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negrekIt's finally done! This is a big chapter, both in terms of wordcount and in terms of story significance, but I think it reads pretty breezily despite the length. I hope you find the same!
This is the culmination of the Kanto arc and my last chance to get in a few scenes between characters who will rarely (or never) interact for the remainder of the fic. It's a bit of a stitch job, since a lot of the scenes here were once I've looked forward to for a long, long time, and as such had one (or more!) versions sitting around that needed to be revised and tweaked/reframed to be more consistent with the surrounding scenes and the ways the story's changed since they were originally written. And it's changed a lot! The origins of the scenes in this chapter are as follows (with "very old" meaning they were written at least three years ago, and more likely five or more):
- The initial transition scene, with Raticate and Mightyena fighting and the protagonist talking to Togetic, was completely new. A big issue in this chapter was actually getting the protagonist out of the picture so that the pokémon could talk freely amongst themselves... but also, I of course needed some way for it to overhear them! It's a common pattern in my stories, and one I dislike, for a couple characters to excuse themselves from a broader conversation or event so they can go off alone and talk. That happens twice in this chapter! I'm working on more elegant ways of handling private or semi-private conversations that don't incur so much overhead.
- The scene where the pokémon discuss their trainers was a mashup of two separate scenes, one written a very long time ago, and one from what was probably NaNo 2019. The older scene took place in a very different context; the protagonist was present, so its team's contributions were a bit more *constrained*, and they were all talking in the kitchen of the protagonist's island home. In the original conception of the story, the place never burned down, and the narrative returned to the island at multiple points over the course of the story. Many more lazy beach scenes than we'll be getting this time around, unfortunately! Steelix was too large to be inside with the others, and at one point cracked a window after leaning in too close to get some of that hot goss.
On the other hand, the NaNo-written scene focused primarily on the protagonist's team's opinions, this time with it absent, and I liked that approach better than the one taken by the older scene--they could say much more interesting things if they thought they weren't being listened in on. The final version of this scene is primarily the old version in the first half and the new version in the second half.
A major question when editing chapters 44/45 (which began life as one ~20k hunk of text) was whether to include this scene in 44 or in 45. Ultimately it doesn't really fit anywhere; it's a little bit its own thing in the midst of some more plot-relevant scenes. I wanted to keep it in, even though it's a bit awkward, since I wanted the pokémon to actually have some chance to talk to each other and give their own takes on everything that's been going on. There really won't be another opportunity for that, so if it doesn't go here... it goes everywhere else even less. Whether to put it in 44 or 45, then? I really wanted it in 44, which would give a nicer wordcount balance between the two chapters. Ultimately I ended up moving it to 45 largely because it felt like a bit too much of a pile-on of the protagonist otherwise. As it was placed in 44, there was no scene with Togetic: that was only added because I needed to get the protagonist alone. After Raticate left at the end of 44, it would already be alone! So it goes from being told that one of its closest pokémon is going to leave it to try to talk to Mewtwo on her own and then, when it goes to return to its fire, overhears her and the rest of its team discussing how, eh, they're really not such great friends. Perhaps that's what our protagonist gets for eavesdropping, but it all felt like a little much.
This scene might end up being one of those cases where I should have killed my darlings, but at least for now I think it was worth including. Even if it ended up a little "characters go around in a circle and each give their thoughts."
- The scene where Nate reunites with his pokémon is very old and survived mostly intact. The scene that required by far the least editing out of any of them, thank you for being a pleasure to work with.
- The conversation between Nate and Mightyena had two versions, one from NaNo either 2018 or 2019 and one from much longer ago. I threw out both previous versions and rewrote from scratch when drafting this chapter because, honestly, I thought Nate got off a bit too easily in the previous ones, heh. Nate had actually been separated from his team for longer in that version (!), and there wasn't that awkward period the two of them had on the island where they were pretending to ignore each other and refusing to deal with the problem. More than that, though, I thought the previous versions of the scene focused too much on what Nate had said as opposed to the fact that this is something that keeps happening. It would have been alarming outburst that needed a big apology even if it had only happened the once, but as it was, reaching the scene now I felt like the focus really needed to be "things need to change" rather than "I forgive you for that one thing, we're good now."
Reading this scene over during editing, I thought to myself, "Man, this feels kinda short and unsatisfying for how important it's supposed to be. How long is it, anyway?" Word counter: "This section is more than 1500 words long." Me: "Oh..." Hopefully it comes across feeling substantial enough, then!
- The conversation between Nate and the protagonist is very old and survived mostly intact. Almost all the scenes in this chapter were ones I'd been looking forward to, but this one is narrowly my favorite. Nate and the protagonist have been inching closer and closer to each other almost from day one, and the protagonist finally tries to cash in on that relationship here, to disastrous results. If the protagonist had maybe given Nate a little more time to get over how mad he was at it for misleading him earlier or approached things a little differently, the outcome might have been quite different! But as it is I enjoy Nate really getting to give it a piece of his mind here and the protagonist's desperate insistence that it's special and doing everything because it needs to. One thing that I'm not sure comes through clearly in the earlier chapters especially is how much the protagonist clings to the idea of itself as the anointed savior--not simply believes in it, but clings to it--but it's certainly a thing, so, uh, put a pin in that if there isn't one there already.
This scene gave me a lot of difficulty because, with the changes made to the previous scene with Mightyena, this argument comes off a lot worse than it did in its original cut! Like, honestly, Nate's reaction is disproportionate, but it is at least a little bit deserved. But if it comes after you literally just promised not to lose your temper and go off on people, well. Oof. Mightyena doesn't like the protagonist, and her reaction in the original draft was pretty much "yeah you were totally asking for that one." But again, right after she'd asked Nate not to do that... There are more undertones of despair/futility here than I really wanted, but it is what it is; toning the argument down here wouldn't feel true to the characters at all, and I think the scene with Mightyena is much better for its new framing.
As usual, the line I personally think is the most important/interesting here is one no one has mentioned noticing yet. Hashtag foreshadowing.
The chapter is the last in the transitional arc where we get from Kanto to Orre, and which didn't previously exist. It's been a bit of a nightmare, logistically, to get all the characters where they need to be and have the important scenes happen and still make sense despite happening in an entirely different order than they did before. This accounts for the somewhat crazy character roulette that goes on throughout this arc: The protagonist gets its pokémon back! Now Nate's gone! Oops, now the pokémon are gone again! But wait, now they're back, and Nate's too! And Nate's back! And oops, he's gone again, and so are the pokémon... Everyone kind of collides and reconfigures in a small number of chapters before shooting off in different direction again.
Some of the shuffling here took place over a much longer period of time or in a different order, so things weren't quite so frenetic last time around. One detail that changed in this chapter was the protagonist noticing that Nate's teeth are still messed up; in the original version, it instead noticed that they'd been fixed! In that version of the story, he'd spent a while in prison and had his teeth fixed there after splitting up with the protagonist, and now in this version he doesn't end up in prison at all. Sorry, bud; maybe you can find a denstist somewhere else.
Overall, I think the new structure for the story, where we go straight from Kanto to Orre without backtracking, makes more sense and eliminates a lot of unnecessary schlepping from one place to another--it was something like "smaller group of characters goes off to talk amongst themselves," but on a macro scale! However, the restructuring does leave things a little snarled in places. I'm glad to be past it, and thus past the squishiest of the squishy middle part of the story, and on to a part of the fic that has always been linear and fairly straightforward. It comes with its own challenges of course, namely way too many characters, but I'm looking forward to it. If nothing else, it's nice to finally be caught up again with, idk, 2017?
And so, from here on to Orre! Chapter 45 is one of my big faves; on the other hand, I hate Chapter 46. We'll see how that one goes, then!
This is the culmination of the Kanto arc and my last chance to get in a few scenes between characters who will rarely (or never) interact for the remainder of the fic. It's a bit of a stitch job, since a lot of the scenes here were once I've looked forward to for a long, long time, and as such had one (or more!) versions sitting around that needed to be revised and tweaked/reframed to be more consistent with the surrounding scenes and the ways the story's changed since they were originally written. And it's changed a lot! The origins of the scenes in this chapter are as follows (with "very old" meaning they were written at least three years ago, and more likely five or more):
- The initial transition scene, with Raticate and Mightyena fighting and the protagonist talking to Togetic, was completely new. A big issue in this chapter was actually getting the protagonist out of the picture so that the pokémon could talk freely amongst themselves... but also, I of course needed some way for it to overhear them! It's a common pattern in my stories, and one I dislike, for a couple characters to excuse themselves from a broader conversation or event so they can go off alone and talk. That happens twice in this chapter! I'm working on more elegant ways of handling private or semi-private conversations that don't incur so much overhead.
- The scene where the pokémon discuss their trainers was a mashup of two separate scenes, one written a very long time ago, and one from what was probably NaNo 2019. The older scene took place in a very different context; the protagonist was present, so its team's contributions were a bit more *constrained*, and they were all talking in the kitchen of the protagonist's island home. In the original conception of the story, the place never burned down, and the narrative returned to the island at multiple points over the course of the story. Many more lazy beach scenes than we'll be getting this time around, unfortunately! Steelix was too large to be inside with the others, and at one point cracked a window after leaning in too close to get some of that hot goss.
On the other hand, the NaNo-written scene focused primarily on the protagonist's team's opinions, this time with it absent, and I liked that approach better than the one taken by the older scene--they could say much more interesting things if they thought they weren't being listened in on. The final version of this scene is primarily the old version in the first half and the new version in the second half.
A major question when editing chapters 44/45 (which began life as one ~20k hunk of text) was whether to include this scene in 44 or in 45. Ultimately it doesn't really fit anywhere; it's a little bit its own thing in the midst of some more plot-relevant scenes. I wanted to keep it in, even though it's a bit awkward, since I wanted the pokémon to actually have some chance to talk to each other and give their own takes on everything that's been going on. There really won't be another opportunity for that, so if it doesn't go here... it goes everywhere else even less. Whether to put it in 44 or 45, then? I really wanted it in 44, which would give a nicer wordcount balance between the two chapters. Ultimately I ended up moving it to 45 largely because it felt like a bit too much of a pile-on of the protagonist otherwise. As it was placed in 44, there was no scene with Togetic: that was only added because I needed to get the protagonist alone. After Raticate left at the end of 44, it would already be alone! So it goes from being told that one of its closest pokémon is going to leave it to try to talk to Mewtwo on her own and then, when it goes to return to its fire, overhears her and the rest of its team discussing how, eh, they're really not such great friends. Perhaps that's what our protagonist gets for eavesdropping, but it all felt like a little much.
This scene might end up being one of those cases where I should have killed my darlings, but at least for now I think it was worth including. Even if it ended up a little "characters go around in a circle and each give their thoughts."
- The scene where Nate reunites with his pokémon is very old and survived mostly intact. The scene that required by far the least editing out of any of them, thank you for being a pleasure to work with.
- The conversation between Nate and Mightyena had two versions, one from NaNo either 2018 or 2019 and one from much longer ago. I threw out both previous versions and rewrote from scratch when drafting this chapter because, honestly, I thought Nate got off a bit too easily in the previous ones, heh. Nate had actually been separated from his team for longer in that version (!), and there wasn't that awkward period the two of them had on the island where they were pretending to ignore each other and refusing to deal with the problem. More than that, though, I thought the previous versions of the scene focused too much on what Nate had said as opposed to the fact that this is something that keeps happening. It would have been alarming outburst that needed a big apology even if it had only happened the once, but as it was, reaching the scene now I felt like the focus really needed to be "things need to change" rather than "I forgive you for that one thing, we're good now."
Reading this scene over during editing, I thought to myself, "Man, this feels kinda short and unsatisfying for how important it's supposed to be. How long is it, anyway?" Word counter: "This section is more than 1500 words long." Me: "Oh..." Hopefully it comes across feeling substantial enough, then!
- The conversation between Nate and the protagonist is very old and survived mostly intact. Almost all the scenes in this chapter were ones I'd been looking forward to, but this one is narrowly my favorite. Nate and the protagonist have been inching closer and closer to each other almost from day one, and the protagonist finally tries to cash in on that relationship here, to disastrous results. If the protagonist had maybe given Nate a little more time to get over how mad he was at it for misleading him earlier or approached things a little differently, the outcome might have been quite different! But as it is I enjoy Nate really getting to give it a piece of his mind here and the protagonist's desperate insistence that it's special and doing everything because it needs to. One thing that I'm not sure comes through clearly in the earlier chapters especially is how much the protagonist clings to the idea of itself as the anointed savior--not simply believes in it, but clings to it--but it's certainly a thing, so, uh, put a pin in that if there isn't one there already.
This scene gave me a lot of difficulty because, with the changes made to the previous scene with Mightyena, this argument comes off a lot worse than it did in its original cut! Like, honestly, Nate's reaction is disproportionate, but it is at least a little bit deserved. But if it comes after you literally just promised not to lose your temper and go off on people, well. Oof. Mightyena doesn't like the protagonist, and her reaction in the original draft was pretty much "yeah you were totally asking for that one." But again, right after she'd asked Nate not to do that... There are more undertones of despair/futility here than I really wanted, but it is what it is; toning the argument down here wouldn't feel true to the characters at all, and I think the scene with Mightyena is much better for its new framing.
As usual, the line I personally think is the most important/interesting here is one no one has mentioned noticing yet. Hashtag foreshadowing.
The chapter is the last in the transitional arc where we get from Kanto to Orre, and which didn't previously exist. It's been a bit of a nightmare, logistically, to get all the characters where they need to be and have the important scenes happen and still make sense despite happening in an entirely different order than they did before. This accounts for the somewhat crazy character roulette that goes on throughout this arc: The protagonist gets its pokémon back! Now Nate's gone! Oops, now the pokémon are gone again! But wait, now they're back, and Nate's too! And Nate's back! And oops, he's gone again, and so are the pokémon... Everyone kind of collides and reconfigures in a small number of chapters before shooting off in different direction again.
Some of the shuffling here took place over a much longer period of time or in a different order, so things weren't quite so frenetic last time around. One detail that changed in this chapter was the protagonist noticing that Nate's teeth are still messed up; in the original version, it instead noticed that they'd been fixed! In that version of the story, he'd spent a while in prison and had his teeth fixed there after splitting up with the protagonist, and now in this version he doesn't end up in prison at all. Sorry, bud; maybe you can find a denstist somewhere else.
Overall, I think the new structure for the story, where we go straight from Kanto to Orre without backtracking, makes more sense and eliminates a lot of unnecessary schlepping from one place to another--it was something like "smaller group of characters goes off to talk amongst themselves," but on a macro scale! However, the restructuring does leave things a little snarled in places. I'm glad to be past it, and thus past the squishiest of the squishy middle part of the story, and on to a part of the fic that has always been linear and fairly straightforward. It comes with its own challenges of course, namely way too many characters, but I'm looking forward to it. If nothing else, it's nice to finally be caught up again with, idk, 2017?
And so, from here on to Orre! Chapter 45 is one of my big faves; on the other hand, I hate Chapter 46. We'll see how that one goes, then!
