The Quest for the Legends

The Ouen League - Chapter 49: The Rage of a Scyther (commentary)

In today's chapter of The Quest for the Legends, I try to convince you it makes sense for Mark to qualify to the knockout phase of the League, Letaligon is desperate for validation, Mark spends a long time thinking about what moves all his Pokémon can learn before experiencing a sudden swerve in his feelings towards his parents, we get by far the laziest League battle wherein super-effective moves are spammed back and forth and Mark somehow forgets it is raining because I'd forgotten, and this chapter's fun familiar-trainer-from-earlier-in-the-fic cameo turns out to be the guy Scyther nearly murdered who is still suffering PTSD, bet you didn't expect to see THAT come back here.

The Ouen League - Chapter 50: Friendly Competition

In the final chapter of the labeled League arc, the League fails to conform to dramatic expectations and pits Mark and May against each other in the second knockout round, Scyther's issues make a return, Mark has a silly dream, I spend time talking about Mark and his Pokémon strategizing and then they go on to not make use of any of that for the whole first half of the battle, Mark has amazing paralysis luck, and Mark makes a decision for his future.

Chapter 51: Fake-Out (commentary)

The commentary for chapter 51 is here! Read for anecdotes about that time I decided the characters would visit a safari and this led to me planning out the entire rest of the fic, Robin's origins as a genderswap retcon, Chaletwo forgetting about arrangements he made with Leah for reasons I can't for the life of me remember, Entei deciding on his own to spoil plot points I'd planned for chapter 75 (and for this I am grateful), some of my plans for Mitch from wayyyy before I started to figure out what was actually up with him, and me just being helplessly in love with everything Leah does.

Chapter 52: The League Finals (commentary)

On this week's chapter of The Quest for the Legends, we set the stage for the next chapter's cruel twist, Mark learns about souls, I set up for chapter 75 in another unexpectedly plotty conversation, Chaletwo is very determined that Mew would never lie to him ever, Taylor continues to be a tragically oblivious dork, I get to write seriously about the Raichu superclone I made up when I was twelve, Tyranitar assures us he is not weak, and I tell you about Alexander the League Champion.

Chapter 53: Away (commentary)

This week: the big one! The story's biggest twist and its aftermath happen as Mark and May grapple with emotions they're not sure how to deal with.

Chapter 53: Away (commentary)

All right, here's the actual chapter 53 commentary. Read to see me ramble about how much I love my characters as they suffer, the way I dropped the ball on Spirit, the bits that I edited after the initial publication thanks to Negrek, my original amazingly mood-whiplashy effort at That Scene as I wrote it in probably 2004 or 2005, my regrets about not doing better justice to Tyranitar here, and the delightful line "Everything is going to be fine, and then we can just forget this ever happened."

We are now caught up with the amount of commentary I've actually done so far, so I'll have to get going doing some more reading this week. Chapter 54's pretty short, though, so I don't expect that'll be a problem.

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.

Chapter 55: Unprepared (commentary)

In this chapter, everything is awkward, Alan reaches his breaking point, Chaletwo tries to comment on Mark's drawing skills, they search for some dragons in caves (not to be confused with the other time they search for some dragons in caves), Mark re-extends trust to Gyarados and debates death with Chaletwo, there is an uninspired battle where I forget about Dragoreen's terrible ability, and May introduces us to the Waterberg principle.

Chapter 56: The Ouen Safari (commentary)
Chapter 57: Three Conversations (commentary)

A couple of oddball chapters this week, one a weirdly fillery trip to the Ouen Safari where the Safari warden spontaneously turns out to be Robin Riverstone's mom, sparking the entire thing where Robin's a main character in chapters 63-71, and one a disconnected bottle episode where Chaletwo admits his plan is terrible, Alan is extremely awkward, and May has her first talk with Stantler.

Chapter 58: Sins of the Mother
Chapter 59: December

The next couple of chapters are up, featuring Letaligon's resolution (or lack thereof), paternity revelations and Mark's efforts to help his Pokémon be happy, geeky Pokédex functions, a type reveal, a distorted legend, Alan being incredibly awkward, and setup for chapter 60.

Chapter 60: The Swarm (commentary)

In this chapter, basically an honorary Scyther spinoff, Razor reunites with Stormblade, learns what happened in The Fall of a Leader, talks to Nightmare again, they talk past each other as she accidentally overturns his entire worldview, and Razor finally manages to start to let go of his self-loathing and finds a real reason to live.

Chapter 61: Mewtwo (commentary)
Chapter 62: Diplomacy (commentary)

In this week's chapters, Mark has no idea what Scyther is even talking about but is happy for him anyway, they meet Mewtwo thanks to that one disgruntled reader from 2005, we get some more actual plot hints and finally talk about Chalenor a little bit, Mark figures things out while Chaletwo is firmly in denial, Mewtwo recommends diplomacy, and the next legendary battle goes delightfully off the rails as Mark does attempt diplomacy and gets himself injured.

Chapter 63: Recovery (commentary)

In this week's commentary on the first post-NaNo chapter, I remind you of a dream I described on the Quest Blog where I dropped a genuine plot hint and made it sound like a random dream thing, discuss the spontaneous addition of Robin Riverstone to the main cast and my difficulties using her properly in the NaNo draft, poke at some of the questionable things here, tell you about the original plan where they just picked a mountain range at random, and complain that the May POV isn't as good as the May POV I wrote after fourteen months of thinking about May and her POV.

Chapter 64: Hide and Seek (commentary)

This week's commentary, now featuring probably more commentary than any previous commentary! In which we spend a chapter in May's head as she starts to crumble under the pressure of everything while Robin is hopelessly confused, and I show you graphs of my progression with the story and quotes from the fourteen months I spent mulling over everything before this chapter was finally published, finally get to compare different versions of the fic again with the NaNo draft, analyze basically everything May says or does because I spent fourteen months thinking about everything she says or does here, damn it, point out all my efforts to hint at how cold it is, and just generally wish we had more of May interacting with everyone because May.

Chapter 65: Three Dragons

In this unimaginatively titled chapter that somehow took me a year to edit, Mark's recovered, everyone's dispirited, Robin tries so hard to stay positive, the gang battle the male Color Dragons, and I comment a lot on how I changed things from the NaNo draft, where the battle was unbelievably cheap and made no sense.

Chapter 66: Doubts (commentary)

In this chapter, we learn about the Waraider herd (but Chaletwo doesn't know as much as in the draft), Robin arranges to look up a phone number with May so she can talk to her privately (unlike the draft, where May suggested they spam-call everyone they've met together), Alan has a breakdown (slightly better built up than in the draft), Mitch's eyes have turned blue-green (but I don't explicitly point this out like I did in the draft), and Mark and Alan have a heart-to-heart talking about their thoughts on training, releasing Pokémon, and Alan's inferiority complex (unlike the draft, where Alan and Charlie had a heart-to-heart while Mark stood there awkwardly and then quietly left).

Chapter 67: Friends (commentary)

This week's chapter of The Quest for the Legends was extremely bad in the NaNo draft, and as posted was less extremely bad but still pretty A-to-B as our heroes get back in contact with Leah (last seen in chapter 51), Victor (last seen in chapter 40) and Sparky (last seen in chapter 34) and prepare to see Carl (last seen in chapter 38). Meanwhile, Robin tries to confront May with not exactly the results that she wanted, I tell you about Robin's definitely real special connection to Rick, Mary's cameo is sadly cut, I manage to fix a mathfail, I fail to notice why Victor was actually being super-awkward until late in editing, I cut a bunch of overly complex logistics but keep the overly complex result of that whole thought process, and there is Sparky.

Chapter 68: Truths (commentary)

In this chapter, which in no way resembles its chapter plan or draft title, our heroes come clean with Carl in one of my favorite NaNo scenes, Carl manages to make everyone feel bad, and finally they get a reprieve with Sparky, who continues to be Sparky, and I correct a lingering typo.

Chapter 69: Lies

In this chapter, May continues to feel the pressure, we meet a boy capturing legendary Pokémon with math, Leah is Leah, and Robin and Victor each try to voice the concerns that they have but are shut down.

Chapter 70: Waraider (commentary)

In this chapter, HORSE FIGHT

(Also, Robin learns things were worse than she thought, May continues to feel bad, I mourn the loss of the reveal of Sparky's Swellow, and we learn exactly why Shadey once told me "Well, yes, you would make up a unicorn and then give it issues.")