TEEN: Three Paths to MonOrg

[Cryptic]

*Both this thread and this story are very heavily a work in progress.*

The short version of how this came to be is I’ve been developing a Pokémon world that makes more sense to me for years, but finding this forum finally planted it in my head to start writing things down. So several months ago I made an account, asked some basic questions, read a few stories, and put it on the back burner because schoolwork is all-consuming. And yet, every once and a while I’d get an itch at 2am to hammer out a bit of the story. So I have a bunch of snippets that are slowly coming together, but I think if I’m going to make any headway on this I need to know someone’s reading it, so I picked an unpolished piece of the story to put on here just in case it would interest anybody.

My plan is if it gets ignored to keep writing until it’s better on my own, but if a few people notice I’ll keep putting stuff on here with the added motivation of an audience. If you have any questions or gentle yet informative critiques please comment!

As I said, I have this whole world pretty much planned out so this is just a tiny fraction of the ideas I have planned, but it’s a teaser into the world and one of the three main characters. It may suck, so thank you for tolerating my inexperience, but hopefully things will get better as I go on


[Three Paths to MonOrg: Draft 0, Chapter 0. The Teaser]

For those of you who don’t know, there are some places in the suburbs of Unova where children live out their trainer phase fighting bug Pokémon. The small ones you step on. Fighting with sub-quota bugs is inhumane. You can look up a video, but don’t do so if you’re squeamish. I guess some people will laugh at my warning, they’re just bugs, right? But some people care about Mon, however small, and others are just grossed out about that stuff. I’ve heard that in other places, kids are nicer. They subject their little critters to races and the like instead of having them fight to the death. I guess in my neighborhood it was just the standard for kids to be psychopaths.

Unlike a licensed trainer battle, the bugs have nothing to answer to but instinct, so instead of knocking each other out or injuring opponents, they will rip each other apart and eat each other. That’s why there’s a quota in the first place, your Mon needs to have a level of intelligence that allows it to be trained. If you’re wondering, yes, you could catch a sub-quota caterpillar in a Pokéball, but it can fit in a container smaller than one without MonOrg containment technology, and it can’t be used in battles, so the only reason you would is for research or something. And I guess there’s the whole parasite infected legal battles… but those are a gray area.

Anyway, on the elementary school playground in a well policed area, a child just doesn’t have access to an illegal Pokéball. The kids have got to play trainer battle somehow. It started out the way you’d expect, some smart 6th grader would figure out a specific species of spider that would fight if trapped in a container with one of its own kind. That kind of thing has been going on for a long time, who knows how long. It’s an age old tradition passed down. But with the advent of the internet, things got more intense, for the smart kids anyway.

Sure, there’d still be your average kid that would just hunt for bugs in their backyard and hope they caught a fierce one. And then, there were the rich kids who could ship bigger and better bugs from online shops. Treading that line is a little difficult, because if you show up with something bigger than your hand that sure doesn’t look like it’s from around here, you’re bound to get banned from the game. I swear a ton of the invasive species around my hometown came from us dumb kids. And yet, a few of the rich stinkers figured it out anyway and just grabbed captively bred variations on our native species.

But there was one more type of ‘trainer’ out there at recess. And I’m not proud to admit, I was one of those. I was a dealer.

I didn’t have a steady allowance growing up, but I could do odd jobs and occasionally convince my parents to give me a few bucks. I’d then go watch our weekly bug battles. It’s difficult to convince a winner to give up their bug, after all, if it survives you can use it more than once. But some change, a few trading cards, and taking a dying bug that I would attempt to heal would work, often enough. A quick search query on my mom’s laptop and I have an endless library of the life cycles of the local bugs. So I have the battle bugs, and winners at that. And I know how to breed them.

Yes. I’d breed Caterpie, the tiny ones, into fighting machines, and sell them to my classmates. It took a LOT of time, a weird smell in my room, and occasional parental scolding, but I made a lot of money off the hobby. Well, a lot of money for a ten year old. Picture me: Queen of the playground. I approach the patch of concrete where the battlers gather, sucker in my mouth and boxes under my arm. I didn’t fight my little abominations often, but I needed to sometimes if I was to keep up my credibility as a breeder, and make any money. So I’d throw out a cockroach or something in a carefully chosen matchup, it would usually destroy it’s opponent, and then I would point out to the rest of the kids that I have a dozen more in my boxes that could be theirs, for the right price. It was addicting.

I was the only kid who figured out how to do this in my elementary school, but up in middle school there were some others who knew how to do it. We’d compete, and there I was about the middle of the pack. Not the worst, I still made money, but I was no longer a legend. In High School, the phase was over for most kids and there was only a small portion still playing, now for pure sport instead of for money or bets or a fantasy. There, anything you can get your hands on is fair game, so the rich kid can figure out how to breed can do what I did, except instead of finding stock they order it online. It was there that I stopped and I just got a job, that was much more efficient. But the experience shaped me. It was for the wrong reasons, but I actually learned how to raise Pokémon. I learned patience, investment tactics, advertising, ambition.

Again, I’m not proud of it. I’m really not. I wasn’t a REAL trainer nor a breeder, the bugs were a means to an end and I didn’t care about how much pain they might be in. My sister is into the Pokémon rights movement and she would have probably strangled me if she knew. But I learned so much it was one of the things that contributed to me becoming a real trainer. The first one from my hometown in several decades. I try to care about my Mon now, as best I can, but it’s a rough life. For both me and them. Sometimes I wonder if my sister is right. But this is the life I chose and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever experienced, and my Mon don’t fight to the death and they get the best medical care and I love them. They seem to love me. Isn’t that enough?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Hi, Cryptic! I'm on my lunch break, so I thought I'd pay this some time.

Hey, so, I’m writing this late at night and I don’t really understand the forums so if I’m doing formatting incorrectly or anything please let me know how to correct it.

No worries, you're fine. I'd edit this out, project a little more confidence!

I’ve been developing a Pokémon world that makes more sense to me for years

Aye, same! (More or less. Mostly just having thoughts about it, really. There's still a lot I don't have a grasp on.)

schoolwork is all-consuming

I remember having that problem. Now I have an all-consuming day job!

That’s why there’s a quota in the first place, your Mon needs to have a level of intelligence that allows it to be trained.

This sort of stuff is interesting, a welcome change from cartoonish values and norms of the franchise canon, but I have to question the presentation. You're writing this as straight prose fiction, but it's heavily expository, in such a way as to feel contrived. In-universe, most people interested in reading an account about pokémon would already be aware of this sort of information. If you want to keep the format, I'd suggest framing this sort of thing as "correcting popular belief". For example, you could write this sort of thing:

"I've talked to a lot of people who think that sapience threshold requirements make bugs illegal in all cases, but many bugs actually do meet the criteria. Maybe a [species] can't be trained, but a [species] can be taught upwards of ten different commands, which is just about enough to qualify."

This framing allows you to educate the reader while not sounding as if you're explaining common knowledge in-universe.

I guess there’s the whole parasite infected legal battles…

This is too unclear to be intriguing.

It took a LOT of time, a weird smell in my room, and occasional parental scolding, but I made a lot of money off the hobby. Well, a lot of money for a ten year old. Picture me: Queen of the playground.

Hey, I like this. Enterprising kids are interesting.

So I’d throw out a cockroach or something

You refer to real animals a few times. Is this a stand-in for one or more possible pokémon species, or a literal roach? It's unclear.

This stuff looks promising, Cryptic! I'll certainly do my best to keep up with anything you post and to give decent feedback if I can, assuming I'm not snowed under at work at the time. Best of luck to you, and I'd certainly welcome any further discussion!

 

[Cryptic]

Thanks so much! Feedback is very helpful, and don’t worry, heavy editing will be required for me to be happy with this.

This sort of stuff is interesting, a welcome change from cartoonish values and norms of the franchise canon, but I have to question the presentation. You're writing this as straight prose fiction, but it's heavily expository, in such a way as to feel contrived. In-universe, most people interested in reading an account about pokémon would already be aware of this sort of information. If you want to keep the format, I'd suggest framing this sort of thing as "correcting popular belief". For example, you could write this sort of thing:

"I've talked to a lot of people who think that sapience threshold requirements make bugs illegal in all cases, but many bugs actually do meet the criteria. Maybe a [species] can't be trained, but a [species] can be taught upwards of ten different commands, which is just about enough to qualify."

This framing allows you to educate the reader while not sounding as if you're explaining common knowledge in-universe.

You’re totally right here. I can already tell exposition is going to be one of my greatest challenges in writing this. My world is so vast at this point that that passage was using a lot of restraint and it still came off that way. Your workaround is grewat, but if I used it or things like it too often the story would get bogged down and eventually end up with the same problem, I think. What I need is to find a format, like instructional blog posts or something, that can handle exposition without it being awkward. That, or I could go along with the straight prose as true to life as possible but as you pointed out with the parasite thing, that runs the risk of me alluding to vague stuff all the time and readers would need to stick with me a long time to figure things out. and confusion as with the cockroach. I guess I’ll figure something out. Let me know if you have any ideas!

Again, thank you. I appreciate someone who’s willing to stick with me despite inexperience but also helps me understand flaws.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Best of luck, @Cryptic. A format gimmick might serve you really well, actually. Of course, the very best prose reveals information without the reader even realising it.

 

[Cryptic]

Wooh, look at me! Took me several months but I’m back at it. That’s gotta count for something, right? So I got more snippets piling up in the google docs I dedicated to this project and I figured I’d post my latest one. As with the last one, remember it’s extremely unpolished(as in, I wrote this late at night and am too lazy to even proofread it once unpolished). Formatting, tense, names, it’s all up in the air. I’ll make a new thread or reformat this one when I’m finally set on writing my canon. For now, it’s all throwing spaghetti at the wall. Gentle constructive criticism welcome

—————

I picked at my nails in anxiety. My guide wasn’t here with me, he left me in this room to talk to a marketer. I didn’t fully understand what marketer was yet, but I knew that this stuffy place reminded me of a principal's office. More bare, less personal, and yet centering on an L shaped desk with chairs on either side and a computer. I reminded myself to take deep breaths. This attempt at calm was unsuccessful, a few seconds later the door opened and I jumped.

“So I’ve calendared time for Geoffrey to work with a few recruits tomorrow, but I need someone to help him catch up with his filing after that happens.”

A woman walked in, she was dressed in a pencil skirt the standard shade of Pokémon red, and a black button up shirt. She wore pokeball earrings, I noticed when I saw the phone speaker clipped to her ear. I watched, wide-eyed as she shuffled past me, set down some papers on the desk, and did something on the office computer while talking to the person on the other end of the call.

“Perfect. Well, I’ve got meetings from now until 4, so email me if you have any questions. Have a good afternoon!”

She tapped a button on her earpiece and finally looked away from the computer to make eye contact with me. Her smile was huge and captivating, I couldn’t tell if I felt comforted or creeped out by the excitement spilling onto her face.

“So… you would be Red, from Aspertia City?”

I nodded. I was surprised when she reached across the desk to shake my hand. After an awkward moment of hesitation, I took it and did my best to smile back.

The woman grinned wider, which I wouldn’t have thought possible at first. “My name is Cathrine.. and, well I’m from Aspertia and it has been a loooong time since we’ve had a trainer candidate. And, lucky for me, I was assigned as your manager! Don’t tell anyone I said this but… you’re my favorite candidate already.” She winked and let go of my hand, looking at me as if I was an old friend.

I pressed my lips together. “Yeah, I know. About the long time thing, I mean. It was kind of.. out of the blue..” I realized I was stumbling over words that didn’t need to be spoken. I went quiet again.

Cathrine seemed to decide something. She opened a drawer on the other side of the desk and pulled something out. “I know it’s been overwhelming. And, I sometimes receive candidates who weren’t told as much as they should have been in the chaos. How much has been explained?”

“Uh… I’m going to be a trainer. Maybe. Sponsored by Monorg… somehow I’ll be like--or try to be like, the people I see on tv.”

Cathrine nodded. She brought the object she had pulled out onto the desk. It was a pokeball. One I hadn’t seen before. It had no shell or seal, but it was green. The confusion must have spilled onto my face.

“Well, it seems like you weren’t told much. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you up to speed. I take it you haven’t seen a Friend ball before?”

I shook my head. She opened it, casually, and onto the desk an igglybuff rolled. Cathrine picked it up, scratched it on the head a few times, and then held it out to me.

“Would you happen to be allergic to any furry Pokémon?”

“No..” I took the creature from her hands. The first thing I noticed was that it was the softest thing I’d ever touched. I brought it up to my eye level. Would it be anything like my rattatas? How intelligent was it?

It met my gaze, blinked slowly. It then started wiggling one of it’s paws at me. I pulled my head back slightly.

Cathrine let out a little giggle. “He wants you to scratch behind his ears.”

“Oh.” Cautiously, I put the tiny, soft sphere on my lap and gently started scratching its head. It’s eyes closed and it leaned into my touch. Gradually gaining more confidence, I began to pet it, like one of the pets in my neighborhood back home. “What’s a friend ball? I mean, he seems friendly, I guess…”

Cathrine rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement. He gets extremely grumpy if he doesn’t get enough snuggle time, and his favorite people to be with are anyone who’s sad, nervous or sick. He’s a natural nurse buff, if igglybuffs could be nurses… A friend ball is a ball licensed by MonOrg to individuals and organizations that use Pokémon for services related to comfort. A therapy animal, for example. I don’t have any formal training in psychology, but I get to use this little guy when I’m helping candidates like you. In other words, he’s here for you specifically.”

I smiled. It was a more genuine smile this time. The creature made some sort of burring noise and prodded me to make sure I would continue to pet it. I felt my body relax and release the tension and fear it had been holding.

“So you’re a real Pokémon lover, then?” Cathrine seemed pleased by my reaction to the Pokémon.

“I guess. I love my rattattas. There’s something about the cute ones with the big eyes…”

I looked up from the igglybuff and met Cathrine’s eyes again. We shared a look of understanding. I knew in that moment that I trusted this tiny fluff in my hands and the woman across from me more than anyone else I had met since this adventure started.

“So.. what am I supposed to be doing with you, exactly?”

“Red, from this day forward, no matter how successful you are as a trainer, you’ll be in the public eye. I’m here to prepare you for public relations..as a star.”

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Hi Cryptic, it's good to see you posting something!

As you've indicated that this was a late-night job with no proofreading, I'm not going to comment on technical proficiency or anything of the sort. Instead, I'd just like to give you some feedback on the content.

This one is very short, so there's not much character or plot to comment on yet. Still, I have a clear perception of your characters, and a good sense of place and mood. That's good. I like that therapy pokémon are readily available for someone as withdrawn as Red, and trainers-as-stars, while not my jam specifically, is an underused trope.

Minor notes:

standard shade of Pokémon red

In-universe, this seems an odd phrasing. I assume he means the same red as on a pokeball, and that would have been a better qualifier.

pokeball earrings

This is a cute idea, and I'm also convinced they're actual minimised pokeballs.

“Would you happen to be allergic to any furry Pokémon?”

I like that this gets asked, because I love pokémon-as-a-disability-friendly-setting, plus the realism element.

Overall, this was pretty cute and a nice start to Red's journey. It really is very short, but it made me feel at home in the setting. Hope to see more soon, Cryptic.