Comments on The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
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CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 34: Return to Cleanwater
"Speak of the devil" is technically inherently negative, but people use it in a friendly way with some regularity due to lack of a better phrase.
“I need a Water and Ice Pokémon in my team,” May muttered. “There are Fire and Dragon Pokémon all over the League and…” This stuff with May spitting out random justifications instead of accepting that she's upset and hurt is really realistic and makes for good character growth and I like it. And it's really interesting that Alan tries to argue to what she's literally saying but it doesn't work because it's not what she means.
Wasn't either that Manectric or Elektrike intended at one point to become Raikou's chosen and get captured by Alan? I can't remember where you said that.Reply: You probably already got to it, but what you're thinking of comes up in the chapter 51 commentary, where Entei explains the Chosen:
Background thing that I came up with at some point but never actually made canon: the Electrike whose mother they accidentally killed in chapter 34 may have been one of Raikou's potentials. The main reason I came up with this is that I thought it was thematically neat, and deliciously cruel, if Alan almost ended up with one of Raikou's potentials too, but whoops things aren't that neat, Electrike doesn't actually want human help and probably dies, and Alan gets no special Pokémon after all. It is kind of an unbelievable coincidence that Alan would almost get it too, though. I doubt I would ever actually make this canon, but if you enjoy the idea, please imagine this was the case.
[06/04/2024 00:21:02]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 33: Thunderyu
Perish Song is another problematic move. I think Curse or poison would honestly be fine if you just say the legendaries have tons of HP - like a boss battle where you have status effects chipping away at the boss and it does help but it's still ultimately the attack damage that is doing the bulk of the work.
In the Pokemon games, legendaries have pretty normal amounts of HP, but you're already presenting them as bosses that need 6-30 Pokemon to take them down, so of course status moves would not automatically win.
It'd make the battles more interesting honestly if they spent more time doing literally anything except their most damaging moves. For example, why can't they use stat-boosting moves just before some of these fights? You could get a lot of mileage out of exploring movesets more in these fights.Reply: Yeah, as I mentioned in the commentary, the problem there is mainly May explicitly acting like Spirit pulling off Curse is just going to solve all their problems and be a foolproof way to beat Thunderyu in the equivalent of four turns like in the games, when I should have just made it not be able to do that. When May does canonize the idea that all they'd need to do is pull off Curse and stall a bit, that's when I get awkwardness where they have to just somehow forget about this possibility except just when they're too late to pull it off.
[06/03/2024 21:13:25]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 32: The Birthday Party
"I will, of course, go on to not have this exception for Thunder Wave at the League later, because I am the most consistent"
Ah, I found where you knew the Thunder Wave usage was inconsistent after all. Based on when each of these battles happened, it looks like this is most likely because Thunder Wave was effective on Volt Absorb Pokemon in gen 3, but not in gen 4 - with these battles being written during gen 3, and the league battles being written during gen 4. So you probably just looked it up each time and didn't notice that it had changed.Reply: Ha! I never realized that was why, but that does make a lot of sense, actually. I always thought I'd just sort of arbitrarily decided to make an exception in the earlier chapters for some reason and had then forgotten about it.
[06/03/2024 20:30:48]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 31: Spirit
This is one of the times where you have Thunder Wave work against a Volt Absorb Lanturn, but in a later chapter it doesn't work (I commented on that chapter).
I think it also worked against Marge's Lanturn, but I forgot to check.
"The big question then, though, would be exactly how Spirit gets her final blessing from Entei." Does Entei not have any way to find his potentials? Surely he does because any of them could move at any moment, unless he was just planning to continually search all of Johto to look for them whenever he wants to check up on one who happens to not be where he expected. I know he's not psychic, but the energy he puts into the potentials is his energy, so I'd buy that he can just detect it.
Alternatively, Spirit could tell Entei she's leaving with May to Ouen.
There's still the question of Entei getting to Ouen at all, but I'm sure he could figure it out.
[06/03/2024 17:51:29]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 31: Spirit
This is one of the times where you have Thunder Wave work against a Volt Absorb Lanturn, but in a later chapter it doesn't work (I commented on that chapter).
I think it also worked against Marge's Lanturn, but I forgot to check.
[06/03/2024 16:14:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 29: Stormblade and Shadowdart
It honestly is believable that Mark would accidentally call the paramedics doctors at least.
The Abra helping the paramedics is a really interesting throwaway world building detail.
I wish Mark or anyone reacted to Scyther's drama. One of the big things that makes it feel irrelevant is that in-universe no one else cares or does anything. It's always odd in general when Mark just watches some Pokemon have a long conversation or scene which he could easily participate in but he just doesn't do anything or have any thoughts about it.
[06/03/2024 15:42:30]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 28: Scyther's Revenge
I do like Fury even though he doesn't end up mattering - but it fits okay alongside other random trainers Mark encounters as part of his journey. It'd be cool to see anything more come of it. It's the type of thing you'll see in book 1 of something that then becomes much more significant in a sequel.
I don't believe this happens but it would be cool to see Scyther make a promise somewhere near the end to show his character growth.
[06/03/2024 15:09:36]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 27: Past, Present and Future
Skarmory is already present in Johto. Did May just want a lower level one and right away? I'm curious how long that trip was just to get one Pokemon. I don't recall Ouen's location relative to Johto coming up.
Also, Scyther's suicidal feelings are pretty decently written and plausible for his situation, the angst is just over the top - which presumably wouldn't be the case if you write it again while not being 15. I would just note that often the most suicidal people don't tell anyone how they feel, so the part where Scyther is often very eager to explain how suicidal he was and still is comes off as odd. It'd be more likely for Mark or someone else to need to convince him to talk about it. Also, people don't always make attempts to commit suicide when they're at their worst. It's actually more likely that in your most depressed moments, you are suicidal but don't have the energy to do it. Instead, once you start to feel a bit better, that's when you paradoxically have the energy to try. It's a huge risk when people go on anti-depressants and is one of the reasons they're supposed to he watched closely by someone they trust early on with a new medication - the anti-depressants may make them feel better enough that they can manage to kill themselves. Those are the things I'd suggest taking into consideration for the rewrite.
[06/03/2024 13:21:40]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 26: Dead or Alive
What is the point of mentioning the animal world idea at all meant to be here? Sure, it's vaguely interesting, but it doesn't actually affect anything, since no animals ever appear in the fic, Mark never thinks about this again until the random part explaining more about it being destroyed, and humans being alongside Pokemon doesn't really require any particular explanation since it's already part of the world you're writing a fanfic about. If it's here at all it'd maybe be better mentioned as just a one-sentence aside, since it does nothing.Reply: At the time I wrote this chapter I had zero idea what was actually going to be relevant to the plot and what wasn't, and also had no real sense of streamlining narrative in general. I'd come up with this worldbuilding to explain why humans in the Pokémon world are like our world's humans despite there being no other animals and Pokémon being very different sorts of creatures, so I wanted to include it in the fic; my thought process didn't go much further than that.
[06/03/2024 11:22:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Pokémon Festival – May 25th: Chaletwo's Arrival
I thought you'd comment on it here, but I'm still confused about why they can only talk when Mark's dead. Chaletwo handwaves it by just saying someone could otherwise always overhear, but 1. someone could overhear Mark talking to May, Alan, and others later about the War, yet Chaletwo never cares about that, and 2. both Chaletwo and Molzapart can speak to people psychically anyway, which presumably can't possibly be overheard.Reply: I just wanted Chaletwo to kill Mark and then handwaved a reason he supposedly had to; it never made much sense.
[06/03/2024 11:16:20]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 16: The Third Badge
The buying antidotes would still make sense if it was just security for the future now that her and Charmeleon have been traumatically poisoned once. Though I guess the idea is that Scorplack venom wouldn't be helped by an antidote at all.
[06/01/2024 13:46:21]
CuriousJolteon
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 16: The Third Badge
The buying antidotes would still make sense if it was just security for the future now that her and Charmeleon have been traumatically poisoned once. Though I guess the idea is that Scorplack venom wouldn't be helped by an antidote at all.Reply: In chapter 14 May specifically said it was for the Mitch fight, though, which then turned out to be nonsense because you can't use items in the gym battle anyway - that's what I was commenting on.
[06/01/2024 13:33:24]
Nat
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 74: Unraveling
Damn, damn, I was so convinced that Rob was going to be killed. Deliberately this time. He said he’d sooner die or release Mew, and everyone was so desperate, and it was all falling apart and I thought someone might actually order a Pokemon to attack and kill Rob. And then they’d need to deal with that too. I had such a feeling of dread.
On a related note tho. I think my favorite part of TQFTL is the incredibly messy fallout of Tyler Lancaster’s death. Neither Tyler nor Rick are really good people, they do a lot of really, really dubious things, like hypnotizing law enforcement and treating Pokemon as tools more than partners.
And like. May is a much better and more fair battler, everyone agrees. But if this were the Pokemon anime, there’d probably be an extended arc around how treating your Pokemon as friends is a far superior strategy towards pushing them to win. But also everyone still viewed her are objectively the better trainer, and they’re not wrong but she’s still a kid. She’s twelve. She’s twelve and the police never listen to her and everyone is calling her a murderer, judging her, saying ‘you should have known better! You should never have let this happen! This is all your fault!’
And they’re not wrong, she did play a major part in it happening but. She’s 12 and the world is ending and everyone is calling her a murderer, and she’d never been the most friendly or likable kid before but no one wants to be a murderer. And at 12, that’s gotta mess you up.
I really love the conflicting morality in TQFTL. Robin and Alan want to do the morally correct thing, but in doing so come off as not seeing the big picture, or unempathetic towards how this whole ordeal affected May. Chaletwo wants to save the world, but he’s also so terrified of dying. Mark got caught up in something so much bigger than himself.
I think Alan and May’s character development is amazing, too. It’s sad they haven’t entirely made up, but I’m delighted Alan apologized for how he acted towards May.
Also did not realize you releases a slightly edited version. Hopping over there now— so excited to at last read the ending!Reply: <3 Thank youuu, I really appreciate comments like these!
[06/23/2022 10:38:10]
Nat
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Prologue
So here I am. I legitimately don’t recall the last year I read a chapter of this story— probably 2014 or 2015 at the very latest. But recently I was hit with the urge to reread a couple old Pokemon fanfics I loved, and I heard this one had been completed. So I wanted to read it from start to finish.
Before I get started, tho, I wanted to say congratulations. It’s difficult to finish a story, requiring a lot more than just motivation. You did something amazing, and deserve to feel proud for it. I can’t wait to re-experience the whole tale, complete.Reply: Aw, thank you! <3 Only saw this now, but if you're still making your way through it, I just put up a slightly edited version that fixes various minor things and also has an improved version of chapter 76 - probably you'll want to swap over to that one.
[06/09/2022 12:23:21]
RandomReader
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 29: Stormblade and Shadowdart
Late, but just a thought - couldn't "slaves" serve as a replacement for the use of the term "robots"? Perhaps it would be redundant with the use of "slave" later in the chapter, but then again, they're far enough apart it sounds okay when I think about it.Reply: Yeah, definitely! That was one of the changes I made in the ILCOE patch version I just put up, which makes many such line edits I talk about wanting to change in the commentary.
[06/08/2022 01:24:50]
ShadowKaiserin
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 57: Three Conversations
Fun Fact, this was the very first chapter of this fic I ever read. Yes, I know that's terrible, but I don't give a damn about spoilers and I was hooked from the first paragraph. Original fake Pokemon? Pokemon death? Named character death that everyone apparently has PTSD about? Oh Boy! I needed to read this from the beginning right away. Nine years later, I still get a warm nostalgic feeling whenever I get to this chapter. What a snapshot of these characters!Reply: Aw, thank you for sharing that! Brightened my evening to (finally) see these comments - thrilled you're coming back to the fic.
[11/28/2020 15:13:22]
ShadowKaiserin
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Ouen League – Chapter 49: The Rage of a Scyther
I fully admit that the League arc chapters are the ones I come back to the most, and for a silly reason. I love the strategizing that goes on in them. Mark mulling over weakness-countering moves for his team in this chapter is so relatable, I absolutely have a notebook somewhere with a team weakness list just like that written down for all my teams. Love this arc, love this chapter, love that little stream of conscious strategizing section.
[11/28/2020 07:30:38]
Iveechan
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: Chapter 53 Extra: April Fools
Not sure what I like more, both versions having Taylor falling on his back or the fact you snuck a "questioned" in there like from the earlier chapters.
[05/19/2020 14:54:09]
Seren
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 74: Unraveling
Well, I was definitely fooled, because I assumed Rick's Mewtwo² was just a clone of a clone and never seriously considered it an actual legendary that might be affected by the War. I'd also thought that if that WERE the case, then not only would they have to catch all the legendaries, but then they'd have to make sure Rick didn't have a single one of his clones out at the exact right moment also, and there was just no way they'd know when that was going to be. (I was also swept up by thinking of Rick and the War as two separate threats, though, too, so consider that a success.)
Honestly this is probably my favorite chapter after confronting Rick. It really does build this looming feeling of tension and dread, the Mew Hunter twist was actually pretty clever, and that feeling of "wait, was that the pulse?!?!" and the immediately following "oh no something is very wrong" was a fantastic climax.
[09/16/2019 04:05:12]
Seren
Story: The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter: The Final Stretch – Chapter 72: Rick
I'd just like to say, this is my favorite chapter in the fic. I distinctly remember reading this the night it came out (very early morning?) and then being absolutely mortified at Floatzel being murdered, and then Spirit too (despite the fact that they were quickly revealed to still be alive in the narrative, because I couldn't shake the feeling that, no, this particular author would totally leave that as a morbid twist for the next chapter). I'm really glad they survive, and I really like the but where Weavile only attacks after seeing Floatzel injured, but very few fic moments had left me in that sort of horrified shock.
[09/01/2019 22:58:59]