The Quest for the Legends

Prologue (with commentary)
Chapter 1: The Pokémon on the Road (with commentary)

And that's me, rambling about the beginning of the fic while rereading it. Hope you find some of it interesting!

I'm vaguely planning to try to release one chapter every Sunday, but I can't entirely promise I can keep that schedule - I wrote a lot more on these chapters than I thought, so goodness knows what I'll do with some of the longer ones.

Huh, I totally forgot that the prologue took place in a town… not that the setting's really relevant, although I guess it ends up being or becoming Sailance? Assuming Mew buried Chalenor's severed head (the carnage is so over-the-top, I love it) nearby rather than flying off with it to pick a different spot for whatever reason.

When I re-read the fic a while ago I have to admit I kind of shook my head and went, "Oh, Dragonfree" at the part where Mark enthuses about constructive criticism. I liked it, it was super subtle. :P It's also funny that you later mention finding the part where Mark sasses Mrs. Grodski and people laugh at his dumb sarcasm very "and then everybody clapped," because I'd been thinking exactly the same thing, and more or less the same thing about him getting high praise for his drawings. Sandslash telling Mark he's a great trainer is no doubt the most egregious example, but I guess the narrative really did like to make him out as awesome at the beginning, didn't it? (Sorry it couldn't last, Mark!)

Mark's art teacher also has a bit of a "How do you do, fellow kids" vibe going on with her calling the school stupid, and then of course Mark thinks that her describing it that way makes her approximately the coolest teacher ever, haha.

“Oh God!” she uttered out, speechless. “John!”

Okay, I had to laugh at Mark's mom saying something and the narration describing her as "speechless." :P

This bizarre bit of worldbuilding originated as me using the wrong English word…

I'm curious what the wording issue was; my original guess was using "inflammable" for "flame-proof," but that doesn't seem like it would have caused you to come up with flame-proof clothing in the first place…

This is kind of a dull chapter, and the prologue is super melodramatic, but it's cool to see how it's still better than what you'd previously come up with and that there's some good in it as well. It definitely has the feel of a genuine thing that a fourteen-year-old would have written, for better or for worse. Neat how you incorporated the birdsong, too; did not remember that bit by the time I was reading 77, heh.

Even with a release schedule of one chapter a week (& that is already pretty dedicated) the full commentary is still going to take a year & a half
(camera zooms into ur harrowed, long-suffering face)

I'm curious what the wording issue was; my original guess was using "inflammable" for "flame-proof," but that doesn't seem like it would have caused you to come up with flame-proof clothing in the first place…

Oh, it's a lot sillier than that. I was trying to refer to some kind of oven-safe tin for cooking - something actually heat-resistant that it might make some modicum of sense to put a Charmander in so it won't burn down the house. But I had no idea what that was called, so I looked it up in a dictionary - only in Icelandic that word happens to have an unrelated homonym, so the dictionary gave me "garment". I didn't realize that word wasn't actually what I was looking for and wrote it in without questioning it. And then maintained that yeah, that was absolutely what I meant, they've got flame-proof clothes!

It definitely has the feel of a genuine thing that a fourteen-year-old would have written, for better or for worse.

That's a weird comment to make about something that actually was written by a fourteen-year-old, haha? I mean, what else would it sound like.

Even with a release schedule of one chapter a week (& that is already pretty dedicated) the full commentary is still going to take a year & a half
(camera zooms into ur harrowed, long-suffering face)

Yup, I'm not free yet. (But I'm going to have a lot of fun!)

But I had no idea what that was called, so I looked it up in a dictionary - only in Icelandic that word happens to have an unrelated homonym, so the dictionary gave me "garment".

That's kind of fantastic! I'm not sure whether you lucked out on the fact that you got "garment" instead of something completely nonsensical that you would have had to change instead of being able to double down on. XD

That's a weird comment to make about something that actually was written by a fourteen-year-old, haha? I mean, what else would it sound like.

Mmmm, I didn't mean that I was surprised by the fact that it sounds like genuine fourteen-year-old stuff, exactly, more that I hadn't thought of it that way but looking back on it now, yes, clearly it was. Like, when I first read the story I definitely didn't say to myself, "wow, this is SUCH typical teenage writing," but reading it now it really is, same as when I was writing my own fics at that age I wasn't thinking about how I'd probably go back later and find them adorkable (I was writing deathless literature, obvs), even though if I did so now I'm sure I'd find them super teenage-y as well.

I was kind of thinking the same thing as Happy, there, tbh. FWIW I personally wouldn't mind something like commentary on, like, major points you observe over five-chapter chunks rather than in-depth chapter-by-chapter stuff or if instead of having a strict posting schedule you make it a more "when I feel like it" thing. Obviously if you're enjoying yourself and don't mind taking the time, then go for it, just saying at least on my part there's no expectation that you spend the next (realistically) 2+ years working on weekly updates for this.

I mean, I'm doing this mostly for myself. I want to reread, and I want to ramble about stuff in the fic as I reread because have you met me. The idea of doing it on a schedule was originally to space it out and keep it at a manageable pace, actually, although then enough rambling happened that I'm like "oh dear, maybe some of these chapters are actually going to take me more than a week". Please do not worry about me slaving away for you to get this done. I'm not doing this out of some misguided sense of obligation.

Aaaaalright it's about time I go back and comment on all these. It'll be fun trying to recount all my first impressions from when I read these chapters way back when, as well as all the things I shamelessly ripped off. Let's begin!

And oh man, you better believe that the dark, edgy, violent prologue was my jam when I first read it. Dark, mysterious, plot-foreshadowy prologues were all the rage at the time, and I'm honestly kind of stunned that this isn't something I ripped off QftL. (I honestly thought I did, but my prologue was posted a month earlier. Go figure!) I also definitely preferred the version that added the "But no one was around to hear it" line, as I felt it gave a sense of finality that the ending otherwise lacked. In fact, I still prefer it!

It's hard to say but I'm pretty sure that the fact that QftL spends so much time explaining its Pokemon class setup is the reason I wound up doing so in LC. (Revision 7 randomly decided to expand the infodump hardcore, which is conveniently right around the time I started reading the ILCOE.) In fact, I probably would have gone and included an actual school scene in LC if not for the fact that I'd already decided Chapter one had to be Cool Rocket Action and so I didn't have room for it (so I just settled for infodumping instead.)

The thing with Jade not being allowed to go on a journey was deeeeeefinitely ripped off from QftL though. Like, whole cloth. It was never a thing in the old versions of LC. Ok, to be fair, I'd been wanting to make Jade older than the starting age for a while, and that was just a convenient way to do it. I somehow missed the memo that there should be an actual reason for it though. Thus, while Mark's parents don't want him to journey because they're afraid for his safety, Jade's parents don't want her to… just.. because?

Amusingly, finally getting rid of that silliness wound up making me parrot the IALCOTN instead. Which I did notice at the time, but it was 2015, and I was just so done with it that I didn't care anymore. :P

I also definitely preferred the version that added the "But no one was around to hear it" line, as I felt it gave a sense of finality that the ending otherwise lacked. In fact, I still prefer it!

Ha, yeah. I believe I took it out because "…around the lifeless town" conveyed the same point, but it's definitely true that the old version is punchier.

Chapter one of LC being Cool Rocket Action is a good thing! I'm thrilled for your past self that you resisted the temptation to open with LET'S TELL YOU ALL ABOUT POKÉMON SCHOOL.

The not wanting them on a journey thing is pretty interesting. Your motivation for it, then, was to make Jade older, as with probably most other writers who delay their trainers' journeys - but that was never why I did it! I just wanted Mark to think he was never going to be a trainer (UNTIL THAT DAY) and find Charmander outside in the rain rather than getting him from a professor. In the original his parents didn't even have anything against him journeying; it was just that there were no Pokémon around. In the UMR I'd realized "but why don't they just travel somewhere else to get Pokémon" and quickly explained it by saying his parents didn't want him to go alone and just weren't interested in going with him, but by the time of the HMMRCIG I thought it was silly they just couldn't be bothered (do they never leave town for other reasons?) and so expanded it to them not wanting him on a journey at all. "Too dangerous" was just a lazy handwave, though; I didn't even come up with the bit about this being because they thought he'd be killed by Chaletwo until way later.