"Away Away" by Lord Knee
“It’s still weird that we have to leave school early now.”
Against the glowing sun, Olivia glanced over at her best friend, humming. Two hours were recently shaved off to ensure everyone made it home during the afternoon instead of the evening. “But, Charlotte, classes are shorter at least. It’s like every day’s a half-day.”
“True, definitely not complaining about that! Not having my usual staring contests with the clock will take some getting used to,” Charlotte laughed. “Stinks we have to keep getting up early though…”
“Can’t have everything, and the walk to Jubilife isn’t so bad.”
“Says you! Walking all that way while you’re half asleep is brutal… And remember when the little cave originally had no lights? I thought a Zubat would fly out at me!” Charlotte groaned. “Seriously, I don’t get how you can be that chipper first thing in the morning.”
Olivia shrugged. “I just found the walk peaceful, but it’s… sad things are changing so much. Doesn’t feel as peaceful anymore…”
“Yeah… I kinda miss those people we’d see on the way. If the creepy cave didn’t wake me up, then it was them yelling ‘good morning.’ Now they’re either home or somewhere safer,” Charlotte said, kicking a pebble. “Still can’t believe it. Like, who would’ve thought our little town of flowers would have such a big incident?”
Gripping her bag straps, Olivia sighed. “Mm. That Pokémon seemed nice, even though I never saw it.”
Judge Comments
Flyg0n
I figured that if this was the topic this entry would have to come up. Truly it is infamous. Misunderstood ghost-type is a great premise, and it was pretty interesting to see what is essentially a prequel (at least that's the impression I get) that sets up where those entries come from and one person's quest to fight that.
I loved the glimpses into the pokemon world and the scope and progression of the story. Starting from her chance encounter to her growing up and growing older. Something that particularly stuck out to me about this framing is how it feels like MC’s growth mirrors her chosen pokemon friend.
She begins like a Drifloon, caught by the wind and dragged along through life, aimless and listless. She doesn’t make many active choices after fate takes Drifloon away from her and sort of just exists.
But later, she gets the chance to become a research assistant and essentially “evolves”. Much the way Drifloon went from living at the whim of the wind, she went from drifting to choosing more of what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go. She “became” a Drifblim and could go her own path in life.
And she’s actually able to make a difference! She may not have changed the entire world's mind but her work did pave the way for people to understand the species better.
One thing I did find myself hoping was to get a hint more sense of other Drifloon as a species. The story briefly references the idea that not all Drifloon were benevolent, just that most were good and I had hoped to maybe see another paragraph or so of elaboration on that front in a tangible way. I think showing the negative a touch more in the story would make her faith in the species more admirable, and that the species shouldn’t be judged on the actions of a few.
The story is on the long side but it ultimately didn’t have a lot of interactions with other Drifloon or Drifblim, nor did it fully explore the aforementioned idea of non-benevolent Drifloon or the MC’s conflicts with more people who dislike Drifloon. We do see her meet one trainer with one, but not a lot of other interactions.
Something like potentially seeing her try again to talk to a crowd and be spurned, then release another article to be accepted would have sold her struggle and fight for Drifloon for me. We got a taste of this near the end but it was more summarized than a focal matter. This isn’t the only way to address this of course, just an example.
The story tries to cover a lot of ground, and does so fairly well with a very fitting resolution, but also relied a lot in its back half on summary for me instead of conflict about the dex entry she sought to see changed. I did really appreciate the one the trainer we saw with a Drifloon though! I think that was a good part that helped strengthen her POV.
In particular I absolutely loved the ending! It can be a bold choice to have an MC die but it's really good here, and I think it's a great move for the story as a whole. It makes the story feel cyclical and complete.
This was a tender and enjoyable entry with a heart wrenching and bittersweet ending that captivated me. It was beautiful to see Drifloon/Drifblim come full circle and to reference the idea of carrying off souls. I like to think they are happy together forever now.
Phoenixsong
Aww, this was lovely. Mysterious disappearances, a drifloon who just wants a friend, an effort to understand a misunderstood pokémon, and a bittersweet but happy reunion at the end. I really enjoyed the emphasis on trying to understand (and eventually research) an as-yet-unknown pokémon, in spite of everyone else's fear holding them back from learning more. It was interesting to see cute, bouncy little drifloon regarded with such dread and caution for so long, really leaning into how ominous its dex entries are in spite of its innocent appearance. I also liked how the story didn't just handwave off the possibility that some drifloon really might have been acting out of malice, or at least some ghostly psychopomp compulsion, but that Olivia kept trying to encourage everyone to treat the drifloon as individuals, just like anyone else.
The whole thing was cute, and a fun look at two young friends doing their best to support each other and get through school. Olivia and Charlotte felt pretty authentically school-kid–aged, too. I admired Olivia's persistence in finding new ways to look out for Drifloon even after everything repeatedly went against her for so long—so easy to expect that a relatively light story about a couple of kids meeting a brand new pokémon to lead to them successfully catching and traveling with it, but Olivia didn't get it that easy, and the path she took instead was more interesting.
The ending was super sweet in particular. (That's a hella durable sticker, lol.) It might've been nice if Olivia
had actually gotten to spend more time with Drifloon at some point before that final scene, just to give their bond that bit more space to develop, but it was definitely touching to see Drifblim use its power as a ghostly escort to bring its friend home at the end of her life all the same.
The prose was clear and to the point, and there were some great turns of phrase here and there, too. One of my favorites was 'Effective in making her mouth taste like nomel berries. “I’ll ask my parents for something else…” Olivia said, trying to suppress a yawn, but the pesky thing slithered free.' That's some fun narration with a lot of personality, and I enjoyed getting to see Olivia really shine through like that.
It did sometimes feel like the story was retreading a lot of similar beats, especially in the first half where things were already moving at a slower pace. I'm not sure you needed so much space dedicated to multiple conversations about about sleep troubles, or the curfew, or school and the trip home therefrom (though the kids' thoughts about that last one were pretty on-brand), when the bits where Olivia was either interacting with Drifloon or trying to convince others to
let her interact with it were much stronger and more relevant to the contest theme. It can be a juggling act to show that time is passing and something is still happening/still on the characters' minds without wading through multiple similar beats that don't actually change the situation/advance the story much; I know it's something I still don't quite have down myself, haha. But I'd encourage you to keep an eye out for scenes that cover ground that's already been covered and consider summarizing the later bits, combining the scenes, or looking for ways that the later scenes can start out similar but have something change the situation so it steers directly toward the next interesting event. (Trimming down the repetition can also leave some more room for expanding some of the later scenes—I would've loved to actually see Olivia meeting this other trainer and their drifloon played out rather than summarized, for example!)
I'm also not sure what was up with the "feelings" Olivia had. If there was an explanation, I'm afraid I missed it (a very real possibility with me). It seems to be associated with the drifloon being nearby, so maybe it's Drifloon using some sort of "ghost powers" to reach out when looking for friends or for help when it's injured? But it also happens a few times when Drifloon appears to be gone. And the narration gives it a vaguely negative vibe, this
weird feeling that keeps clutching at her chest and giving her strange dreams; frankly, up until the scene where she actually met Drifloon I was half expecting the fic to veer toward supernatural horror, and that expectation didn't quite leave until close to the end as the nature of the feelings never changed. I think you could lose them without hurting the story much at all, instead relying on Olivia's natural curiosity, fear and guilt about Drifloon's injury and poor reputation to drive their connection and her desire to learn more.
If you do want to keep the feelings, consider tweaking them so that they don't read as constantly ominous if they're not meant to be. (Being ominous at first when neither we nor Olivia have any idea what they are is fine, but given the story's overall tone it doesn't seem like they're intended to
stay that way.) If Drifloon's using them to communicate, maybe the sensation can be more clearly described as whatever emotions it's trying to project in the moment. If Olivia has some kind of drifloon-related sixth sense, maybe the feeling can become warmer/friendlier/more determined when she's nearer to it, or closer to uncovering the truth about it in her research. The purpose of the feelings doesn't have to be spelled out in exposition, but finding interesting ways to vary their effects and make them more specific than just "a weird feeling" with no further elaboration will both make them more interesting and help readers realize over time what they really mean.
Always love to see someone take an adorable pokémon and make it feel properly threatening to the characters in-world, while also digging into how it feels to encounter—and try to understand—an unknown species of pokémon. The pacing was somewhat uneven due to how much emphasis was put on some elements over others, and I think a tighter handle on how you want readers to understand Olivia's feelings about Drifloon would help a lot with clarity. But I really enjoyed the arc Olivia went through, all in all!
tomatorade
Overall, I enjoyed this story though I had some serious problems with it. The core of the story is very strong, I think and while drifloon is maybe a little obvious for the prompt, you do well leaning hard on it for most of the story which I feel is maybe more important than lore choice. The story itself is quite good. I can see the vision here, in general the emotional moments work well and feel justified and the overall idea comes together especially at the end.
For the most prominent issue I had with this, you’ve got consistent problems with talking heads in this story. In a lot of scenes including, crucially, the very first, we get very little if any description of setting and action and are forced to imagine the characters standing in a void talking to each other. This tended to pull me out of the story fairly consistently, usually at the start of a new scene. There are moments where it’s told where we are—a cave, a classroom, a forest—but that doesn’t do a lot to mitigate the problem for as simple as those descriptions are. Just jumping off the first scene, a cave is fairly abstract by itself and it needs detail to become a fleshed out image of a cave I can picture in my head.
Ideally, you’d want to incorporate details of the scene in the story as it goes along. Have characters walk, observe things as they talk, interact more with objects, people, pokemon, etc…
I don’t like the ‘odd feeling’ Olivia gets throughout the story that tells her the drifloon is not bad, it feels like a shortcut to an emotional or logical beat that would be more interesting and add to Olivia’s character.
In general, my least favourite part of the story is the first scene. It just doesn’t have a lot going on. Later, the story picks up a lot more momentum and gets genuinely very engaging but the first scene exists almost purely for exposition but doesn’t really reveal much interesting about the setting, characters or plot. Honestly, you could remove it and start with the scene after and I don’t think you would have to change much to improve the story overall.
Moving on to more positive elements, I liked the naturalistic feel of the dialogue for the most part. Much of it was used for exposition, but it weaved in and out fairly deftly and still conveyed enough character to keep me engaged. It also helped sell the relationship between Charlotte and Olivia well considering they interact mostly through dialogue, though I won’t harp on that further. They had a cute relationship throughout, it’s most of the highlight of the early parts of the story for me. They’re very supportive and distinct from each other.
It did make me wonder about their ages. They felt more mature than ten, which is what I thought the story told me they were, but that could also be the pokemon world difference. Still, they read very adult. Even complaining about school, they used full sentences and felt very level. The narration, too, seemed almost too aware to be around ten. I pegged them in the late teens somewhere. The one part of the story that felt convincingly young was her trying to do her presentation. Her insecurity and anxiety really came through there in a way that felt closer to ten years old.
I started to really get engaged with the story around the time we got into Olivia’s final test and it became more about her direction in life. It’s a detail I think could be added or alluded to sooner, maybe, to strengthen her character’s motives. It could also feed into the turning point of the story where drifloon disappears more fully. It could be strengthened, but I like the way it is now, it’s an unexpected turn that I prefer over playing it straight and having her take on drifloon. It turns most of the first part of the story into a convincing anecdote for why she becomes a researcher. And the lack of clarity feels very grounded—sometimes it just needs some outside directions, which is what happens.
It’s interesting what happens in the second half of the story. I think it’s because you suddenly find a very compelling emotional core for Olivia and, because you have to write over the space of years, you’re forced to be much more efficient, but there’s a lot more momentum there, the story becomes more unpredictable and exciting and I find myself engaged with the question of what Olivia wants to become. I certainly didn’t expect it to be about the whole of her life, but it feels fitting and made the ending feel satisfying.
There’s all these little setups I enjoy over the course of the story—the school sticker being how she identifies the drifblim, the wind blowing drifloon around
The structure of it also helps you avoid the description problems you had at the beginning, though I still think they persist somewhat. Even just laying out simple scenes would help the audience remember and connect to what’s happening.
I do wish we got a little more on drifloon by the end. Having Olivia become a researcher and focus heavily on drifloon makes it feel a little strange that the most we get for the species is ‘they’re not that bad, really’. It would be interesting if we learned a bit more about their behaviours or biology in tandem with Olivia.
The ending really worked for me. It’s dramatic, but it feels like the story is coming full circle. I’m especially glad the original drifloon returns considering how pivotal it is to her life, broadly. There’s also a more ominous tone around drifblim’s role to usher people to the afterlife that cuts some of the sentiment in a good way. I like the idea that ghost types are still morbid or spooky even when they’re being helpful and benevolent and that’s the vibe I get here. It’s not pure sentiment which would feel a little corny.
Great job overall, it starts off a little slow but the story really comes together in the end.
Windskull
I think drifloon - specifically the one from diamond and pearl that only shows up one day a week - was an interesting choice. There’s a lot of creepiness in the dex entries that borders on weird. Add to that the strangeness of a pokemon showing up on a specific day of the week and only that specific day of the week? And now you have an interesting idea to play with.
The plot is interesting, having a character that has an encounter with drifloon at a young age and ends up becoming dedicated to the idea of clearing misconceptions about it. I think it’s a neat concept and pretty fun!
That said, I do have some critiques on the character front. Not with the characters themselves, but, for example, the fact that these are supposed to be children around 10 years old, but they read more like older teenagers to me. And then later, near the end of the fic, the protagonist’s age confuses me. I can’t tell if she died fairly young or if she was on the older side of things. Its implied that she’s got a daughter journeying, something that’s treated as something you do around 10ish, which would imply that she’s on the younger side unless she married late in life.
Maybe you were trying to imply she’s sickly/got some sort of illness? She did have a strange illness at the beginning that seemed to clear up after she encountered the drifloon again. But it doesn’t feel readily connected.
Other than that, I did see a couple of typos and formatting errors, but nothing super egregious.
Overall, I think this one explores a fun concept and the weirdness of how dark some pokedex entries can be and how they can feel odd against the backdrop of generally friendly games, but some of the pacing and the age/behavior thing kind of threw me out of the story.. Still a good read!
