Obligative Reviews
Oct. 31st, 2010 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlahttp://www.fanfiction.net/s/5891789/3/Fall_of_a_Champion
[If I were evil, would I want to help you? Of course not, because evil never wants to help anyone who is good, right? And you, my child, are the most pure of good that I have ever met.
I guess that you're right… said Ditto, who was still wary.]
That...really doesn't follow. Why would Ditto think it's the purest of good? That's an incredibly arrogant thing to think, and doesn't seem to fit well with Ditto's feelings of failing its trainer and being unworthy.
[It's said that you corrupt the minds of humans! Ditto shouted. You promise them riches as long as they become you're servants! It's even said that you almost destroyed the world once.]
You're = you are, your = possessive.
And how does Ditto know these things? Ditto's talking like this is common knowledge, but why would it be?I could see humans knowing about it as a common legend, and maybe some of their more commonly used pokemon would pick up on it, so Ditto might have learned from other pokemon, but here it's treated like a kid knowing the devil is evil.
[a Ditto ]
shouldn't be capitalized.
[Unfortunately, you will not be able to see them for in the process of creating the portal, you must perish. ]
I'm not sure why Missingno would tell it this, as it's a pretty good reason to say no. In another situation I'd take this as a suggestion that it means Missingno is actually sincere about the rest to not lie about this, but given the way the conversation opened with Missingno transparently manipulating Ditto, that doesn't seem right.
It also makes Ditto's agreement seem rushed. It's already a bit forced that Ditto jumps from thinking Missingno is pure evil to helping in the course of a single short conversation, and having it agree to dying that fast pushes it up to unbelievable.
I can see how Ditto's knowledge of the sacrifice makes for a more interesting plot piece, but in that case you need to lengthen the conversation by a lot, and probably break it up over several conversations, where Missingno gradually convinces Ditto it's a friend, eventually reveals what it wants, and then continues for a little while longer before Ditto finally agrees.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5891789/4/Fall_of_a_Champion
[Just one more failiure to add to his ever-gorwing list. ]
Spellcheck.
[poke-ball ]
Just pokeball.
Okay, it's a bit disjointed now. It can't use transform, but instead of his trainer assuming he's out of power for that move, his trainer assumes he's got some sort of other hidden ability, BUT that this ability is out of power instead? His trainer then gives him an ether, which he assumes will activate the secret ability instead of repowering transform.
Like when Ditto knew about Missingno being evil, this seems like your character is knowing something just because of plot. I'd suggest either saying his pokedex is able to display stats and shows Ditto has an unknown ability with no power (prompting the ether and order) or having the trainer bring him in to a pokecenter and having the nurse there report something similar. Or alternately, you could just cut out this sequence, since it doesn't really go anywhere - Ditto attempts to use it, fails, then immediately gets the problem fixed and uses it. I guess it's supposed to be making his trainer partially responsible because he wanted to try the unknown ability, but come on, how was he supposed to know it would do that? You might as well say every trainer who tried out a new move back in the early games to see what it did was evil.
[I… I did it, right? Ditto said with the last of his strength. I… became a champion. I'm a hero… right?
]
Also, this strikes me as weird. Ditto's original wish is to get into the hall of fame. If that was meant as shorthand for Ditto wanting to be a hero, then you should have established that early on (and perhaps "Fall of a Hero" would be a better title) because as it is, this is a non sequitur, even if Ditto saved all the pokemon and was the greatest guy ever, he never got into the hall of fame as a "champion", so why would he think the one would mean the other?
[And so, Ditto died a failure. ]
The story is just too abrupt. It's an interesting concept, but it's extremely rushed. You don't develop Ditto as much as you could, and the rest of the characters are even less developed, making it hard to care that Ditto inadvertently destroys them all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/1/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[But ten feels a long way away when you're nine and some months of change]
That's a weird way of phrasing it. I've heard "spare months" but not "change" (Like loose change?).
[poke ball]
pokeball.
And a trainer getting a gift pokemon instead of a professor one! That's always nice to see.
A drowzee, no less. Those are pretty cool. While I can sort of see why his mother /wouldn't/ want him getting an electric type, they seem pretty free with their attacks, it seems foolish to think making sure the starter isn't electric will prevent this. Unless you're using an incredibly slow timescale for trainer journeys, he's going to catch one pretty soon after this, so he's still going to have a shocky and possibly explody pokemon. I could see wanting to make sure he has at least one safe/reliable pokemon to protect him during this, though.
And hey, plot! That was fast.
Hm, I don't quite like your narrator, but you do a good job of detail-heavy first person.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/2/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[The green Pokemon-thing (I assumed it was a Pokemon, anyway, since it was definitely not human, looked kind of fairy-like, and had a face and stuff) ]
I don't think you need this qualifier. The pokemon world seems to be split into two groups, humans and pokemon, so anything not a human is a pokemon. If there were other groups, like animals, something like "not human, but it had a face" would be a good sign to guess pokemon, but guessing doesn't seem necessary. And just "strange pokemon" would get across the fact the narrator didn't recognize it.
Not sure quite sure I follow how dream eater could do this, but it's definitely an interesting result.
I know he's just a kid, but a breakdown seems excessive. He was intending to be a trainer today, so he should be pretty mentally prepared for travel. I can see him wanting to contact his parents to find out what happened, and being bothered that he doesn't know where he is and is missing a lot of his supplies, but he knows exactly what he needs to do, which is look for the nearest town, and I'd assume if he's ready to travel around as a trainer he should already know basics about finding his way when he's lost.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/3/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[What I really wanted to do was make my dad's laptop magically appear and find some kind of wireless connection, since I was already suffering from electronic withdrawal]
Again, doesn't seem to fit well with the idea he was intending to be a trainer. I could see something similar, wanting a computer so he could contact people for help, or just that it felt weird to go so long without a computer, but he should have realized before now that he wouldn't have access while traveling.
[I actually managed to forget the situation for a while as I let my pen wander, lost in the pattern of careful tracing and shading. ]
He just doesn't seem to be taking this seriously at all. Or does he think his parents are fine and the only problem is that he's lost?
Why doesn't he try yelling back to whoever screamed?
And huh, so they're in the past. I'd thought Celebi might have moved him back but not so far. That'll certainly suck for electric-loving technology boy. (Voltorb don't even exist at this point in time, if you're using pokedex canon.)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/4/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Ooh, first politeness and now a divided class society, and presumably some nasty territorial conflicts (or are those conflicts human vs pokemon?). I wonder why pokemon would be less obedient in the past - people just not knowing how to handle them could be a reason, but he's obviously not skilled at it.
...and they don't have pokeballs. Yeah, that could throw a kink in these things.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/5/Pokemon_Origins_Training
...wow, he is not quick on the draw, is he? At least Florence has figured it out.
Not sure I see how a Pokemon League would work in this situation - I suppose it's analogous to knight tourneys, but those kind of grew out of warfare and required a lot more unity than these people seem to have. I guess it still depends on if their problems are mostly human vs pokemon or trainer vs trainer, in the former case trainers working together to make a league is more understandable.
The whole battle thing is rather cliché though. It might make more sense as a semi ceremonial thing, a way of establishing who has to obey who, than as a test of heart.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/6/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, how much do they know about pokemon? They knew enough about Drowzee to guess it might be controlling him, but they don't know its diet...They seem to be at medieval or less in naturalistic terms. On the one hand, knowing is likely a good idea if they're in danger, but I suppose if pokemon are too dangerous you don't want to stick around and find out more.
[Richard sat next to me throughout the meal, talking happily about life in the village and sharing several humorous anecdotes. I ignored them, mostly, ]
ARG no you have no idea how things work in this place listen to them!
...he's sleeping on the floor? Is this bare dirt or does he at least get a mat or something? I think for someone used to a bed, you'd have to be really, really exhausted, like force-marched for miles or made to do heavy labor all day before falling asleep quickly on solid ground is an option. Even doing it in a sleeping bag can take getting used to.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/7/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[When I woke up the next dawn to Richard's shout that it was sunrise I felt awful, like I hadn't slept at all. ]
This is kind of a cliché, and substitutes a general idea where you could have detail. How about being stiff, sore and cold? Sleeping on ground absolutely sucks.
I like the battle, it's a nice combination of trainer inexperience, a limited moveset and simple logistic problems, and it still manages to have an interesting series of events. He does a good job without actually getting anywhere near succeeding at the battle.
They seem to have a lot better relationships with their pokemon, even if those relationships are rare, sort of wonder where you're going with that.
[Michael growled, stepping out from the crowd of people. He didn't have his Hoothoot with him, and there were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept much recently. I vaguely remembered that he had looked tired the night before, too, but the effect was more pronounced now. ]
Hm, is Michael staying up with his pokemon? Either he's burning himself out or he normally sleeps during the day, which could make for being pretty cranky at having to be up in the morning.
…and Florence has run off again? I hope she's getting her own pokemon and going to be less dependent, she's not really a character type I like right now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/8/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Huh, so really all he should have done from the start was offer to help them, and they'd have stopped being so nervous around him. (Hm, how sophisticated could a psychic's pokemon's tricks be? Could one of them puppet a human into behaving like that?)
And poor Drowzee, getting abandoned on the tentacruel's head.
So Michael's going to head out instead of getting sleep, I'm sure this won't lead to him being bitchy the whole time.
[I opened my mouth, about to brag about how I could (theoretically) make a working poke ball from scratch, but stopped myself when I realized that that wasn't the best example, given the situation. ]
Well, actually...I assume he actually can't if from scratch means from manufactured parts, but telling them he's got a magical make-pokemon-be-your-friend sphere and he can make more of them would be pretty useful.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/9/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[Michael was much more serious about the Paras and Oddish, though. He refused to get close to either species, choosing to dash through bushes and around trees in order to avoid them. It took me a good fifteen minutes to work up enough courage to ask him why.
"They can poison your partner, or freeze her in place," he growled, lifting a hand to smooth down his Hoothoot's feathers. "It- it happened to us, once. She became stiff and would not move. I tried everything I could think of for three full days, until I finally found a berry that fixed her..." his voice trailed off as he continued petting the Hoothoot mechanically, and I reached out to lay my hand on Drowzee's shoulder without thinking about it.]
Love this.
And now Florence is crazy or something, and she recognized the celebi drawing. Huh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/10/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Ah, so she's met Celebi before. I don't quite understand why the drawing convinced her to go back - had she tried to return to the forest again and never seen Celebi, and she thought the drawing meant he'd seen Celebi recently so she'd returned?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/11/Pokemon_Origins_Training
I still don't see why Florence is so protective of Celebi, when Celebi seems powerful and this world seems to have a general power balance that's much more in favor of the pokemon. It feels like there could be a reason, but I can't figure out what it is.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/12/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, past Azalea is interesting. It'd be interesting to see how they developed their slowpoke connection, since this seems far more than the present-day one revering them for ending a drought once.And it seems like the tech level is approaching industrial revolution times. Since they're on good terms with the slowpoke, do they have a lot of trainers? (I'd imagine there'd be some major problems using slowpoke as a primary pokemon though, especially with no way to transport them.)
From the sounds of it with Charity, the slowpoke are just generally chill about the whole thing. I assume if she actually had the same sort of bond as the other trainers with her pokemon it'd get pointed out as impressive at her age, so I assume it's just a tame pokemon tolerating her.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/13/Pokemon_Origins_Training
So is the slowpoke legitimately her partner, then?
Ah, so they don't know much about drowzee, or perhaps about more esoteric pokemon details in general.
I wish he'd do better at explaining. Showing her the GS ball isn't doing much when he hasn't even told her what pokeballs are.
Speaking of pokeballs, hey, it's Kurt, or his long ago ancestors at least.
Hm. Timescale. They're about five hundred years in the past, but techwise these people seem more like eighteenth century, maybe seventeenth at the worst. And the current pokemon world is definitely more advanced than ours, but not by much. And the Celebi movie establishes that modern pokeballs were only invented within Oak's lifetime, so it's not like they developed all modern technology and just sat back doing nothing either. I wouldn't peg them as a hundred years in the future, let alone three hundred. Unless the presence of pokemon really screws up things like mass manufacture or general industrialization, which I could see.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/14/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[Certainly Joshua couldn't end up being the first poke ball designer ]
I suspect the reveal is that he is, because that reads as a beautiful setup, but as I just said about timescale, don't see it. You say apricorns are still around until twenty years ago for him, and this is five hundred years ago. Two or three hundred years ago maybe, but it's hard to believe pokeball technology would move that slowly.
About the only way I could see is if this is a time loop thing, where Monroe is actually the inventor, since just handing people technology without them knowing the background would make it far more plausible you'd get decades of slavishly copying the designs and only much later having actual research and development going on.
[Florence stopped mid-skip ]
You mean Charity, I'm pretty sure.
Ah, and apricorns enter the equation. So they're kept for food purposes? That's a good reason to have them on hand and with the shells around to fiddle with.
[Michael was a really confusing guy, honestly, though I was pretty sure that his sour mood was due to his Hoothoot's absence ]
What about his lack of sleep? Are we ever going to figure out what that's about?
[and my head felt strangely empty when I got up the following morning ]
That's a good argument not to sleep next to a pokemon as long as it's a drowzee, actually.
And the perennial trainer-tries-to-train-with-pokemon scene. He really wasn't thinking that one through at all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/15/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, but now we have trainer-guy advocating for him to train as well as his pokemon. Do some fights involve both of them, or is it more that trainers travel and get into dangerous situations so they need to be prepared?
...and he's just outed himself with that pokeball. That should be interesting.
[PS: If you're reading this and wondering what the heck happened to my updating, worry not! I've got big plans for the future of this saga that include regular updates and a better-developed plot. Just gimme a bit of time to get my resources together. ]
Good to hear. I like the world you've developed here, and I have no idea what's going to happen next.
[If I were evil, would I want to help you? Of course not, because evil never wants to help anyone who is good, right? And you, my child, are the most pure of good that I have ever met.
I guess that you're right… said Ditto, who was still wary.]
That...really doesn't follow. Why would Ditto think it's the purest of good? That's an incredibly arrogant thing to think, and doesn't seem to fit well with Ditto's feelings of failing its trainer and being unworthy.
[It's said that you corrupt the minds of humans! Ditto shouted. You promise them riches as long as they become you're servants! It's even said that you almost destroyed the world once.]
You're = you are, your = possessive.
And how does Ditto know these things? Ditto's talking like this is common knowledge, but why would it be?I could see humans knowing about it as a common legend, and maybe some of their more commonly used pokemon would pick up on it, so Ditto might have learned from other pokemon, but here it's treated like a kid knowing the devil is evil.
[a Ditto ]
shouldn't be capitalized.
[Unfortunately, you will not be able to see them for in the process of creating the portal, you must perish. ]
I'm not sure why Missingno would tell it this, as it's a pretty good reason to say no. In another situation I'd take this as a suggestion that it means Missingno is actually sincere about the rest to not lie about this, but given the way the conversation opened with Missingno transparently manipulating Ditto, that doesn't seem right.
It also makes Ditto's agreement seem rushed. It's already a bit forced that Ditto jumps from thinking Missingno is pure evil to helping in the course of a single short conversation, and having it agree to dying that fast pushes it up to unbelievable.
I can see how Ditto's knowledge of the sacrifice makes for a more interesting plot piece, but in that case you need to lengthen the conversation by a lot, and probably break it up over several conversations, where Missingno gradually convinces Ditto it's a friend, eventually reveals what it wants, and then continues for a little while longer before Ditto finally agrees.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5891789/4/Fall_of_a_Champion
[Just one more failiure to add to his ever-gorwing list. ]
Spellcheck.
[poke-ball ]
Just pokeball.
Okay, it's a bit disjointed now. It can't use transform, but instead of his trainer assuming he's out of power for that move, his trainer assumes he's got some sort of other hidden ability, BUT that this ability is out of power instead? His trainer then gives him an ether, which he assumes will activate the secret ability instead of repowering transform.
Like when Ditto knew about Missingno being evil, this seems like your character is knowing something just because of plot. I'd suggest either saying his pokedex is able to display stats and shows Ditto has an unknown ability with no power (prompting the ether and order) or having the trainer bring him in to a pokecenter and having the nurse there report something similar. Or alternately, you could just cut out this sequence, since it doesn't really go anywhere - Ditto attempts to use it, fails, then immediately gets the problem fixed and uses it. I guess it's supposed to be making his trainer partially responsible because he wanted to try the unknown ability, but come on, how was he supposed to know it would do that? You might as well say every trainer who tried out a new move back in the early games to see what it did was evil.
[I… I did it, right? Ditto said with the last of his strength. I… became a champion. I'm a hero… right?
]
Also, this strikes me as weird. Ditto's original wish is to get into the hall of fame. If that was meant as shorthand for Ditto wanting to be a hero, then you should have established that early on (and perhaps "Fall of a Hero" would be a better title) because as it is, this is a non sequitur, even if Ditto saved all the pokemon and was the greatest guy ever, he never got into the hall of fame as a "champion", so why would he think the one would mean the other?
[And so, Ditto died a failure. ]
The story is just too abrupt. It's an interesting concept, but it's extremely rushed. You don't develop Ditto as much as you could, and the rest of the characters are even less developed, making it hard to care that Ditto inadvertently destroys them all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/1/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[But ten feels a long way away when you're nine and some months of change]
That's a weird way of phrasing it. I've heard "spare months" but not "change" (Like loose change?).
[poke ball]
pokeball.
And a trainer getting a gift pokemon instead of a professor one! That's always nice to see.
A drowzee, no less. Those are pretty cool. While I can sort of see why his mother /wouldn't/ want him getting an electric type, they seem pretty free with their attacks, it seems foolish to think making sure the starter isn't electric will prevent this. Unless you're using an incredibly slow timescale for trainer journeys, he's going to catch one pretty soon after this, so he's still going to have a shocky and possibly explody pokemon. I could see wanting to make sure he has at least one safe/reliable pokemon to protect him during this, though.
And hey, plot! That was fast.
Hm, I don't quite like your narrator, but you do a good job of detail-heavy first person.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/2/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[The green Pokemon-thing (I assumed it was a Pokemon, anyway, since it was definitely not human, looked kind of fairy-like, and had a face and stuff) ]
I don't think you need this qualifier. The pokemon world seems to be split into two groups, humans and pokemon, so anything not a human is a pokemon. If there were other groups, like animals, something like "not human, but it had a face" would be a good sign to guess pokemon, but guessing doesn't seem necessary. And just "strange pokemon" would get across the fact the narrator didn't recognize it.
Not sure quite sure I follow how dream eater could do this, but it's definitely an interesting result.
I know he's just a kid, but a breakdown seems excessive. He was intending to be a trainer today, so he should be pretty mentally prepared for travel. I can see him wanting to contact his parents to find out what happened, and being bothered that he doesn't know where he is and is missing a lot of his supplies, but he knows exactly what he needs to do, which is look for the nearest town, and I'd assume if he's ready to travel around as a trainer he should already know basics about finding his way when he's lost.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/3/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[What I really wanted to do was make my dad's laptop magically appear and find some kind of wireless connection, since I was already suffering from electronic withdrawal]
Again, doesn't seem to fit well with the idea he was intending to be a trainer. I could see something similar, wanting a computer so he could contact people for help, or just that it felt weird to go so long without a computer, but he should have realized before now that he wouldn't have access while traveling.
[I actually managed to forget the situation for a while as I let my pen wander, lost in the pattern of careful tracing and shading. ]
He just doesn't seem to be taking this seriously at all. Or does he think his parents are fine and the only problem is that he's lost?
Why doesn't he try yelling back to whoever screamed?
And huh, so they're in the past. I'd thought Celebi might have moved him back but not so far. That'll certainly suck for electric-loving technology boy. (Voltorb don't even exist at this point in time, if you're using pokedex canon.)
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/4/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Ooh, first politeness and now a divided class society, and presumably some nasty territorial conflicts (or are those conflicts human vs pokemon?). I wonder why pokemon would be less obedient in the past - people just not knowing how to handle them could be a reason, but he's obviously not skilled at it.
...and they don't have pokeballs. Yeah, that could throw a kink in these things.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/5/Pokemon_Origins_Training
...wow, he is not quick on the draw, is he? At least Florence has figured it out.
Not sure I see how a Pokemon League would work in this situation - I suppose it's analogous to knight tourneys, but those kind of grew out of warfare and required a lot more unity than these people seem to have. I guess it still depends on if their problems are mostly human vs pokemon or trainer vs trainer, in the former case trainers working together to make a league is more understandable.
The whole battle thing is rather cliché though. It might make more sense as a semi ceremonial thing, a way of establishing who has to obey who, than as a test of heart.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/6/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, how much do they know about pokemon? They knew enough about Drowzee to guess it might be controlling him, but they don't know its diet...They seem to be at medieval or less in naturalistic terms. On the one hand, knowing is likely a good idea if they're in danger, but I suppose if pokemon are too dangerous you don't want to stick around and find out more.
[Richard sat next to me throughout the meal, talking happily about life in the village and sharing several humorous anecdotes. I ignored them, mostly, ]
ARG no you have no idea how things work in this place listen to them!
...he's sleeping on the floor? Is this bare dirt or does he at least get a mat or something? I think for someone used to a bed, you'd have to be really, really exhausted, like force-marched for miles or made to do heavy labor all day before falling asleep quickly on solid ground is an option. Even doing it in a sleeping bag can take getting used to.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/7/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[When I woke up the next dawn to Richard's shout that it was sunrise I felt awful, like I hadn't slept at all. ]
This is kind of a cliché, and substitutes a general idea where you could have detail. How about being stiff, sore and cold? Sleeping on ground absolutely sucks.
I like the battle, it's a nice combination of trainer inexperience, a limited moveset and simple logistic problems, and it still manages to have an interesting series of events. He does a good job without actually getting anywhere near succeeding at the battle.
They seem to have a lot better relationships with their pokemon, even if those relationships are rare, sort of wonder where you're going with that.
[Michael growled, stepping out from the crowd of people. He didn't have his Hoothoot with him, and there were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept much recently. I vaguely remembered that he had looked tired the night before, too, but the effect was more pronounced now. ]
Hm, is Michael staying up with his pokemon? Either he's burning himself out or he normally sleeps during the day, which could make for being pretty cranky at having to be up in the morning.
…and Florence has run off again? I hope she's getting her own pokemon and going to be less dependent, she's not really a character type I like right now.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/8/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Huh, so really all he should have done from the start was offer to help them, and they'd have stopped being so nervous around him. (Hm, how sophisticated could a psychic's pokemon's tricks be? Could one of them puppet a human into behaving like that?)
And poor Drowzee, getting abandoned on the tentacruel's head.
So Michael's going to head out instead of getting sleep, I'm sure this won't lead to him being bitchy the whole time.
[I opened my mouth, about to brag about how I could (theoretically) make a working poke ball from scratch, but stopped myself when I realized that that wasn't the best example, given the situation. ]
Well, actually...I assume he actually can't if from scratch means from manufactured parts, but telling them he's got a magical make-pokemon-be-your-friend sphere and he can make more of them would be pretty useful.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/9/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[Michael was much more serious about the Paras and Oddish, though. He refused to get close to either species, choosing to dash through bushes and around trees in order to avoid them. It took me a good fifteen minutes to work up enough courage to ask him why.
"They can poison your partner, or freeze her in place," he growled, lifting a hand to smooth down his Hoothoot's feathers. "It- it happened to us, once. She became stiff and would not move. I tried everything I could think of for three full days, until I finally found a berry that fixed her..." his voice trailed off as he continued petting the Hoothoot mechanically, and I reached out to lay my hand on Drowzee's shoulder without thinking about it.]
Love this.
And now Florence is crazy or something, and she recognized the celebi drawing. Huh.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/10/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Ah, so she's met Celebi before. I don't quite understand why the drawing convinced her to go back - had she tried to return to the forest again and never seen Celebi, and she thought the drawing meant he'd seen Celebi recently so she'd returned?
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/11/Pokemon_Origins_Training
I still don't see why Florence is so protective of Celebi, when Celebi seems powerful and this world seems to have a general power balance that's much more in favor of the pokemon. It feels like there could be a reason, but I can't figure out what it is.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/12/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, past Azalea is interesting. It'd be interesting to see how they developed their slowpoke connection, since this seems far more than the present-day one revering them for ending a drought once.And it seems like the tech level is approaching industrial revolution times. Since they're on good terms with the slowpoke, do they have a lot of trainers? (I'd imagine there'd be some major problems using slowpoke as a primary pokemon though, especially with no way to transport them.)
From the sounds of it with Charity, the slowpoke are just generally chill about the whole thing. I assume if she actually had the same sort of bond as the other trainers with her pokemon it'd get pointed out as impressive at her age, so I assume it's just a tame pokemon tolerating her.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/13/Pokemon_Origins_Training
So is the slowpoke legitimately her partner, then?
Ah, so they don't know much about drowzee, or perhaps about more esoteric pokemon details in general.
I wish he'd do better at explaining. Showing her the GS ball isn't doing much when he hasn't even told her what pokeballs are.
Speaking of pokeballs, hey, it's Kurt, or his long ago ancestors at least.
Hm. Timescale. They're about five hundred years in the past, but techwise these people seem more like eighteenth century, maybe seventeenth at the worst. And the current pokemon world is definitely more advanced than ours, but not by much. And the Celebi movie establishes that modern pokeballs were only invented within Oak's lifetime, so it's not like they developed all modern technology and just sat back doing nothing either. I wouldn't peg them as a hundred years in the future, let alone three hundred. Unless the presence of pokemon really screws up things like mass manufacture or general industrialization, which I could see.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/14/Pokemon_Origins_Training
[Certainly Joshua couldn't end up being the first poke ball designer ]
I suspect the reveal is that he is, because that reads as a beautiful setup, but as I just said about timescale, don't see it. You say apricorns are still around until twenty years ago for him, and this is five hundred years ago. Two or three hundred years ago maybe, but it's hard to believe pokeball technology would move that slowly.
About the only way I could see is if this is a time loop thing, where Monroe is actually the inventor, since just handing people technology without them knowing the background would make it far more plausible you'd get decades of slavishly copying the designs and only much later having actual research and development going on.
[Florence stopped mid-skip ]
You mean Charity, I'm pretty sure.
Ah, and apricorns enter the equation. So they're kept for food purposes? That's a good reason to have them on hand and with the shells around to fiddle with.
[Michael was a really confusing guy, honestly, though I was pretty sure that his sour mood was due to his Hoothoot's absence ]
What about his lack of sleep? Are we ever going to figure out what that's about?
[and my head felt strangely empty when I got up the following morning ]
That's a good argument not to sleep next to a pokemon as long as it's a drowzee, actually.
And the perennial trainer-tries-to-train-with-pokemon scene. He really wasn't thinking that one through at all.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5346460/15/Pokemon_Origins_Training
Hm, but now we have trainer-guy advocating for him to train as well as his pokemon. Do some fights involve both of them, or is it more that trainers travel and get into dangerous situations so they need to be prepared?
...and he's just outed himself with that pokeball. That should be interesting.
[PS: If you're reading this and wondering what the heck happened to my updating, worry not! I've got big plans for the future of this saga that include regular updates and a better-developed plot. Just gimme a bit of time to get my resources together. ]
Good to hear. I like the world you've developed here, and I have no idea what's going to happen next.
