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Here, I figured you might want to review the guild's special privileges. Since this land is not in use and has not had plans for development for over two years, we are, because of amendment 14, legally entitled to purchase it-
The guildmaster gave a confused look. "But after all that work you did to clean things up, was your intention really just to leave this parcel sitting there? As a guild member, surely you must understand the importance of public service."
To Poppy, it felt like sleep paralysis. Adrenaline surged through her veins, dizzying her with each concussive heartbeat. The sounds of Lavender's footsteps grew distant, spectral, drowned out by the rush of her shallow breaths. Poppy prayed that she would faint; anything to save her from this sickening anxiety, this contempt that had wrapped its gnarled claws around her heart.
I appreciate how you don’t feel obligated to continue one chapter directly after the next. The sense that time has passed adds something here—she’s been stewing.
Kind of got... banished to another realm, in fact." It laughed awkwardly. "So, as you might imagine, it takes most of my strength just to project this avatar here." It gestured to itself. "But if, say, there were someone else who already had a body in this realm, and they were willing to channel my power..." It leaned toward Poppy conspiratorially.
This is some Madoka Magica shit. “Make a contract with me!” I’m not sure what’s going on here—if this is an odd description of a legendary I don’t know well (Victini?) or a harmless-looking avatar of Yvetal, pulling something sneaky to get at Xerneas and this source of power.
The scene-setting here is very spare. I appreciate that the dialogue gets to shine, but I think a little bit more would’ve helped establish mood and tension. I can’t tell if Poppy is a little skeptical or if she’s wholly bought in already.
Some pretty passages and descriptions throughout this one.❤ Ann and Lavender both have a ghostly presence, which I think is a good narrative choice. There’s a lot of good content with both, but I wanted just a smidge more.
Ann kind of drops off after the opening scene, and I wanted a bit more of what her presence is like. Is she distracting to Poppy? Does she soothe Poppy when she misses Lavender? You also mention her sparring with Ann at the end, but I wasn’t sure what that looked like; we saw her sparring with Holly, but it’s pretty different to shadowbox with a voice in your head.
The Lavender moments were lovely. It’s obvious that Poppy misses her, but I found myself wanting a sentence or two more to frame these moments. I can’t quite tell where her thoughts are at with her friend. Is she disappointed in L’s actions in Chapter 4 or only disappointed that she didn’t come with her? I also can’t tell how long Poppy has been traveling—days, weeks, months?—and that makes it hard to grasp the scale of her missing Lavender.
I also thought that the flashback of Lavender teaching Poppy swift could’ve been integrated instead of being set aside with scene breaks. The end already loops back into the present quite nicely with Holly interrupting her thoughts, and a sentence or two (Poppy thought of ...) could easily do the same.
I don't want to ruin the surprise, Poppy. I know you'll like it, just bear with me for a little longer. Tell you what, if we keep going the rest of the day, we should be able to make it there before sundown. How about we do that?
Aside from the repeated “tell you what,” which I’m not sure about, I like Ann’s tone here. She’s not being pushy or sickly sweet, but there is a sense of placating and nudging along.
Ghost-white lichen! So good. Though, because of the in-between-chapter time skips, I wasn’t sure at first if so much time has passed that Lavender was there. Between rocks and She, it would be nice to get a little of Poppy’s internal monologue here. Is her flavor more of a “I don’t need her anyway” or a “no, of course not. Lavender hadn’t wanted to come”?
The terraces along the mountainside were wide and lush with vegetation that seemed to mimic early successional forest habitat. Brambly blackberries and gooseberries sprawled over a carpet of thyme and geranium, and demure little peach and pear trees thrived wherever they found a solid foothold between the rocks and shrubs. Further inspection revealed a number of narrow footpaths that wound through the landscape like rhizomes, in some places overgrown.
"Ah!" Holly rolled around in the air and corkscrewed theatrically toward the ground. She landed on her back and stretched a paw up weakly toward the sky.
I love the soil being freckled with flowers, but I think squelched gets a little lost in the sauce. I wasn’t sure if it was flowers or soil squelching.
Its labored breaths reminded Poppy of the time when she had tried to leave the city on a smoggy day and instead wound up sprawled on the floor of the local library while she waited for her head to stop spinning.
@OldschoolJohto Thanks! I think that inconsistent psychic distance is likely an issue with the story. Certain parts, like chapter 4, follow Poppy very closely; others, like chapter 5, are distant. Too many of the fics I have read seem obsessed with tediously recounting the main character's every thought, but I have a feeling that, in my efforts to focus on the actions taking place, I at times go too far in the opposite direction. Saying what a character thinks or feels isn't my preferred solution, but at times even that may be better than just leaving the reader wondering.
Anyway, it's something I'll take into consideration. I have to revise my rewrite of the chapter 3 conversation first, though, and decide if I want to use it XD
there was something familiar about the perfunctory manner in which the workers regarded her, barely invested enough to even give a suspicious look---for a moment, Poppy felt like she was out on the city streets again.
It seems to me that the trait Poppy values most is passion. And she’s right, to a degree. Holly’s pleas for compromise later in the chapter kill me. We saw how poorly compromise worked with the guild and in the city. But we also see here what unchecked passion looks like. It gets things done, but it’s hardly a romantic vision.
The sandslash scratched his head. "...Okay. Well, I don't know how much you know about remediation, but even if we stopped working today the acid mine drainage won't just go away. I don't know exactly what plans we have once we're done with this site, but that's up to the company. I'll certainly bring this up with the powers that be, and in the meantime maybe we can provide you with some clean water... How far away is this village, exactly?"
He’s honestly being much kinder than I’d expect. He’s also more honest about the limits of remediation than I’d expect! Flashbacks to a short period of time in a tiny Guatemalan town, Canadian execs bragging about remediating a former mine so thoroughly that alligators were living in it. And meanwhile the town is panicking about being poisoned and losing their crops. I can’t say I wasn’t at least partly on Poppy’s side when she rips into the miners! Though I can also appreciate that, if their works is like ours, they don’t exactly have a ton of other options. They have to feed their families and likely don’t have a ton of other skills.
Paralysis by analysis—she’s uncomfortable but won’t stop Poppy.
This applies a little to the foreman too, patsjysyd by analysis. He wanted Poppy to wait. Regardless of what you think about how she handled it, it’s clear that someone had already waited too long.
Though her voice trembled, Poppy's resolve did not falter. "There is," she said, "and that would have been if they had gone and left us alone when they had the chance. Don't think for a second that this is our fault."
Holly glanced up at Poppy's face for a moment. "It's not about whose fault it is. Do you think his life is worth less than ours?"
Hm. Speaking of which... Well, there's good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that Xerneas hasn't acceded to the guild's demands to access the planet's energy. The bad news is that they're already preparing to take it by force.
She still wants to think of herself as a protector! But when she’s protecting nature itself, it pits her against other people. Nice to see her reflecting on this. She’s taken monstrous actions but may not actually be a monster yet; she feels guilty.
Ooh this is the first time Ann has really asked her to do a specific, terrible thing she doesn’t necessarily want to. To protect her! 🙃 As a practical concern! 🙃
And a big fight scene! There were a couple moments throughout I thought could’ve been clearer ... but understandably. This is a big shift from the style of what we’ve seen so far!
From beside Poppy, Xerneas tossed its head and issued forth a wave of sparkles like dyed stars. Poppy's pulse steadied, and for a moment today didn't seem like such a big deal.
So, is Xerneas basically making fireworks to cheer Poppy up? Might be nice to have them exchange smiles before the line about Poppy relaxing, ground it a little.
This took me a couple tries to parse. It’s hard to tell if she’s quickly turning back to the lucario or if she’s risking something by turning back but it turns out not to waste time, if that makes sense.
and her snout was so twisted and wrinkled she was almost unrecognizable. It was the first time, as far as Poppy knew, that her partner had ever looked old.
I wasn’t sure if the wrinkles were because she’s making such an intense face or because Poppy really has been gone a long time. But I appreciated this moment of distance, dissonance, and vulnerability.
Oh man, is Poppy basically now doing the thing she was trying to prevent and taking control of the energy source? Small oops.
Alright! I’m all read up!! A satisfying read all in all.
I especially appreciated the chance to see Poppy through Plumeria’s eyes. She’s all the more chilling for being a sympathetic figure—because she’s still also uncompromising and cold AF.
It occurs to me that, although she does care about the world, it’s mostly the kinds of creatures that can’t properly consent to her choices. The birds and the butterflies certainly don’t have a voice, and neither do the ferals. The shaymin are sapient, but they’re childlike and she keeps them ignorant. She’s not just acting violently, she’s made herself the only voice at the table who matters. There’s an arrogance there.
But, as I’ve said throughout and as Pen observed, it’s not like her grievances aren’t real. She’s working against violence of another kind, and it’s systemic. At the beginning of the story, she has friends and allies, but they’re ineffective. You can see why she thinks she has to take the world on alone.
On a technical note: I thought Chapter 12 would’ve worked well as two. I sort of wanted Rue to stand on his own without being bookended by Poppy. It’s also worth knowing that, although the cannibalism (and fantasies about eating his partner omg) are horrifying, I had to kinda translate in my head to feel the full effect. A lycanroc eating a sawsbuck feels within the realm of normal to me and not quite as knee-jerk gruesome as one human eating another.
There were a few places here—mostly in 10 and 11–where I felt the time skips needed a little more context. The sequence with the guild master in particular cut in abruptly.
Poppy's body seemed to vibrate, pervaded by an electric, tingling sensation. She grew numb, as though her body were disintegrating. For all she knew, it was.
The droning was so loud, the light so bright... The experience was agonizing just by its sheer intensity. Poppy almost wanted to return to the surface, to just bleed to death in peace. She tried to remember the warmth of the sun, but she found she was no longer able. She couldn't remember what anything felt like, anymore.
To begin with, guild fees are a little high. I say we lower them by ten percent, and maybe be more austere to compensate. Canceling construction of that new building would be a great place to start; I'll even give you a head start on demolition.
Poppy had seen rodents run over by carriages, their flanks split open and organs squashed against the pavement. This wasn't any more gruesome than that, she thought. Just a bigger rat than she was used to.
I thought civilized pokemon were smarter than this. I thought they could adapt. Poppy shook her head. I shouldn't have been so hard on Lavender. I'm as naive as she was.
more like overgrown club moss than proper vegetation, patchy like balding hair. Rue wondered if his fur would get like that if he kept going without food. He glanced back, at his black stripes and puffy (though drooping) tail that were characteristic of a growlithe. He wasn't exactly balding yet, but there was a certain dullness in his coat like it had been washed out with soap and dried in the summer sun.
Only when he felt too tired to keep crying did Rue let his companion go. He wiped his eyes as he took in Plumeria's expression---a sympathetic one, the kind that hurt.
Though it made him dizzy to even pick up his head, Rue looked out the window at the familiar, dusty road and the crooked, slapdash buildings that looked like cardboard cutouts. Hardly anyone was in town anymore, and those that remained were mostly grass types who could photosynthesize. The few carnivores were emaciated and shambled along the road like living corpses.
*Slept next to? “Even when he didn’t want to” makes me think this isn’t a romantic encounter, but the wording of that first sentence makes it sound like it is.
Patches of rusty red and mossy green like shrubs reclaiming a mountainside. A line of white, like clouds along the horizon, preceded the gradient of honey yellow and tangerine scales that lined the edge of the wing. P
One last thought I wasn’t sure where to place: earlier, Poppy shows a continued love for Lavender, despite their estrangement, and doesn’t want to hurt her. But as a cat ... surely she’s a carnivore too, isn’t she?
I really enjoyed the read! I found it thought-provoking.
my dearest love this is a pun!!! I cannot completely fix my fic for all of the very relevant issues you've found with it, but for now I can finally get around to enjoying your longfic. Followed this from CR; stayed for the plant lore and the hooks about property ownership and imminent domain and ferals. Honestly I stealth read a fair bit but I always struggle to put my thoughts into words. Chapter 1 for now; I've forgotten to eat dinner and I want to try to do this a little bit of justice.
First thoughts: coming off of what I've seen in CR, it's kind of heartbreaking revisiting Lavender and Poppy when things are all good for them. Lavender being supportive and reminding Poppy that they don't have enough paper at home without having to be told that that's what Poppy wanted, little bits of banter about how wetlands are wet--the relationship between these two is soft and sweet, and it feels like they know each other very well. I also really like the image of Poppy resorting to "oh look at this nice plant I found" when she's trying to placate Lavender; it says a lot about both of them that she tries it and that it works a bit.
There are so many interesting ideas floating around here! This feels like its own breathing world, wholly unique from what I expect in PMD except that like the main characters are pokemon. It looks like we're going to be poking ferals a bit and really digging into that, which I am absolutely here for. I think as a fandom concept it's the one that I understand the least--this idea that some people don't have to be treated like people. There's a wide variety of takes on them so far; I like that Poppy draws the line at "they have bags and markings so they can't be ferals" but not like, maybe we shouldn't treat the idea of trusting them as a "stain to our legacy". The dragonite/bayleef party seem really condescending to their mudkip friend as well--"he's part of the team; he thinks he's helping". Super excited for the subtweets on this one. "I'm going to write an angry letter to the Union" is not a sentence I thought I'd see in fanfic tbh, and while I don't have the highest hopes for that to work out for them, I'm really fascinated to see what becomes of it.
My favorite bits so far were the environmental descriptions. Poppy makes a good viewpoint character for all of this waxing eloquent on different types of cattails and all the beauty of nature because leafeon. I like how she can talk about how the fish might return, how the earth is healing, how the trees look a little bald--the people who try to make a difference are always the most interesting, aren't they?
She preferred to watch the feathery grass sway, to listen to the chorus of cicadas and crickets like a thousand spectral bells scattered across the sanctuary. As the sun dipped below the mountains, and the orange sky turned to murky blue, she began to forget how small this little plot of hers was. The call of eagle-owls seemed to reverberate into infinity, and she could no longer tell where, exactly, the trees ended and the vast starry sky began.
Two things--I feel like we talked about this, but I always love (---) for em dash since it reminds me of LaTeX markup lol. I also really appreciate the attention to scents in this chapter. PMD is such a rich avenue for exploring how non-human protagonists would interact with the world, and I think sometimes those details don't always make it on board.
The old ones are finally preparing to confront the enemy of life, but the best they can hope for is to seal it away for a little while... It's a bittersweet prospect. But what makes this part fascinating is the characterization of the antagonist...
By this late in the day, mud was smeared across the guild headquarters' floor in whispy trails like cirri. The marble walls were lined with fraying tapestries that depicted explorers from a time long since passed. The pokemon gathered around the main room tapped their feet or leaned over to look out the main door at the sky
I think the passive/passive/participle structure (was smeared/were lined/gathered) was a bit stiff--especially the second one could be rephrased as "Fraying tapestries depicting explorers from a time long since passed lined the marble walls". Love the image of wispy mud though.
this has minimal impact on my immersion/enjoyment, but I found myself wondering where this idea comes from--is there like, a pokemon version of the Lone Ranger?
@kintsugi Wow gosh thanks a bunch. The first chapter is a little weird in that it doesn't actually do that well at hinting what the story is going to focus on. Actually, the whole story is kind of like that. If you're optimistic, you could think of it as a fun adventure. But maybe your speculation will give me ideas on things I could expand on or turn into their own stories.
I cannot completely fix my fic for all of the very relevant issues you've found with it
You know, I hope you don't feel bad about any of that. Kanune was cool, and you could have dropped eoe after 10 chapters and it still would easily be one of my favorite pokemon stories.
Anyway, back into the shadows I go (but hopefully not before fixing a couple of the lines you pointed out)
Hello. So I came here on the recommendation of both kint and OSJ, though I've had my eye on this fic for a couple of months but hadn't taken the plunge into reading it yet. I'm really glad I did.
For now this review will be for chapters 1 and 2, but I'm sure I'll be reading the other chapters soon enough.
Anyways I was pleasantly surprise at how easy of a read these first two chapters were, for a story that drops of in on these characters life all at once, you do a great job of introducing us to Poppy and Lavender as well as show us their dynamic and what their lives, both individually and as a couple, consist of. Your prose is really relaxing and engaging as well, and if it weren't so late right now I probably would've just kept on reading instead of writing out this review. There's just something...wonderous about it.
That sense of wonder extends to the description. I can tell you love the wilderness because the scenes taking place out in the wild are so detailed and rich that you can almost imagine you're there. Every flower, every rock, every scenery is painted down in words in a way that's both clear without feeling stuffed and soothing without feeling boring. This creates a nice contrast with the city which practically gets no mention at all, which makes sense since Poppy values nature more so of course the city is in her periphery.
Prose isn't the only thing that's soothing either. Dialogue and character interactions carry this down-to-earth feeling as well. Poppy's and Lavender's conversations are easy show stealers here and they make for interesting PMD protagonist in that they're in an actual relationship, which I hadn't seen before (I haven't read too many PMD fics admittedly) but you showcase their relationship in a way that's really entertaining and feels so real. They're both entertaining enough by themselves.
To close on the general stuff, I really like the groundwork you're laying for the themes of nature vs modernity. We see that Poppy and her friends are trying to help forests expand and recover while pokemon like the guildmaster don't care if they end up invading other pokemon's lands as long as it turns a profit for the guild. It's a really interesting topic that I also haven't seen in a story like this so I'll be curious to see how it's explored, but I'll give some more details on what I think below.
Lavender raised her eyebrows. "Mm hm, more interesting than your old pal Lavender. I see how it is."
Poppy grimaced, but there was a smile behind that grimace. "Ah, jeez, I'm sorry. But uh, look." She dashed over to the right, broke off the stem of an herbaceous plant nearby, and presented it to Lavender. The leaves were egg-shaped with ridged edges and a hint of fuzz, and the claw-sized flowers looked like open mouths with lolling tongues. "I found some lemon balm. We can make some tea out of it when we get home. You'd like that, right?"
You instantly make us privy to Poppy's and Lavender's relationship in two paragraphs, which I think is pretty amazing. It also shows us Poppy's passion for plants and nature and how she can be kind of a space cadet when she focuses too much on them.
Like I said, the guildmaster cares more about the guild itself. But, this does tell us a lot about how these "civilized" pokemon see those that still live in the wild areas.
Also their dynamic makes sense immediately since Poppy is a grass type, meaning she'd be more environmentally focused by nature, while the guildmaster is a purugly, an urban pokemon.
"I'm going to write the Alta Civil Rights Union. I doubt they'll take my side, but... the only way to get that jerk to listen is if someone threatens him with legal action."
"Listen, I'm fine with going out and doing some shopping for you if it helps. I can make sure we have all the stationary we need to write a letter tomorrow while you go out and check up on everyone."
The dragonite looked back and smiled reassuringly. "It was so cool, Poppy---we were setting up branches to catch the silt, and this little feral guy just joined in and started helping! Like he was part of the team all along!"
Poppy smiled. "Is that so?" She leaned over to get a better look at the mudkip, who was already getting over his initial surprise and now eyed Poppy curiously. "Well, I appreciate your support. Here-" She reached into the pouch slung around her shoulder, pulled out a pear, and left it on the ground in front of the mudkip. "It isn't much, but here's a small token of my appreciation. Even if you're not hungry now, it'll keep for a while. Come back tomorrow and I might have something better for you."
This was also interesting to me. What exactly is the difference between native pokemon, "feral" pokemon and city pokemon? all things considered. Either way I like how this scene expands on the reason why Poppy thinks differently to the guild master and that she's someone that looks after and worries about all of nature alike. I guess it's par for the course since she's a grass type.
Also, humanitarian work, another thing I didn't expect to see in a PMD fic. Still neat though.
Poppy's exhaustion hit her like a weighted net now that her day was properly done. She slumped to the ground and took a few deep breaths. It probably wouldn't be wise to rest here for too long, but she wasn't eager to head back to the city. She preferred to watch the feathery grass sway, to listen to the chorus of cicadas and crickets like a thousand spectral bells scattered across the sanctuary. As the sun dipped below the mountains, and the orange sky turned to murky blue, she began to forget how small this little plot of hers was. The call of eagle-owls seemed to reverberate into infinity, and she could no longer tell where, exactly, the trees ended and the vast starry sky began.
Insects visited Poppy from time-to-time, and she tried to guess their species without looking. That one on her shoulder felt big, maybe a blowfly? But it flew away too quietly. A couple of smaller ones too, here and there, ticklish, barely perceptible. Maybe some kind of gnat. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that they were checking up on her. Like old friends.
I really like your description here. Like I said, very evocative and rich in detail. So much so that I almost fell asleep along with Poppy, not because it was boring, just because of how it gave off that relaxed nature vibe. Also are there normal animals and bugs in this world?
Also, Poppy, you probably shouldn't fall asleep in the middle of a field.
"Poppy, you're an adult, and this is the third time this has happened. You shouldn't just be nodding off in the middle of the wilderness. It's not healthy. I was worried, you know. You could have been eaten. And I spent at least an hour just looking for- for heaven's sake, Poppy, look at me!" Her hackles raised slightly as she said those last few words.
"I doubt they'll be too bad. They outrank us, you know."
"All that really means is that the guildmaster likes them more."
Lavender laughed. "You're so cynical sometimes, Poppy. Just because you don't get along with him... Just stock up on restorative stuff if you're really worried about it."
"No, that's fine. You can stay where you are." Lavender walked over to her. "Just let me..."
Poppy started slightly when she felt something cool touch her flank. She looked over to see Lavender laying her book on top of her, a mischievous smirk on her face.
The two continued on a while, until eventually the incline leveled out. Poppy and Lavender both took a moment to rest as they looked at the sunny, open space ahead. It probably would have been a proper grassland but for the rockiness of the terrain; nonetheless the sparse patches of soil that were present played host to smaller flowering plants like butterfly weed and aubrieta. Though the ground may have seemed cold and gray from a distance, there was color if one knew to look for it, spots of violet and coral orange like flecks of paint. Oh, and that plant looked interesting. Was it
"Oh, an 'L'? I don't know if that really helps. Hm..." She scrutinized her companion's face as though she might find a hint there. "Poppy, you aren't messing with me, a-" She froze. "Oh," she said flatly. "It's lavender, isn't it."
This is an interesting detail I hadn't thought about before. A lot of PMD stories feature fighting but you rarely see characters talking about how to make fighting in the wild easier to keep track of.
@Flaze aah thank you, I don't really know what to say but I appreciate your comments and hope that you like the rest of the story. It's nice to see that the writing works on some level. Poppy sure loves those plants. I can confirm that more irl animals will show up as well.
so I had this really great plan about min/maxing review blitz by doing a little bit of this in week 2 to qualify for that theme, doing a little bit in week 3 to qualify for the prize theme, and then wrapping up in week 4 to qualify for the final theme--but uh the fatal flaw in that plan was when I said "one more chapter won't hurt" with 2.5 hours remaining on the week 2 clock and, well, forlorn Xerneas is a really good concept as is "haven't you wondered what makes us different from animals?".
So like Pen before me, I fell into the trap where I ended up reading the thing in a horrified daze in one go, and then had to sit around thinking about my life for a bit. Unlike Pen before me, I liveblogged my reading experience with Pen and OSJ and I feel like it really says a lot more than the line edits that I was too stunned to put in multiquote would: kintsugi 7:25 PM
poppy and lavender reading books together
is the cutest fucking thing
[Pen reacts with "upside down face"]
how has love made me care more about a romance between purple and green cats in 3k words than I care about most humans
[Pen reacts with "heavy check mark"
I sure am glad that nothing wrong happens
[Pen reacts with "100"]
kintsugi 7:25 PM
these emojis do not spark confidence
PeN 7:26 PM
it's pretty much all fluff
and cuddling
kintsugi 7:26 PM
NO
PeN 7:26 PM
poppy travels to the world, meeting new people and . . . cuddling them
kintsugi 7:27 PM
ugh
PeN 7:27 PM
kint it's almost like you don't believe us
your good friends who would never mislead you
kintsugi 7:27 PM
:((((((((((((((
[...]
kintsugi 7:27 PM
i am actually blind on this one
> "You know, I bet we could use those vines as a makeshift swing set. You ever try that?"
so chapter 3 is just this right
Old School Johto 7:30 PM
yup! have fun on the swings!
lots of swinging back and forth.
on the swings.
kintsugi 7:59 PM
oh my god i'm on chapter 8
what the fuck
why aren't they reading books
[...]
kintsugi 8:08 PM
OH MY GOD
WHY IS EVERYONE DEAD
PeN 8:08 PM
they're just resting
[...]
kintsugi 8:10 PM
WE CAN'T BE SELECTIVE THIS TIME
WHAT THE FUCK
kintsugi 8:11 PM
THE VINES AE SUPPOSED TO BE SWINGSETS
kintsugi 8:11 PM
[reply to "use vines as a swingset" being so cute]
THIS AGED SO BADLY
I DID NOT THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE TO MAKE A COMMENT AGE THAT BADLY IN 40 MINUTES
> "Happy holidays, asshole."
Old School Johto 8:13 PM
aww yeah it's a holiday story, too. i forgot :heart: happy holidaysssss
So I technically had time to review before week 2 close and continue with my dastardly plan, but honestly I was sort of just sitting in a stunned daze, thinking about the life choices that had gotten me to that point. It's not often that I get to read fanfic that does this to me--both because most fanfic doesn't really elicit an emotional response in me, and because the ones that do never actually update enough to reach an ending--so staring at my wall on a Saturday evening pondering the moral and ethical obligations of the Pokemon franchise is really an experience that's more akin to finishing Madoka or Undertale for me. Just ... kind of blank at first, with this weird feeling of nostalgia that I'll never be able to experience this blindly again; a bit of profound sadness for the state of the characters; but in general, this sense of sad satisfaction--this was all building to something, and that something happened to be a very good point, even if the point makes me feel very lost and sad.
So with that lengthy preface out of the way, here's a rough collection of thoughts for chapters 2-13. The organization is very unorthodox and I apologize in advance. It would appear I found a lot to say.
Pokemon as a franchise started to stymy me the older I got because it fundamentally encourages you to solve all your problems through violence. Violence as some sort of solution isn't uncommon in videogames and more specifically RPG's, simply because any structure that uses grinding as a core gameplay loop essentially has to have "reward player for fighting" baked into the story somehow, but Pokemon is uniquely odd to me in that it goes out of its way to tell you that this isn't violence. You aren't hurting people; you're making friends; the enemies you pummel into submission in turns 1-12 can become your stalwart allies immediately after, if you let them. This is a core aspect of the franchise across the mainstream games and the PMD ones, and because the non-boss NPC's in Pokemon never have dialogue of their own until they're your friends, you basically just have this core loop of being able to beat up your enemies as you see fit, because they don't get to become people with thoughts/feelings until they're on your side. There's a climbing ladder of steamrollering everyone in your way until you get to the top, save the world, become champion, whatever.
And the postgames always feel silly to me, because most of the conflict is resolved but they're still trying to tack on more fights since that's literally all the game was ever for. At some point the plot starts to feel strange when taken out of a videogame context because it's hard to adapt strings of faceless, rewarded fights, and it fundamentally struggles to answer the question: but what do I do when I run out of enemies?
And the answer that this fic proposes is simple: you make more enemies.
Every chapter, every conflict, Poppy has a choice. She can fuck on out of the braviary's territory or leave him tied up & paralyzed and tell herself that she's being nice because he can still use its beak to defend himself, if the paralysis wears off. She can negotiate with the sandslash at the construction site or she can beat him and everyone else down to prove a point. She can spare the zoroark, the gallade, Thorn, all the onlookers, all the carnivores, everyone except the shaymin and herself--or she can not. And she picks "not" every time, even when there's a literal or metaphorical voice over her shoulder pleading with her not to, because that's what you do if you believe that all of your problems are best solved with escalations of force, if you live in a world that rewards you for choosing violence. When all you have is a vine the whole world looks like a nail or whatever.
I'd initially flagged the first "happy holidays" line for 1) huh that's strange so does that mean they have a concept of trussing birds; are birds a common holiday meal even in a world that's non-trivially herbivorous and 2) wow this is going to be commentary on ferals later, right?? And it was definitely (2) that was more important, but I wasn't really fully prepared for the extent to which it would be. But ultimately if you decide to mete out violence to everyone you think deserves it, based on their potential for harm--everyone harms someone. In a merciless world that urges you to beat up ferals, leave no stone unturned--beyond the fact that Poppy chooses to finish off the guildmaster rather than leave him to the elements/wilds, there really isn't a substantial difference between her actions in the first and second "happy holidays". She's punishing those whom she thinks deserve it. Perhaps as a reader I might have more attachment to the guildmaster rather than an unnamed feral (spoiler: I don't, but presumably someone else might), but once you decide to take judgment into your own hands, the line becomes blurry. Once you decide who does and doesn't deserve your mercy, when do you stop?
Plumeria wanted to believe Poppy was being insincere---that she didn't really care about the shaymin here, or about anyone. But as a shaymin himself, he sensed her overflowing gratitude, as warm as the blood in his veins. Nor did he think she could feign the fragility in her voice as she thanked each of her companions for their effusive regards.
And the endgame of Pokemon is weird as well for what it means with your relationships to those NPC's. To some you're this nameless specter of violence; you can show up and snatch their families away in little spheres or beat up their friends until they're compelled to join you or just leave them to die and starve as you take their gold and all the food you can find. But to the ones you decided to befriend, you've become their entire world. They love you unconditionally and tell you what a great person you are, how they'll keep fighting for you until the very end, because you're just that awesome and cool. They put their entire lives on hold and just chill in your party or in a little village somewhere or in a PC until you decide they're allowed to go outside again, and they're ecstatic because it means you're back and you love them. In the charitable interpretation it's because you've earned it.
In the uncharitable interpretation, that dichotomy can't be erased. You can't be both, because you are both. It feels jarring and discordant to look at both the horrifying specter and the benevolent god because fundamentally they shouldn't be the same--but they are, and it all depends on how they choose to see you. I honestly would've ended the fic with Poppy waking up after the Thorn fight (not consciously; I just wouldn't have considered the idea of writing more), and it would've been a weaker ending for it. Seeing Poppy escalate even further, having the chapter from Rue and Plumeria, having Poppy choose to destroy Rue and spare Plumeria--we get to see the other half of what it means when you choose who deserves mercy, and it turns out that it's equally terrifying to see what happens to those who are spared. Like the mudkip bit I'd quoted in chapter 1, there's something undeniably condescending about this mindset; look at you, you're trying but you aren't worthy of knowing everything I know. You're allowed to live alongside all of those who I've decided are. Fight back if you want; no one else will believe you or join you and even if they did, I am your entire world. But if you're pleasing to me, if you were born the right way, if you happen to look like someone who reminds me of a friend--you're permitted to live. Best you forget everything else since there's nothing else to be done now.
Everything escalated so magnificently. Holly looks away when Poppy asks; she flies away and doesn't tell the others that Poppy kills a gallade and doesn't question Poppy's escalation even when she wants to; for those reasons, she is permitted to live. Those little bits I'd flagged as being cute in chapter 1, about how Poppy loves insects and is content to spend time among them, about how the plant descriptions are beautiful and I love that you picked Poppy to focus on them--by the end it becomes clear that she's seeking out those who won't question her. Insects and plants have no standing on the morality scale; she isn't pressured to pass judgment on them. I thought Plumeria's observation that she sounds almost like a person when she's laughing in the shaymin village is most telling: she's vulnerable around the shaymin because she knows she can be; they won't question her and they aren't her enemies yet. They aren't people at all. They're the dogs we return to after a long day of work on the oil rig or whatever--they have no concern for the ethical obligation of mommy's outside life; they don't know what she's done all day; they're just overjoyed to see her. And morality pets are the best kind of pets, right? They can tell you that you're right but they'll never tell you that you're wrong.
I liked the chapter where we zoom out and see Poppy's conversation with Ann at the end--ultimately, Poppy is just as much a pet for Ann as the shaymin are for Poppy. Ann would rather wipe out everyone, Poppy included, but why not keep a few quirks around for a little longer, because they were kind and once brought you joy? Who knows; maybe they will again. The cycle continues. When you take into your hands who lives and who dies you make a whole lot of other things forfeit.
Then Thorn jumped back himself, toward the center of the clearing, and stepped away from Poppy. Poppy looked carefully into his eyes, trying to discern his intention. His gaze seemed... softer, than before.
Poppy doesn't understand why he would stand back here, why he would let her few last moments be her own, because the idea of such mercy is so far out of her mind. She spends the entire chapter building fearing death, saying goodbye to the birds and the sun, but when it finally comes she rejects it. As the story progresses she stops looking at people before she attacks them. Braviary circles overhead and Poppy watches him for a while until the fight is joined; sandslash is picked out as the overseer and negotiated with; zoroark is tailed and then attacked; gallade is attacked on sight. By the end it's just an assumption that these will be victims, and the narration doesn't even need to state what happened to them, who they were--they're just a list of names. If we're lucky they get a pause, Laurie. So for her to be extended mercy in kind, for everyone else to step back and let her finally just be happy with Lavender and die loved--only for her to turn it against them, is the ultimate kind of character betrayal. But we saw it coming, and it's been growing the whole time. There is no timeline in which Poppy accepts this. Death is for other people, bad people.
And the endgame with Rue/Plumeria, the bits of the broken world that arise when Poppy's vision comes to fruition, only cements this further. There is no ethical consumption, so if you try to choke out unethical consumption you choke out all consumption. Rue starves but to his dying breath he's still wrestling with a concept Poppy never understands: self-sacrifice and guilt. The invasive thoughts about how he considers cannibalizing Plumeria, his aching guilt from eating Aspen--he has to wrestle with the idea that the people he's hurting to survive are people. But he lives in Poppy's world, so he dies on Poppy's terms; she might pity him, but she would never step back like Thorn.
Poppy has no such qualms. Thorn giving her peace to die is a mistake that he pays for with his life. These aren't people; she's cleaning up her mess with the only tool she has.
We never find out what happens to Lavender in the endgame. I thought their relationship in the early chapters was beautiful--here are two different people who don't quite understand each other but can get along regardless. Lavender can't recognize the plant for which she is named; Poppy can't recognize that if you don't come home at night the people you love will be worried about you. There's a gap between them but there's still moments that suggest it can be bridged--they can care about one another and read books and talk about how they could go on vine swingsets--until it can't. Reading this after Resting Place I knew this was going to fall apart somehow; I just thought it was going to end with Lavender siding with/becoming an oil mogul with the planet's energy instead of Poppy ending most life.
Lavender comes to represent everything that Poppy doesn't understand. She challenges Poppy to the end; the gap between them is what makes them so interesting watch. Sometimes you can work alongside people who aren't like you; you can extend them mercy. Lavender's primary attack is non-lethal; she paralyzes enemies to stop fights rather than to find a victor, and every time she uses thunder wave it's in the name of helping Poppy without permanently hurting anyone else. Poppy thinks of her often when they first part ways, back when Poppy's still on the brink of turning back, but the further down Poppy goes, the less Lavender appears, until we're left wondering why Poppy would even want to hide her face from onlookers in the first place, who she's afraid of being recognized by.
From the conversation with Xerneas we see that Lavender understands there are victors/losers in the world, but she believes that eventually with collaboration it'll stray towards justice. It's a hard problem to solve--could you fix inequality with more inequality? Poppy doesn't believe her, until she does. Lavender is here for compromise, acceptance, gradual change. She tries to find the silver linings when the guildmaster plows over Poppy's parcel, and it's that moment that ultimately undoes them--the gap is too wide; Lavender can't cross it. Poppy turns away. Lavender comes back at the end, and tries to save Poppy twice more--but it's too late. Poppy got what she wanted.
Lavender's fate at the end is the logical endgame of a repeated prisoner's dilemma; we don't ever have to see her come to terms with the fact that she alone probably could've averted this disaster if she'd just withheld mercy once, but we know it's there. Poppy operates under the grim trigger: once someone fucks you over, the world is forfeit. Lavender does not, and this is what dooms them--once they've triggered, the only way to stay even with a grim trigger player is to respond in kind.
the editslook okay there's not much in the beautitudes to stay on theme here for these last bits
huh yeah I guess I should just stop talking about myself for a bit
I think the rapid scene breaks at the end are really effective--it gives everything this horrible, dream-like state where we're being shunted from event to event and things are escalating at a rate outside of our knowledge and control. We see the effect before the cause and it makes us feel even more helpless for it--Poppy is fine! The Guildmaster has agreed to be better! The Guildmaster is dead!--and at this point the narrative has spiraled out of our control and Poppy is just reacting to the string of events without us knowing or understanding them. It works really well for the end, where this sense of confusion and powerlessness leans into the plot, but some of the earlier ones are a bit more abrupt. I had trouble following what was up when they rolled up on the island in chapter 2, or the quick shift to sparring Holly/flashback to learning (swift? i think?) in chapter 6; I think a bit more grounding would help a bit for those. Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Jagged stone jutted out from parts of the shore like little mountains, and though the waves looked gentle, the sounds they made when they crashed against these ridges was powerful and expansive.
"Nothing of note---was a little hard to hear over the water though." She gestured to the right, toward an even rockier part of the shore---where most of the noise was coming from.
Paw-sized serviceberries and tree trunks nearly large enough to live inside, like something out of a fairy tale. Poppy was covered in itchy scratches where she had tried to push through a patch of brambles only to realize that the stems and thorns were as rigid as steel.
Xerneas' gaze swept over everyone gathered before him, then swept over them again. I do not know why you all are here, but unless it is something pressing, I implore you to leave.
"I'd prefer the term 'partner.' I don't intend to make you do anything you don't want to---and in fact, I'm not really sure I could." It waved its paw. "Oh, but I'm just speculating here. I'm not sure if that idea will even work, anyway. But still, if you want to give it a try..."
Honestly my multiquote was just filled with lines like "oh shit it's kyuubey but blue, bluubey?? this is bad" and "there's going to be discussions of eminent domain in this???" and "this is a really pretty description of a flower" and "oh shit this is a bad sign", but I really love that you have Ann refer to Poppy as her partner here. Perhaps it's too much to infer that this is intentionally nodding to the partner dynamic in the games, this idea that Poppy has any more choice in this matter than the player protagonist does, but I'm here for it anyway.
"Poppy!" Holly bumped her companion with her shoulder. "I don't know how you explorers handle things, but we valley folk don't just kill someone once they get sick. We're going to care for it."
We've seen that it doesn't matter how many weaker pokemon I have to fight. Unless an opponent is near my level, they may as well not be there. And the most powerful pokemon at the guild, the ones who will lead this... crusade, they probably know that too. In other words, if I arrange to fight the guild's most powerful pokemon in a duel and manage to win, I can more or less prove that they don't have a chance. They would have to give up at that point. So... Her voice grew hollow. I might have to kill one pokemon in the process. Fine. It's better than killing the rest of the guild, and the pokemon I've worked with and said hello to every day.
I struggled to understand why they'd agree to this--it's true that numbers don't matter on the weaker levels, but if they had their top 5 pokemon just swarm her at once, they'd probably win, especially since Thorn was able to get so close before the hax. It's a solution that obviously benefits the one side that only has one really strong member--is the idea just that the guild never considered that Thorn would lose here? They don't particularly strike me as accepting this out of honor or anything, and it's not like governments are, uh, super against employing surprise lethal force in the name of keeping the peace.
Poppy had seen rodents run over by carriages, their flanks split open and organs squashed against the pavement. This wasn't any more gruesome than that, she thought. Just a bigger rat than she was used to.
For as much as this fic is a tale about brutal violence, I read it as a cautionary story about mercy. You lose a lot when you stop seeing people as people--they stop being deserving of your compassion and your care. But where do you stop? How worthless to you specifically does a living thing have to be for you to decide it doesn't have a purpose? And it starts somewhere--perhaps not with the guildmaster, perhaps not with ferals, perhaps not with rats--but once it starts, it's hard to stop. Life is messy; it involves loving people who don't fully understand you and working alongside people who might benefit if someone else poisons your well. The logical solution is to drive all the conflicting factors to 0, but that can't be the only answer, unless you decide that it is.
To tie back to the beginning: the Pokemon franchise has always read as a weird sort of power fantasy to me. You're encouraged to get infinite power and the game actively becomes easier for you the more you do so. The world cheers you along the entire way. The people who stand against you get crushed and everyone is happy to tell you how wrong those people were. The sheer power scaling is something no human in our world could ever hope for, and in a sense the idea that you can just become so strong that nothing will bother you will always remain a ludicrous fantasy for us. But when this is all played to its natural end, when you've finally defeated everyone and you get to watch the sun set on this world where everything is what you wanted and everything that isn't, is eradicated--is this really the life you wanted?
in conclusion: good fic, update more, thank you for sharing.
Huh, I'm kind of surprised at how short these chapters have been, it's a little refreshing though after reading so many fics with long chapters. I really like the way each of them is laid out too, making the transition from one to the next very seamless and it gives it this kind of movie-like feel to it that also makes it easier for a reader to just go right on to the next chapter without a problem.
The story is getting kind of meeting at this point as well, if chapters 1 and 2 were our set up chapters to get to know Poppy and Lavender and learn about the status quo they're currently in, chapters 3 to 5 presents a shift in that status quo as the events of the story start in full. The theme we saw in those first two chapters about protecting nature and the struggle between nature and modernity continues and gets deeper as well with the introduction of Xerneas and this land filled with energy.
Before I get into that, I actually didn't realize Poppy was a leafeon until I read this chapter, I'd...kind of thought she was a breloom because they also have plants on their heads and tails...sorry. That being said, I gained a new found appreciation for your choice once I realized it because that's also when I fully realized the interesting dichotomy between Poppy and Lavender.
I mentioned in my last review how the guildmaster being a purugly meant that he was essentially an urban cat, so a pokemon for who urban life, cities and the like are preferred because it's where they thrive more (at least on a general basis). This same philosophy would in turn extend to Lavender since she's a delcatty. However, Popppy stands in an interesting spot because leafeon, being an extension of eevee, are technically also urban pokemon but their grass typing gives them a connection to nature. That exemplifies Poppy's divide of being someone between two worlds in a way, living in a "civilized" environment while also longing to protect and embrace nature. It's a really cool choice is what I'm saying.
Anyways, I took note of all of that because it's important for what happens during these chapters. For as great as Poppy and Lavender are together, their cultural differences and ideologies still separate them and they have different priorities. Poppy believes in respecting nature and not taking more than it's necessary, while Lavender feels that nature should be used to its utmost potential. And you can see where they both come from and it makes sense, but when Xerneas is talking about how pokemon have been getting weaker and weaker because they're sucking up too much energy from the planet, you kind of have to worry what that sacrifice means. Not only will pokemon get weaker, so will the planet as well.
That difference is eventually what rips them apart in chapter 4 and what leads Poppy to leave the guild and meet Ann in chapter 5. It was genuinely heartbreaking and I'm surprised you were able to create such an emotional moment in such a short chapter, normally it'd run the risk of feeling like things are going too fast but it still hit me with all its weight either way.
The skarmory peered through the leaves of a nearby sumac, revealing his face. "Hey, Lavender!" he called, his voice rough like grinding stones. "It's good to see you."
es. Though it is especially strong here, it actually permeates the entire planet. And pokemon, by nature, are able to harness it in myriad ways. Xerneas looked up to the sky. In the past, pokemon were far more powerful. You may have heard stories about it; about how skarmory used to be able to fly, for example. It pointed at Scotch. But populations have grown, meaning that there is now less of this power for each individual to draw upon. I bring this up to illustrate that the planet’s energy is a finite resource that warrants protection. I am here to provide that protection and ensure that it remains freely usable by all.
This is something that reminded me a little of the movie Princess Mononoke and how the forest gives more powers to the spirits that inhabit it, as well as Final Fantasy VII which also revolves around the planet's energy being zapped out .
The concept itself makes sense as well, we know that pokemon draw their energy from somewhere and tying it back to the planet makes sense. It also connects back to Poppy's land and how she's trying to give nature room to grow, immediately letting us know the value behind her efforts.
"That's interesting," said Lavender. "But a power source like that could be put to a lot of different uses, don't you think? Maybe pokemon could get together to harness a bunch of it and make, I dunno, lights that stay on all the time! Or like, superpowered carriages that can transport things really fast!"
This is the point where I think I started to notice where Poppy's and Lavender's priorities lied and while Lavender has always supported Poppy, well it's pretty clear that she has a different vision on the route pokemonkind should take in order to improve the planet. It's a valid opinion though, just a little misguided.
"Just because there might be a way around it doesn’t mean it’s okay to curse every pokemon on the planet with unnatural deficiencies." Poppy's face grew hot. "And what about pokemon with healing abilities? Should we contrive replacements for them as well? Sounds like we're well on our way to creating a solutionist dystopia."
Poppy makes a good argument here. If pokemon keep sapping away the planet's energy like this...won't that just make them unable to use their abilities at all?
Lavender has a surprisingly short fuse. Also I like the detail of her crushing the leaves, it really tells you that at this point she's so mad she doesn't even notice how it might be hurting Poppy.
Had Poppy not been paying attention, she might not have recognized the place. The soil was barren, dry enough that a gust of wind blew dust into the air. The branches had been cleared from the river, and the riparian trees and saplings replaced with ornamental species that left the water exposed to the sun. A few hundred meters away, pokemon were pouring a foundation beside stacks of neatly-cut lumber. And even from atop the hill, Poppy could recognize the purugly---that pudgy gray blob---that sat beside the site, surveying it with critical eyes. The guildmaster.
D: What the fuck, I mean I get that the guild is technically allowed to use that land, which is still pretty dickish imo, but you have to be a special brand of asshole to just up and take over someone else's spot of land out of the blue and completely change it. Also as someone that hasn't really studied plants and the like too much, is too much sun bad for the water? That's a nice detail to mention.
And well, sadly I lost my lines for chapter 5 but I'm really intrigued on where this is going and who Ann is. You've dropped some clues...but none that have let me make a conclusion that isn't too out there so far. I do find it interesting how Ann's healing comes from directly absorbing the plants' energy, which ties back to what Xerneas was saying. And in general...I just hope Poppy doesn't do something super crazy, I still don't know if I should trust Ann myself.
Yeah I think this might be an issue with the scene. I changed it quite a bit from how it was recently but only had one person look at it, and he didn't comment on that part. This revision avoids some of the awkwardness/suddenness of the original scene and abridges it somewhat, but it makes Lavender seem maybe a little less reasonable than she should.
Also, too much heat/sunlight is indeed bad for an aquatic ecosystem. Warm water cannot contain as much dissolved oxygen, which is a problem for fish and other life, and the fallen leaves from trees provide food for detritivores which constitute the base of the food chain. Guess I learned something useful in school after all.
Anyway, thanks for the review!
(I'll get to Kintsugi's review tomorrow, since I have a bit more to say on that one and I want to let it simmer)
@kintsugi
Wow those are some great chat logs. Interesting that you interpreted it from the standpoint of the mainline games, which I haven't played—the power scaling in pmd is actually much more modest.
There is no ethical consumption, so if you try to choke out unethical consumption you choke out all consumption.
This actually is something I want to push back against a little. To take the most extreme case, if you have a grass-type that subsists off of sunlight and water, I think it's hard to call that unethical. Even herbivores... they harm plants, but I don't think that harm is morally significant. I think it's possible in our world and in the world of the story for some species to live in a way that causes no/negligible harm. And if everything lived that way... well, that would be pretty nice, right?
A world full of herbivores or autotrophs still needs some form of population control—often predation and scarcity in the real world, but more humane alternatives (say, voluntary childlessness) are feasible for herbivores and autotrophs that possess humanlike intelligence. If nothing else, Poppy could cull bloated populations pretty humanely if she gets things together a little, or Ann could.
One could still argue that herbivores rely indirectly on other members of the web of life which do starve and prey upon one another—insects, for example—and that they still are not entirely innocent for that reason. Maybe they trample some ants' nest by accident. But I don't know. It's hard for me to say how much those other organisms suffer. Could be a lot. But I'm not sure Poppy's actions made things any worse in that regard, and I think even she might have to acknowledge that that issue is too hard to fix with violence (unless she opts for Ann's preferred solution), especially after seeing how messy the consequences of her actions have been later on in the story. And "at least" the suffering of animals is sustainable.
Anyway I'm shadow-boxing a little here, and I might have interpreted those lines in a way that I wasn't meant to, so idk, feel free to let me know.
Thanks for pointing out the issue with the duel setup—I think that's actually something I could address with a minor tweak to Poppy and Ann's dialogue. I'll have to fix the formatting issues too. One of them I could have sworn I already had fixed, but such is life. I'm sure I'll never have a draft that's free of mistakes. Abrupt scene breaks are a perennial problem for this story and for my writing in general, but maybe I can make further improvements on those as well.
Thanks for the review. I think it's more impactful for me to read your thoughts on Poppy's character development than it was for me to write it—or rather, it is impactful in a very different way.
I really would like to write something that's just pleasant fluff, but my muse keeps coming up with these dark concepts. I blame the world.
"When all you have is a vine, everything starts to look like a purugly's neck."
— Bean Shapiro or something idk
-Insert comment about how I read these chapters on sunday but couldnt' get to reviewing them till now-
So this time I'll be reviewing chapters 6 to 8 and I honestly think I picked right. These three chapters actually tell a small story all on its own even if they technically act as a bridge between the first act of the story and what we'll be seeing from now on, a story about the beauty of nature, the way the world destroys it without realizing it and how someone's desires and ideals can corrupt them and led to them losing sight of what they're fighting for.
I'll start with that last point because the way Poppy's character arc is progressing so far is really interesting. When we first met Poppy she believed that even if the world had its problems, as long as she worked hard and tried her best she could make a small change in it, something that would help keep it alive and would also give her purpose. But that was crushed in chapter 4, it made her feel that playing by the rules just made it so that anyone with enough pull could crush all of your efforts because of their misguided wishes.
Poppy traded in the idea of working hard and compassion for power. Meeting Anne, Poppy was able to gain enough power to fight back against those that made her feel weak, she felt like she finally had a chance to make a real change. I think you do a good job of highlighting the change in her character through her relationship with Holly.
Holly in a way kind of reflects what Poppy used to be like, maybe more naive and innocent in account of having little to no contact with the world outside, but she's someone that tries to worry about doing things fairly and doesn't believe that violence solves anything. However, because of that she's bound to repeat some of Poppy's mistakes, and I feel like that's something that Poppy realizes herself, so she feels that she has to protect Holly on top of protecting the rest of the shaymin and their home and that leads her to push harder and use more and more of Ann's power.
I do have to say that you do a great job of selling the action and Poppy's transformation here. Her dialogues get quieter and more somber, as if she's constantly no fight mode (which she is) and the way the prose takes on this striking, quick style when she fights against another pokemon really sells the intensity and feeling that Poppy is essentially a demigod at this point.
And all of this reaches a crescendo in chapter 8 as Poppy is genuinely prepared to fight against her old comrades and even kill them if it's necessary. It's true she hasn't fully gone over the deep end because she doesn't like the idea of killing a group and does second guess it when she realizes her chances of winning are slight. But her issues with Lavender aside, I do wonder if she'll be able to face her and fight her, considering that Lavender's betrayal is still very fresh in her mind.
On the subject of characters, I think Poppy's and Holly's interactions are the standout here. I'm a bit...confused on whether their relationship goes beyond friendship but it's a good way of anchoring Poppy and giving her someone to bounce off now that Lavender isn't around. That being said, I do think that Holly doesn't stand out as well by herself, she definitely works better alongside Poppy, unlike Lavender who I felt had a more unique and interesting personality that stood out on its own.
That leads to the one complain I have with this set of chapters. The way they're paced, or rather the way time passes in them, is a little off. I feel like a lot of time passes between Poppy reaching the Shaymin sanctuary and then all of the events revolving around the construction company, yet it all happens so fast that it's a bit hard to pinpoint the timeline for things. To be more specific, it's a bit hard to understand how Poppy's relationship with Holly and the other shaymin changes as well as her own character change. The latter works perfectly thanks to the fact that we see things through her POV, but the former is a little troublesome for me since the shaymin are the external reason she's fighting. Like I get the real intrinsic reason is tied to her ideals and her trauma, but it still would've been nice to get more detail in that regard.
It's not that big of a deal breaker but just a detail I noticed and if you happen to edit the story I would try and build up on that, maybe show a few more scenes that give us more details on how the shaymin live and how Poppy adapts to their way of life, it'll help give them more development.
To close out the overall thoughts, I like how you highlight the ways in which modernity can kill nature and act like it doesn't matter in the name of progress. The construction company talks like they want to do their job in a way that helps the environment...except they just dispose of the waste without a second thought on who it'll affect. It doubles down on what we saw with Poppy in how bureaucracy ends up being used more to oppress and destroy than protect like it's made out to be.
Overall, there's a lot of complicated things going on. Is Poppy going to far? Maybe, but one could also argue that if she didn't go this far no one would actively care. But at the same time, her way of acting could lead to the guild retaliating and hitting back even harder to take her out.
Poppy blinked. "Um, yes, in fact, I can." She paused awkwardly for a moment, realizing that by now she had seen two---maybe even three, depending on whether or not Ann counted---so-called legendary pokemon species in the same month.
I don't know if I'm overthinking it but I'm seeing a pattern of legendaries being tied to nature and how it's rare to see them, but maybe the reason it's so rare is specifically because they're hiding from the pokemon that might try and take advantage of them and their sanctuaries. We see it with Xerneas and her forest and now we see it here with Holly and her village.
Before Poppy could come up with a response, the rest of the shaymin---perhaps a dozen, all told---surrounded her like bees that had discovered a new flower. "What kind of pokemon are you?" one asked. "I mean, she has to be grass," another said. "But I don't know the species. How'd you find us? Was it an accident?"
You also have to appreciate how curious and interested they are in Poppy here, and it's a moment where it almost feels like Poppy's gotten what she wants, to live in a place where nature is respected surrounded by people with no ulterior motives.
The squirrel looked at Poppy as though half-asleep, its eyes glassy and half-closed. Its labored breaths reminded Poppy of the time when she had tried to leave the city on a smoggy day and instead wound up sprawled on the floor of the local library while she waited for her head to stop spinning. It felt like wearing an overtightened vest, she remembered.
The squirrel died. Despite Holly's insistence on taking it in, she accepted the outcome calmly. Poppy and Holly dropped the body off away from the village and resumed their usual routine---for Poppy, that meant training with Ann for as long as she could stand before indulging in the shaymins' company. The squirrel soon became a distant memory---a pointless diversion, in retrospect. Poppy had yet to realize what its illness signified.
Poor squirrel :c but I do love that they accept it, not cause it's a good thing but because they tried their best and they saw it as nature taking its course. It's after they realize it wasn't that they start getting worried.
Whether or not they had actually heard the excadrill, the pokemon around the mine were taking notice of Poppy; she watched as they rallied each other, and before long a few groups rushed down to confront her. Poppy swatted her new attackers away like balloons. Weight didn't matter; golem were sent flying as easily as gible. Poppy's biggest challenge was staying on-balance with each impact.
Poppy slammed her captive into the ground, and his gasp was like a sheaf of paper being torn in half. Poppy stepped on his chest and looked into his eyes, her nose almost touching his.
Poppy stepped toward Holly, who shrank before her gaze. "I don't think that, Holly. I know it. I've already thought about this. If we spare him, he'll only return to an ugly, polluted home, to a life of struggle. He doesn't know what it's like to live in peace---if he did, he would have let himself die before taking ours away. I'm not happy about this outcome, alright? But if the choice is between them or us, you can damn well bet I'm going to choose us."
Like I said above, Poppy's slowly becoming more and more radicalized, to the point she's developing the same mindset as her enemies just opposite, willing to kill those that oppose her as long as it means getting her way.
This is a pretty nice contrast of the two worlds that Poppy's known and it also highlights her mind state in a way. Back in the city it was like Poppy was clouded by the world going around her whereas here she's more sure of herself.
Hm. Speaking of which... Well, there's good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that Xerneas hasn't acceded to the guild's demands to access the planet's energy. The bad news is that they're already preparing to take it by force.
We've seen that it doesn't matter how many weaker pokemon I have to fight. Unless an opponent is near my level, they may as well not be there. And the most powerful pokemon at the guild, the ones who will lead this... crusade, they probably know that too. In other words, if I arrange to fight the guild's most powerful pokemon in a duel and win, I can prove that they don't have a chance. They would have to give up at that point. So... Her voice grew hollow. I might have to kill one pokemon in the process. Fine. It's better than killing the rest of the guild, and the pokemon I've worked with and said hello to every day.
You sell Poppy's doubts in fighting the guild pretty well here. She clearly wants to protect Xerneas, but the idea of fighting her old guildmates still doesn't sit right with her.
Well, my next review will probably be the last one and I'm really interested in seeing what this all ends up with. I really like the way the story is progressing so far and I hope Poppy is able to find some sort of middle ground as she comes to terms with her past and what she wants her ideals to manifest as.
@Flaze Oh fuck I totally missed that review and now I feel bad, the forum didn't notify me aah (in retrospect I guess it must have, but I don't remember seeing it...)
More shaymin scenes might be nice, since I actually do like Poppy and Holly's dynamic, but I would need some sort of context for those scenes and I am not sure what it would be. Pacing too hard, send help.
As it happens, Poppy's opponent will not be Lavender. Who knows if they'll meet again.
Anyway I'm not so great with review responses, but thanks, it's great to hear that the characterization worked for you so far. Things sure are unfolding. At least some of your questions will be answered.
@kintsugi
Wow those are some great chat logs. Interesting that you interpreted it from the standpoint of the mainline games, which I haven't played—the power scaling in pmd is actually much more modest.
I actually had a chat log for this exact situation, but the forum is about to enter the great hibernation and I keep forgetting to respond to this, so WHOOPS. suffice to say I know it was a little weird to project this many thoughts onto the story.
This actually is something I want to push back against a little. To take the most extreme case, if you have a grass-type that subsists off of sunlight and water, I think it's hard to call that unethical. Even herbivores... they harm plants, but I don't think that harm is morally significant. I think it's possible in our world and in the world of the story for some species to live in a way that causes no/negligible harm. And if everything lived that way... well, that would be pretty nice, right?
Hard agree here; consumers (specifically carnivorous ones) are more ecologically impactful. Trophic pyramids, etc. I think I may have misread Ann's intent here--I thought the idea was that all life is chaotic; plants fight over water, photosynthetic creatures might still get into disagreements and have conflict on things that are beyond a per-resource level. The sheer scale of "two plants slowly grow around one another" and "sandslash digs a mine" are completely different, but at this point I thought Ann was just here to eliminate all life. The fastest way to combat entropy is to drive everything to absolute zero, sorta thing.
I really would like to write something that's just pleasant fluff, but my muse keeps coming up with these dark concepts. I blame the world.
@kintsugi No, I mean, I think you're basically right about Ann's intent. Ann does want to eliminate all life, or at least all conscious organisms. But Poppy isn't totally on board with that, at least not quite yet; she thinks that the most harmless creatures, like the shaymin, should remain, but drawing the line between who exactly is harmless enough to live has proven more challenging than she anticipated, which is why she kind of starts converging with Ann by the end. But I don't think they necessarily will completely converge; I think, like Ann said, that they could settle on a compromise. So when I argued that maybe some life should remain, I was thinking more about Poppy's perspective than Ann's. But, like I said, herbivores are not necessarily totally innocent, either, so you can poke holes in that, which brings us to the idea that life is just inherently chaotic and bad, like you said, and I think Ann does indeed see it that way.
