These are Chibi Pika's nominations and comments for the 2018 awards. See all nominations here.
This fic, in short, took my breath away. The characters are so rich, the emotions so raw, this ensemble of thoroughly damaged characters just trying to put their lives back together and figure out what it is they really want. I loved every second of it.
A different take on the classic Red and Blue rivalry that focuses instead on their starter Pokemon–long, long after the Pokemon journey has come to an end. Plenty of awesome action and bitter emotion, capped off with a heartwarming ending.
This is definitely a different take on the classic Pokemorph genre, one which focuses on a Pokemon-turned-human, rather than the other way around. This fic also puts a neat focus on the different ways that Pokemon communicate with one another.
The concept of the Aura Guardians in Movie 8 is one of the coolest ideas that absolutely needed way more development and focus than it actually got. Luckily, that's what fanfiction is for–Heroes After All fills that much-needed void while also delving into the past of both Aaron and Lucario, and what led to the bond we saw in the movie.
I know it's been said, but these two really just play off each other perfectly. Every scene with them interacting is a joy to read.
A classic whodunnit mystery that'll keep you on your toes until the very end, with a neat twist!
This fic opens right out of the gate by punching you (and the protagonist) in the face with a sudden apocalypse out of nowhere, and the looming aura of dread doesn't let up from there.
It's honestly a bit hard to count just how many times this fic ripped my heart out of my chest, sometimes multiple times per chapter, for multiple different characters. If you like reading about broken people trying to put their lives back together, this is the fic for you.
A delightfully silly little one-shot centered around the team leaders of Pokemon Go (with some love for the unappreciated and clearly best team lead Spark definitely not biased at all here nope.)
This fic is exactly what it says on the tin. It's a story that quite literally couldn't exist anywhere else, as it get all its humor from breaking as many of our rules as it possibly can, and it does a marvelous job at it.
Gonna give some love to an entry from earlier this year that I think deserves more attention. Furic is a delightful protagonist with an optimistic outlook on life, and it's just plain entertaining to watch him stumble into trouble while on the hunt for adventure.
Look sometimes you're just in the mood for big over-the-top constantly escalating high-stakes shonen action with a million characters and a million more flashy powers constantly trying to one-up each other. You don't gotta make excuses, and neither does this fic.
uA does a fantastic job delving into the mindset of her Purrloin main character, giving Salem a POV that is both clever and relatable and yet fantastically inhuman.
Let’s be real—Aaron and Lucario are the best part of Movie 8, so getting a fic that delves into their past and how they met is a real treat.
This fic gets Guzma and Lusamine (and Faba, and Plumeria, and Gladion, and the rest of the SM cast) in ways that I never knew it was possible to get. It delves deeply into its cast and tears into them in ways that really show you what they're made of, and every single non-canon addition feels completely 100% true to their character.
Guzma, Guzma, Guzma. You terrible, rotten, broken, hurting, trash lord of a man. You have no idea what you're doing with your life, no idea how far you gone into the deep end. And yet. There's just something so compelling about watching him try so desperately to put the broken pieces of his life together and find something that can actually make him happy. One minute he'll stumble upon the chance to actually do some good, and the next he'll tear it all apart again. But as heavy as the chains holding him down are… he does learn. He does move forward. It's slow. It's painful. But that makes it all the more sweet in the end.
Look, this is the last chance I'll ever get to nominate him, so you better believe I'm gonna do it. As the fic came to its climax last year, all his fear, all his pain, all his feelings of being betrayed by the one who he'd trusted unfailingly–all of it came together in the most wonderfully heart-wrenching way.
It took me a while to figure out where to put her. Because in all honesty, Beasts and Beauties is as much her story as it is Guzma's. But for as many times as her character arc runs parallel to his, it just as often clashes against it. Lusamine is fantastically cold, cunning, and calculating, dishing out emotional manipulation and abuse like a dose of slow-acting poison, and all you can do is watch as she tears down everyone around her (herself included.)
While she's not exactly the kind of comedic jokester that this category would imply, there's just something about her ridiculously blunt, crude–and occasionally, inappropriately rude–way of speaking that just has me constantly in stitches. This interview chapters show this off the best, with her narration constantly interspersed with snarky asides directed at the reader.
“Professor Oak: Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some peer reviewing to do! Yes, as a scientist, reviewing the work of my fellow researchers is a very important job of mine. There’s nothing I like doing better than leaving, nice, long, constructive reviews about the things they’ve written!”“Why, Professor, are you subliminally suggesting that the reader do a certain thing that it’s considered bad forum etiquette to suggest they do?” the aide says.“Professor Oak: That’s exactly what I’m doing! With the mods abducted, there’s nothing to stop me from doing whatever I want! Thanks, aliens! Without your help, the author of this story – Farfetch’d, your greatest and most cunning enemy – could never have gotten away with something like this!”Yes, Professor Oak is right, you think! There’s absolutely nothing the aliens could do now to get this story moderated. They should probably just give up.
I'm sorry, but nothing will ever be funnier than a character in a story breaking the fourth wall to tell people to review while explicitly citing the fact that it's against the forum rules.
He had to focus. He had a meeting to get to.Finally the double doors leading to the reception room met his line of sight. Phil drew a long breath as he completed the last flight of stairs. The corridor felt like it was closing in on him and the stillness wasn’t helping a single bit. He took no time pushing the doors and they flung open with a sharp creak, suggesting that they were in dire need of oiling. But what met Phil was the same as it had been on the floors above. Devoid of people and pokemon, the lobby looked as welcome as a graveyard with patchy, leather chairs serving as the tombstones. Phil cast his line of sight around the room and licked his parched lips. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Is anybody here?’His voice was swallowed up by the silence and was given nothing in return.The front door beckoned to him urgently but by now unease had turned to concern. Phil approached the front desk, fidgeting with his fingers. He was acting paranoid – it was probably just a slow day for the hotel, that was all. But he still wanted to just confirm that he wasn’t the only one there before he left. Besides, the hotel staff wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave their lobby unattended, right?He tapped the desk bell which produced an invasive tinging noise and clenched his hands into fists. Ten seconds of waiting became twenty, then thirty, then forty and Phil still found himself standing alone, waiting for someone to come and assure him that his common sense had been correct.And then something caught Phil’s attention – something that made him take several slow steps until he was staring at Hearthome’s roads and buildings, his palms pressing against the icy glass windows. The streets were just as empty as the hotel appeared to be, even to the point where there wasn’t a single parked car to be seen. But that wasn’t what made Phil blink and rub his eyes. No, what drew his attention was something far more concerning.
Sam sure does have a knack for writing scenes in which nothing has even happened yet that nevertheless manage to freeze your blood cold.
Mother of all spoiler warnings: reading that chapter will basically explain the entire fic. It's also, conveniently enough, somewhat standalone, focusing on two characters in a time far removed from the rest of the fic. Two characters who forge an unlikely bond, knowing it can't possibly last and can only end in tragedy. Throughout the entire chapter, you know exactly what fate will befall them, and yet it still stabs you in the heart anyway.
Another solar beam, another hit. The haze thinned, burned off by solar energy, dispersing on mountain breezes. Now and again a snatch of Blastoise became visible: an arm, a cannon, the smooth, broad dome of shell.Something was wrong. Blastoise's shell glittered, had none of its usually waxy sheen. Charizard only caught a glimpse, but she nosed a little closer, searching the fading haze while sunlight glowed through her claws.Something cracked down below, a sharp report like a boulder snapping. Charizard looked down and saw ice clouding the pool's surface, sublimating in gentle white wisps. She beat her wings once, by instinct flying higher, up and away from unknown danger.A powerful cross-breeze caught her and blew her sideways. It came laced with dancing snowflakes, ice crystals abrading her scales and tearing long rents in her wing-membranes. Blizzard winds slammed Charizard against the side of the glacier, freezing ice at her back, freezing air against her stomach, twin walls of ice trying to snuff her flame between them.The haze had never been meant to hide where Blastoise was, only what she was doing. With the mist ripped away by the blizzard's gale Charizard could see the icicles growing from the rims of Blastoise's cannons, the frost clouding her scales, the snow drifting across the rocks at her feet. She'd been preparing.Charizard snarled and pushed against the side of the glacier, hole-ridden wings straining against the slackening blizzard. But Blastoise clenched her fists, shifted on massive feet, and the glacier creaked, cracked, chunks calving with a horrid, grating rumble. The front of the glacier tore away and toppled down in chunks, Charizard trapped beneath the falling ice.The pool's frozen surface broke her fall, but only for a second. Then the main mass of the glacier came roaring down, ice splintering against ice and spraying razor shards in all directions. The ice beneath Charizard gave way, dumping her into freezing water.
This scene does a fantastic job at capturing the sheer weight and power being thrown around by these two centuries-old juggernauts.
“That’s very optimistic,” Carl said. “But fair enough. I’ll be prepared anyway. I never trusted legendaries.”“They’re…” Mark paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “They’re just people. They’re not perfect, but they’re not evil either. They’re just… trying.”
This little exchange just about sums up the core theme of the entire fic. The ultra-powerful gods of the Pokemon world–just a bunch of scared, flawed people making mistakes and trying to put things right.
Neb has made great strides on revising his fic in just this year alone, and he very quickly and effectively takes feedback into account. I look forward to seeing where his writing goes in the future.
Each time she returns to the forum, her writing has taken another great leap forward.