Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Broken Ideals is a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Fan Fic written by ShadowVulpi. It is best known for being one of the darkest examples of PMD Fanfiction out there, alongside holding the title of longest PMD fan story until Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Guiding Light took the title in late 2019.
The story chronicles the experience of Zekra, and the people she encounters, after her town is murdered mid-evacuation by a giant mob of mysterious, ghost-like entities she doesn't entirely understand herself. Like many other pieces of PMD Fanfiction, she encounters a human, who she so affectionately dubs Terron-a reference to one of her friends that died in the traumatizing experience she went through. And from there, things only proceed to get more and more worse, as everyone's internal demons start to rear their faces.
The story, in its completed form, can be found here
on Fanfiction, or alternatively here on Wattpad. It has been finished for years, so there should be no worry of incompleteness, or a hiatus driving it to the ground.
If anything, the only thing that should be worrying you is what lurks inside yourself.
Tropes featured in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Broken Ideals:
- Awful Truth: Terron, when he learns he caused the reawakening of the Primogenitor.
- Backstory: Acts as a major force of impact for Zekra's characterization near the beginning, alongside Terron, Yimtri, Nyx, and Novus' backstories all holding major importance to the plot later on.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Primogenitor is defeated by Rem and all Plagued Ones have been purged with his defeat. Terron and Yimtri have ironed out the issues between themselves and rejoined back as Dimitri. However, with the deaths of Syn, Impetus and Zeverous, Novus resuming his role as Rem and Dimitri returning to the human world, Zekra is the sole remaining member meaning that Team Vendetta is pretty much history. The world of Shiron (Pokemon world) and Kuron (Human world) are in shambles from the Primogenitor's rampage. In the years to follow, Zekra found herself drifting in life as her main drive of living is long extinguished along with the fact that her loved ones are still dead. She quits the reformed Fellowship, The Shadow Alliance, to seek a new purpose. She runs into a grown up Dimitri in her travels, who has finally returned by mastering the means needed to travel different worlds to reunite with the Zorua that he kept seeing in his dreams. He proceeds to open up a portal to a completely different world and together with Zekra, they both jump in for their next adventure.
- Cliffhanger: Used quite a few times, a notable one being when Zekra and Terron are 'killed' in a dungeon near one of their first jobs for the guild.
- Character Development: The story is well-known for its abilities in handling characters and general development of said characters, due to how much said characters go through over the course of the story, among other reasons.
- Darker and Edgier: Can be considered the story's motto, given how many situations this pops up in. An early example of this can be seen in Zekra's uncaring attitude towards killing a Rattata for food in the first few chapters, but many more can be found as the story progresses forward.
- Darkest Hour: Happens a few times throughout the piece. First notable one is the Aurora Town massacre, and the second one is somewhere around the time when Yimtri vanishes and Terron gets his plague overran by the Primogenitor's plague.
- A Day in the Limelight: Applies to the special episode The Shadow Hunter, where the focus is placed back on Syn and Impetus after being presumed to be dead by the audience for around fifty chapters.
- Deconstruction Fic: To the PMD series.
- Not only do the child protagonists get absolutely hammered on their first mission, their young age is actually supposed to bar them from signing up altogether due the Fellowship not wanting to enlist underequipped children in the first place. The only reason they even got in was because one of the leaders, Len saw himself in them and let them in out of subconscious pity. When the Aurora Town Fellowship is destroyed in a massive assault by the Plagued Ones, he strips them of their membership and tells them to go live normal lives, calling himself a naïve fool for bringing in children and that they got themselves wrapped up something way out of their league.
- Terron is an amnesic as he is one half of the human called Dimitri that caused the Primogenitor to re-awaken in the first place in Kuron in an attempt at a power fantasy. Dimitri was brought over due to specifically fix the mess he made and his connection to the Primogenitor. When crossing over, his very being was split in two in the grapple between Nyx and Primogenitor, resulting in Terron and Yimtri.
- The very idea of Mystery Dungeons and why they work as they do. Turns out that it was All Just a Dream, created by Erebus/Nyx the Darkrai. Anyone that enters it simply falls asleep in the dream, fight the non-sapient pokemon and they leave by getting "killed" or exiting. As for their items and inventory, it was actually placed by Erebus/Nyx while they are sleeping to match what they earned.
- There is no Carnivore Confusion here. The world is populated by Pokémon with varying degrees of sapience. Berries alone can only sate so much and Pokemon have to hunt their non-sapient counterparts to survive. Pokémon have to be raised by civilization to shed their wild side and in turn gain sapience to keep them off the menu.
- Despair Event Horizon: Much of the story is based around characters hitting this point and becoming broken in general. Applies particularly to Zekra, when she watches Shade rip her just-reunited brother Zeverous' heart out, and runs away to Crystelle's family on Shirra Island because she does not want to be inflicted with any more sorrow.
- Door Stopper: Even though it does not stand as the longest PMD fanfic like it once did, at a whopping 930k words and 100 chapters, it easily falls under this.
- Eldritch Abomination: Many examples of this, from the plagued ones themselves, to what happens to Terron and Yimtri's forms during the final barge into the central guild base, to the Primogenitor himself.
- Emergency Transformation: Applies to Zekra, when she and Venri manage to come to terms with each-other and evolve into their plagued evolution right as they need it against Shade.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: Zekra after everyone but her in the evacuation group dies, following the plagued ones attack only she managed to escape from. Also could apply in the epilogue, when she is looking back on how everyone she once cared about is long gone.
- Evil All Along: The Fellowship guild's leadership is led and manned by Plagued Ones from the start. Only the Aurora Town and Erebus Mines Fellowship branches are actually staffed by normal Pokémon. Even the definition of normal is stretched for the latter.
- From Bad to Worse: The trend that most character and plot arcs throughout the story follow.
- Ghost Town: Zekra's town, as she sees it while looking back through the ruins on chapter seventeen.
- God Was My Copilot: Played with. Novus the Quilava is actually Reshiram who incarnated to the Pokémon world of Shiron to stop the Primogenitor. However, being trapped in the Light Stone resulted in Reshiram resorting to abandoning his original body and power, wondering the world as a formless spirit in his escape. He resorted to possessing a Quiliva's mostly intact corpse to be able to perform his duty. It is noted that he hates this, as he has to deal with the various issues a rotting corpse would have along with the massive drop in power. The moment he gets his power and true body back, he wastes no time being back as Reshiram.
- Good All Along: Erebus, or as she prefers to be called, Nyx.
- Heroic BSoD: Zekra, after she learns that Terron/Yimtri, when they both were still one unified mind as a human, reactivated the Primogenitor out of wanting power.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Applies to Terron and the struggles he has in attempting to figure out how to use his bone club in the first dungeon.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Applies to all of the plagued protagonists throughout most of the story to an extent, and notably comes up when Zekra runs back to Crystelle's house and tries to act like she can live a normal life after what she has gone through.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Comes up in many situations during the latter half of the story. Notably when Nyx hides the fact that she thinks Zekra died from Terron, and the secret of Dimitri being the one that reawakened the Primogenitor which causes contention between the cast.
- The Mentor: King the Bisharp, who takes the role of introducing the main team as to how dungeons work near the beginning of the story.
- Mind Control: Seen in how the Plagued Ones take over the body of their host. Albeit there is a bit more nuance than that, and it could be argued to be more of a takeover from within than from outside due to where they originate from, but it is close enough for this to apply.
- Mind Screw: The entirety of the Erebus Woods arc, alongside the scene in the second intrusion into Erebus Woods where the cast is wandering body-less in a void.
- Offstage Villainy: Applies to many of the things the Primogenitor did leading up to the events of the main story.
- The Reveal: Happens right at the end of the second Erebus Woods arc, where both Yimtri and Terron having came from the same human is revealed, alongside the fact that Erebus was a plagued Darkrai forcefully mind-controlled by the plague put in them by the Primogenitor.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 28: By entering Erebus Woods, Team Vendetta are undergoing a transformation into Plagued Ones. Not to mention, practically the entire Dusk Mines Fellowship are all staffed by others who are undergoing the same process.
- Chapter 33: The Aurora Town Fellowship has been officially disbanded, with the surviving members joining other branches as the town that supported them is depopulated. Team Vendetta is kicked off the Fellowship so that they can live normal lives.
- Chapter 50: Erebus reveals the existence of the Primogenitor, the true creator of the Plagued Ones.
- Chapter 60: Zeverous dies fighting Shade. It turns that as a measure created to kill rogue examples like Team Vendetta, only Plagued Ones can kill other Plagued Ones. This is also the reason why normal Pokémon cannot fight them.
- Chapter 65: Novus reveals that he is Reshiram.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The eventual fate of all those who are plagued once they defeat the Primogenitor.
