Wonder if the game is rigged, since a psychic like mr. mime could manipulate the face the die land on.

"Gyarados rarely crossbreed because they bite, and few species have scales hard enough to survive." I wonder what that means for Amethyst.. o.O

"I had fulfilled my promise to him."
This makes me think of the moment Ichigo saved Rukia in Bleach, as he had fulfilled his purpose of rescuing Rukia.

I couldn't help but wonder if it's foreshadowing that Dragonair cares more about Ember than Spark. Foreshadowing to the battle between Dragonair and Diablos (in Spark's body), and Dragonair's willingness to harm Spark.

"I felt a strange pang of sadness and annoyance". Dragonair seemed a bit sensitive when Ember forgot Sapphire was Dragonair's mate. Was this just cause he was annoyed Ember forgot? or some other mental reason?

Ganger appearing again.
Sketch looks like toast.. Assuming Aseal is actually trying to kill Sketch.
And probably more info about the newer characters.

The way Ember dumped Singe really left a sour taste in my mouth... I hope it's not just going to be the end of this character, and that him and Ember will get back together. Singe is better than that annoying Leafeon, anyways...

Bravo... ( Insert slow clap) You managed to make me tear up from that little ending. For that, I commend you because, that's happened only twice now, the first time being after I finished pedestal :d

Blaze has the best ideas, ever. And it should be noted that despite his ridiculous suggestions, he DID have the idea that they actually used.

Despite Tarot remains one of my favorite characters, his introduction is beyond bizarre. I can't even remember why he was compelled to say he disliked caves, nor if that alleged quality was ever consistent from that point on.

His entire character, as well as other characters in a similar vein, originated from my tarot fascination around that time. Doing the readings for chapters did get extremely tedious after time, though, since I actually studied the meanings and then worked out a way how that interpretation might fit with characters without being open to severely different alternate interpretations.

I guess we can muse that Blaze is honest, or deluded as to what stalking means.

Ah yes, this chapter. Concept remains hilarious, and of course, it's wise not to consider just how horrible the logic must be for the Rockets to unify the genders for no real reason.

Blaze is more or less at his best here, as he's not nearly as annoying as he eventually became, while maintaining a fairly solid concept of being a shameless flirt that is nevertheless utterly ineffective at it. Blaze (author, not Flareon...this label totally began because of this chapter) might have been where I pulled the name from, but I honestly don't remember if it was deliberate, or if I just liked the name.

Rosa has her subtle, unnamed debut here, which brings up weird questions regarding her obsession.

Okay, it's becoming increasingly clear that all of Diablos POV chapters were written with the intention of demonstrating that he's still an active antagonist. While the characters don't yet realize that Diablos is a recurring threat, they've received hints that they seem peculiarly quick to dismiss, which is a different issue not related to what I'm analyzing here.

The biggest problem I see with the Diablos POV chapters is how ridiculously petty he is. While the chapters seem to be trying to highlight his malice and cruel, manipulative nature, it's executed fairly poorly because he's only effective at hurting the equivalent of NPCs, and so far extremely ineffective at affecting the protagonists in a long-term manner.

As for Diablos' character, he has a theme of inner darkness, but he neither explains the concept, nor does anything visibly effective. Half the time, he simply possesses his target, and the other half, he's chaotic evil. On that note. Diablos' evil nature is so ridiculously hammy about how evil he is that he acts like a living cliche, such as all but abusing his underlings and using dialogue like "fool".

On a more serious analysis, Diablos seems incapable of concealing his true nature for long. Even when possessing others and pretending to be an ally, he's unable to resist prodding at their sore spots and giving incredibly non-subtle hints that he's malicious. Even more comically, his debate with Nightmare revealed that while Diablos has a firm idealogy about love and affection, he blatantly denies its value and cannot handle being challenged or pressed on the subject, which makes him seem completely irrational. Half of everything he does serves no greater purpose to himself other than sadistic amusement, and even that impact is so small-scale as to be stupidly petty.

Amusingly, the last section is the only real time Diablos is subtly cruel, with his idea of giving someone a taste of what they want, only to remove it again. This is ultimately a superior theme to just "hate and anger" that he preached to Dragonair and Ember. Despair is a better way of crushing someone's spirit than encouraging retaliation.

For continuity purposes, Diablos implies that Nightmare works under him for the sake of gaining power, but later chapters and backstory material reveal this to be false, as Diablos neither attempts to supply Nightmare with extra power, nor does the Gastly ever pursue it.

I don't think I had actually meant anything special with Diablos' excuse of "looking for an old acquaintance to resolve an old conflict", it should have referred to Dragonair originally. But considering who is met near Celadon in a later chapter, this may have ended up being unintentional foreshadowing.

Portraying emotions, particularly anger, was definitely not a skill of mine back then...3

Despite putting a large number of action scenes in the story, action scenes don't seem to be much of a strong point, writing wise. This chapter is notable as being the one that set-up Ember's aversion to Charmeleon, as well as highlighting her preference to claw techniques.