The Quest for the Legends

Chapter 54: Reunion (commentary)

In this short chapter, Mark and May reunite with Alan and everything is extremely awkward, Molzapart and Chaletwo bicker some more while Chaletwo is bitter about being useless, some reporters are very bad at their jobs, I ramble lengthily about swearing, and we discuss logic problems, police investigations, and Pokémon-on-human crime.

I had originally been hoping to combine this one with chapter 55, probably, but it wasn't to be. I'll have to go build up a buffer again.

Your rambling about swearing kind of amused me; it was just yesterday that I was sitting with an eight year old kid who kept throwing around "shit" and "damn it" as he played Mario on my DS. In India, presumably since english is usually a second language, swearing isn't so taboo and adults don't seem to care–it's done casually enough that to this day it often makes me double-take. Picture otherwise quite conservative and protective mothers saying "oh fuck" when they drop a tin cup, or whatever.

But yeah, I've got to say I didn't notice your lack of swearing in this fic until you pointed this out. The fic as whole carries an adult tone. Chaletwo can author a sophisticated line of logic, and we're supposed to follow that line of logic while also understanding it's a defense mechanism for whatever issues he's trying to hide. That type of analysis is not at a child's level. (Or more accurately, we both know they're are children capable of handling that, and children who aren't, but children who aren't, aren't likely to be seeking out reading material like this online.) But since I didn't notice it, I can't say the lack of swearing has *detracted* from the story–none of the characters are really the type to be dropping F-bombs left and right.

Of course I read your story and quite loved it as a kid, and though you hadn't gotten to the point that your characters were always doing interesting sub-textual things, TQftL is enjoyable as just a straight-up adventure story without the analysis of layered characters and of themes. So I think it's cool that you kept that in mind.