Lisa the Legend: Chapter 82 - Last Night on Earth now up! (24th June 2013)

[Gavin Luper]

That was an epic chapter. Very reminiscient of the Half-Blood Prince. The surface of the lake, pulling out the sword (although I guess that's more Chamber of Secrets/Deathly Hallows), what happened at the end...

Yes, I couldn't help shake those vibes off, too, especially when re-reading the part when Suicune is all "promise you'll do what I say in the Sepulchre", etc. - very directly reminiscent of Dumbledore. The funny thing is, I wrote this chapter back in 2009 (yeah, that's how many chapters I have stockpiled ...) so I don't even remember if I was directly inspired by HBP or not at the time. It actually happens for a couple of other things in future chapters - I have moments where I try to remember if I had had a particular idea before or after I read Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows. There is at least one plot point coming up that I had planned years and years ago, and then when I read Deathly Hallows in 2007 I was like "oh crap, now it looks like I'm copying Harry Potter". But them's the breaks. And let's face it, Harry Potter was a huge influence on the direction this fic took circa 2002-3.

I was actually quite suspicious that Suicune was lying. Just because it seemed that we could no longer trust "revelations". But after what happened at the end, I don't see how Suicune could have been lying.

I won't confirm or deny anything here.

And I wonder whether the guarded power will ever be revealed to us... because we can't pin it down, it seems more horrible than anything that could be put on paper.

Hmm, yes, I agree - the unknown is a lot more frightening than something known. Unless, perhaps, the thing, once known, turns out to be truly terrible.

I really enjoyed the Jenna O'Brien bit, injecting a bit of humour at a crucial point. But it seemed like Lance and Sarah were acting way too young -- especially Sarah, who actually acted like a high school girl.

Yeah, it probably was a bit lighter in tone, but as you pointed out ... the chapter needed it. It would have been way too heavy otherwise - the revelations and then Suicune's sacrifice. For the record, Sarah is eighteen years old, so not far off a high-school girl, really.

I hope Lance didn't seem too young-acting - I know I hate it when characters act out of character in a story, it really hurts the plausibility of the world created. Did it jar badly, or just slightly?

(One of the pitfalls of starting this fic when I was thirteen, of course, is the slightly unrealistic ages of the characters. Having Lisa and Gavin running around as fifteen and sixteen year olds seemed entirely realistic at the time, but as an adult now I kind of wish I could scrap the whole thing and age them up - it would give me a lot more room to move and be a lot more plausible. But hey, this isn't a novel, it's a fanfic from my youth and it's drawing to a close, so I'm gonna enjoy the innocence of it while I can.)

And the phrase "I assume you are still young enough to believe that power and wealth can be dangerous and corrupting things" felt awkward. It felt like Suicune was saying that Lisa was naive for believing that, and that the truth was that power was not corrupting. Like when people say "you are still young enough to believe in the tooth fairy".

Ah ... I didn't realise it could be so easily interpreted that way. What I (or Suicune) actually meant was that power and wealth ARE indeed dangerous and corrupting things, and young people tend to recognise that, but as they grow older they often end up becoming corrupted by power and wealth themselves and no longer view them with the same suspicion they once did. Does that make sense?

Looking forward to the next chapter!

I hope you like it - will post once the other readers have had a chance to catch up, roughly a week or so from now, I hope. NaNoWriMo is just three weeks away, which is terrifying ... I think I may end up finishing LTL altogether by the end of November. So, chapters will be in abundance!

Thank you so much for returning to read and reply - appreciated muchly, as you know. See you next chapter, Ada!

Just caught up with everything. I'm in awe at how much of your recent work ties in with that you've written at the very beginning. It's a true testament to your vision for the fic that this has become so much more than a Pokemon fic.

Hey, Chris - great to see you back here, too. Thanks very much - yes, this will start happening more and more as we draw nearer to the end of the fic. Lots of things, even seemingly insignificant ones, that happened very early on - in books one and two - were made specifically with a view to being clues to later plot points, or to making much more sense to a reader once they had read the conclusion of the fic.

You're right: it's true that this is scarcely a pokemon fic anymore. If anything, I like to think of it now as a kind of adolescent action-adventure. I have even toyed with the idea of stripping it all back to something original, but as soon as I do that (I've tried drafting it), the essence of the fic gets lost in translation. So I think I've finally made my peace with enjoying this for what it is - a fanfiction and a fun relic from my youth - while simultaneously looking forward to finishing it off and moving on to some original long form work at last.

The last chapter was interesting, especially the notion that Lisa's loved ones and ancestors lied - but not conventionally. All the information passed down over 700 years had to suffer, especially with Suicune's notion that humans have intentions and traits which he does not.

I wanted it to be realistic, and the reality is that humans are far from perfect: they usually act with their own interests at the forefront of their minds when making decisions. Even if that is sometimes at the cost of the truth.

I'm curious about this vast power - I'm thinking it's something very unusual as opposed to a huge force. Could it be something supernatural? All I can think of is something really comic book-y (mind reading, precognition, something with death?) but Suicune noted it was a terrible power.

Of course I can't say anything yet, but Suicune was right in what he described it as.

Gripped for the next chapter!

Excellent, glad to hear it! Thanks again for stopping by to catch up and read LTL again, it's great to have you back here.

Chapter 74 ... as you can probably determine from what I said to Ada above ... was written in 2009 and has been edited a lot since then. So, I'll give it another week or perhaps a fortnight, and then press on with that. So exciting now.

Cheers dudes!