Read at: AO3
Red, beloved trainer and hero of the early Pokemon games, has been murdered. His friend Silent is on the case. Backing them up is Clair, a prideful and disgraced gym leader, and Cynthia, the champion of the Sinnoh region. Silent doesn't need either of them though. That's because they're a Mewtwo: the super-powerful, super-secret 150th Pokémon. Now they are out for revenge.
Make You Suffer is a girllikesubstance story, and thus commits what I consider two cardinal sins of Pokémon fanfiction. The first is that xer vision of the Pokémon world exists within ours, and is more like Britain than the Japan-inspired regions of the earlier games. The second is that real-life animals exist alongside Pokémon, when (as far as I'm concerned) Pokémon are clearly intended to stand in for real-life animals. This kind of thing drives me up the wall!
Being a girllikesubstance story, though, Make You Suffer has unique strengths as well. First is style. The story at first appears to be written in noirish third person. But it's actually a first person story, with a narrator who sneaks in when you least expect them to tease the full scope of the mystery. Who is this narrator and what do they want? Their identity feeds into the resolution of the mystery in a satisfying way, even though girllikesubstance can't always land a natural switch between third and first perspective.
Second is character. Silent is a truly original take on Mewtwo: a self-defined loner with an instrument collection and an interest in jazz. My favorite though is Clair, who's just as stubborn and prideful as you'd expect if you met her in Pokémon Gold or Silver back in the day. The developers of that game treated her harshly, as someone forced by her superiors to give the player a badge after losing. Make You Suffer by comparison lets her be prickly even though it suggests she could learn to ask for help. Her bond with Silent, who is also very difficult, is rewarding to watch develop.
That leads us to the third aspect, which is queerness. girllikesubstance has spent the past several years writing a shadow history of Pokémon where gay people exist. Red is a trans guy, Mewtwo is nonbinary, Clair likes women and Cynthia is a trans woman. Pointedly, though, girllikesubstance's Pokémon world is not particularly friendly towards LGBTQA+ folks. Powerful players like Silent and Cynthia are strictly monitored. Others, like Clair, are marginalized and abused.
Make You Suffer is a pulpy revenge story about larger than life characters going to town on some of the scariest threats in the Pokémon setting. It's also a more nuanced tale about surviving as an outsider in a world that hates and fears you. girllikesubstance threads the needle beautifully between spectacle, warmth and real tragedy. That's why xe's the best there is.