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COMPLETE: A Day in the Life of a Slowpoke (EVERYONE)

GrayMagicΓ

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“Wake up, Suro, it’s time to move!”

These were not words I wanted to wake up to. My Slowpoke herd has been on the run for weeks. I shifted my weight onto my legs, groggy after my unexpected awakening. I was surrounded by an unfamiliar grassy field. While it wasn’t as comfortable to sleep in as the river shore I grew up on my entire life, I would have gladly done almost anything for another hour of sleep. As unappealing as the idea of cutting my pleasant sleep short was, I simply couldn’t let myself fall behind.

“Lead the way, Kanja” I said to my brother.

I moved one sore leg after another, catching up to Kanja. My ears perked up, trying to listen for humans behind us. All I could hear was the sound of my herd marching on ahead of us. I kept listening, and could barely hear…

“Taidana didn’t come back from their post. We can only assume the worst” Kanja explained, cutting my thought off.

Taidana was a friend of mine. Every day, he watched out for our herd by falling back and looking for humans. If he saw signs that our pursuers were drawing close, then he would return and warn us. If the coast was clear, then he would come back soon after sunset. Ever since we began our migration, we’ve been sleeping in shifts, so I was usually asleep when he came back to give us the all clear. Tonight, he must not have come back at all. As we marched on, the faint sound I heard earlier grew louder.

“Brother, do you hear that?” I asked.

“It sounds like a rushing river ahead of us. It sounds too far away to reach on foot in one night, but if we get across it we may leave the humans behind us. You know how frail they are, Suro.”

Kanja was right. Even the frailest of Slowpoke would be more adept at crossing rivers than your average human. I was sure we would outrun our pursuers, I was more worried about Taidana. Once a Slowpoke was taken by a human, they were never seen again. In the past, trainers would battle us, and if they proved their worth, we would allow them to capture us in a ball, but this was different. The humans that were after us had grabbed my now lost friends in bags, forcibly kidnapping them, never to be seen again. Why were they doing this? The humans were never a disturbance until now!

“Something’s wrong, Suro… The sound of the river is growing louder.”

“You’re right,” I replied, “we’re moving towards it, but it shouldn’t be this close this fast. Are you sure it’s a river?”

“Now that you mention it, it sounds unnatural… mechanical, even.”

The noise grew louder, and it began to drown out my herd’s footsteps. Kanja and I were almost caught up with our herd. They were looking into the sky and scattering. Kanja and I were still far back enough that we couldn’t make out what they were saying, so we also looked up in horror.

There was a black, giant, flying, mechanical bird-like structure with a red human rune painted on the side of it. The construct let out a long, never-ending whirring sound, the same sound that we had previously mistaken for a river. I stopped in my tracks as my brother turned toward me.

“Suro, bulldoze the ground to burrow into it. I don’t know what that thing is, but the humans won’t be far behind it. Maybe they’re even riding on top of it. I’ll distract them while you build your hiding spot.”

“But Kanja...” I objected, “What about you?”

“There’s no way for us to both escape... If you trust me, do as I say.”

I opened my mouth to try to stop him, but I realized there was no time to argue. The black mechanism landed on the ground, and the whirring began to slow. My herd was running in all directions in a panicked frenzy as I slowly dug down with my hind legs to my safety. I backed into the hole I made, making sure my tail was hidden and my head was exposed to see what happened.

The sides of the oddity opened up- clearly it wasn’t organic- and a group of humans stepped out. They stood tall and menacing, gazing at my herd as I looked at them in fear. They all wore matching black uniforms with the same singular, red, human rune printed on their shirts that their transportation device had on it. They ran off in different directions, each carrying a bag to trap my friends and neighbors in. Slowpoke that I had known my entire life would never be seen again. The very thought of it nearly brought me to tears, but I held strong.

One of the humans began moving in my direction. I began to panic. “What if he sees me?” I thought.

My panic turned to sorrow in the coming moments. The human’s head turned to my right, and he quickly took off. I turned my head in my makeshift hole, pushing away dirt to see what he was doing. My brother had caught his attention. Kanja was looking behind him as he ran away from my hiding spot, looking me directly in the eyes. He saw me begin to cry just as the human swept him into the bag in one fell swoop.

I couldn’t believe it. My brother was always watching out for me. If it weren’t for him, I’d have been captured… no, I’d still be sleeping back at our previous camp! As quickly as my anxiety had become sadness, my sadness became rage. The black-clothed humans must pay for what they had done. My home, my friends, and now my family, they took everything away from me. Now all that remained was the fury of a fed up Slowpoke.

“Our bags are filled, let’s get back to the copter and blow this dump” said one of the humans.

Since they were unable to capture any more of us, I twisted and turned my way out of my hole. As I was squirming out, the “copter”, as the human called it, began making its awful noise and took off into the sky. I began to take off after it. I left the rest of my herd behind, and kept walking. I had long since lost sight of the copter, but I kept walking, and walking, and walking… but it was no use. The copter had simply travelled too far. I used my tail to make an arrow in the dirt so I could keep track of which way the copter had went, then got back to some much needed sleep.

After a dreamless sleep, I woke up at sunrise. Fields went on endlessly in all directions. All I had was the arrow I drew last night. No friends, no family, no home. I walked until afternoon when I heard a sound. It was a familiar sound, a familiar pit-pat pit-pat. I happily picked up my pace until I saw a familiar face.

“Taidana!”

“Suro… what are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing… When you didn’t return from your post, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“It was the humans… they put me in this awful bag… it was almost impossible to breathe. When I was taken out of the bag, my legs were immediately strapped down… I was still awake when… Suro, you really don’t want to know…”

“What is it, Taidana?”

“Well…”

Taidana slowly turned around. I was mortified. Where Taidana’s tail should have been was a small stump. Taidana turned back to face me and continued our conversation.

“Come with me, Suro. I escaped the humans after they did this to me… If you keep going this way, you’ll run right into them.”

“No. I was already going this way to pursue the humans and avenge my brother. I left the others, that’s why I’m alone. Now that I know what they did to you I’m even more dedicated to the cause, and now that I know they’re not out to kill us… at least, not immediately… I need to reach the humans while my brother is still safe.”

“Kanja is very strong, very determined… if he can’t handle the humans, do you really think you can?”

“I’ll never know if I don’t try. Will you come with me?”

Taidana shook his head from side to side. “I see you’re determined to stick to your cause. I won’t stop you… but I’ve seen what the humans can do firsthand. We must part ways, old friend.”

“Then so be it.”

I kept walking past my friend as he slowly went the other way. The grassy field seemed like it would never end, but as I kept going the grass got shorter and shorter. I eventually came to a clearing at sunset. My legs were tired, but I knew I had to keep going; in the distance I could see human buildings. The clearing provided me no cover, but the humans didn’t appear to have anyone patrolling around, so I hoped I could make it to their base undetected. I marched on for another hour across the dirt terrain, and as I approached the settlement, I saw the same black copter from before. Furious, I charged myself at the nearest building’s door. It was made of steel, and I was unable to open it through sheer force. An odd contraption above me connected to the door turned, and the door opened. Out stepped a human dressed in black.

“Another Slowpoke got out, you idiots are slower than they are!” yelled the human.

The human tossed a small ball similar to the ones my herd had accompanied humans in, but instead of another Slowpoke, a Sandshrew came out.

“Nothing personal bud, just taking care of business as usual” said the Sandshrew.

The Sandshrew curled up into a ball and quickly rolled into me. I was hit so hard I was knocked on my side, and by the time I was back on all fours, the human and Sandshrew had enough time to get out of the doorway to fight me out in the open. I shot a water gun out of my mouth straight at the Sandshrew, but he quickly dug a hole in the ground, completely avoiding my attack. I could hear him burrowing in my direction, and I had to think fast. I used my weight to my advantage and pounded my forelegs against the ground as hard as possible, quaking the earth below me. When the Sandshrew tunneled to me, I broke through the ground, caved him in, and pinned him under my legs.

“Why are you helping them?” I asked.

I didn’t want to injure the Sandshrew if I didn’t have to. If he was being forced to do this by the human, then I didn’t need to harm him. In fact, maybe we could even team up.

“These guys treat me like a king, baby!” replied the Sandshrew. “All the best food, the best training, they can even get us to evolve if we’re loyal enough. I can’t let their enterprise fall by the wayside, and they’re gonna need your tail.”

“Not if I can help it.”

I headbutt the pinned Sandshrew again and again. As it cried out in pain, the human threw the ball it came from again, and the Sandshrew was safely teleported back into it.

“Go, Rattata!” yelled the human as he threw another ball.

Out came a Rattata. I wondered he would be more willing to join me than the Sandshrew was. Maybe most of the Pokemon that belonged to these cruel humans wanted to resist their owners and the Sandshrew was just an exception.

“You there… why do you fight? Why do you help these humans torture other Pokemon?” I asked.

“I-I-I owe them my life! Th-th-these guys took me off the streets and raised me. I’d do anything for them.”

“They took my brother from me. He’s trapped in one of these buildings. If you don’t at least get out of my way, I’m going to have to hurt you” I threatened.

The Rattata didn’t even reply. He moved so fast I could barely even make out his movements. He was coming straight for me, then leapt up in the air. The next thing I knew, I felt a sharp pain in my tail. I turned my head and stretched my tail toward it and saw the Rattata latched onto the end of my tail by his teeth.

“Two can play at that game” I thought to myself.

I chomped the Rattata, yanked my neck back to pull him off of my tail, and aimed my head up. I built up a burst of water in my mouth and shot him with water gun, propelling him dozens of feet in the air. The Rattata went flying, and as he soared through the air, his owner fumbled for the ball he came from before returning him to the ball.

Diplomacy clearly wasn’t a viable option. My tail still hurt from the Raticate’s bite, but at least it was intact. Still, if this single human could put up this much of a fight, how could I possibly hope to get through all of them? I had to find my brother. I had come too far to simply give up.

“Go, Zubat!”

The human sent out yet another Pokemon. The Zubat flew high above the doorway. It wasn’t worth trying to get the Zubat to side with me, that much was clear. I thought for a second, and realized I had no obligation to fight the Zubat. Unlike the Sandshrew and the Rattata, it didn’t block my way, instead hovering above the doorway. This was my chance. I ignored my opponent and made a break for it. I skittered into the building as fast as I could.

The room was dimly lit, but there was still enough light to make out my surroundings. All around me I saw locked cages, most of which contained Slowpoke. The others were empty. All of the Slowpoke appeared to lack their tails. Now I knew that they wouldn’t simply let my brother go after taking his tail. My eyes darted back and forth, but I didn’t see Kanja anywhere. Was he in another building? Even if I found him, how would I open his cage? What if he already escaped, like Taidana? Was this rescue mission a failure?

I would have to worry about that later. The Zubat flew into the building after me. It flapped its wings to direct strong bursts of wind at me so strong that it stung. I started to charge up a water gun to knock the Zubat down, but before I knew it, the Zubat disappeared. It started circling me so fast that I couldn’t make out where it was. I kept turning to try and face it, but it was simply too fast. I lost track of it, and turned left and right to look for it, but to no avail. I realized what was happening and turned around, but it was too late.

“Zubat, confuse ray” ordered the human.

The Zubat let out a flash of light just as I turned to look at it, and I quickly became dizzy. I tried to hit it with my water gun, but it didn’t even need to try to dodge. Every time I tried to hit it, I wildly missed. I heard a noise behind me. I turned from my opponent toward the entryway to the building. More humans had come to assist the one I was already dealing with. The humans sent everything they had at me. Ekans, Raticate, Meowth, Koffing, Machop, Drowzee, the list goes on. I was surrounded, there was nothing I could do. Kanja worked so hard to keep me safe, and now I’ve fallen right into the hands of the humans. I was attacked from all sides. It was too much. I blacked out.

I was awake. I tried to get up. I couldn’t. I looked down at my forelegs. They were bolted down onto a table. I was trapped. I failed. A human was at my side, likely there to remove my tail. I wished I was still unconscious. I heard trampling footsteps coming from my other side. I looked to see what was going on and saw another human barge into the room I was in. This human wasn’t wearing the usual black uniform that all the others did. Was this their leader? Or were they not affiliated with the ones that had been capturing Slowpoke?

“What are you doing here?” asked my captor.

“Liberating these Slowpoke. The jig is up” replied the stranger.

I hoped that the stranger would have a better time with his rescue attempt than I did with mine. While my captor was distracted with the intruder, I took my time to look around the room. It was dimly lit like the other building I broke into, but there were no cages on the walls. Instead, the walls were lined with coolers, one of which was open. I saw frozen Slowpoke tails being preserved inside it- disgusting. I could smell the faint scent of blood, likely from other tails being freshly harvested. The only door was the one the stranger burst in through.

The stranger sent out a massive Dragonite. It remained on the ground, as the room was already so short that its head nearly touched the ceiling just from standing up. The black-clad man fumbled for a second, then tossed one ball after another, sending out a Muk, an Arbok, and a Gloom. They were no match for the Dragonite, who went on an outrage and immediately knocked the Arbok down so hard it went unconscious. The Muk tried to leap at the Dragonite, but the Dragonite charged away from it, knocking the Gloom into a wall. Before the Gloom could retaliate, the Dragonite let out its fearsome dragon breath on it, knocking it out.

As the Dragonite turned to face the Muk, another human dressed in black came to the door to check on the commotion. They immediately sent out a Nidoking to attack the Dragonite. The stranger sent out a second Pokemon to deal with the Nidoking so his Dragonite could focus on the Muk. When the stranger’s Pokemon came out of their ball, I couldn’t believe my eyes; it was Kanja! His back was to me and I didn’t want to distract him from his battle, so I figured I would catch up with him once he was done.

The Muk was chucking sludge at the Dragonite while it dashed left and right to avoid it, knocking over equipment all across the room. Meanwhile, the Nidoking ignored my brother and charged towards the Dragonite to double team him. Kanja hit the Nidoking with a burst of water, knocking him over. While his charge had been stopped, the Dragonite accidentally ran into the fallen Nidoking while dodging the Muk’s attacks and fell over on his back. The Muk primed a shot at the now immobile Dragonite, and my brother was on the other side of the pile of Dragonite and Nidoking, unable to help. I struggled to break my restraints, but to no avail. I realized that my head was still unbound, and shot a water gun straight at the unsuspecting Muk, disorienting him long enough for the Dragonite to get up. With one quick slash, the Dragonite finished off the Muk. The humans with the black clothing sent their fallen Pokemon back into their balls and quickly ran out of the building. The stranger fiddled with the table I was bound to and freed me.

“Brother! I was so worried about you…” I said, happy to see Kanja again.

“Suro, I thought I would never see you again!”

The stranger returned his Dragonite to his ball, but left Kanja out. He was probably unable to understand what the two of us were saying to each other, but saw that we were catching up and didn’t want to interrupt us. Instead, he left the building.

“We’re here to rescue the captured Slowpoke,” explained my brother, “but I didn’t expect to find you here. Did they find you the other day? I thought my distraction worked on the one coming straight for you, but maybe another human had their eyes on you, too.”

“No, but I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I’d never see you again. I followed the… copter, I think they called it… hoping to find you.”

“The copter did go here, but another human came and saved me. The man you saw earlier fought off my captors, and I felt the need to continue helping him. I let him store me in his Pokeball, and we retreated to rest up. Now we’ve come back to free all the remaining Slowpoke, since he only managed to free me and anyone else on the copter last night.”

“Once they’re all free, you’ll join us again, right Kanja?”

“No, Suro. I don’t know who this group of humans are, but the man who rescued me made it sound like there’s many more of them out there in the world. Together, we’ll try our hardest to stop them.”

“Then let me come with you. We can work together!”

“I can’t let you do that, Suro. It’s not that I don’t think you can do it… just the opposite, in fact. You’re strong, and I know that you can defend the herd. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that my former friends were in danger, and I need you to protect them.”

“But Kanja, I came all this way just to make sure we weren’t separated, what if I never see you again?”

“This is as hard for me as it is for you, Suro… but even if I thought otherwise, my new owner has very limited space in his traveling party. I doubt he would have room for a second Slowpoke.”

We said our goodbyes, and that was the last time I saw my brother. Myself and the other formerly captured Slowpoke reunited, and we made our way back to our old home by the river. The Slowpoke that weren’t captured had already returned, realizing that if the humans could capture them from anywhere, it was no use running. I shared the story of Kanja’s bravery, and his legendary deeds are retold among Slowpoke to this very day.

Originally posted to URPG here.
 
This was a fun read. I don't really know anything URPG, so I'll have to just give feedback as an outsider.

First off, it's good and immersive when the Slowpoke don't understand the humans, like them not knowing what a copter is and calling the R a "human rune" which I think is great phrasing. Unique Slowpoke names are good, way better than carelessly naming them regular human names like "Jerry" or so. (If you named them yourself and this isn't a URPG thing I'm missing, that is.) I also liked the way Sandshrew and Rattata were written, too. They had personality, which the Slowpoke characters in turn kinda lacked, though, at least in my eyes.

At times there were some questions I had about the extent of their knowledge - they do mention "organic" and "diplomacy" which are words I'd consider pretty sophisticated for wild Pokemon living in herds. Simpler concepts like "living" and "peace talk" or so may have worked better.

Also, aside from sleepiness, these Slowpoke don't seem all that "slow". You're probably taking creative liberty and that's fine - I mean, if the Pokedex entry about it taking 5 seconds to realize pain were true, it would have gone extinct ages ago - but a little more focus on the species' main attribute would have been interesting.

Small grammar note:
“Zubat, confuse ray” ordered the human.

Where a period would go normally in a comment, put a comma, but don't leave it blank. You did already do that later:
“We’re here to rescue the captured Slowpoke,” explained my brother, “but I didn’t expect --
So, like that. (The ellipses are correct though, as is the other punctuation.)

As I was squirming out, the “copter”, as the human called it, began making its awful noise and took off into the sky. I began to take off after it.

A synonym should probably have been used for the second "take off", as the first time reading it I thought the slowpoke grew wings and set off for the sky :p

I started to charge up a water gun to knock the Zubat down, but before I knew it, the Zubat disappeared. It started circling me so fast that I couldn’t make out where it was. I kept turning to try and face it, but it was simply too fast. I lost track of it, and turned left and right to look for it, but to no avail. I realized what was happening and turned around, but it was too late.

I like this. This emphasizes the signature slowness of Slowpoke, and like I said, I would have liked to see some more of it.

Overall, pretty good.

One last thing though. You said day, but the protagonist slept twice. False advertising. :O
 
Wow, fancy meeting you here in the WW! :p I read this ficlet and have some comments for ya.

First off, I'm a huge fan of fics told from a pokemon's point of view, and I especially liked reading the point of view of a slowpoke who's in the midst of the Team Rocket slowpoke tail scandal during gen 2. Team Rocket or their slowpoke tail scandal is never really explicitly mentioned, but there were enough hints scattered throughout the fic to help me realize the setting and what was happening, so kudos to you on that front! Plus, it makes sense that Suro wouldn't know all the details himself if he or his slowpoke herd don't interact with humans much, so there was nice, subtle characterization and worldbuilding to go along with that.

These were some points where I got confused:

I shifted my weight onto my legs, groggy after my unexpected awakening.

Is it really unexpected if the herd's been running for a while and are still in the middle of running?

Since this was pretty early on in the fic, I thought here that you were going for the typical dopey slowpoke personality. But later on, Suro and some other slowpoke seem to be pretty capable of escaping and devising a plan to escape, which implies the opposite. Not to mention that Suro is said to dart away from his enemies, which negates the idea that, mentally, he's too slow to react to dangerous situations.

“There’s no way for us to both escape... If you trust me, do as I say.”

Why not? There's a whole herd. I assume it's because Kanja and Suro are a bit behind the herd so they stand out more, but it's not entirely clear.

I also feel that you missed a good chance to develop these characters more. I don't get a very good read on the two brothers other than they care about each other, which is cool, don't get me wrong, but they lack overall depth. In this conversation specifically, you could delve into whether or not Kanja usually protects Suro in these kinds of situations, or go into the difference in strength between Kanja and Suro - or other reasons why Kanja might be sacrificing himself here and saying only one of them can escape.

Overall, I enjoyed this read a lot! The pacing was a bit quick in the beginning, but slowed down enough early on and was spot on the rest of the way through. There was a good amount of detail when describing what was happening, and I haven't read any of your other works yet, but you've got an interesting writing style that I'd totally read more of. That said, here's to hoping you stick around to post more in the WW, and keep up the good work! :3
 
Let me just start by saying I love this story. It was a charming and fun read, and one of the better pieces of fanfiction I’ve read recently. Now, let’s get into the review.

Let’s start with the plot. Although it isn’t directly stated, the story clearly takes place during Team Rocket’s Slowpoke Tail incident, and details a young Slowpoke’s experience attempting to rescue his brother from the organization. A fairly simple plot, but it’s well executed. It could use a bit more depth in my opinion, but it functions as is fine.

Next up is setting. The physical setting is fairly bland, being a grassy plain and a dark room lined with cages, but it fits the story well, forcing more emphasis on the plot rather than the details. The Slowpoke herd, despite not being talked about much outside of Suro and Kanja, had a nice sense of community, especially in the way that Taidana would risk himself to go look for humans to protect the herd. The Slowpokes’ thoughts and feelings on humans and Team Rocket were nicely explained and refreshingly different from most other Pokemon perspective fics, which seem to have the Pokemon understand capturing and trainers as if they were the trainers itself more often than not. I especially liked the way the described the Team Rocket logo as a “red human rune”.

As for your characters, they’re a different story, and pretty obviously the story’s weak point. Suro, despite being the protagonist of this story, felt very underdeveloped. We knew that he cared for his brother Kanja deeply, and that he is angry at Team Rocket, but not much else. Kanja is similar, and I would’ve loved to see more about these two brothers’ relationship. It would have been useful to know who was usually the older brother figure, and if Kanja was known for being so selfless, ecetera, ecetera. It also would have been nice if we’d seen a bit more of that signature slowness. Suro seemed a bit too agile and quick-witted for a species known as the Dopey Pokemon. The Team Rocket Pokemon, however, feel more fleshed out than the protagonist, the Sandshrew and Rattata in particular. They managed to receive an established personality and motive for their actions in one or two sentences each.

Finally, let’s look at style. The story is obviously written from the perspective of Suro the Slowpoke, and it makes good use of that. Nothing feels out of place, and all feels like a Pokemon experiencing new and wild situations. The descriptive language was fairly lacking, and a lot of details are left out. We aren’t given much for the surrounding area besides “a grassy field” and “a dark room”, and while that works just fine at times, it would have been awesome if we’d gotten more detail to help complete the immersive feel that the story already has. The dialogue feels a bit choppy and stiff at times, and it can seem that the characters are reading off a script rather than having a conversation.

Despite this review seeming a little destructive, I really did enjoy this story, and I’ll probably read it again sometime. Keep up the good work, GrayMagic. I look forward to more.
 
Hey! I know I commented before, but I judged this for the awards and thought I'd leave some more detailed, post-awards feedback. Sorry if I repeat anything I've said before.

This short story takes a different spin on Pokemon POV fics and portrays a day in the life of a Pokemon on the run from Team Rocket. Specifically, the Pokemon is on the run from Team Rocket because Team Rocket is hunting slowpoke tails during the G/S/C era. Once the main Pokemon character, Suro, watches his brother, Kanja, be taken away by Team Rocket, Suro hunts Team Rocket down so he can rescue Kanja. Once Suro finds Kanja, however, Kanja expresses that his goal is to not just escape, but to help all the other captured slowpoke escape. While an event taken from the games is not 100% original, I do appreciate the unique POV and I've not seen this aspect of G/S/C written before ever.

You could've made up for the game-inspired plot by incorporating some more setting and worldbuilding ideas, IMO. There's actually no solid indication that the event takes place in Azalea Town, or even the Johto region. And that's partly understandable, given how the main characters are Pokemon and aren't written to be quite as sapient/sentient as humans, but some fleshed out description could've helped to imply to the reader more about the setting.

I appreciate that the slowpoke main characters aren't portrayed to be dopey and completely stupid like they are in most mediums. Unfortunately, the characters aren't explored in-depth or even explored enough for me to believe they're fleshed out, well rounded characters.

You have a decent enough grasp on language, and I think that, if you wrote more and put your mind to it, you'd develop a rather interesting writing style. I know you're not too into writing, but you do have talent for it!

For Suro specifically:

Suro's portrayed to be a meek slowpoke in the beginning of the story, but he dares to take a risk when his brother is captured by Team Rocket. He comes out of his shell a bit to hunt down Team Rocket and rescue his brother. The character development ends there, and what's given is limited.

Characters who are shy and come off as weak (physically and mentally) doing a turnaround for the sake of someone they love isn't totally original, but it works well given the plot. The most originality I can see is that the main characters are Pokemon and they take on a criminal organization consisting of humans and Pokemon... without the help of trainers. That's not something you see too often!

Suro's dialogue tends to come off as stale and a bit forced, but the conversations he has with his brother are adorable to read. And as the protagonist, Suro of course contributes greatly to the story. Suro's the reason his brother allows himself to be captured by Team Rocket; Suro's the one who hunts down Team Rocket; Suro's the one who contributes most to freeing all of the captured slowpoke from Team Rocket. The story seems to revolve around Suro just as much as it does Suro's brother, and Suro's brother actually pushes Suro to do half of the things he does.

For Kanja specifically:

There's a little development in there for Kanja, which is nice, given the short length of the story and the fact that Kanja's not the main character. However, he's not really explored in-depth and, in fact, the development we do get seems to appear out of nowhere. Kanja goes from wanting to follow his slowpoke herd in peace to saving all the slowpoke ever from Team Rocket. And I just don't know enough about Kanja's overall character to decide if that's a normal thing he'd do or if he did a total 180 on us.

The story essentially revolves around Kanja, though he's not the main character on screen most of the time. His brother spends the fic trying to find him, and the two work together to stop Team Rocket from stealing slowpoke tails so they can return to their herd peacefully. Without Kanja, his brother wouldn't have had a reason to do either of these things.

Please write another slowpoke fic and capture Kanja so the two can be reunited forever. :eyes:
 
Please note: The thread is from 7 years ago.
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