Negrek
Lost but Seeking
Given the update rate for this fanfic, I'd hoped I'd manage to review maybe once every three-four chapters.
So thaaaaaat's obviously been going well. But let's catch up again, and see what's been going on at least semi-recently!
Well, I was pretty much expecting Oranguru to either buy it or get infected, but I certainly handn't thought that was his objective from the beginning. (When Shane kept getting him to try and eat the berry and he said it would be a waste I was thinking, "Oh, does Oranguru have klutz as a hidden ability or something? I didn't remember that," oops.) Which, yeah, it's all kinds of messed up that Metagross would have sent them on that mission without letting them in on the little detail that it was all about Oranguru wanting to go and rest inpepperonis peace with his dead wife, but it's even more messed up that he was apparently pretending to be Incineroar the whole time he was corresponding with Oranguru. He just keeps getting sketchier as time goes on, doesn't he?
Of course there are entirely plausible non-sinister explanations as well. Like, I could see somebody pulling that nasty surprise on Shane and Tessa and earnestly think it was something that would help snap them out of their petty bickering and make them take their guild positions more seriously. It wouldn't be a good idea by any means, but people who are big on "toughening others up" can have some really questionable ideas of how it's appropriate to do so. And maybe Metagross was only playing Incineroar because he knew Oranguru was on his way out and didn't want to distress him by letting him know his old friend died. Again, not a good idea, but... I'm definitely interested in finding out what's up with the Guild's leadership. Is it really as sinister as it all sounds, or are Metagross' actions just misunderstood?
...at least partially misunderstood. Whatever the justification turns out to be, I think he's made some serious errors in judgement along the way.
Chapter 29 is probably my favorite of this batch. It's where everything finally comes to a head and Shane gets the kick in the pants he needs to realize what a dick he's been and how badly he's screwed things up, both for himself and for the people around him. It's great to see him start out the big conversation with Tessa as petty and adversarial as ever, and after having his big revelation shift to increasingly desperate attempts to talk Tessa through her problems, until after failing he's actually starting to hallucinate the accident again. This was a conversation that was a loooong time in coming, and I thought it turned out very satisfying when it did arrive.
The continued use of memories in this story is interesting. Shane's getting flashbacks not only of his human life, but of Solgaleo's memories as well... I wonder where they'll lead in the end, both sets of them. Especially considering the sometimes-unsettling parallels between Solgaleo's memories and what's up with Shane right now.
tbh I wasn't totally sold on Shane's birthday surprise pulling Tessa out of her funk and mending fences as much as it did. It does seem a little easy to me that one grand gesture like that is enough to repair as much as it did, given how messed up Tessa was. (Of course, Null helped too, and the scene between him and Tessa was very cute.) I didn't particularly want to see the team get dissolved or fall completely apart or anything, but I was expecting a bit of a rockier road to recovery, although I realize everything isn't 100% fine in later chapters. I did like that it tied in with one of Shane's memories, though, and one that actually went horribly wrong, and it was definitely cute to see the different guild members all pitching in with their various quirks.
And then onto the next infection-fighting arc! You are reeeeeally hyping up the weirdness with Metagross and Braviary here, and I'm definitely intrigued. tbh, the degree to which people are suggesting they're shady is almost making me think they're 100% innocent, heh. It was pretty frustrating for Lucario to say they "really are the scum of the earth" and then completely fail to explain what she meant. Surely if they're scum, and presumably dangerous, you want your daughter to defend herself against them, right? For which she's going to need to know what to watch out for, right? In which case you might want to actually tell her what's up? omg Lucario best parent
I was likewise really frustrated in Chapter 33 when Gallian was all "if you knew what was good for you you'd get as far away from the guild as possible" and mocking her for not having figured it out instead of just telling her what was wrong. So it was SO SATISFYING to have Shane butt in and demand an actual answer. Gallian is still frustratingly vague about a lot ("I have my own reasons for working for them" just spit. it. out. Gallian!), but it's nice to see we're moving at least a little bit away from the characters withholding information for sketchy reasons.
Returning to Chapter 32, this is kind of a shorty, isn't it? And essentially all exposition. It's interesting stuff overall--nice to get to see a bit more of Zero and characterization for Umbreon/Espeon. And Shane's odd ability, combined with his later godmode attack, make it sound almost like he's almost, like, Solgaleo in disguise, or something? Like he's going to eventually become powerful enough to take on his "true form," rather than that of a vulpix (just going by what Necrozma says at the end). But it's a little conflicting... his ability is clear body, which is Solgaleo's ability, but he was able to use Necrozma's Z-move. So is he actually an uncorrupted Solgaleo, which maybe Solaleo wanted brought to the world before Necrozma got him? And Necrozma is hen hoping to infect him later, possibly through him utilizing that Z-move power? Or is he already tied to Necrozma somehow, and the ability's a red herring of sorts?
And there's a lot more info in this chapter, too! It's pretty much all framed around fighting, which I think works pretty well; the fights themselves wouldn't be all that interesting without the dialogue going on throughout, but they add some energy to the chapter, so it's not just everyone standing around and talking. The highlight was really Tessa confronting Gallian, but there's more intriguing stuff thrown in there with the reference to Shane's ultra aura. It would defintely be pretty big if he were some weird incarnation of Solgaleo! But probably the same would be true for Necrozma, so.
And of course, Shane loses a ton of his fur again. Comfey had better get used to rolling out the extreme treatments for these guys; they're probably going to keep needing them. I enjoyed the conversation at the beginning of Chapter 34, where Tessa and Shane are super suspicious of Braviary but also trying not to read too much into what he's saying, and where they know they have to trust him to hold up his end of the mission in the end... A nice example of playing with the different levels of information that characters have, where Tessa and Shane are both freaked out and Braviary's just a little weirded out by how they're behaving, having no idea what they suspect him of.
I will say that Shane's crush on Espeon isn't something that's ever felt genuine to me. Like, he was obviously a fanboy about Espeon and Umbreon, but I wasn't really feeling the physical attraction aspect at all? It seems like I'm in one of those silly sitcom "everybody can see it but this one person" situations, haha. It's totally possible that I'm just bad at recognizing this kind of thing, but I didn't really get the sense of attraction on Shane's end when he was actually interacting with Espeon? Like, he was totally gushing when he was talking about her with other people. But with a crush I would have expected more tells to appear when Shane was actually interacting with the object of that crush... Like here Shane gets flustered when Espeon brings up the crush thing herself, but I'd kind of expect him to be distracted or off in the way he dealt with her, just on his own, and I didn't really see that, personally, here or in their previous encounters.
Espeon and Umbreon's defeat by literal deus ex machina was disappointing, although you get a bit of a pass for that since it's calling back to his mysterious looplet that you were no doubt hoping everyone had forgotten about by now and that it sets up an interesting thing with Solgaleo/Necrozma. As long as that kind of godmode save doesn't become a regular thing, it's no big deal.
And it *is* interesting, since it looks like Solgaleo/Necrozma may have some motivation of its own here. Is it just hoping to help with Zero's plan, and Shane is in some way either now or soon in the future going to be facilitating the draining of light from the world? Or is Necrozma maybe not so on board with Zero's plan (or at least not so on board with her being the one in charge) and hoping to build Shane up as a champion to thwart Zero or otherwise throw a wrench in the situation? I anticipate great drama ahead!
And of course you'd set the battle itself up so there really wasn't any way they could win without some kind of divine interaction. That moment when Espeon fired off a morning sun, ouch. Every gamer knows that feel, and of course it makes sense for Umbreon, especially, given that healing (albeit usually through wish) is kind of its thing. Setting the battle up to take advantage of the Entercards was a neat idea and obviously fits well with Espeon/Umbreon's characters. I thought it did get a little busy, though, with stuff zooming all over the place and additional wrinkles like Espeon's ice sculptures. I... didn't really know what was up with those. I thought they were supposed to be substitutes, but then all they seemed to do was explode, and in an offensive way? I'm not sure what attack is going on there (maybe... future sight?), and it was one more odd technique in the middle of a battle with a whole bunch of chaotic/unorthodox stuff going on.
Very curious to see what Espeon/Umbreon have to say now that they're uninfected, if they're in any state to be talking. After all the trauma they apparently went through with getting the life drained out of them, I doubt they can be feeling better about things after having gotten infected...
So at this point I'm thinking Zero has to be Lucario. What would have caused her to take that path? It seems obvious that Incineroar's death was a tipping point, but based on that one extra she was maybe not right in the head even long before that. So how did she end up in cahoots with Necrozma? And what was her objective in the first place, with the whole creepy second-family thing? Is this her going off the deep end at losing her "family" a second time?
I'm also intrigued by Gallian's claims that actually Shane had accidentally been correct, her mother DIDN'T love her. It's not clear to me whether he always thought that that was the case, or if it was a more recent development--he mentions her coming to him, ranting, after Incineroar's death, but was that just an escalation of something he'd always known/suspected was there, or totally new behavior? If the latter, I think it would be easier for him to write it off as a weird grief thing, but eh. Lucario seemed enamored enough in the extra we saw, but that was just a brief glimpse, and of course a lot may have changed. It's also totally possible Gallian's lying as part of an effort to separate Tessa from the guild, but Lucario's also been kind of a dick to her in their dream convos. I could see it going either way, really! One way or another I feel like there has to be something complicated and kind of tragic at the heart of Lucario's story, and I'm eager to find out more about it.
And why did she end up in Pokéworld in the first place? Do all humans arrive for some purpose, and if so what was hers? Is becoming Zero it, or is that some perversion of it? Or is it just some random, crazy chance (maybe the most tragic option of all)?
I guess I'm saying that what's the most interesting to me at the moment is Tessa's eternal family drama, haha. Which, considering it ties into the main plot, isn't a bad thing! One way or another I think poor Tessa and probably Gallian are in for a rough time of things as all the undoubtedly-ugly secrets come to light.
I'm not going to keep banging on it eternally, but I will say that the dialogue tags are still bothering me. Like, when you have something along the lines of, "'Couldn't've said it better myself, Dragonair,' Braviary complemented.", the "complimented" doesn't actually do anything to describe how the dialogue is being said, which is usually what a speech tag's for. All it does is tell you about the contents of the dialogue, i.e. that it's a compliment, which is clear from the actual... contents themselves. (Also, you want "complimeneted," not "complemented.") I think speech tags like those are redundant and also look strange, so they stick out a lot to me when I'm reading through.
Anyhow, I think this is a pretty solid set of chapters. Loads going on, both on a character level and with the overall plot, and it's definitely moving in an interesting direction. I'm wondering whether we'll get a bit of a lull now, after we've hit the climax on two major arcs (Shane and Tessa's relationship and Espeon/Umbreon), or if we're going to get slingshotted off to something else immediately, possibly Metagross/Braviary related. Or it's been a while since Special Episode, hasn't it? Whatever comes, I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun. I guess I don't really need to wish you luck with the updates, so... Keep it up, I guess?
So thaaaaaat's obviously been going well. But let's catch up again, and see what's been going on at least semi-recently!
Well, I was pretty much expecting Oranguru to either buy it or get infected, but I certainly handn't thought that was his objective from the beginning. (When Shane kept getting him to try and eat the berry and he said it would be a waste I was thinking, "Oh, does Oranguru have klutz as a hidden ability or something? I didn't remember that," oops.) Which, yeah, it's all kinds of messed up that Metagross would have sent them on that mission without letting them in on the little detail that it was all about Oranguru wanting to go and rest in
Of course there are entirely plausible non-sinister explanations as well. Like, I could see somebody pulling that nasty surprise on Shane and Tessa and earnestly think it was something that would help snap them out of their petty bickering and make them take their guild positions more seriously. It wouldn't be a good idea by any means, but people who are big on "toughening others up" can have some really questionable ideas of how it's appropriate to do so. And maybe Metagross was only playing Incineroar because he knew Oranguru was on his way out and didn't want to distress him by letting him know his old friend died. Again, not a good idea, but... I'm definitely interested in finding out what's up with the Guild's leadership. Is it really as sinister as it all sounds, or are Metagross' actions just misunderstood?
...at least partially misunderstood. Whatever the justification turns out to be, I think he's made some serious errors in judgement along the way.
Chapter 29 is probably my favorite of this batch. It's where everything finally comes to a head and Shane gets the kick in the pants he needs to realize what a dick he's been and how badly he's screwed things up, both for himself and for the people around him. It's great to see him start out the big conversation with Tessa as petty and adversarial as ever, and after having his big revelation shift to increasingly desperate attempts to talk Tessa through her problems, until after failing he's actually starting to hallucinate the accident again. This was a conversation that was a loooong time in coming, and I thought it turned out very satisfying when it did arrive.
Wait, so... Incineroar's NOT dead? Dangit, Braviary and Metagross, you need to watch more anime. He's not dead if you don't find the body, and doubly so if the only object left behind is an item of personal significance! And, hmm, this was at Glyphic falls... where Null is from, if I'm not mistaken..."I don't know," Tessa squeaked, her voice cracking again. "But, the next day, Braviary showed up, looking grimmer than I've ever seen him look. He told us that there had been an accident." Her body started to shake again. She grabbed her muddy scarf off the floor. "He said this scarf was all he and Metagross found when they went to look for Dad."
The continued use of memories in this story is interesting. Shane's getting flashbacks not only of his human life, but of Solgaleo's memories as well... I wonder where they'll lead in the end, both sets of them. Especially considering the sometimes-unsettling parallels between Solgaleo's memories and what's up with Shane right now.
tbh I wasn't totally sold on Shane's birthday surprise pulling Tessa out of her funk and mending fences as much as it did. It does seem a little easy to me that one grand gesture like that is enough to repair as much as it did, given how messed up Tessa was. (Of course, Null helped too, and the scene between him and Tessa was very cute.) I didn't particularly want to see the team get dissolved or fall completely apart or anything, but I was expecting a bit of a rockier road to recovery, although I realize everything isn't 100% fine in later chapters. I did like that it tied in with one of Shane's memories, though, and one that actually went horribly wrong, and it was definitely cute to see the different guild members all pitching in with their various quirks.
And then onto the next infection-fighting arc! You are reeeeeally hyping up the weirdness with Metagross and Braviary here, and I'm definitely intrigued. tbh, the degree to which people are suggesting they're shady is almost making me think they're 100% innocent, heh. It was pretty frustrating for Lucario to say they "really are the scum of the earth" and then completely fail to explain what she meant. Surely if they're scum, and presumably dangerous, you want your daughter to defend herself against them, right? For which she's going to need to know what to watch out for, right? In which case you might want to actually tell her what's up? omg Lucario best parent
I was likewise really frustrated in Chapter 33 when Gallian was all "if you knew what was good for you you'd get as far away from the guild as possible" and mocking her for not having figured it out instead of just telling her what was wrong. So it was SO SATISFYING to have Shane butt in and demand an actual answer. Gallian is still frustratingly vague about a lot ("I have my own reasons for working for them" just spit. it. out. Gallian!), but it's nice to see we're moving at least a little bit away from the characters withholding information for sketchy reasons.
Returning to Chapter 32, this is kind of a shorty, isn't it? And essentially all exposition. It's interesting stuff overall--nice to get to see a bit more of Zero and characterization for Umbreon/Espeon. And Shane's odd ability, combined with his later godmode attack, make it sound almost like he's almost, like, Solgaleo in disguise, or something? Like he's going to eventually become powerful enough to take on his "true form," rather than that of a vulpix (just going by what Necrozma says at the end). But it's a little conflicting... his ability is clear body, which is Solgaleo's ability, but he was able to use Necrozma's Z-move. So is he actually an uncorrupted Solgaleo, which maybe Solaleo wanted brought to the world before Necrozma got him? And Necrozma is hen hoping to infect him later, possibly through him utilizing that Z-move power? Or is he already tied to Necrozma somehow, and the ability's a red herring of sorts?
Heh. Grumpy gamer moments like this always make me smile.'Ugh, was it too much to ask to just get a nice, normal day for once? I officially take back all the bad things I ever said about the filler chapters and side quests in the games,' he mentally groaned.
And there's a lot more info in this chapter, too! It's pretty much all framed around fighting, which I think works pretty well; the fights themselves wouldn't be all that interesting without the dialogue going on throughout, but they add some energy to the chapter, so it's not just everyone standing around and talking. The highlight was really Tessa confronting Gallian, but there's more intriguing stuff thrown in there with the reference to Shane's ultra aura. It would defintely be pretty big if he were some weird incarnation of Solgaleo! But probably the same would be true for Necrozma, so.
And of course, Shane loses a ton of his fur again. Comfey had better get used to rolling out the extreme treatments for these guys; they're probably going to keep needing them. I enjoyed the conversation at the beginning of Chapter 34, where Tessa and Shane are super suspicious of Braviary but also trying not to read too much into what he's saying, and where they know they have to trust him to hold up his end of the mission in the end... A nice example of playing with the different levels of information that characters have, where Tessa and Shane are both freaked out and Braviary's just a little weirded out by how they're behaving, having no idea what they suspect him of.
I will say that Shane's crush on Espeon isn't something that's ever felt genuine to me. Like, he was obviously a fanboy about Espeon and Umbreon, but I wasn't really feeling the physical attraction aspect at all? It seems like I'm in one of those silly sitcom "everybody can see it but this one person" situations, haha. It's totally possible that I'm just bad at recognizing this kind of thing, but I didn't really get the sense of attraction on Shane's end when he was actually interacting with Espeon? Like, he was totally gushing when he was talking about her with other people. But with a crush I would have expected more tells to appear when Shane was actually interacting with the object of that crush... Like here Shane gets flustered when Espeon brings up the crush thing herself, but I'd kind of expect him to be distracted or off in the way he dealt with her, just on his own, and I didn't really see that, personally, here or in their previous encounters.
Espeon and Umbreon's defeat by literal deus ex machina was disappointing, although you get a bit of a pass for that since it's calling back to his mysterious looplet that you were no doubt hoping everyone had forgotten about by now and that it sets up an interesting thing with Solgaleo/Necrozma. As long as that kind of godmode save doesn't become a regular thing, it's no big deal.
And it *is* interesting, since it looks like Solgaleo/Necrozma may have some motivation of its own here. Is it just hoping to help with Zero's plan, and Shane is in some way either now or soon in the future going to be facilitating the draining of light from the world? Or is Necrozma maybe not so on board with Zero's plan (or at least not so on board with her being the one in charge) and hoping to build Shane up as a champion to thwart Zero or otherwise throw a wrench in the situation? I anticipate great drama ahead!
And of course you'd set the battle itself up so there really wasn't any way they could win without some kind of divine interaction. That moment when Espeon fired off a morning sun, ouch. Every gamer knows that feel, and of course it makes sense for Umbreon, especially, given that healing (albeit usually through wish) is kind of its thing. Setting the battle up to take advantage of the Entercards was a neat idea and obviously fits well with Espeon/Umbreon's characters. I thought it did get a little busy, though, with stuff zooming all over the place and additional wrinkles like Espeon's ice sculptures. I... didn't really know what was up with those. I thought they were supposed to be substitutes, but then all they seemed to do was explode, and in an offensive way? I'm not sure what attack is going on there (maybe... future sight?), and it was one more odd technique in the middle of a battle with a whole bunch of chaotic/unorthodox stuff going on.
Very curious to see what Espeon/Umbreon have to say now that they're uninfected, if they're in any state to be talking. After all the trauma they apparently went through with getting the life drained out of them, I doubt they can be feeling better about things after having gotten infected...
So at this point I'm thinking Zero has to be Lucario. What would have caused her to take that path? It seems obvious that Incineroar's death was a tipping point, but based on that one extra she was maybe not right in the head even long before that. So how did she end up in cahoots with Necrozma? And what was her objective in the first place, with the whole creepy second-family thing? Is this her going off the deep end at losing her "family" a second time?
I'm also intrigued by Gallian's claims that actually Shane had accidentally been correct, her mother DIDN'T love her. It's not clear to me whether he always thought that that was the case, or if it was a more recent development--he mentions her coming to him, ranting, after Incineroar's death, but was that just an escalation of something he'd always known/suspected was there, or totally new behavior? If the latter, I think it would be easier for him to write it off as a weird grief thing, but eh. Lucario seemed enamored enough in the extra we saw, but that was just a brief glimpse, and of course a lot may have changed. It's also totally possible Gallian's lying as part of an effort to separate Tessa from the guild, but Lucario's also been kind of a dick to her in their dream convos. I could see it going either way, really! One way or another I feel like there has to be something complicated and kind of tragic at the heart of Lucario's story, and I'm eager to find out more about it.
And why did she end up in Pokéworld in the first place? Do all humans arrive for some purpose, and if so what was hers? Is becoming Zero it, or is that some perversion of it? Or is it just some random, crazy chance (maybe the most tragic option of all)?
I guess I'm saying that what's the most interesting to me at the moment is Tessa's eternal family drama, haha. Which, considering it ties into the main plot, isn't a bad thing! One way or another I think poor Tessa and probably Gallian are in for a rough time of things as all the undoubtedly-ugly secrets come to light.
I'm not going to keep banging on it eternally, but I will say that the dialogue tags are still bothering me. Like, when you have something along the lines of, "'Couldn't've said it better myself, Dragonair,' Braviary complemented.", the "complimented" doesn't actually do anything to describe how the dialogue is being said, which is usually what a speech tag's for. All it does is tell you about the contents of the dialogue, i.e. that it's a compliment, which is clear from the actual... contents themselves. (Also, you want "complimeneted," not "complemented.") I think speech tags like those are redundant and also look strange, so they stick out a lot to me when I'm reading through.
Anyhow, I think this is a pretty solid set of chapters. Loads going on, both on a character level and with the overall plot, and it's definitely moving in an interesting direction. I'm wondering whether we'll get a bit of a lull now, after we've hit the climax on two major arcs (Shane and Tessa's relationship and Espeon/Umbreon), or if we're going to get slingshotted off to something else immediately, possibly Metagross/Braviary related. Or it's been a while since Special Episode, hasn't it? Whatever comes, I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun. I guess I don't really need to wish you luck with the updates, so... Keep it up, I guess?