#knowing her she lives in fear of accidentally creating a descendant and makes a vow of chastity

[yellowocaballero]

This chapter is amazing!! Just where do I start! First of all I love your inclusion of "Dawn". just reading our trainer character going through and seeing time and space for a moment was so cool. Like I really was seeing things through her eyes... And when the "Dawn" character told the protagonist that they shared the same name 🥺🥺 and how they thought the protag was so cool and wanted to be just like her, and that's how she got to where she is now 🥺. For a moment I thought she was gonna turn out to be a descendant of the protag and Ingo would remark they looked identical or something. Like, protag would go back to the modern day but knowing that someone with her blood was like her neighbor or a celebrity. Also the Emmet letter was heartbreaking but so very sweet. The brothers are more sad to me if Ingo is the younger one lmao.

I'm really happy Akari has finally realized how valuable she is as a person, or at least on the road to it. Not to mention the convo for Rei, i like how you didn't ham in any romance into the work. Like if there is any romance, its not shouted, its just there with traces. Also her being the overseer of the clans/team contract was really funny to me. Honestly I was surprised for a second but her role as a mediator suits her. I'm really happy for her

Thank you!!!

Definitely romance in that situation would have felt so weird haha. Being someone else's ancestor would also feel SO weird. I didn't mention Akari's sexuality because it wasn't relevant, but since she's just Vaguely Me she's probably aroace. As it stands we have absolutely no explanation as to why Dawn and Akari look so similar and have the same name. Maybe Arceus has same-face syndrome when designing protaganists?

I really liked how the letter turned out. I'm rarely happy with stuff like that, but I was pretty happy with it. If it helps (?), when Emmet says something along the lines of "you're my little brother (would you believe me if I said that?)", I meant that Ingo was OLDER and that Emmet was teasing him by pretending he was younger. As in, did Ingo really remember so little that he would believe Emmet if he told him that he was younger? So if that helps???

Akari's arc was purposefully made a bit subdued and subtle, but it's still a big influence in the story. Just a local teen with bad self-esteem, who's been through something pretty traumatic and feels rejected. She had found something resembling a community in Galaxy Team and Jubilife, and she hadn't been able to get over their rejection. She probably always felt weird and an outsider at home, and she's an outsider here too. The timeline thing is a very flashy and fictionalized way of depicting something very simple - that our relationships matter, and that the good we do in the world matters. That nobody's really unimportant, and when you help people and care about people then they'll care about you back. Community will find you and this is a threat. Very Ghibli.

I think Pokemon lends itself well to a message that can be as simple as "let people care about you" or "you're deserving of love" or just a very 'Good Place' what we owe to each other type of thing. Ingo summed it up pretty succinctly - that even if it's hard to believe and even if she still feels alienated, she's not riding this line alone. And it's not really until she accepts that she CAN change things that she decides to change things.

The mediator thing was pretty important to me. I realllyyyy didn't want to go Dances with Pokewolves and have a white ("white") savior narrative in there. I didn't want Akari to show up and use her colonizer culture to fix colonization. I hope I made it clear enough that the solution isn't for the clans to become Pokemon trainers as Akari understands them. It's not about catching Pokemon or battling, it's just about teaching them how to train Pokemon so they can protect themselves better against wild Pokemon and deepen their pre-existing relationships.

At the end of the day Akari just used her connections and respect among both cultures to bring the conversation to a more open and honest footing. And use her army of sentient WMDs to make sure that nobody gets into any fights about it and that any agreements are honored. I hoped that was the most respectful way to depict both Akari's passion for decolonization, Adaman and Irida's autonomy and importance, Galaxy Team's [unrealistically...] good intentions, and punting any ideas of modernity/civility/advancement out of the window. Not completely sure if I got it right but I did the best I could considering - woof, the messaging of the source material, the fuck.

God, like. I don't LIKE talking about colonization from this super messy perspective. Going too realistic would really ruin the tone and just make the whole thing even weirder. The entire story was a really weird balancing act and I ended up having to frame the events and narrative really carefully. I was sweating over it quite a bit, but it was so incredibly weird how the Jubilife guys talked so much about how Hisui was some lawless, dangerous unsettled and uninhabited wasteland where nobody could possibly survive...when the Pearl & Diamond guys are just chilling. It's bad rhetoric. I didn't want to prop up D&P as inherently more moral and virtuous and good than the GT by nature of being indigenous, but I don't think D&P would have let a fifteen year old get mauled by wild Shinx if she wasn't a Pokemon catching genius, is what I'm saying. It was just weird and I couldn't leave it alone. Balancing that weirdness was the hardest work of the story.

Stuff I don't like talking about because it's so out of my lane that it's not even funny but it would be disingenuous not to address. Thanks for reading! We'll see if Akari's efforts helped any in the epilogue.

[nyctosaurid]

I want to hear about the alien dragon story (if you are comfortable sharing)!!

In short:

Dragons, who fled the earth long ago, have returned to reclaim their former home and take care of their pest problem (humanity) in the process. One of the dragons seeks the help of a single human- an apprehensive law professor who holds the key to stopping the invasion. (my ode to shitty dragon books and 80s pop music)

In long, vaguely chronological order, spoilers (not that it matters):

Dragons were the original sentient people of earth and fled the planet when the k pg extinction event occurred 66 million years ago. they did not return till near modern times (medieval era) intending to recolonize the world, only to find out that it had evolved and become inhabited by that point. They were forced to leave again, this time to basically speak to their lawyer (as they have claim to the planet but cannot legally wipe out a sentient race without the proper clearance from the larger galactic government). 

Right before they leave this second time, one of the dragons (Parzigrand) is forced to abandon some important technology on the surface of earth when a would-be dragonslayer tracks her to her ship and near fatally wounds her. She hides this mishap from the others and hopes that humans are simply too inept to make any use of it. Unfortunately, her fear is almost immediately realized when the guy who stabbed her finds and uses it (albeit accidentally), creating an earth-preserving failsafe locked to his genetic signature. He manages to glean it’s importance as well as someone from the 11th century can and vows to watch over it.

Fast forward a few hundred years. Margaret is a law professor who’s grown at odds with herself and her career, kind of wishing she had gotten into literature instead (an interest passed down from her late grandfather). Unbeknownst to her, she is the sole living descendent of the dragonslayer and the only person who can break the failsafe. The dragons are days away from having their colonization request cleared and have returned to Earth’s atmosphere. 

Parzigrand, knowing she must deactivate the failsafe before the other dragons realize, tracks Margaret down and convinces her that she needs her help to locate and deactivate the device, lest human society fall. She agrees, reluctantly, not realizing that she’s being manipulated into starting the end of the world.  

Other things i am too lazy to type in order but i think are fun

There’s a men in black type organization who are an evolution of the original dragonslayers/people who became privy to the alien tech on earth

The lady of the lake shows up, but... think janet from the good place

Late game big plot twist: the climax of the story involves the dragon’s clearance to colonize the earth being put on hold and taken to a higher up when the humans show up (and are therefore able to argue their right to live). Now that they’re out of what’s basically small claims court, it’s discovered that the dragons aren’t actually a natural species on earth at all, but, without them ever realizing, a faux species that was constructed with the express purpose of terraforming the planet to make it a suitable “rental home” for the sort of people who might be into buying a planet. The court puts in a call to whatever sort of individual holds the deeds to planets and creates species on a whim, who will be right over to sort it out...

[fourteendaysinaweek]

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