Comments on The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 49: The Rage of a Scyther
Wow, I can't believe I missed those move uses while commenting on that. Thanks for clarifying!
[06/22/2024 02:46:00]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 77: Home
Well, that's it, huh? I'm glad I came back and found out how all of this ended after… 6 years of procrastinating? Yikes.
I've been following this fanfic since at least 2009, when I was banned from the Internet for a year and I'd go over to my friend's house to read tqftl and the Scyther spin-offs. It meant a lot to me as a kid who was also writing and repeatedly rewriting very messy stories that I was attached to. Reading this is has made me want to get back into writing that kind of stuff.
Here's to another 10 years before the next revision is finished.Reply: Aww, thank you! Glad you enjoyed coming back to it, silly as it often is.
[06/21/2024 17:07:03]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 74: Unraveling
"If you noticed immediately and spent the whole chapter wanting to reach through the screen and shout at them… well, then I failed." It worked on me, at least. I did not realize the implications of Rick potentially looking for them, and went "oh fuck, there were implications to Rick potentially following them" at the reveal. Then I felt stupid for not considering it, as I assume the characters did as well.
There's a lot going on and the goal has always been to get them all captured. I think it made sense for them to forget, though of course YMMV on this.
[06/14/2024 13:57:01]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 71: Shattered
Regarding the ball modification, in lore everything used to be acorn balls not that terribly long ago. Then modern Pokeballs came along - which I believe may all be produced by Silph Co who has a monopoly? - and by GSC, Kurt is the only person who still knows the ancient art of making acorn balls. I wonder if perhaps modern balls would be too tough to crack, but if they could instead research acorn balls. It's been a while since GSC/Kurt's time in the fic timeline, so he may have passed away by now. But could he have left notes? An apprentice?
Alternatively, there's plenty of stuff in real life that is extremely dangerous but very easy to make if you just go check out a library book and look into it. Like bombs. But people don't, because it's illegal and wrong.
[06/14/2024 12:10:54]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 70: Waraider
I think this is one of my favorite chapters. I'm also happy that I guessed the twist - partly based on what would be interesting, but I think there were also some pretty big hints in the last few chapters. Presumably the same hints that led to you determining what his deal was.
Waraider definitely does come off neurodivergent, maybe autistic. I think it does not seem like a stereotype. It's the type of thing that might feel more accurate with further exploration on your part to get it right, but I certainly wouldn't think of it as offensive or anything. Also, I think a lot of your characters have autistic traits. There are a lot of characters who struggle with socializing "correctly," who have very rigid thought processes, who alternate between quiet uncertainty and unintentionally being loud and annoying and then unsure why they were taken the wrong way. There's the way characters like Mark have particular interests they've been obsessed over for years. I've been finding it interesting to think about upon reading through the fic now, with more of an understanding of this stuff than I ever had in 2009 to… 2011? 2012? I think I stopped reading chapters as they came out sometime around the safari zone. The NaNo rewrites took a long time.
[06/13/2024 19:27:49]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 69: Lies
Regarding Chaletwo forgetting stuff, I wonder if Memenity, as the memory legendary, would have perfect recall.
"I gather it actually sounds odd regardless for him to actually call her "Miss Donaldson"." It really does. In the US at least, kids reserve that exclusively for teachers - maaaybe parents of friends if someone told them to do it to be polite.
[06/13/2024 17:12:23]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 66: Doubts
The scene with Mitch is so incredibly concerning as an adult who has read a lot of psychiatric advice on how to handle people who are or who could be suicidal. It makes sense for Mark, as a twelve-year-old, not to see how bad it is, especially with Chaletwo in his head sort of insisting it's fine. But yikes.
Also, Mark really is spending a pretty formative year of his life with *Chaletwo* of all people as his adult role model, huh?
[06/12/2024 17:05:05]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 65: Three Dragons
I forgot that Charizard mentioned the starter preparation here. That plays in well to my Quilava idea/theory I mentioned on the comments of the previous chapter.
", so then hopefully it won’t happen and you’ll all be unharmed.” I like that Mark has picked up on Chaletwo's uncertainty and mimics it here when it's really unhelpful to do so.
[06/12/2024 14:49:06]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 64: Hide and Seek
"This was also annoyingly unsubtle in the draft, with May explicitly wondering why she wasn't getting better." do you mean why he (mark) wasn't getting better? Or was draft-May wondering why she's not better at talking to Pokemon? It's just the commentary, but I was confused by it.
I like Dragonreen. The contrast with her sisters makes her interesting.
It's pretty cool to see a chapter that had so much editing work done on it. It's clear how much the benefit of having all of the chapters done impacted your ability to really make this one shine.
Also, I was thinking here when you were commenting on Charizard's reaction vs Floatzel's about how the loss of Quilava may have actually had a much bigger impact on May's character arc than she realizes or than the fic acknowledges. You mentioned in earlier commentary that Charizard, as a starter, has training on how to help trainers early in their journey, and while that barely comes up in the ILCOE, he does a few things as a Charmander that reflect this, such as punching the ball away from Eevee. Imagine if May had had Quilava with her to notice that she was mistreating Lapras and Tyranitar and have the background knowledge to actually help her work through that? I think it'd be interesting to hint at that idea in another rewrite. If Charizard was shown doing more to guide Mark as a starter Pokemon, I think that that would highlight the contrast more between Mark's journey versus May's.
Reply: Ohoho, that's a very good point about Quilava. Definitely would like to do something with that!
May was asking why she herself wasn't getting better (at being a better trainer/person). She's shaken after pointlessly taking her anger out on this random Pokémon which she knows was wrong, and that her actions freaked Charizard out to the point he's just thinking of when he can get back to Mark.
[06/12/2024 13:31:18]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 64: Hide and Seek
I really like that some of May's Pokemon, like Skarmory, *do* like her. It really highlights her complexity as a character - normally in a lot of media, everyone would like her but fight with her over her flaws, and then she'd get over them and they'd all continue being best friends.
It also highlights their individuality as characters, and not just as animals she happens to own.
[06/12/2024 11:49:24]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 60: The Swarm
In another comment I mentioned one of the things I find jarring about Scyther occasionally taking over the fic is that Mark barely reacts and is just completely uninterested in Scyther's character arc, when he really should be.
But reading this commentary I think another reason it's odd is that only a couple of Mark's Pokemon get even close to this much attention. If all of them got something like this, it wouldn't stand out so much. So in the rewrite it'll probably be a lot better since you'll be treating all of the main characters as people from the start.
[06/10/2024 16:48:35]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 59: December
This is such a good Stantler moment. I really like the impact she has on May, who has probably the best character arc of the fic, and catching Stantler is such a special part of that.
I don't think I really appreciated May back in like 2009 or whenever I first read TQftL, but I do now.
[06/10/2024 14:29:36]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 58: Sins of the Mother
I like the anticlimax of her father already being dead, and I agree that Letaligon's ending is probably better if she doesn't come back. However, the feeling I've always gotten from this chapter is not that she'll eventually get over this and live happily with her family, but that there's a lot of brand new tension and she may be going into a bad situation where she'll be miserable and purposeless. I think there should be some more here to hint that she'll be okay to really make it work. She just leaves miserably.
I think Mark noticing "something in that final look" was supposed to be that hint, but that's just Mark telling us his hopes. What *we* see when she gives him that look is that she's confused and sorrowful, making it look like Mark is optimistically misinterpreting her because he wants her to be okay.
[06/10/2024 13:43:12]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 54: Reunion
Even if May releases him right away and the records are deleted, the fact that she had a Tyranitar is very public information now, so you'd think she'd still at least get interviewed by the police.
[06/09/2024 13:33:48]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 53: Away
"'Or are they going to ask Tyranitar himself, and he’ll tell them I said he should die?' May paced off towards a nearby rock and leaned against it with one hand for a little while as she rubbed her forehead. Tyranitar glanced uncomfortably at Mark."
I didn't realize it on my first reread without commentary, but this really sets up Tyranitar's actual conversation with the police later.Reply: Funnily enough that wasn't actually decided on until quite a while after I wrote this chapter! But it is of course something that follows from it - Tyranitar gives himself up specifically hoping to make them think he just did it on his own and May's not responsible.
Thanks for all the commentary you've been making! Really enjoyed reading your comments, and lots of good points made. Hope you're enjoying the reread!
[06/08/2024 13:03:03]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 50: Friendly Competition
"It's a bit cheap how lucky Mark is getting with all this paralysis, isn't it?" He uses it a ton, so he could get lucky sometimes. Though it may happen in a couple of other battles too. Not sure.
[06/07/2024 02:17:04]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 49: The Rage of a Scyther
Also, these league battles with more experienced trainers like Michael is said to be here, as well as perhaps May's battles, could benefit from you trying some competitive Pokemon battling to get a sense of other types of strategies. There are definitely some good battles throughout the fic, but these move spam battles read more like you've mostly or only played the games, where spamming your strongest STAB move is really the only thing you need to do.
At least I've never seen you mention playing competitive.
[06/06/2024 15:11:05]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 49: The Rage of a Scyther
I also don't mind Mark's internal rambling about moves, but it does make it really apparent that he could get way more coverage moves than he ever does. If he had financial limitations, that would resolve that neatly, but he's never shown to. He just buys whatever he wants and then still never thinks about putting stuff like Ice Beam on his team, or giving more of his Pokemon Earthquake, or doing anything to cover Jolteon's weaknesses. Jolteon goes on with just Return as his only TM move for… maybe the entire fic? But even back in gen 3 he could've learned like, Iron Tail, Dig, Shadow Ball… plus a good number of supportive moves like Double Team. It's less glaring early on when you expect the Pokemon to not do all of that, and he's still refusing for like 40 chapters to look up their moves for some reason, but by the time we're multiple legendary battles into the fic and he's in the league buying up TMs, it's definitely odd.
Reply: He teaches Jolteon Shadow Ball, actually! He also teaches both Charizard and Letaligon Earthquake (they both use it in this chapter), plus Dragonite with Fire Punch and Thunderpunch, etc. Picking up a bunch of coverage moves here is like the one proactive thing he does do with his Pokémon's movesets. I prodded at the strategizing scene because it goes on for a long while contemplating a bunch of things back and forth and only some of it ends up relevant, not because he literally doesn't do any of it.
[06/06/2024 12:17:55]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 37: Carl
The part about reading that Dragonair is powerful and being disappointed actually directly contradicts a bit in an early chapter, which stated that trainers often expect to catch a psuedo legendary and then be strong, but that Dratini and Dragonair aren't actually strong at all, and that it actually takes a trainer who's already very good to bring them to their full potential and evolve into Dragonite. So having read/heard that (I forget which) should have set Mark's expectations.
[06/04/2024 10:47:44]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 36: The Crater
It's a bit odd in the hotel that Charizard can come out but Diamond can't.
[06/04/2024 01:29:52]