Wanna play a game? Take a shot every time the story uses the word creature. Trust me, you won't survive it. Anyone okay story so far.

~Review of the Epilogue, and Overall Thoughts~

Yeet.

I just finished Broken Ideals, and I'm currently pretty floored, so a mere 'yeet' shall have to do. I do have to review the epilogue; however, so I shall pull myself out of the depths of yeetness once more to do a review of the epilogue and the story as a whole!

So there *was* a timeskip, then. I think it's a bit... long, though? I can see why you would need ten years for the 'Shadow Alliance' to beuld themselves up and Dimitri to mellow out a bit, but I find it a bit hard to think that Zekra would just sit around and deal with that for 10 years. I'd think she would go crazy after one...

There seems to be some purple prose with those paintings Zekra makes. It's not really important this far into the story, but I thought it was worth pointing out anyway. Her dreams had some amazing imagery, though...

["I'll admit a lot of what you told me almost feels like something out of a novel and not something that actually happened in real life..."] Meta lampshading! :D

I think the open ending is interesting and *seems* to laud itself to a sequel at first, but upon looking closely it's really Zekra's best ending- what else was she going to spend her (Now eternal) life doing? There were only scraps and pieces left for her back on Shiron, and she'd either end up living on Shellshore Island with nothing to do, or continue doing... whatever she was doing in the Shadow Alliance (I assume ruling? Administration just doesn't seem her type of thing). Spending her life sightseeing with as close to Terron/Yimtri as she'll ever get again is probably her best chance at a happy life from this point onwards.

~General Thoughts~

The first time that I caught wind of Broken Ideals was late 2016, when it popped up in the new story roster (Probably for one of its final chapters). I didn't read it at the time because the description just made me think 'endless edge no happiness I'm gonna be miserable IRL just from reading about these poor pokemons' misery', and I was gone in seconds. Now, having read it from beginning to end... I still think that description sort of applies. Broken Ideals *does* have a fair amount of edge- if not from the story, then just from the concept itself - , and sometimes you were so evil to your characters that I did have misery periods IRL. But you contrast that with brief periods of happiness for your characters and a plot that doesn't rely on edginess to move forward, which made the story overall enjoyable to read.

Others have lauded Silver Resistance for its plot and Broken Ideals for its characters, but I believe it's the other way around. Broken Ideals' characters very much serve its plot, and the plot is clearly the main attraction. Many characters in Broken Ideals are fairly simplistic. There's their general traits, a goal, and a flaw. Other characters, like Yimtri and Novus, make use of 'perceived deepness'- instead of developing and changing radically as the story goes on, characters are already 'deep', and that information is slowly revealed to the readers over the course of the plot. But when all is said and done, they're still the same thing. The sole character who changes a lot over the course of the story is Zekra, and I think that's the reason that many people grow more attached to her than they do Terron/Yimtri/Novus/any of the other characters. It makes sense, since even though the story is told mostly from Terron's POV Zekra is clearly the MC, and by the end it's completely told from her perspective. Everyone else serves their rule as supporting characters, and even though those characters are well-composed the needs of the plot clearly reign supreme over them. Not that there's anything wrong with that; but that's my opinion anyway.

Is Broken Ideals the best Pokémon story on the internet? No. Is it the best PMD story on the internet? IDK; I haven't read through them all, but I don't think that has a yes/no answer. Is it an enjoyable story that recognizes its own merits and builds on them, instead of fizzling out hallway and remaining unfinished forever? Yes. It is. And quite frankly; for a story that was written to deadlines with what was probably not a very stable outline over a period of four years, Broken Ideals is probably the best-case scenario. It made it from all the way from prologue to epilogue, didn't sacrifice its tone or betray its concept/characters, got away with making PMD 'edgy', and even managed to surprise me several times with well-thought-out twists. Could it use some minor polish on the earlier chapters to make them more consistent with the later ones? Definitely; but it's still readable without it.

Overall, Broken Ideals is far from a perfect story. There are nearly as many negatives as there are positives, but after reading the entire thing and looking back I think that the positives outweigh the negatives by a considerable amount. It has a message that many people living today (And likely in the future too) would do well to live by, and even though twelve chapters ago it seemed impossible everyone (sort of) gets their happy ending after all.

7/10 - Enjoyed reading!

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: A Fraser Officer Survived - Bear McCreary

Review 10/10

I'll be honest; this was a really hard review to write. And an even harder ten chapters to read. Mostly because it's really hard to impress me with final battles in general and I just sort of lost interest a couple of times along the way, but also due to some major structure/story problems I'll get to in the review itself.

Most of it involves the Battle/Siege of Pledge Mountain, however, and I'll get to that in a bit. But since that is sort of 'sandwiched' by the beginning and ending, I think it's only fair that this review follows the same structure. So without further ado, let's review chapters 90 - 99 of PMD: Broken Ideals.

Before the Siege:

Something that's remained consistent throughout all of Broken Ideals (Even the first thirty chapters; which are arguably completely different from the other seventy) is that you're really good at writing 'calm before the storm chapters. I think that building up tension towards a battle/large event is one of your strengths, and it's really done well here. I loved reading everything up to Storm the Castle.

Since it's so close to the ending of the story, you seem to be taking the opportunity to wrap up all the drama pre-battle. Terron and Zekra end up mates, Yimtri accepts that he'll eventually become part of Dimitri again, and Synergy is briefly mourned. I think that this actively sabotages you later on, but it's fun to read about here :)

And finally Yimtri's dramatism gets done justice! He is probably the only character who could have conducted that speech and not come off as an edgelord. I really liked reading that part. I've only one question... I can understand how Terron/Zekra/even Len could have kept a low profile, and Yimtri's the de-facto leader so everyone knows about him, but how is Reshiram a surprise? It's not like he was actively *hiding* from them, and could he even do that anyway? I just don't see how they're so shocked...

So, this is the part where I think Broken Ideals really just breaks down, so I'm gonna be a bit negative in this section. Just a heads up.

So, some comments on the Siege of Pledge Mountain: I get that Broken Ideals isn't really suited for 'realistic' battles, but I'm gonna leave this here anyway because quite frankly both sides' battle strategies really suck and it kept bugging me a lot.

Firstly, the fact that the Pledge Mountain Fellowship seems to be operating on the offensive- they've spread out their forces all over the field positioned to kill the army, but the problem is that they aren't the offensive party: the Last Fellowship (They have no name so I'm assigning them one) wants to get to the Primoginator's realm, and to do that they have to infiltrate Pledge Mountain. That puts Pledge Mountain under siege, which means that first and foremost that army's #1 job is to protect Pledge Mountain from getting invaded. All spread out like that; they've already failed.

Furthermore, Pledge Mountain was apparently built with a siege in mind:
- Hidden in the mountains; no large flat open areas for a charge/assault
- Built into the mountain itself; no worries of fire from the sky
- Surrounded on all sides by mountains; hard to reach without suffering an attack along the way
What I'm not understanding is why the Plagued Fellowship pokemon aren't using Pledge Mountain's natural perks to their advantage, and focusing their strengths on making sure no-one can even *reach* Pledge Mountain in the first place? Even after the reveal that the portal to the Primoginator's realm was destroyed, it's *still* easier to lure the Last Fellowship into the mountains and then just pick them off since they seemingly can't charge straight through...

This is further complicated by the Raquaza reveal; because once you get past the 'OMG Raquaza!' stage, it... doesn't really make so much sense. Raquaza's cooped up in a room, after all. It's such a large pokemon... wouldn't it be put to better use like guarding Pledge Mountain from sky attacks/Reshiram? Or wreaking havoc on the army below? Or just weakening Reshiram in general? And just have pokemon like Zephyr guarding the actual portal? If they actually knew how to plan things they wouldn't have to worry about anyone reaching that portal/opening one.

Now for Len/The Last Fellowship's side: Oh god. Why are they charging. That is literally the attack Pledge Mountain was apparently built to repel. Even if they make it up the mountain there'll be so few of them left it wouldn't have even been worth the effort in the first place.

But aside from that, I think that the real reason that this battle bored me so is the fact that you set the stakes on inevitabilities. I feel like you pull out all the stops for this battle- all your tricks that you use throughout the story show up here in some capacity or other, but in the end it's all rendered moot, because no matter what happens in this battle - even if Pledge Mountain gets seared to the ground and it looks amazing - everyone we care about will die in the process. That isn't what ends up happening, but that's what the reader goes in believing. All the stuff that happens in between is filler- it's like that Big Grey Monster in a blockbuster film that the characters have to spend five minutes fighting before they can reach the film's real villain, but it doesn't add anything to the plot when all is said and done. How many times can you sic legendaries on your characters and move the portal around before it just becomes grating to read?

But more than that it makes it really hard to care about what's happening, because all the drama is sort of gone- everyone's already come to terms with what will happen to them. Yimtri and Terron will merge back together. All the plagued ones will die and they're fine with that. And afterwards, they have that cozy spirit realm to reside in, so it isn't *really* the end for them. The only one who *won't* be happy is Zekra, and she's made it clear she's willing to make that sacrifice by this point. Even the Primoginator's downfall is seemingly set in stone at this point, if that pseudo-prophecy those pokemon in the spirit realm made like 20 chapters back counts for anything. You've (maybe unintentionally) disabled all the stakes at this point, so the battle is like watching a game of rigged macro word chess in progress. The outcome is fixed, so why should I care? What's stopping me from skipping past all the battle chapters and just reading the ending ones, since I have the luxury of reading from the future? Even things like 'OMG Raquaza!' and Terron's plague coming back are just bumps in the road towards what's actually a very short piece of drama. So much filler; there is, that I even found myself skimming towards the end - something I *hate* doing - just because of how many things were happening that due to the mitigated stakes really just did become filler. I *never* skim unless I'm really really bored to extremes, so I think that the fact that the Pledge Mountain battle grated me down to that point says something about how much could be cut/shaved/changed about that setpiece. Especially since it's your final one...

I feel like there are ways you could have introduced stakes again- For instance, won't the Primoginator just eat all the Last Fellowship pokemons' souls if they don't destroy it? They'll never it make it to that spirit realm if they don't defeat it. You also could have introduced a glimmer of hope that *maybe* they wouldn't die after all past Zekra's farfetched scheme, so the reader goes in actually believing they might have a chance at living.

I did like Yimtri's solo chapter, though. In all honesty I had kind of forgotten that groudon thing existed, lol. I'd thought it was Nyx/Chloe, but it being Terron's plague makes sense as well. I think that was nicely done.

But eventually the filler comes to an end, and we get to see the final battle between Zekra's party, Nyx, and the Primoginator. For me this is the true final battle - everything that came before was just filler, but this is the juicy stuff :D

For what it's worth, I enjoyed reading that setpiece as well. I think it encompasses the story's theme nicely - that you can never truly become whole unless you accept both the good and bad parts of yourself (The same thing that PSMD later tried to do, but then... kinda botched... I wonder if they were secretly taking notes.), and it doubles as a good way of keeping everyone alive as well.

After the Siege:

I think because of how overall rushed the two chapters after the Plagued Ones' fall are, it reads as a *tiny* bit deus-ex-machina-ey, but not all the way, either. Even though everyone else is busy rebuilding the pieces of their lives (Even though it happens a bit quickly... maybe a time skip of some kind would have been appropriate?), Zekra still isn't happy. And assuming the epilogue doesn't pull some weird thing where she gets Terron and Yimtri back (I assume she'll get Dimitri back, though... otherwise; that's just depressing.), she never will get what she really wants again. I just don't think building the New Fellowship is for her, though...

So overall; I think these ten chapters really suffered from segregation of things. You have all the drama in neat little sections, and all the battles in neat little sections, but because you don't mix them together neither of them really reach their full potential. I think that's what turned me off about the final battle so much, and moreover what made it so hard to slog through when it could technically be argued that both Erebus Woods arcs were just as long if not longer. But, like all the times Broken Ideals has fallen on its feet, it *does* eventually pick itself back up again, and just in time for the epilogue too. That epilogue has large shoes to fill, though... waiting to see how chapter 100 wraps up Broken Ideals for good.

I shall read on :determined:

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: The Siege of Gondor - Howard Shore

Review 9/10

As Yimtri so astutely states, chapters 81 - 88 are very much the calm before the storm. And since I'm sure chapters 89 - 100 are going to be quite the storm indeed, I'm taking the opportunity to review these quieter chapters with Review 9/10, instead of going all the way to chapter 90 and risking some weird narrative split. As the first half (?) of the final arc these eight chapters work well, but they also stand as a mini-arc on their own, and that's why I'm stopping on the second special chapter.

Compared to the chapters that came before, Chapters 81 - 88 are very calm and well-paced. Instead of splitting Team Vendetta up irregularly and switching POVs at random, each of the eight chapters is told from a different teammate's perspective; ending on a POV that I was not expecting to see at all.

I knew Impetus and Syn were going to come back :D
I'm assuming that the buildup for them being the Shadow Hunter is that there was no other pokemon it could possibly be? I spent the whole time thinking it was Zeverous due to that comment on dark type energy... IDK why I keep expecting him to come back, lol.

So Len *didn't* know, then. And now they've tortured him as much as they could. I'm not surprised he didn't break, though. But now I'm wondering why he dismissed Team Vendetta again...

I'm not sure I understand how the Fellowships became evil. Once the leaders of the remaining three Fellowships turned bad, I assumed that the Fellowships were the Primoginator's idea in the first place- The best way to control your enemies is by making them think they control themselves. But then you show that Len and the Aurora Town Fellowship had nothing to do with the Plagued Ones- they really were innocent. Which conveniently clears Len of potential past crimes he might have committed, but now it opens up a few more plotholes- before this, the fact that the Fellowships kept the Plagued Ones a secret worked as a nice clue-in that they were evil, but now it's been demoted back to 'confusing plot-hole'- wouldn't it have saved a lot of lives in Aurora Town if pokemon had some sort of drill for that situation, instead of being going about their day when they suddenly got slaughtered because the Fellowship was caught with their pants down? What about all those other towns, like the village Zekra lived in? Wouldn't they have had some kind of protection too? Without the backing of 'secretly *evulz* LMFAOROTFL' the only thing this rule stands to help with is prevent mass chaos from taking place- and at the rate things are going downhill, mass chaos for a little while and then the backing of all of Shiron seems like a much better option then five dysfunctional organizations hell-bent on pretending they don't exist and half of them are secretly evil because they don't communicate very well and the Primoginator got them off-record.

I think it would have been more interesting if Len had a similar backstory to Erebus as well. Even if it meant that the Primoginator would kill him once it found him and he'd probably need to be in hiding, though... I can see why it's the way it is for plot convenience, but those are my thoughts on it anyway.

What I'm wondering is how the Fellowship successfully kept the secret of the Plagued Ones for so long. If the Plagued Ones gut entire towns and kidnap all the residents; someone's eventually gonna notice. It isn't much of a big deal if towns like the ones Zekra and Synergy lived in disappear, since those are fairly out of the way and no-one who didn't have connections there is going to go out of their way to visit. But from what I understand, Aurora Town was *big*. Like center of commerce for Shiron second only to the Capital big. If Aurora Town is sacked pokemon are going to notice. The only way that they wouldn't is if the Plagued Fellowships covered it up with a disaster like a fire, but even then there's no evidence that they ever did that. It seems odd to me...

I get that 'Vantis' is evil and all, but... is it bad that he's kind of still my favorite character? I think that the idea of him setting up the Aurora Fellowship for destruction is extremely clever, and overall that twist worked even though it had no buildup. If you ever go back and do some patchwork on Broken Ideals, then throwing in some scraps of foreshadowing that he was plagued in the first place would be cool. I assume he wore a pin to the Aurora Fellowship to hide the fact that he was plagued?

Given Synergy's harping on 'spirits', I'm *really* sure that the ending will consist of 'everyone dies and goes in the spirit realm'.

And naturally, Yimtri thinks he owns everything and everyone, and starts to set up his own little chess board that quickly grows to encompass everyone *else's* chessboards and then even those chessboards just become more pieces on Yimtri's personal board. That he thinks he controls. I wonder if he got that trait from all those years of being manipulated/terrorized by Erebus.

So after learning that Dimitri set the Primoginator free out of greed, Terron begins to repeatedly call Yimtri 'Dimitri's shadow'. Which could be interpreted at Terron going into denial and insisting to himself that he has no connection to Dimitri, but then Yimtri starts to *run* with this explanation. I don't think that's how the split worked? It's like... Yimtri's obviously demented, but he's been through all manner of demented things that Terron hasn't even scratched the surface of yet. *And* he has the Dimitri memories. Which have probably been eating at him for years. Not to mention that it's not like Terron's a saint either; however he may claim that he's just 'better' than Yimtri by proxy. Alternatively, this could be interpreted as the memory rift between Terron and Yimtri growing worse and Yimtri unconsciously accepting Terron's ideology as his own. In which case, that's extremely clever.

Terron was infatuated with Zekra? I don't think I ever picked up on that... like, maybe *before* Team Vendetta splits up and Terron learns that all the Plagued Ones will die once the Primoginator does, but Present Terron's thoughts basically seem to add up to 'I'm gonna die in like three days once we defeat the Primoginator or I'm gonna die in three days trying; my life is over and there's no room for anything but being a premature martyr now'. I think he would be actively culling those feelings for Zekra, if he had them at all. He certainly didn't show them...

When I saw the special chapters in the later halves of the story, I was really worried they were going to be like more character moments for Zekra or Terron or something that were happening in between the final battle and would royally screw up the pacing, but I *love* the way that you actually use them. There are only two so far, and I think they were used so cleverly that I'm going to give them their own section to go over:

Instead of being in the worst place at the worst time and ruining these pacing, these two special chapters sandwich the 'calm before the storm' arc, and are really more excuses to slip out of Team Vendetta's POV more than anything else.

The first one seems to double both as an excuse to get into the 'Shadow Hunter's' head and do some worldbuilding while at it. We find out that more of the pins exist, and since they're being used by plagued pokemon trying to infiltrate and control the remaining pokemon of the world, it's probably safe to say that the Primoginator made them. It makes me wonder if the plagued Fellowship leaders were (are) wearing them, though. If so, that could have been a good excuse for Terron deducing that they were evil in the first place since only plagued pokemon would wear those pins.

The second one is interesting because it's not told from the POV of anyone on/formerly on Team Vendetta- it's told from the Primoginator's point of view. It reminds me a lot of Stephen King's IT- near the end, there's a very short chapter from IT's POV (Until that point in the story, IT had remained far outside the sphere of POV chapters) that serves almost exactly the same purpose as it does here. In fact, it's so similar it almost makes me wonder if IT was an inspiration... :)

It's a scene-setting chapter and not anything that really advances the plot in a major way, so the only criticism I have of it is that I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't take the opportunity to mess with the text and show us how twisted the Primoginator really is (like all D.M.'s dialogue). We hear a lot about how it really is just a crazy piece of Rem's soul (It eats pokemon from the Fellowships it controls for literally no reason other than it felt like it; it's trying to corrupt the world for literally no reason other than it felt like it... I just don't see such an unstable creature having such... rational dialogue), but here we don't really see that in action. It could be said that the Primoginator is a psychopath/narcissist and really just doesn't care about anything aside from itself, but from what I've heard of it I'm surprised it isn't raging/seething or spite-eating like 988647 Fellowship pokemon while it throws its hissy fit.

Or maybe this is after it did both of those things and calmed down?

Overall, I liked these chapters very much. They were the chessboard-setting chapters for the final arc of the story, and were very neat and easy to read. I liked seeing chapters from all six of the currently-present Team Vendetta members' POVs, as well as the story's villain at the end.

I suppose the next time I review this, I won't be coming back for more Broken Ideals again. It'll feel weird; not having these characters in my life anymore (Even if their tendency to exposite did bug me a bit at times), but I'll be back to review one last time anyway. :)

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: The Woman of Balnain - Bear McCreary

Review 8/10

...My. That kicked into overdrive fast.

There's a lot in chapters 71 - 80 of Broken Ideals. *Too* much, even. I feel like some things (Terron's descent into madness and eventual reconciliation with Yimtri) were earned, while others (The Progiminator being a part of Rem) weren't. There are also some structural problems with them in general; perhaps more glaring here than anywhere else in the fic. I'll cover them as I go.

Something I've been wondering about ever since they were introduced is how much Lyra and Frazil know about the Fellowship and the Plagued Ones. In the beginning, it seems like they're a family that Len knew wanted kids and sort of just disguised it as a charity thing, but then it's revealed that Éclair was their daughter originally and they know about the Fellowship (But obviously not that the remaining Fellowships are evil) and since their daughter belongs(ed?) to such a prestigious team I assumed they were in on everything via Éclair and just did favors for Len every now and then in return. But then later, 'Chrystelle' remarks that her parents know nothing about the Plagued Ones (Although since she isn't what she initially seems this might be moot), so... ? What do they and what don't they know?

On that note, I'm wondering if any of the members from the Aurora Town Fellowship will ever come back again. Vantis… Éclair... Emdox... King... Len (Who I'm *really* sure was either assassinated off-screen or went into hiding because he knew the others would kill him)... Did they just form their own rogue group instead of joining up with the other three Fellowships? Are they with Yimtri's group? I'm *really* sure no-one willingly assigned themselves to Dusk Mines.

The Primoginator *eats* the pokemon that the Plagued Ones kidnap? O_O That's horrifying...

I don't really understand how it works, though. If the Primoginator eats the *soul* and then the Plagued One gets the scraps and the body, then why are they like ghosts? Why do they just reform elsewhere after getting 'killed'? That body still operates by the rules of flesh and blood; and there's just no way that it's going to fix itself like that after being killed as brutally as Team Vendetta likes to kill things.

The second thing I want to go over that just doesn't really make sense to me is the conclusion that Terron (Once again) jumps to with nothing but conjecture to go on and everyone just rolls with it. On their 20th day of being on Kuron, Terron talks about how everyone that has the blight will die once the Primoginator does. I don't think Nyx has been harping on that with him, so my question is this: How did he get to that conclusion? Nyx clearly states that the reason *she* will die is because she's long exceeded her lifespan and and the Blight manages all her vital functions for her, but Terron is barely reliant on his blight and Zekra's wants to split off early so soon she won't even *have* a blight. You've made an effort in the last ten-or-so chapters to define the Plagued Ones as a separate being from their hosts, but if they're separate beings that makes them like parasites- unless you're actively letting them stagnate like Yimtri is (probably) doing, then erasing the parasite doesn't erase the host as well. Obv the Plagued Ones will just become dead because there's nothing left, but why do half-plagued pokemon die too?

So you *are* showing more of the humans :D
Something that's been bugging me up from the beginning until now is Terron's amnesia. But now that it's being thrust into the spotlight more it's becoming apparent that he remembers *general* things like how clocks and 'socius' work, but nothing personal. Which is interesting and seemingly another hint at the fact that Terron is half a person. I feel like it could have been made a bit clearer after the Dimitri reveal that he only had leftover thoughts, though.

It's mentioned by Terron and Novus that in 20 days the amount of Plagued Ones on Kuron have almost tripled in size. So my question is... where did all these Plagued Ones come from? They fly, so they must have been birds once. But at the rate the Primoginator is eating the world's animals up they become a *very* exhaustible resource- the number should be going *down* as it gets harder and harder for the Primoginator to find things to make Plagued Ones out of, not *up*.

*Everyone* is dead once it starts corrupting insects and spiders, though.

I don't even want to get into how darkrai maintain consistent illusions all throughout their life and then somehow pass on the image of this illusion to their next of kin despite never being taught what a darkrai looks like and never teaching their kids, but I like the concept of Darkrai not being a completely physical being. It also half-validates; half-negates that scene from earlier where she shows Terron and Novus her 'legs'. Half-validates in the fact that whatever she showed them might have been her 'true form' and it was something that just really didn't work with the laws of the world and that's what freaked them, and negates in that if she isn't really a physical being so much, why does she need legs?

So, the Socius (Which I read as 'Solcius' initially and thought was a metaphor for the sun, but then later I figured out to drop the 'L'): I think this is a really clever bit of worldbuilding. People complain about smartphones and technology today, but it seems that the humans on Kuron have managed to take it a step further by literally implanting the things into their wrists. I think the name is clever as well (being the latin root word for 'companion'); as well as the parallels you draw between that and the Blight. The fact that they run off electricity in the nerves is freaky though. Does overuse of the Socius lead to things like muscle failure and paralysis later in life? It's also freaky that it's *always* on, since it knows literally everything about you. Terron claims that they've been 'proofed' against outsiders looking in, but as Dimitri he was likely a civilian and there is just *no* way the government is going to give up spying capabilities like that. They're probably keeping records of everyone through the socius and since you probably need one to function in society, there's not much anyone can do about it...

...In fact, I wonder if that Socius is tracking Terron right now. I don't imagine that human Nyx stole the Socius from just said 'whatever' and went about their day. They probably reported it to the authorities. And assuming there's some backdoor into the Socius like there probably *is* for authorities to exploit

I assume the machine itself isn't smart enough to register Terron as anything but human (Unlike the Blight-Knight, which seems to be more intelligent?), but I'm sure 'Dimitri' has made some very questionable purchases in the last few days; especially when he's been missing for five years and probably has a frozen bank account. I wouldn't be surprised if he was on like a hundred watch-lists by now.

Once Terron and Nyx reach Dimitri's house and see their parents, Nyx puts all three of them into a dream, and dresses Terron up as a human so they don't freak out immediately. Only... I'm really sure the only projection of Dimitri that Nyx has the one from when she initially kidnapped him. To construct a completely different Dimitri that's five years older would require a level of detail that Nyx probably couldn't construct, keep up, and maintain in that time limit, and using the Dimitri that existed five years ago Kuron-Time is probably going to raise flags. I think it's sweet that he got to see them one last time, but that made me wonder for a second.

...What. She's *literally* looking for a part of herself? And she came back to the Greninja Village to do it? Which is like obviously really dangerous and a place she should be avoiding? I'm just not really sure how she managed to take that *literally*. And she's looking in the wrong place; anyhow. I'm guessing you're trying to drill in that she hasn't figured out where to look yet, but that made me do a double take for a second.

I'm *pretty* sure that the spirit realm you showed after the Primoginator ate everyone is how you're going to guarantee everyone's Happily Ever After.

So, I'm going to go over something this review that I think is shaping up to be a major problem for Broken Ideals: The story structure.

At different points in Broken Ideals, I've believed the story structure to be different things: Pre chapter 20, I thought it would have a much simpler structure than it actually does have, while after the story gets back on its feet by chapter 40 I assumed Team Vendetta would be taking missions around the continent and slowly getting to the bottom of the Plagued Ones mystery while the Fellowships' situation got worse until they all converged upon Erebus Woods, and then after the Fellowships turned evil I'd assumed that they'd be unravelling the mystery of the plagued ones while being hunted by the Fellowship (And for a few chapters; that's what it was). It was an overall fun journey, but now that the story's so close to ending there's no room to mess around with what the plot is/isn't anymore. If you don't have all your cards in place; in the right place, the ending won't come off like it was planned to.

It's not that you don't write it well - Watching Zekra slowly pick herself up from her ultimate low and then Terron's descent into madness is *amazingly* written - but the ordering makes it... not so fun to read after a while. From a story structure standpoint, we're reading about Zekra slowly rising up from the lowest narrative low the story has had so far- with it, the reader begins to hope that things can get a little better... and then immediately we're dragged right back down into misery with Terron and all the drama that comes with him. And then we get to watch them both slowly climb back up again. Obviously, you aren't torturing your characters for no reason; the Primoginator needed to be explained *somehow*. But the way that it reads in the order that it was given, if you *can't* pick out those narrative structure things, reading Terron's misery right after Zekra has just recovered from her misery reads like the author REEing at the readers for daring to hope that Broken Ideals could be *anything* but miserable.

I think it's a bit of a pacing/plot issue. It seems like one plotline (Terron/Kuron) is very very long, while the other (Zekra/Shellshore Island) is only three chapters. I think it's fairly obvious (?) by this point that 'Chrystelle' is either Venri or the 'Shadow Hunter', but I'll get back to that. It feels like because Terron/Kuron is where all the interesting stuff is happening and there isn't much for Zekra to do, you're sort of trying to create filler for her by drawing out her plotline to however long it will stretch. You also condense Terron/Kuron down to the point where there's a chapter (Chapter 74/72) filled with exposition that; quite frankly, feels like a series of arse pulls compared to the many twists executed before. (All that expo about Arceus and what he/it did to the Primoginator? The Primoginator being a part of Rem when Rem having a third part was *not* built up to at all? Terron already having been Plagued before he entered Erebus Woods? It's not these don't make sense; it's that they just came out of left field...) Obviously the story is heading towards the 'all is lost/ultimate low' point. Zekrom and Nyx are gone. Novus feels awful for what he did in the past, and he's hurt and all alone. Terron is half-crazy, and only getting worse. Zekra is defeated and wants no part of the war against the Plagued Ones anymore. It feels like these should be happening all at once, so that we feel the misery all at once, and then once the characters (Inevitably) begin to get better, they should all do so at once so that the reader feels invigorated. When it doesn't happen all at once, the reader is put through the wringer individually for each character, and it's more grating than invigorating.

TL;DR: This is so close to the ending now that the story has to stabilize itself. There should be one large low for all the characters, then it slowly builds into the high that is the story's finale (This is true for any story that isn't a tragedy). Broken Ideals has like three of each, and that's just the characters getting over their emotional problems. We still even have to go through Novus and *his* big epiphany. There are just too many lows and highs in a row and I feel like this is the messiest part of the story.

Overall, these ten chapters are messy. But they seem to be messy for a good reason- this is the story working out the last of its kinks and smoothing itself out so that the finale can be clean surfing from here on out. I don't think there will be any more major story-changing twists beyond this point, but I'd also be a bit bummed if you rushed it towards the end, as there are still several big plotlines left open. It looks like the next chapter is a Special Episode, so the story will be taking a break from Team Vendetta for a bit, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out?

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Fort William Rescue - Bear McCreary

Review 7/10

This set of chapters had several major twists; but for some reason it feels like this is the most... stable Broken Ideals has been in a while. It feels like it's finally mellowing out, and there aren't two or three plot twists every chapter, which makes the story as a whole a lot easier to read and digest. In fact, it feels like these ten chapters separate cleanly into smaller chunks based on what everyone is doing, and since there is *such* a large disconnect between what everyone is doing I want to tackle those plotlines in sections, so I'll do that.

The first large setpiece of chapters 61 - 70 is the escape from the greninja village and Zeverous' death. There's a lot that happens in these three chapters, so I'm going to go through it chronologically.

While Zeverous-As-Blight fights Vera underground in the tunnel (Which Zeverous previously stated he secretly dug in case he ever wanted to return to the village and shouldn't be there as a result, which is probably a pretty big reason why Vera is suspicious of him), Zekra becomes exhausted from using her intangibility to hide. It's later stated that the greninja village takes precautions against ghost-types, which explains why Zeverous and Zekra don't infiltrate the village that way. It isn't really important to the plot aside from a quick hole patch, but I thought it was interesting to point out anyway.

Obviously all those groups were the Fellowships, since the Plagued Ones would have ravaged the forest and no-one else has a good reason to be there, but I'm getting conflicting messages about whether they had been plagued or not. Obviously the pokemon like Jolteon and Braixen weren't, but then that ninjask from the Oracian Fellowship who protected Zekra certainly seemed like she was plagued. The Oracian Fellowship leader seems extremely unstable. I wonder if Shade managed to dupe her Fellowship somehow after Erebus Woods disappeared, but the Oracian leader just couldn't and decided to plague them all. It seems like something they'd do for *fun*, and it explains why Oracian seems to have defected if a few 'mon resisted the plague and decided to sabotage the mission.

Whilst escaping, Zeverous is stopped by one of the geninja village's elders. He manages to convince her to let him go by leading the other pokemon away with his departure, but then he begins to make small talk with the leader afterwards. Not only is this pushing his luck, it jeopardizes his escape- his surprise at her being an elder suggests that he's *been* in the village before, and it doesn't take too much logic to deduce that 'Blight' was Zeverous all along. he should have just left instead of cluing her in like that...

…So right before she kills Zeverous, Shade states that plagued pokemon can only be killed by another plagued pokemon. Which is all well and good; but it seems like it was made up on the spot. Earlier, when Aurora Town was being sacked, Terron and Co. are already Plagued. So why can't Terron kill the Plagued Ones there? I get the feeling the concept of what the Plagued Ones *are* changed a lot from then to now. Unless Shade is only talking about partially plagued pokemon? She had to rip his heart out to kill him, after all, and it doesn't seem like you can do that with fully Plagued Ones.

Zeverous' death is sad and all, but it's also freaky to see how close he really was to just slipping over the edge. It seems like he knew he was gone and he was only really holding on for Zekra's sake (Otherwise he would have made so many bad choices from the moment he re-met Yimtri that the chances of anyone on Team Vendetta surviving Erebus Woods would have been reduced to moot), but that's only really based in conjecture and story mechanic-wise, it reads like 'Zeverous was slowly getting better and then Shade killed him for a shock chord'. Obviously I don't know whether the interpretation above is the *right* one or not, but his death seems cheapened without it. Since we see it from Zekra's POV, there isn't a chance to get into Zeverous' head, but honestly IDK whether it's supposed to be his redemption (That he died protecting Zekra after abandoning her all those years out of fear), a confirmation of the interpretation above, a mixture of both, or just a death for a shock chord and Zeverous was the most kill-able character there. I think it might benefit from being a bit less ambiguous in that department.

I don't think Nyx is the one who betrayed them. At least; not willingly. It's *possible* that Shade is using some weird mind-control thingy or something (Or Nyx really might be evil and the entire scheme with her saving them from the Fellowship Leaders is a red herring), but aside from her the only person I can think of who knew where they were going is Yimtri. And I don't think *he* would tell them.

After Shade captures Zekra and half-murders her, she has this lengthy monologue... with her claws impaled halfway into Zekra's throat. And somehow Zekra survives this. It's not like Shade is slowly twisting the knife, either- the monologue begins, and then the story just sort of seems to *forget* that Zekra has a fatal injury she shouldn't have even survived. The only reason I assume she even survived that is that her Plagued One seems to be healing her with its energy. Or maybe it's the deception amulet's doing? Either way, injuries lose impact when you can practically kill a character to death and that character still survives, so that's something to watch out for.

I'm *really* really sure that shadow thing that saves Zekra from Shade is Yimtri. Or perhaps Synergy and he's a Plagued One. At this point randomly introducing another character who wasn't set up previously will seem weird and out of left field.

After that, Zekra somehow manages to get away from them, and then the next chapter we're with Terron's group. They seem to have not left the Unown Ruins yet, but since it's not taking place in tandem with what happens to Zekra and Zeverous that means they've been combing these ruins for *days*, and I'm wondering why they don't run into any unown until now?

Something odd that Shade mentions is that the Primoginator and the Plagued Ones are going to 'take back the world you stole from us'. I've no idea what to think of that yet, but I'll be keeping it in mind going forward.

So, Terron's coat. I've noticed you seem to fall into the same trap with clothing that many PMD authors do- it's just not mentioned, and the more complicated a story gets (And by this point Broken Ideals is very, *very* complicated), the easier it is to forget that a character is wearing something like a scarf or a coat since those things aren't interacted with the way a bag or a weapon would be. Likewise, it's really easy to forget that Terron is wearing a coat in the first place. Occasionally I wonder where he's keeping all those weapons he can just pull out of nowhere, but on the whole my mind is too busy juggling all the dense plotlines and story material to remember to render Terron with a coat when he never seems to interact with it, and when it is brought up the most I can really do is hope that it's something that meshes with his 'aesthetic' and move on. It's a shame, because some interaction between Terron and his coat would help bring the story to life (Yes; that sounds weird but I'm being totally serious). Does it help keep him warm at night? Does he ever have to worry about getting it ripped when he battles other pokemon? It doesn't seem as important as his mask/'persona', but it could be since clothing/acessories seems to be a thematic thing for Terron.

On that note, Novus doesn't wear clothing, but he *does* have something that keeps him warm all the time (Not that he gets *pockets*, though... totally not worth it. ): ). Being a quilava; I wonder how much control he has over his back-flames? If he wore a bag, would he have to keep the entire thing curbed the whole time, or can he only light certain parts of it? Does he lose control of it when he gets angry/scared? Are there different levels of intensity he can keep it on? It seems like if he couldn't control it quilava would be a larger walking fire hazard than charmeleon…

So Novus is Reshiram, in spirit but not body. I think I was sort of on to that. He was always a bit 'formal' for a quilava, and as the chapters went on a couple of things he said gave me the impression that he had existed for a very very long time and had survived all those years by being imprisoned (Just like he claims Reshiram is), but I don't think it really clicked for me until the unown started talking about how Novus was a different pokemon before; one that would make a quilava seem like 'a candleflame' in comparison.

So what I'm wondering is why he thought this was such a dangerous thing for the others to know? Since they're searching for Reshiram and Zekrom, this sounds like *exactly* the kind of thing the others on Team Vendetta should know. It might lead to some questions and arguments in the present, but imagine they reach Reshiram and then it looks like he's dead, and then 'Novus' has to go through the *super fun* explanation of how he's actually Reshiram possessing a dead quilava but sorry, they didn't need to know that because reasons.

The second thing I want to cover about this is that I'm *really* sure you came up with the concept of Novus being Reshiram after the Return to Erebus Woods arc, because it makes all Novus' worship of Reshiram in the first half of the story look self-indulgent. It's like... he worships himself? Why not Zekrom? Furthermore, these used to be his equals. I get that now that he's in the body of a quilava he doesn't consider himself 'worthy' of the title but it seems so odd that he would worship them, when (A) they used to be his peers and (B) he knows that basically 90% of them left the beings of Kuron and Shiron for dead and the ones who didn't are either dead themselves, incapacitated like he is, or plagued like Nyx was.

The third thing I want to cover is about how Reshiram/Novus goes about getting that quilava body. When Novus is telling the others his big secret, he mentions that he basically possessed the body of a dead quilava, but... that quilava is *dead*. Its vital processes have already stopped and locked up for good, and assuming that the quilava wasn't killed of some kind of injury/sickness/poison then it's probably safe to assume it wasn't in any state to keep on living. If Novus tries to possess that body, it'll just die *again*. The only I thing I could really think of that would make it possible for Novus to continue living in that body is if he used some of his energy as Reshiram to heal the body of whatever caused it to die in the first place, but... IDK if Reshiram can do that?

Something I *really* liked reading is the worldbuilding you put in for Kuron. From what I remember, Kuron has been a thing right from the very second chapter of the story, where Terron mentions that it's where he's from. I wonder if this was one of the things you knew right the beginning. It seems that the people of Kuron live in a futuristic society compared to our own; given that they have things like mind-reading machines and robotic blight-knights/guardians/plague-killing robots. After arriving on Kuron, Terron seems to be able to remember things at random, like how clocks work (Something he actually *did* bring up earlier in the story!) and the fact that the pod thingy they travelled in to get to the statue is durable to extremes. I do have a few questions about it, though:

After finding Zekrom, it's revealed that the entire city Terron's team has been walking around for the last half-hour or so was completely gutted by Kuron's version of the Plagued Ones, and now stands as nothing but a monument to the humans. Which is all well and good, but... why does the city have power? I could see why there would be reserve power in store in case humans ever wanted to come back to the city (What is the name of said city, anyway? Like 'Kuron City?' That's a bit on-the-nose, though...), but it takes a lot to power a city that big, which is what must be happening if clocks are working and Terron can use the public transportation. And most importantly, why at *night*? It's said that the humans can't be caught out after dark because of the Plagued Ones, so an entire city lighting up after night either probably isn't possible, or is raising major red flags on the humans' radar.

I wonder what a modern human city on Kuron is like. Plagued Ones clearly seem to be a thing in this world (Only; I assume with animals and the odd human instead of pokemon), so I imagine they adapted to fit that. Do they live in large domes like the cities on Galifrey? Walled/'contained' ones like the cities in Maze Runner? Or do they just rely on Zekrom and their 'blight-knights' for everything?

So, when Terron and Co. are nearly captured by the 'blight-knight machine', it scans them and mentions a 'headquarters', and after they attack it it tries to take them there. At the end of the chapter they're saved by Zekrom, but now I'm wondering if you'll show more of Kuron the next time the chapters pivot back to Terron and Co. If so, this probably marks the first time that a PMD fic has shown human society as a part of the plot and not something tacked onto the beginning or a flashback.

So, time spent on Shiron is x5 in Kuron; roughly. That's interesting. It's later said that the reason for this is the unequal split between worlds. Ignoring how that translates to IRL logic, it reads to me as an interesting parallel between Terron and Yimtri- the split between them is unequal; as Yimtri got nearly *everything* and poor Terron was just left stumbling around in the dark. The split between Kuron and Shiron is unequal, but for slightly different reasons- it seems like Kuron initially had more than Shiron, since Humans still had all their tech and knowledge while pokemon slowly went feral once they didn't have humans to prop them up anymore, but over time Kuron's blessings revealed themselves to be surface level and Kuron degraded into a husk of what it once was, while Shiron built its own blessings and prospered (Only to be slowly eaten away by the Plagued Ones in the present day). Terron, who empathizes with Kuron, considers himself to be a husk of what he once was without an identity of his own, while Yimtri (Who rejects own his connections to Kuron and wants to be from Shiron) has everything Terron longs for, but is quickly losing himself to the Blight. IDK if that's on purpose or not, but it's here anyway.

The unown dimension is freaky, and filled with things that don't make sense, aren't supposed to make sense, and probably won't ever make sense. I think this is an interesting way of portraying an alternate dimension- why should other worlds make any sense? Obviously this one seems to have been created as a byproduct of Kuron and Shiron splitting into two worlds, but still. I think the lack of anything being explained in this world is appropriate, and it actually read a lot smoother than most of the scenes where things *are* being explained do.

The chapters then switch back to Zekra, who apparently flew all the way back to the island Len originally imprisoned them on? It's interesting that of all the pokemon on Team Vendetta Zekra is the one who comes back to this island; as once she got her priorities set she was the most spiteful towards Len for trapping them there in the first place.

I was worried once Zekra asked that question about how ice-types keep the air around them colder that the story was going to pull yet another contrived explanation that makes absolutely no sense and didn't really need to exist out of nowhere, but the idea of the Firn is actually decent. I just think it went a bit... far? I think it's interesting you tried to steer the end back towards emotions and draw parallels between all the characters and the Firn's ability to cut off emotions, but it took a while to get there and was filled with all sorts of things that really could have been clipped.

I am *fairly* sure that shadow that appears outside her window is the same shadow that saved her from Shade, and therefore it's probably either Yimtri or Synergy. It seems odd for Yimtri to follow her all that way without making himself known; though... I could see it being Synergy but he's plagued. Unless Zeverous is like back from the dead as a ghost-type or something and this is his spirit.

But then later in chapter 70, Zekra begins to have dreams in which the plagued one in her mind that's been trying to negotiate with her reveals that it's taken on an identity of its own. 'Venri' says that the plagued one incubates within the host, then splits off and murders the pokemon it grew up within before rushing off to serve the Primoginator. If that's true, then it redefines the idea of the Plagued Ones as a whole- they aren't corrupted pokemon; they're entirely new beings that grew to mirror the pokemon they incubated in. Fighting it or stifling it with the pins Yimtri found likely traps them in there and causes them to stagnate, which could explain why Zeverous' heart was the way it was. It also makes one wonder about all the pokemon that got snatched- were they just trapped somewhere until their Plagued Ones split from their bodies and killed them?

I wonder if Venri saved Zekra and stalked her outside her window.

This being Broken Ideals I was half expecting something horrible to have happened to Chrystelle off-screen, but it seems the worst thing that's happened to her is that she took Zekra's 'advice' waaay to seriously. Zekra has this weird obsession with death that I'm not entirely sure is connected to her being a dark type, but Chrystelle is downright *twisted* and she isn't even plagued (To the readers' knowledge).

I think chapter 70 is my favorite chapter of Broken Ideals in a while. After watching Zekra be constantly beaten down more and more and more ever since the second half of the prologue it was nice to read something that didn't equate to pure misery for her. I think it's interesting that Chrystelle starts by purposefully provoking Zekra to violence and trying to get her to leave the island that way, but the way she eventually does it is by calmly talking it out with Zekra. It goes against the stereotype of dark-types being twisted (If Past Zekra is to be believed; then a vicious, insult-filled battle between herself and Chrystelle is the way to go) and evil, and I read it as her finally stepping up and becoming a mature pokemon instead of the immature violence-inclined vendetta-soldier she's been this entire fic.

Overall, I think this is the best that Broken Ideals has been in... ever. There weren't as many twists this time around, but that's fine. What twists *were* there rang out more when they weren't a timed occurrence springing multiple times a chapter, and thanks to the brief quiet moments with Terron and Zekra (respectively) there's time to digest those twists and fully comprehend them, instead of just being bombarded and struggling to keep a straight list of everything. This seems like the endgame, so even though the Prigominator has been playing its cards close to its... whatever it has in place of a chest and staying out of the picture I imagine these last thirty chapters are going to go by fast. I'm very much looking forward to reading and reviewing them in the near future, now more than ever!

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Setting Sail - Bear McCreary

Review 6/10

So, this is going to be a more critical review compared to my last one, as there were a few more problems I wanted to go over in chaptes 52 - 60 then there were in the previous set. So, I'm going to separate this chapter into three parts: Negatives, Positives, and Neutral Speculation/weird things that jumped out at me.

Firstly, because I like to get the bad news out of the way before anything else, The Negatives:

So, Monologuing. It mostly went away during the Return to Erebus Woods Arc/whatever you want to call it, but these chapters that follow feel like one large exposition dump filled with nothing but monologues. It may be the exposition-heavy way the dialogue reads (Especially Yimtri, who... is just being typical Yimtri), but I found those chapters a slog to get through despite them including the answers that I'm sure everyone wants so desperately at this point.

By now it's less that pokemon *talk* a lot, and more that they talk a lot without substance. I feel like there's a lot that could be shaved from the dialogue in this fic, and it would honestly make so many of your conversations read better. For instance, here's a reply from Zerverous to Zekra while flying:

["Well I can handle it since I've been doing this kind of thing for years. It's still kind of tiring, but I can take it. But *you* can still get tired from sitting too long. You get cramped up and everything."]

Here's what it might look like after cutting away the extra slack:

["I've been doing this for years. I can take it. But *you* can still get tired from sitting too long..."]

Yimtri, being a dramatist, of course has too many examples to list, but another instance I found are these separate pieces of dialogue from him in Chapter 54/52:

["...Yes; you heard me right, Aurora Town, the place where your old Fellowship used to be before it was reduced to a hollow shell of itself by the Plagued Ones."]

I feel that this piece of dialogue is just a *bit* too dramatic. Firstly because everyone in that room except for Zeverous and Erebus/Nyx were *there* for the sacking of Aurora Town and don't need a recap, secondly because it makes sense to hide in a place where no-one will go looking, and thirdly because Yimtri just wants this out of the way, so why is he adding in needless sentences as he goes? It just reads to me as an attempt to make the dialogue 'edgy'; even if that wasn't its intent.

["...Don't bother trying to delay me from receiving the information when that is so."]

This is something that could just be shortened to "Don't deny it". Many of the problems with the clunky dialogue in this fic come not from the dialogue itself, but from needless things you add on to the endings that can really just be said in like three words or are even better left unsaid.

There are even entire scenes that could be dropped and the story wouldn't suffer a tick. As much as I'm sure Zekra enjoys having those conversations, we don't *really* need to know how Zeverous kills things.

I could bring up countless examples beyond the what I plucked from the story, but that seems redundant, so moving on...

There's something I want to address that's sort of been a problem from the start, but unlike the others it just doesn't seem to be improving or going away: Terron's ability to just *know* things. Over the course of the story he makes accusations to several pokemon and arrives at convenient conclusions, with nothing but conjecture to go on (And sometimes, he doesn't even have that). He has amnesia, but he can figure out that he's a human. He knows Yimtri is half-plagued with no concrete evidence. And now all the existing leaders of the fellowships are secretly working for the Progiminator. And every single time, he's *right*. How can he know these things? Half the time he's just throwing wild accusations out there, and when he does have ground to stand on it's very shaky and usually based on conjecture alone. For instance, Terron has an epiphany and just accuses these pokemon out of the blue, but what concrete evidence does he have? That the Fellowships keep the Plagued Ones a secret from the rest of the world, despite supposedly tying to fight them? That Shade herself turned vile the moment her orders were questioned? That Chrysalis is here without any good reason to be? And most importantly, that the three leaders came alone, without any teams, escorts, or infantry? Using these four pieces of information (Which he realistically *can* know), Terron could have formed a convincing argument against them, but he doesn't; and he still knows anyway. He just has this moment where he realizes that he *doesn't* want to work for another Fellowship because their methods aren't effective, and then out of nowhere he pulls this wild accusation that's convenient for both him and the plot and boom, he's right. His train of thought makes far too many leaps of logic for it to be sound, and it seems like Terron really is just flinging spaghetti noodles at the wall and somehow getting lucky.

As a character trait this isn't a bad thing at all- it gives Terron a flaw, which aside from his identity crisis thing and some mild arrogance which seems to come and go with the plot he doesn't really have yet, but it's kind of negated by the fact that you keep rewarding him for his irresponsible behavior time after time again. Just because of how cynical Broken Ideals has made me I'm absolutely expecting you to brutally drop the consequences on his head like twenty chapters after this, but I still thought it was worth pointing out.

I know that they're having fun, but isn't Zeverous being a little reckless in deciding to take Zekra to the greninja village where non-greninjas are *obviously* not welcome and he had to jump hoops to get out of? They're on a mission, not a vacation, and something that dangerous sounds like a grievous jeopardization of that mission. They're literally gambling with the lives of the world... Shouldn't they get their priorities straight?

Even more so when he gives Zekra 'Blight'. Zeverous is the one who masqueraded as 'Blight' in the village, and since it's already been established that Zekra basically doesn't know what she's doing compared to Zeverous, this is *very* risky. If he *really* wanted to make their trip into the village safe, then he should have gone as Blight and requested that Zekra shift into a ghost-type and remain intangible for the entirety of their visit.

...And he just *lets* her walk off, and obviously that didn't pan out well for them. Zeverous really should have thought this through more.
IRL, this isn't a bad thing if you acknowledge that it's irresponsible, but you don't really seem to.

After noticing that her Plagued One seems to be acting up in ways that are... disturbing (*and* disturbing in hindsight), Zekra lies to Zeverous about it for... reasons unknown. She then later gets down on herself for lying, but she had no good reason to? Like, the *only* 'good' reason I can think of (Or the only one that makes sense for Zekra's character) is that she still wants to visit the greninja village and knows Zeverous won't take her if she tells him, but at this point she really should know better than that. Unless you're trying to imply that she just *lied* on instinct and feels bad about it? She seems to have felt like she *had* to lie, though...

The Positives

Oh I *knew* it. I *knew* Chrysalis was evil... I didn't think the corruption went all the way up to the top, though. Like all your twists, it's been executed in a way that makes it seem like it *should* have been obvious all along, but no-one would have ever guessed it before they were revealed. I don't think I've ever seen a story that executed this many twists this well (Aside from Game of Thrones... but that had a different method of doing it and it crashed and burned later) in a row... which is even more impressive when one considers the fact that this was written to deadlines.

Yimtri; being a dramatist, gets his moment to shine after Zekra practically claws it out of him. Without cheating via illusions, Yimtri is the #1 best storyteller in this fic :D
He left afterwards, though; which is a bit disappointing since he was my favorite character after Vantis. There is *no* way he's staying like that, though. Not after the ending of the next chapter...

I liked the bit about the Unown. They seem to be a painfully obvious Chekov's gun... I'm predicting that they're either what Team Vendetta is going to use to erase The Progiminator for good, or what The Progiminator wants to/has gotten its claws on.

Oh so they came here *for* the village? That makes more sense, then. I'd thought it was like a joyride detour or something. Either way, I'm interested that you brought back the greninja village. I'd thought it was something that was just part of the weird worldbuilding (Like the internal time clock thing that never came up again), but as the story went on it became more and more apparent you were going to come back to this.

So Yimtri and Terron *are* two halves of one person, then. That's either *not* a red herring, or that's the ultimate red herring. IDK yet. (See what Broken Ideals has done to me...) I wonder how long the idea of the two 'Dimitri' pokemon was planned, though. I'd imagine right from the start, given how many things about it make sense in hindsight. Yimtri being the 'spirit' and being a ghost-type and Terron being the 'body' and being a gound-type, the overall 'thing' you had going on between them, the fact that 'Yimtri' is 'Dimitri' with some missing and substituted letters; etc.

Neutral Speculation:

I'm wondering about Erebus'/'Nyx's' gender. Up until now, Erebus has been referred to as a 'it', (And I referred to them as a 'he'... whoops) but then after it's revealed that Chloe was nothing but a manifestation of Erebus, everyone switches to using 'she'. Terron briefly refers to Erebus as an 'it' while he's thinking afterwards, but then Erebus' canon gender seems to be 'she' from there on out. So, my question is... why do they switch so fast? I don't think they would be able to tell if they couldn't tell from the moment Erebus reveals itself as Darkrai, and if Erebus is as cunning as people have claimed, then there is no reason it wouldn't be able to impersonate/fabricate pokemon of either gender to suit its needs at the moment. If 'Chloe' was tailored to Yimtri's needs so Erebus could keep tabs on him, then it's possible that Erebus simply thought he would listen to a female pokemon more than a male one, and made Chloe female as a result. I think it's odd that they switch pronouns so suddenly...

["You two really brought this up abruptly," she muttered. "What a graceful way to talk about a reassuring topic. You couldn't even simply wait for the five to calm down, just for a minute."]

Um... no, Shade. That's the *first* thing you say. Diplomacy 101? Don't make the person you're trying to negotiate with feel threatened? How are you even a leader if you can't handle basic tact...

Yimtri was *definitely* on to them, if he didn't know outright. But I wonder if *Len* knew. He was the best of them. I wonder if that was his reason for dismissing Team Vendetta. He didn't want them going to another Fellowship and getting tangled up with one of the meaner leaders with their snooping, so he had them shipped off to an island where he thought they'd never be able to do that. I don't know which Fellowship he transferred to (It was likely either been the Pledge Mountain or Oracion Fellowships, since he isn't in the Nestati one). I wonder if the other leaders killed him for knowing...

Due to how much of this story operates around it *not* being omniscient and the reader only knowing what Team Vendetta knows at any given time, I can see why the dialogue-heavy nature of the story is a thing, but at the same time I can't help but want to see scenes like the sacking of the Dusk Mines Fellowship or Yimtri's story in person. I feel like it would have spiced up chapter 54/55 as well if we could see what Yimtri/Dimitri saw at the time instead of being limited to what Zekra can see, since this chapter is technically from *his* POV.

After Erebus/Nyx puts Team Vendetta in a coma for three weeks, they are (understandably) famished, parched, and exhausted. After being asleep that long, though, it stands to reason that they would need a few days to get back on their feet properly. But then the next day, they're running around like nothing happened. I assume it's because pokemon just spring back from injuries in a way that humans can't, but it was still a little weird to me.

So Novus was put to sleep/locked away for a long while? At least; that's what I'm getting from various things he's said... IDK if it's true yet.

There are Plagued Ones in the greninja woods? Or maybe Fellowship members looking for Team Vendetta? That's the impression I'm getting from that description, anyway. It would be freaky if the Fellowship Leaders just decided to plague a whole bunch of their members for the sole purpose of going after Team Vendetta...

Broken Ideals is unquestionably in its second half now, and I'm fairly sure that going forward you won't be able to pull as many twists as you did in the last 30 chapters. Assuming that's true, I'm gonna set myself up for certain failure and (Le~gasp!) try to predict the rest of the story outline from here on out: I assume they're going to go on a journey to find Reshiram/Zekrom, and eventually they'll find them. I'm also fully expecting them to find Impetus/Synergy during this journey as well. The Fellowships are going to continue pouring all their resources into hunting down Team Vendetta, and eventually that will end up in a battle that mostly wrecks the Fellowships for good. There's still something that hasn't been revealed about Yimtri/Dimitri and the Progiminator, which I imagine will be happening simultaneously? I'm fairly sure Team Vendetta will end up convincing what remains of the Fellowships that their leaders are evil, and then prepare to fight the Progiminator. At least; that seems like the most obvious way for the plot to go. It's probably not going to go in that direction, though.

I'm looking forward to reading the next set of chapters and inevitably having all my preconceptions shattered for me :)

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: The Skye Boat Song (Extended) - Bear McCreary

Review 5/10

WOOO YESSS HALFWAY POINT :D

...Well, actually a little over by a chapter's worth; but still. Compared to the rollercoaster that was chapters 30 - 38, chapters 39 - 51 are a nice change of pace. They're far more consistent now that the status quo is that *nothing* is consistent, and the fact that you're taking us back to Erebus Woods brings some consistency to the plot (Although such a story beat seems like it should come far later into the story...).

By this point the errors/flaws in your dialogue, prose, and overall storytelling are fairly consistent, and there's not much left for me to critique; given that they seem to slowly be getting better. Characters aren't monologuing as much, there aren't as many unbelievable wordbuilding things, and I haven't run into anything that's thrown me off like the way the ending of chapter 30 was written. So mostly I'm going to write down my thoughts on the actual story as I go along, as well as things I liked, didn't like, and what did and didn't surprise me (For I'm *sure* there will be a fair number of plot twists along the way...).

Something interesting in general I noticed was the way Blight/Zeverous called Mystery Dungeons 'misery dungeons' back in the last ten chapters. The first time around I thought it was a typo, but then it kept coming back and soon I realized it was on purpose. It doesn't really hint at Blight being Zeverious, but it's an interesting part of his character anyway.

Zekra seems to be getting some more 'heh's in her dialogue, which up to this point have mostly been Terron's thing. IDK if it's a fluke or more homogenization of dialogue, but it's something I thought was worth pointing out.

I had to look up a few pokemon for these chapters, as you seem to be using more obscure ones now. IDK why, but something about the idea of Zekra hunting down the pokemon equivelant of a puffer fish is hilarious.

Why; oh *why* are none of the Fellowships 'normal'? The Aurora Town Fellowship seemed the least 'out-there', but Dusk Mines is basically a large emo death pit and now the Nestati Fellowship seems to be one massive spiderweb masquerading as a building. On that note; I wonder how many Fellowships Broken Ideals will explore? Team Vendetta has already been to three of the five (Now four) existing Fellowships, and it's mentioned that Dagger is from the 'Pledge Mountain Fellowship', meaning that there's only one Fellowship still unknown about, and two that haven't been visited. It *seems* like the Nestati Fellowship will become the permanent base unless Team Vendetta falls out with the Fellowships, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple got sacked off-page- Oh, wait. Dusk Mines got sacked/occupied. And Team Vendetta are traitors now. That didn't take long. Is it bad that I expected both those things to happen?

Oracian. That's the fifth. From what I can tell, it's one of the Fellowships allied against Dusk Mines, and from that 'supervising' comment may even be the mastermind behind the entire debacle.

Team Vendetta (And 'Blight') enter the Nestati woods Fellowship, where 'Madame' Chrysalis sends them on a mission into a cave to find an object. Apparently there's a dungeon entrance up ahead, but she instead leaves the item for them outside the entrance with a note saying that she didn't want them to enter a mystery dungeon due to "recent events". Why? Chrysalis doesn't seem the lenient type, so I doubt that it's anything to do with the fact that their previous fellowship was sacked. But the only other thing I can think of is Erebus, so... does that mean she's 'in' with Dusk Mines? I could see Yimtri not telling Team Vendetta that, since he never thought they would go there.

So she DOES know about Erebus Woods... I wonder how *much* else she knows. It's clearly more than she's letting on, since she didn't let them go into the mystery dungeon. She threatened them like she didn't know but I refuse to believe that she's that ignorant.

I wonder who leaked the secret; though... I don't recall anyone on Team Vendetta doing it.

I reeeeeaaallly wanna say that Blight's mysterious client is Yimtri, but at this point I should know better than to trust anything Broken Ideals presents at face value. Later, when they arrive back at Madame Chrysalis' fellowship, Blight claims that *someone* chartered him for three months to stay as a temporary member of a Fellowship, and I'm wondering if the two are connected. I'm thinking maybe Chrysalis' fellowship is older than Yimtri's, and he was a member before forming the Dusk Mines Fellowship? Anyway, that's my standing theory for now.

So I guess the client *was* Yimtri, then; and the Fellowship was Dusk Mines (As I suspected). Oh well. I suppose not everything can be a plot twist/subversion. I was *not* expecting Blight to be Zeverious, though.

Odd note on Yimtri's Plan- Yimtri claims that he was the one who posted the mission on the board of the Nestati Fellowship, but several things about this just don't add up. Firstly, if the Pledge Mountain and Oracian Fellowships allied themselves against the Dusk Mines Fellowship, and then the Nestati Fellowship allied with the other two to save face (?), then Yimtri cannot just stroll into *any* Fellowship. Even if the Nestati Fellowship isn't as commited as the other two, Yimtri is the former *leader* of Dusk Mines, so he of all pokemon won't be able to keep a low profile as easily as another random follower from Yimtri's Fellowship. Secondly, Yimtri stuck around long enough to know that Team Vendetta was being disbanded. With those three pokemon out of the picture, he's gambling a lot on something that could very easily backfire on him. Sure; Team Vendetta just *happened* to join the right Fellowship and find the mission and Yimtri just *happened* to be going after them anyway, but it could just as easily have been buried, or picked up by a team who were cowards and would have betrayed Yimtri's plan to the others (And he couldn't kill them without either helping Erebus or stirring up suspicion with the Pledge Mountain Fellowship). Thirdly (And this is the biggest one), Yimtri posed as Shade when he posted that mission, but assuming that these missions are organized (And the Fellowships are keeping records of what missions get posted where in case someone tries fraud), then why didn't Shade hear about a mission she supposedly posted, and launch an investigation into it as a result? Either way, there are so many things that could go wrong that it seems like Yimtri's playing for a lose-lose situation with that strategy.

Something else I want to mention are the pins Yimtri found. This could the kooky worldbuilding, but Yimtri didn't take this as far as he could have. He has pins; sure, but... who made the pins? Diamonds and other precious gemstones aren't found in caves like they are in jewelry stores; they have to be cut to achieve that look. Likewise; those pins aren't just popping up in caves as ready-made pins. *Someone* forged those. I'm thinking someone from back when Erebus Woods used to be called Blight Forest; but IDK. The only explanation I can think of for Yimtri not pursuing that information is (A) he drew the same conclusion I did above, or (B) he had *just* found the second pin when the information about Erebus Woods leaked (Still looking for an explanation on who did that!), and once he became a fugitive he didn't have to time/resources to look into it.

["Rise and shine. Erebus awaits us."]

Wow. What a splendid wake-up call. I'm sure *everyone* wants to wake up in the morning knowing that today they'll be fighting a demon responsible for ruining the lives of thousands of pokemon! :D

Yimtri mentions that the pokemon with him won't be going into Erebus Woods because they are even more plagued than he is. But from what I've seen Yimtri is like one step away from becoming a full plagued one anyway, so how can anyone be *worse* than him?

The first thing tomorrow Yimtri immediately sends Zeverous and Zekra into Dusk Mines to retrieve the pin he left behind. To accomplish this, Zeverous decides to kill a pair of Fellowship pokemon and take their places. Later, he admonishes Zekra for not acting like the smeargle she's impersonating, but... can Zekra really be blamed for this? They knew these pokemon for literally all of five seconds before Zeverous slaughtered them, so *neither* of them can properly pretend to be the pokemon they're pretending to be... Also, Zev talks too much. While telling off Zekra for... talking too much. He's also loose with their identities while telling Zekra to not do the same thing he's doing...

o_O I *knew* Chrysalis was in on it somehow. Only... how did she get there so fast? It takes the entire day to reach Dusk Mines from what I've seen, so it should take twice the time for word to reach Chrysalis and for Chrysalis to arrive at Dusk Mines herself. Furthermore; *why* is she there for the failings of a few members she probably didn't care much about anyway when she could be running her Fellowship like a responsible leader? It's not like this doesn't happen a lot if Shade is to be trusted, and there's nothing here that particularly concerns the Nestati Fellowship aside from the fact that the mission and members came from there. Something doesn't add up...

~In Erebus (Chapters 47 - 51)~

Um... no. Yimtri is *not* the pokemon who should get the escape orb. The *last* time he had it things did not go well at all, and if at any point in the dungeon he loses that pin things are going to go for a loop *again*. Knowing that; he should give the orb to Terron, or Chloe, or literally *anyone* else...

There's something about Erebus that bugs me. Novus claims that it's older than almost any pokemon living in the present world, and it seems to be corrupting pokemon en~masse, but one thing that's never been said is *why*. Why is Erebus doing this? It's clearly a sapient being (And cunning too), so it *must* have a reason.

Zekra states that the illusions they're all being shown as they walk into the fog of Erebus Woods are memories *from* the pokemon in question, but they're all in third person, so they can only be Erebus' memories? Erebus can't have access to other pokemon's memories anyway; especially not previously un-plagued ones like Chloe...

So Erebus is Darkrai. I somehow skipped over that when I read it at first (Mostly because I was focusing more on the dialogue), and reached the conclusion before realizing that Erebus had been revealed as Darkrai like ten paragraphs back. lol. But now I just have more questions...

If Erebus is a Darkrai, then he has the power to create nightmares; but why is *he* able to spread the Plagued Ones' affliction when others seemingly can't? Furthermore, I'm now *extremely* sure he isn't the mastermind. He might be patient zero, but he isn't the one pulling the strings.

One thing that I liked is the subtle foreshadowing in all the previous Erebus Woods parts that sort of hints that it's a nightmare. There are dungeon ferals, but why would Erebus have dungeon ferals when he can make them Plagued Ones instead? All those pokemon impaled by the trees could double as symbolism for pokemon that have already succumbed to the Plagued Ones' affliction, and it explains why all Erebus' tricks are mind tricks. He can't *really* hurt you if you're in an illusion...

Erebus talks about something that hasn't been explored much yet- the 'fact' that Terron and Yimtri are two halves of the same individual. I won't tackle it this review because I just don't *know* enough yet, but I'll leave this one comment here: You convinced me that Yimtri was an Erebus copy earlier, so I'm going to take this with a grain of salt.

I wonder if Team Vendetta's traitor status will be revoked now that they've actually completed the mission asked of them.

Weird Speculation Thingy: I do not believe that Synergy and Impetus are characters that are gone for good. I'm wondering when you'll bring them back, but I'm *certain* you are going to bring them back. It's just a matter of when...

Overall, I liked these twelve chapters! I think I've enjoyed them more then any from the past forty that I read, and I think that the quality is definitely improving! I'll be looking forward to reading the next ten soon...

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Are You Alive? - Richard Gibbs; Bear McCreary

Review 4/10

So, I've read through chapters 30 - 38 now (I would have continued to 39; but 38 seemed like the better break-off point). I think it's somewhat safe to say that the story absolutely didn't go in the direction that I was expecting it to? Not that that's a *bad* thing, but now I'm kind of scared to make any predictions about the plot at all from here on out O_O

Chapter 30: I'm giving this chapter its own section because it happens right before everything goes to hell but it's not really *in* on the madness that follows.

Something that I'm noticing almost immediately is that the prose in the beginning scenes of chapter 30 have a slightly different style to what's in the rest of the chapter. It seems somehow more fanciful; sacrificing the more clinical words you usually use for a more fantasy-type approach. It levels out later, but I thought it might be interesting to point out; given it's such a departure form your usual style.

For the rest of the chapters I want to separate the review into negatives and positives, because there are quite a lot of both. I think these nine chapters include some of the highest highs and the lowest lows so far in Broken Ideals, and I feel more and more that this is the way I'm going to have to structure the rest of the reviews for this fic from here on out.

The negatives:

One thing I'm not very much a fan of is that you seem to go with this weird system of absolutes for your world. *All* dark types are nasty and twisted; *all* ghost types like to scare other pokemon; *all* dragon types have a mystical power that allows them to fly; etc. Something that really bothered me in these nine chapters is Zekra's 'Instinct Infestation', which seems more like PTSD/her Plagued One problem than anything else. It might just be because I'm an OCD worldbuilder, but when you introduce something like 'Instinct Infestation' (Which sounds more like a game status than a mental illness), you also have to consider all the other things that come with that- is there a history for this problem? Is there a cure? Where did Zekra get it, and why hasn't it reared its head before now?

Something that quite honestly caught me off-guard is the end of chapter 30/31. I understand that the arrival of the Plagued Ones is a huge event, but I think there are so many other better ways you could delivered the pure shock of that event without using elipses. I was quite frankly shocked when I read that, and I had to read it over a few times more just to comprehend that it really *was* written that way and I wasn't hallucinating or something. I was caught off-guard, but for all the wrong reasons...

Your dialogue continues to have problems, but for the sake of not beating a dead horse over the head, I'd like to focus on a new problem that's popped up just within these last ten chapters: Monologuing. Chapter 30 (Or 31; if you go by the FFN chapter count) has a scene in which Yimtri prepares to interrogate Frae for the third time. On his way to the cell Erebus attacks his mind once more, and after recovering, Yimtri says this: "I should be glad that I'm part ghost. Otherwise... these methods would no doubt leave scars upon my mind. But, my mind's been ruined by Erebus anyway. It probably wouldn't matter what kind of pokemon I am. My mind will be corrupted no matter what I am."

From what I've seen of Yimtri he's a pokemon that likes to ponder things, and this sounds like the type of thing he would *think*, but is there really a reason for him to say this *aloud*? It could possibly be interpreted as Yimtri trying to convince himself that he's fine for the time being, but when I read through the scene this piece of dialogue threw me off, because I registered it as exposition instead of natural character speech. I feel like a better placement for this might be within the barriers of the prose, instead of Yimtri's dialogue.

The actual *monologuing* only seems to become a problem once Arora Town comes under attack from the Plagued Ones. You make it seem like the entire town is under attack from a massive swarm of them, so why are your characters standing around and uttering lengthy paragraphs to each other? Novus; Éclair; even Len... all of them have lengthy mid-battle speeches at some point in the chapter. It's like the battle stops just long enough for them to say their part, and then they're able to continue doing whatever they were doing without any consequences at all. This continues into the next chapter as well.

Whilst monologuing, pokemon tend to indirectly repeat themselves a lot. In the scene where Len gives his speech to what is left of the Arora Town Fellowship, a concept he keeps coming back to is that 'there are only X amount of us left.' There are only 10 teams left. There are only 47 fellowship members left. There are NO townspokemon left. Len continues to harp on this for the majority of his speech.

The biggest offender of this is Yimtri (And by association, Chloe). In every scene they are in, they talk. A lot. It's a lot of talking, but it all boils down to things that don't really require a lot of words to be said. Exceptions are given to Yimtri's psychotic breakdowns; of course, but I feel that a lot of his dialogue in other scenes (The scene where he enters the Fellowship and talks to Len; for instance) could be made more concise.

Pokémon also reveal things through monologuing that it would probably be a better idea to keep secret. Why does the greninja mercenary tell Team Vendetta about his x-ray goggles? Or the client he's apparently never supposed to mention? Why does Len go on and on about how he never had a family and the Fellowship ruined his life, instead of dismissing Team Vendetta and heading off to tend to more important things? (And furthermore, why does he *care*? You seem to be lampshading this, so I assume it'll come back later...)

The last big negative I have for this set of chapters is Len's decision to ship Team Vendetta off to a foster family. The concept alone honestly reminds me of Lemony Snicket (Which isn't a bad thing at all but doesn't really suit the tone of Broken Ideals?), but you have wonder *how* he got the resources to do that, considering that the fellowship he belongs to is being disbanded... The real *negative( here is less the act itself and more how Len handled it. He could have left it at 'Team Vendetta are clearly mentally unstable and unfit to keep serving the fellowships', but he decided to go ahead with a speech about how *he* projected onto them and he doesn't want them to suffer the same fate. I assume there's some rhyme and reason to it, considering you keep bringing it back. I'm curious to see what might come of that.

The positives: I was happy to learn that Vantis had survived the Plagued Ones' attack! ...Even if he did ferry them off to that island, but still. I wonder if he'll come back later...

Continuing on the 'absolutes' system from earlier, I was interested to see that you're beginning to challenge Zekra's viewpoint on dark types a little though the questions of the eevee child. It makes me wonder if all the things Zekra says about the dark type aren't so true after all...

Chapter 30 up until the end, and *everything* after the sacking of Aurora Town! You're getting much better at writing the calm bits in the story, and I enjoyed chapter 30 much better than I enjoyed chapters 21 and 22. After Aurora Town is sacked and Team Vendetta is sent off to live with that eevee family, I like that you give Novus and Zekra their own chapters as well. Novus' chapter seems to be used to explain away why legendaries haven't stepped in by now and set up the obvious Chekov's gun that is Reshiram (*please* don't make me regret saying that like five chapters later...), but I love what you do with Zekra's chapter. People have talked a lot about the cliff scene in Broken Ideals (Which I didn't pay much mind because I hadn't intended to *read* Broken Ideals back then), and now I can see what they were on about: It's a very powerful scene that marks the turning point for Zekra's character arc, even trumping the literal sky-high comedy of Terron's flying scene.

I think out of all your characters, Zekra is the one with the most unique voice. I can usually tell Terron apart from the others by his frequent use of 'heh', but only from Zekra have I seen tidbits like "That awesome creature of death" that could only come from Zekra. More of this plz!

I enjoyed the ghost story scene as well. It seems like the first time Team Vendetta has truly been happy since before they travelled to Dusk Mines, and I enjoyed seeing the different ways they told their stories (Zekra's stood out in particular; but she's also your most original character. Novus is a boring storyteller, and Terron… is just lost, lol). When Greninja/Blight joined them was a bit abrupt, but I didn't expect you were going to leave him behind, either. At least the eevee family is taking their departure well? At least; well enough to approach the weirdo 'mon they wouldn't be caught dead in an alleyway alone with... which is extremely well; in all honesty.

Weird Neutral Speculation: I wonder how the story outline for Broken Ideals was planned out. From chapter 20 onwards you seem to throw conventional story structure out the window; introducing the Dusk Mines Fellowship far earlier than I would have expected it to appear (Around chapter 50) and then doing away with the Aurora Town Fellowship around Chapter 30. It makes me wonder how many times you can shake the story up with a large change to the status quo and still keep your bearings; although since this is a finished fic that's met great acclaim I assume you got away with it no matter the number? There seem to be things you're keeping for the long term, like Erebus, Reshiram (Which I'm going to be very surprised if that gets dropped), and the voices Terron keeps hearing in his head; so I can keep my faith that despite the ever-changing minutia the story is still going somewhere :)

Overall thoughts: So far, I think that PMD: Broken Ideals is one of the more chaotic fics I've read. After two or three upheavals you seem to have driven in the idea that *no-one* is ever safe here, and that danger can literally strike at any time without warning. Sometimes, that really works well for you! Other times... not so much, but you've managed to recover from those unfortunate stumbles. It seems like this cycle is PMD: Broken Ideal's stride, and I fully expect for the story to abruptly shift a couple more times before it settles into whatever the endgame is. Oh well. At least Zekra is funny :P

Overall, I'm enjoying this fic more and more with every ten chapters, and next time I review, I'll be at the halfway point! :D

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Hardhome, Pt 2 - Ramin Djawadi

Review 3/10

AH LIIIIIIVE :D

After taking a break from this for a while (Mostly due to college finals and being sick), I'm back to review chapters 20 - 30 with fresh eyes!

One thing that I want to address from the beginning is something that I learned between the last review and this one: The fact that you wrote under a week's deadline for this entire fic. Many of the things that I had trouble with while reading the first twenty chapters boil down to the fact that the story lacks final polish, and if one is routinely writing 10K and above chapters in the space of a week then it makes sense that it wouldn't have the largest amount of polish. Of course; this doesn't solve things like handwaving, but it *does* account for all the structural/dialogue things that I've been noticing.

So many things happened in these ten chapters compared to the 20 that came before it, so I will split this review into two parts: before the Dusk Mines Fellowship mission, and during/after.

Once Team Vendetta returns to their Fellowship base, you seem to use the first three-or-so chapters to have a breather moment in the story's pacing. This works both for and against you- if this fic was nonstop action, it would get boring fast due to there being no quiet moments at all, but I feel that the quiet moment here isn't the most well-handled. You do a timeskip of three weeks, in which Synergy becomes accustomed to the team and Impetus learns civilized language, but we're only really told about Synergy, and Impetus' character growth seems to come out of nowhere.

All those inturruptions by Terron must have been suspicious. I'm surprised that Emdox didn't search Terron's mind, or at least begin to suspect that something was up. Or maybe he did, and you just didn't mention it?

There's a common speech pattern that many of your characters seem to share at times: Exposition heavy; talking slowly; explaining things in great detail; etc. While everyone on Team Vendetta has their own unique voice, I feel like many of your side characters slip into that dialect sometimes, and if I had to pick out whose lines were whose outside of the main five characters, I don't know if I would be able to. I think this could be solved by giving characters their own speech quirks, so that they don't all sound the same when put down on paper. The scene with Éclair in chapter 22 is a good example of this- everyone there seems to lose their unique speech patterns in favor of more exposition-suited dialogue.

The last nitpick I have about these first two chapters is the way that Impetus uses contractions (I know it's silly; but still...). Many people who are new to speaking a language will generally use it in a more stilted form; while contractions are generally used by more fluent speakers. I think that Impetus uses a few too many contractions to for me to buy that she's not a completely fluent speaker of the pokemon language yet, but that's just me.

On the positive side, I very much liked Vantis' character! I couldn't really tell whether he belonged to another team of whether he was jut their transport, but his dialogue and mannerisms stood out to me as the most unique of all your characters. He manages to seem hyper and laid-back at the same time, and the scene where he was messing around with Terron while flying is probably going to be my most favorite scene of this fic for a while...

I *love* the grass-type worldbuilding that you do for this fic! I don't think I've ever seen anyone give grass-types attention like that, and it's one of the types that you do justice in portraying. I also like ho you weaved the dragon-type worldbuilding into the scene at hand and mixed it in with whatever was going on in the present (See: Vantis' competitiveness). I'm not so much a fan of the 'mystical dragon power' thing that comes up later, but the first two occurrences are nice.

Chapters 24 - 30

I'm surprised: I was expecting the Dusk Mines Fellowship to be visited somewhere around chapter 50; not so soon as chapter 23. In its initial opening moments, it doesn't seem to make sense either- aside from their admittedly macabre taste for architecture, there doesn't seem to be much *wrong* with Dusk Mines. Instead, it seems to fit in place as part of the theme of Terron keeping secrets.

That all changes once you introduce Erebus.

Earlier dungeons had the failsafe of outsiders not being able to die as long as they aren't alone, but you do away with that safeguard here, even making the dungeon itself sentient and malevolent. I think that Erebus Woods is the scariest mystery dungeon I've ever read about in a PMD fic.

There are many things that begin to make sense after reading to the end of the Erebus Forest arc. How many times does Yimtri succumb to the influence of Erebus while in Dusk Mines and just cover it up with the excuse of 'ghost-types are mean; deal with it'? How many of the illusions is he responsible for in the lava part of the dungeon? Is the voice in Terron's head Erebus itself?

When Team Vendetta eventually come to the conclusion that Erebus Dungeon is responsible for the spread of the Plagued Ones, it gets freakier; as the reader realizes that everyone in the Dusk Mines Fellowship is domed to become a Plagued One (?). And since you mentioned earlier in the fic that criminals/pokemon who wronged the other four Fellowships are sent to Dusk Mines for trial and execution, is it such a stretch to believe they likely use Erebus Woods as an execution site? Which eventually leads to those criminals falling under the influence of Erebus and becoming more plagued ones? Either way; it's nice to see that PMD: Broken ideals has an overarching villain now, instead of just a legion of faceless zombie murderers.

As for nitpicks... Everything in Erebus Dungeon is *amazing*, but I feel that the scene afterwards (Where Yimtri threatens to dispose of them if they don't keep Dusk Mines' problem a secret) is a little on the nose. It's not the scene itself; because the actual content in the scene is amazing - seeing the depths of Yimtri's insanity while he explains what will happen to pokemon who wrong Dusk Mines - but that homogenous style of dialogue that I mentioned earlier in the review that sort of lowers the depth of the scene a little due to its exposition-heavy nature. At least; that was what I kept getting when I read it.

I think it's a little convenient that Team Vendetta just decided that everyone at the Dusk Mines Fellowship were becoming plagued ones based on conjecture alone, and then they just *happened* to be right... I'd think that Terron needed some proof before he (And the rest of Team Vendetta as a result) can say that for sure.

As a last note, I'm interested that the weavile (Drae; his name was?) came back, and as a member of Dusk Mines to boot. I wonder if he suffers from the same affliction the rest of them do, and that was why he was there in the first place/attacked Terron and Zekra as viciously as he did? He seems to be sitting in a prison cell for now, so I imagine that question will be answered in the near future.

Overall, I think that PMD: Broken Ideals has finally hit its stride with the Erebus Forest arc, and the ten chapters I read today were of *much* higher quality than the twenty that came before; which means that the story is improving! :D Now that there's a team of heroes, a villain, an established world, and a full cast of side characters, Broken Ideals is off to a fresh start, and I feel like the story is finally taking off now! Hopefully I'll be able to read and review the other seventy chapters before the month is up...

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Je suis Prest - Bear McCreary

Review 2/10

I've read to chapter 20 now; so that must constitute another review, right?

I think the story is a little more balanced now. It's past the opening stages, and the different strengths and weaknesses are beginning to show. Your prose is *amazing*… but I'm not wowed by your dialogue, so much.

There's many on-the-nose comments your characters make; particularly the adult ones. They feel extremely robotic and formal. It's kind of like everymon is following a set list of guidelines for speech, instead of saying things naturally. (The initial exchange between Terron, Zekra, and Novus has this problem in particular- it feels less like Novus is handling the situation in his own unique way and more like he's ticking off a list of protocols to ensure that he's not about to strike down an innocent pokemon or something of the sort.) While that might be a style thing, I'm also not really a fan of how 'gamey' the dialogue sounds. For instance:

["I'll teach you that power another time. Come ask me about it when you can complete 'B' rank missions. Then I'll know you can handle its power."]
This seems less like natural dialogue and more like plotblocking. There are also several moments where game mechanics shine through in weird, out-of-place ways; like Zekra's comment about all dark-types having slightly twisted thinking.

Éclair also mentions that King is brutal on new trainees, but that side of him doesn't really come out at all- he's strict, but not MEAN. Unless he's favoring Terron & Zekra for some reason then I don't really buy it...

The last negative point that I have is that I feel violence is overused waaaay too much in this fic. I can understand why ferals might need to be slaughtered (bloodily), but the rupture of both Zekra & Terron's eardrums and their nonchalant reaction to it feels out-of-place and doesn't really ring true. The fact that something so serious can be repaired with only an oran berry also negates its impact upon the reader- why worry about bloody gruesome injuries when those *literally* happen all the time and can be healed in seconds?

For the most part the story's beginning to pick up, though. Overall it reminds me less of a zombie story (Which is what I was worried it would turn out to be) and more of Silver Resistance; tone-wise.

I like the implementation of the Dusk Mines Fellowship in the prose. Portraying it in Terron's mind as a symbol of horror and misery play is up as a Place of Ultimate Evil, and will likely make its eventual debut (For I'd be very surprised if it *doesn't* debut at some point...) much more imposing than it would have been otherwise.

Meinfoo/Impetus is interesting. IDK what to think yet but it's interesting. I await to see what comes of that.

The sneasel is a Chekov's Gun for sure; right? He was just out-of-nowhere and so shocking it would be weird to *not* have him come back in some shape or form...

Terron's nightmares are weird and freaky. IDK what to make of those... yet.

Aiy-yai-yai… I had a *feeling* it was coming ever since the parents started acting sort of weird; but it's still shocking all the same. I don't have the time tonight but I def wanna keep reading on now.

Overall; it's interesting. I can't say whether it's BETTER; persay, because I'm not even at the 25% mark yet, but it's good so far... Hopefully around review #3 or #4 I should have a better idea of how the fic feels?

~SparklingEspeon

Review 1/10

So... I've read all the way to Chapter 10 now, and as promised, here's the first of ten reviews! :)

Overall, I think it's an interesting start. It *definitely* gets better as it goes, but the first ~4 chapters after the prologue show a little too much patchwork for sure; in my opinion. I think Terron makes many 'convenient' assumptions that kind of break immersion for me early on, but they mostly disappear once he and Zekra join the Fellowship.

A on the writing! I think the starkish prose works for this story; as the story itself is somewhat stark as well. Like I mentioned in the previous review, it fits the story's tone and immerses me better than any other type of prose would, but I've been going on about that for a while, so I'll stop gushing now lol.
And thank god I've not seen a comma error anywhere whilst reading this, which is like the number #1 SPaG offender for me when reading fics :D

Wow, psychics are scary in this world... If Emdox can do something as drastic as changing melanin levels in the body, then by that reasoning couldn't psychics also cause cancer? A psychic could even be responsible for the plague'mon, by some random stretch of logic O_O
Overall, his comments about 'only *talented* psychics being able to accomplish such feats doesn't make me feel any better about that... def freaky.

The Fellowship has the mission of exterminating the plague'mon for good, but they don't see fit to tell any normal 'mon about them? Even if it's some sort of twisted crowd control thing, that seems a little extreme. I sense something amiss O_o

["Yeah, welcome to the jungle," Terron remarked quietly. "The place where things look nice before something kills you."]
LOL. That line is amazing.

One thing that I don't very much like that happens a lot in this story is constant handwaving. It feels like the story sort of just comes up with harebrained explanations for why the Game Mechanics are Truth, instead of trying to explain them or diverging from canon. Even in places like the sandshrew bank, where it's not really important HOW they keep track of all those funds, there are more elegant ways of handwaving that then just saying 'somehow' (Maybe they're master calculators? Or just well-organized?). That kind of threw me off a little. At the same time, there are things like the debate over whether human clocks make sense or not and Zekra's indifference (Or maybe Terron's aversion?) towards hunting and killing other pokemon, which are played for laughs but kind of inadverdently lampshade all the things that aren't explained? Pokémon having a biological ticking clock is also kinda weird and handwave-y.

I don't believe I really *got* how Terron and Zekra came back from their mission even though the scyther clearly killed them in the previous chapter (Unless it *didn't*… ? Plz help). I'm assuming whatever entity is in Terron's head sort of brought them both back from death. Or something. IDK.

I think King's toughness is an act. You can literally see him failing to keep it up at times.

But it's definitely interesting! I don't think I can judge it properly because it's barely *gone* anywhere yet, but I can tell it's getting better with every chapter. I imagine it gets *much* better like 20 chapters in, judging by all the reviews? I guess we'll see 2 reviews later, at any rate.

Listening to (Because apparently posting what you listen to in reviews is a thing now?): Caprica City, Before the Fall - Bear McCreary

~SparklingEspeon

Read Silver Resistance... read Guiding Light... read Warped Skies... *still* need to get around to reading Fledglings... might as well read this. Why not?

I positively *hate hate hate* zombie stories, which was why I held off from reading this for so long, but I've gone through the prologue and already I like what I'm seeing. The storm over Emerald Mountain gives me that Mordor/Mt. Doom feel, and the creatures themselves remind me of the Shroobs from Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. I'd assumed they would turn out to be the PMD equivalent of zombies, but the fact that they simply did away with all the pokemon instead of making them into more zombie creatures the line 'they felt it wasn't worth the effort' makes me wonder if there's some sort of ulterior motive for the carnage they're causing. Maybe they want to inhabit the PMD world after ridding it of all other creatures?

The dialogue is well-written too. It's not overly playful despite the two characters being younger, but it's not weighted to the point where it's depressing to read, either. I think you strike a good balance in between. LOL, Chi and water. It doesn't make much sense that ANY exposure to water would kill a fire type; even if they are more susceptible to it than other types are.

One thing I *loved* is the prose, though. It allows the reader to 'see' the world as best they can through the written word, without being too simplistic or too pretentious (Neither of which would have suited this; I'd think). Def 9/10 ('cause there's always room for improvement...)!

The attention to detail, even to the fact that a bird couldn't properly steer without its tail feathers, is also admirable :)

Overall; very well-written! It's definitely an achievement if you can hook me; the ultimate zombie hater, into a zombie story. I'll try to leave a review every 10 or so chapters, so you can get an idea of the overall quality throughout.
Until next time; I guess?

~SparklingEspeon

I just finished this, and i have 1 thing to say: this is the greatest peice of fiction ever created.

After finishing this up, the only thing I could say was just ‘wow’. This wasn’t just a story, it was an epic. It’s likely that nothing will ever match this for me. Just wow.