KnownParadox
Not a sphere
- Location
- Canada
Mawile thing over on questionable questing, joined Team Rocket.
A Backwards Grin (Pokemon) (Mawile SI)
- Thread starter Flairina
- Start date
- Location
- Moria
I think I'd accept mawile staying with Paul for a while or even rest of fic if she manages to convert him somewhat. Show enough intelligence to become a Lieutenant at least in his mind and somewhat change his training methods/abusive behavior. (I doubt he could suppress his pride enough to accept a pokemon as a co-captain.)
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
I think it's sort of because they aren't children? Like, maybe as an informed trait, but it has about as much impact on the reader as the color of their eyes because it just never comes up or gets focused on. Most characters get maybe one or two lines of direct characterization, and the rest is what can be gleaned from their actions in the story, so for most people antagonists are just the bad guys, and the people who are looking at the story from a more focused point of view see them doing that and go 'these guys are kids, the people in the comments are psychopaths' (again with that word, sorry).
Bullies get it especially bad because their role in the story is to have a negative personality, so if you remove the context from them (or, more likely, fail to establish it in the first place), then their entire purpose in the story is just to be hateful jerks without anything else to focus on. They only exist to be thrown down, so the people in the comments want that, even if the fancy word-trappings ostensibly surrounding the character that the readers don't care about cast throwing them down as kind of sketchy.
Or, to put that legibly, readers aren't perpetually angry, they're just normal people, with normal levels of sympathy and restraint and stuff. They react to what a character has been established to be. Most characters are ostensibly a lot of things, but writers only focus on establishing a character as one or two things. The reason why the reader's reaction appears to be disproportionate is because to them Paul isn't fourteen years old or whatever, Paul is Animal Abuse years old. Their favorite thing isn't strong pokemon, it's hurting pokemon. What's in their pants? Evil.
They don't ignore that Paul is about this tall, it's just that no-one ever told them:
KnownParadox
Not a sphere
- Location
- Canada
I can't believe Paul is fuckin' minuscule. Look at him! He's so short! I'd pat him on the head if I didn't know I would get eviscerated!
Takareer
Words and feathers
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Thank you for staying the course rather than giving in to impatient fans. Some amount of listening to readers IS necessary, but I've found that too much of it leads to very unhappy authors, which in turn leads to neglected, fading-in-quality stories.
- Location
- Canada, probably
Huh. The artists really went out of their way to give him a non-child appearance. The eyebrows alone belong to a 40-year-old man who watches too many talk shows and complains about the "libs." I seriously didn't know he was supposed to be 14.
Not that I think that's any sort of excuse. A terrible person is a terrible person. "Boys will be boys" is bullshit.
Not that I think that's any sort of excuse. A terrible person is a terrible person. "Boys will be boys" is bullshit.
I could actually see Mawile sticking around long term. Sure right now Mawile is only sticking around for a way out of the forest but once they're out of the forest and Mawile is healed up she may just realize how much more powerful she's become and the free meals make it worth sticking around.
Well as long as Paul becomes less of an asshole, maybe she'll just start being an asshole back as part of her, 'get Paul to release her plan' and everyone will learn a valuable moral lesson or something and get some character growth.
Well as long as Paul becomes less of an asshole, maybe she'll just start being an asshole back as part of her, 'get Paul to release her plan' and everyone will learn a valuable moral lesson or something and get some character growth.
Yeah, seriously... fanfic authors in general can get lost on the revenge nature of fics.
There's this one author who has a MASSIVE hate on for Rin from Fate, and after having their alt verse beat her with a shovel, drive her nuts, and kill her... they went on to rub it in the face of Canon Rin in a sidestory, just how wrong she was for being a young Magus. Which are, admittedly grey to black characters, but when I pm'd the author that maybe they were taking the whole thing a bit far, I got a hateful, angry response about how that there was no reason to be nice to Rin while Sakura got screwed over by the creators to 'continually give Canon Rin spotlight and that it was too bad for Rin *Spits*'
That beating up on a fictional teenager because you don't like what happened to another fictional teenager is perfectly mature and reasonable. Yeah, I dropped that conversation and that fic like fire ants.
You're tough to read sometimes, Flairina, but you're at least more reasonable about usage of character suffering. It's for a reason, at least.
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
Ah, I remember that author. Personally, I didn't have too much of an issue with that fic (although I admit I dropped it somewhere between the shovel and the murder), but I really disliked the Fate/Zero cross, which used an edgy future version of Ayame. The author claimed that said edgy character was not intended to be morally justified in her actions, but when the narrative rewarded the character for said unjust behavior, I just had to call foul.
I think the biggest problem is that the author was soapboxing about the moral problems of the setting without giving it a chance for a fair discussion.
SmashQueen
Professional duck-cat.
Huh. Had no idea that was a thing. Don't frequent QQ. Wouldn't have mentioned the rockets if I'd known.
No idea what happens next in the anime, so no more guesses on the future for now. Probably wouldn't help anyhow. Flair SIs are nails and the outcome of events are unpredictable at first outside of a few general "yeah that might happen" moments.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Is there going to be additional character depth for Paul in this story or is Paul's character going to stay the same?
FoolsandTools
Post-Depression Panic
- Location
- Spiritually Lost
It'll probably take a rough canon path (or maybe not, because the si will change things for better or worse) and he'll learn to be a better person after competition with ash and the pokemon league for a while, and he's closer to "not a jerk" as opposed to a "nice person". But it would take time, certainly not quick enough to justify sticking around. But he does get better. Or at least he can, again fanfic you dont know whats gonna happen.
The biggest thing is he needs some humble pie. But people react to that differently depending on the circumstance. Whether he will acknowledge his faults, ignore his loss or deflect responsibility and dig a bigger hole for himself is a gamble. Like Bakugo from Hero Academia basically.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
Sadly, when I first posted I noted that the eating pokemon focus tends to indicate stories that go past my tolerance for darkness, and Paul's 'training' so far has pushed this to the very edge of that tolerance.
So, to clarify my own position on the current events:
I am an angry person. I have to work to keep myself from getting overly mad about things, and that includes holding in a desire to damage things or hurt creatures when I am upset with them.
I also tend to get empathetic with characters that are in bad situations. Which means my mind very quickly goes to "end them", regardless of if that is a good idea for the character or not.
I could not write a good SI with a plot approaching this one, because given monster powers and a complete disconnect from my current life I think that I likely would go slasher villain mad.
As a result, I have poor tolerance for stories that have people put into situations I feel they should escape from, and almost no capacity to not go for the fatal outcomes for situations that are actively harmful to them.
So this arc is going to be a very rough thing for me to try and read. The longer the SI is stuck in the environment established last chapter the less I will be able to mentally accept that they remain in that state, or an outcome that doesn't end in deaths.
This does not mean I think that only death is the correct outcome. Just that my own mind does not handle people having to endure such treatment well.
So, to clarify my own position on the current events:
I am an angry person. I have to work to keep myself from getting overly mad about things, and that includes holding in a desire to damage things or hurt creatures when I am upset with them.
I also tend to get empathetic with characters that are in bad situations. Which means my mind very quickly goes to "end them", regardless of if that is a good idea for the character or not.
I could not write a good SI with a plot approaching this one, because given monster powers and a complete disconnect from my current life I think that I likely would go slasher villain mad.
As a result, I have poor tolerance for stories that have people put into situations I feel they should escape from, and almost no capacity to not go for the fatal outcomes for situations that are actively harmful to them.
So this arc is going to be a very rough thing for me to try and read. The longer the SI is stuck in the environment established last chapter the less I will be able to mentally accept that they remain in that state, or an outcome that doesn't end in deaths.
This does not mean I think that only death is the correct outcome. Just that my own mind does not handle people having to endure such treatment well.
The Grey Mage
Certified Team Flare Hater
- Location
- Parallel Universe 43-j
There's a difference between 'Boys will be boys' and a kid being cruel because they aren't taught otherwise.
A lot of Paul's negative behavior can be explained by the fact that he left home at the age of ten and has spent four years traveling the wilderness. Most of his interactions with others have likely been in the form of battles and transactions.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
That does seem to be something of a trend with me... side effect of that just being what I find the most entertaining to read and write, I suppose. No matter the fact that I'm doing all this to myself, starting myself in a terrible situation from the get go and attempting to get out of it feels more interesting to me than the more typical SI/isekai plots, which oftentimes don't start with a particularly defined goal. If nothing else, it's an easy way to drive the plot forward.
I also haven't died yet, which isn't something that can be said of either of my other two SIs. Sadly, this really is probably the nicest I've been to myself in any piece of writing I've publicly published thus far.
Ash and Paul couldn't be paid to travel together. The former might be willing to at least try, but the latter would ditch him at the first opportunity.
Fair point. I suppose it is pretty easy to forget that Paul is like 5 foot nothing, if that, especially given the role he's playing here (and the fact that that's still 2 and a half times Mawile!me's current height).
I'm sure that many people have roughly this same attitude with Mawile - you'd really think Paul and I would get along better.
And thank you for being patient.
I change my stories to an extent based on reader feedback (that's a large part of why it's there, after all), but something that makes readers happy in the short term does not necessarily make for a good plot later down the line. Hence, priorities must be balanced, which I'll do my best to accomplish in a satisfactory manner here.A character that is meant to be almost perpetually angry, dismissive, and/or smug tends to end up with a character design to match. Though maybe if he hadn't spent the last four years wandering around in the wilderness, someone could have convinced him to maybe pluck his eyebrows a bit before they started overtaking the top of his eyeballs.
Well, keep in mind that while traveling large distances, one does not generally pack a ton of food - where the heck Brock is always getting the ingredients to make a whole stew and serve enough poke-food for literally every Pokemon present is something of a mystery. Not that Paul doesn't feed his Pokemon (he does, we've seen him do it, if briefly), but the "meals" may not be worth much in that equation.
Right... and I would hope that it helps on at least some level that the character suffering is usually me. Makes it clear I'm not hating on a character just to hate on them, at least. ^_^;
Me neither. I only know about it because it was discussed earlier on in this thread (or the SB one? possibly both). Don't think you can even read it without a QQ account in fact, as I haven't been able to find it on a cursory search.
Depends on how much screen time Paul is planned to get - you'll see soon enough.
Probably, yeah. Paul's biggest dose of that in canon was probably his match against Brandon, where his entire six-man team got beaten into the dust without taking any of Brandon's own pokemon out (and of which he only used three). After that, Paul actually did seem to get somewhat less rude, as well as after Ash's six-on-six match with him soon afterwards I think (even though Paul won that with four Pokemon remaining, it was also the first time he took Ash completely seriously, and he actually seemed to enjoy the battle somewhat). Unfortunately, that was over 125 episodes in, after the seventh gym, so... not happening anytime soon if things continue as they were originally going to.
I guess it doesn't help that I can only update so fast, and am trying (albeit failing) to focus on other fics at the same time. If it helps, next chapter should contain significantly less rough treatment.
Oh, and for anyone wondering, I changed Chapter 4's title from "Locking Horns" to "Spitting Blood", which seemed a more appropriate idiom to use here. I may reuse the original title at some point - possibly even for next chapter, where it was originally supposed to go anyways - so don't get confused if you see it again.
Battleship_Fusou
(The Itty-Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty)
- Location
- Surigao Strait
I agree with and support this change, Flairina. I think that Locking Horns should instead be saved for the final (and inevitable) battle (of wills) between Paul and Flairile.
The Grey Mage
Certified Team Flare Hater
- Location
- Parallel Universe 43-j
The most commonly used fanon is that they can store items like they do Pokémon.
That idea is supported by the item storage system in the games, and by how much can be stored in the item bag.
Last edited:
- Location
- Here
And that works quite nicely as an explanation for food in particular (most other things are plausibly just small, such as medical kits with a few potions and such). Either it's a stasis effect and food stays fresh for a long time, or Brock just makes a point of getting a few weeks worth of canned and dry goods whenever they pass through a settlement.
Unseelie
(Verified True Fae)
- Location
- Tír fo Thuinn
I mean... I met enough people where that wouldn't be a clear indication, but that's nice to hear.
Had to look that guy up - he has three legendaries? What the fuck?
Oh, I like that one, far better than SIwile.
- Location
- Canada, probably
Flairile is a little too good. This is the first Flairina story I've read, and my brain keeps insisting the author's name is Flairile.
- Location
- America
Should I just post a link to the Pocket Rocket story at this point? It has all of what, two lewd scenes, and it's only about 60 thousand words. With it being a Chibi-Reaper story, it's more than likely going to die a quiet death, considering it's on page 4 of 8 of their threads.
- Location
- Here
Are you allowed to link to QQ from here? I feel like I've seen something about a two-link guideline (that is, don't link to something that links to something explicit). I may be misremembering, though; I can't find it in the rules.
- Location
- Here
Sorry for the confusion. I wasn't disagreeing with you; I was using your words as a springboard to make a point about Flair's situation to the full-throated Paul defenders.
To clarify, do you mean his actions were illegal in-universe? If so, details please. I've pretty much only ever seen clips of the anime.
Indeed. Another point I forgot to make before is that not even those two famous Rocket trainers treat their pokemon as badly as Paul does his.
I mean, I guess? I can't really feel good about that when the main thing she'll gain is trauma. :\
She should plan on instantly and frantically begging a Pokemon Center's Chansey for help if she ever finds herself out of her ball in the presence of one. Failing that, she could probably get the point across to a Joy if necessary, by glomping her, making distressed noises, and just squeezing harder if Paul tells her to cut it out. Joys and their Chanseys are probably familiar with the signs of abuse, from experience if not from job training, and even if our protagonist is made of stronger stuff than would break before getting this chance, playing it up would still achieve the desired result.
- Location
- Elsewhere
Yet.
I'm not sure which mechanism you'll choose to use, but there are several ways you can die in Pokemon and continue the story!