Comments
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last page
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 34: Return to Cleanwater
"Speak of the devil" is technically inherently negative, but people use it in a friendly way with some regularity due to lack of a better phrase.
“I need a Water and Ice Pokémon in my team,” May muttered. “There are Fire and Dragon Pokémon all over the League and…” This stuff with May spitting out random justifications instead of accepting that she's upset and hurt is really realistic and makes for good character growth and I like it. And it's really interesting that Alan tries to argue to what she's literally saying but it doesn't work because it's not what she means.
Wasn't either that Manectric or Elektrike intended at one point to become Raikou's chosen and get captured by Alan? I can't remember where you said that.Reply: You probably already got to it, but what you're thinking of comes up in the chapter 51 commentary, where Entei explains the Chosen:
Background thing that I came up with at some point but never actually made canon: the Electrike whose mother they accidentally killed in chapter 34 may have been one of Raikou's potentials. The main reason I came up with this is that I thought it was thematically neat, and deliciously cruel, if Alan almost ended up with one of Raikou's potentials too, but whoops things aren't that neat, Electrike doesn't actually want human help and probably dies, and Alan gets no special Pokémon after all. It is kind of an unbelievable coincidence that Alan would almost get it too, though. I doubt I would ever actually make this canon, but if you enjoy the idea, please imagine this was the case.
[06/04/2024 00:21:02]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 33: Thunderyu
Perish Song is another problematic move. I think Curse or poison would honestly be fine if you just say the legendaries have tons of HP - like a boss battle where you have status effects chipping away at the boss and it does help but it's still ultimately the attack damage that is doing the bulk of the work.
In the Pokemon games, legendaries have pretty normal amounts of HP, but you're already presenting them as bosses that need 6-30 Pokemon to take them down, so of course status moves would not automatically win.
It'd make the battles more interesting honestly if they spent more time doing literally anything except their most damaging moves. For example, why can't they use stat-boosting moves just before some of these fights? You could get a lot of mileage out of exploring movesets more in these fights.Reply: Yeah, as I mentioned in the commentary, the problem there is mainly May explicitly acting like Spirit pulling off Curse is just going to solve all their problems and be a foolproof way to beat Thunderyu in the equivalent of four turns like in the games, when I should have just made it not be able to do that. When May does canonize the idea that all they'd need to do is pull off Curse and stall a bit, that's when I get awkwardness where they have to just somehow forget about this possibility except just when they're too late to pull it off.
[06/03/2024 21:13:25]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 32: The Birthday Party
"I will, of course, go on to not have this exception for Thunder Wave at the League later, because I am the most consistent"
Ah, I found where you knew the Thunder Wave usage was inconsistent after all. Based on when each of these battles happened, it looks like this is most likely because Thunder Wave was effective on Volt Absorb Pokemon in gen 3, but not in gen 4 - with these battles being written during gen 3, and the league battles being written during gen 4. So you probably just looked it up each time and didn't notice that it had changed.Reply: Ha! I never realized that was why, but that does make a lot of sense, actually. I always thought I'd just sort of arbitrarily decided to make an exception in the earlier chapters for some reason and had then forgotten about it.
[06/03/2024 20:30:48]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 31: Spirit
This is one of the times where you have Thunder Wave work against a Volt Absorb Lanturn, but in a later chapter it doesn't work (I commented on that chapter).
I think it also worked against Marge's Lanturn, but I forgot to check.
"The big question then, though, would be exactly how Spirit gets her final blessing from Entei." Does Entei not have any way to find his potentials? Surely he does because any of them could move at any moment, unless he was just planning to continually search all of Johto to look for them whenever he wants to check up on one who happens to not be where he expected. I know he's not psychic, but the energy he puts into the potentials is his energy, so I'd buy that he can just detect it.
Alternatively, Spirit could tell Entei she's leaving with May to Ouen.
There's still the question of Entei getting to Ouen at all, but I'm sure he could figure it out.
[06/03/2024 17:51:29]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 31: Spirit
This is one of the times where you have Thunder Wave work against a Volt Absorb Lanturn, but in a later chapter it doesn't work (I commented on that chapter).
I think it also worked against Marge's Lanturn, but I forgot to check.
[06/03/2024 16:14:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 29: Stormblade and Shadowdart
It honestly is believable that Mark would accidentally call the paramedics doctors at least.
The Abra helping the paramedics is a really interesting throwaway world building detail.
I wish Mark or anyone reacted to Scyther's drama. One of the big things that makes it feel irrelevant is that in-universe no one else cares or does anything. It's always odd in general when Mark just watches some Pokemon have a long conversation or scene which he could easily participate in but he just doesn't do anything or have any thoughts about it.
[06/03/2024 15:42:30]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 28: Scyther's Revenge
I do like Fury even though he doesn't end up mattering - but it fits okay alongside other random trainers Mark encounters as part of his journey. It'd be cool to see anything more come of it. It's the type of thing you'll see in book 1 of something that then becomes much more significant in a sequel.
I don't believe this happens but it would be cool to see Scyther make a promise somewhere near the end to show his character growth.
[06/03/2024 15:09:36]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 27: Past, Present and Future
Skarmory is already present in Johto. Did May just want a lower level one and right away? I'm curious how long that trip was just to get one Pokemon. I don't recall Ouen's location relative to Johto coming up.
Also, Scyther's suicidal feelings are pretty decently written and plausible for his situation, the angst is just over the top - which presumably wouldn't be the case if you write it again while not being 15. I would just note that often the most suicidal people don't tell anyone how they feel, so the part where Scyther is often very eager to explain how suicidal he was and still is comes off as odd. It'd be more likely for Mark or someone else to need to convince him to talk about it. Also, people don't always make attempts to commit suicide when they're at their worst. It's actually more likely that in your most depressed moments, you are suicidal but don't have the energy to do it. Instead, once you start to feel a bit better, that's when you paradoxically have the energy to try. It's a huge risk when people go on anti-depressants and is one of the reasons they're supposed to he watched closely by someone they trust early on with a new medication - the anti-depressants may make them feel better enough that they can manage to kill themselves. Those are the things I'd suggest taking into consideration for the rewrite.
[06/03/2024 13:21:40]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 26: Dead or Alive
What is the point of mentioning the animal world idea at all meant to be here? Sure, it's vaguely interesting, but it doesn't actually affect anything, since no animals ever appear in the fic, Mark never thinks about this again until the random part explaining more about it being destroyed, and humans being alongside Pokemon doesn't really require any particular explanation since it's already part of the world you're writing a fanfic about. If it's here at all it'd maybe be better mentioned as just a one-sentence aside, since it does nothing.Reply: At the time I wrote this chapter I had zero idea what was actually going to be relevant to the plot and what wasn't, and also had no real sense of streamlining narrative in general. I'd come up with this worldbuilding to explain why humans in the Pokémon world are like our world's humans despite there being no other animals and Pokémon being very different sorts of creatures, so I wanted to include it in the fic; my thought process didn't go much further than that.
[06/03/2024 11:22:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Pokémon Festival – May 25th: Chaletwo's Arrival
I thought you'd comment on it here, but I'm still confused about why they can only talk when Mark's dead. Chaletwo handwaves it by just saying someone could otherwise always overhear, but 1. someone could overhear Mark talking to May, Alan, and others later about the War, yet Chaletwo never cares about that, and 2. both Chaletwo and Molzapart can speak to people psychically anyway, which presumably can't possibly be overheard.Reply: I just wanted Chaletwo to kill Mark and then handwaved a reason he supposedly had to; it never made much sense.
[06/03/2024 11:16:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 16: The Third Badge
The buying antidotes would still make sense if it was just security for the future now that her and Charmeleon have been traumatically poisoned once. Though I guess the idea is that Scorplack venom wouldn't be helped by an antidote at all.
[06/01/2024 13:46:21]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 16: The Third Badge
The buying antidotes would still make sense if it was just security for the future now that her and Charmeleon have been traumatically poisoned once. Though I guess the idea is that Scorplack venom wouldn't be helped by an antidote at all.Reply: In chapter 14 May specifically said it was for the Mitch fight, though, which then turned out to be nonsense because you can't use items in the gym battle anyway - that's what I was commenting on.
[06/01/2024 13:33:24]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOEp)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 47: The First Preliminary
You had Thunder Wave fail on Lanturn here, but didn't it specifically work on two Volt Absorb Lanturn previously?Reply: Yeah, this is mentioned in the "Goofs" section on this site.
[05/28/2024 23:34:23]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOEp)
Chapter: Chapter 42: Splitting Up
"The legendaries theyd’d fought he had at least gotten a good look at"
typo in theyd'd
[05/28/2024 20:58:04]
silver
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOEp)
Chapter: Chapter 30: The Dragons of Ouen
bruh scythur is my spirit animal
[12/27/2022 15:21:32]
Freeze
Story: The Fall of a Leader
Chapter: Part VII: Downfall
Revisiting this fic after a long time; it's just as good as I remember it. Looking back, I think this fic's had an outsized influence on the way I write all my stories, and the way I think about the world in general.
A couple random thoughts…
I think a better version of Shadowdart might have been able to turn things around in chapter 6, after Stalker's discussion of why fairness is necessary. He could have said, either,
* "You're not arguing in good faith, you're doing this to get a rise out of me, and I'm not going to fall for that", or
* "Fairness is important because without any set of rules that we agree on for safety, there's no swarm at all, just individual Scythers trying to manipulate and murder each other all the time; and if you think that's a better way to run things then you're welcome to leave this swarm and try it for yourself"
… of course, that level of discussion would require Shadowdart to be more capable of thinking on his feet, which is fundamentally not who he is. I agree that, in the end, it could not have gone any other way for him.
(And if he did say these things and fend off Stalker, I think the story would be a lot worse off for it – I love tragedy born of inevitable character flaws.)
I also think, if I were Nightmare or someone else and I wanted to rebuild the Swarm, I might say something like this:
1) Death is not to be feared – as predators we inflict it freely, as prey we shall one day fall – death is merely a fact of life, as inevitable as sunrise, and we must accept this, else we torment ourselves by rejecting our nature
1a) Because death is inevitable, loss is too. One day you will lose a person you care about. This is, merely, another fact of life; nothing we can do will change this. Understand that death and loss are what we inflict, and what shall happen to us.
2) Sharpen your scythes: while death is inevitable, pain is unnecessary. (I agree, it *should* be bumped up)
3) We live as a swarm to protect each other, both from external threats and from ourselves. If a Scyther is in danger, it is your duty to assist. Do not manipulate or control another Scyther – if we turn against ourselves, we will all fall alone. Be strong, to protect yourselves and others.
4) The Code is not a set of instructions to be rigorously followed; it is a set of ideas we think are important. The circumstances of life may conflict with these ideas. Should you find yourself breaking the Code, ask yourself why, and be prepared to answer.
Non-numbered rules: it occurs to me that the Leader has a lot of work to do, being both a physical leader and a philosophical one; Shadowdart and the Leader before him became Leader because of their physical capabilities, but lacked the philosophical ones to guide the clan. I'm not sure what the answer to this is – if you separate this into two leaders, one for teaching and one for physical defense, you may end up with infighting/coup attempts between them.
In general I can't say that this Code is really any better than the previous one tbh – I'm sure there's flaws I haven't considered, and that one day would surprise me. (And the old Code, with all its flaws, made for a better story because it was flawed.)
Anyways thanks for reading my rambly thoughts. Hope you have a great day!
[12/13/2022 11:53:20]
Miyala
Story: The Quest for the Legends (IALCOTN)
Chapter: Prologue
Is it Mew?Reply: It is!
[08/23/2022 19:28:17]
Nat
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOEp)
Chapter: Chapter 77: Home
When I started rereading this, I only remembered reading up to the Color Dragon Brothers, and even that was really, really hazy. The last thing I remembered clearly was Letaligon reuniting with her mother.
I think there’s something really special about reading long fanfic or webnovels, the kind that take years to complete, that you don’t get with published novels. When I was young, authors were like gods. These amazing people creating stories that seemed to reach millions. Then I discovered fanfic and realized ‘oh. Anyone can do this. I can do it too.’
So reading a long fanfic like this, where the first chapters are stumbling and childish, but it steadily improved and becomes something beautiful? It’s really really good. It fills me with more confidence to write my own fanfics and original novels than anything else, even if they might take years.
I’m glad we got closure for Mark’s whole party and what they’d be doing. I appreciated the scene with Mrs Grodski, even if she was a very minor character, acknowledging they were both kinda jerkish snd rude to each other. It felt a bit like a thesis to themes explored in the story, simplified. The Legends were all flawed, it may not have been anyone’s fault, the War. But at the end of it all… Mark and Mrs Grodski acknowledged their flaws, and that they had grown. And apologized. It was nice.
I’m also happy Mewtwo^2 didn’t really fie, and got to figure out a life of his own.
In conclusion, this fic may be flawed too, but I’m of the opinion that if you work on a story for long enough, a piece of your soul becomes stuck in it, and it becomes something really touching and beautiful. And I think a piece of your soul is in this story. Thank you for sharing it, and continuing it even to this day, and congrats on completing it, even if I’m a bit late.
I think I’ll probably go back to read the commentary, ‘cause I’m a nerd for analysis, worldbuilding, and behind the scenes stuff. Have a lovely day!Reply: These comments are fantastic and have made my evening, love that you're picking up on various themes and ideas. There's definitely a large piece of my soul in this story; so happy to hear you enjoyed seeing it grow from its clumsy, flawed roots. <3
[06/23/2022 12:07:27]
Nat
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOEp)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 75: Mewtwo²
Damn, just… damn…
There’s been the theme of Legendaries being flawed, and not how Mark expected, for a very long time. And it’s true. They’re flawed, paranoid, aggressive, arrogant. But Arceus doesn’t seem all that better. With each new generation of Legends destined to be killed off, how are they ever meant to learn? How can they ever be motivated to learn, if the war is inevitable anyways? It’s pointless, there’s no reason to grow if they’re punished for it all the same.
And in the end, the four Legendaries who were really, really trying to do good, to save people, to break the cycle, are the ones who have to die. Chalenor, the unwilling Destroyer. Mew, who wanted Chalenor to be more than just a Destroyer but also couldn’t let go. Chaletwo, who feared death and just wanted to survive, but unwittingly caused this tragedy and needed to die to break the cycle. And Mewtwo^2… Never even got to have a life of its own…
They saved the world. Saved most of the Legendaries. Prevented millions of lives from being lost. But just… none of them wanted this to happen… Maybe blame can be assigned to all four in some capacity, but three tried their best, and one was just broken by grief…
[06/23/2022 11:14:28]
Nat
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 74: Unraveling
Damn, damn, I was so convinced that Rob was going to be killed. Deliberately this time. He said he’d sooner die or release Mew, and everyone was so desperate, and it was all falling apart and I thought someone might actually order a Pokemon to attack and kill Rob. And then they’d need to deal with that too. I had such a feeling of dread.
On a related note tho. I think my favorite part of TQFTL is the incredibly messy fallout of Tyler Lancaster’s death. Neither Tyler nor Rick are really good people, they do a lot of really, really dubious things, like hypnotizing law enforcement and treating Pokemon as tools more than partners.
And like. May is a much better and more fair battler, everyone agrees. But if this were the Pokemon anime, there’d probably be an extended arc around how treating your Pokemon as friends is a far superior strategy towards pushing them to win. But also everyone still viewed her are objectively the better trainer, and they’re not wrong but she’s still a kid. She’s twelve. She’s twelve and the police never listen to her and everyone is calling her a murderer, judging her, saying ‘you should have known better! You should never have let this happen! This is all your fault!’
And they’re not wrong, she did play a major part in it happening but. She’s 12 and the world is ending and everyone is calling her a murderer, and she’d never been the most friendly or likable kid before but no one wants to be a murderer. And at 12, that’s gotta mess you up.
I really love the conflicting morality in TQFTL. Robin and Alan want to do the morally correct thing, but in doing so come off as not seeing the big picture, or unempathetic towards how this whole ordeal affected May. Chaletwo wants to save the world, but he’s also so terrified of dying. Mark got caught up in something so much bigger than himself.
I think Alan and May’s character development is amazing, too. It’s sad they haven’t entirely made up, but I’m delighted Alan apologized for how he acted towards May.
Also did not realize you releases a slightly edited version. Hopping over there now— so excited to at last read the ending!Reply: <3 Thank youuu, I really appreciate comments like these!
[06/23/2022 10:38:10]