Title: Pedestal
Author: Digital Skitty
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Status: Complete
Fandom: Pokemon
Pairings: None in text, but off-screen mentioned.
Summary: For some people, training isn't easy. For some people, training is beyond easy. Unfortunately, for me, training is beyond hard. Double weaknesses, attacked by wild Pokemon, mistrust of trainers, and much more. I just CAN'T catch a break, can I?
Link: Fanfiction.net

An OC based pokemon fic, based primarily in Sinnoh. It doesn't follow the game storylines at all, although could follow on from them, I suppose.

I started reading this yesterday, when I had the day off from University due to timetabling. Sixteen hours later, I still wasn't done, and was wondering where the hell my day had gone. This piece is over 550k, so is one of the longest single pieces I've read, and longer than some series of pieces. Chapter lengths vary quite a bit over the entire fic, but get longer from the beginning before stablilzing somewhat.

There were several things that did annoy me with it; such as off-screen occurences that aren't directly mentioned, which can get confusing sometimes, and the fact that the characters don't ever seem to act their ages, which is a quite common flaw. Once or twice there seems to be a rather large build up to a plot arc, but then it only lasts for a chapter or two before resolution.

I think one of the main reasons I enjoyed this was that Skitty didn't attempt to make the Pokemon universe all 'grimdark', or whatever the word is. Here, Pokemon can get hurt in battling, but the PokeCenters can heal minor wounds with the magical machine, and broken limbs don't take months to heal - a sort of halfway point between the games, and the sort of thing you see in Crukix's fic. But at the same time, there was a very real threat of danger to characters - injuries and deaths do occur throughout, and not always at the hands of other people.

The piece follows a nameless narrator (well, nameless until the final chapters), who starts out on his Pokemon journey a year late, and with a Numel. Instead of catching a tonne of Pokemon, our narrator wants to only have a single one, powered up beyond belief. Along his journey he meets a few friends, discovers the problems involved in prophecy, and also has to face puberty.

Overall, I'd rate this at a 4/5, but could easily see it scoring less with others, and don't think it will be close to universal approval.

 

I remember this being mentioned before, and I was reading along since about chapter 50. Definitely one of the top pokemon stories out there (once you get past the level shit), a 5/5 from me.

 

I tried to read this, but I stopped about the time he visited the duskull of destiny. I think that was maybe ch 40~ish. Should I pick it up again?

 

I found the Duskull arc interesting whilst it was going on. Annoying, but not too bad. I'd say yeah, pick it up back up.

I was amazed really how it all came together. I know it should in a decent piece, but the plots are actually linked. So if you can handle the Duskull being a bit odd I'd recommend continuing.

 

160 chapters. He could have condensed and cut about 80 chapters work of filler crap from it. Nonetheless, its pretty good and I would definitely recommend it. 4/5

 

It's certainly interesting. Some parts of it can be frustrating, and at times it feels like the main character stays weak for too long, but that is just the pacing of the story. Relatively well written in a story telling as well as a technical sense. Started reading five or six hours ago and I'm up to Ch144, and it's feeling like a solid 4/5.

 

I like it, but I'm also rather surprised that PTSD seems to be completely undiagnosed in this Pokemon universe. I mean, apart from the increased sexuality thing (since he's 11), the main character seems to be suffering a textbook case of it around the chapter 50 mark.

Also, I've just realised that I've read 50 chapters and don't know the main character's name. Have I just missed it or is it even given in the first place?

 

Its given in chapter 158 I think, or around there. It took a while for the author's notes referring to NamNar to sink in that they meant Nameless Narrator.

 

4.5/5 from me. It was pretty awesome, tbh, and I really felt a connection with the characters.

I used to play with Breloom on PO because of this story XD

Meanwhile, there are some flaws - there's runaway storytelling, imo. It could have been said in maybe 40-50k less words.

 

Finished it up today. It really was awesome.

The only flaws I can think of are that it was a bit long (first time I think I've ever said that), and could have dealt with some filler being chopped away. On the other hand, I'm really not sure what counts as filler. Almost everything became important later on in the story, even if it seemed competly pointless at the time.

Also, I think NamNar was completly unlikeable for the first few bits of the story. It got better later on, and even then his habit of blaming everything on himself got really old. Again, I think that was supposed to happen, but still.

4/5 from me.

EDIT: 300th non mafia post for me. Woot!

 

I'm really on the fence with this one. On one hand, it's a pokemon story, fairly interesting, decent characterization at times and lengthy. But on the other hand there is so much that is bad about it.

The protagonist is annoying and unlikable for the first few chapthers then it gets better for a while, but ultimately goes back to annoying. "Oh noes, my fault Nick went batshit. Woe is me". You're reminded every other paragraph that the protagonist thinks Nick is his fault when it really isn't. With the except of Des, Carlita and Konstay virtually every other Pokemon just really seems to suck.

The tragedies didn't really hit me at all either, sure trainers/Pokemon died but some of those characters were so poorly written and one-dimensional that I was glad to see them go. Especially when certain people lost their teams.

At any rate, I did read most of the story and liked Vai so it wasn't completely awful.

3/5