The Quest for the Legends

The Final Stretch - Chapter 71: Shattered (commentary)

We enter the deeply nostalgic last five-chapter arc of the fic with the chapter most drastically different from its draft thus far, where an amicable split-up turns into an explosive confrontation, May feels so much worse (so much worse), I get to finally write a ventilation break-in scene after not including one in chapter 10, and we read a diary so that I can remind you of, and establish actual vaguely-coherent characterization for, the soon-to-reappear villain of chapter 10, published in 2004.

I don't think I asked this before (if I did then sorry) but just outta curiosity why did Mew choose Rick anyway?

This was definitely one of my favorites in the end stretch. The way it brought all the tension in the past five chapters to a head, and especially the characterization we got for Rob.

and oh my god I adore the idea of a Tyranitar heist, even if it would indeed be suuuuuper deraily.

I don't think I asked this before (if I did then sorry) but just outta curiosity why did Mew choose Rick anyway?

Originally I'm pretty sure it was meant to be because Mew legitimately judged Rick to be the lesser of two evils. This seems pretty iffy what with the literal brainwashing, but for whatever reason I didn't think it that far at the time.

However, in later years I've been more inclined to say Mew probably didn't actually know much of anything about the two of them, and it was a total coincidence whose ball she ended up in. The Mew Hunter just imagines it was a specific choice of Rick over him because he sees everything Mew does as important and meaningful and driven by the grand motivations that he's projected onto her, as seen in the diary. This is very in line with the themes of the fic.

…Although then I have also recently toyed with the idea Mew deliberately chose brainwashing because in that moment it actually seemed like a comfortable escape from her constant guilt and doubts and self-loathing. But Mew's dialogue in chapter nine can't really be interpreted to jive with this at all, so that can't really be canon to this version. I may consider it for the next revision; it would theoretically keep the bit where the Mew Hunter assumes it was some kind of judgement of his character when really Mew just wanted to numb the pain. Assuming I keep the basic gist of that, that is.

(I need to finish that extra about what if Mew had gone with the Mew Hunter instead.)

oh holy shit I really want to see that extra now, it's clear the mew hunter's approach to mew is extremely unhealthy and obsessive but I'd kill to see how he ACTUALLY treats mew

Huh, I'd always assumed, after having got the general impression that Mew was secretly really lonely and sad, that she deliberately chose Rick because the brainwashing would numb that.