TEEN: - Ongoing bric-à-brac [a flash fiction collection]

[silurica]

[noun] a miscellaneous collection of small articles commonly of ornamental or sentimental value

Hi! I like shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear. I may add more to this thread in the future if I write more miscellaneous stories of my pkmn characters under similar length.

"A Walk Through the Woods" / Sendoff Spring

Giratina rarely crosses over the boundary between their world and the material world, but when they do, they prefer it to be at dawn or dusk – a moment of liminality, neither day nor night. Now is one of such times: the woods are cold with mist and dew, and the sun has yet to wrap everything in its light. Carefully, they become one with the mist, floating away from the small lake connecting the two worlds.

They can hear the chirps of birds waking up, the rustling of leaves brushing against their wings as they take flight. A caterpillar crawls on the ground, tiny feet stepping on dead leaves with crunching sounds just as small. A snoring noise vibrates from somewhere, so relaxed this deep in the woods. In the distance, bells ring faintly alongside the gentle wind.

These sounds fill their mind; songs they don't have – refuse to have – in their world. After all, if they had these songs in their world, they are sure that they would hide under a rock soon enough. They can't even bear to stay in this world for more than a day.

Yet they still peek into this world every now and then, doing nothing but observing the sounds they hear beyond the mist. Perhaps that's just as well.

---

"PC Box" / Oreburgh City

"Error here, too. Yup, I guess that's it," mutters Luca under their breath. The trainer clicks on an icon on the screen, making the cylindrical machine next to the PC pop open. Inside it, a red-bordered white Poké Ball sits innocently.

After staring at the ball for a while, they press the button to minimize it and shove the thing into the depths of their backpack. Considering the strange happening at the Spear Pillar (that oddball is a god? Really? Really?), it's probably for the best that the system thought the Poké Ball was broken. Maybe it really is broken. If nothing else, they can act like it's broken and the capture never happened. (If it really did, it didn't feel like it, anyway.)

Yes, this will be their little secret. They, and the error log of their Pokémon storage account.

They reach for the internet browser and start looking up whether such error logs will be deleted from the system.

---

"City Lights Again" / Jubilife City

Perhaps he would have been less surprised if he didn't sleep through most of the centuries. When he decided to return to the "TV station" to look at the painting depicting his daughter again, when he looked outside the window by chance, he wasn't expecting himself to be captured by the sight of the city at night.

In his memory, the light that the mortals held at night was a modest glow, just enough to keep themselves safe. Now, however, it's as if they had taken a shard of the starry sky and made its brilliance their own to decorate the earth with. If he felt generous, he would compare it to the sight he had seen from his realm – the lights of many worlds and possibilities, swaying between the real and the imaginary.

How pompous. How adorable. Was it this that his beloved wished to see? If only he could know. Until the end of time, these thoughts will be for him alone.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Heh. I must say that when I saw the words “flash fiction” and clicked on this, I wasn’t quite expecting that to be almost literal when the entirety of your first post nearly fit on my screen without scrolling, making my first glance at it indeed practically done in a flash, haha. I was tempted to write something just as short and succinct as a review — or at least a “joke” review before the real one — as a kind of cheeky ironic response to it all, but I’ll think I’ll refrain and just get right to it. These will probably end up being observations just as much as they’re actual “reviews”, but I’ll try to be as insightful as I can nonetheless.

Your first little story goes into slightly personal territory for me, in a good way. I’ve always found sunrise and sunset to be some of the most visually interesting and inspiring times of the day, and I often spend a lot of time taking in the beauty of both. It’s kind of weird to relate that kind of experience to that of what’s basically a god, let alone one as enigmatic as Giratina. That is, at least, Giratina as I’ve known them in certain continuities (primarily the anime, some fanfiction, and what relatively little the games give us), not necessarily yours. But it is weirdly charming to know that even a Pokémon who’s often compared to Satan (the accuracy of which I’m not even going to try to debate here), can enjoy something so simple and, well… human, perhaps, as talking a walk through the woods, if only kinda-sorta-but-not-really. I suspect that Giratina is maybe more than a little tsundere for the mortal world here, but with perhaps as much genuine hatred as there is genuine affection, no matter what even qualifies as the latter to a being like them? How weird. Indeed, relating to a god is difficult, haha. Even those in a world where you can basically keep one of them as your pet in your pocket if you wanted to.

Speaking of which, how am I not surprised that the age-old question of whether you can put the rough equivalent of God in a Poké Ball is apparently yes, yet the equally tantalizing question of whether you can put them in a PC is apparenly… no, just no? As weirdly lopsided as that is. Tiny ball made of trees? Sure. Machine that can transport them across regions and literally store them as data? Yeah… no. But then, with the caveat that I have no idea how PCs actually work in your universe, it’s been something of a headcanon of mine that Poké Balls are, well, a very special kind of technology, to the point where it’s not even really “technology” as most people would probably think when they hear the word, but rather almost like magic in how it works. Which could even be literal there, depending on what Pokémon are really made out of. Hence why such ridiculous power is apparently possible even hundreds of years ago in relatively ancient Sinnoh if sources like Legends: Arceus are to be believed, while something like the PC as it exists in at least in the real world — let alone those with the kind of capabilities shown in the Pokémon world — isn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye yet. What a weird universe Pokémon is, huh? And how funny it makes all of this here, with the sheer absurdity of it all.

The last little story is probably the hardest of the three for me to decipher, I think. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, though, given the subject of this one. Having found your writing style in at least these little stories here often never completely reveals what your characters are thinking all the time — especially those who are, let’s say, more than mortal — I can’t help but wonder what Arceus (presumably?) is indeed thinking as he sees those ever-so-bright lights in ever-so-great number. There’s certainly the cliché interpretation to consider: the classic story of man approaching or even surpassing God with the power of science and technology (or do they?). But perhaps the mere fact that — for all of the words spent on his thoughts about it all here — his mind appears to be really be elsewhere during his visit already explains enough.

And that’s about all I have, I think. It’s always funny how things so small can create feelings and reactions so great, huh? And how what I’ve written about them is probably as long as the stories themselves if not longer, haha. Anyways, these were fun, with some subtle food for thought about some very mysterious and even flat-out weird stuff about the Pokémon world. If you’re wondering whether you should do more, I certainly wouldn’t mind. So I’ll be on the lookout for more!

 

[silurica]

Thanks for visiting! :-D it's one of my favorite forms of fiction. I did write these under a time constraint (it was for an event elsewhere and I was traveling), which... probably was a factor in the below thing.

I had a specific context for PC Box: the Poke Ball at this moment didn't contain anything in it! It captured something but said something was taking a stroll outside. The Poke Ball didn't recognize what it captured, and the PC system didn't either as it turned out. This is all extra context that a reader probably would be able to infer if they've read the first two chapters of my main fic, but well, I completely missed that way of interpreting PC system function is probably kind of atypical.

tl;dr I kind of fucked up lol

I don't think I can fix it without what would amount to a significant rewrite for something of this length, so I'm gonna leave that be. I should go attach author's notes on AO3. Glad that it sparked some thoughts anyway though! Weird world, indeed.

 

[silurica]

Long due cross-posting. I've bumped up the thread rating from EVERYONE to TEEN according to these additions.

Content warning for a wounded character dying (not graphic). These characters are not fine.

"Regret" / Relic Castle, or so it will be called in the future

It looks like this is the end of the road for us. I saw them – torches blazing brightly on the horizon, like candles about to fall on a beloved curtain – our pursuers will reach this castle in no time. Should a miracle happen, I hope at least His Majesty will manage an escape.

More direly for myself, I can't stop my bleeding. I can't stand anymore. So dizzy. I can't focus on my healing. Unsurprising – I've always had poor aptitude for these spells. Mother said so too. This pitiful attempt isn't enough, never enough.

Never enough. In the end, I'm only half of a whole. No, perhaps even less than a half.

I wonder how Zekrom is doing? Are people growing uneasy in her presence too now? It's the victory of her side this time, I hope she will celebrate it with her men… no, she probably won't. After all, it's not victory that she seeks.

Ah, I'm a fool. I understood her words, her actions, her screams. What use is understanding if I didn't do anything about it?

So dizzy. I feel like I can pass out anytime now. Then what? Will I die? Can I die?

I wish I could see her for one last time… not as enemies, but as….

---

"Outrage" / Dragonspiral Tower

It's bright. I can feel jolts of electricity running under my skin. And there is the smell of dust and desolation in the air. Ah, I see. I'm awake now, and the person who undid my seal is…

This green-haired boy looks like a ruler that fool Resh used to serve. But he doesn't speak the same… oh, who cares? It doesn't matter as long as he can understand my words and I can understand his.

Oh, of course he is yet another human who wants my power. Another human who wants to use me as a tool. And when they are done, seal me again they will. A world only for my kind, he said? Hearing that from a human is so sickening I could laugh. Yet his eyes are so pure, so resolute.

"You were born to be your mother's hand." "You were born to serve the kingdom." "You were born to be a symbol of ideals." These are the words that bind my existence. What could he know about them?

But it's fine. It's not as if anything good ever came from mingling with humans. If this boy betrays his words, it will simply be another mark in my history. But in the slight chance he keeps them, perhaps I will finally be free. So I have made my decision: if destroying the foundation of the world is what you wish, I will lend my power to you.

---

"The Littlest Things" / Plasma Frigate

I let myself get carried away. This man clearly views my predicament as an object of curiosity. The many books he gave me (some of these are for children, judging from the simpler sentences and the whimsical pictures). The way he tap-tap-taps on his white tablet after he speaks or looks at me (is that for taking notes?). The smile that never leaves his face.

If before he did nothing but inflict pain on me, now he treats me like a box of puzzles. And that smile of his always remains the same, with a tinge of familiarity he cannot possibly know about.

My memory is hazy, but the familiarity is unmistakable and somewhat irritating: he reminds me of how I used to be long ago. The boundless thirst for the unknown. The unconcerned trials-and-errors in search for an answer. And perhaps even…

"Hey, you. Do you yearn for… do you yearn to do something with your knowledge?"

He freezes. After a moment of silence, he laughs and says something again, and starts tapping on his tablet as usual. Of course. What was I hoping to achieve by asking that? He doesn't understand the words I speak. Nobody does now, except…

"Don't touch me! I hate you, Mother! You cold-hearted monster! I've always hated you!"

…all things considered, being an object of curiosity is fine.

 

[Space Umpire]

I think I remember reading the first set and reviewing it. But alas, I think that review has been lost. On the plus side, it allows me to look at them with a fresh set of eyes (along with some new ones).

A Walk Through The Woods

There’s so much peaceful imagery in this one, which contrasts very nicely with the chaos of the Distortion World, Giratina’s domain. It’s funny how what may be calming for someone from one world could be annoying or stressful for someone from another. And yet there’s a curiosity about how different this world is, a desire from Giratina to explore it from a distance in the hours of the in between, from the safety of the in between.

PC Box

Do you think the PC Box/Pokémon Center notices when I deposit a Legendary Pokémon? Or twenty-ish Smoliv? This one gave me some fun food for thought. I like how Luca looks up whether or not the error logs get deleted after the fact. Granted, they probably didn’t expect it, but it’s still a funny little detail. Hilariously sketchy behaviour /pos.

City Lights Again

Seeing the world seemingly suddenly change through the eyes of Alfa is really a delight to see. Comparing the lights to his world of possibilities also adds to this… I guess hopeful tone? And connecting it to his beloved, like he’s trying to better understand them… it’s a beautifully hopeful piece.

Regret/Outrage

These two play off each other in a really interesting way: the death of Reshiram, the revival of Zekrom, the implication of the other way around. Zekrom seems a lot more sour towards Reshiram, as opposed to the other way around. Zekrom also seems more dependent on Reshiram, while Reshiram seems either hostile or indifferent to Zekrom (though I could be misreading it, given the short length of these drabbles. The vibe I get is very much “Can we be friends again pleading emoji” “lol no”)

It’s also interesting to see N, who Team Plasma and even himself see as different from other humans in how he interacts with Pokémon, seem like just another human taking advantage of Pokémon in the eyes of Reshiram. What separates N’s heroic goals from others’? Is it his genuine desire to see them through? His love for Pokémon? How different is that from other people? (I might be overthinking it lol)

The Littlest Things

I’ve seen your Colress and Kyurem drawings here and there, so it’s interesting to finally see their dynamic play out in words. There’s an understated horror to the way Colress treats Kyurem as an object or a child, while Kyurem seems at worst confused by this predicament, or even preferring it to the treatment of Mother. There’s a tragedy that it seems like there’s no longer anyone who can understand them. It’s all in a “it is what it is” tone, which clashes with the horror in a really cool way. It’s a good clash. Yummy clash.

 

[silurica]

Hi, Kamo! Thanks for visiting!

If I may toot my own horn, I think the Giratina snippet is one of my better written pieces. I'm proud of my interpretation of Giratina and how the feelings in it get across, and it's general enough that you don't have to read LLV to know what it's about.

These two play off each other in a really interesting way: the death of Reshiram, the revival of Zekrom, the implication of the other way around. Zekrom seems a lot more sour towards Reshiram, as opposed to the other way around. Zekrom also seems more dependent on Reshiram, while Reshiram seems either hostile or indifferent to Zekrom (though I could be misreading it, given the short length of these drabbles. The vibe I get is very much “Can we be friends again pleading emoji” “lol no”)

You didn't misread per se but it sounds like you started getting Reshiram and Zekrom switched up halfway into this paragraph. (Reshiram was the narrator of "Regret", dying and his thoughts wandered to his twin sibling. Zekrom was the narrator of "Outrage", freshly revived during the plot of BW and preoccupied with her own stuff.)

Anyway putting the rest under spoiler tag because I want to talk about the latest set and it may spoil the effect for anyone who wants to read it blind.

Spoiler: Talking about story mechanic and authorial intentions and headcanon

I originally intended these three snippets as a sort of trilogy. Three dragons. Distant past, the middle of BW, and after BW2. Reshiram seeing torches, Zekrom feeling electricity, and Kyurem with the cold-hearted comment.

As a result I also tried to keep one particular signaling consistent, which is "This kind of text was meant to be something said to them in the past." It's the act of remembering. This should be fairly clear with Zekrom, but even when I was writing I wondered if its use in Kyurem's part was too coy. At the same time, I also wanted to keep the sense of it being a kind of intrusive memory, and that's ultimately what I went with.

Kyurem was the mother spoken of in all three snippets, and the italic line in "The Littlest Thing" was meant to reference the climax of BW2 with the forced fusion between Kyurem and N's dragon. In my mind, it was said by Zekrom who has Issues (this part isn't strictly game canon, since it didn't give voice to the dragons beyond what N might say in their place). I'm not surprised if it's unclear since I didn't use a lot of space to establish it, and it's (to my knowledge) not a common interpretation of the dragons' relationship, so you basically have to know my lore or somehow correctly guess it.

So that's that I guess.