A Backwards Grin (Pokemon) (Mawile SI)
- Thread starter Flairina
- Start date
- Location
- America
I'll admit that's one of the things I'm iffy on, hence why I haven't linked it already. I know this site is fine with lewd stuff, but I would still rather play it safe.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
No mind control, it's just a frying pan and a fire thing; she can stay with the abusive guy, or walk out into the abusive forest. One beats her up and really sucks, but she doesn't have to kill people to eat, or worry about others doing unto her. The other involves less pain if she's good at fighting, but every fight is a fight to the death, and she also has to be an Actual Cannibal in order to rustle up any sort of real breakfast.
Like, ditching him once she gets into a town or something would be totally justified, but leaving while in the middle of the murder forest she has no way out of doesn't actually put her in a better position.
(Perhaps the best end is ditching him at the first poke-center they visit and going to nursing school.
):
OffBrandANON
eldritch horror, pink flamingo
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
they explicitly stated in thread that that is not happening. there have been given several reasons why she is staying with the asshole, both in story and in thread. read the thread, and actually read the story.
also, you are suggesting she kill a teenager in his sleep after just meeting him.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
I have been fighting with my response to the last chapter all day, and this unfortunately is not too reassuring.
The harsh way she was treated by the trainer, and the total lack of any support of any kind from anyone at all is simply an unacceptable situation to remain in as far as I can see. The best reason I can think of for her to stick around is if Paul actually feeds her, which solves the main problem she has been having this fic for at least a little while. Without that, and his behavior so far has been bad enough that I can doubt that he actually feeds her, I see no redeeming quality to having her get caught by him.
This is made worse for me by an earlier comment you made that you considered using an OC trainer instead, and I cannot help but assume that in that case you would not have had the trainer be so blatantly unlikable. The reason given for not using that option, that OCs draw fewer people than canon characters, does not account for the side effect that this specific canon character draws more people that want to see the kid hurt.
So a part of me wonders what that OC trainer scenario would have looked like instead, and if that would not have had this unpleasant section that causes me to go into rage filled thoughts when I try and work out how it would feel to be in the protagonist's situation.
- Location
- The Black Moon
As far as she's concerned, Paul is a necessary evil for the sake of survival until she gets to some kind of civilization. In other words, it's only unacceptable because you're refusing to consider it from the protagonist's point of view.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
If he feeds her enough to be better than on her own it does fit that, but after seeing him go "my way of introducing you to being on my team is to have them beat the shit out of you" I am no longer confident he will actually feed her if she doesn't meet some unstated quality mark he comes up with.
Farseer Sen'Zabl
Accolyte of 'Common Sense'
- Location
- Dome of Crystal Seers, Ulthwe
I feel kinda confident Paul will feed SIwile; His goal is to have strong Pokémon, and I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to know that starving his Pokémon won't advance that goal and it won't make his newest catch, who has already lashed out at him once, any more friendly nor compliant.
I don't expect him to be a nice trainer, nor do I expect SIwile will stay with him for too long, but I would expect him to be competent enough not to risk the latest addition to his team either turning on him, constantly trying to escape, or outright refuse to obey him because then she'd be of no use to him.
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- Location
- Terra-Luna
Indeed. Given the way how Paul is treating her and her already acknowledged presumed instinctual influence, there's a non-zero chance that she might come to feel that she owes him, and not necessarily in a good way... though by that same metric, she may in turn not necessarily feel entirely malicious towards him for helping her get stronger, if perhaps just as well not feel grateful enough for it to balance the scales at all in his favour. Faeries in folklore are not generally the sorts of beings whom one typically wants feeling that retribution is in order, and for that matter, given Mawile's perhaps less than benevolent leanings, the fairy typing might lean rather towards unseelie inspiration or the like to maybe nudge her towards being just plain mean when the fancy strikes her.
Huh... but you're an artist? I thought that self-loathing was the default state! Ugh, now I will need to forget everything that I have learned from all of those "what the viewer sees/what the artist sees" images.
Paul has expressed diappoitment at
shinkiro
absolute madmage
- Location
- Gensokyo
dont forget swords dance, and some jank special moves like solar beam, sludge bomb, and fire blast.
and psychic fangs. probably lets you pull that 'chew though an AT barrier' scene from evangelion against reflect and similer moves.
KnownParadox
Not a sphere
- Location
- Canada
Yea QQ account is needed.
- Location
- Terra-Luna
Pokemon moves are an interesting topic in stories; they vary a bit between source material formats, and offer some intriguing promise. In-game limitations and considerations for things like balance or the like aren't a thing, though they could perhaps have some basis in this fic's reality none the less—certain moves drawing upon a well of recoverable energy to fuel them being functionally similar but not identical to the Power Points rule, for example—and the anime and manga even sometimes have substantial differences for the same reason, yet likewise may have format-specific idiosyncrasies themselves for things like narrative fulfillment and attention to target audience, such as a positive or negative degree of actual talent at shaping those same energies and delivering them with the right technique to make a proper "move", or simply more general applications of pokemon powers like more mystical abilities of Ninetales being played up to make it practically a Psychic-type in fact and a powerful one at that instead of just thematically aligned moves, or, say, the quite frequent depiction of Ash's Bulbasaur sprouting a pair of vines to act as hands instead of simply the Vine Whip attack, or some pokemon in the anime outright using moves that are impossible for them by game terms. When the world of Pokemon is "real", however, well, a great deal more realism can possibly be applied.
One significant factor that comes to mind is the possibility for pokemon to learn moves via tutoring and relearning, as this suggests that such moves are innately natural to the pokemon in question and simply not typical expressions of their powers as an average pokemon of the kind in question would usually develop on their own. Moves that can be learned through a tutor imply that a pokemon under "real" circumstances could perhaps learn it just fine independently if they simply had the idea to try to learn such moves in the first place. Sheer power might well be a legitimate consideration for some moves, as a "lower level" pokemon might not have the actual energy or skill at directing such energy to actually perform a given move that they could conditionally learn, but in the case of our maudlin mouthy Mawile here, I wouldn't be surprised if her origin is sufficient to be analogous to some of the unique quirks of some other pokemon in the anime, to result in her sort of teaching herself how to use Crunch under circumstances at odds with game rules. Crunch is basically the bigger, badder version of Bite, and (well, presumably, anyway) she is perfectly aware of that. So, what might happen from a confluence of circumstances of a pokemon possessing some great big chompers, some special insight, ambition, and a genuine fondness for crunching things? Maybe she indeed gets quite good at crunching things? Related to that, she also might experiment with that Dark energy to try a deliberate, improved repeat performance of her inadvertent crying to maybe replicate the same effects of Fake Tears that a Mawile would ordinarily be expected to pick up much later. Who knows how conscious direction might affect progression.
On a similar note, I wonder if her origins as an insert might allow her to kind of make new moves by the standards of game rules, thinking to utilise already existing moves in different ways, perhaps. Her performance against the Ursaring could perhaps become a repeatable "move" through combing a generic Bite attack with particular technique such that game mechanics would maybe list "Bite" as some move that gave up initiative in return for doing high damage, if with a possibility of the attack not working, despite it all just being a matter of her being smart in how she uses a normal Bite by more realistic standards, as the sort of Counter-analogue/Bite-hybrid thing is in fact the practice of her letting an opponent strike (and hopefully miss) to deliver a carefully timed Bite riposte when said attacker is off guard and exposed... assuming that the attacker cooperates, anyway. Just what exactly is the difference between her channeling Dark-type energy into her teeth before biting and her channeling Dark-type energy into her teeth before biting with some footwork thrown in? Further deviating from game limitations and plot convention, I should also think Bite and the hypothetical slight derivative of the same move to have no issue with some hard four-move limit; maybe official battle rules and/or traditional custom on the part of the human trainers result in four moves being something of a soft rule, but it seems a bit silly as a realistic limitation.
Further on the topic of moves, though, I also think personal preference could be a significant factor in move selection/practice. She might have an asshole trainer who pushes for her to focus on some fancy, high-power moves, but I imagine that the ability to alleviate her own suffering and pain could be a very attractive prospect, so the combination of Stockpile and Swallow might take priority as far as she herself is concerned. On a similar note, the she might like the idea of being able to stop things from hurting her with Iron Defense, which might be a fair bit more effective than some of its depictions, really; trying to hurt something that is basically just solid metal reinforced by magic superpowers by smacking it might be a lot less impressive than the number-crunched results in-game after a stat boost, and I for one am certainly motivated to avoid pain, because I happen to not like it.
KnownParadox
Not a sphere
- Location
- Canada
It's also notable that non-attacking moves in the anime can do damage if you use them right, like Byron's "A good defence is a good offence!" thing, where he uses Iron Defence then tells the pokemon to smack em with your invulnerable body, or Roark's Screech knocking out Pikachu.
With some logic and creativity you can do some crazy stuff with any move. That's also like the basis for Contests as a whole in the anime.
- Location
- Here
The anime's even got a whole category of move-innovation, invented by Dawn and developed by Ash... a bit after the point in the timeline we're at. The thing with the Ursaring is DP006, and Dawn has her Ambipom use Swift as a cloak/shield in DP061, and does something similar in DP095 (not as much detail provided), which Ash later expands into a broader category of "Counter Shield" tactics.
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Farseer Sen'Zabl
Accolyte of 'Common Sense'
- Location
- Dome of Crystal Seers, Ulthwe
Given how much Siwile struggled against Murkrow at least partially because most of her attacks don't have enough reach to deal with flyers, In Paul's boots I'd go for a move with some range or an advantage against flying types, like ice wind or icebeam, or maybe flash canon. Just something to give her a few more options for opponents that aren't dumb enough enter *Chomp* range.
It doesn't matter how strong or fast Siwile is up close if her opponents don't have to get close enough for her to hit them and are fast enough to stay away from her. Plus if her only option beyond biting-distance is fairy wind, sooner or later she'll meet something resistant to fairy-type that can just hang back and attack her from range with relative impunity.
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Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Ooh, good point. If pokeball storage is commonplace, there's no real reason that the same can't be applied to item storage I suppose. I'll keep that in mind.
Yep, the regis. Pretty difficult to beat in Emerald's Battle Frontier as a result; think he was the last Frontier Brain I got a symbol from, much like Ash.
I mean, if it works for you, I don't really mind.
You got me - this was planned to turn into a Misdreavus SI after Mawile!me inevitably dies, only to come back as a ghost Pokemon instead. You've ruined the surprise for everyone! 😖
(Perhaps the best end is ditching him at the first poke-center they visit and going to nursing school.
Methinks the giant draconic mouth might make patients uneasy, but hey, Jessie was allowed in, so I guess there's no reason it couldn't happen.
It's not really that OCs draw fewer people than canon characters - if that was my primary concern, I'd have tried to make sure a canon character was present in the very first chapter, since that's when people are most likely to decide to either keep reading or stop reading. It's more that I, personally, tend to see OCs as being less interesting for the basic setup of a plot, since it means there's nothing already present to build off of beyond the existing general atmosphere of the world you're writing in. The OC trainer in question may have been a slightly nicer person than Paul, but Mawile!me wasn't planned to stay with them for long, so probably not that much nicer, at least not to the point that there would be a serious debate between staying or not.
Honestly, it kind of sounds like my sort of writing may just not be your cup of tea. Things will eventually get better in this fic, maybe even pretty quickly, but I put my characters (and myself) through a lot of pretty unpleasant things - to reiterate, my other SIs have included me dying more than once. If the necessary time for the story to progress past more struggle-laden sections is too stressful for you to wait out, you may just want to jump ship here and now. If you choose to do so, then I thank you for following at least up until this point, and I'm sorry that this story turned out not to be what you hoped it would.
We shall see.
(Also, a steel-type Fairy seems something of a paradoxical existence if you think about it in those sort of terms. Especially since you'd think Mawile wouldn't even want to get anywhere close to iron beams, hehe.)
If there's one thing that folklore tends to teach (Irish and its derivatives in particular), it's that if you encounter one of the Fair Folk, DO NOT INTERACT. As Mawile!me, I can only wish I had that sort of cred - but perhaps eventually...
I'm more an artist on the side, these days. Though, on the subject, I actually used to make a lot of fake pokemon and pokemon fusions - I spent most of middle and high school on deviantart doing exactly that. My roots are coming back to haunt me!
Most of these moves would likely present their own, unique challenges to try and learn at this point, and the existence of TMs in the main anime-verse is up for debate. That said, you're not entirely wrong - more on that soon.
Lots of good thinking here, I'll say at least some of which is rather prescient. Can't comment with any specifics, but you may see some thoughts on this topic in-story soon.
There's also the fact that some attacks in the anime don't even work the same way as they do in the games (ex. the formerly noted Sky Attack requiring no charge, Metal Screech seeming to work as a full counter rather than a retaliatory move, etc.), and the Pokemon aren't restricted to using them in one specific shape or manner, so there's even more utility to a lot of them. In a world where the specific limits and boundaries on most moves don't really exist, attacks can get... interesting.
Yep, apparently one of the best ways of both defending and attacking in Pokemon really is to just attack while... spinning. The resulting shield can do everything from blocking an opponent's move while preserving your own, to making your own move much more difficult to dodge without losing power, to outright reversing an opposing move's momentum and turning it back on the one who used it. It was that simple all along!
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Farseer Sen'Zabl
Accolyte of 'Common Sense'
- Location
- Dome of Crystal Seers, Ulthwe
Plot Twist; Kid-Anakin was right, Spinning really WAS a good trick! But he wasn't talking about flying, he was actually talking about Pokémon!
That said it also seems to be super effective against lightsaber-wielders.
- Location
- Terra-Luna
A further consideration, too, just what exactly are Paul's own thoughts on the matter? Flash Cannon, for instance, seems like perhaps the very best choice—or at least as far as any ranged attack is considered for a pokemon with poor Special Attack stats, anyway—but there may be additional factors at play. Does Paul know that a Mawile can learn Flash Cannon? How likely is he to discover that possibility if he is presently unaware? Does he actually care enough to see that she picks up that particular move?
If he ponders the issue of his new catch's dearth of good ranged options and the in-universe Pokedex database on Mawile is informative, that could well lead a trainer like Paul to calculate an optimal move set and conclude that Flash Cannon is indeed the way to go, and if he does happen to have the TM for it on hand already, I should think there a good chance that he might use it right quick. On the other hand, though, there's a perfectly real possibility that he does not in fact have a Flash Cannon TM conveniently available. Does he perhaps keep the possibility in mind for later? Does he actively look into how to get one? Does he think it too difficult or too expensive to acquire to be worthwhile? For that matter, does he think Simile a sound investment in the first place?
It comes to something of a disparity with game mechanics. For someone playing the game, precise information is extremely easy to acquire, and feasibility isn't really an issue for the most part; a player may not necessarily be able to reach the location of a particular TM, but that becomes a very temporary problem, and actually getting it is only a matter of a bit of time spent grinding to farm money or XP at the worst. In-universe, however... well it might just be hard. It might be unappealing. It might not even be realised as an option at all. Overall, assuming that Siwile and Paul do stick together (and with him outside of her stomach) and he elects to make use of a TM, I think we're looking at Ice Beam as perhaps the most likely outcome, unless they stay together long enough and stay impressive enough that whole time for her to just get Flash Cannon too, if perhaps as a replacement for Ice Beam; Ice Beam is not an ideal, no, but the TM has ease of accessibility in its favour, and it is a solid move in its own right, plus the average opponent for which Siwile needs a ranged attack due to them flying is likely to be vulnerable to an Ice-type move, which is something that I think would be a consideration on Paul's part. I suppose Hyper Beam might show up, too; it's practically the generic scary attack in the anime, doesn't seem to have the same degree of detrimental balancing as in-game, and hey, blasty energy beams have their uses.
So... I can't help but think about the fact that Mawile and Sableye are a version-exclusive pair, and one in which they have an awful lot in common with one another. Is Sableye the dead-but-not-gone version of Mawile?
I'm reminded of a particular very scary faerie in The Dresden Files notable for her iron teeth. I'm going to laugh, though, if someone really does try warding off our scary little Mawile with iron for latching onto the Fairy-type part in and trying to get creative in a panic only for her to just... eat it. Om nom nom. This is a pokemon that had a particular example of which in one of the Wii games wanting a gemstone as a nice snack for its chewy texture.
Well, to be fair, the other pokemon did all run away out of fear. Still, this fic hasn't exactly deviated from the theme in that regard. Ooh, what's that smell? *SNAP* Why is everyone else such a jerk? *SNAP* It would appear that having anything to do with a Mawile is statistically a bad idea. If one is perfectly polite and respectable to a faerie, it is not necessarily inevitable doom if the faerie in question doesn't feel like it anyway. If. Or, y'know, they eat you or something, probably.
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- Location
- Canada, probably
Fine with me, but you're committed. If you die, it's misdreavus. No throwing a sheet over your head and calling yourself mimikyu.
(Mismagius, uh, might be my favourite pokémon.)
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
Misdreavus is a fine choice, once you evolve you get a spiffy hat!
I've heard that middle school deviant art accounts have birthed horrors beyond the ken of regular men, im just happy that during my time at that age i was too busy roaming the forests around my home with my friends and smacking things with sticks while pretending to be knights on a quest. Because im pretty sure the only thing i would have produced would have been massive amounts of CRINGE.
Jamie Roberts
Hávamál 127
- Location
- N/A
- Pronouns
- she/her
Just noticed this:
"Brave words for a man standing behind a Mawile."
"Brave words for a man standing behind a Mawile."
Appletank
Acquire Cheese
Consider that we have only met Paul for what amounts to be an hour or so in universe. The primary reason right now for sticking with Paul is that you're unlikely to be threatened by death. Once other options arrive, stuff will change.