Fanfic / Continental Divides

"I think you could make a difference in the world," he insisted. "If you really wanted to."

—Mark, Chapter 1: The Dive

Continental Divides: A Pokemon Fanfic

Continental Divides is an ongoing Pokemon fanfic by Old School Johto that reimagines the conflict between Team Aqua and Team Magma through the lens of real-world environmental activism and contemporary US politics. It takes inspiration from the generation 3 Pokemon games (Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald versions) but stars original characters and does not follow the plot of the games.

Pokemon trainers Mark and Natalie become enemies before they finish becoming friends, pitted against each other on opposite sides of a turf war between two eco-terrorist factions, MGMA (Masked Group for Mass Action) and ORCA (Ocean Rescue and Climate Avengers). Even as the actions of each group become more questionable, Mark and Natalie become increasingly more entrenched in the conflict and in their opposition to each other. When the archaeological tinkering of fossil fuel industry heir, Steven Stone, triggers an even larger threat, Mark and Natalie are forced to set aside their differences, work together (along with a ragtag band), and try to save Hoenn from climate calamity.

Continental Divides contains examples of:

• Adaptational Nonsapience: Pokemon in this setting are written with an animal-like intelligence.
• Adaptational Villainy: A benign figure in canon, Steven Stone is framed as a villain in this story.
• Affably Evil: Steven Stone might be kindly enough to tip the barista and buy Brendan a new pair of shoes, but he also still bribes politicians on behalf of his dad's company and awakens a slumbering climate change deity in pursuit of glory and fame.
• After Action Patch Up: In Chapter 5, Cora doesn’t patch up Mark’s wounds but does attend his pity party. In Chapter 9, Natalie has an emotional moment patching up her team.
• Aloof Big Brother: Natalie’s big brother is much more aware of the conflict than she is and urges her to stay out of the way multiple times.
• Animal Metaphor: Pokemon are used to reflect character attitudes and affiliations: Natalie’s wingull is a stand-in for her relationship to ORCA and her hometown of Slateport, while Mark’s solrock visibly reacts to his emotions when he doesn’t.
• Appeal to Familial Wisdom: Despite otherwise dismissing his father, Archie invokes his father’s words to explain his view of politics:

Archie: So I guess the old man was sort of right. It’s a seviper’s game, and the skin’s always shedding.

• Anti-Hero: although Mark is positioned as a protagonist and has lofty ideals, he also has anti-social tendencies and regularly breaks the law.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Natalie’s retort of “Hoenn isn’t yours!” continues to haunt Mark across several chapters.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: In chapter 12, Mark insists on continuing the fight even when it’s clear his team is outmatched.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: Magma uses squad names and attack plans that are decided upon offscreen:

Mark: Ruby Squad—to the front, shields up! Rowdy—get ready.

• Backported Development: Flashbacks and dialogue are used to explain how Archie went from supposedly caring older brother to the leader of ORCA. Similarly, Mark come off a little softer when his backstory with his sick sister comes out.
• Badass Native: Zinnia is both indigenous-coded and a badass
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: This is especially true in Chapters 3 and 13 when cops use disproportionate force against a previously peaceful protest.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Mark and Natalie fight in the middle of a flaming field.
• Battle Chant: Both Magma and the more traditional protesters use chants to hype themselves up before a fight.

Chant leader: They wanna build a pipeline. We say—
Crowd: Burn it down!

• Battle Trophy: Gibs is taken as a trophy after the fight between Mark and ORCA.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: In Chapter 2, Mark’s coworker becomes frustrated with him for lingering to talk to Natalie on the job.
• Big Damn Hero: Zinnia swoops in to save the day on the back of a dragon.
• Broken Pedestal: Mark initially admires Montag but slowly becomes disillusioned with him.
• Cavalry Refusal: In chapter 13, Mark sends up a flare for help and is instead abandoned
• Caught in the Bad Part of Town: In Chapter 1, Natalie wanders into a rougher part of town while trying to shake a pursuer.

The souvenir shops and food stalls of the tourist strip had given way to looming apartment buildings converted from the shells of warehouses and factories. Long twilight shadows were creeping in …

• Character Name Alias: Archie and Maxie each have an alias pulled from literature: Archie goes by Sinbad (a sailor and folk hero from the Tale of a Thousand and One Nights) and Maxie goes by Montag (from Fahrenheit 451).
• Construction Vehicle Rampage: In Chapter 12, a bulldozer attacks a protester camp
• Crowd Chant: The protesters in Chapter 3 use a variety of chants.

Someone took up a megaphone and began a chant. “No pipeline! No way! No pipeline—”
In a jumble, the crowd finished: “Not today!”

• Crowd Pleaser: Steven goes out of his way to get praise and attention, including from a barista.
• Curse Cut Short: Characters frequently curse throughout the story, but Natalie notably avoids cursing in front of her parents.
• Cynicism Catalyst: A failed environmental movement in Mark’s hometown makes him cynical about traditional activism and drives him to join Magma.
• Declaration of Personal Independence: Natalie’s dad is initially nervous about her leaving home, but she asserts her independence and goes anyway.
• Defeat as Backstory: Mark was previously involved with a failed environmental movement, which inspired his later involvement in more extreme forms of activism.
• Descent into Addiction: Despite insisting he’s quit smoking, Mark starts smoking more and more often as his sense of control begins to crumble.
• Divided We Fall: This theme repeats throughout the story.
  • Magma and ORCA are too busy bickering with each other to notice the trouble Steven is causing.
  • Magma’s defense of Meteor Falls starts to fall apart when Mark splits from the group to defend the Draconids.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Archie insists on being called by Sinbad, a rejection of his life before ORCA.
• Don't Tell Mama: Mark, Natalie, and Archie all take pains to hide their lawbreaking from their families.
• Doomed Hometown: Mark, Natalie, and Archie are all motivated in part by environmental disasters that affected their hometowns.
• Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: ORCA, Magma, and the police are each distinguished by wearing different colors.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Mark’s love of coffee is not only a dogwhistle for his hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness but also the target of many reader memes.
• Dug Too Deep: In his pursuit to discover the sleeping Regis, Steven accidentally uncovers the red orb deep beneath the ground, thereby triggering Groudon-like climate events.
• Elemental Rivalry: As in canon, rivals Magma and ORCA (Aqua) are associated with earth/fire and water respectively.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Natalie’s family calls her Butterball.
• Enemy Mine: Zinnia, Mark, and Natalie are often at odds but have a common enemy in the Devon Corporation.
• Even Evil Has Standards: ORCA has committed its share of crimes but is eager to point out Magma’s evils:


Archie: We fight to keep oil out of the ocean, and Magma spills it to make a fucking point.

• Evil Virtues: Magma and ORCA both partake in arguably evil acts but with virtuous motives: responsibility for the natural world and speaking truth to power. Similarly, Steven is a villain who espouses curiosity, kindness, and respect for the law.
• Experienced Protagonist: At the start of the story, Mark has already been training for four years and even works as a gym trainer.
• False Flag Operation: The attack on the Route 110 pipeline is carried out by Magma with the intent of blaming Devon.
• Family Business: Joseph Stone expects Steven to step up and take more responsibility for the family business, Devon.
• Family Disunion: When Natalie’s older brother resurfaces ten years after going missing, Natalie is launched into the world of crime and extremism.
• Fearless Fool: Natalie, by her own admission.

Mark: I can’t tell if you’re brave or stupid.
Natalie: Both.

• Flintstone Theming: This is in part due to the use of canon names (Steven Stone uses rock-types) but continues with minor original characters (such as ORCA members named Jonas or Raina and Magma members named Raquel and Sienna).
• Foe Romantic Subtext: Although committed to hating each other, Mark and Natalie think of each other often, repeating each other's words to themselves.

[I]n another life, if things had gone differently in Rustboro, he would’ve brought Natalie the ORCA lackey as a plus-one.

• Friendly Pirate: Shelly is friendly and helpful to Natalie.
• Gender-Blender Name: Tabitha is canonically male despite having a feminine name in English versions of the game and anime. Here, the explanation is that he’s MTF trans.
• The Gloves Come Off: In the Chapter 2 battle between Mark and Natalie, they play by official League rules; in Chapter 9, he surprises her by throwing the rules away to attack her with his full strength.
• Grass is Greener: Mark believes the grass is literally greener in Hoenn.

Unova still had its stretches of green, but not like here. In Hoenn there were places where you could walk for days and never see signs of humans—no bridges, no towers on the horizon, no sounds of traffic on the other side of the trees.

• Greater-Scope Villain: Magma and ORCA have localized disputes with each other, but Steven accidentally stirs up a larger threat that endangers the entire country and maybe the entire world.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: ORCA and Magma finger-point at each other’s crimes, but both groups break laws and social norms to achieve their idea of justice.
• Grilling the Newbie: ORCA on the whole and Scarlet specifically grill Natalie and force her to prove herself before accepting her.
• Headbutting Heroes: Mark and Natalie, the two protagonists, are in violent opposition for most of the story.
• Healthcare Motivation: Mark frets over his younger sister's chronic illness, which is part of his motivation to get involved in environmental extremism.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Mark is at a low point, about to be arrested and lose all of his pokemon when the day is saved by Zinnia swooping in on the back of her dragon.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Both ORCA and Magma wear distinctive colors and bandanas and are sometimes targeted by police/the opposing faction for it.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Natalie is tiny, especially compared to her much taller counterpart, Mark.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture: In their first battle, Natalie covers her eyes, signaling her relative lack of experience and grit.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Mark explains that well-known activist Erica Spitfire was once “close to taking the title and a big cash prize,” but opted to return home to organize against Devon instead.
• I Have Many Names: Archie is called several different names throughout the story.
• It's Personal: When Mark and Natalie clash in Chapters 8 and 9, it's personal for both of them: he's involved in an attack on her home, and he blames her for the loss of his liepard.
• Justified Criminal: Both ORCA and Magma regularly break laws for what they claim is the greater good.
• Just Like Us: ORCA and Magma each accuse the other of being morally reprehensible and of wasting their time, but both have committed arson and polluted waterways. Similarly, in Chapter 13, Zinnia compares Magma’s attitudes to Devon’s.
• Last Fertile Region: Mark believes that Hoenn, unlike his home of Unova, is a place of untarnished natural beauty that can still be protected.
• Last-Name Basis: Brendan Birch and Brandon Harrison go by their last names to avoid confusion.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Although ORCA and Magma take villainous actions, Devon is painted as a worse villain and, to some extent, the instigator of their villainy.
• Leaking Can of Evil: When Steven removes the red orb from its resting place, he triggers a slow-building environmental catastrophe that parallels both the canon presentation of Groudon and real-world climate change.
• Long-Lost Relative: In Chapter 1, Natalie mentions that her brother has been missing for ten years. He later becomes an important character.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Chapter 10 nearly stands alone from the rest of the narrative, centering on Brendan.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Mark in particular frequently jumps into danger trusting that his solrock’s light shield will protect him.
• Motive Rant: Several characters do this, notably Archie in Chapter 6 and Mark in Chapter 13.
• My God, What Have I Done?: At first proselytizing for Magma, Mark begins to doubt his convictions when he sees the consequences of their actions.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In several places, Magma and ORCA trainers fight each other with no regard for legality or safety, sending their pokemon to attack each other directly and sometimes using other weapons. Chapter 9 stands out.
• Not-So-Safe Harbor: Mark and Natalie both have unsafe harbors as hometowns: Slateport is infested with ORCA pirates, and Virbank has poor air quality because of a nearby refinery.
• Obliviously Evil: Steven is unaware of the cataclysmic results of his archaeological hobby.
• Oh, Crap!: In Chapter 13, Mark watches his teammates vanish around him, leaving him to finish the fight alone and outmatched.
• One Head Taller: Mark and Natalie.

He saw by her expression that she was appreciating for the first time the difference in height between them—he stood almost a foot taller than her.

• Out of the Inferno: At the end of Chapter 8, Mark steps out of an inferno unharmed thanks to his pokemon’s shield ... and walks right into Natalie.
• Pet the Dog: Steven is portrayed as a villain, but he also demonstrates kindness when he buys Brendan a pair of shoes.
• Pirate Girl: Shelly, a member of the piratical organization ORCA, is captain of Rosie the Riveter, which has an all-female-identifying crew.
• Playing Both Sides: Zinnia cooperates with both Magma and ORCA, at times pitting them against each other.
• Plotline Crossover: Over the course of the story, Steven’s Regi quest becomes more entangled in Mark and Natalie’s conflict.
• Plucky Girl: Natalie frequently misjudges the danger of a situation and jumps in headfirst, especially when trying to prove her bavery.
• Police Brutality: In Chapter 3, police use manectrics as tasers against unarmed protesters, even tackling and pinning a girl with a knee brace.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Montag is willing to make terrible sacrifices in the name of taking down Devon, insisting that the ends justify the means.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Steven agrees to bribe politicians on behalf of his father’s company, but it’s clear he’d rather be doing something more fun.
• Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: In Chapter 3, Mark issues this command to a group of ORCA trainers:

Mark: Okay. Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna recall those pokemon, drop your belts, and back away. Then I’ll let her go, and I’ll go about my business. No one goes to the hospital. Easy.

• Rage Against the Mentor: Mark does this in a voicemail for Montag in Chapter 13.
• Rebellious Rebel: Mark and Natalie each becomes rebellious rebels, turning against Magma and ORCA’s respective plans for working against the system.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Magma is the red faction but is associated with “blue” traits of calculation, control, and planning. ORCA wears blue and is associated with water but embodies “red” traits of passion and impulsiveness.
• Rousing Speech: Spitfire and Cora both give rousing speeches to a crowd to incite action.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: ORCA steals boats (and other things), sets fires, and uses modern technology.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Chapter 13, Magma bails when the situation becomes too dire, leaving Mark high and dry on his own.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Regis aren’t quite evil, but they’re definitely locked away to protect humankind … until Steven starts looking for them.
• The Squad: ORCA and Magma often break down into squads to carry out their missions. Mark, Cora, and Tabitha have each commanded Magma squads, while ORCA ship crews often comprise squads.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Despite being a villain, Steven still earns some reader sympathy as a perspective character in Chapter 7.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Mark is tall, dark-haired, and considered handsome by Natalie when they first meet.
• Terms of Endangerment: Steven normally calls Brendan by his last name … until he needs to ask for a big, sketchy favor.
• Theme Naming: Many trainers in this setting name their pokemon teams around a theme (notably Steven and cars, Mark and speculative fiction writers, and Brendan and Indian Jones references).
• Threatening Shark: The ORCA fleet is surrounded by schools of carvanha and sharpedo.
• Token Good Teammate: Shelly is the first named ORCA character to show Natalie kindness.
• Villainous Lineage: Natalie follows in her brother's footsteps by joining ORCA, and Steven feels obligated to participate in the shady dealings of the family business.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Although Devon is criticized by many characters, Steven is still highly regarded as ‘’the former champion of the Hoenn League and Trainer Today’s Man of the Year, the very image of class and power.’’
• Was It Really Worth It?: Mark begins to question his role in Magma after the destruction of the Route 110 pipeline.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both ORCA and Magma take extreme actions in the name of protecting the environment, addressing climate change, and fighting corporatocracy.
• Wicked Cultured: Steven is a well-spoken and uncannily well-dressed villain.
• Will They or Won't They?: Despite being bitter rivals for much of the story, their flirty first encounter and the story tags imply that Mark and Natalie eventually ... Will.
• You Know What You Did: Mark believes that Natalie intentionally tricked him and let him into an ORCA ambush even though she had no idea what was happening.