01/10/12: Butterfree

Kalistik
Website: ...My Website?
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I was actually half-expecting Butterfree to fall out of the Pokeball dead or something. Not sure how it would work, but it's where I thought the story was going. Would have been a much more depressing ending. xD



Anyway, I really like what you did with it. You're very good at incorporating emotions into your work without feeling cliched or cheesy.

[10/02/2012 13:47:26]

Polymetric Sesquialtera
Commenting on: 01-10-12

There should be a name for this phenomenon - the phenomenon of "early-game Pokémon that get definitively less useful over the course of the game". Or not even just Pokémon; any similar effects in video games. Like Disc One Nuke except the nuke isn't actually necessarily strong enough to be considered a full-blown nuke. My Beautifly and Dustox are undergoing this now as I approach Flannery in my Emerald Nuzlocke. I hereby call it Butterfree Syndrome.

[04/02/2012 19:04:39]

Frostagin
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Wow. Just… Just wow. I came here to kill time and wait for busy server to go away, and I'm rewarded with this. I don't even know what to say.

So I'll say it again.



Wow.

[02/02/2012 04:14:23]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I have plenty of Butterfree in the Hall of Fame. I've only ever ditched one Butterfree in my life; I've had Butterfree happily in my final team on Gold, FireRed, Diamond, SoulSilver and Black, and possibly more. :P Like I said, the fic is not autobiographical.

[31/01/2012 00:58:42]

Sky
Commenting on: 01-10-12

POOR BUTTERFREE



CAN I MAKE A FAKE HALL OF FAME WITH BUTTERFREE



PLZ



YOU EXCLUDE YOUR FAVORITE POKEMON FROM THE HALL OF FAME

[30/01/2012 16:50:11]

Ymedron
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Hm, I suppose I interpreted your rowling-adage as an angry one. My apologies then.



I think there might be some kind of psychological effects to it merely because you are practically teleporting the pokemon to the future - They go into the box, and come out, not realizing that months or years have passed. It might have an effect when they try to understand what has happened. :V

[27/01/2012 13:32:04]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I think you misunderstood me somewhere. I did not take it as "telling me off", nor did I defend it on the basis that it's "just a story"; I was mainly pointing out that while you said the box was very different "for you" from the way it is "for me", it isn't really like this "for me", because I might just as well write another fic tomorrow where it works completely differently.



Not that I really see how this kind of box is inherently inhumane when you aren't leaving the Pokémon on there for years. They don't have a real sense of time in there, so they'd just experience it kind of like going to sleep and then waking up a bit later. There's no reason that should automatically have some ill effects on the mind or body, unless you were to specifically decide to add this to the interpretation.

[26/01/2012 20:14:10]

Ymedron
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Hum, I didn't mean to sound like I was telling you off for having a box system like that. It is just crushing to think that pokemon would be treated so inhumanely with scarce a thought to it.



What would suspended animation do to a psyche and body, and could this technology be developed to dispose of troublesome humans.





Yes I know it's 'just a story'. :/

[26/01/2012 19:48:43]

Cycloneblaze
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Great, great story. You really get the emotions across. I felt a bit sad reading it - it was that kind of story.

I wish the trainer wouldn't be so indecisive and just accept that her Butterfree is happy again, but I guess I'd feel different if I was that trainer. Oh well. Anyway, great work Butterfree =D

[25/01/2012 18:53:06]

Xumahare
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I remember using Butterfree against Brock so many times, having played and restarted Yellow a lot. He always ended up in the box, though.



Of course, the first time I played through and beat Yellow, I used a Pidgey, who ended up being level 100 by the time I was finished with the game. I feel bad now, about the rest of my team, who ended up just being low-leveled meatshields and HM slaves. ._.



All-in-all, great story, Butterfree. <3

[22/01/2012 05:32:27]

Slix
Website: Poliwager
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I really liked the story too. It was almost making me cry… I liked the whole way it was written and it related to me as well. All too many times I've done the exact same thing and said to myself I'd train whatever Pokémon and never end up doing it and when I do, it makes me feel bad that I put it off so long. Well done, Butterfree. :)

[21/01/2012 00:49:56]

sarahc
Commenting on: 01-10-12

This is exactly how I feel when I use a Pokemon for a few battles, and then just dump it in the box.



You, madam, are a genius. The piece works so well, it's beautifully written, and just…wow. </worship>

[18/01/2012 23:45:21]

Karpi
Commenting on: 01-10-12

It amuses me to remember that I had both Beedrill and Ledian on my silver version on my team. It honestly did not register in my mind that they were significantly weaker than my other pokemon. This story makes me wonder if, had I known more about how base stats worked, I would have dropped the two bug types from my team. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't give up on them, but I know I would never do such a thing today. Poor bugs :(

[15/01/2012 00:12:38]

Flametrainer13
Commenting on: 01-10-12

I've been trying to keep up with your updates, so imagine my joy when I saw the story! Really wonderful, it kinda makes me feel bad about those first few Pokémon I catch just to have more than my starter on my team at the very beginning. :( I'm going to favorite the page it's on, so I can keep coming back to read it. :D

[12/01/2012 23:55:17]

Polymetric Sesquialtera
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Oh jesus. I got Yellow for Christmas this year and decided that my team would consist of Pikachu, Flareon, Blastoise, Venusaur, Nidoqueen… and Butterfree. I use Butterfree so often in my main series games that it never really occurs to me that maybe it really isn't the best permanent team member, but I use it anyway. I had to specifically find good type advantages to send it out on when I faced the Elite Four… had to teach it Psychic and Mega Drain in order to keep it from fainting all the time… This story is so painfully true. (Except I never end up ditching Pokémon even if it means I reach the Elite Four with a Zigzagoon.)



It also made me want to start over Yellow even though I just beat it and do an experiment where I take a Butterfree and, through careful use of saves and leveling so as not to overlevel, find out the approximate point at which it loses its usefulness. But since I just beat Yellow idk if I can bear to part with this file.

[12/01/2012 21:16:18]

Butterfree
Admin
Website: The Cave of Dragonflies
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Sky: This is not a retelling of something that happened to me on an actual game. It does have elements derived from personal experience - I did ditch my first Butterfree in Yellow at level 28 after thinking it was the best thing ever when it beat Brock, and wanted to train it up again but never got around to it - but ultimately this is a piece of fiction about a real Pokémon trainer with a real Butterfree, not someone playing a video game, so asking what game it is or what level the Butterfree was doesn't really make sense. It takes place in Kanto, and the Butterfree was left on the PC at some unspecified point before the trainer battled Blaine. There is no game, and even if levels were to be interpreted as an in-world feature, I don't know the Butterfree's exact level any more than I know the names of the trainer's friends. They don't have any significance to the story, so why would I decide on something specific for them?



Butterfree certainly didn't enter the Hall of Fame the time the trainer went and became champion, and I don't think a trainer in the Pokémon world would actually keep battling the Elite Four over and over again after they're already the champion. I suppose the trainer might have gone on to other regions, or been de- and then rethroned, but it is doubtful the Butterfree battled, what with the whole not-battling thing, so no, it was probably not entered in the Hall of Fame.



Ymedron: Well, the story wouldn't be very interesting if the Butterfree were having a grand old time on the PC. :P



I don't really have a single consistent headcanon - the box isn't like this "for me" so much as it is like this for the purposes of this story, because this story is most interesting that way. You might as well tell J.K. Rowling "Well, I don't think magic works that way" - of course you can prefer different magic systems, but ultimately magic is fictional either way, and Rowling is nowhere claiming the Harry Potter system is The Way Magic Works, just that it's how it works in Harry Potter. My stories all vary pretty wildly when it comes to anything that pertains to the interpretation of the world (barring those that explicitly happen in the same universe, like TQftL and Scyther's Story/The Fall of a Leader); they each just use the interpretation that seems most interesting for that story. If I were to think up an interesting story sometime that would call for the PC to be like your interpretation, I'd write that.



Blastoise Fortooate: I'm kind of surprised by how many readers just see the ending as unambiguously happy. Here I was thinking people would think it's stupidly indecisive.



KuroRekkuza: I had a Haunter on my permanent team in Crystal, and I was actually devastated to find I couldn't cancel trade evolutions when I traded everything over to Gold so I could restart Crystal. It just wasn't the same when she was a Gengar. D:



Thanks for your kind comments, everyone. Man, this was a whole lot better received than I thought it would be. Maybe all the time I spent on it just made me jaded. Or that contest I judged just made me think way, way too hard about one-shots.

[12/01/2012 17:42:02]

Sky
Commenting on: 01-10-12

So, did the Butterfree enter the Hall of Fame or what? Is this FR/LG? What level was the Butterfree?

[12/01/2012 13:33:40]

Ymedron
Commenting on: 01-10-12

The butterfree-story made me cry like many of your past ones have. However, to me the pokemon box is such a different place as it is for you - I always think that the pokemon are on a great enclosure, training and eating and sleeping and having downtime.

But then again, Im rotating about five boxes worth of pokemon, so thinking that they all have to rot for months on end in a pokeball is very… Crushing to think about.







I was also expecting the butterfree to do something evil, but Im glad that for once there isn't any sinister things going on.

[11/01/2012 23:31:59]

Blastoise Fortooate
Commenting on: 01-10-12

Butterfree, you managed to make a story with a happy ending that is till somehow sad! This is an amazing accomplishment.

[11/01/2012 22:26:12]

KuroRekkuza
Commenting on: 01-10-12

This is absolutely beautiful… this makes you realize that Pokémon can be more than just a computer program, that you can truly be connected to them, like they're living beings.

It reminds me of my Haunter, just hanging in my PC until I'm able to trade him to evolution, because he hasn't been rising to the challenge of defeating trainers. But he's my favorite Ghost, so you know what, I think I'm gonna go train him and have fun, and he'll evolve when he evolves.

[11/01/2012 22:18:32]