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zombriekid · 4 years

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The Devil Takes Care of His Own 1/?? [Alastor/Gender Neutral Reader]

Series: Hazbin Hotel

Chapter Name: Run Rabbit, Run

Chapter Summary: you snatch a young girl from certain danger, and even though a trail of broken dishes and angry business owners are left in your wake, at least the kiddo is safe. for now. *please don't run zig zag from gators, that'll only slow you down

When you first awoke within the muck of the drudges of the damned, it was without any recollection as to who you were or what you were about or even why you were here; somehow, in spite of the personal amnesia, gray meat in the ol' chrome dome was able to quickly surmise where "here" was. Drew a blank on your friggin' name but not on your location? Didn't really inspire much confidence, still doesn't actually.

You've grown some since, about a month's time if you're keeping track accurately- that's up for debate however, passage of time operates differently here- and though you're honestly no closer to figuring out just who in the hell you were, you've managed to forge some footpaths in the mountain that is ciphering the inner machinations of Pentagram City... and who you are in this concrete jungle of copper smells and marquee lights.

And, of friggin course, who you are just so happens to be the biggest bleeding heart in all of damnation.

The scene before you is playing out in such a way that it's resonating within the cavity of your ribcage so differently than ever before- well, at least within your short term memory anyway. See you're no stranger to violence, though your familiarity sings distinct from most everyone else's, but in the thirty or so days of consciousness you've witnessed first hand turf wars over a single city block, a lover's quarrel that resulted in a heart literally being cleaved out of someone's chest, muggings for baggies of white powder that you swiftly deduced was <i>not<i> confectioners sugar, and oh so much more over oh so much less. Hell, even you've slipped past the avaricious claws of would be thieves eyeing your satchel. Joke's on them, the contents are merely yellow parcels and white envelopes. And not to toot your horn but you're-

"-fast. I'm very fast. I'm like Forrest Gump, except I'm not an idiot." The voice, masculine and strained through puffs of heavy breathing, echoes in your ears yet it doesn't ring a bell.

... now's not the time for an episode, self.

And it's a burst of noise- like a mixture between water and air spraying- that brings you back into focus.

Right.

The carnage that's about to take place cause you're standing around like an idiot with a thumb up your ass.

A young girl poises herself before a cavern of teeth, staring her aggressor in the maw with a grin curling on her rosy cheeks. As if certain not-death ain't about to swallow her noggin whole, bones and all. The aggressor in question peels their jaw further apart and a low, rolling sound rumbles from within the depths. Still the kiddo doesn't flinch, doesn't even blink at her impending doom.

She can't be more than fifteen so her fight or flight instincts should be well in the process of switching over to autopilot, but to your utter dismay they don't seem to be engaging.

Cause she's still just... standing there.

The demon looms over her tiny body with a hunched back, sickly green scales flutter under the pentagram's fluorescence, and their torso gradually expands outward- not unlike that of a balloon- as if they're gulping down a throat full of breath- as if they're bracing for the pounce-

Liquid ice gushes through your veins, through your muscles, and pools around the bones of your ankle joints; inner thighs clench, knees slack; left foot ferociously stomps at the asphalt with the right quickly following suit, left right, left right, rapid hastening cycle; the thinning rubber of your sneaker's soles does little to absorb the impact- every footfall strike sends ripples of tingly pain up your shins, making all extremities tremble; you pump one arm in tandem with your racing heart and the other prepares with hooked finger bones. The harsh pace kicks up cement dust in your wake.

The aggressor leans further- the kid ain't moving- you're not gonna make it in time-

-heat: stifling. black cloud: smoke inhalation. neighbor: passed out. not much time. not enough of it. get him out now.

Grab her.

-grab him.

NOW

____________________________________

Some feet ahead and to the left is the mouth of an alleyway, and if memory serves correctly this side street should eventually spill out into Fifth, and if that's the case then the alley should house the back entrance to the (alleged) cannibal cafe- an establishment that maintains the coveted fourth place on your personal list of "Must Avoid Unless Absolutely Necessary".

The owner, an absolute unit of saccharine smiles and four barbed tusks to match her literal boorish appearance, is a demon gal that you get along with well enough; a relationship constricted to the limits of professionalism, you often find yourself engaged in weather talk after the ritual of mail delivery is completed. Of course the hairs on the back of your neck rise whenever you look her in the eye for too long, but that's to be expected when she's pricing out whatever cuts your hide might produce. At least, you're like eighty percent certain that that's what she does while exchanging pleasantries.

Still, your options are between cutting through Mrs. Sowbelly's Cafe or stay on the straight and narrow... and both choices carry considerable risk behind them. Both choices could land the two of you in the trap of a beast's glistening, spittle sheen teeth.

And full transparence? You like the sniff of your chances with the widowed pig more.

Besides, provided that you shield the young cyclops from view, Mrs. Sowbelly shouldn't be able to commit your damsel in distress's identity to memory and start getting any funny ideas. The kiddo should be safe.

So it's with a pivot on your heel, a rapid change that leaves you hopping on one leg momentarily, that you tear your body to the left and haul ass down the alleyway like the devil's nipping at your heels.

Which, ironically though no literally, he/she/they are- well, not the devil but rather a devil. It's a clever metaphor dammit, and you're gonna applaud yourself later if you survive this clusterfuck of a shitty ass situation.

Then again... folks down here don't really die, do they? Not like how they do topside. Probably hurts just as much, however.

A drag of oxygen claws from deep within your stomach, swells the airway in your throat until they ache, and the muscles around your knees ignite with an icy burn- all fueled by a dwindling supply of addictive adrenaline. The tiny girl shifts in your arms, causing her red tresses to ghost the underside of your chin, before her single, rather large ocular finds you; there's a question gleaming in the yellowed pit of her iris, and while your soft heart would love nothing more than to humor her there are other matters you must attend to first- that being saving your skins- so you tuck her head back into one shoulder and twist its partner to lead the two person charge.

Brace.

Grit your teeth.

And- BAM!

Pain- biting deep into the blade. Nothing serious. Bruise at worst.

But you're in.

In the split second it takes all of the neurons to collectively process your surroundings, you quickly discover that the cafe's back door immediately leads into a quaint kitchen. There might be a lace and heart motif on the walls, and there might be a slab of oozing, fleshy meat on the counter? Or your brain is misidentifying things, wouldn't be the first time downside; shuffle around the island and through the white swinging door before you throw a brief apology to Mrs. Sowbelly about the rude intrusion. And maybe there is some sort of higher power still looking out for your unbelievably dumb ass because the swinging door opens up to the dining portion of the cafe.

Thank Whomever or Whatever for small miracles.

"Oops, sorry!" and "pardon me, sir!" and "oh fuck! I'm really sorry!" become your mantra as you dodge wooly servers and rodent customers alike. The shrill cry of porcelain shattering rings in the periphery of your attention span and your stomach churns itself with guilt.

The display you must be putting on, ruining these poor people's lovely, likely cannibalistic brunch. God, you're such a jerk.

Still, there's a certain appreciation for escape and safety that's far outweighing the acidic aftertaste of shame right now- not to mention you haven't heard the aggressor in a bit and that's worrisome- so you swallow your pride, hunch your back a little (effectively obscuring the kid from the public's eye), and much like a bull in a glass shop you sprint all the way to the entrance. Broken dishes, disgruntled employees, pissed customers, and all.

Out of the cafe and on to the cobblestone of Fifth Street do you stop; now should you continue on through the crowds, or cut through more establishments in an unpredictable route? Your assailant seems to be gator-based so maybe you should-

"- in order to escape from an alligator, you should run zig zag because they can only charge straight."

That... sounds like misinformation, but time's a-wasting and you gotta make a choice now.

Crowd? Or the coffee shop across the street?

... well coffee does have a tendency to make you more productive, placebo or otherwise, and you certainly trust it over Hell's denizens by leagues. So coffee shop it is!

Rinse, repeat: dodge the condemned, serpentine through the building, apologize to everyone who has the misfortune of in your path, and make your grand exit through another door. This rampaging circuit sees you bulldozing through some sorta clothing boutique, a toy store that's definitely not for children, your favorite chocolatier distributor, and a pretzel shop that serves everything but pretzels. Naturally there are some other businesses in that line, however you don't deem them important enough to fully acknowledge them. No offense to the owners, of course.

And not once do you dare to glance behind your shoulder to see if the reptilian fellow/dame/gender neutral folk is trailing your footsteps.

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"Why'd ya grab me?"

"To save you."

She blinks twice, an odd bundle of curiosity this one, then asks you the age old question known as "why?"

And honestly you're not entirely sure of the reasoning yourself. Admittedly- admittedly it was more of a reaction than a conscious decision, with a memory that might or might have not been your own reverberating from the back of your mind until your feet were already moving. Cause in that moment all you were seeing was a monster ready to hurt a teenage girl- and demon or no the novelty of leaving a kid to fend for herself sounded heinous. Vile. So you snatched her up and ran.

No reason to bore her with that explanation however, kids have short attention spans and all that, and you're more than willing to chalk this up to something akin to Occam's Razor- "the simplest solution is more likely the right one."

... boy howdy, you can remember that but not your own goddamn name? Just how in the hell have you survived this long?

"Seemed like the right thing to do."

This seems to confuse her further for both top and bottom eyelid draw closer around the globe of her eye, rosy cheeks puffing out as she looks you up and down then back up again for... insert reason here?

Oh. Oh!

Two things about the doomed denizens of Pentagram City, location one of the numerous layers of Hell: they tend to garb themselves in whatever fashion is familiar to them from the time/date of their death, probably as a last ditch effort to grasp at whatever shreds of humanity they have left? And the longer they've been here the less human they appear- you hear that there are exceptions to this observation but the general consensus states that one's residency in the realm of suffering determines how much metamorphosis one undergoes.

And this little lady? Based off of the giant eyeball and way she's dressed? You're kind of half expecting her to break out into Sandra Dee's routine of "Summer Nights" what with her billowing pink poodle skirt and matching scarf. Actually, scratch that, the pink is trademark Frenchy. "Beauty School Drop Out" it is.

Anyways, point being that this teen more than likely bit the dust like seventy-ish years ago, thus making her chronologically older than you, meaning she's been here a hell of a lot longer than you, exposed to some of the worst humanity has to offer, so your whole "good samaritan" spiel is probably translating to something along the lines of "stranger danger".

"That's weird." She says.

"Sorry?"

"You know we're in Hell, right?"

Why yes you are aware of your current and permanent residency, and if anybody asks you you personally think that it's fucked the fuck up that a friggin teenager is in Hell! What could a kid possibly do to warrant their soul's final resting place be the kingdom of sin and evil?! Grant it you don't know what you've done to receive the same treatment either, but a. you're an adult and b. it was probably real messed up compared to... whatever she "did".

Ponder the fallacies of morality later, it's time you get her back home.

Your knees bend until one cap burrows into the dirty below, and you bring yourself to be at a more leveled height with her- don't reach to her, not yet at least, likely doesn't feel safe around you yet (if ever.)

"Hey, is it cool if I ask you what your name is?" You smile, mindful of your canines so that they don't pierce your bottom lip. Again.

The reaction you receive is instantaneous.

"I'm Niffty! Who are you?" She chirps with a huge grin.

You choke on your words; "I uhh... don't remember? But you can call me 'Newbie', lots of people- erm, demons? Uhh, lots of folks call me that." Clear the throat, bring back the smile on your face. "So listen Niffty, do you have, like, parents or uhh.. family I can bring you to?"

"Pfft, I don't think anybody here has parents. Except for the princess of course! Well, there might be others... but anywaysie daisy, nope! No parents here!"

Jesus Christ she's an orphan on top of everything else?! Next thing you know she's gonna mention how someone drowned her pet lizard and chopped all the heads off her favorite stuffed animals when she was the tender age of three... you're way too much of a sentimental idiot for this bullshit.

"Okay, that's okay. How 'bout a home or, like, some kind of safe space I can drop you off at?"

"Oh! The Hazbin Hotel!"

... pardon? The what hotel? Wait.. there's a hotel in hell (heh, rhymes)? Why?

"Originally it was called the Happy Hotel but the bossman changed it, and if you ask me I like the new name better," she whispers the last part as if her opinion over the name is a secret between you two. Precious kid.

But also a hotel here just simply named the "Happy Hotel"? Yeah that sounds shady as fuck. Ain't a lot of happiness going around these here parts, not genuine happiness at least.

"Best job I've ever had too! I get to clean and cook all day, every day! Except during my time off... that's a real bummer."

That... kind of makes sense actually; child labor laws are likely ignored in favor of cheap drudge, and if folks are willing to exploit youngens in life then why would they forgo the practice after death? Trick question: they wouldn't cause people are terrible... unfortunately so are you.

It's not as if you can just uproot Niffty and bring her in under your non existent wing- mail delivery only pays for so much after all and there aren't enough routes in the city to haul your head above the water's hemline. So housing, feeding, and clothing a-whole-nother being when most of your nights are spent in the company of ravenous hunger and the legitimate consideration of selling off your parts to Mrs. Sowbelly? Ain't happenin, cap'n.

"Well I've never heard of this hotel, but I can at least see that you get there safely," you offer, one hand rubbing at the back of your neck. "Dunno if that gator is still-”

"Wo-ow, you must be new if you don't know about the Hazbin Hotel!" She gives you a once-over again. "Guess that explains why you don't look... 'demon-y'."

You're losing track here; gotta get her back to her home as soon as possible, direct her attention towards that goal. Butter her up. Kids like that, right? Your gut says so at least.

"Heh, well it's gotta be pretty fuc- I-I mean, pretty awesome if they got someone like you workin' there, Niffty."

"OH, you're SO right! I make the place sparkle!"

She continues on with her excited babbling as she twirls her petite body around towards the east, billowing poodle skirt and all. Not gonna lie, you're kind of jealous of her and her garment; maybe something ankle length you can get away with. Meanwhile the young cyclops flutters on her feet with mentions of "doing my absolute best" and "that's why the bossman hired me", and though you'll admit that the details of her employment are enshrouded in mystery, and what little information you can glean sounds very sketchy, still you don't attempt to dissuade her from her goal destination.

Who knows, maybe this Happy/Has-been Hotel won't be so awful?

Heh. Yeah right.

The moment Niffty is safe and secure, at least as far as the gator demon is concerned, you're gonna be well on your way back to the dingy apartment you call home.

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a/u: are you really that surprised? one of my main husbandos is friggin eldritch dracula, so this is just par for the course honestly. the ol radio demon is gon be a tough customer but goddammit we’re gonna try regardless. don’t expect a healthy “relationship” with the ace spectrum cannibal deer demon. also the lore is gonna be like half improv cause we don’t know much about hh yet. and yes i’m aware that niffty is biologically in her twenties, but newbie doesn’t know. yet. with that said: please leave a like, gimme a comment, reblog this bitch, and just continue bein awesome y’all <3

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #hazbin hotel alastor x you #alastor x you #alastor x reader #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin hotel fanfic #writing

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themattress · 6 years

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My Disliked Pokemon Adventures Arcs

I love Pokemon Adventures, but there are three arcs that I don’t care for at all: the Ruby/Sapphire Chapter, the Emerald Chapter, and the OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire Chapter.

In other words, all the Hoenn arcs.

Why I dislike the Ruby/Sapphire Chapter:

- The tone. It’s inconsistent - it goes from a children's version of "Around the World in 80 Days" to a political thriller based around Team Aqua and Team Magma to a freaking Kaiju movie as Groudon and Kyogre wreak havoc, and none of it really gels together or works well, and I feel that this arc is the only one to have this particular problem.

- Ruby and Sapphire. I personally don't care for Ruby and Sapphire's personalities here. I think Kusaka wanted to subvert expectations based on the characters' designs, but it's still done in a pretty hamfisted, over-the-top way, with Ruby being stereotypically feminine and flamboyant and Sapphire being stereotypically tomboyish and wild.

- The story's whole set-up is flawed. Ruby and Sapphire argue about which is better: Pokemon battles or Pokemon contests. They make a bet to see which one can master their preferred goal in 80 days. The problem is that this makes much less sense than an alternative bet: to have the one disparaging contests to try to master them and the one disparaging battles to try to master them. How much more interesting would that have been? That's why I'd have had Ruby be masculine yet still end up doing and enjoying contests, while Sapphire would be feminine yet still end up doing and enjoying battles. But if Kusaka really wanted to do them the way he did, then the contest-loving Ruby should have challenged the gyms and the battle-loving Sapphire should have performed in contests.

- The whole Ruby vs. Norman conflict. It is so forced and so badly-written. It starts out as a thinly veiled metaphor for a bigoted father who can't accept his gay son (which is stupid since, when you strip the metaphor away, Ruby not being gay and being in love with Sapphire is kind of a big plot point later on), yet we're later expected to sympathize with Norman because it turns out he was going to allow Ruby to do contests before Ruby ran away and that he has been protecting Ruby more than Ruby knew for a long time, making him running away come off as particularly ungrateful. But is this really a good excuse for Norman outright beating his son in a physical quarrel in which Ruby is hopelessly outclassed? Yet Norman is still called a "good father" immediately after this! What!?

- Wally. All the build-up he gets to being the "Emerald"-representative Dex Holder, and it amounts to absolutely nothing because he ends up having to turn in his PokeDex back to its rightful owner, an actual character named Emerald who doesn't work nearly as well as Wally would have. What was even the point?

- Archie and Maxie. With Archie, Kusaka gives him an interesting position as the head of Hoenn's primary TV station and thus Ty and Gabby's boss while secretly being the leader of Team Aqua, but his personality is all wrong - he is now Faux Affably Evil rather than genuinely Affably Evil, ruthless to the point of discarding (even lethally) his own grunts in order to get what he wants, which Archie from the games would never do, ever. Maxie's personality is on point, but his position as a total shut-in at his cavernous lair undermines him as a character, since in the games he's a badass who is just as active with his team as Archie is because he's just as committed to his extreme vision of a new world. They get worse when they decide to team up to awaken Groudon and Kyogre, despite knowing the risks and the fact that they'll have to betray one another in the end, anyway. But then they get driven mad and even flat-out possessed by the Orbs they are holding and seemingly get killed. But then they show up still alive in the end for one pointless final battle, no longer possessed but evidently permanently insane and sadistic. They meet an unceremonious defeat within an electrical forcefield. This is a severe bastardization of the well-intentioned extremists from the games, who were the series’ first (somewhat) fleshed-out villains! Just what was Kusaka thinking?

- Tabitha's design. Seriously, wtf!? I get that Tabitha didn't exactly have the most interesting of designs in the games, but you could have come up with better than this!

- Courtney. When she first shows up, she's fine. But then she faces Ruby one-on-one, and we get a very uncomfortable one-sided flirtatious dynamic, with Courtney finding Ruby "interesting" due to him being an innocent, beauty-loving Coordinator like she used to be before becoming an evil pyromaniac (a backstory and transition which is never explained, btw!) She then gets so obsessed with Ruby that she looks up all sorts of personal info on him before getting called back on her mission, in which she takes innocent people hostage and threatens to kill them in order to avoid being defeated by Roxanne - a low, cowardly action. So we're supposed to dislike her, right? Well, apparently not, since she receives an abrupt redemption as she helps Ruby in stopping Groudon and Kyogre, even at the cost of her own life until the Celebi Ex Machina happens. Very little about this character adds up, yet she receives the most exposure and supposed "development" out of any of the villains in this arc. I was so sick of her at the end that I wish she'd just stayed dead in the Cave of Origins - or better yet, back when Ruby dropped her into a flaming inferno at Rusturf Tunnel!

- Shelly's disappearance. Shelly came off as more likable than Courtney, and yet not only did she not receive as much paneltime, but she also just disappears without explanation. Following her defeat at the hands of Winona and Flannery, who she had good adversarial chemistry with, she retreats on a Vibrava and is never seen again. She's the only villain to not receive a conclusive ending at the end of the arc, and that really bugs me.

- Matt. Apparently, Kusaka thought it would be too boring if he was just the generic tough guy he was in the games, so he made him more sensitive and accident-prone, which should have made him more sympathetic. But like Courtney, he really isn't, particularly when he attempts to drown Sapphire and Flannery and set a Sharpedo on them, grinning and laughing with maniacal glee while doing so. Kusaka must’ve realized this by the end, since he's ultimately left to die (by drowning, karmically enough) - and unlike with Amber, nobody saves him.

- Ruby crosses the line. Late into the arc, after Kyogre and Groudon are awoken, Ruby pulls a two-punch move that kills all likability his character had. First, he refuses to swallow his pride and call off the bet in order to join Sapphire in saving all of Hoenn when she pleads with him to, flat-out saying he doesn't care about what happens and just wants to keep doing contests. Sapphire is understandably pissed about this extreme display of selfishness. What's worse, afterward he blames his Feebas, whom it looked like he was coming around to liking for a while, for losing a contest and kicks it out of his party, yelling about how it's weak and ugly. Yes, Ruby played the "You're not beautiful enough for me!" card well before Lusamine did! How am I supposed to root for this guy after this? I don't care if he felt remorseful afterward, this was too selfish and mean-spirited for him to come back from.

- Ruby and Sapphire's backstory. OK, this was just stupid. Out of nowhere, it's revealed that Ruby and Sapphire actually knew each other as children and don't recognize each other in the present day. Even worse, we find out that the reason they developed the personalities they have was because of a misunderstanding - a Salamance attacked Sapphire, and Ruby viciously fought it off all by himself, at the cost of getting a scar. He and Sapphire were separated afterward, leading Ruby to think he traumatized her with his viciousness and becoming more gentle and feminine as a result, while Sapphire thought that Ruby must have gotten in trouble (in addition to getting hurt) because of her weakness and becoming more rough and tomboyish as a result. Really now? That's what we're going with? Ruby and Sapphire's romance, IMO, would have been much more engaging without this "bombshell”.

- Groudon vs. Kyogre. This starts with round 53, in the fifth volume. It ends with round 83, in the eigth volume. So that's 30 chapters of this big climactic event happening! It just goes on, and on, and on! What's worse, it keeps getting sidetracked by other things, like the Gym Leaders fighting the Aqua and Magma Admins, or Norman training Wally, or Ruby and Sapphire's quarrel and reconciliation and backstory reveal, or the introduction of Juan and his training program on Mirage Island, or Courtney's whole Redemption Equals Death...and then, even after Groudon and Kyogre are finally put to rest, we get another climax when Archie and Maxie turn up alive and ready for one more battle! It just never seems to end!

- Sapphire being locked in the car during the big climax. Fuck you too, Ruby!

- The infamous Celebi Ex Machina. So, after that prolonged climax, we have had three casualties: Courtney, Norman and Steven. That seems fitting - you shouldn't do such a huge, lengthy, perilous event and have no prices be paid at the end of it all. But nope - Ruby reveals that he's had Celebi all this time, and uses it to do some time mumbo-jumbo and resurrect all three characters. This remains one of the most criticized parts of the entire manga series, since it's such cheap writing and feels like a slap in the face to readers who read through this arc. It was completely unnecessary - Courtney never appears again and Norman doesn’t do anything that couldn’t have been done by another character, so it's fine for them to stay dead. And as for Steven, his father could just resurrect him in the OR/AS arc with the whole Infinite Energy / Ultimate Weapon ritual that he is canonly well-versed in.

- Finally, the arc's length and what came from it. This arc taking so long, particularly due to the Groudon and Kyogre battle getting so dragged out, screwed the entire manga's schedule over for the next decade. Gen IV started and Gen III was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga. Gen V started and Gen IV was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga. Gen VI started and Gen V was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga. Only with Gen VI have we finally gotten back on track, with the manga wrapping its Gen VI arc just as that generation came to a close - and even then, we still have yet to see Gen V's B2/W2 arc conclude. And it's all thanks to this one, long, BAD story arc.

Why I dislike the Emerald Chapter:

- Emerald himself. There is almost nothing likable about this guy. He's a battle fanatic who only cares about Pokemon as tools of battle, he's an insensitive jerk to everyone around him, he's got a very unappealing design, and he's actually freakishly short (and his sensitivity about this is nowhere near as funny as Ed Elric's.) The worst part is that Wally was supposed to have his role, but for some reason or other, Kusaka became convinced that he needed to pull a Yellow and create an original character with the game's name, and that Wally is too gentle to fit in the Battle Frontier...which is exactly why Wally would be so interesting in the role, and it would fit his development from the games (even more emphasized in OR/AS) and this very manga!

- The tone. It's by-the-numbers shonen action style. C'mon, Kusaka - you're better than this!

- The big twist. It turns out that Emerald is actually under hire from Professor Oak and Kris to catch Jirachi so that it can use its wish-granting powers to revive Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Silver from the petrified state they were inexplicably left in at the end of the previous arc. The problem is that everyone predicted this already, and it makes it seem like the whole reason that cliffhanger was even put in to begin with was to make the Emerald Chapter more "epic", like the Gold/Silver/Crystal Chapter. It didn't work, at all.

- Ruby and Sapphire return. As if things couldn't get any worse when it comes to the main character, he ends up having to deal with Ruby and Sapphire inserting themselves in as his teammates midway through the arc. Their already excessive stereotyped personalities are even worse here - they seem to have gone through Flanderization, and it’s annoying.

- Guile Hideout. Nothing about this arc's villain works. It's a lone man in knight-like armor with the absolutely stupid name of "Guile Hideout", who wants to capture Jirachi for his own evil purposes. Again, it's a blatant attempt to copy the epic quality of the Gold/Silver/Crystal Chapter and its Mask of Ice. They even throw in a red herring and make it look like Guile Hideout is actually the resident old man, Spencer, just as Mask of Ice was Pryce. But nope, the villain's true identity is actually....Archie!? And he's even crazier and more evil than before - the armor he's wearing is space armor that keeps him from dying as an aftereffect of his possession by the Orb and he murdered Maxie in cold blood to get it. And now he wants to create a demonic version of Kyogre and take over the world? Kusaka, just stop it, please! You've fucked this character up enough already.

Why I dislike the OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire Chapter:

- The Delta Episode. The postgame scenario of OR/AS is the basis for the arc. I did not like that scenario in the game, and while there are a good number of improvements made to it in the manga, I still can't say I like it. There is just so much about the plot that feels contrived, from the Draconid tribe we'd never heard of until now to the Grand Meteor Delta itself that we're supposed to believe is a threat to the entire planet even though the Pokemon World has survived worse before. Kusaka did his best, but he can't fully salvage this.

- Zinnia's Villain Sue-dom. I love Zinnia, but her use in this arc was iffy. It keeps in that she was undercover in Team Aqua and Team Magma, and that her guidance was crucial for Archie and Maxie to discover how to awaken Kyogre and Groudon...but without the stipulation the games had about it being in an alternate timeline, thus making Zinnia responsible for the villains' plans in the R/S arc. If this wasn't enough, it turns out it was her Salamance that attacked Ruby and Sapphire as children, caused the trauma that made them change their personalities, caused Ruby to get scarred, caused Rayquaza to escape and Norman to take the blame in order to protect Ruby...all of that (with Rayquaza escaping being retconned into being the goal all along rather than a freak accident Ruby caused, meaning that Norman did what he did for nothing). So Zinnia is literally responsible for everything that went wrong in the R/S arc. Every bad thing that ever happened in Ruby and Sapphire's lives can now be summed up with "THANKS, ZINNIA!"

- Emerald's new design. OK, I take back the criticism I had for his old design being unappealing. This one's even worse. Kill it with fire!

- Archie and Maxie. Didn't see this one coming - it turns out that Archie and Maxie's spirits were somehow transported to the Distortion World due to the supernatural nature of their deaths, merged together and then split apart, which cured them of their evil and insanity. Now resurrected into new bodies (their OR/AS designs), they are finally in-character and finally get to redeem themselves before dying again. While I should be pleased with this, and to some extent I am, the convoluted way it happens and that it had to happen at all only reminds me of how badly Kusaka botched these two in the first place. Sometimes I question if they weren't better off just being left dead and forgotten about.

- The Codenames. How does Kusaka work in the OR/AS designs of Shelly, Matt, Courtney and Tabitha? He has them show up as entirely seperate characters, and reveal that "Shelly", "Matt", "Courtney", and "Tabitha" are actually codenames that Admins of Team Aqua and Team Magma use, and that they weren't the real names of the originals either. Lame!

- Crazy Rayquaza. In the R/S arc, Rayquaza was unquestionably a heroic Pokemon. In this arc, however, it's suddenly prone to mood swings of psychotic anger, and it keeps switching from a protagonist Pokemon to an antagonist Pokemon at the drop of a hat. This, along with it eventually doing battle with Deoxys, calls "Destiny Deoxys" to mind - and I don't want to be reminded of that crappy movie!

- Needless Relationship Drama. For no good reason, Ruby decides to start keeping secrets from Sapphire, until he suddenly doesn't and starts being open with her. In between is all the expected relationship drama between the two, and it all feels so forced.

Now, let me say that none of these arcs are actually bad by regular manga standards, IMO, and there are also several things I like about each one. And Kusaka doesn’t half ass-it, he always tries his best. It’s just that the bad stuff overshadows the good stuff for me, and that by the standards of this usually excellent manga series, they fall disappointingly short.

#Pokemon #Pokemon Adventures #Opinion

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