TEEN: Kanto: There and Back Again

[Beth Pavell]

From coast to coast and to the heart of the countryside, along ancient trackways and through the celebrated streets of the cities, Bethany Pavell sets off to rediscover the essence of Kanto: the legends, the history and the people that flavour the region, and the tension between humanity and the natural world that has come to define it.

May I present, at long last, my second fanfiction project. There and Back Again is a little unusual as fanfiction goes, taking the form of a travelogue around the Kanto region written by my wittier, prettier alter ego Bethany Pavell. The story is set in the same universe as my other story The Long Walk, visiting game and anime locations with a similar approach to the worldbuilding. The chapters are intended to be read in any order (You'll find the Table of Contents after the Introductions below).

Spoiler: Rated TEEN for:

• Substance use - infrequent consumption of alcohol
• Moderate suggestive themes - infrequent mentions of sexual behaviour

Kanto: There and Back Again​

Miss Bethany Pavell​

This journey started at the end of another.

I was sitting outside a café in Aquacorde Town, feeling very tired, thoroughly frustrated, and altogether far from home. It was a fine, sunny day, as it always seems to be in Kalos (They must manufacture sunshine here), in a pretty, Neo-Romanesque town, charming in that carefully calibrated, faintly smug way Kalosian towns are. Squadrons of rollerbladers glided along the bank of the Chartreine, dodging around people crossing the Pont du Quarellis.

I took a few photos, for the look of the thing. It’s not like I had anything better to do. I should have been on the 8am coach to Lumiose City, but the ticket officer who had printed my return in the first place had somehow managed to print a ticket for the 8pm departure instead. Naturally I carefully explained this to the conductor, who bluntly pointed out that this was the 8am departure, not the 8pm departure. I pointed out that this was clearly the ticket officer’s mistake, as evidenced by his signature here, see? A classically Kalosian shrug. In desperation I put on my best cute voice and told him that I really needed to be in Lumiose that evening for work (Which was true, by the way).

“J’en ai rien à foutre,” he said.

So, there I was, killing time and cursing the sheer wooden-headed obtusity of Autobus Nationale employees. I hadn’t any idea how I was going to properly finish my article for Near and Afar without Madrigal Madness – instead I nursed my frustration and savoured the prospect of having a good shout at some Autobus Nationale employees who really deserved it. Oh, they’d give a foutre then.

These days most of my work is written for magazines. Now, it had been a couple of years since I wrote my first book, 30 Days of Johto. 30 Days had sold moderately well – itself an achievement in the travel writing world, one I’m proud of – but nothing like well enough to put it anywhere near the bestseller lists. So when my agent phoned out of the blue it was very much a double-check to see if I'm dreaming moment.

“Beth Pavell. You were trying to call me, Simon?” I said.

“Collingwood want you to write another book,” he announced.

“They do?” I said.

“They do. They want to commission you to write a travel piece in the style of 30 Days.”

“So … they want me to do Kalos?” I said uncertainly.

“No!” he said, squashing that notion. “They want you to do Kanto.”

Kanto? I thought. I could hardly think of a more tired region for a travelogue. Kanto was so familiar, so usual, her paths trod and re-trod by countless writers before me. What was there to find in Kanto that hadn't been found a hundred times already? I accepted, not because I expected to be surprised, fascinated, or delighted by the Home Region, but because a commission is a commission and I never like to turn down work.

But still, it would be a clichéd commission, a banal journey around a banal region, right?

* * *​

As it turned out, my perception was wrong. I'm not sure I can claim to have discovered anything like a hidden, unexplored Kanto, but on my journey I was genuinely surprised, fascinated, and sometimes really quite delighted.

Habitually we speak of a united Middle Kingdom, and indeed Kanto and Johto have a lot in common. But Kanto has its own subtle identity. For good or ill, the Home Region looms large in our shared Imperial culture, praised by Nationalists, mythologised by Romantics, and, of course, chronicled by travel writers. And, not without reason. Kanto is a land of natural beauty married to human endeavour – Cerulean City shining between the mountains and the sea, Fuchsia of the million flowers, green and glad Celadon City. Humans have lived in Kanto since the Stone Age, each successive generation leaving behind a new page of the long story inscribed upon the landscape.

After years of travelling the Middle Kingdom, I've found that's what these regions are – story after story, laid down over the centuries like layers of chalk.

Some of these Kantoese stories have been told and retold so often that they, and the associated wonders they describe, have become stale through repetition, clichés. I'm not a Kantonian – actually, as a native Johtoan I am very nearly honour-bound to expound at length about how Johto has its own unique charm and fantastic wonder. But I’ve realised a couple of things on my travels. That the clichés, dry and tired though they may be, are usually true. And that clichés are not all that Kanto has to offer.

It is this diversity of spirit (And, it must be said, of people), the clichéd and the novel, the charming and the odious, that makes the Home Region anything but banal. Clichéd, odious – unflattering adjectives, and I make no apology for them. In writing There and Back Again, I’ve been determined to write with sincerity. My hope is to have written a book with a broad appeal – not merely a paean to Kanto, but an honest snapshot of the history, geography, and culture of the region. For broad appeal, too, I’ve tried to include plenty to interest readers both national and international. To help me with this, my friend and fellow author Nine Pretty Butterflies has contributed some supplemental information for the international reader.

* * *​

I'm doing the final edit of this introduction at my desk, back home in New Bark Town. Rain drums at the window pane, flung onto the glass by the winds of new beginning. One of my favourite little ironies, being in New Bark at the end of a journey. I tap my pen fruitlessly on my cheap, battered MDF desk, wondering what I can say to round this introduction off.

In desperation I turn to the quotation book in search of ideas. Oh, dear me. I hadn’t hitherto realised how pompous my fellow travellers can be. ‘The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read only one page’. ’Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how far you’ve travelled’. I won’t even bother telling you the attribution to these – neither saint nor prophet said either. The real source, I suspect, is probably some upper middle-class hippy drunk on homemade rice wine and second hand Dharmic koans.

It doesn’t really get much better. The next one really gets on my tits:

‘Travel while you’re still young and able. Don’t worry about the money, just make it work. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be.’

How supercilious! How completely inane! Just make it work? I’m lucky enough to get paid to travel, and I pay my bills in dollars, not cute stories about cycling around Tianxia.

It’s in the midst of my quotation-inspired bad temper – mentally composing savage diatribes against it – that I realise what an ideal region Kanto is to explore. You can wander the region for months at a time, footloose and carefree, but you can just as easily explore an interesting corner of Kanto in a weekend. It’s definitely worth looking into. If you do manage to visit, be open to surprise, fascination, and certainly, delight.

Bethany Pavell
September 2014
​

 

[Beth Pavell]

And Did Those Feet …
These Sunset Isles​

Like so many immigrants to the Empire, I don’t remember my homeland.

My parents emigrated from Haizhou in the early nineties. The city had been unstable for many years, and after the latest convulsion of unrest my father decided enough was enough. Leaving one empire for another, we left Haizhou for Vermilion City.

I was six at the time. My few memories of the city are hazy and fragmented – to me, Haizhou feels more like an anthology of stories than a real place. I grew up in Kanto, and gained a distinctly Kantoese identity. Over the years I have fallen in love with these Sunset Isles, a culture composed of mingled cultures, possessing a rich, deep, often bloody history.

The Sunset Isles is the ancient name of an archipelago situated about three hundred miles off the west coast of Medi-Terra, made up of the regions of Kanto, Johto and Misho; the island regions of Hoenn and Sinnoh; as well as the hundreds of smaller isles, among them the Principality of Alto Mare, Cinnabar Island and Sootopolis City. In the furthest north of Sinnoh the Isles draw closest to the continent, a mere eighty seven miles of sea between Sinnoh and the Haakono region. Away in the south the subtropical Hoenn region sits neatly on the 40th parallel.

In Continental culture the Sunset Isles have typically been regarded as unimportant, a trivial patchwork of bickering little kingdoms on the periphery of the civilised world. For many centuries there was a loud ring of truth to this view, until the unification of Kanto and Johto shook up the balance of power across the Isles.

And yet this archipelago holds an undeniable mystique. The legends of these cloudy islands on the periphery of Medi-Terra have long reached as far as my former homeland in the Tianxia’n empire. The Sunset Isles, which until the Age of Exploration were thought to be the very edge of the world, with nothing beyond but the endless Great Western Ocean. The Sunset Isles, those magical islands inhabited by a heathen commonwealth of old heroes and older gods. The Sunset Isles, where the roots of the World Tree are sunk deep, and giants lay hidden beneath the earth.

“And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Johto’s mountains green?
And were those shining chariots Divine,
On Kanto’s pleasant pastures seen?”

As a historian, I have to say “Probably not”. But it almost doesn’t matter. The story itself is powerful – its endurance has nothing to do with truth or falsehood. Stories are powerful, far more powerful than we commonly realise. History itself is a story, a narrative rewritten and reinterpreted with each new generation.

Bethany’s one of those people who tends to think in stories. We’ve corresponded for years, but until now have never had a chance to collaborate. And what better way to start than with an exploration of my adopted homeland? It’s been a pleasure, really, to write for this book. I hope you become as fascinated by these mystical isles as I have.

Nine Pretty Butterflies
November 2014​

 

[Beth Pavell]

Table of Contents

Brittanay Sound
O, I have but one notion, for to be beside the ocean

Almost half the miles of the Kantoese coast line the Brittanay Sound, the waters between peninsular Kanto and Vermilion City. This sea represents the maritime heritage of the region, a place where industry, war, commerce and pleasure all come together. A place of contrasts, maybe, but also of connections. Brittanay has been Kanto’s gateway to the world, bringing both prosperity and conflict. The Sea giveth, and the Sea taketh away.

1. Vermilion City Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3
2. Maiden's Peak
3. Button-on-Sea

 

[Ghostsoul]

Hmmm. I do find this fic rather interesting, I'm surprised to see how you are using rather subtle 'meta' techniques, but in a non-experimental way, it blends fairly well with the 'slice of life' feeling.

I think you built the world itself fairly well, the writing does seem somewhat atmospheric although you seem have taken more concern over the characters this time.

I wonder about Bethany Pavell, is she another version of you, how you think you would be in the Pokemon world, or how you would like to be in either world? You say she's a 'prettier' version of yourself, but how far does this go? I also think the backstory was explained a little too quickly (although you do mention this is travel log style) the character does seem rather eager to share her history, and perhaps somewhat egotistical. Did you plan on writing her like this?

Also, another sort of personal problem, you seem to mention the word 'cliche' a lot in the first chapter, 'cliche' is a fairly uncommon word, so even if you can't think of anything else to replace it, or it's a very important theme (which I'm not sure it seems to be.) It is a little jarring sometimes. Nothing too major though.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I'm surprised to see how you are using rather subtle 'meta' techniques

Aha, that would be the "Kanto is bland" theme in the introduction, I think. I'm glad that came through

I wonder about Bethany Pavell, is she another version of you, how you think you would be in the Pokemon world, or how you would like to be in either world? You say she's a 'prettier' version of yourself, but how far does this go? I also think the backstory was explained a little too quickly (although you do mention this is travel log style) the character does seem rather eager to share her history, and perhaps somewhat egotistical. Did you plan on writing her like this?

Actually, the name was a placeholder at first, but then I realised I could have a picture of the "author" and the temptation was too great to change it. Which, in hindsight, was a bit shortsighted of me. As for her written style, well, that's sort of experimental since I've taken my cue from travel writers. They tend to have a self-deprecatory tone to the writing but also tend not to be shy about saying where they've been and what they've done for work.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I'm looking forward to this.

 

[SuperTrainStationH]

I like what I have read so far, that being what's been posted to this point.

This strikes me like something that might be found sitting forlorn on a table of books and magazines on the table of a waiting room in someplace like a doctor's office or a mechanic's shop somewhere in the Pokemon World, and I find these sorts of pieces to be the easiest to lose myself in.

The format seemingly takes what might have, in the wrong setting, been a mountain of expository information about the author's vision for the fictional world which overshadows the proper story, and instead fuels the piece with it and letting the information serve as its own end, and providing a different sort of narrative skeleton to hang it on.

Looking forward to more.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I've somehow managed to forget to respond to this. First things first, this is not dead and I am still working on it - hopefully from the start of next month I'll have time to work on it properly, but for a while now it's had to be repeatedly pushed aside in favour of university work.

This strikes me like something that might be found sitting forlorn on a table of books and magazines on the table of a waiting room in someplace like a doctor's office or a mechanic's shop somewhere in the Pokemon World

I know you don't mean it that way, but that is a hilariously deprecatory comment

 

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Version History

1.1 : Moved Gunwharf Quays section to Part 2. Moved Blue Planet section here from Part 3.

Vermilion City
Birthplace of an empire​

People call Vermilion City the port of exquisite sunsets, but I thought it looked best in the early hours of the morning. My first sight of the city was from the foredeck of the liner Goldeen on a cold, clear April morning. In the early morning the city is coloured a subtle shade of dove grey, bordered by the slate blue waves of the Brittanay Sound. It’s a strangely tranquil scene for one of the busiest ports in the Empire.

Sharing the deck with me was my bellossom, Bella, pretending not to notice the cold and the salt spray. She’s a tough little monster, from the aggressive Ilex Forest troupes. Behind us to starboard was an amorous weepinbell, sulking because a disapproving Bella had taught him a lesson in chivalry at the point of a Leaf Blade.

Westwards, way off to my left, I could see the shallow curve of Vermilion Bay lying perhaps half a league distant. Vermilion on the Bay is the new, modern city, characterised by neatly laid-out suburbs and airy parkland. At the eastern side of the bay the coast bends south and becomes a wide headland that dominates the centre of the panorama.

In the crook between the bay and the headland is the container port of Anchorage. The cranes tower over the warehouses, their steel-latticed masts and jibs shining pearlescent in the light, distance making them look like impossibly spindly twigs against the sky. Even at that early hour there was the slabby bulk of a cargo ship sailing into dock, her decks piled bow to stern with multicoloured intermodal shipping containers.

Across the headland is the heart of the city, Old Vermilion, Nazeton on the north side with its streets crammed with tall turn of the century terraced houses, medieval Chesilby on the south. As the Goldeen drew nearer to port the squat round shape of Nazeton Castle became steadily more obvious. Four hundred and fifty years ago those thick stone walls housed batteries of heavy culverin, poised to blast marauding ships to splinters. Nazeton Castle isn’t the only surviving fortification in Vermilion. Between Nazeton and Chesilby a short channel splits the headland in two, linking the sea to Vermilion Harbour. A stretch of superbly preserved medieval town wall stands near the entrance of the channel at Chesilby; a brace of seventeenth-century artillery forts guard the harbour mouth.

Entering the channel seemed to transform Vermilion from a quiet, almost impressionistic cityscape into a living, working port city. Yachts lay sleepily at anchor in the channelside marinas. Tugs and pilot boats chugged back and forth – a blue-liveried Ranger patrol ship sailed out, possibly on the hunt for smugglers. I realised then that I was glad to see Vermilion for the first time from the foredeck of a ship, rather than from the gondola of a zeppelin.

Glad, yes, but also flagging somewhat. The journey from Aquacorde Town had been a rough one. At this point I was running on coffee, croissants, and an uncomfortable catnap in Nina d’Lanclos Terminal 4. Presently we came up on Horsea Island, a shred of land standing just off the south side of the harbour. You won’t find any horsea there nowadays, not least because the island is the docking place for international passenger shipping. Liners from all over the world dock at Horsea. They come from Shinikara, Unova and Lemuria, from Kalos, Megalio and Storm Island. My Imperial passport sped me through Immigration – welcome back to the Empire – then I sped myself on past the usual port retail on the main concourse. These always mystify me. I can see why you’d want to buy a paperback or an overpriced sandwich, but who the hell buys a designer suit before boarding ship?

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vermilion’s History I: The Red Town
According to the Annals of Sarbury, in the 7th century CE Vermilion was part of the petty Kingdom of Lindsey – though at this time the town was known as Rēadtūn, the Red Town. Folk etymology holds this is due to King Theodric the Bloody (629 – 648), who used the harbour as a base to raid his neighbours up and down the coast. Legend has it that Theodric would display the gory swords of his defeated foes above the gates of the town.

Thanks to the depredations of war and the neglect of kings, Vermilion then fell back into obscurity for much of the medieval period. In spite of this, growing sea trade and a robust shipbuilding industry kept bringing wealth into the town. Sincere work to fortify the town began from 1539, commissioned by Edmund Holmwood, Count of Lindsey and royal favourite. By 1556 the town was surrounded by stone ramparts, and a chain boom spanned the harbour mouth.

The 17th century cemented Vermilion’s status as the Kingdom of Kanto’s premier seaport. Over the course of the century Kanto’s need to compete with the navies of the other Sunset Kingdoms brought Vermilion into unassailable prominence. The key to the port’s success as a naval base lies in her geography. The twin arms of the headland enclose a deep natural harbour nearly two miles across at its widest point, narrowing to a mere 1,500ft at the harbour mouth. Aside from being able to shelter a great number of vessels, the narrow channel is easily defended from the sea through the use of chain booms and shore forts.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Beyond the concourse a concrete bridge links Horsea to the mainland. Halfway across I stopped for a few minutes to take some impromptu photos of the harbour, trying to capture its appearance in the early morning light. There was an interesting view of His Majesty’s Naval Base to be had from here – the drydocks and basins, the ugly squat barracks and oddly handsome warehouses, and the orchard of cranes peering over the jetties. The vast, imposing grey slab of the aircraft carrier HMS Conqueror dominated the panorama. At nearly 1000ft long she dwarfed intrepid HMS Thunderchild moored at a nearby jetty.

An inelegant yawn reminded me that I still had to find accommodation, so I left the sea behind and went into the city. In this city it’s quite hard to leave the sea behind. There’s one thousand years of maritime history almost everywhere you look. You can see it etched onto the fabric of the buildings, see it displayed on statuary and monuments, hear it in the forlorn cries of the ever-present wingull. You can read it on the street signs – Rope Street, Fusee Square, Orange Lane. The prevailing impression is of a jigsaw city, sewn together from too many periods and cultures. It all makes for an interesting aesthetic, but not a pretty or even a magnificent one.

* * *​

The original plan had been to stay in a chain hotel outside the city centre. As fortune would have it, though, a stone’s throw from the bus station I stumbled across a surprisingly cheap B&B. At less than $60 per night I doubted I was going to find a better deal. The proprietor, frankly, was a dreadful harridan. Mrs Hauteclaire, as she insisted on, didn’t smile or even greet me at reception. She had an inordinate number of rules, most of them strict. “Wipe your feet thoroughly.” - that was number one. Breakfast between eight and nine am, no exceptions. Guests must be back by ten pm. No men – Mrs Hauteclaire threw me a suspicious look with that one – Pokémon must be fed in the guest kitchen. Pokémon must be confined to their Poké Balls. No cursing …

After a short nap I headed out to explore the city (Breaking three and a half rules, probably), taking a circuitous route in order to see the town wall. Sights like this remind me of why I love the Middle Kingdom. For just under three-quarters of a mile the street runs in the shadow of a twenty-foot high medieval wall. In their heyday the walls would have formed a 2.5-mile circuit around the town, including thirty two octagonal bastion towers and two gatehouses. Each bastion would have been topped with a formidable ballista – the floor below housed a Flamethrower charmeleon. Many medieval fortifications incorporated Water-types to discourage undermining by Ground-types. Vermilion’s town walls had the sea to protect them.

Aside from some modern safety rails on the inner edge of the parapet not much has changed in six centuries. Even the tower-top ballistae have been restored. Say what you like about Middle Kingdom vanity, we preserve our heritage better than anyone.

The Castelia of the Seas
Whatever the Royal Navy might say, in the popular imagination the jewel of Vermilion City is a civilian vessel. She was back in her home port for general downtime, anchored up with quiet dignity in the shelter of the breakwater by No. 6 Pier. Her lines were classic, a high freeboard on a black hull, a tastefully restrained double row of balconied cabins lining the upper decks. About 350ft from the forecastle rose a stout funnel in the distinctive scarlet livery of the Hepburn Line. Her name was discreetly stencilled on her prow in Hepburn red: Anne.

But you didn’t need me to tell you that. SS Anne, the Castelia of the seas, still the gold standard of cruise ships after more than thirty years afloat, and the last oil-fired steamship still in service. By all accounts financially she’s still going strong. You can see why, comparing her with the modern cruise ships by No. 2 and No. 5 Pier – vast, gleaming white monstrosities, towering decks crammed with cabins like floating condominiums, massed glass balconies glittering (Appropriately enough) with all the soul and charm of a corporate office block.

When Hepburn Line launched Anne in 1976 she was widely considered to be a gamble. Disregarding the conventional wisdom of the three-class model, Anne was built to highlight an excellent ‘second-class’ experience to appeal to a middle-class market. As the sport of pokémon training grew in prestige, Anne kept pace, holding tournaments and conventions, and hosting some of the best trainers in the Empire. From 1994-98 she even had an official Indigo League Gym (At the turn of the millennium it was converted to a Contest Hall). Unlike the modern megaship, she retained premium first-class suites. Perhaps unintentionally, the ingredients for success were all there – a ship that retained the high-class glamour of yesteryear, crucially placed within reach of a mass market of petite bourgeoisie.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vermilion’s History II: Sovereign of the Seas
Kanto arose as a nation betrothed to the sea – her destiny was to rule the waves. It’s an idea at the foundations of Kantoese identity. And it’s a myth. Until the Union of the Roses in 1655 Kanto was at best a second-rate naval power, not safe behind a saline moat, but wary and fearful of the violent Sunset Seas.

If anything, Kanto married Johto’s navy. From the Union of the Roses a national conviction developed that the Middle Kingdom had a right, indeed a duty, to rule the sea. The belief in the Middle Kingdom’s ‘sovereignty of the seas’ was a core belief for the Empire to come. And the Empire was not shy about invoking it, imposing Imperial civilisation and order on the world’s oceans, by force of arms if need be.

The Maritime Supremacy Acts controversially revive this centuries-old ideology. The Acts mandate that passenger ships using Imperial ports must fly the Imperial flag – and, therefore, submit to Imperial taxation, industry regulations, and legal jurisdiction. The Acts have since been accused of naked imperialism, an accusation that’s difficult to refute, but the benefits to the oceanic traveller are just as difficult to ignore.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately, Anne’s prestige attracted the tackiest kind of petite bourgeoisie – organised crime. The competition for a glamorous place to conduct illegal business, beyond the reach of the police, led to a spate of flash in the pan mob wars in the 80s. Ironically just as the Rockets apparently came out on top Parliament passed the first of the Maritime Supremacy Acts. In the long run the Team Rocket association has only added to Anne’s sense of glamour. The newly-installed Station Marshal of the SS Anne signalled the end of the mob’s golden age with his arrest of Rocket Executive Sunny “Antares” Falzone. Though Falzone’s arrest made a national hero of Marshal Juniper Device, Anne’s fortunes continued to take a turn for the worse while the crackdown continued. But organised crime + enough time eventually = colourful history – a history that Hepburn is quick to celebrate.

* * *​

It had been a long day, full of the sort of nettling misfortunes that every travel writer learns to expect. I headed back to the B&B by an unintentionally circuitous route, stopping briefly for a mediocre burger and to pick up a few beers. Kalosian beer’s all very well but I’ve missed Kantoese brews.

I had intended to organise the day’s notes and photos in my room, but on a whim I decided to work in the guest’s lounge. A lounge as old-fashioned as the owner – I hadn’t seen a floral print armchair in a long time. The magazines on the coffee table were all without exception stiflingly dull: Classic Boat – The world’s most beautiful boats (I’d seen the SS Anne that afternoon, no comparison), Locomotives Illustrated (With pull-out diagram of a KR Class 56 shunter!), Angler (Mostly magikarp). After about half an hour another guest ambled in, starting as if he’d discovered me in his shower. He proved to be a nice man, though perhaps the most neurotic I’ve ever met. It took him a full twenty minutes to work up the courage to ask me what I was doing, and when he did his speech was riddled with tics (“I say, a travel writer! How, um, very interesting. Yes? Interesting, mhm, mm.”).

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vermilion City: Pokémon to Catch

#73 Tentacool – Haliorubeus haliopsis
Tentacool are almost axiomatically common, happily tolerating the conditions in and around Vermilion harbour. Tentacool are easily landed with a simple rod or net, though they do tend to drift in blooms, which can make singling one out difficult.

#74 Tentacruel – Haliorubeus polycrinis
Tentacruel are rare close to Vermilion harbour. Shortly after evolving they rise to the surface and begin to migrate out to sea. It takes a patient and observant trainer to catch one, not least because tentacruel almost never stay within easy reach of the shore.

#96 Drowzee – Baku oneirophagus
By day drowzee spend most of their time resting on Route 11 – in the small hours of the morning the bravest of them wander into the city in search of dreams. The best time to catch one is the last hour before dawn while they’re tired and inattentive.

#83 Farfetch’d – Anas pterocheirus
There’s still a small breeding population of wild farfetch’d inhabiting a secluded part of Route 6. It’s illegal to catch farfetch’d in the wild, but you can buy ducklings in the city anyway. Most licensed breeders advertise in the Pokémon Centre.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

If there’s one thing I ended up learning it’s that Mrs Hauteclaire had a talent for tarnishing otherwise pleasant experiences. She bustled in halfway through a nice, if staccato, conversation and immediately gave me a dark look as if she suspected I’d smuggled a man in. Actually she had a problem with my drinking beer in the guest lounge (“This is a dry Establishment.”). Apparently I’d already been informed of this particular rule amid the swarm of other rules that morning. Yes … it had been a long day.

The Blue Planet
I’ll admit I have a soft spot for aquariums. There’s something so peaceful about the glow of the water, the waver and shimmer of the light. The silence of the gently shoaling fish. Gazing into Marvellous Coral Sea was almost mesmerising in its … well, hugeness. The tank was designed as an all-encompassing experience, nearly 300ft long; almost 130ft wide; an immense two storeys deep. It was like someone had picked an acre of coral reef from the tropics and replanted it here in the Blue Planet Aquarium.

Marvellous Coral Sea was a world of its own, an almost overwhelming kaleidoscope of colours and species. Colonies of plate corals grew mushroom-like in overlapping layers, clustered together with knobby acropora. Schools of bright damselfish, angelfish, and fusiliers drifted gently through the anthozoan forest. A delicately branching sea fan stirred and turned out to be a corsola, disturbing some lurking horsea. Silver-blue shoals of remoraid toured the tank in the clear water over the reef. And above them all, the great carcajet circled.

This one was merely bus-sized at 32ft long, a tiddler by carcajet standards. Carcajet (Aquamachina giganteus) are among the largest pokémon we know of, great flat-headed, blunt-nosed sharks closely related to sharpedo. But these are peaceable giants, spending their lives travelling the world’s oceans following the densest plankton blooms. The carcajet cruised lazily past me, a rather sweet, dopey expression in its small round eyes. I could see with wonderful clarity its wide, rigid pectoral fins, and the hydrojets recessed beneath its vestigial tail. Mysterious pokémon, carcajet. Most of what we know about them comes from when they gather near the coasts to feed. We still don’t know where, exactly, they spend most of their lives. Recent research has at least revealed how they apparently appear and disappear at will. When ready to migrate they’ll dive to around 3,000ft, to the dim mesopelagic zone, where they’ll then use their hydrojets to cruise at an impressive 23 knots.

The aquarium wasn’t originally on my itinerary, but I had time to kill before the evening. You need a full day here, really, but with only a few hours available I had to pick and choose. I spent an hour at Marvellous Coral Sea (It’s an immersive experience, if you’ll forgive the pun). The next tank was considerably smaller, although still more spacious than a lot of people’s apartments. The room was dimly lit, the tank itself illuminated with red light. An oozy, muddy floor, bare rock at the back. And the biggest kingler I had ever seen.

Kingler (Cancer megachelae) are usually the warlords of the sea floor, growing to between three and four feet high, weighing around 130lbs, and armed with claws that can crush with more than 16,000 newtons of force – there’s not a lot that can challenge one in its home environment. They’re not picky eaters, either, though pokémon invertebrates like shellder and starmie are favourite foods.

In the blackness of the deep sea, kingler grow to be giants. The aquarium’s specimen, named Big Bob for some reason, is a six-foot monster and lives in a tank to himself. He was hunched in the ooze near the rocks at the back, slowly shredding apart what looked like half a pig. He watched me just as intently as I watched him. How well could he see me? I wondered. Eyes have no use on the abyssal plain.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Blue Planet Aquarium | The Waterfront | Weekdays 10am-5pm, Weekends 10am-6pm | $20 | T: 01964 237891 | Website: www.visitblueplanet.com
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lining the edges of the tank, the mirrored panels of capture net projectors shone cheri-red in the light. Big Bob had a tank to himself for a reason. Deep sea kingler (C. m. abyssanus) are used to eating all they can, when they can – they can’t be trusted around other pokémon, and aren’t completely trustworthy around humans either.

Blue Planet aquarium sits right on the edge of a cove cut into the coastline of Vermilion Bay. I stepped out onto the chilly seafront terrace. The weather had changed during the night. A velvety sea fog had rolled in from Brittanay Sound that morning, masking the bay in a deep blanket of pearl white. From somewhere out in the cove sounded a high melodic call, a song not singable by any human voice. Five pale shadows distilled themselves from the fog – two large, three much smaller, swanna-necked with knobbled backs, fog curling about them as if reluctant to let go. Peaceful, half-lidded eyes, though always watchful, slightly wary.

Lapras (Plesiosaurus pacifici). Last of their genus, last of the plesiosaurs, surviving down the millennia while one-by-one their cousins died off, and now, they’re a declining species. Their ancient range extended seasonally from the grey northern Sinnovard shores to the warm seas of the Orange Islands. It’s said that pods seventy strong could once be seen passing by Cerulean Cape, especially in April when the females returned from the Orange Islands with their new calves. Lapras still make this migration – it’s an epic journey, mother and child travelling as much as three thousand miles to reach the fishing grounds off Sinnoh.

The modern world has not been kind to lapras. By nature gentle creatures, lapras invariably prefer to flee rather than fight. Pods of related individuals, led by the matriarchs, work together to the confuse and mislead pursuing predators. For millennia this strategy served them well – it took a skilled, determined hunter to catch a lapras that didn’t want to be caught. But the modern world, with modern Poké Balls, modern petrol engines, and modern firearms, has dramatically altered the balance of power. Caught between persecution from commercial fishermen and overcapture by trainers in the Orange Islands, lapras populations plummeted to critical levels.

Today, lapras are still an endangered species, protected by law. Their numbers have gradually ticked up from their doldrums in the early 90s, thanks to vigorous cross-regional conservation efforts. Poachers now have to contend with a specialised Ranger Union taskforce. In spite of these protections, the future of the species is uncertain. This little pod of five will be both ambassadors and ancestors for generations of lapras to come. They carry high hopes on their backs – only time will tell whether these gentle pokémon will be able to fulfil them.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

The obvious starting point for Vermilion City would be its probable real-world counterpart, Yokohama City. After a bit of reading I felt Yokohama was too young as a major seaport for my concept of Vermilion. Instead I turned to Portsmouth, borrowing much of the geography and taking inspiration from the city’s history. The main differences are in the details – hints at the historic use of pokémon, the Rocket connection to the SS Anne, etc. In some cases there was a lot of thought and research done to come to these details, most of which did not make it into the final version for fear of lecturing the reader.

The aim for Part 1 was to try and create a sense of a world with depth of the kind you don’t usually get to see in pokémon-centric fanfiction. A city’s a good place to do that, since you can hint at a lot of history with something as simple as street names. The mentions of foreign places were intended to serve the same purpose. Tianxia and Frankia, Lemuria, and Megalio are mine, but Sakala, Shinikara and Storm Island are creations of Misfit Angel (Used with permission). You can find those regions in her stories Storm Island and Land of the Roses.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Here for the review game! It's a bit of a rambly mess, I apologize. I don't do this often.

Thoughts on Prelude, the first post

First, I love the delicious jab at Kantofics at the start!

Your wittier (and prettier) alter-ego has a very pretty (and witty) way with words. I love the way that Kanto as a whole is described -- its history, its people, and the way people within the world (or us readers, who are similarly tired of a hundred kantofics?) view it. Felt like I was reading the foreword of an actual history book. You've done a very good job of immediately digging the hook in, and now you're ready to reel me in!

One final note about Bethany's attitude: I love it. I see myself in it. I too am hateful of stuffy quotes that make no sense, offer bad advice or are just plain useless.

Thoughts on And Did Those Feet...

I was curious about Nine Pretty Butterflies as I read the earlier entry. Figured it might have been a reference to an occasional co-author, but now I know, it's just one of Bethany's in-world friends.

Loving the actual effort going into describing the geography of the world where Kanto, Johto and the other "prefectures" are. I never really think in that vein myself, I come up with a country, vaguely define it's shape, figure out the neighbors and be done with it. To see you come up with continent names, sea names and believable-sounding region names such as Misho and Haakono inspires me.

I also quite like seeing the views on the Sunset Isle again. I feel like I'm in front of a game of Civilization, in charge of the Tianxia as I read this: "Those filthy savage barbarians on those islands, always kidnapping my civilians and messing with my cargo vessels! I'd go over there and teach those brutes a lesson, but the islands... so worthless and hardly worth the bother!"

Thoughts on Vermilion City

I'd say Vermilion City is probably my favorite location in Kanto. It was probably the first location I saw in the anime (I believe Pikachu vs. Raichu was the first episode I watched), I loved the SS Anne quest in Red/Blue and when I finally returned in Gold/Silver, I was instantly smashed about by waves of nostalgia. I haven't read this section yet, as of writing this line, but I'm certainly looking forward to your take on it!

District names: I love it, and it's a detail so many people often look over. In a city as old as Vermilion, there are going to be differences in architecture, usually split into easily definable regions. It saddens me that a detail like this is overlooked, as it really adds to the atmosphere. It brightens my day to see it touched upon here. I'm also digging the detailed look at Horsea Island. Such a small strip of land, but with its own history separate from the city it belongs to. Wonderfully crafted.

Shinikara and Storm Island!!!

Red Town's details are a nice touch as well. I love naval history, especially around the renaissance and exploration eras. I can very easily picture the harbor, the bay and the defenses around them, as well as the gore-stained gates at the hand of Theodric.

I'd love to see Mrs. Hauteclaire's reaction to my own characters. Never thought about a B&B being obtusely strict, as I've never experienced it myself (always been lucky to have accommodating hosts), but I can see it making for an interesting slow-down chapter. Hmm.

Perhaps one thing I can point out that I was a bit iffy on, the abundance of obscure maritime jargon to describe the SS Anne. I read that first paragraph and just kinda blinked. I read it again, looking up the numerous terms I was unfamiliar with, yet still had a hard time picturing it. My best guess is that people who are just as unfamiliar with these words will be just as stumped, and it pulled me out of the atmosphere pretty powerfully.

Spotted a missed word: with all the soul and charm of a corporate office block.

Looking at this section on Gunwharf Quays... me thinks Miss Bethany's not-as-pretty, not-as-witty alter ego would do well writing for travel magazines. I did feel like I was reading an actual article about a Mediterranean city. I assume that was the point, so let me just say: Nailed, and hard.

Also loving the binomial nomenclature of the Pokemon to Catch section, though that does bring up the topic of how silly Pokemon "evolution" would be when viewed through the lens of Earth's modern science.

I was just about to suggest that Mrs. Hauteclaire should have a fit over returning with a few beers in hand, and then I saw that she did. Nice final touch to round this one off!

Overall, very enjoyable. Looking forward to more. I should have gotten to this sooner.

 

[diamondpearl876]

It was a fine, sunny day, as it always seems to be in Kalos (They must manufacture sunshine here), in a pretty, Neo-Romanesque town, charming in that carefully calibrated, faintly smug way Kalosian towns are.

I lol'd at "They must manufacture sunshine here," and overall, Bethany's got some amusing quips in her narration among all the historical facts and descriptions which helps to add some unique characterization to a style that can otherwise feel a bit formal.

Kanto? I thought. I could hardly think of a more tired region for a travelogue. Kanto was so familiar, so usual, her paths trod and re-trod by countless writers before me. What was there to find in Kanto that hadn't been found a hundred times already? I accepted, not because I expected to be surprised, fascinated, or delighted by the Home Region, but because a commission is a commission and I never like to turn down work.

But still, it would be a clichéd commission, a banal journey around a banal region, right?

Lol, this is hilarious from a reader standpoint because of the homage to all the fanfics about the Kanto region. It doesn't step into insulting territory, just states that yeah, Kanto's been written about for forever. I'm sure I've said it elsewhere that Kanto just seems to be the most boring out of all the regions, but it's also the most bare and therefore the most open to interpretation, so... no doubt you'll be taking advantage of that.

After years of travelling the Middle Kingdom, I've found that's what these regions are – story after story, laid down over the centuries like layers of chalk.

Some of these Kantoese stories have been told and retold so often that they, and the associated wonders they describe, have become stale through repetition, clichés. I'm not a Kantonian – actually, as a native Johtoan I am very nearly honour-bound to expound at length about how Johto has its own unique charm and fantastic wonder. But I’ve realised a couple of things on my travels. That the clichés, dry and tired though they may be, are usually true. And that clichés are not all that Kanto has to offer.

And this is a nice homage to the different Pokemon generations and fanfics, by extension I suppose, Pokemon fanfic cliches. Again, I think you'll no doubt portray Kanto in-depth and in a unique way.

‘Travel while you’re still young and able. Don’t worry about the money, just make it work. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be.’

How supercilious! How completely inane! Just make it work? I’m lucky enough to get paid to travel, and I pay my bills in dollars, not cute stories about cycling around Tianxia.

I had to look to see if that was a real quote, and lo and behold, it is. At any rate, Bethany seems very pragmatic and logical whereas the quote I believe is largely based off of mere adventure and the emotions that accompany impulsivity.

...I'm just going to refer to her solely as "Bethany" since it feels a bit awkward otherwise.

Over the years I have fallen in love with these Sunset Isles, a culture composed of mingled cultures, possessing a rich, deep, often bloody history.

I didn't like the repetition refering how Kantoese culture is intertwined with a bunch of other cultures at first, but it works, really. I guess it gave me the impression at first that you weren't going to be focusing on Kanto only despite this being, well, a Kanto travelogue, but I think it makes sense for Bethany to have experience around the world and to compare/use that knowledge to her advantage when writing this.

As a historian, I have to say “Probably not”. But it almost doesn’t matter. The story itself is powerful – its endurance has nothing to do with truth or falsehood. Stories are powerful, far more powerful than we commonly realise. History itself is a story, a narrative rewritten and reinterpreted with each new generation.

I like this bit a lot. It's well written and there's a lot of truth to it, even outside the scope of fanfiction.

The prevailing impression is of a jigsaw city, sewn together from too many periods and cultures. It all makes for an interesting aesthetic, but not a pretty or even a magnificent one.

Like this description. Again it goes into cultures intertwining so it's realistic, not to mention it hits hard that there's pain and terrible events to be found in these cultures and their histories.

Breakfast between eight and nine am, no exceptions. Guests must be back by ten pm. No men – Mrs Hauteclaire threw me a suspicious look with that one – Pokémon must be fed in the guest kitchen. Pokémon must be confined to their Poké Balls. No cursing …

Here, Bethany strikes me as the type of person to want to live in the middle of nowhere, bound by no rules and to not have to deal with people like this. : ' )

Each bastion would have been topped with a formidable ballista – the floor below housed a Flamethrower charmeleon. Many medieval fortifications incorporated Water-types to discourage undermining by Ground-types. Vermilion’s town walls had the sea to protect them.

I like the Pokemon references here, and really, outside the Kanto-specific parts, Pokemon references in general are what I'm looking forward to a lot with this. There's so much potential there, and I know you could do it justice.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Well, well, response time already. I might as well respond to the Introduction together. I've kind of taken some stylistic cues from Bill Bryson in terms of Bethany's quipping - less National Geographic, somewhat informal. All that "Kanto is banal" business is a sword that cuts both ways, I think. Kanto has been done a hundred times before, rarely with much new to say, but in the case of fanfic it's invariably because most authors don't want to do anything interesting with it. That's the reason for my writing this story - such as it is - in the first place.

Loving the actual effort going into describing the geography of the world ... and be done with it

I will admit that did take a lot of thought. I'd partly dug the hole for myself with the Very British Johto, and then insisting on setting this in The Long 'Verse. Essentially this means trying to fit the four "prefectures" into where the British Isles would be and then figuring out where mainland "Europe" would be in relation to that. Sinnoh could be more or less where Scotland is, split from mainland "England" (I.e: Kanto, Johto, Misho). Hoenn would only make sense on a lower latitude, so it gets punted down south towards the Mediterranean and the Iberian peninsula is removed to make room. Where do the Sevii Islands go? Fringing the Bay of Biscay, probably. And so on ...

District names

I'm glad it works. Those names are some of my favourite bits of the chapter, as it happens. Chesilby = the village by the stony beach. Nazeton = the town on the headland. Funnily enough, Horsea Island really did exist in Portsmouth Harbour. Some light might be thrown on it when you know that "ea", "ey", etc is Old English for "island".

Never thought about a B&B being obtusely strict, as I've never experienced it myself (always been lucky to have accommodating hosts)

As I understand it, it's something of a long-dead British trope. Fawlty Towers made fun of it back in the seventies, and I think it was an old trope even then. It's also in part my making fun of the more deluded kind of hotel owner, the kind you'd see on a show like The Hotel Inspector - a very stuffy, probably well-to-do owner who can't understand why they're losing money.

Also loving the binomial nomenclature of the Pokemon to Catch section, though that does bring up the topic of how silly Pokemon "evolution" would be when viewed through the lens of Earth's modern science.

However you slice it, it comes up silly so I thought what the hell, I might as well amuse myself playing around with binomial Latin.

I like the Pokemon references here, and really, outside the Kanto-specific parts, Pokemon references in general are what I'm looking forward to a lot with this. There's so much potential there, and I know you could do it justice.

Bit of a tricky one, really. I was in two minds about whether a stone wall would make sense in the context of weaponised pokémon. In the end I decided that while you could pull down a wall much faster with a pokémon, you could also raise one up much faster with one as well

 

[Misfit Angel]

Where do the Sevii Islands go?

Falklands. DO IT.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Falklands. DO IT.

Oho, I bet at least some readers wouldn't like what I'd do with that

 

[Flaze]

“Collingwood want you to write another book,” he announced.

I think that should be wants. Aside from that I didn't really find any other mistakes.

I can’t exactly refer to the posts in this fic as chapters, so instead I’ll be using “Entry”

Entry 1

Well, of all the stories that I expected you to ever write I certainly didn’t expect a travel guide. I’ll have the whole “is Bethany Pavell you?” comment because I don’t think they’re really important in discussing the fic and as far as I’ve gotten they haven’t influenced anything.

I find the concept behind this story very interesting, the way in which you describe Bethany’s voice feels very much like a blog (and a legit travel guide) with little nods and details about the world and what she’s seen throughout her life. It’s a good way of showing us the character’s personality while also giving us more detail about the world.

Worldbuilding is what stands out the most in this story and you’re able to blend in information about it into Bethany’s prose well enough to make us get curious about all of this. That being said, it does make me a little sad that we’re going to end up focusing on Kanto instead of these other regions. Granted that’s part of the central joke in the story itself.

I do wonder exactly where you’ll go with this story, if it’s just a series of random travel notes then that’s good too, after all, it is inspired on the Hobbit, but even the Hobbit did some pretty interesting things with its format.

Entry 2

Nine Pretty Butterflies? I’ll assume it’s just an alias. This Entry was really short and it kind of felt different to the first one in that it was more telling us about the story of someone native to Kanto. However, this does give me a bit more of an idea in what kind of story this’ll be like. It also kind of feels like you’re just going to make this story your own little worldbuilding notebook, which is safe but…well let’s just see where it goes.

Again having all the details on your world really makes it stand out and feel richer but…it kind of feels like we’re having too much worldbuilding thrown at us? Like you just keep dishing out details over and over. It helps in giving us an idea but I hope that’s not what these entries will mostly consist on, a travel guide is supposed to talk about the place. That being said, it all depends on how you do it and I’m pretty confident it’d come out all right.

Entry 3

Well at least the entry on Vermilion gives me more of a feel for what I can expect of the story. In a way it’s kind of perfect since I’ve been meaning to look into how I can improve as a world builder myself, I guess reading someone else’s notes would work for that.

My only problem with this format is that with all the information being given in every entry it’d end up feeling dull or boring at some point, like obviously there’s a public for it, it’s why the Silmarillion is a thing but…well I don’t know learning about the ecology, history and culture of every city and how it is in your world is still really interesting, it’s just a fear that I have in that it doesn’t really offer anything else besides giving people a way to look at how to develop a world.

Other than that I think it was all very intriguing in how you explored the different aspects of the town and I honestly want to know how long it even to you to get all of that down. I think I’ll also be reviewing this in quote format going forward since I think that’ll allow me to comment more.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Version History

1.1 : Moved Gunwharf Quays section here from Part 1.

One Star in a Constellation
219 years ago, a man stood close to this spot, gazing out into Vermilion Bay. Tears still stained his cheeks. His blue frock coat was full of salt, but the engraved silver buttons shone proudly in the morning sun. His name was Evan Roskilly, thirty three years-old, and one of the Royal Navy’s star captains.

Evan Roskilly was the only son of a well-respected Cianwood gentleman, Edward Roskilly. In the mid-18th century Cianwood Island was one of the Middle Kingdom’s poorest counties, and indeed the Roskillies were perpetually in financial trouble despite their social status. Evan’s father had to be resourceful, marrying off his first daughter; the second became a priestess; and for his son, Edward used the last of his savings to send Evan to sea.

This afternoon I was in neat, suburban Vermilion on the Bay – less of a jigsaw city than Chesilby, but still distinctly maritime. Speaking of maritime, it was from a little Heritage Trust shop on the Old Gunwharf that I picked up an abridged copy of Evan Roskilly’s diary. It’s funny what history ends up forgetting. Roskilly’s surviving diaries cover almost his entire career, missing only his teenage years as a ponytailed Midshipman, and later Lieutenant, aboard the 64-gun HMS Formidable. It’s an unusually vibrant insight into a gentleman’s life on the waves.

* * *​

“I never saw a more wild and free a landscape as this. Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos. It was a country that affected me deeply, at once reminiscent of the Cianwood heath and something autarchic and untameable.”

In the summer of 1780 Roskilly was cruising off the western coast of Sinnoh, serving as 1st Lieutenant aboard HMS Pidgeot, a frigate of twenty eight guns. This was his first real taste of command responsibility. Pidgeot was originally posted to the Sinnovard station to provide an escort for incoming convoys, but in the spring of the following year the posting was enlivened by the bloody chaos of the Bishop’s Uprising. After the loyalist victory at the Battle of Aikenkirk, Pidgeot, along with her sister ship HMS Interceptor, was ordered into the Hailie Gjo to cut off the rebel’s escape. The squadron reached the port of Roke Cross to find the town already in loyalist hands. Seeing the violence of the rebellion first hand seems to have shocked Roskilly:

“… the rebels having taken the abominable resolution to cut their prisoners to pieces in the main square, the flagstones of which were now awash with the forlorn and clotted blood of those who, in their savage passion, the rebels had massacred in cruellest revenge the day before.”

The day would not get any less grim. About a hundred rebels had been captured when the town fell. As second-in-command of the Pidgeot, Roskilly was obliged to be present at the executions:

“There not being sufficient gallows to hang them as traitors, they were taken out by tens and destroyed by means of the Interceptor’s electabuzz. After they were dead, the rebels were stript and flung into the sea. All this was most distressing to endure, for”

Roskilly seems to have redacted his diary here, later insincerely adding:

“Not the slightest degree of pity nor concern was shown to them at their deaths, theirs was a vile and beastly act not having advanced their cause one step.”

* * *​

Evan Roskilly was still a young man, twenty three years-old, when he was ordered to cruise the tropical seas of Ultramar. This time he was hunting for pirates, and this time he was given command of a ship of his own – the sloop HMS Seafoam. She was a very typical ship for an officer of his rank, armed with eighteen nine-pounder guns and carrying half as many pokémon, but Roskilly was delighted anyway:

“I think she is the finest vessel of her class I ever saw. Her copper is very good, and she sails like a fish against the wind.”

This was no empty posting. Roskilly made landfall at Muscavade to find Port Kanto buzzing. Two days previously, a West Lemuria Company merchantman was ransacked and burned within sight of the harbour. Only a handful of survivors were allowed to escape in the ship’s jollyboat to tell their story. The townsmen of Port Kanto were scandalised and titillated to hear that the pirate captain was a woman from Chaochang (潮昌). She was none other than Su Yanqiang (苏艳强), better known to myth as Marigold Sue.

Su was to become one of the most infamous pirate captains on the Ultramarean Sea. The Saffron newspapers would continue to scandalise and titillate polite society with stories of her brutal violence and flamboyant gallantry. It’s hard to say what shocked society more – that a woman would sail beneath the black flag, or that she wore male clothes while doing it. What the columnists didn’t know they gleefully invented for their readers. The Saffron Times later claimed she always wore a red damask waistcoat daringly stolen from the Governor of Melaço’s own wardrobe. That was probably untrue – Roskilly personally saw Su when he doggedly pursued her brig for twenty two hours in September 1785. His diary mentions no famous waistcoat:

“[She was] a most striking creature, perhaps the most beautiful I had seen since I left Kanto; she wore double cutlasses and a brace of pistols about her slender hips.”

Even now separating out the truth from the legend is nigh-impossible. West Lemuria tended to encourage big personalities, and Marigold Sue was no exception, with a larger-than-life persona fit for a legendary scoundrel …

… Off the coast of Île Paladin, Marigold Sue pounced on a Kalosian brig carrying a rich cargo of Decolore saffron and indigo worth more than 1,000 doubloons (About $60,000 at today’s values). To the astonishment of the crew, she ignored the dyes, taking only the captain’s oricorio-feathered hat before letting her prey go, apologising sheepishly for the inconvenience.

… In December 1785, Marigold Sue was locked up in a Muscavadean jail. Her luck had apparently run out – the Admiralty Court had convicted her of piracy. It wasn’t usually Imperial policy to hang women, but the infamous Marigold Sue had earned herself an exception. The Lieutenant-Governor of the island shrewdly ordered that Su be attended only by female jailers, rightly assuming she would try to save herself with an eleventh-hour pregnancy. His decision to visit Su’s cell was not so shrewd. Within a couple of days she’d seduced him thoroughly, playing on his lust for her money (And his lust for her body). Somehow believing he could clear her name, the Lieutenant-Governor arranged for her escape. The plan spectacularly backfired when Su recruited a skeleton crew in Port Kanto and sailed off with the finest Royal Navy sloop in the harbour.

… In the Bahía de Lâmpada, Marigold Sue captured the Braisilon Volant as she lay at anchor in the best-defended harbour in West Lemuria. Su led the boarding attack from the boats under cover of night, crossing more than half a mile of sea to get to the anchored galleon. The pirates overwhelmed the crew in a matter of minutes. Aboard, they found the back pay for the Joãozinho garrison, and none other than Antoine-Maurin Aubert de Bellegarde, the incoming Governor-General of Kalosian Lemuria.

The pirates had hit the big time. When the sun rose the next morning, Joãozinho awoke to find their new Governor-General a hostage. Su’s demands were simple: she would spare Aubert’s life in return for safe passage out of the bay. The captain of the garrison had no choice. Aubert de Bellegarde lived, but Su sailed away with an estimated 15,000 doubloons.

1786: Golden Opportunities
In the Spring of 1786, the colonies of Sunset Unova rose in armed rebellion – and for the pirates of the Ultramarean Sea, the golden years were beginning. Civil war meant a distracted Royal Navy, under-defended convoys, and plenty of smuggling opportunities in the colonies.

During this time Marigold Sue – still brazenly sailing her stolen HMS Challenger – began to keep company with the Anne Gallant, captained by Esteban el Rosado. Esteban was ambitious but none too smart, which probably explains why Su was prepared to sail alongside him. For half a year they plundered their way across West Lemuria, quitting the Ultramarean Sea at the start of the hurricane season, making landfall in the Orange Islands in mid-July. That cruise brought only middling success, so they were back in Lemuria by October. While Su set a course for the Nectarine Cays, Esteban sailed to Decolore to buy arms to smuggle into Unova.

Because he was ambitious and stupid, Esteban was also a braggadocio, crowing about sailing with the infamous Marigold Sue. His crowing reached the ears of a Royal Navy spy, who straight away rode to report it to the nearest warship in the islands – HMS Seafoam.

Roskilly immediately made sail for Wayfarer Island, determined to capture the pirates before they could disappear into the Great Western Ocean. Esteban fled the island too late. After a short and merciless chase Seafoam caught the Anne Gallant off the coast of Grand Spectrala. The wind was gusting towards the shore – Seafoam bore down on the Anne Gallant’s port quarter, trapping her to leeward. Now the pirates were forced to either fight or risk the gallows.

The ensuing action was brief but fierce. Seafoam engaged from a distance of about 50 yards, braving the Anne Gallant’s guns to stop her from escaping to windward.

“The blackguards gave a very spirited resistance, but we opened such a fire upon her as brought down her foremast within a quarter hour. I therefore ordered them to strike their colours, or else I would send them to the bottom.”

It wasn’t Esteban el Rosado who gave the order to surrender, but the Master Fernão Fernandes – sometime after the opening salvoes Esteban had been smashed overboard by a Water Pulse. Fernandes was much quicker on the uptake than the average pirate, quickly offering to turn King’s Evidence in return for Su’s whereabouts. Two words bought him his pardon – Isla Cangrejo.

* * *​

Meanwhile, in the Nectarine Cays, Su was hiding out on Isla Cangrejo. This little-known cay was where Su came to careen her ship and stash her share of the plunder. After their disappointing cruise in the Orange Islands the pirates threw a rum-soaked beach party, complete with prostitutes brought over from Decolore, and Marigold Sue lording it over them like a barbarian queen.

HMS Seafoam arrived at the cay in the dead of night. Challenger was careened up on the north side of the island with those few men who had the unenviable job of scraping the weeds and barnacles off her hull. The rest of the pirates were raucously gathered on the beach, getting rascally drunk and probably contracting chlamydia. Roskilly wasted no time in springing his trap, dispatching thirty men under the 1st Lieutenant to seize HMS Challenger while he landed the marines and his forty best sailors on the eastern shore, under his personal command. Roskilly led his men into the tropical forest, intending to attack the pirates from the cover of the trees. The sounds of sixty men picking through the undergrowth were ignored. Each assumed the noise was just their fellow pirates, tired of barnacle scraping.

The Seafoam’s crew were almost in position when one of the pirates realised their ‘shipmates’ were armed. He raised the alarm – the wrong alarm. The pirates lurched to their weapons, believing they had been betrayed by the Anne Gallant. Their drunken anger turned to panic when Roskilly’s marines opened fire. In the midst of the rabble Su cursed and screamed at her crew, a drawn cutlass in each hand.

Her screams and curses did her no good. The fight soon went out of the pirates with nine dead, twice as many injured and their pokémon either dead or fled. Su meekly surrendered at the point of Roskilly’s sword. Playing the longer game she tried to pull the same trick that sprung her from jail on Muscavade. It didn’t work this time. Roskilly claimed his duty kept him loyal, but I suspect the lad didn’t know what to do with a woman like Su. He had been at sea since he was thirteen, an environment typically lacking in assertive women.

On the 6th December 1786 Su Yanqiang was hanged from a short rope below the low-water mark at Stonebeach. The atmosphere that day was celebratory. Pirates were the not the rock stars of their day, glamorous bad boys who antagonised authority in exciting but harmless ways; they were more like the terrorists of their day, elusive and savage murderers who preyed on the innocent. The Kantoese public might have paid to be scandalised and titillated, but they still mercilessly cheered as Su was escorted to the gallows. There she was left to swing, washed by the grey winter tides of Vermilion City. Not even the infamous Marigold Sue of Chaochang left a beautiful corpse.

* * *​

Imagine, for a moment, an imperial naval dock circa 1790. What would you see? Sailors hauling barrels of navy issue beer and salted meat? Miles of coiled rope, endless acres of folded canvas sailcloth? Maybe sailor’s wives and ship’s boys, pedlars hawking hot pies, old men married to the sea and marines with shouldered muskets? In truth you would have seen almost none of this. The quays, along with the yards and warehouses, belonged to the Ordnance Board. Usually the big ships of the line would be kept “in Ordinary” - i.e: in dock with their masts taken down, skeleton-crewed, their guns removed and stored in an Ordnance Board warehouse. Cannon, shot, and barrels of powder would be what you’d see, admittedly with marines on guard.

They call this estate “Historic” Vermilion, but in reality it’s not so much historic as gentrified. Until recently the quays were just another thirty acres of centuries-old brownbelt junk. Redevelopment has turned the Old Gunwharf into a modern retail park – high end stores, high end restaurants, an IMAX cinema, swanky condos. The original perimeter wall, now restored, still encircles the estate, pierced by the original gatehouse. It’s a physical boundary that marks a kind of temporal-cultural boundary as well. On one side the streets all have old salty names – Ordnance Row, Fishbourne Street, Cloystercatchers. On the other, clean modern names – Gunwharf Boulevard of course, Hibiscus Arcade, Jacaranda Square.

If you like shopping, there’s a lot to like on Gunwharf Boulevard. I had another destination in mind, on the south side of Quinoa Street – the Fields of Neptune.

Officially it was called the Pokémon Marine Training Yard, but it didn’t take long for the nickname to stick. It’s a pleasant place to sit, an acre-sized basin surrounded with park benches. Originally it had a more utilitarian purpose, because this was where the Royal Navy trained and drilled its pokémon marine. Pokémon have aided sailors for time out of mind, of course, but the Royal Navy was one of the first in the world to bring their training under the auspices of the Navy Board.

It’s easy to forget, in these times of mass-produced, easy monster capture, that the pre-Poké Ball age was nothing like as convenient. Even aboard a mighty first-rate battleship space was at a premium. Pokémon serving aboard needed to be versatile, easy to control and simple to feed. Wartortle was traditionally considered the ideal naval species – strong enough to help haul a ship off a sandbar, tough enough to take its place alongside the guns when the decks were cleared for battle, and yet not so large or mercurial as to be unmanageable at sea.

The developers have actually done a decent job of preserving the Gunwharf’s heritage. Most of the fine old naval buildings are still there, now serving as mementoes of Vermilion’s past. Here you can find the Regional Maritime Gallery and the Royal Marines Museum. Bella’s favourite was obviously the Royal Marines Museum. It was all those trophy weapons on exhibit that roused her excitement: Frankish sabres, Sakalan tulwars, Tianxian jian, etc. Roskilly probably took his Lieutenant’s exam here, and it was here that he was summoned, in the winter of 1789, by the Lord High Admiral himself.

* * *​

Roskilly was twenty six when he received the promotion – from Master and Commander to Captain. Thanks to the ongoing war his new command was not to be some third-rate battleship, but the frigate HMS Galatea. On paper she was a sweet lum, a newly refurbished fifth-rate mounting a main battery of twenty six eighteen-pounder guns, fitted with a blastoise embrasure at the forecastle. Unfortunately for Roskilly, her crew was less than spectacular:

“We are very indifferently manned. There are almost forty on the sick list, in general affected by casual maladies the consequences of their unsupervised drunkenness and debauchery in port.”

Roskilly immediately wrote to his friends in the Admiralty, begging to be allowed to transfer his crew from Seafoam. His request was predictably denied – Seafoam was now a crack ship after all – but he was allowed to keep twenty of his best men to help make up the shortfall.

His success as Master and Commander of the Seafoam would come back to bite him. Every frigate captain’s hope was to be posted to the Storm Island station, but Roskilly was ordered back to Ultramar. In the eyes of the Admiralty, a successful pirate hunter with three year’s experience of West Lemuria was too useful to waste in Medi-Terra.

* * *​

If you stand in the midst of Jacaranda Square and look west, you’ll see two interesting sights. First, the Customs House, now an incongruously handsome pub for the likes of the Old Gunwharf – and second, a trio of masts peering up over the skyline. If you follow the path between the pub and the condominiums on your right, you’ll come to a park by an eighteenth-century ship in dock. Take a look at the name painted neatly on the stern, and you’ll see why you’re here. This is HMS Galatea, a little restored and repaired, but appearing more or less as she would have done when Roskilly was in command.

In any other port Galatea would be a star attraction. Here she’s just another museum ship, so under regarded that the Heritage Trust doesn’t even try and charge admission. I couldn’t help but have a look. Scale does strange things aboard a tall ship. All the space is vertical, masts towering like conifers, draped in the bewilderingly complex cobweb of rigging. Lonely and deserted though it is, the weather deck nonetheless feels narrow, claustrophobic. Even the embrasure on the forecastle looks barely wide enough for the blastoise it once housed.

I wandered below to the gun deck, trying to imagine what it would have been like to live, work, and fight here. The ceiling loomed oppressively low. Almost half the deck space was taken up by the rows of cannon. There were fold-down tables slung in the narrow gaps between the guns, a couple of benches squeezed into what space was left. Ten square feet for at least four men to eat and sleep in. I made my way towards the midshipmen’s berth at the back of the gun deck – twice the space, which they shared with the pokémon locker.

But right at the stern is the captain’s cabin, flooded with light from the stern gallery windows, a stateroom in miniature. Most of the furniture is a modern restoration, with the notable exception of the writing desk. A real antique, worn smooth by age, tethered to the deck to stop it from sliding about in high seas. I ran my palm over the dark wood. This is where he wrote in his diary, almost every night for seven years:

“… men of simple and modest manners, who have gained the offices they hold, by their hard service and skill in the essential duties of their profession: to see such men made the sport of such reptiles, as are most apt to make them feel their deficiencies, fills me with indignation.”

“… the part of a rejected lover, whose vanity led him to think a pretty woman had some love for him, when the utmost she felt was a friendship founded on long acquaintance.”

“… While we lay at Ginger Point I had the displeasure to find it absolutely necessary to flog four men. They had got beastly drunk and behaved in a mutinous manner.”

Seven years was a long time to serve in a frigate. HMS Galatea was at the Siege of Oswego, where the Royal Colonial army retreated from the besieging rebels; she was at the Battle of the Numbers, where Imperial and Kalosian ships clashed between the Sevii Islands; she intercepted and sank the frigate Belliqueuse, temporarily preventing news of the Imperial defeat from reaching Medi-Terra. Apparently without realising it Roskilly forged Galatea into a crack ship, another Seafoam.

But even a star captain wasn’t truly in command of his own destiny. On 12th August 1795 Roskilly received orders to return to Vermilion City, where he was to leave Galatea and take command of the 74-gun third-rate HMS Dragonfell.

On the morning after making landfall at Vermilion Roskilly called the men to the weather deck to give them the news.

“… [I told them] that I believed I had the most gallant, the most dutiful, and the most skilful crew as could be wished for, and I believed the man who superseded me would be the luckiest officer in the service. I was so affected in my leave taking that I burst into tears while addressing them, and when I recovered myself I saw many of them were as affected as myself. My sentiments were interrupted by their declaration that they would serve as diligently as if I were still their master, after which I was saluted with three such cheers as went to my heart.”

Later that day I stood looking out into Vermilion Bay, much as Roskilly did 219 years ago. I was thinking about the story Galatea’s curator told me. Sometimes, in the brief hours of twilight, you can see the ghost of Evan Roskilly on the dockside, gazing at the ship he once commanded.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

The character of Evan Roskilly is heavily inspired by the life of Captain Sir Graham Moore (1764-1843). Moore's diaries of his life as an officer in the Royal Navy offer a fascinating insight into the life of an officer who was the contemporary of Nelson, when the Royal Navy was reaching the zenith of its power. Though I don't think he realised it, Moore was one of the star captains of the period, though he has been overshadowed by the likes of Lord Thomas Cochrane or Sir Sidney Smith. Moore's talents lay in his ability to lead men through the daily grind of naval life; his sense of fairness, respect for the common sailor and attention to duty were qualities that made for not only cheerful but effective ships.

Unlike Roskilly, Moore was born to a respectable if not rich family. Though he did achieve some notable successes (Acquitting himself well at the Battle of Tory Island, for example), Moore didn't have a glamorous bone in his body and was often blighted by bad luck during his career. Roskilly's career is therefore heavily inspired by the real careers of Navy officers of this period. My main sources have been The Star Captains and Frigate Commander by Tom Wareham.

The decision to base the design of ships in the Pokémon world on real ones was a difficult one to come to. In the end, as usual in warfare, it comes down to a question of logistics. Pokémon still require space, food, water and training, the same requirements that humans have. The technology of the Poké Ball changes a lot in this regard, but you still have the question of when Poké Balls become available and how widespread the technology is. Would Kanto have been able to mass-produce Poké Balls in 1780?

Studying the lives of the Royal Navy's star captain led me to conclude that in any case, what the average captain would want most out of a pokémon would not be the ability to smash a hole in an enemy ship, but the ability to get away from a reef he didn't know was there. There's a lot pokémon can't do at sea as well. A Lapras might carry you for a short distance conveniently, but in the open ocean there's nowhere to rest, no protection from the cold and the spray, and nowhere to store anything to eat or drink.

Su Yanqiang is something of a pastiche of piratical characters. I have tried to capture the spirit of those larger-than-life characters of the so-called "Golden Age" of piracy, with a bit of 17th century highwayman thrown in for good measure. Her brief career and sticky end are entirely authentic - very few of the most famous pirates ever managed to escape a violent and ignoble death.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Hi there, Beth! I suppose it's about time I read something of yours, but in all honesty I've just blitzed Kanto: There and Back Again entirely because I love a good bit of worldbuilding. And this is that! I think the travelogue device is an enjoyable and fresh idea, and if you ever write more in this style you can count on my interest. I appreciate the nod to the prolificity of Kanto-centric fanfic, and if I were not already resolved to read this then that would have helped to maintain my interest.

I've read very little travel lit myself, so I can't judge the extent to which this fic is representative of the genre, but the writing style is fluid and confident and manages to hold my interest as it provides exposition in a medium-appropriate register. Nicely done, there.

Unfortunately, I have something of a personal dislike for fanon in which the established regions don't correspond to their Japanese counterparts in the real world, but I've put that bias aside in order to appreciate your work and I have appreciated the high degree of counterfactual plausibility very much indeed. The Sunset Isles may as well be an obscure archipelago in our Atlantic for having just read this! It helps that although Kanto, Pokéworld is firmly Kanto, Japan in my mind, your flavour of real culture to include is Anglo-Saxon. That's my jam.

The authenticity and attention to detail throughout might not have a broad appeal but it has a deep specific appeal to me: "batteries of heavy culverin" is categorically more interesting than "cannons" as far as my own tastes are concerned. I love the bit about the Ann, especially that it once hosted a gym, now contest hall. Nice touch.

A note on continuity, if that's the right word - because there are 300 words between the nod to Nine Pretty Butterflied and the actual These Sunset Isles passage, I didn't register at first that the narrator had changed. Additionally, the use of extra spacing between passages within a post doesn't quite register smoothly to my eyes and can be slightly disruptive. I don't think we have proper horizontal dividers here but I usually go for a trio of asterisks for the job.

It isn't until the travelogue proper begins that pokémon are finally mentioned. I wondered while reading the introductory passages whether this was actually going to spend time on the pokémon of the region, which would be my principle interest where any fanfiction is concerned. The eventual mention of naval pokémon drilling, historical differences, the utility of wartortle and "pokémon to catch" section were absolutely grand, but I'd have added a line in the OP about the biodiversity or something.

Author's notes at the end of Vermilion part one are intriguing. I like to compare process between myself and other authors doing similar worldbuilding. I'm one of those readers who picks up on things like 'Lemuria' and 'Medi-Terra' and gets a kick out of it. I reckon you made the right call paring down the tone to avoid lecturing, but if you did write that 'lecture' and have it saved somewhere, send it my way.

The stuff about Evan Roskilly and Marigold Sue is both entertaining and verisimilitudinous, Sue especially sounding like another example of the famous women pirate captains I have enjoyed reading of. Roskilly's diary entries read as if they are straight out of a contemporaneous real world journal or literary tale and I found myself as much invested in his story as I would be in Sir Graham Moore's. Incidentally, I appreciate the inclusion of notes on such, and on your justifications for worldbuilding choices.

I hope that you will continue to write entries in this series, for I shall be a loyal reader!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Response time!

Unfortunately, I have something of a personal dislike for fanon in which the established regions don't correspond to their Japanese counterparts in the real world, but I've put that bias aside in order to appreciate your work and I have appreciated the high degree of counterfactual plausibility very much indeed. The Sunset Isles may as well be an obscure archipelago in our Atlantic for having just read this! It helps that although Kanto, Pokéworld is firmly Kanto, Japan in my mind, your flavour of real culture to include is Anglo-Saxon.

In part the reason behind this choice is down to how often fandom insists on a 1:1 comparison between Pokémon and our world. Modelling Kanto on, well, Kanto, is an entirely legitimate choice, but I think fanon often makes too much of the inspiration between regions and their real counterparts. If someone insists to me that Kalos is France and I'll ask them where the south has gone, then, and why the Alps reach to La Rochelle.

I shall look again at the formatting - I wanted to go for something a bit different, but it's not so important that it can't be ditched for the usual.

It isn't until the travelogue proper begins that pokémon are finally mentioned. I wondered while reading the introductory passages whether this was actually going to spend time on the pokémon of the region, which would be my principle interest where any fanfiction is concerned.

Yeah ... in part this was also deliberate. I thought, since the conceit is that this is an in-universe book, it ought to be aimed at an in-universe audience, as much as possible. You sometimes see worldbuilding in Pokémon fanfiction that suggests people in this world are all completely obsessed with pokémon, where every brand name is transmuted into a twisted pokémon pun. You're right in that a reference in the Introduction need not be out of place in this context. Anyway. That's the thinking behind that.

Roskilly's diary entries read as if they are straight out of a contemporaneous real world journal or literary tale and I found myself as much invested in his story as I would be in Sir Graham Moore's.

I owe a lot to Sir Graham Moore's diary for the language. That chapter is probably the biggest work of pastiche. Being fantasy, it's a bit larger than life, especially where Su Yanqiang is concerned. She's really far more fiction than fact. Women pirates were not at all common. Most people will know of Mary Read or Anne Bonny, of course, but there's little reliable evidence about their lives and no reason to believe that they were anything other than Jack Rackham's groupies.

That's the fun of fantasy fiction, of course. Su can make more cash than any Caribbean pirate ever did, bury it when Caribbean pirates never would, and meet a sticky end because that's a better end to a story than the pirates swaggering off to safety again and again.

I know I keep saying so on Discord, but more is coming soon. Thanks for giving this a chance, and I hope to post more for you to read soon

 

[diamondpearl876]

Back for One in a Constellation. While I don't think I can comment on specifics in any intelligent way lol, I can tell a lot of care has gone into each and every word of this. Not just in terms of content, but in terms of wording, the level of detail gone into each aspect, etc. Sometimes I forget I'm reading a fic and I feel like I'm reading an actual piece of nonfiction I'd find in a bookstore.

Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos.

ngl I'm a sucker for variations off of the typical "Sinnohans" or "Kantonians," and I like this one a lot.

Pidgeot was originally posted to the Sinnovard station to provide an escort for incoming convoys, but in the spring of the following year the posting was enlivened by bloody chaos of the Bishop’s Uprising.

I did get confused here and read it as pidgeot, the actual pokémon, being trained to escort people, which I think seems entirely plausible or otherwise I wouldn't have done a double take. Oops. It does still feel like pokémon's slightly an afterthought in things, and by that, I mean the creatures rather than the worldbuilding aspects, but I'm not that bothered by it since there's obviously got to be more to the pokémon world than just the creatures, and we've got enough fics out there that cover the creatures aspect for you.

That said, I also forget a lot this is from the POV of Bethany herself, and I'm more certain that's not intentional. I could be wrong, though.

“… the rebels having taken the abominable resolution to cut their prisoners to pieces in the main square, the flagstones of which were now awash with the forlorn and clotted blood of those who, in their savage passion, the rebels had massacred in cruellest revenge the day before.”

There's a lot packed into this one sentence, but it flows and is worded so nicely that it just feels so goddamn... official, for lack of a better word. xD I agree with uA that his diary entries feel as authentic as they can possibly get.

Patiently waiting for more. This is one of those fics I read and get immersed in, then walk away from with a different appreciation for the world. Thanks for that.

 

[Arkadelphiak]

Man, and I thought that TLW was a British'd Pokemon region! This is ridiculous (in a great way)!

It was another clear, blustery morning, probably not unlike that morning 219 years ago. Today I was in neat, suburban Vermilion on the Bay – less of a jigsaw city than Chesilby, but still distinctly maritime. Speaking of maritime, it was from a little Heritage Trust shop on the Old Gunwharf that I picked up an abridged copy of Evan Roskilly’s diary. It’s funny what history ends up forgetting. Roskilly’s surviving diaries cover almost his entire career, missing only his teenage years as a ponytailed Midshipman, and later Lieutenant, aboard the 64-gun HMS Formidable. It’s an unusually vibrant insight into a gentleman’s life on the waves.



“I never saw a more wild and free a landscape as this. Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos. It was a country that affected me deeply, at once reminiscent of the Cianwood heath and something autarchic and untameable.”

I was going to ask if you meant to have these paragraphs spaced so far, but it appears that was your intention. Carry on.

destroyed by means of the Interceptor’s electabuzz

0/10 would not enjoy this form of execution. Who needs the electric chair when you've got an Electabuzz on hand?

the tropical seas of Ultramar

Ultramar, eh? I was wondering if this was going to turn into an "ultramarean"/"ultramarine" sort of pun.

The townsmen of Port Kanto were scandalised and titillated to hear that the pirate captain was a woman from Chaochang (潮昌). She was none other than Su Yanqiang (苏艳强), better known to myth as Marigold Sue.

Marigold Sue? Oh, man. If this is going where I think it's going, 10/10 would laugh at again.

Ultramarean Sea

Aha! You did go with that pun!

… Off the coast of Île Paladin, Marigold Sue pounced on a Kalosian brig carrying a rich cargo of Decolore saffron and indigo worth more than 1,000 doubloons (About $60,000 at today’s values). To the astonishment of the crew, she ignored the dyes, taking only the captain’s oricorio-feathered hat before letting her prey go, apologising sheepishly for the inconvenience.

Another bit of delightful worldbuilding. The thought of a cutthroat pirate falling prey to silly vanities is just great.

… In December 1785, Marigold Sue was locked up in a Muscavadean jail. Her luck had apparently run out – the Admiralty Court had convicted her of piracy. It wasn’t usually Imperial policy to hang women, but the infamous Marigold Sue had earned herself an exception. The Lieutenant-Governor of the island shrewdly ordered that Su be attended only by female jailers, rightly assuming she would try to save herself with an eleventh-hour pregnancy. His decision to visit Su’s cell was not so shrewd. Within a couple of days she’d seduced him thoroughly, playing on his lust for her money (And his lust for her body). Somehow believing he could clear her name, the Lieutenant-Governor arranged for her escape. The plan spectacularly backfired when Su recruited a skeleton crew in Port Kanto and sailed off with the finest Royal Navy sloop in the harbour.

I feel like I've heard this one before. You mentioned that Marigold Sue is a hodgepodge of various pirate tropes, so that makes sense.

getting rascally drunk and probably contracting chlamydia

LOOOOL

Pirates were the not the rock stars of their day, glamorous bad boys who antagonised authority in exciting but harmless ways; they were more like the terrorists of their day, elusive and savage murderers who preyed on the innocent

I'm glad that you included this, my dude. We too often glamorize pirates and you'd make the prose lose a bit of its authenticity without this mention.

Not even the infamous Marigold Sue of Chaochang left a beautiful corpse.

10/10 PAVELL-WORTHY DESCRIPTION

the Storm Island station

Another WW member reference, I see!

If you stand in the midst of Chrysanthemum Square and look west, you’ll see two interesting sights. First, the Customs House, now an incongruously handsome pub for the likes of the Old Gunwharf – and second, a trio of masts peering up over the skyline. If you follow the path between the pub and the condominiums on your right, you’ll come to a park by an eighteenth-century ship in dock. Take a look at the name painted neatly on the stern, and you’ll see why you’re here. This is HMS Galatea, a little restored and repaired, but appearing more or less as she would have done when Roskilly was in command.

I wanted to mention that I enjoy the distanced perspective here. You really get the eyes of a tourist (though not just any tennis-shoe-wearing, dad-cargo-shorts-wearing, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing tourist) through this piece. In conclusion . . . how did I miss this gem? I need to go back and read from the beginning.