like this up. Since these two versions of the stories came from Pokemon and can contradict each other, somebody has to be lying.
- never her whol self <- Two typos, one chapter? Or something stylistic?
- But what ever happened to Kyurem? Besides mentions of ice, it has been noticeably absent.
- Capital letters are very important in some languages.
- It is very true that the world can only change through sacrifice. Eat the rich
- Ooo, now we're getting spicy. Stormdancer being all of these other Pokemon from the myths being told so far.

C15
- Well some Pokemon need to go through a capable or the internet to evolve, so of course they need humans to reach their full potential!!
- Hm, I wonder, did this Conk just run the hell away when it was all growed up?
- Some call him Tim.
- This dude thinking a freshly caught Pokemon is going to win him a Gym Battle. That only works on Lt. Surge!!
- Ahh, I guess the Conk's human willingly let him go. There's really all kinds in this world.
- Man imagine if Tim was illiterate. Sure would fit this world.
- Tim's Timburr is about to find out that not all humans are nice. Although a lot don't seem to realize the opposite
- Oh so it's this clown mentioned before. Also my god, his name is Tim Burr. I wouldn't want to be him on the playground, that's for sure. No wonder he's a bitter bully.
- Huh, must be some of that league bias to have the challenger go first
- What a kind Watchog, helping a fellow Poke out.
- I wonder if Lenora knows her Pokemon took a dive because that was really obvious
- Man, she fights brutal though.
- Huh, wasn't expecting him to actually win. But then again, he seems a natural borne warrior with lots of training.
- I get the feeling this Timburr simply didn't know what battle was going to entail.
- Oh hey, wasn't expecting the BLITZ to show up here. I guess it makes sense that in a full nurse setting...where simple moves are used on step above machines...there would be cross trainer Poke mingling
- Not much to say on this conversation, it's an interesting one that shows philosophical differences though
- Welp, and just when things were going well, the asshole turns out to be an asshole in a twist ending - although maybe not so much of a twist given the earlier chapter. Timburr pulled through and won and Tim Burr still beats it up!!

C16
- Ooo, I can already see where this one is going. A Purrloin who wants to join Hilda, but then joins N in the first battle against him instead.
- Oof, shot down. Kind of the opposite of what Plasma is rallying against, this is humans rejecting Pokemon who want to train them. But perhaps no different?
- Huh, y'know, I'm surprised buying Pokemon only came up now and so briefly. You'd think it'd be a more contentious issue.
- Yup, there N is. Also this Purrloin has the most adorable way of getting attention
- Her attempts to get him to notice her kind of come across as comical.
- She is surprisingly nonplussed at him being able to understand her.
- Ah, so this is Tourmaline's backstory
- Dorky N is adorkable, not knowing how to battle.
- Hilda starts attacking without seeing if N is ready. Consistent.
- Shoutouts to vine hammerspace
- Well that is quite the violent way to use Slam
- Heh, funny end to that scene, back with that annoying Pidove
- Music, huh? Wonder if the Meloetta stuff is coming up again? Certainly know Cheren is going to pop up.
- N being so friendly, even if he prolly comes across as weird.
- Hey, a little bit of B2W2 acknowledgement in Roxie
- Interesting scene, although I do get a funny mental image of the trainers going "uh wtf" when their Pokes try to sing
- Huh, so in this world, Hilda does become interested in Plasma. I mean there were signs of that, before she goes her own way in later chapters
- Interesting contrast to the previous chapter. Here the Pokemon feels humiliated by the trainer.
- With this scene about talking about the Pidove she beat up I am randomly remembering this cat we sort of adopted when I was little who killed a pretty sizeable bird and brought it back home to share. Dropped it right on the doorstep. We later found out it had a tattoo and returned it.
- Rejected again, oof. But, in this case, she seems to realize he's not the right fit. So it's more of an amiable breakup, I guess.
- And although this chapter ends with her pondering N's ways and drifting to sleep, we know she ends up with Cheren. Who I guess isn't showing up here after all.

C17
- Back to the present now I see.
- YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED
- Watching everything in reverse I guess does hadve a certain charm to it
- "Grats on winning, now what kind of world will you make"
- Hey maybe if he went this path, that's how the PMD world got started. But it seems he won't
- At least he didn't play shoji. Then he'd be asking why defeating someone could make you force them to fight for you
- Forgoing truth and ideals, for a path of understanding...
- Ahh, interesting twist, it does sometimes take a major event to steel resolve
- And Hilda's back on her feet and suddenly talking philosophical history. I guess we never saw her side of the story much
- Only now does the question come up to N that Pokemon chose to partner with humans for good reason. To think.
- SIIIIIIING
O?
- And the twist, a new world is shaped, one where humans and Pokemon have a chance to live as better equals, and N has...ascended to a higher plane of existence. Sacrifice.
- They say he's alive, but lost his Voice. Whatever happened, he probably got Gainexed.
- And the role of making sure this crapsack world doesn't crumble to pieces under everything else falls onto one person. Good lord, they're doomed.
- With the storm being brought up at the end, it makes me wonder how it happened in the first place. Hmhmhm...

Okay, blitzed through. So let's summarize my thoughts.

Now I made the joke about this being a kintsugi fic several times, but that actually is tied into the biggest issue I saw. This world you've created has a lot more problems than people mistreating Pokemon or not giving them a say in the matter. When you see things like police brutality, the attitude towards good television, the formal hierarchal nature of the Unovan League and its sponsorships, or the tangled web of bureaucracy for trainers - people not being able to give Pokemon a choice almost ends up taking a backseat at times. The world has a lot further to go than this one issue being solved, and it's doubtful they can overcome it.

In the afterword, you went on what's basically a huge rant against the Unovan games' - indeed - black and white storytelling that leaves no room for misinterpretation or compromise, no room for a third option in the matter. And yeah, you're most certainly right - can't quite have deep morality in a game that is effectively a power fantasy in some regards, it instead ends up more about might being right. However, there's a difference therein between your fic and B&W. The latter is super optimistic and idealistic, and the former is pessimistic and crapsack. They're at such extremes that it kind of removes any moral grayness. Just like how change and the logic behind it is insane in B&W, the world in envy of eden is so bad that change has to happen. In an unusual sense, that same dichotomy is there, coming down to complacency in a broken system vs working to fix it. It's difficult to see N as anything but a hero here, dragging people kicking and screaming into progress no matter how painful change might be - and in the end his doubts leading to making the ultimate sacrifice. If that was your point though, well done! I'd say if you were to write it again though, it would probably be best to downtone if not at least downplay the rest of the world's issues besides the human/Pokemon relationship - it would be more streamlined, you'd have more room to explore things like Pokemon trading/buying that never came up, and the ending would certainly be more hopeful with far less for the world to overcome.

That aside, there's a lot more good than there is bad here. You do a lot to make each species of Pokemon feel distinct, rather than having them all be mostly the same as PMD fics often do. You built up an intriguing world and even though you went a little far in other places, the world you made did a lot to give credence to the other side of the issue. What's more, it's clear there's many different opinions from the human and Pokemon side of things. The world indeed, is not black and white.

I'm also a big fan of the style. I like experimental/different styles of writing, and it doesn't get much different than second person and being told backwards. Add in the different species of Pokemon being different, and even individual chapters are really unique! You also did a good job of reworking N and Hilda's characters in particular to make the former more humane and the latter more flawed. Some of the philosophical questions posed are good ones for Pokemon, even though it really exposes how much the concept can crumble if you think about it too hard. And hey, major plus, it wasn't horribly unbearably dark!

About the only other problem I had was the holes from canon to the story - from the minor and silly like the fairy type to Kyurem seemingly just not existing - but this is as much a good thing. It makes one ask questions. Even if it seems sometimes you simply yeeted anything that didn't fit your vision. It's not a bad thing to exclude some of the things: the opposite extreme is trying to cram in the whole legendary pantheon and we all know how that goes. It was different is what I'm saying!

Finally, the ending was solid. It was a good answer as to how to solve the issue posed in Black and White without leaning to one or the other extreme. And hey, an ending that could be happyish is certainly better than most of your fics! We get enough depression out of the real world anyway. All in all, while this story has some flaws that stick out, I overall liked it and felt it was worth my time. Even if it was triggered by claiming to be a chicken.

 

[SparklingEspeon]

“I’ll finish this before blitz ends” the lies continue

Anyways my level is currently not high enough to do a bunch of chapters at a time, but I’ll try plowing along at this a chapter at a time and see how that works.

Up until now, we’ve kind of been just hanging out with the bottom line and not really paying much mind to the broader conflict re: N, Ghetsis, and Team Plasma. This chapter broke away from all that and jumped into it head-on, which I appreciate! Ghetsis’ Hydreigon is not a character I would have ever thought to give screentime to, and I’m surprised at the depth that you managed to give him here. He feels, interestingly enough, like a fairytale dragon. Old enough to be timeless by Human Years, riddled and scarred by age, gruff, etc. I thought it was a fun detail that the “fairytale” he told N ended up being revealed to be an actual true tale, just so old that no-one but a dragon would remember it as more than a myth anymore.

I also appreciated how the “I was old before you were born” dynamic influenced the conversation between N and Zahhak. There’s a very clear ideological split between them—N, little more than a baby by Zahhak’s perception of time, is naïve and idealistic, while Zahhak himself has lived long enough to see the truth of the world and knows that words alone are temporary and can be twisted. I really liked the way that it was lampshaded here, with Zahhak basically having to craft his words and methods in the same way he might speaking to a child.

But more importantly, I think it helps lampshade that N’s philosophy isn’t quite perfect. He seems to be different from the version in the main games here, where his main perspective isn’t shared with Ghetsis, but more from a perspective of ‘I don’t think we should go to the extremes’. But it also betrays a naivete about him that ultimately seems to harm more than help. He knows his plan, but doesn’t have the wisdom to realize just where the breaks are. Something that we then later (earlier?) see in the story, when a couple of things don’t quite work out for him like he’s hoping, and the conclusion he eventually arrives at the end (beginning?) is… not quite right…

This trended on a bit long for one chapter and I don’t want to end up getting repetitive, but one thing I should say is that I really like the tone you set with these! There’s a very lofty, mythological feel, and it really shone through in moments like the ending of this chapter (probably because the POV character is like a centuries old dragon, lol). It really sets a mood and I love moods like that.

I think for now that’s all! I’ll be back to read the next chapter tomorrow, hopefully at a reasonable time

~SparklingEspeon

 

[SparklingEspeon]

Back again! This time I covered Nonconformist.

This chapter… conflicted me a bit when typing up my thoughts. The conclusion I arrived at was that it feels like a morally grey situation, told from someone who doesn’t view it that way. I think the actual lay of the land is that they were all wrong and right in different ways. Cheren is right that training isn’t fundamentally bad, but conflates “I’m not part of the problem” with “there isn’t a problem”... mainly because he's being argued at. Clover/Ace thinks that the police department isn’t in the wrong here, and he isn’t necessarily wrong about that. Being at the bottom line and getting flak for things above you isn't fair, and often the bottom line suffers the most. But he’s also viewing things through a filter that doesn’t let him consider that the protesters as anything other than The Bad Guys, even going so far as to brand them all as ubitiquous Criminals. Rhea had a good cause, I think, but her way of going about that cause, and the things she got involved with, were misplaced I think. The protesting had been going on for a while, and I think after a while waving your fists only accomplishes so much. She was so fixated on waving her fists and attacking people with words that she kind of lost sight of what all her screaming and kicking was doing. Of course she was going to alienate anyone who'd support her, with the way she was going about things.

The most interesting part to me was at the end of the chapter, when Clover remarks that even though she claimed to be campaigning for pokemon rights, she only considered talking to him when it was her last option. I don’t think he’s fully right for labelling her a hypocrite based on that. I think it does speak to the unconscious notion that everyone in this scenario seems to carry, that pokemon are essentially viewed in the same vein as “lesser beings” by the humans for being different. I think everyone in this situation had that notion to some extent. Even Clover.

But with that out of the way I did think this chapter was a nice change of pace from the previous one. It’s a bit less heavy than the last one, but still presents an interesting moral dilemma of its own. There’s a lot of angles to pick at here, and none of them seem to be objectively right or wrong. I do think it’s sad that Rhea lost Tourmaline, especially knowing where she ends up later on…

Overall, I did like seeing this issue tackled more head-on! Protests end up being a topic that’s still kind of hot on the iron from the 2020 riots, and while there isn’t really an answer here, there is a good look at all sides of a situation that's messy for everyone no matter where you are in it.

It'll probably take a bit but I intend to keep trudging on, one chapter at a time :yoomtah:

~SparklingEspeon

 

[SparklingEspeon]

I returneth

Looks like another N chapter this time! I do have to admit I’m surprised we’re cutting back to him so soon when he hasn’t really had much screentime before, but I suppose this is structured a lot more like several oneshots than it is a consistent narrative so it’s not like there’s anything preventing it. I appreciate that in scenes like these he displays an earnest love for pokemon and a desire to see them treated as equals. He’s very patient with his whole team, and even if his plan on a larger scale ends up being misguided in the same way as Gehtsis’ IMO, in these quieter moments you can see a side of him that shows he does truly believe practice everything he preaches. The canon version of him did this, obviously, but it’s nice to actually see it illustrated, rather than mostly being told about it/learning by osmosis.

It did initially take me a minute to realize what the POV pokemon here was. (I think the sprite at the top of the chapter died ): ) But once it clicked, it klanked. I… can’t say I have ever seen someone adapt this pokemon to the page before, and you haven’t passed up the opportunity to go really down the xenofiction hole with it. I’m not usually one for reading implicitly nonhuman povs, but I really liked the way you did it here—they think very differently, have different philosophies, ways of seeing the world, bodily functions, etc. But even with all the differences, they’re still the same enough that they can sit down and have a proper conversation, which is really fun to read. All of N’s chapters thus far seem to have been more about the pokemon in question than they are N himself, and I liked the way that Spur saw and interpreted the world here.

The chapter itself has a pretty simple thesis; the biggear a problem is; the harder it is to solve, and I liked how the ending of Spur deciding to choose N as his “gear” felt like a payoff to N sending off half his team at the beginning of the chapter. It helped the whole thing feel cohesive even though we don’t see any of the pokemon from the beginning again.

Overall pretty good read! I was tempted to read another, but I have to sleep right now so I’ll probably do a couple more tomorrow. Very impressed with this so far!

~SparklingEspeon

 

[SparklingEspeon]

And so, at last, we arrive at the end. Or, perhaps, the beginning. Then the end. It’s all wibbly wobbly timey wimey. Anyways, I thought that instead of spamming up the thread with 3000 single chapter reviews, I’d just save up my power and blitz through this so I could review it with a more steady idea of what this fic had to offer. And I’m glad I did—I’ve got a lot to say! I should say that this is literally the most eager I’ve been to write a review in forever, there’s almost no fic around now that can get me to do that

The latter nine chapters of this somehow felt heavier than the first! As things get less dire, it feels like the straits of the story get moreso, as we see every step of the way that lead to this. I appreciated a lot your ability to somehow apply rising action to something that was literally declining in action—I think it helped a lot that you were constantly making references to things that happened in the past that we’d yet to see. For instance, the munna chapter on its own is a beginning thing yes, but because we keep getting teased about it, it feels more climactic when we finally reach it. Even though everything is going backwards, the way it’s framed is going forwards. And somehow, you managed to accomplish telling a backwards story in a way that was engaging all the way to the end. Good job!

There was a lot I liked about the chapters themselves—I really liked the zoroark chapter (and thought it might be a sneaky reference to the N is a Zoroark theory; he’s not, but he did meet one for a little while!) and assume the “pledge of loyalty” zoroark talks about means he’ll become N’s zoroark that we see in the game. The munna and timburr chapters were depressing, and the fraxure and solosis chapters were an interesting look into cultures and frames of mind that might not exactly align with the majority. I think my favorite chapter goes to the Lorekeeper one. I really enjoyed all the backstory and the vibes that this chapter gave off, and reading through the conversation between Lorekeeper and N in which N is asked to question his philosophy and weigh what Stormdancer’s fate means for his ability to change the world was hands down my favorite part of the fic. I don’t think any chapter after that hit as hard, even the ending.

But after all that lorekeeping, it makes sense to go smaller-scale for a bit, and the next two chapters feel like they’re winding down. For a character who has appeared throughout the fic consistently, I think it’s appropriate we “end” with the backstory of Tourmaline. Her story feels like the largest of this fic in a way. No-one has bounced around on-page as much as her, or ended up in as bad a place at her final appearance. When viewed from the big picture it’s poignant to see her character arc of being so desperate to get a trainer and battle for glory that she’ll maim pidove and bring them to any old human as “trophies”, to being a fully capable pokemon under an abusive trainer, now jaded and understanding of what the trainer system actually means for her.

I think something that’s not entirely clear to me (did I miss it?) is how she ends up leaving N in the first place and hanging around with Rhea. If I do some dot connecting I assume she decided staying around to organize the protests was more important than sticking with N, but I think that initial transference is something that stays as a glaring gap in her story.

The other characters that show up from time to time seem to mainly be tertiary background characters—Cheren never stops being a jerk, and Hilda just demonstrates the same brashness the further and further back we go. The only character who really seems to change substantially aside from Tourmaline is N himself. We see him change and devolve backwards as we go, but the thematic progression that intensifies the further back we go casts a powerful illusion of progession. As N gets younger and younger we learn some of the story’s most powerful concepts through what he was presented with—the Nocturne Lament, Stormdancer’s story, that heroism requires sacrifice, and so on. While what we see over the course of the story are basically fragments of an unmoving past, the final chapter addresses N’s final character development pretty well. I think it’s sad that he ends up mirroring Stormdancer in a way—to make sure everyone else could speak, he gave up his own voice. It punctuates the hero = sacrifice theme that you outlined in the final chapters and the author’s note, though I do suppose I wonder what kind of future he has ahead of him after this.

One thing that I’ve definitely praised more than once during my reading of this fic is the unique and often xenofictionistic vibe that these eighteen separate oneshots chapter set, and I think that’s because we’re viewing the events from the pov of characters that aren’t exactly human. There’s a lot of intricacies that work together to make the pov explicitly nonhuman—from the way that the rotom effortlessly works the radio and camera shell it’s in like it’s nothing to the very tribal and ancient ways of Ghetsis’ Hydreigon to the black and white vision of the herdier, the strange mindset of the golett and klank, and the intense catlike vibes of Tourmaline. You really do get the vibes that these are alien creatures that share the same thought processes and feelings as humans, but process them differently and according to different morals and ethics. I don’t usually like xenofiction, but this struck a vibe that I found really cool.

I did notice after a while that a repetitive pattern began to form—we never saw anything from the pov of a human. It was always from a pokemon, and through that pokemon we would see the moral of the story that the pokemon already knew, or would come to understand. But there are only really two chapters that objectively implied that the pov pokemon might not be right outside of their own narratives (Herdier and Munna). It fits with the theme that Pokemon Never Lie, and it’s at this point where I think the social oppression part of the story sort of trips over itself.

We see a lot of moral dubiousness from humans in this story—N is clueless and kind of wrong for nearly all of it, Hilda is shortsighted and brash, Cheren is just an ass, Ghetsis is on the warpath, and so on. The institution that humans have created is terrible to the pokemon and even humans who are enslaved under it. We view it through pokemon, but the fic is about the humans and the terrible evil we are capable of. The pokemon are presumably supposed to be a foil to that—innocent, honest, basically near perfect. They operate on much simpler scales of morality; sometimes orange and blue, but if they have wronged anyone it was because they were wronged in kind or because a human put them up to it—I don’t believe there is a single genuinely evil pokemon in this fic. But I feel that decision simplifies the situation unrealistically—every living being has the capacity for evil, no matter where they are in life or whether they’re oppressed or not. So to say that one side has no unjust blood on their hands while only the other possesses the capacity for bloodshed and tyranny doesn’t ring true to me on a social scale.

We then reach the obvious counterargument—taken on the story’s own terms, pokemon aren’t humans. Humans oppressing humans and humans oppressing pokemon are two different things, and we do see that even though the pokemon aren’t capable of evil here, some of them partner with humans in recognition that humans possess smarts and skills they cannot. And my answer to that is, fair! But if this was the intent I suppose I wish that there was more of a focus on Partners Versus Trainers, rather than sacrifice and oppression. 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. Or, at least, feeling like it could have been more than it was. The message at the end is lovely at first, that if we want others to be heard, and the injustices of society to be known, we should give them voices. 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? Those aren’t questions I have an answer for, and maybe no-one does. But I suppose it's disappointing to me to walk all the way there, and then not try to take the final jump.

Which, I guess, leads me into my final critique of the fic—the ending. I do think it was a good ending! But I wish I’d seen a bit more of what it meant to give pokemon voices. Sure, we see N rasping on the ground, silenced forever, but we didn’t get to see Vaselva speak, for instance, or see how it affected the world, or watch the characters we followed for a while get any kind of resolution. Granted, I think that it wouldn’t really be possible to give everyone here a resolution without veering into Return of The King Ending Syndrome—as much as I’d like to see what happened to poor Tourmaline in the end, for instance, she’s pretty out of scope at this point—but it would have been nice to see some glimpses of the full ramifications of N’s actions. Even if it all ends with a premise of “okay, what now?”

I wrote a lot about critique, I always manage to do that even for stuff I like, but please do believe I wouldn’t have written that much if I didn’t really like what I read and think in-depth to brainstorm that much critique.

I think, overall, this might steal my current spot for favorite fic—despite my criticisms, I vibed with so much of this and with what it had to say. I really liked this take on Black and White, a game that I’ve always considered boring and overrated, and the way you managed to fill it with a nuance that slurs it into a greyish color by the end. I think there’s a lot to be learned from this on a mechanical level too, as I found myself amazed with the quality of the prose on literally every chapter, even the one where you left an author’s note saying it was rough and unpolished. I could probably gush for a while more and eventually it would devolve into incoherent rambling, but I guess the main thing of note I have left to say is…. Good job.

~SparklingEspeon

 

[bluesidra]

Wow, it's been a while since I actually tackled eoe. And either I'm in a better headspace now, or I just cut off at the worst possible chapter, but this time around, it was a super pleasant and even uplifting read. Not super deep feedback incoming, just some thoughts on the chapters.

Spoiler: narsil

Yes! It's the Bisharp chapter I've been told so many good things about! What a pleasant change in pace: A positive ending :)
And despite this, it still stirs many many good questions. Again, Bisharp I think is the perfect choice for this chapter. They are used to abuse and strict hierarchy, so her distanced and kinda cool with everything mood fits her.
And, omg, her and mom? I love them both! Such a sweet pair! Yes, please do a lot of gardening together, sweethearts <3
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.
Anyways, good chapter, good viewpoints, good questions to ask in a not emotionally high-stakes scene.

Spoiler: noted

Oooooh exactly the chapter I needed! I've been looking a lot into systemic injustices etc. lately for a project of mine and did a lot of reading today, and that chapter put many of these theory-pieces into practise. And also dragon perspective. Those are always good!
I like the contrast between the violent and the non-violent approach here. You make a good argument for and against each side without coming to a conclusion. Also, N is really sweet here.
As for Zahhak -- she's a lot less violent than I expected a Hydreigon to be. Not that I don't like a good subversion of expectations, but she talks more like a wise old haxorus than the notoriously violent dragon with former split personality. She also cites Haxorus lore and not Hydreigon lore, which is interesting worldbuilding-wise. Makes me wonder just how closely related the different dragon-breeds view themselves. After all, Hydreigons can fly and Haxorus can't, so for a dragon that should be a clear sign of inferiority. But not once does she lead on that she looks down of Haxes.
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!)

Spoiler: nonconformist

Interesting chapter indeed. I'm glad you went for Sam's and Ace's perspective here. Often in anti-police-pieces and ACAB and whatnot, I find that the human gets overlooked or purposefully made a target. I've seen memes genuinely celebrating police-officers' deaths and I really hate this notion.
But this chapter makes a good point showing both the human aspect of working in the police-force as well as the unquestioning/unreflected abidance to the code of law you have to have to work there. If you start thinking about if laws are fair, you have chosen the wrong job as a police officer -- after all, if every referee would make up their own soccer rules, the games would get unfair quite fast. I'm bad at words today...
Another issue this highlighted is Ace's biased believe in the system, because he has it good and was allowed to make his own choices. I don't blame him at all for this. I'm probably more than guilty of that myself.
Rhea is also an interesting character. She is not really likable or convincing in the way that N is, but she has some solid points. I think she was the one questioning where you draw the line between forms of abuses? I really liked that view. And the way she talked to Cheren, slowly but gently making him aware of his biases without talking down to him was also very nice.
But then the whole "Liberation isn't theft" thingy. She's so sure that she has pokemon's best interests in mind, when she fully ignores the Herdier -- as Ace also noted later. But furthermore, I wondered how she determines if a pokemon wants to go back to their trainer. It's not like she can understand them or maybe even explain herself sufficiently to them.
And on a personal level I really didn't like how she painted herself as the victim in all of this, "having" to do this instead of playing with her friends. But that's just petty me.
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. That's also the reason why I don't have any clear thoughts on Cheren here.

So yee, thanks again for this wonderful experience. I'm incredibly slow with eoe, but it's like a very delicious cake. If I'd eat it all at once, I'll probably be very sick (or sth, the comparison went different in my head, but wut r werds today).

 

[bluesidra]

Spoiler: nondeterministic

And then, quietly, a new voice: {I don’t want to do this any more. I … I want to go home. Can I do that, N?}

“If anything, I should accompany you for some time, and follow the route you chart for me. Would you like me to walk with you back to the joltik colony, Peal?”

{I … I would like that very much.}

“Peal and I are going to Chargestone Cave,” he announces. “Does anyone else want to come?”

{I will find a new trainer. I did not enjoy losing. I want to fight until I win.}

She is one of few words. She never felt the need to explain her path to anyone else. You’ve always admired that about her.

“Of course. I know a few trainers, or would you prefer to find your own?”

The steelseed thinks for a second. {I would be interested in meeting your human friends.}

I really liked this first scene. N asking for everyone's decision and taking their answers without challenging them. And also not protesting to the huge amount of inconvenience it'll bring him to return every one of them.
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. Or at least not the same level of conviction to follow said goal. It's almost as if N's super high respect of their wishes makes him accept anything, and in the process his "needs" get lost? Like, when I look at the ferroseed: Ferroseed wants to become stronger and wants a trainer to train her. N doesn't want to train. Usually (in pokemon fanfic), after both sides understand that conflict, some sort of compromise can be found, which leads to a deeper friendship. But here, there's no attempt to compromise. Ferroseed says "I want to train" and N says "k bye." It's perfectly fine, I just thinks that's just one more thing that makes him lonely.

{Their train must be equal, yes. One spin in, one spin out. This is the most optimal design.}

I chuckled a lot about Spur and their most optimal design. But this begs the question: Optimal for what? Gears are engineered for a purpose, and for each purpose there is one most optimal design. All a Klink does is transfer and reverse a momentum. But what if their purpose was to increase turning frequency? Then a Klink wouldn't be the most optimal design.

What a strange concept. A flesh with a name. A flesh with a name who wanted to share his solution with you. And what he proposes is a stranger concept still, even if he hasn’t figured out how to put his solution into words that he can bring himself to say aloud.

There is an easy answer to the biggear pairing problem, one you never thought about until you saw this human and his flesh: if you cannot find a gear that will match you, then you will break the rules and forge your own.

This is such a nice line.
Could as well write it here: I really liked the xeno pov of a klink. Their observation on the flesh is really funny. But I myself find it really difficult to get into the mindset of two merged minds. You did it really well with the dominating mind and the two subordinate entities.
I had a bit of a problem following along with the biggear problem at first as well. I absolutely did not understand what they were even talking about, and consigned myself to the fate "it's about a difficult problem that's too hard to solve for one individual." Only when they explained it again and I realised it's just about the exponential growth of possibilities you have to test out, it klicked. That is a lot simpler of a problem to understand (not solve :D ) than I expected with the big buildup on what a biggear problem is.
I also like N's determination (here and especially in noted, I forgot to mention that yesterday). I've read a thinkpiece once about how 90% of protagonists are reactionary, whereas their villain is the proactive one. And I'm so kind of used to the concept of a protagonist getting thrown into a situation and then working from there. Just waking up one day and saying "Aight, imma change the world" is a rare concept that you usually only find in villain characters. I think the term "villain" is the worst label to ever give to N, but hey, it gives us a proactive person!
On a more personal note, I really admire that he doesn't despair at the gigantic task he set for himself. I'd probably curl up in a cave and wait for everything to pass.

Spoiler: nuestro

Okay, so I did give this another read, and yes, knowing Reah and Cheren and Carnel a bit better helps set some things into perspective. Or I just changed mine, who knows. I still stand by some of my earlier points, especially that Tourmaline is very much assuming things about the Dewbble and the Lilligant. But tbh, that's the same issue Reah has, too. No wonder Tourmaline copied that.
I wonder if Cheren knew what pokemon he was adopting. Reah introduced herself to him, so he could have recognized it in Tourmaline's papers. And there's a good chance he's seen Tourmaline when she was out and about during the "protest". And, with that changing of name thing: I never really liked the games' mechanic that you can't change traded pokemon's nicknames, but dayum! I just might have become this mechanic's biggest fan.
Also, yes, fights in this world are brutal. Grizzly descriptions here. I still can't quite formulate for myself why the pokemon fight if they don't want to or why the humans can't pick up when a pokemon doesn't want to fight. There must be a difference between Ico's will to become stronger and Carnel's rock-stacking.

You aren’t sure how you ended up here. The last thing you remember was trailing behind Spur a bit to look at a truly fascinating rock that glimmered with veins of stone and thunder, and then the sucking sensation of a pokéball, and then—

Panic begins to set in. Where are you? How long have you been in the pokéball? Where is your old human? Did he abandon you? You squint around the room, trying to find a trace of his mossy hair. He’ll come bursting through the door any minute, explain the situation for you, make things right.

Oh no D:
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.

{Well. I expected him to answer. All good humans should.} Your last one did, after all.

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.

Cheren looks down, and then at you. You’re halfway to the exit. He fumbles for something at his belt, and points the pokeball, and that’s the last you see.

Oooooookay, I take a lot of things I said in Cheren's defense back. Back then I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's just a socially awkward person who's really bad at interpreting signs. But seeing how Reah sensibilized him to the issue, and that he *told* her that he'd would let his pokemon leave if it wanted to, this is just a dick move.
Since I'm always trying to find an explanation or sth good in everything it seems, I could argue that he misinterpreted it, much like how you let a cat out of a cat carrier at the vet and the first thing she does is dart into a dark corner. I could make the argument that Cheren was doing the equivalent of carrying the hissing cat back to the treatment table, but he wasn't interested at all in him. So that falls flat.

But your last human didn’t make you do that. He let you pick the moves you wanted. And if you told him you didn’t want to fight, he listened, and let you stop.

And that's why N is such a weak trainer ;)

The damaged fragment explodes immediately on impact. You shy back, a wordless chatter of alarm escaping you. The light is bright, angry. It burns at your eyes; you aren’t meant to look at the earth’s power directly. She gives freely, as she always does, even if you don’t want her to, even if you didn’t mean to make anyone get hurt, so—

“Great work, Monolith! I knew you could do it!”

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.

You once watched a stone for six years, neither of you moving, neither of you changing.

Life goals

Tourmaline has no triumph. {Look at the pokémon around you. They have put their pain and their desires in an outward place, hoping that trainers will see them and understand. You had a human before, Carnel. You did not have a trainer.

Still firm on the point that Tourmaline is just as much assuming as Cheren is. But I missed that second part of her sentence in my first read-through. The distinction between humans and trainers. I suddenly have to give eoe's plasma a lot more credit. (yk, as opposed to them going "all humans bad")

He hurt too, in a language that had no words. And you could see it, as clear as the dwebble’s shell. It makes you sad to look at, but it doesn’t make him right.

Again a sentence I changed my opinion on and where the second part now weighs different.

Tourmaline leans forward. Taps you gently with the tip of her nose. {You will return to them one day, but until then, hide them away. Cheren takes our victories and our strength. But your dreams are yours, and yours alone.}

That is still not the right approach, but I can see where she comes from.

Spoiler: nidifugous

He runs over to you both, and a bit more water sloshes out of the bucket and onto the carpet of the pokécenter. Ah. That’s why his coverings are wet. You can hear the nurse’s annoyed intake of breath from behind the counter.

Lololol, okay, I take everything back. N can *not* solve his quest with words alone. He's way too socially inept for that. Oh god.

But N isn’t really listening to her. He’s still staring intently at you, his brow furrowed, like he’s waiting for something very important. “Could I ask you a favor, Reylin?”

“N!” Hilda hisses sharply.

That makes me wonder. How does N's pokespeech work? Does he talk pokemon dialects or does he talk human and somehow has a magical translator between his mouth and the recipient's ears? Then how come he doesn't speak certain dialects?

Across the street, a lumpy boldore is examining the cobblestone road intently, but looks up and scuttles carefully over when he notices N.

Omg, Carnel is my entire life now.

TR-62 had always told you that there was a nicer place, somewhere with a wide open tank and an endless ceiling. You hadn’t believed him. Skies ended in right angles. Seas had clear walls. That was simply the way things were.

So. At first I assumed Reylin and Zara were revived to the state they were in at fossilisation (minus the being dead, of course), because they come prepackaged with their own ancient language. But then Reylin doesn't know a life outside the lab? Is language inherent to them? If not, how come Reylin wasn't able to pick up bits of the other pokemon's language by exposure?

{N says I can’t battle until my shell is hard and I can walk on my own.} If you listen very, very carefully, there’s a hint of dismay in TR-62’s voice. It’s buried very deep. {Until then, I can watch.} He knocks his head against the rim of his bucket, and there’s a dull pinging sound. {He thinks it’ll be too dangerous for me to fight right now. Because of the whole swimming thing. But I’m ready! Maybe you could tell him. He let me try it once! But then my bucket tipped over and there was water everywhere and I sort of got stuck, and he looked really upset and forfeited the fight immediately, and then we had to run away really really fast—anyway, I don’t think he wants to try again. Until my shell is hard and I can walk on my own.} TR-62 nods to himself.

Oh. My. God. PRECIOUS!!!

“Reylin didn’t tell you that,” Hilda says lowly. “What, did Ghetsis hire a PI to do some research on me and my homelife? You finally figured out that you can’t beat me on the battlefield so you have to resort to digging up dirt on me instead? Or, what, you finally put together what I told you in Castelia and you want to use it against me? It won’t work. You don’t know me. You might think you do, you might think that one kid with a shit dad can recognize another, that you understand, but you grew up with so much that I didn’t. You don’t know the first thing about peasants like me, Lord N.”

“Hilda, please—”

“Fight me.”

That's a very Hilda thing to do. And a good opener to a trainer battle. I usually find the approach "We have a disagreement, so let's let our pokemon duke it out (in a very orderly, by the rules battle) and the one that wins is in the right" a bit... nonsensical? But this situation is more like "Call yourself lucky that our pokemon get to fight, else I'd already have kicked you in the nuts ten times." Very reasonable.

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...)

 

[aer]

Spoiler: vii. nonconformist

So it's been at least a year since I last read this and I'm picking it up again starting from vii.nonconformist, so it's likely I'm missing some emotional setup from prior chapters.

Anyway!

I think Clover's story about the garbodor is interesting: Clover and Lucky stumbled upon them (called it an it) in the street, and Lucky randomly attacks them out of nowhere, and yet they talk to each other about the incident like it was Lucky protecting Clover. Which is really interesting, right? It's like a mirror of how pokemon protecting humans works.

Might be a little bit before I can check out the next chapters (I have a lot of things to catch up on) but I'm hoping to check them out before July! edit: might be editing in a little more day by day

Spoiler: viii. nondeterministic

Oh no. No, that’s not what you meant at all. Leader stops abruptly. Follower, shocked, grinds to a halt—it’s not like you had a choice in that.

I like how gentle the conversation between the klang and N was! It's cute because they're gears but they're friendly gears. (Also I like how unsettled they are at humans' ability to like, bend at the knees, disturbing, weird flesh creatures they are.) 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.

“You don’t have to. Please, Spur. Don’t feel like you have to.”

And also oh nooo I don't know why but the feeling that N is not going to succeed at this is very strong. He listens to his pokemon and releases them and that's the non-contradictory thing to do for him with his goals, but he's so sad about it and the prior releases to the point he thinks he's forcing someone who clearly wants to be there to be there. Maybe for him to fix the world it'd have been better for him to have a cult of pokemon who love him regardless.

Spoiler: ix. nidifugous

{TR-62?}
{AX-67?} the tirtouga squeaks on response, and beneath the surface you can see his flipper churning the water into a frenzy. {Oh, sorry. N says you go by Reylin now! How are you?

Well that they have lot numbers for names is a little messed up!

“Reylin might be lonely. Is all.”

“I look after my pokémon, N,” Hilda says. Her voice is carefully controlled now.

D: Hilda is mad for getting unasked for advice but that's without even looking at Reylin or asking Reylin what Reylin wants! Humans have conversations about pokemon like they're not standing right there next to them.

Both of them sit on opposite ends of the bench, as far apart from one another as possible.

lmao passive aggressively sitting next to each other while watching our pokemon play

Would anything get better? P2 wasn’t that bad. The scientists were just curious. They taught you things, and you taught them things.

What if you’d gotten tired, or there was a storm? You still weren’t the best at flying. And then once you crossed that chasm, what would come next? Would anything get better? P2 wasn’t that bad. The scientists were just curious. They taught you things, and you taught them things.

Hm I'm neither convinced that Reylin thinks there even is a "better" nor do I understand Reylin's feelings on the scientists, if any. This feels too distant to be someone who's lived in a lab their entire life. Like, there's a distance because that lack is how they have been raised, but this doesn't feel like that kind of disconnect.

Hilda acted like N was some kind of criminal—that’s always the gist you get when you hear her talking about him. He was running away? From who?

Ah I'm not sure how this connects to what Zara was saying in the previous paragraph at all?

You thought that was a great idea, so you’d copied it and tried to snap when they came to take readings from you as well. Your scientist smacked you on the beak. Not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to smart, and that had been the end of that.

Hilda had never hit you or anything, not even a smack, and you’re pretty sure she’s a good trainer who would never dream of doing that but—what if she did? Or what if she decided she was bored of you and mailed you back to P2? Best not to find out. Best to keep her happy so you can keep what you have.

Like - I think I see what you're trying to do with this and Reylin's character, but it feels all too peaceful and measured to be properly realistic to me. The story about the eggs also feels true, but too faraway to be a lesson in the visceral way that sort of fearful thought should feel. The words are there but the feeling isn't, if that makes sense? A little bit too certain to be really be afraid of what might happen.

{Can I tell you a story N told me?} TR-62 asks. {It’s about turtles. I think you’d like it.}

NICE. also Zara is adorable

“I don’t think I’m understanding him correctly.” N nervously runs one hand through his crest of hair. “The conjugation thing I mentioned earlier, and—”

lol fuck you n, frantically lying about the problem

“Reylin, I’m not sure if that’s what she wants to hear—”

But also he's so goddamn bad at treating Reylin like they're not part of the conversation like humans do! The proper way to get away with not arousing suspicion would be to just not say anything at all, but he just keeps talking ahahah and so Reylin's question gets through anyway.

“Reylin didn’t tell you that,” Hilda says lowly. “What, did Ghetsis hire a PI to do some research on me and my homelife? You finally figured out that you can’t beat me on the battlefield so you have to resort to digging up dirt on me instead? Or, what, you finally put together what I told you in Castelia and you want to use it against me? It won’t work. You don’t know me. You might think you do, you might think that one kid with a shit dad can recognize another, that you understand, but you grew up with so much that I didn’t. You don’t know the first thing about peasants like me, Lord N.”
“Hilda, please—”

“Fight me.”

Pretty psyched about this speech and the lead up to "Fight me."! This is some good shit. I don't remember Hilda's family issues from the previous chapters so this is the first time I'm hearing of them, which may not be true for any other reader, but it was a great introduction!

And Reylin... aw. Tried their best. But that's only how things could be, not their fault that Hilda didn't listen! I think there's an extra layer of sadness here because N and Reylin are saying completely true things, but pokemon are meant to be possessions and mirrors instead of talking sapient people.

Spoiler: x. nudum

Very excited for this one! I see the zoroark icon in the top.

Your kind wasn’t meant for fighting, but that was all humans thought you would be good for.

Love the worldbuilding here - I think it really fits zoroark having basically no bulk and illusion being dispersed at the first contact attack. That's for gameplay reasons and you can do fun mindgames with it with a full team, but it really makes sense that they wouldn't be getting into fights all the time normally when one attack reveals their disguise.

You do not pity a blitzle before you kill it, after all. You do not claim you love it.

Huh. That does make me think the way things with humans is a lot better for pokemon like blitzle. Certainly they would be pokemon who see meaning in love, when their status quo is to be murdered randomly by the serial killers that eat them.

The boy who took Mitama’s gift never took her heart. He was never raised to understand what it means to change your skins; to have one face for prey, one for battle, one for family. Your face can never fool your own eyes, but spoken lies can reach your ears, and through there, your heart. This was Mitama’s revenge, although she did not know it at the time: humans crafted lies so strong that they fooled even themselves.

Hm... I think that it's by another old story that the zoroark organizes their hatred is interesting. The reference to the DP legend is obvious, but it did strike me as notable given the last chapter was also about a pokemon being motivated by a legend.

I'm not super sure why Inari is at a protest or what they're hoping to achieve! I think I'm kind of interested in an AU where there was no protest and what they'd be doing normally.

since the two of you left the womb together

Oh, huh, not an egg?

She pauses in her grooming and looks down at you from the bed. Behind her, her tail twitches, an erratic hop in the slow, methodical rhythm it’s been sweeping out this entire time. {Skinchanger, your kind has fled the cities for too long. I do not fight alongside her. Rhea fights alongside me.}

Oooh neat. Tourmaline gets it!

lazily hunting a fleck of yogurt that spilled onto the bedspread

Cat loves yogurt!!!

Interesting. It isn’t like liepard to hold their sentimentality like that. {And you want me to find her?}

{Rhea needs me here. I am busy. And.} She adds the next part grudgingly, like it pains her to say: {She keeps the orb directly on her person. I would struggle to steal it. But you, with your gifts, would fare much better.}

{Flattery will get you nowhere.}

Like, Inari clearly has some pretty blinding prejudices - they really do not get that no Tourmaline just wants them to steal the rock, lmao - and they're a little foolish, I think, they don't really get that if they were in danger from the human then accepting yogurt or letting Tourmaline lick them or that sleeping in the room would be a bad idea. Their hatred comes off more as something they were told rather than what they learned themselves, which makes sense with how zoroark have a story that they pass down.

A slightly lilting way of walking, very careful and seemingly random at the same time.

No idea what this means. haha

Oh! Bianca!

You don’t hesitate. Your claws sink through his shimmering green ectoplasm and up against his chest, and a pulse of dark energy knocks him out in an instant. You look up over your shoulder, worried that perhaps your cover has been blown, but the grass snake is just resting her head on Hilda’s knee, and Hilda’s enraptured with the screen in front of her.

Ohh I'm not sure what just happened. The stargazer's a psychic pokemon, probably had miracle eye or something, but Inari knocking them out was completely unnoticed by everyone?

Aww, they failed at the stealing. I guess the rock's tied to Hilda by prophesy now.

“Kobo is a fast learner, faster than me. He realized you don’t need to hate someone to be cruel to them. If you ignore their pain, you can watch them suffer and still claim to love them. Many humans do that. When he learned that, he left us. He said among his clan there is no sympathy for those whose lies fool themselves, nor is there any for those whose lies cannot fool others.”

So I think this would be interesting on its own but with the detail about zoroark eating blitzle earlier, I'm just kind of going, well, uh, don't really care. It's unfortunate because this is true for pokemon but also it makes the pokemon as oppressed groups metaphor a lot lamer. I think it's cool when real humans talk about the psychology of cruelty like this! It's just with humans it usually doesn't come with a side of "and then we murder other minorities", so idk, I feel like this chapter actually weakens the metaphor.

 

[kintsugi]

Gradually powering through some review responses--many apologies for the out-of-order things here; I'm crossposting from a different site. But doing everything out of order is pretty on-point for me anyway lolol.

I continue to be really grateful for all the engagement this has gotten <3 You guys are super kind, and I really appreciate it--please don't take the delay in response as a sign of unease/ingratitude/something, but more of irl being a trainwreck and a desire to respond properly to each review.

Spoiler: System Error

All right you. Even though you actually did participate in the review challenge thereby ruining the punchline I had in mind. Yet still, I am finishing with a massive twofold bang. I pushed myself to the absolute limit, reading this over the course of the whole challenge, and succeeded. Let's do some reading, pick this back up, and go all the way to the end of this thing, because I am COURAGEOUS!! (and a little crazy)
[...]
Even if I did only do it to meme in your face when it seemed you were going to be a CHICKEN.

Thank you for stopping by; I really appreciate it. In my old age I really was stupid enough to believe that "post in this thread to declare your intent to enter, or be a chicken" + [posting a chicken] -> [declaring intent to enter], but I'm well-aware of how little sense that actually makes. Regardless of the reasons that brought you here though, I'm both impressed and flattered that you took the time to read this through to the end, and I'm sorry for the clouded intent caused by my poor communication.

And, on a broader point, I really respect your thoughts here and the time you took to write them all out. Of all my stories, this one is easily the most forceful and least subtle in making its spicy takes (and it's a pretty tight competition for that spot; my writing is often preachy at best and I know that), and historically it's ruffled some feathers--so as someone who often struggles to separate my personal views from objective criticism when trying to write reviews, I'm very appreciative of how you approached the story on its own terms despite the general mismatch with your own headcanons. From a purely learning standpoint on review-writing I learned a lot from reading this (in addition to the fact that it's a detailed review for my story), which I think is neat. Sorry it took me so long to finally do responses here.

[as a general note--the reaction notes per-chapter are super helpful + I'm still doing overall tweaks to the story. I haven't pushed those updates to the forums yet and I won't respond to each one to save you some time lol, but again, highly appreciated.]

Spoiler

C2 - Wait now I'm confused. Alder was down to his last Pokemon, now he's suddenly using more?
How much can it take to open one door?

• In this setting there's a difference between [technical knockout] and [could feasibly, if compelled to, recover enough to try to save someone's life], but I agree that isn't super clear!
• There's a few throwaway lines about how Ghetsis's cofagrigus is keeping things out with Trick Room, but given that that's in one line and also not the traditional use of Trick Room, I see how that's not really a natural conclusion. Going to mull on how to convey these two points better.

C3 - I do like the concept of Pokemon not knowing other species' names that humans have given, and in fact would use it myself if ever going wild Pokemon persepctive.

- Fair warning, having gone big on this, it does get really confusing for some readers and I find my writing has to get really telegraphy with the epithets as a result. Definitely fun to try, but god I wish sometimes I could just namedrop some species.

C3 - Interesting that you had Cheren choose the one weak to the protagonist's starter here.

tbh this was a mistake, but yeah, let's call it large-brained foreshadowing about the inverseness of the AU

C4 - Ahh, I see it now, we're going full Pokemon perspective except for the first chapter. Hey! Why didn't N get an icon for his chapter!?

• A bit of Poke-racism with hating on being raised in a cage
• Sponsorship??? I guess in this world, Britain took over and pushed their ways on everyone?

• I forgot to find one
• I find that people punch down a lot! Especially in a world where pokemon are dehumanized, I was interested in how they'd view themselves/each other as a result.
• The sponsorship thing is something I've kicked around well before Galar tbh, what with the trend of professors singling out between one and three children to give super rare starters that aren't seen anywhere else, although I certainly borrowed a bit from Sw/Sh. It's definitely not hashed out in this fic or in canon, but I don't think it'd be super unrealistic that Galar and Unova in particular have some overlap in cultural values/economic systems.

C5 - You know it's a shitty world of a kintsugi fic when Pokemon violently turning on their trainers is a common occurance

This was actually an addition late in the story (like, late enough that there are versions that were published to Bulbagarden that don't have it)! I had several early readers express confusion that pokemon wouldn't just murder their trainers in this world since it's so shitty. Personally I'm not a huge fan of trainer murder (I just also an equal un-fan of pokemon murder), nor do I think it's really necessary that individuals have to resort to murder in order to validly show their discontent with their situation or whatever, but conceptually I think it's interesting to explore--since ultimately trainer murder via pokemon doesn't fix things systematically and is still pretty horrifying since it's usually kids getting beaned in gruesome ways. Though I think in this story pokemon murdering their trainers wouldn't be super common, which is why it only really happens in this one incident and everyone is pretty shocked and horrified.

C6 - Ah, that might explain the nickname a little. Respect might do it, but I still think it's out of character

• You know this far in I have to question, how long has this been going on and if Pokemon hated it for so long why hasn't revolution ever happen? Who even set the so-called rules?
• I like to think that he's pretending fairies simply don't exist when he's alluding to their weaknesses

• Ghetsis is definitely not in-character in this fic, and probably the most egregious of the changes I've made lol. I think "corrupting activist movements against their original intents" was still an interesting concept to explore, but this version of the story didn't really have much room for "AND THEN I, I MEAN TEAM PLASMA, SHALL KILL EVERYONE, I MEAN, PET THE NICE POKEMON". But Ghetsis's abject hamminess is like 1000% of his character and I get that, lmao; this is mostly just a guy who has a similar outfit to him and maybe liberated his pokemon.
• Same reasons revolutions tend to happen relatively infrequently in human history compared to the amount of overall unpleasantness/hatred, I think. A more serious answer, though--I think people are usually optimistic that things will get better without bloodshed/burning everything to the ground; and those who aren't, tend to have limited resources and ability to organize the bloodshedening and the burnening. Drayden in BW2 implies that the introduction of pokeballs is relatively recent in Unova: "When I was little, Poké Balls didn't exist yet. Sometimes Pokémon would run away from awful Trainers who didn't try to understand them." -- 'would' being a word that's doing a weird amount of lifting here. So in this setting, where pokeballs were both recently invented and don't allow the pokemon to leave willingly, there's a ton of destabilization happening over the course of more or less one human generation, and a lot of volatile changes as a result. And again, this is all stemming from some personal beliefs on why revolutions happen and one (1) line of dialogue from the incredibly obscure Memory Link feature, so very much not clear in the fic as stands + something I'll tweak to address.
• I didn't really have time to work in the reintroduction of fairies into this, but tbh, yeah, that sounds pretty accurate for this situation

C7 - Hm, and here I thought it was the LAPD, not the NYPD, who were infamous for police brutality. She was standing down.

• I have no idea what to make of the Gym Leader running the city and letting open challenges happen everywhere besides "kintsugi fic"
• So uh is she propping herself up as a kidnapper instead of a thief?
• With all the licensing stuff and limitations, I feel it's injecting a lot of buruecracy into the world. It's interesting to think about, but going too far you can see just how much real world stuff doesn't work with the Pokemon world...

• Depends who you ask tbh
• This is admittedly a darker take, but at the same time Clay also does just yeet the drawbridge up to prevent anyone from getting into Driftveil because he's trying to stop crime, and then he has a bunch of kids go storm all the occupants of a warehouse to stop more crime (holding the player's right to challenge his gym hostage until they do so)--there's definitely light ways to interpret "if you meet a trainer's eyes you gotta battle", but gym leaders having an active role in their cities' social circles is a pretty common take I think! I just, yeah, run it to a dark extreme.
• Honestly, yeah. Rhea isn't written with what I would say is effective rhetoric--she's earnest and well-intentioned but she's quite bad at changing minds. I didn't want to portray Plasma as completely flawless, and this kind of talking past each other is a pretty common shortcoming in these kinds of debates. In this case the point of "kidnapping is for people; theft is for property" is because she wants Cheren to see pokemon as people rather than property--but she fails quite spectacularly in changing hearts here, and he rips her apart for admitting to kidnapping lol.
• It definitely doesn't work here! I admit the lighter interpretation of "let's just trust everyone to be nice and responsible when catching pokemon" is one that I have fond nostalgia for; it's just one that I think requires dramatically smarter protagonists/humans in general for society to survive more than half a generation. And I do love writing idiot protagonists, so here we are.

C8 - This Klink has an adorable speech pattern

• Ooo, an explanation for why he has a random Klingklang at the end. Although ironically for all he's presented as good, N doesn't seem to understand that a Pokemon might want to willingly help. Goes back to not understanding sacrifice.

• They talk in sentences that are six words long, yeah! Because, at least for this klink, each gear has six teeth and things need to line up with that. This was an incredibly stupid limitation to place upon myself but for once it didn't completely ruin me.
• Imo a pretty major shortcoming of N, and one that I focused on a lot for this story, is his doubt. Which in this case, like you say, fuels his inability to understand and accept pokemon willingly putting themselves in his hands.

C9 - I kind of do wonder, random thoughtcrafting even though you seem to just be ignoring anything from beyond BW in this plot: would the living fossils on the Crown Tundra speak modern? What about things like Relicanth that have been around forever?

• I like to imagine Hilda just sitting there bitterly the whole time while N listens in on the fascinating story that takes half an hour to tell.

• Lmao, my thoughtcrafting on fossil pokemon is actually super thin (how long ago were they around? was it millions of years ago, meaning that it makes actually zero sense that this one would believe that the world was created by a really big dragon ten thousand years ago?). Depends on how they got to the Crown Tundra though! I think if, like relincanth, they'd been hanging around for a while and were social with other creatures, they'd probably have the chance to pick up the modern dialects. Conversely I also think there'd probably be several ocean dialects alone and it's not unlikely that relincanth/deep dwellers would probably have their own and rarely interact with the surface--there's a reason there's no water episode here.

C10 - I thought that was a Veilstone myth, though, and was more one against senseless killing

• But what if Pokemon never tell lies is in itself a lie? Huh???

• This chapter definitely has some revisions pending to tie the myths and main plot together--like you say, the morals don't really work out.
• Honestly that's pretty true--personally I think that that line is not compatible with a world in which pokemon behave as people and make their own choices/morality. And in this case, objectively I think N's phrasing this poorly. But someone saying "pokemon wouldn't lie about their condition and we should trust them when they speak instead of just guessing what we think is happening" and then promptly having that get shortened to "pokemon wouldn't lie" via media bits and going viral isn't entirely unlikely.

C11 - Iris being concerned with how people dress is kind of amusing. And thinking how someone dresses is how they are...hasn't she ever met a contradiction who dresses like a bum but carries themselves well?

- I definitely think she has, and she was also once one of those people--she just found that the society that she operates in doesn't look too kindly on that kind of contradiction.

C12

• There's that semantic argument about liberation again. I don't get what they were going for with that insistant terminology.
• I was confused but it seems to be an evolution? Even though that normally requires a stone? Or maybe the Solosis line are simply weird like that. Might make sense given they're splitting cells.

• I think the closest analogue would be the difference in people who think that freeing slaves is liberating them from their masters vs the people who think that freeing slaves is stealing them from their masters. It's definitely a charged argument and one that makes trainers defensive, which is on the long list of why I think Plasma didn't have much traction with that phrase here.
• I think solosis line is just a level evolution actually! For once I didn't just bend canon to my absolute will.

C14 - Hm, an intriguing alternate ending with a different result. Given Sigilyph's history and my own conspiracy theorying/refusal to accept Pokemon are pure balls of pureness, I'm willing to bet the war thing was spread by antihuman extremists, or that the murder did happen but it happened after Meloetta had already lost her gift of Voice.

• It is very true that the world can only change through sacrifice. Eat the rich
• Ooo, now we're getting spicy. Stormdancer being all of these other Pokemon from the myths being told so far.

• I like myths as storytelling tools for more or less this reason, as they're good at making the literal kind of metaphorical, but also the actual literal events get lost. Pokemon trying to steal Meloetta's voice is totally on the table here--the myth only says "king". N makes an assumption about the king being human, but that's certainly not the only one.
• there's no eat emoji but lol
• This chapter is more or less trying to be a dramatic climax in a story where I literally hamstrung the ability to have dramatic climaxes through obfuscatingly ass-backwards storytelling, so I'm glad that it lands well.

C16 - With this scene about talking about the Pidove she beat up I am randomly remembering this cat we sort of adopted when I was little who killed a pretty sizeable bird and brought it back home to share. Dropped it right on the doorstep. We later found out it had a tattoo and returned it.

- This is incredible.

Just like how change and the logic behind it is insane in B&W, the world in envy of eden is so bad that change has to happen. In an unusual sense, that same dichotomy is there, coming down to complacency in a broken system vs working to fix it. It's difficult to see N as anything but a hero here, dragging people kicking and screaming into progress no matter how painful change might be - and in the end his doubts leading to making the ultimate sacrifice. If that was your point though, well done! I'd say if you were to write it again though, it would probably be best to downtone if not at least downplay the rest of the world's issues besides the human/Pokemon relationship - it would be more streamlined, you'd have more room to explore things like Pokemon trading/buying that never came up, and the ending would certainly be more hopeful with far less for the world to overcome.

I think, and this does boil a bit down to intent/"if that was your point"--I think a story of "is it a bad idea to buy/trade pokemon without their consent", at least in the way that I would immediately interpret it, would end pretty quickly with "yeah, that's trafficking". I could probably swing it as a oneshot or trust it to someone else with less extreme worldbuilding takes instead, but for me the story would be pretty short and even more one-sided. I was interested if there were ways to have characters who aren't objectively doing things that are bad (or at least wouldn't be considered bad in a generous fanfic/fandom setting), yet still be at moral odds with each other. I think people tend to receive Hilda/Cheren/Bianca/the miscellaneous human takes here as pretty ambiguously evil, but truthfully I think they're just people doing what they were told was okay. They have no way of communicating with their pokemon and literally cannot be privy to most of the sentiments expressed in these chapters, and they aren't really given information to make things right. It doesn't make them right of course, but I think I could probably do a rewrite of this story from Hilda/Cheren/Bianca's perspective instead, and have that pass off as pretty traditional trainerfic (with a lot of pokemon thoughts and motivations omitted/not translated, and Plasma just flapping around their hands about "liberation" and "kidnapping" without the fic ever getting to the roots of personhood).

It's definitely not my most subtle work though, and "make everyone less comically stupid/oblivious/evil" is pretty high on my rewrite priorities, since it does lead to a pretty telegraphed moral like you say.

Again, thanks for your review. Really appreciated hearing your thoughts here, and I'm glad that it ended up being enjoyable to you! Hope you enjoyed your KFC.

 

[AbraPunk]

Hi, here for Catnip..... a year later.

Yyyyeah. I really have no excuse for being this horribly late with it. Sorry you had to wait so long for this, but thanks for being patient (or maybe you just completely forgot about this, the same way I did )

Anyways, I'm going to be reviewing every chapter of this fic, instead of just one. I'll also try to give general thoughts and comments as I read, instead of my usual meme-filled live blogging style. I feel it wouldn't fit for the situation. Also, I'll be filing every chapter section under a spoiler box, that way you don't end up with a wall of text in the thread.

Spoiler: o. end

The first thing I notice is how the scene is laid out. It feels very cinematic, like you can track a camera's movements as it floats around the area.

Reshiram, the dragon of truth, standing tall while Zekrom, the dragon of ideals, lays defeated definitely feels very symbolic of something. What it is, I'm not sure yet.

Pokémon. Humans. Black. White. Two worlds that have spent so long trying to merge into one balance, and yet—the interplay was always distinct.

Yeah, this is going to be chock full of allegories, isn't it.

Was there a diverging branch that got overlooked, a path that led to an ideal world where everyone was happy?

Oh, well that's that, then. Probably going to be revisited many times.

The rest of the story plays out backwards.

Oh, this is one of those types of stories! Better buckle up now while I have the chance.

Spoiler: i. nominal

you sense thorns beneath the roses.

He never had thorns before.

The whole "every rose has its thorn" trope has been played however many times across practically all existing media, but there's something about this particular case that's intriguing to me. Perhaps it's the image of something peaceful turning harmful, even potentially lethal if left unchecked.

You see it in N as well, the way he puffs up his leaf-hair,

I really like when characters are described using more traditionally animalistic terms and phrases like this. It gives them extra depth and helps characterize them very quickly as someone who understands animals-- in this case, pokemon-- more than people. Shame it's usually reserved for villains, though, heh.

He’d make a much better pokémon.

...

Spoiler: ii. notorious

So it seems like the POV might go to someone different every chapter. A little confusing for me personally, but narrative-wise it definitely should provide some interesting bits.

sending radio waves across the world

The world is watching. 👁️

...

Sorry I don't have much to say for this one. All of this political and ideological stuff goes way over my head, but I'll still try to comment on whatever I can.

Spoiler: iii. nuestro

Boldore, huh? Somehow I didn't get that from just the "three legs", but that's just me forgetting it even has three legs.

{Tourmaline,} she responds frostily.

This seems to get Ico’s attention once more. {Ambrella,} he corrects.

{My name is Tourmaline,} says Tourmaline, looking firmly at you. {Cheren calls me what he wants. He will call you what he wants as well.

woah.

Also, I seriously did not get Liepard at all from the descriptions given. I was honestly thinking you'd plopped a fakemon right here.

...

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm really figuring out especially in this chapter that I'm definitely not the kind of person who should be reading this. But I'm going to keep doing so anyways because it's what I should have done a year ago.

And ironically that's where I have to leave off for now. My situation with time is a bit screwy, but mark my words, I WILL come back and finish this review of this entire story. Sorry... again, but also thanks again.

 

[myuma]

I've reached chapter 13 (nightmare) and I think I'm able to write a review now. I'm sick and a little woozy so this may not be totally coherent.

Your decision to tell the story from the POV of various Pokémon was a really smart one. It drives home the multitude of cultures among Pokémon that exist, as well as the unique relationships people and Pokémon have developed in a world where the Mons decidedly have a disadvantage. In particular, the way some of the POVs directly contrast each other is great. Vaselva and Raylin have both been cut off from their original culture, but they way they respond to captivity is different. Contrasts like this show how individual Pokémon are in a world where humans don't acknowledge it.

I think the impact of the POV contrasts could be increased, however, if they were ordered in a way that emphasises them. Bisharp's story felt particularly moving to me because finally, here is an example of a human watching and understanding the cues a Pokémon is giving it. The previous chapters had all driven home how even good trainers like Hilda don't really make an effort to understand their Pokémon, so having a chapter where ms. Gardener listens to the scary Bisharp felt like a release. A payoff/conclusion.

I feel like this fic is somewhat oblivious to the meta-arc connecting the different Pokémon POVs and as a result they feel slightly more disconnected than I'd like. Having, say, Iris's Fraxure's POV and Ace the Herdier's POV chapters nearer to each other would make their similarities and differences a lot easier to notice, as well as allowing the messages of each chapter to link together more effectively and almost form an argument of sorts to support the story's final conclusion. Coordinating them like that would help them to hit harder than they already do.

I'm really enjoying this fic and the world you've created here :)

 

[love]

Reviewing the rest of the envy of eden.

The ending felt limp to me, or maybe incongruous is more accurate. Much of this story has hammered home that pokemon, in the context of EOE's society, cannot always be trusted to advocate for themselves even if given the opportunity. Munny's chapter especially demonstrated this. I think way back when I first reviewed this story, I said something along the lines of consent being a critical element in the trainer/pokemon relationship, but for someone to actually consent to something, they have to be able to understand what it means to say yes and what it means to say no. Munny can't do this, seems genuinely incapable of understanding what it means to be loved and respected unconditionally, of understanding what N and Rhea want for her. 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.

That’s why I like organizing events like this. It’s good for the trainers, but I hope that maybe the pokémon who attend can see if there’s something else they want instead.

Aside from the stuff above, there's something else that makes me feel sad about the ending. It's both easy and appropriate to draw parallels between pokemon in EOE and marginalized groups of people in the real world, but pokemon's physical appearances, psychologies, and lack of voice also invite comparisons to animals. 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?

Maybe I'm going too far by saying that humans are being excused in this ending, but they aren't exactly condemned, either. I came away with the sense that they were let off the hook too easily, and that the solution proposed was disappointingly modest given that the power of both Reshiram and Zekrom was in play.

You must prove that humans meant what they said when they wished to partner peacefully with pokémon, and that it was only because you could not hear them before that you were deaf to their cries.

Pokemon have ways of expressing their suffering, which was one of chapter iii's major points. I don't think ignorance is an excuse.

Anyway, I think I got my sweeping criticisms across there, so I'll move on to more positive and small-scale stuff.

Telling the story forwards, the way everyone else says it should be told, makes it a sad one.

This whole bit is touching. You know I love my simple, peaceful worlds.

The words on the page are razor sharp. The image is clear. There’s no haze, no areas he’s left unimagined, because he isn’t imaging at all. This isn’t a future. This is a past.

This chapter changed the way I see N. I remember something I said reading Pen's works to the effect that one should have a positive vision of the world they want to make, that pure negation is not enough. In that regard, I have to give Hilda credit—she at least proposes concrete policy changes later (earlier?) in the story. Yet, I find it a lot easier to empathize with N's longing to return to a simpler past, whether it's naive or not. I wonder if other readers feel the same way.

“But I don’t think it’s fair that people aren’t free.”

This is reminiscent of this part of chapter xi:

A world where pokémon are free to be their own people is a pretty thing indeed, if you can believe humans are fair to people now. That assumption alone speaks volumes for what he sees and what he refuses to.

Which is a fair enough critique of N, I suppose, but it's obvious to me that N and Hilda and whatever the haxorus' name is should really be on the same side. They largely want the same things. Maybe if that reporter hadn't interrupted N and Hilda in chapter xii...

Chapter xiv kind of does the Kintsugi thing where the metaphors and dialogue are so dense and ambiguous that at a certain point I just lose the thread. What does it matter that questions of why matter more than questions of what? What is meant by the question "Do you think power is that inevitable?" Why is Mr. sigilyph wondering if they are asking it of N or themselves? I might not be the right reader for this.

The idea that change requires sacrifice is something that's often on my mind in some form or another, though. I think it's pretty much always relevant. At a minimum, trying to change anything for the better requires a sacrifice of time and energy, and you can lose touch with yourself in the process. It's not a pleasant or gratifying proposition. This is a thread that runs through pretty much the whole story.

Tourmaline's chapter is touching; it's tragic that she recognizes a more fulfilling form of strength and a deep desire for affection within her but ends up stuck battling anyway. I wonder whether Tially's song moved Vaselva, who was also separated from her family. Speaking of which,

In Vaselva’s ideal world, she’s with Hilda. Everything is the same, except for one small detail, that you scarcely notice at first. When Hilda calls Vaselva’s name, she doesn’t say Vaselva. But even though you can hear the word loud and clear in the vision, when you try say it aloud you find it’s always out of reach.

Hits kinda hard after rereading chapter i.

It's easy to root for N throughout the story—it's so clear that he cares, but he also assumes the best all the time and exhibits a degree of gentleness and humility that I do not see in a lot of fictional protagonists. His portrayal might be one of my favorite aspects of the story, honestly, even though the pokemon take center stage just as or more often.

I’m not a bad trainer! Right?

I appreciate how Bianca subtly misses the point by making the discussion about her. There's also the fact that the question is leading and puts Munny on the spot in a very uncomfortable way. A better question would be "Is there anything I haven't understood about you that you want me to know?" or "Is there anything I could do that would make you feel more comfortable?" or something along those lines. Which, funnily enough, sound like things N might say.

She doesn’t deserve to hurt like this, to have her flaws brought out under a magnifying glass, burned like leaves under the lens.

This chapter contains the "there can be no change without sacrifice" theme writ small. Flaws need to be brought to light to be corrected, even if it feels bad, but Munny doesn't get that.

His ideal world is simple, dim, and empty. For one so unhappy, there’s relatively little that he actually wants.

This paragraph has kind of lodged in my head since I read it, even though it is of relatively minor importance to the story. It is a familiar tragedy. Viewed from a certain angle, human needs are pretty simple. And yet many have to fight for them.

Random aside:

It’s not her fault. She gave you her nightmares, but she never asked you to give her your love.

Munny does say earlier that she loves Bianca. I'm not sure if the quoted line is meant to imply she never actually loved her and was just lying out of nervousness (like how she lied about Bianca always healing her up right after battles) or if it means something else (maybe that Bianca isn't required to treat Munny well because the former doesn't expect the latter to love them, even if, in reality, they do?)

Anyway, I don't feel like this review was as insightful as the first review I did of this story, and it was pretty disjointed too, but I hope that it brings you some pleasure anyway. Overall, the envy of eden remains an engaging and thought-provoking story, and I will continue to recommend it to others.