Heavily seconded by Silent Reverence: Mentor takes some dangerous elements from the games's world and treats them reallistically (in particular how Pokémon training is actually like) without jumping into Darker And Edgier or into a full-blown deconstruction. Leah is an adolescent girl for whom the dreams of journeyin with her Pokémon and conquering Gym after Gym ended... pretty early. She is now involved in the further raising of two new trainers, who as 10-year-olds will happily try to get invoved into everything the world has to offer to them, until they eventually bump into the plot, arcane accesories, Team Blanks and stuff.
This fanfic's selling point for me was character development. Leah is initially accompanied by her sole Pokémon, a cute Sandshrew for whom It Got Worse because of the plot. Leah's relationship with the critter, who even goes from being called "it" to a full-blown "he" and even played pranks upon, is broadly explored upon and used as the building stone in her relationships with other people and Pokémon, and from that into the Character Development which, expectably, is there for everyone (with lots of Character Depth for the mentored kids). The story even managed to make one or two stabs at how Pokémon is viewed by adult people, both in- and out-of-universe, without detriment of the ongoing plot, which as of 2010-07-22, has finished "Arc One".
Overall review: a must if you like Pokémon and if you like to watch characters evolve as you read them.
FanficRecs Mentor
Heavily seconded by Silent Reverence: Mentor takes some dangerous elements from the games's world and treats them reallistically (in particular how Pokémon training is actually like) without jumping into Darker And Edgier or into a full-blown deconstruction. Leah is an adolescent girl for whom the dreams of journeyin with her Pokémon and conquering Gym after Gym ended... pretty early. She is now involved in the further raising of two new trainers, who as 10-year-olds will happily try to get invoved into everything the world has to offer to them, until they eventually bump into the plot, arcane accesories, Team Blanks and stuff.
This fanfic's selling point for me was character development. Leah is initially accompanied by her sole Pokémon, a cute Sandshrew for whom It Got Worse because of the plot. Leah's relationship with the critter, who even goes from being called "it" to a full-blown "he" and even played pranks upon, is broadly explored upon and used as the building stone in her relationships with other people and Pokémon, and from that into the Character Development which, expectably, is there for everyone (with lots of Character Depth for the mentored kids). The story even managed to make one or two stabs at how Pokémon is viewed by adult people, both in- and out-of-universe, without detriment of the ongoing plot, which as of 2010-07-22, has finished "Arc One".
Overall review: a must if you like Pokémon and if you like to watch characters evolve as you read them.