YMMV / Pokémon Strangled Red

• Broken Base: Steven's mourning over Miki is either a massive Tear Jerker or a load of Wangst. While, Steven's close friendship and bond with Miki resulted in considerable anguish and emotional pain following her death, provoking his depressed attitude, which is natural in the face of loss and can be seen as understandable. However, the fact that his reaction was to throw everything away, as well as the severity of it, could be viewed as disproportionate in a few areas. One point on which readers agree, however, is that Mike's murder was unnecessary.
• Cry for the Devil: Steven. It's undeniable that he killed his sibling Mike in retaliation for Miki's unintentional death, yet he obviously loved her to the point he tried to resurrect her even if the means were questionable. To compound the overall tragedy of what happened, he was once kind and aspirational like every other trainer.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Pokémon X and Y brings us AZ, a man who became a serial murderer because his partner Pokémon died... Just like Steven. It also makes some wonder why didn't Steven think about Xerneas instead of gunning for MissingNo, but given how Xerneas is in Kalos and also hard to catch due to being a Legendary Pokémon...
• Moral Event Horizon: Steven crosses it when he killed Mike over Miki's death. The reason this is a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon? Not only Miki's death was an accident, but Mike openly shows regret over that accident.
• Narm Charm: Missing No's role in the narrative. In an already dismal tale about a trainer's fall from grace, using an "atrocity of broken data" shouldn't work, but what it was implied to be, and how it was utilized to revive Miki transforms it from a silly aspect to something completely horrifying.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The fact that this creepypasta is about how much grief can destroy someone to the point where desperation can drive them to commit not just a crime of nature but something unthinkable in the process, rather than including the usual Haunted Technology, is part of the reason it is so beloved by those who read it—so much so that some have compared it to a tragic story instead of a creepypasta. Although some may find MissingNo's involvement corny, the way it's utilized in the plot to set up a case of Came Back Wrong works incredibly well, especially in light of the fact that many individuals have wanted to bring a deceased loved one back to life.
• Sequel Displacement: Strangled Red is actually the second installment in a trilogy, though the original Strangled and the finale Door’s Open are virtually unknown in comparison, particularly due to the original author deleting the entire trilogy from their DeviantArt page, making finding the other installments quite difficult, as they have nowhere near as many backups as Strangled Red does.
• Tear Jerker: Miki's death in the trading accident. Mike only wanted to borrow her just to complete the Pokedex, and things got worse from there...
  • Steven also passed away when Miki did. Everything was thrown away by him, including his other Pokemon, Pokedex, and fame. It's implied that he started crying after he exited the Pokemon Tower. It isn't made any better by NPC dialogue, as at least one of them states explicitly that Steven is "still" in mourning. As the game progresses, the narrator worryingly wonders if Steven will wind up "doomed to do nothing but roam Kanto in misery, haunted by the memories, forced to listen to everyone's concerns about him" due to the awful tone.
  • What's the sole piece of dialogue Mike has after the trading accident? "I'm so sorry…" That's it, nothing else. His innocent goal to finish the Pokedex set off a series of events that would ultimately bring about his own and his older brother's demise.
• Wangst: How detractors feel about the fact Steven's mourning of Miki goes to the point of Sibling Murder. His response to Miki's death is to throw away everything he ever had, even outright stepping down from champion, with at least one NPC pointing out he's still mourning. It should be noted, however, that Pokémon are treated in-game as living beings that have feelings, making the fic effectively a Deconstruction of A Boy and His X. Despite this, there still is an argument in favor of Steven's mourning being Wangst: the fact that Miki likely didn't want the Sibling Murder to occur over her death.

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