Fanfic / Savoir-Faire: To Know and To Do

I am Marguerite Linden du Bois. Tomorrow, I begin a new career as a Pokémon professor. Tomorrow, I begin my rebellion.

Marguerite Linden du Bois

She's insane. That's got to be the only reason why I’m here facing a powerhouse, a tiny fairy and a sentient chandelier. The Prof is insane.

Donar Oak

Savoir-Faire: To Know and To Do is a Pokémon fanfic that basically takes an academic perspective on the Pokémon world.

Set ten-years post-canon of Pokémon X and Y and written by lalunaticscribe, Savoir-Faire brings former Champion of Kalos, SAS Daisy Linden, now Dr Marguerite Linden du Bois, together with beginning Trainer Donar Oak – not that Oak – to map out the sociological forces behind the path To Be a Master. Donar sets out at the same time as Serena, Shauna, Tierno and Trevor – the Next Generation of the Kalos group that were Killed In Story.

Along the way we have the trigger-happy Lucario, named Altair, Marguerite's three Ghost-type Pokémon – and oddly, one Floette – that seem too bloodthirsty to be let near a kid, and underneath that, the angst of a Champion whose award-winning team was killed in the Death by Origin Story by the local Legendary Pokémon, thus deriding Marguerite's bare derision of Legendary Pokémon in general, and of the general attitude of humans towards Pokémon and vice-versa. Along the way, they also pick up a Darkrai who serves as research assistant.

Starts out with moments of Black Comedy, and rolls down from there.

Also on AO3.

Ongoing fic, so beware of spoilers!

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• Absent-Minded Professor: Averted. Marguerite has her head screwed on, well more than perhaps Sycamore.
• The Ageless: Marguerite. Having been cursed for about six years places her physically around sixteen, but mentally in her late twenties. Donar even lampshades this by commenting on her youthful looks.
  • AZ reveals that Marguerite's current Aegislash was named Durand. After the legendary sword or the verb, we don't know.
  • She gave a Golett this name when she employed it as a temporary guide and packmule.
• Awesome by Analysis: Marguerite had a doctor's training and a sociologist's train of thought, and its shows.
• Artistic License: Pretty much of Kalos's history featured here.
• Badass Bookworm:
  • Marguerite is the first Pokémon Professor to not only come armed, but with a weapon improvised from a signal for help. How many people are willing to shoot a Tyranitar in the face?
  • Altair is stated to have full surgical training. He can also manipulate a Flash Cannon to operate like a scalpel.
• Blood Knight: Marguerite. Surprisingly dark, especially when she faced off in a baccarat game against Grimsley.
• A Boy and His X: Sets out to deconstruct this.
• Broken Ace:
  • Marguerite. Seeing half your team killed by the very Pokémon you were trying to save tends to do that.
  • Calem, Serena's father. Basically heartbroken.
• Broken Bird: Marguerite
• Broken Pedestal: In her own way, Marguerite is trying to reason her Pokémon dying and the subsequent cover-up with the necessities of the Kalos region.
  Marguerite/ Daisy: I am the princess abandoned by her people.
• But Not Too Foreign: Daisy Linden spent most of her formative years travelling, but can keep up well enough in the Kalos region to be mistaken for a local.
• The Casino: One is featured.
• The Chains of Commanding: Daisy Linden/Marguerite is often commented upon to be... a bit mad. Her mentor, Diantha, as well.
  • Also present with Cynthia.
  • One idea being that, unless defeated, Daisy Linden could not leave the Kalos League or abdicate her position, despite being unable to serve her responsibilities, because revealing the news would shake public confidence in the Kalos League and create social instability so fast after the fall of Team Flare. Hence she hid under a dual identity to keep away. So, if a leader can't leave the job until they're kicked off it, it makes one wonder exactly how mentally prepared any Champion might be...
• Chekhov's Gunman: Marguerite throws her Jellicent over the deck of the SS Azur. Later, it floats to show that it rescued Léa, Donar and Serena from the Azure Bay.
• Combat Medic:
  • Liz, Marguerite's Floette. It knows Wish, Aromatherapy, and Dazzling Gleam. Altair, being a Lucario with surgical training.
  • Marguerite herself, to the point of being able to do a Sherlock Scan.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Marguerite.
  • Altair is also one, by virtue of training. For some reason, his Close Combat, rather than aiming at the chest areas of Serena's Braixen for a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, is aimed at the joints, which is implied to lead to long-term damage and needing intensive care.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Donar gets a Froakie with Protean, a Fletchling with Gale Wings, and a Bagon with Sheer Force. By coincidence. Not actually a benefit: Marguerite details a serial killer in Wikstrom's family tree, the de Rais family, that involves a Protean Greninja and the Kalosian perfumery industry, that explains the Kalosian prejudice against the Froakie line members with this Ability. She also cautions him to keep it a secret.
  • For Bagon, it came with a cost; while other Bagon would survive throwing themselves off cliffs in preparation to fly, Bagon here would suffer the risk of permanent head injury every time.
  • Marguerite also keeps Shiny Stones and Dusk Stones on her person.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Uh... for a given value...
  • Marguerite is tagged along by a Darkrai that is relatively civil and curious, and rather obsessed with food.
• Deadpan Snarker: Take your pick.
• Deconstruction Fic: More or less.
• Equippable Ally: Marguerite has no compunction about using an Aegislash as a weapon. Considering her curse, she probably could afford the costs.
• Friend to All Living Things: Donar. Though there's a lot he's comically missing.
• Generation Xerox: Curiously, Shauna, Tierno and Trevor, as well as Serena.
  • None of them knew their parents. Maybe...?
• Genre Savvy: Marguerite. Seemingly the most tech-savvy former Champion in Kalos.
  Marguerite: Repeat after me. I am not holding the Idiot Ball.
• Gratuitous French: It's the Kalos region. Duh.
  • Most of Kalos is able to speak Standard aka English, though Marguerite notes that in places like Geosenge Town, monolingual speakers of Kalosian (aka French) such as the concierge's wife exist.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Marguerite keeps a flare gun on herself, ostensibly to call for help. It makes a handy weapon against a rampaging Tyranitar. Altair smashes with his fists, and also shoots.
• Jeanne d'Archétype: The first Kalosian Champion. Also, Daisy Linden/Marguerite
  • Diantha lampshaded Marguerite/Daisy as a symbol for the Kalosian people.
• Leitmotif: For Darkrai? Le Festin, from Ratatouille. Une vie à me cacher, et puis libre enfin, le festin est sur mon chemin...
• The Mafia: The local version, the House of Morelle. Used to be kingmakers, now serves as the mafioso. Share Coumarine City with the House Adonis Goutte-de-Sang as home turf.
• Meaningful Name: Marguerite Linden du Bois. Daisy Linden. If we discount the middle name, then it becomes 'daisy of the woods'. There's a strong canonical association of the woods and rebirth, as befitting Marguerite and the Kalos region.
  • The oak and the linden trees have a relationship in Greek Mythology.
• Mega Crossover: The Parfum Conference reads like a Who's Who of the Pokémon League, consisting of representatives from all six regions to date, hosted in the Parfum Palace of Camphrier Town.
  • Lampshaded as an attempt towards inter-regional governance by Marguerite.
• Metafiction: More or less the entire story, mixed in with an excellent plot.
• Dr. Exposition: Marguerite.
• Offing the Offspring: What Achillée tried to do to Léa.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Donar, often by the very professor who was shadowing him.
• Pater Familicide: Achillée Morelle tried this on his own estranged niece. it didn't take.
• The Philosopher: Hints at this. Marguerite seems to have traces of Absurdist and Extentialist thought in her actions and chains of reasoning, despite her claims of factual analysis.
  • Darkrai seems to take on strains of this. Surprisingly deep thought.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In the little bit of history that covered Kalos delivered here, the Kalos League or what would become its current incarnation was founded by Jeanne d'Arc, who defined herself against foreign invaders with a Sylveon and was granted nobility as S.A.S. Princess of Notre Dame, after sacking city after city to reach the location of the Kalos Pokémon League, called Notre Dame.
  • Also in what happened after the fall of AZ: here, AZ's brother took the throne, Really Got Around to father many kids, who then had kids themselves, who then rallied under a guy named Premier who then established the House of Cent-Feuilles that took the Jardin Throne of Kalos, and his multiple siblings divided to become the majority of Kalosian aristocracy. Between branches until the Revolution, this House would rule Kalos for 3,000 years.
  • Marguerite herself claims descent from the Houses of Luzerne, Mandragore and Coque-lourde. It becomes a Meaningful Echo when it's revealed that all three are Grand Ducal families, meaning that they're one step short of actual royalty and hold power. Since the last of the royals, ergo Lysandre, had disappeared, the Kalos throne would go towards Marguerite, if anyone got about to reviving the monarchy.
  • While the game places Wikstrom's rank in the Battle Château as Duke, Marguerite calls him Baron de Rais. In the story, Wikstrom is a Duke in the Battle Château, but his actual social class is part of the aristocracy that survived the Kalosian Revolution and actually flourished. Of course, this also places him as related to a serial killer...
• Soul Power: Marguerite replaced her dead Delphox, Venusaur, Sealeo and Banette with a Chandelure, a Jellicent, and an Aegislash. Periodically fed with her own life force.
  • Subverted in the case of Liz: it becomes an Ironic Echo when two immortals meet, each with their own Floette.
  • She's also building up a retinue of Ghost- and Dark-type Pokémon now.
• Theme Naming: Daisy Linden, aka Marguerite Linden du Bois.
  • Contrast Donar Oak.
  • Marguerite's old team. Altair, Vega, and Deneb for the Summer Triangle
  • Noël Duval: his team consists of Sapin (fir), Borealis (Northern Lights), Scylla (sea monster)... and Jacques. His birthday is December 25.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Marguerite claims that Darkrai is a research assistant to a travelling self-proclaimed sociologist, despite that she had to teach him how to read.
  • Marguerite herself. You wouldn't expect a sociologist, who is part of the humanities, to be involved with the Sycamore Pokémon Research Laboratory.
    • She's an academic.
    • It's also implied that she leases out the Berry Farms in Kalos, and also has savings from her time as Champion. She could probably afford to stay at any hotel.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Hinted at: Marguerite tried to commit suicide by walking unarmed into the Lost Hotel, which is flooded with the Litwick line. Her future Chandelure, Crystal, tried to suck her energy and basically gorged itself until it forcibly evolved, and Marguerite was still alive due to the curse.

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