HAPPY SMEARGLE SWAP!! I hope ju liek it [i tried my nest with Hana’s hair 🤡]
Pokémon 26 years
- Thread starter bluesidra
- Start date
Experidenzel
Bug Catcher
- Pronouns
- He/him
Here is my catnip review for 26 Roads after taking my time to read chapter one. Really enjoyed it so far, seeing a champion like Leon in a more venerable state was really intriguing, human and relatable. Seeing him and his friends dynamic and chemistry genuinely made me care for them when it seemed that they lost everything. The story is very descriptive and written well from what it seems, which is something I hope I can be inspired by as a writer with low self esteem with his own work, but I digress. Sorry if this is not the most descriptive review and that I did not read more of the story, but I'm sure my opinion would of what I liked about your story would apply to the rest of it. Keep up the good work and I wish you the best.
Chapter 23: The First Weeks Of Winter
bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Chapter 23: The First Weeks Of Winter
October 20th 1993, 8:48am.8:48am marked the moment the floor underneath Leon vanished.
The grandfather clock had just announced the start of the new minute with its mechanical “clank”. In the homey kitchen right across the room, the tea-water was boiling in its kettle, while somewhere in the house a baby was getting restless. Nothing had changed at all. The world had kept on spinning.
And yet I saw Leon break the moment he stopped asking questions.
At the knee-high table across from us sat Kurt. He was an old man, his white hair thinning around the temples and lines furrowing his face. Even though his face might have betrayed his age, his body did not. His hands were perfectly still, trained over years to use the precision tools needed for hand-crafting pokeballs.
He was a master in his profession. His verdict was final and devastating.
Deep down, both Leon and I knew that this would come. I hadn’t allowed myself to hope, and he needed to hope to get by. But that merciful state had now ended.
After Leon had fallen quiet, I kept on asking. It didn’t matter what questions. What mattered was that they kept the silence at bay.
Kurt answered every one of my nonsense questions the best he could. The baby was now crying. The kettle was steaming. There were a lot of sounds. But it was still silent in a way. So silent that I heard Leon pick up every single one of his pokeballs. Petrified, the stones made a cold, dull sound when they hit against each other.
The pillow he was sitting on gave a rustling sound when he got up. His steps creaked on the straw mat. But it was still silent.
When the sliding door fell shut in its frame and the curtains over it sunk back into place, the sounds returned. A young mother now put the kettle off the stove, her crying baby on one arm. She scolded her father for leaving all the work for her. The busy sounds of plates and cups being moved around in the kitchen.
“You should go,” said Kurt.
I flinched, even though I knew he was right. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath before I got up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as I was almost through the door. His words were nearly enough to make me stop, enjoy the sound inside the house for one more moment. I turned around, bowed, thanked him, and said our goodbyes.
The sound of wood on wood as I pulled the door shut behind me still lingered in my ears when I stepped outside into the snow.
Next to me, only an arm-length away, stood Leon, unmoving.
I reached out, gently touching his arm. As if struck with electricity, Leon flinched and jumped half a step back. His eyes betrayed him. He was completely lost. Lost in time and in space; he was in limbo.
* * *
October 20th 1993, 4:00pm.
The morning’s light snowfall had steadily grown and by now, a thin but solid layer of snow covered the ground. I pulled my jacket tighter around me as I left the pharmacy and made my way down to the town’s square again. Lucy’s light summer jacket couldn’t do much against the cold. I switched the package from one hand to the other, alternating which one got to enjoy the relative warmth of my pocket.
My breath became visible in the cold, forming a cloud in front of me that blurred the view over the village.
Calling Azalea a town was already generous. And even though I was certain that there wasn’t another timeshift involved, I could have sworn we had gone back by another 80 years.
The place comprised little more than a handful of historic farmyards crammed between two mountain sides. The shingle-covered wooden houses were dark and gloomy, almost invisible against the ever-present Ilex forest that surrounded the town. Stacks of firewood acted as second walls around every building, and if there was no more wall available, it was stacked into curious round piles. Traditional tools and vehicles were crammed in sheds. Tools that I couldn’t even imagine the use for. The 50-year-old blue tractor was the only thing I could identify.
And still — not everything here was stuck in the past. Modern life had made its way even to this remote place. A dubious wiring system connected the major houses with a little shack further into the forest, where a lonely generator produced the little electricity the town had. On some roofs, antennae were fastened to provide contact to the outside world. The Pokemon Center had a telly and a modern payphone. The only shop in town even carried Furret’s favourite flavour of cherry drops and my apricorn ice-tea. I had spent way more time than necessary studying the contents of the icebox and two different daily newspapers.
Browsing that shop, I knew we hadn’t gone back in time again. But even there I couldn’t shake this nostalgic feeling that I wasn’t supposed to have. People were living here. This was not some sort of museum. Were it the dark, wooden, handmade shelves? Or how they used old newspaper pages to protect those shelves against scratches? Whatever it was, being stuck in time was the last thing I needed. I sincerely wished for today to pass as fast as possible.
I switched my hands again, leaving the right one to freeze now.
I had left Leon to his own devices. Mostly because I didn’t know what to say or to do. But when he hadn’t shown up for dinner, I grew restless. Still, the small walk from the Pokemon Center to the collier’s house, where we were actually staying, had been too terrifying. Well, rather what awaited me at the end. Instead, I did what I should have done yesterday and called Morty.
After the call, I wasn’t any wiser. Grief was difficult. Everybody grieved differently. Patience was the key. I had known all of that already. But hearing Morty say these things felt comforting; way more than back at the family counselling. And I promised myself to take them to heart.
Leon needed somebody to be there for him right now. There were people out there that were better suited, sure, but none of them were here at the moment. And I wanted to be there for him. Not even because I felt obligated. He was Hop’s brother, but—
No matter why, I had no clue about how I should even go about doing this. But I had Morty’s reassurance that he would be with the both of us, only a phone-call away. And that was enough to give me at least a glimmer of confidence.
I clutched the package tighter, causing its content to rattle.
The collier’s home was at the side of the other mountain that made up this valley. When I reached the doorstep, my breath formed thick clouds. I took a moment to recuperate again before I entered.
“Hello?” No answer when I opened the door. I left my boots at the step and slipped into some house-shoes. The building was still dead quiet when I put my jacket next to the open fire in the middle of the room. Seemed like Mr Kon was at work. He did the same thing I did — avoiding the house that had become consumed by sorrow.
“Leon?” Still no answer. I climbed up the ladder that led to a small attic tucked under one gable of the high, bare roof. A sliding door separated our makeshift sleeping quarters from the rest of the house. I placed my hand on it and counted to ten.
“Leon.” My voice was drowned out under the harsh sound of the wooden door moving in its rails, yet there was still no answer. The body under the blanket was unmoving.
Leon laid on his mattress, his back turned to me. From his strained, low, regular breaths, I could tell he was asleep. I pulled myself into the small room and crawled over to him. It was hard to discern underneath the mess that his hair was, but his eyes were still reddened from crying himself to sleep.
Grateful that he had at least found some escape, I reached over him and placed the small box so he would see it as soon as he woke up. When I pulled my hand back, it struck a tiny piece of paper. Leon was holding a trainer card. I gently nudged it out of his grasp.
The card was his 2018 off-season promo shot. It showed Galar’s Champion with his trademark confidence posing together with Charizard. The picture was light-hearted; Charizard perched on Leon’s back and shoulders while he casually stemmed his weight. Both seemed to have genuine fun with the shooting.
Comparing this picture of the Champion to the heap under the blanket next to me hurt on a physical level. I watched the myriad of purple strands spilling over the mattress when I realised something. He was no longer only Hop’s brother. He was my friend.
I put the card next to the box, so Leon could find it when he woke up but wouldn’t crumple it in his sleep. Then I crawled over to the backpack, fishing out the essentials I’d need for one night. We were supposed to share this room, since the Pokemon Center’s guest rooms were undergoing renovation work. But there was no way I’d stay here. The Center had a nice enough looking couch in the lobby after all.
Leon groaned faintly in his sleep, pressing his head into the pillow and tucking his legs closer to his chest.
I remembered how hard everything felt after Mum and I had moved to Postwick. When the work of packing and unpacking was done, there was nothing that I could have kept myself busy with any longer. And so I spent all my days in bed. Back then, getting up was about the hardest thing to do. And reading a package insert would have been completely out of the realm of possibilities.
I found the ink marker we had most likely stolen from one of the hostels between Cherrygrove and Violet deep within the backpack. For a moment I had to gather myself, recalling the Galarian script before I sat the pen down. In big, black letters I wrote ‘2 pills/dose, max. 6 pills/day’ over the ink-picture of haver and valerian before setting the package down again in its place.
Leon grew restless, and I didn’t want to jeopardise his sleep any further. I grabbed my stuff, slid the door back shut as silently as possible and climbed back down the ladder.
My jacket hadn’t dried during the short time I was in the house, but whatever warmth it held was immediately wiped away by the snow outside. It had again worsened.
«Grieving takes time.» Morty’s voice sounded in my head while the snow melting on my shoulders drenched my jacket and shirt. I prayed to god it wouldn’t take too long.
* * *
October 23rd 1993, 10:00am.
The cheerful chatter of Station 5’s morning show filled the silence in the lobby. I looked between the two bowls of rice on the table, one full and one empty.
“Come on, at least give it a try.” My words were followed by a groan and a weak shrug.
Across the table, Leon had put his head on his arms and looked like he was about to fall asleep again. On his wrist, the stripe of paler skin showed where his Dynamax Band used to be. But he had managed to get out of bed, take a shower and show up for breakfast, albeit late, and I was proud of him. Only if I told him that, he’d feel even more miserable.
Sara, this town’s Nurse Joy, came over and I gave her an apologetic look before she could get too close. I knew breakfast had already ended half an hour ago, and she wanted to get the dishes done, but I had to buy us a little more time.
I nudged the full bowl closer to Leon, creating an unpleasant scraping sound when the ceramic slid across the wooden table. He flinched, but finally got up. It looked as though he had to stem a mountain just to get on his elbows.
Next to me, Furret perked up. She had wrapped her long body around my waist and now looked over the edge of the table, worried. I patted her head. Leon’s reaction to being touched had got so bad over the last days that even Furret now preferred my side of the table.
I listened to the radio while I watched him eat at a snail’s pace. The hosts finished up their show and said their goodbyes, followed by another ad for the Goldenrod shopping mall. It was time for the news, anyway.
“Due to early, unexpected and heavy snowfall around Azalea Town, the blizzard warning is still in effect for the southern Johto region. The government firmly discourages any travel to and from the area. Contact the park rangers of Ilex and Union-Seaside National Park for further information.”
The news went on. Something about the highly anticipated premiere of a new movie. It wasn’t important.
I sighed. Leon put down his spoon. He stared blankly at the table, and I couldn’t blame him.
The movie was about a girl moving from Saffron to a small town in Johto. Something about making friends and getting accustomed to life in the countryside.
A gust of wind rattled the wooden windows and blew chills down my spine. Behind me, Hoppip sighed. It was a welcome distraction. The little dandelion sat in her flowerpot on the windowsill, like she had done yesterday and the day before. Seemed she was going through some kind of funk, too.
Outside, the breeze picked up a flock of Jumpluffs. The group took to the skies in a coordinated effort and got caught by the wind. Surprised and happy squeals accompanied them as they were carried away by the gusts. I didn’t know they were a migratory species, but I couldn’t blame grass type pokemon for leaving the area.
I tugged one of Hoppip’s limp leaves to cheer her up a little. I, too, envied her cousins. They could escape. We were stuck here.
The harsh sound of ceramic on wood made me turn back around. Leon was now actively fighting gravity to stay upright. My experience told me he would most likely be in bed for the rest of the day. If he even conjured up the strength to get there.
“Hey,” I said, and though he barely reacted, I knew he had heard me. “You don’t have to get anything done today, but please promise me you’ll call Morty, okay?”
A long pause. “Do I need to talk?”
“No.”
Another long pause, then Leon nodded and put his head back down on his crossed arms. I picked up the half-eaten breakfast and carried it over to the kitchen, finally starting my day.
* * *
November 3rd 1993, 9:00pm.
The device swallowed the cassette, and soon after, reels started spinning. The telly sprung into action with a faint, high-pitched noise. Rotom would have been amazed.
I studied Kon’s every move while he loaded the movie. He regarded me with a grandfatherly smile that looked out of place on his youthful face before he got up and went over to the couch. I was a great ambassador for Galar right now, staring at this contemporary piece of media equipment like I had lived under a rock my entire life. When the first title-card rolled across the screen, I too got up and sprinted back to the sofa.
Icy winds battered the collier’s house, but we had more than enough blankets to keep ourselves warm. It was even kind of cosy, with the open fire cracking behind us and Furret neatly curled around my feet.
I peeked over to the other side of the couch where Leon was battling with a quilt, trying to figure out how to unfold the thing.
Today was a good day. Leon had spent the entire morning and afternoon with Kon’s family and their Farfetch’d in Ilex Forest, cutting down trees and transporting the wood back to town. Things moved forward. And not even the quilt stood a chance in the long run.
Now he was sitting at his end of the couch, knees tucked to his chest, focused on the movie.
It was an older movie from the same studio that had released the one about the girl moving from Saffron to Johto. Funnily enough, this one was also about a woman from Saffron, holidaying in Sinnoh and working as a farmhand during the summer. It was a slow, but gorgeous movie, and even though it took place during the summer, almost nothing happened. Well, a bit more than in Azalea during the winter, I had to admit. Kon at least seemed to share my sentiment and soon fell asleep.
I picked up my knitting project and got comfortable.
One and a half hours later and I was gripped. There had been a slow romance building, but now the holidays ended and it looked like the woman would return to Saffron as if nothing happened.
Something tugged on my hand. Oh, right, I had completely forgotten about my knitting project. It laid in my lap, still with barely any progress to show for. I wriggled my pinkie in response to the yarn being pulled. There was no way I could take my eyes off the screen now.
The tugging continued after a short break, this time with more force, until I finally relented. I followed the yarn to the source of the distraction. Leon had the ball of wool in his lap and had thoroughly unravelled it from the other end.
When he realised he had got the attention he wanted, he stopped tugging and looked up. Even though it would take me half an eternity to get the yarn rolled up again, I couldn’t be angry with him. A smile came across my lips and ever so faintly, Leon returned it.
* * *
November 11th 1993, 2:00pm.
“Remember, the yellow carbon-copies, too.” A tired grumble was the only response I got. But at least he turned back and filed the page in question away.
I couldn’t blame him. Sorting through fifty years’ worth of accounting records was one of the least exciting things to do. I roughly knew what we were doing here and why, but it was way too pointless to even remember. All that mattered was that it was my task for today. And for tomorrow. And the day after that too.
Our funds were running low, and since we weren’t on the move any longer, we also couldn’t rely on charity— How on earth did I end up having to calculate the benevolence and pity of strangers against my lifestyle costs?
I let my eyes wander up and down the shelves in this narrow archive. They were filled to the brim and beyond with folders, reaching back to the 1930s. I understood the need to get rid of most of those files and only keep the necessary ones. If only said files weren’t evenly dispersed among all those folders. But I’d rather sort through the archives of the entire secret service than have to beg for a room.
My wandering gaze got stuck on Leon. He had lost weight. It was hard to tell under the borrowed clothes, but it was mainly muscle mass. Which was worrying, seeing how he spent every day with Kon in Ilex forest, harvesting. That was, if he got out of bed. Today was not one of those days.
I turned my attention back to the folder on my lap. Yellow pages for the monthly statements and then the blue-lined ones for the annual balance were to be filed away. All the other receipts and schedules stayed, waiting to be recycled as kindle.
Next to me again the hasty sound of pages being turned backwards, followed by the binder snapping open and close.
Going into 1956, I repeated the by now routine process of sorting and putting aside. When I filed the March statement away, I noticed Leon again skipping one of the yellow pages. I sighed internally and made a mental note to go over his folders once more after dark.
Then the sound of flipping pages stopped.
With a terrifying force, the binder crashed against the wall, sending pages flying all over the cramped space. Leon buried his face in his hands and let out an agonised, almost animalistic groan.
Within one heartbeat I was up and made my way back to the hatch, sliding my hand along the wall and never turning my back towards him. He still tried in vain to muffle his screams of frustration when I reached the door and slipped out of the room.
Relieved to have at least a few wooden planks between me and that outburst of anger, I pressed my hand over my mouth and nose, consciously slowing down my breathing.
«He’s not mad at you,» I tried to tell myself. But, if I’d be honest, I knew I couldn’t tell any longer.
This was not the first time something had caught his ire. We even had had some fun afterwards, searching all the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle that he wiped clean off the table when he couldn’t find a single piece. Or stacking that woodpile back up after he had knocked it over for being an objective mess. But so far, he always had the decency to warn me beforehand.
Now I pressed my eyes shut while I listened to his groans turning into quiet sobs.
Maybe it was my fault. Just like with the jigsaw puzzle, forcing Leon to sit down and organise something was a horrible idea. We had only solved the puzzle when he could finally dart around the room to pick up the scattered pieces while I put them together. But try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything better for him to do here. And having him around me was still preferable over leaving him to his own devices the entire day.
My grip around the door-handle had become so tight, my knuckles hurt. It was a trick from one of these parenting shows on telly; I realised. When their attachment figure was out of the room, all the kids needed to do was to feel the resistance on the handle to know that they were still there. A chuckle escaped me when I thought of those toddlers and their temper tantrums. But here, no soothing counter-pressure from the other side of the door would come to ease my anxiety.
The slight laughter had got stuck in my throat, and before I knew it, I was coughing almost uncontrollably.
«Darn, Hana, you almost had it!»
I held my breath again until I was sure that the other side of the door had fallen quiet, then I made my way to the kitchen.
“Hanako, child, what’s the matter?” Sara sounded alarmed, but I waved her off and reached for a glass of water.
A few gulps and even more coughs later, and I had my lungs back under control. The exhaustion had forced tears into my eyes and I wiped them away while I withdrew myself from Sara’s worried pats on the back. No, I couldn’t allow myself a panic attack. Not here. Not now.
A few minutes later, I pressed my forehead against the archive’s door and counted to ten. There were no sounds on the other side.
The door creaked when I pushed it open. Light from outside flooded into the room, but it soon got lost in the gloomy darkness. What remained of the binder was still a mess on the floor. In the dim light of the old lightbulb, it took me a while to even spot Leon.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was weak. It was coming from the back corner, where he had curled himself up into a ball.
“It’s okay,” I said in a soft tone and stepped over the papers. I couldn’t comprehend how Leon could look so… small. At least there were no visible injuries, which was a step up from the incident with the woodpile.
“Hey. Should we take a walk?” He shook his head. I knelt down next to him. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could tell from his shaking breath that he was still crying.
A slight snivel. “Hannah, you got to promise me something.”
“Hm?”
Leon still didn’t move out of his curl. From underneath those purple locks came a voice strained from desperation and exhaustion. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
Oh no.
In my stomach, a weight had suddenly materialised and pulled me down while I tried to process these words. When the load became too much to bear, I found myself sitting down. That way, I didn’t need to worry about staying upright.
Before I could hold them back, my thoughts had formed into a whisper. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Please please please please.”
I had begged for the exact same thing before. Had done everything in my might to make it happen. And yet, at the end of the day, a simple promise hadn’t been enough to make them stay.
“No,” I finally got out. “I can’t. Nobody can.”
A single short cry shook Leon’s shoulders, and he pressed his head harder against his forearms.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. His cries had now ebbed out into silent sobs again.
This time I had no excuse. I forced myself to reach out, even if it was the hardest thing I had ever done. When I touched his hand, Leon flinched, but for the first time in almost a month, he didn’t pull back. Instead, he reciprocated my touch.
Maybe I should give him this empty promise. If only to calm him down. To make the pain stop. But this was only running out the clock.
Being left behind was the ugliest feeling in the world. It would pull the floor out from under you so slowly, you didn’t even realise you were walking on air until the vast forlornness underneath you became visible. It was either this or knowing how truly alone you were.
But seeing Leon right now, I wasn’t sure which one was preferable any more.
His grasp was so firm under the waves of shivers, it almost hurt. And that was good. If he wouldn’t be squeezing my hand, it would shake uncontrollably.
«I’m so sorry.»
* * *
November 19th 1993, 9:00pm.
Things had got a lot easier — and cheaper — since I’d acquired that flat-rate card for the payphone. Even Sara had realised that I needed this bit of contact with the outside world to stay sane. And so I transcribed two years worth of medical records into neat reports, ready to be handed over to the state insurance agency. Turned out, touch typing wasn’t a common skill in 1993 and I truly rocked the typewriter.
“You must be really tired. Are you even listening?”
I sprung back into reality. “Oh lord. Of course! Sorry.” I realised I didn’t remember a single thing he said in the past — what? — minute?
“And I thought you were actually interested in the property damage caused by a Litwick with a paper lantern. You know, judging by that vacant expression and all.” Morty’s voice was seeping with sarcasm.
I missed the Litwicks? Oh, no! I loved his tales about the newly adopted gang of sentient candles and the trouble they caused.
My head sunk down out of view of the camera. “I’m sorry.”
On the other side, Morty stayed quiet. He was a godsend. And he had held true to his promise to be only one phone-call away at any given time. Without him, I would have most likely gone up all available walls in this miniscule village by now. But my batteries were at an all-time low and still needed some time to recharge.
“How was your week?” His voice was at least enough to make me look up. He was unreadable as ever, but if I had to attribute any emotion to that half-sided smile, it would be compassion. The receiver rustled as he took a calming breath.
“How was the Children’s Festival?” Morty tried another approach.
I had been daydreaming again.
I rubbed the ridge of my nose, trying to get at least some blood flowing to my brain. “It was… something. I ended up going with Kurt’s family. Which was nice, considering they had to handle a three-year-old and a baby. So, we went to the Slowpoke Well — the jinja? — for the blessing?”
The mention of the correct term brought a smile to Morty’s face, and in return to mine. He had made it his mission to make me learn at least one new word per week. It was an acceptable price, seeing how I leeched off his knowledge on culture and tradition whenever something unfamiliar came up.
“I think Kurt had to explain every step there twice. Right hand, left hand, mouth, hand, ladle? Why is this so complicated?” Though I was used to choreographies, I did not expect them in a simple small town tradition.
“Almost. And that’s what you call complicated? Oh, Hana, do I have some surprises in store for you.” Morty’s laugh was both adorable and frightening. “Did you meet Sage Towa?”
“Only from afar. She didn’t seem too inviting. Why do you ask?”
“Just because.” Morty began to rock back and forth with his chair. “Yeah, Towa can be quite difficult. If I’m correct, she still lives in her hut in the woods. But didn’t you stay for dinner with Kurt? He usually invites her as well.”
I shook my head. Well, they did invite me. But after he stood me up earlier that day, Leon decided to crawl out of bed around dinner-time. Sadly, Kurt’s invitation did not extend to him. Which was fair — handling the emotional states of small children was already taxing enough if they were your own kids. And so the two of us spent a slow afternoon sorting through more folders in the archive.
“No, we—” I was cut short by the Center’s front door being flung open, letting in an icy breeze.
“Hey, Hannah! Wanna go—” Leon blew in with the same energy as the snowstorm outside, but stopped dead in his tracks once he saw me.
“Hey.” It took me a moment to process that sudden rush of vigour. “I’m on the phone. Do you want to join in?”
Leon’s entire posture straightened up, and within one second, the smile was gone. “No, thanks.” With that, he turned around and left as quickly as he came.
For a moment I stared at the now closed door until a sigh from the other end of the line made me turn back around. Morty rubbed his temples with his free hand.
“What did I do wrong this time?” I groaned into the silence, burying my face in my hand.
“We are making progress.” Morty emphasised every single word, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed the reassurance as much as I did.
I looked up again. Turned out that nothing got me quite as awake as Leon acting up. “No really, can you tell me what’s wrong now?”
Morty gave me a long look through the shaky transmission and sighed. “He feels left out.”
“Left out? What about this is leaving him out?” I couldn’t hold my frustration down any longer.
Leon had this habit of demanding one-hundred per cent attention at any given time. This was nothing new. But this habit had become excruciating, especially now that he flip-flopped between this and completely withdrawing, and with no pattern or warning signs.
“See, sometimes it’s almost as if things are looking up,” I said after I had calmed down again. “Even for a few days at a time. And then…” I pointed over my shoulder to the door.
“Grieving is not a linear process.” Morty again studied me with empathy and the patience of a saint.
Whenever the two were talking, Leon seemed to make a few steps — not necessarily forward, but it was at least something. When he was with me, it was usually only mood-swings.
“Can’t you just come over?”
“Blizzard alert, Hana.” Of course. But I would work overtime until the dead of night so he could stay.
As an indicator to change the topic, I sighed and forced a weak smile. “How was your week? You seem to be a bit out of it, too.”
Morty had started rocking his chair again, and I noticed he looked paler than usual. Now he let himself fall forward and folded the cord into patterns while he got his thoughts in order. I watched him and this rare display of Morty being lost for words.
Finally, a long exhale. “I need your opinion. Earlier that week I’ve got a visit from Kanto’s League President. He’s busy setting up a Gym circuit over here too. Right now he’s looking for possible Gym locations and/or leaders. And for Ecruteak it’s between the Dance Theatre and me.”
I blinked a few times. Dad had told me that Johto got their Gym Circuit comparatively late — like everything else it seemed — but I didn’t know they were that late. Whatever the case, this was great news. Only that Morty didn’t make them sound the like.
“What do you think about that?” I asked him when he didn’t know how else to continue.
Morty’s focus snapped away from the display frame and onto me. “I asked for your opinion, not for mine.” I only shot him a long glare in response.
Sighing, he leaned back. “See, I’ve got both hands full already. I don’t know if I can run an entire Gym on the side on top of everything. However, the same applies for the lady over at the theatre. She is busy keeping the thing afloat anyway.” He was balancing his chair on the hind legs and had almost reached the end of the phone cord. “But it’s also an excellent chance for Ecruteak and I don’t want to be the one passing that up.”
“You’re really bad at saying ‘No’, are you?” Morty acknowledged my statement with a hum.
“Imagine how many visitors that would bring to the Towers. Many people have lost their connections to the old legends and traditions over the years, and Ecruteak forces you to engage with the past. Even if only a bit of knowledge and appreciation would stick…” By now he had leaned so far back that he needed to balance himself with one leg under the tabletop. “Also, League funding. But if I can’t deliver, because I’m stretching myself thin on both fronts, nobody will win in the end. Least of all the thing I want to bring across.”
A static rustle in the line pulled him out of his thoughts. Morty reached behind him and petted an invisible force, then floated back into a normal position. I watched as the by now familiar Gengar materialised on his trainer’s lap and demanded his share of attention. After a while, Morty sighed again.
“You did the Gym Challenge. What did it do for you?” he asked while still ruffling Gengar’s outer gas-layers.
I suppressed a chuckle. “Brought me here.” That stupid chuckle got its revenge quickly and in the form of a coughing fit. After a few sips of water, I had my voice back under control. Gengar was now invisible again, and Morty looked at me quizzically, forcing me to become serious.
“It did get me to leave my shell, for sure. And all those things about the Darkest Day… We learn about it in school, yes, but I only ever got interested when we got to… interact with it. Not that I wanted to see a live Eternatus, but still… Those relics and statues feel different when you stand in front of them.” Morty hummed, and I looked over to him. “Wait, you didn’t go on a Gym Challenge?”
“When would I have crammed that in?” He gave the thought a dismissive, half-sided smile. “Anyway, thanks. I guess I’ll give it a few more nights of sleep.” He combed through his bleached blonde hair, and I could see his black roots coming through.
“Oh, by the way; Azalea is also on the list of possible Gym locations. So you’ll get at least one visitor soon. If any one guy ignores weather alerts, it’s Lance.”
“Lance?” That name stirred something in my memory.
“Yeah. Do you know him?” Now Morty’s interest was piqued again.
I shrugged. “Not really. I believe he and Leon met in last year’s international qualifiers. Or was it one of those exhibition matches?”
“Dragon-Clan Lance? Complete with cape and everything?”
“Yeah, I think.” I vaguely remembered watching the match with Hop. There were capes involved. And dragons. “Don’t look at me like this. I know next to nothing about the international League scene. And even so, I don’t think telling you would be a good idea.”
Morty was close to dying from curiosity, but bit his lip in a valiant effort to not ask further.
The sudden realisation of how dangerous we still were hit me out of nowhere. I hadn’t even thought about 2019 recently. Being in this tiny village, my world had shrunken down to fit its size. But Leon had an almost photographic memory for the League’s rankings, both national and international. Knowing if Morty would pick up this position or not was as easy as going over next door and asking Leon what his rank was.
But now the 2019 thoughts hit all at once. It was November now. Time to get to know the new plays we would practise for next year’s summer performances. If I were still doing ballet. But that was long over. Now I had my life in Postwick.
I wondered what Hop was doing. Probably re-watching Leon’s old matches or playing with Dubwool in the muddy November weather.
“Hana.” This would differ from before, though. Leon had never been in his life much, but Hop could always watch him on screen. This ever-present shadow of a big brother. Now, I could only assume that both of us were missing. And knowing Hop, that would devastate him. I wondered if he thought of me from time to time, too.
But what if Eternatus stayed behind? What if there was no muddy November weather any more, only darkness?
“Hana, stay with me.” A soft cooing sound made me look up, and I realised that there were tears in the corners of my eyes. “What’s up?”
I let my head again sink down onto my arms. The sleeves of my pullover muffled my voice. “Morty, I want to go home.”
There was still a chance that there wasn’t complete darkness at home. Here, on the other hand, it had already dug its claws in deep.
The voice on the other side was empathic again, gone were all the teasing or questions from before. “Things will get better again, I can promise you that. Grieving is a long and difficult process, and even though it seems like there’s no light on the horizon, things will eventually look up.”
My head still in my arms, I let the sound of his voice fade out in the walled off privacy of the phone booth. “But this is not about Leon!”
“I know. And that’s why I’m telling you this. Leon has lost his pokemon and his only constant to his life. That’s pretty straightforward. But you lost your friend along the way, maybe even more. And that is just as valid as Leon’s mourning.”
I looked up. Whenever we were talking, it had been light-hearted. He had never mentioned anything like this around me.
Seeing the look of confusion on my face, Morty smiled. “Take it from one with a lot of experience in the field.”
Relieved to feel the tears had gone away, I slowly shook my head. “But… You said Leon will get better. Just like the weather alert. So all I have to do is to keep going for a little longer, right?”
«Please, please say yes.»
Morty sighed. “He will. But he’ll never be the same again.” I buried my face in my free hand while pressing the receiver as close to my ear as possible. “And neither will you. But it will get better. The sooner you’ll accept this, the easier it is.”
I exhaled one deep, shaky breath. This couldn’t be true. This mustn’t be true.
“Now as for actually getting you home.” The calm empathy in Morty’s voice, albeit not completely gone, was now mixed in with a similarly steady spirit. “I could set something up for you, but— Hana, I’ll have to ask you something.”
I hummed a weak permission into the palm of my hand.
“Have you thought about what you want to do once the winter is over?”
I didn’t even muster up the strength to look at him, even though right now, the reassurance I’d find in those grey eyes would mean the world to me. Because that question, benign as it might sound, hurt more than anything he’d said in the last ten minutes.
My mind was empty. There was — nothing. Only the finish line once the national parks were passable again and we could escape this prison. I had no clue what to do after that. I didn’t even know where to escape to. Or what the next steps would be. I wanted to go home. But I had absolutely no plan.
I felt something wet run over my fingers while I slowly shook my head.
“That’s okay.” Silence. Only the static over the wire and me pressing back those tears. “You’ve got bigger things to worry about at the moment. Don’t accuse yourself of anything.”
That was so much easier said than done. But the last month had been a remarkable exercise in holding back tears. I wound the conversation back in my head and finally looked up again.
“What do you mean you could set something up?” There was only a slight snivel on my breath.
“Never mind.” His gentle expression was impervious to any further inquiries, and to be honest, I lacked the strength to.
Whatever it was, Morty was probably right, in that I did have bigger things to worry about right now. Surviving was one of them. Though even that seemed fleeting in the face of drifting around, aimless and lost.
“Hey.” Once again, his voice pulled me out of it. “Do you want me to talk you through this?”
I shook my head with all the conviction I could muster up. Even what he did right now had opened more gates than I could close. For Morty, dealing with our issues might be easy. But I needed my mental fortitude. In under ten hours, I would have to face Leon again, and I needed to function.
Maybe we had both been in denial. Leon about his pokemon’s death and I about being able to handle the situation.
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Hey Bluesidra! Here for Catnip, I read the first chapter and the very brief second one. I knew the basic premise of the fic going in, but what I don't know, unfortunately, is the plot of Sword/Shield, so some things left me confused that probably won't confuse your target audience. That said, diving in!
Time travel is always a fun plot hook. Taking two people defined by their skill at pokemon battling and putting them in a situation where they're going to have to manage without that seems like a great recipe for characters to be tested and grow. It also makes for the interesting question of what skills a master trainer has, without their powerful team. The answer seems to be: not many. Leon is directionally challenged and can't keep a cool head. Hana doesn't seem to have much ability to develop a rapport with pokemon. The dismissive way she approached the sentret, an unknown pokemon, seemed a bit careless to me and not the kind of attitude that would make someone an effective trainer. I got more of that sense of skill from Leon's interaction with the sentret--realizing it wanted candy and acting on that.
I like that we're picking up where the story starts, though that does mean I'm missing some of the pieces re what was going down before Hana and Leon were yeeted into time. Again, take this with a grain of salt since I don't have all the game context, but I wasn't sure why Hana was so fixated on getting back to Hop in particular. Was he in some sort of danger when she left him? Leon seems more concerned about the situation in general (which I was kind of hazy on as well, rip), and doesn't mention Hop. I think it says they're brothers, so it seemed like if Hop was majorly involved Leon would care as well.
I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the dynamic between Leon and Hana. She seems exasperated with him a fair amount of the time. It's not the reaction I'd expect between an aspiring challenger and current champion, but if she's friends with his brother, perhaps she has much less room for hero-worship or rivalry. She only goes looking for him based on some sort of consideration for Hop, which seemed odd to me, just on a basic human level. If you're swallowed by the void with someone and spat out in the middle of nowhere, looking for that person seems to be the thing to do. Although the first chapter involves a lot of pain and stress, Hana's POV felt a bit detached to me. Giving more concrete and sensory details would help flesh out a sense of environment and the impact of what Hana's going through on her. I think what I was missing most in this chapter was the sense of stakes for Hana--what motivates her.
The stakes are a lot clearer for Leon, since his pokemon's lives are on the line. I noticed the AN puts his age at 20--he read more like a teen to me between the bouncing around and the sudden temper tantrum, though his stress is understandable considering the whole 'petrified' pokeball thing, which is pretty horrifying. Like being entombed still alive. The petrification raises some scary questions off the bat: can the pokemon survive this? Are they trapped, already dead, or dying? I imagine we'll be learning more about the mechanics of pokeballs as Leon seeks to get this reversed. I wasn't sure to what extent it's a plot device to get rid of their pokemon and to what extent there's an in-world explanation for why traveling through whatever they travelled through would cause pokeballs to become encrusted with a stone-like substance. I kind of wonder if there isn't a simpler but equally horrifying solution that the journey through the void messed with the pokeball's internal mechanisms such that they just won't open.
Re chapter two, I liked the move to give us an outsider POV on Hana and the situation left behind. It did feel quite brief, though. I would have personally liked to get a sense of the devastation that's going on there--that would underscore why Leon is so desperate to return and make the world they left behind feel more real. It's interesting you chose a stranger POV to discuss Hana's disappearance, rather than someone close to her like Hop.
Hope this was able to be somewhat useful despite my lack of game knowledge! I'm sure I'll be able to say more in future chapters--Hana and Leon may be fish out of water in the Johto of years past, but they've landed right in my fanfic backyard.
(Obligatory fic rec: if you're into being thrown around in time in Johto, you might like Spring! It's the opposite situation--about a girl thrown forward in time and the boy she meets and travels with.)
Time travel is always a fun plot hook. Taking two people defined by their skill at pokemon battling and putting them in a situation where they're going to have to manage without that seems like a great recipe for characters to be tested and grow. It also makes for the interesting question of what skills a master trainer has, without their powerful team. The answer seems to be: not many. Leon is directionally challenged and can't keep a cool head. Hana doesn't seem to have much ability to develop a rapport with pokemon. The dismissive way she approached the sentret, an unknown pokemon, seemed a bit careless to me and not the kind of attitude that would make someone an effective trainer. I got more of that sense of skill from Leon's interaction with the sentret--realizing it wanted candy and acting on that.
I like that we're picking up where the story starts, though that does mean I'm missing some of the pieces re what was going down before Hana and Leon were yeeted into time. Again, take this with a grain of salt since I don't have all the game context, but I wasn't sure why Hana was so fixated on getting back to Hop in particular. Was he in some sort of danger when she left him? Leon seems more concerned about the situation in general (which I was kind of hazy on as well, rip), and doesn't mention Hop. I think it says they're brothers, so it seemed like if Hop was majorly involved Leon would care as well.
I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the dynamic between Leon and Hana. She seems exasperated with him a fair amount of the time. It's not the reaction I'd expect between an aspiring challenger and current champion, but if she's friends with his brother, perhaps she has much less room for hero-worship or rivalry. She only goes looking for him based on some sort of consideration for Hop, which seemed odd to me, just on a basic human level. If you're swallowed by the void with someone and spat out in the middle of nowhere, looking for that person seems to be the thing to do. Although the first chapter involves a lot of pain and stress, Hana's POV felt a bit detached to me. Giving more concrete and sensory details would help flesh out a sense of environment and the impact of what Hana's going through on her. I think what I was missing most in this chapter was the sense of stakes for Hana--what motivates her.
The stakes are a lot clearer for Leon, since his pokemon's lives are on the line. I noticed the AN puts his age at 20--he read more like a teen to me between the bouncing around and the sudden temper tantrum, though his stress is understandable considering the whole 'petrified' pokeball thing, which is pretty horrifying. Like being entombed still alive. The petrification raises some scary questions off the bat: can the pokemon survive this? Are they trapped, already dead, or dying? I imagine we'll be learning more about the mechanics of pokeballs as Leon seeks to get this reversed. I wasn't sure to what extent it's a plot device to get rid of their pokemon and to what extent there's an in-world explanation for why traveling through whatever they travelled through would cause pokeballs to become encrusted with a stone-like substance. I kind of wonder if there isn't a simpler but equally horrifying solution that the journey through the void messed with the pokeball's internal mechanisms such that they just won't open.
Re chapter two, I liked the move to give us an outsider POV on Hana and the situation left behind. It did feel quite brief, though. I would have personally liked to get a sense of the devastation that's going on there--that would underscore why Leon is so desperate to return and make the world they left behind feel more real. It's interesting you chose a stranger POV to discuss Hana's disappearance, rather than someone close to her like Hop.
Hope this was able to be somewhat useful despite my lack of game knowledge! I'm sure I'll be able to say more in future chapters--Hana and Leon may be fish out of water in the Johto of years past, but they've landed right in my fanfic backyard.
Quick point before getting into these--the title doesn't seem to be properly capitalized on the forum. Should be '26 Years Ago.'
Ex, The rain had turned the moss into slippery sponges and the canopy of trees into a torn umbrella. I shivered as another burst of cold rain hit my back . . .
As he struggled to unfold the bulky cap with one hand,
Feels like there's a bit of a contradiction in this paragraph, where first it implies that without pokemon they're powerless, but subsequently we see that the pokemon isn't a threat to her, even as a regular person. The wording of "refused to show [] respect" is also odd to me--based on the next sentence, it seems like the sentiment is less her refusing to show respect and more that with all her experience, she doesn't feel fear in this situation. It might be nice to have that backed up with something she's learned about wild pokemon behavior--some concrete reason she knows now that the pokemon isn't a threat that she didn't know then. (Cutting the other way, I feel like an experienced trainer would have learned to be wary of the temperment and abilities of unknown pokemon and not take for granted that a furball is harmless.)
Wasn't entirely sure what the second clause is saying. The sun drew the rainbow across [? - firmament refers to earth] with feathers.
Chapter Two:
Bit of a parallelism issue here. The last action we get is 'devoured' and that's what "And so did I" seems to be referring to, rather than "raced upward."
We get the effect of gravity on sound and light here, but I'm not as sure what Hana herself is feeling. Her body screams when the force reverses, but being under tenfold gravity seems like it would have physical effects--feeling very heavy, compressed, etc?
This is 100% down to my lack of familiarity with the storyline, but even on reread I couldn't figure out why her first thought is Hop? It sounded from the rest of the chapter like he was somewhere else while this was happening?
Later neither Hana nor Leon appear to recognize what kind of pokemon this?
Saying "coppery taste" here instead of blood was a little confusing with how the rest of the sentence is worded. Blood wouldn't be a coppery taste until she tastes it, but this makes it sounds like the blood is already a coppery taste when it starts to spread from somewhere between her tongue and nose.
I had to google what haulms are! From what I got, they seem to be a pretty specific term for the stalks of potatos or peas. From the rest of the chapter, it seems like they've landed in some kind of forest, not cultivated rows of farmland, so I'm not sure how haulms come into it.
Specifying where she's feeling/felt the pain most strongly might make this more concrete.
I was a bit unsure of the season--this suggests summer, but there's mention of a chill in the air and Hana seems cold a lot, and there's rain.
The sequence here feels slightly out of order. It seems like by the time her brain is considering a destroyed city, it's already kicked in?
I tend to think of a head being dizzy, not eyes.
I noticed the narrative alternates between calling it a cape and coat--those evoke pretty different images to me. From the official pictures, I think cape is the more accurate of the two.
Small continuity point--before this her ribcage hasn't been specifically flagged as hurting, it's just been general pain.
This might be a good place for some sensory details--what texture is the cape, etc.
She seemed to have already had this moment of jolting to awareness of what's happened earlier.
Think the idiom you're going for here is "have my head"--"have me" on it's own doesn't really parse.
This was a bit of an odd train of reasoning!
I wasn't aware that she'd closed them?
Oh god, that's horrific. I tend to think of ghost types as being able to flit fairly freely between objects, but it seems like your take here has rotom as more material. Rotom's able to get out of the back side only once Hana pulls it off, and that side wasn't petrified--is Rotom normally unable to get out unless the device is disassembled? Perhaps rotom travel between objects based on the electricity or energy those items emit, and with that gone he's trapped? God, being trapped in a device that's slowly crusting over with an impenetrable substance is the stuff of nightmares.
Physicality of rotom is definitely weird to think about.
I didn't realize there was a track of flattened grass--the previous pararaph only mentioned the place where their bodies lay having been flattened.
Ominous section closer!
This interlude gave me slight video game vibes, where an NPC runs around and spouts off fixed comments without the player character being able to say much.
I didn't quite get this. What route? They're in the middle of a forest, right? How can she tell it's a route he hasn't tried?
This felt quite sudden and jarring. Describing his eyes as glinting 'dangerously' makes a lot of work lean on that adverb. This could be a moment to note a height difference between them, or other factors that create the feeling of danger.
Oh no!
His comment hear didn't follow for me--why does he think she wants to wait there? I also wasn't sure why she doesn't react when he starts to run off.
I love the torn umbrella metaphor! I think both of these are stronger if you cut the explanatory second clause. We can infer that under a torn umbrella one gets wet and that slippy moss makes it hard to keep your grip. It leaves a stronger descriptive impression when the reader makes the inference on their own.
Ex, The rain had turned the moss into slippery sponges and the canopy of trees into a torn umbrella. I shivered as another burst of cold rain hit my back . . .
I wasn't sure what she meant about finding him in the fissure--is that where he'd end if he slipped? I was having a bit of trouble picturing this--we have moss covered rocks leading uphill as well as giant roots (of what?) and a fissure between them.
It's probably also dampened down, losing its fluffiness or styling.
Glow and radiance are close to synonyms--I wasn't sure what to take away from his eyes having glow but not radiance. Maybe instead of radiance, some sort of emotive word like passion or life.
I think it would help here to describe what it looks like for his apathy to break/his energy come back. The 'after all' leading into exposition feels a little forced.
As he struggled to unfold the bulky cap with one hand,
'Blackmailing' threw me here. Is there a reason she'd be reluctant to sit next to him such that the 'blackmail' of the cape would be required?
Hm, is this meant to telegraph shipping?
I'm a bit unclear as to how the the cloak is keeping them fully dry, as it seems to be. Is it waterproof? Is it covering their heads as well?
Aw! I wonder what massages mean for an ectoplasm electric pokemon. They don't exactly have muscles to unknot.
This seems like the place a person would try (in vain) to speculate on what happened to the pokeball, whether the pokemon inside could be broken out . . .
I think this paragraph would hit more if Hana began to think about her pokemon specifically, rather than in the collective.
It would be nice to get a sense here of whether Hana actually believes this. Are these empty words, meant solely to reassure, or does she have a strong trust in experts to solve problems?
It's still raining at this point, right? Some sensory description of the water on her leggings might help keep the sense of environment.
This slightly slips into Leon's head. Something like "At my words, Leon's eyes became focused again" keeps it in Hana pov.
I think that's a typo for team?
After an ellipses you don't need any additional punctual like a comma!
I think it would be a little stronger here for us to actually hear the remark about the scarf, so we can get a sense of what normalcy sounds like for him.
I'm a little confused as to what she was looking at before, such that she couldn't see whether it was raining or not.
Earlier they're in a forest that seems undeveloped; now there's a path. It seems like the moment they hit something human-made would have been some cause for excitement.
Lol
Mentioned above, but earlier she seemed to identify it. Was it a misidentification? A sentence like "I thought it was a ---, but as I looked closer . . ." would make that clear.
That's an interesting take on what being a good trainer is. I tend to think that the best trainers get to that position because of the way they're able to interact with pokemon. It seems like a master trainer, even without a team, would still be quite good at understanding and handling wild pokemon.
Feels like there's a bit of a contradiction in this paragraph, where first it implies that without pokemon they're powerless, but subsequently we see that the pokemon isn't a threat to her, even as a regular person. The wording of "refused to show [] respect" is also odd to me--based on the next sentence, it seems like the sentiment is less her refusing to show respect and more that with all her experience, she doesn't feel fear in this situation. It might be nice to have that backed up with something she's learned about wild pokemon behavior--some concrete reason she knows now that the pokemon isn't a threat that she didn't know then. (Cutting the other way, I feel like an experienced trainer would have learned to be wary of the temperment and abilities of unknown pokemon and not take for granted that a furball is harmless.)
The sentence structure is a little unclear and cluttered here--is the head standing still or the pokemon itself?
Might be nice to get a concrete detail of what that looks like--bouncing more?
I'm a bit confused as to what these things are. I associate bon bons with chocolates--maybe that's a regional thing. 'Carbohydrates' seemed like an odd word choice here--is there a reason to say that over 'sugar'?
Wait, why's he upset? They've reached civilization! All they need to do now is follow the tracks. That's a much better bet than going back into a desolate forest.
Seeking shelter from a noise doesn't quite make sense for me--maybe the noise and impact threw them to the ground?
This was another moment where we seem to almost slip into Leon's head.
Suicune?
I think this is another moment where the lack of background is keeping this from landing for me. I don't have a sense of how long it's been since she smiled--how long they've been fighting Eternatus.
This line is a bit purple-prose (it itself, firmament) in ways that detract from its power. I think cutting would help--there's a lot of redundancy in the first clause. Ex, As I squinted my eyes to peek at it against the blinding light of the sun--> As I squinted against the sunlight . . .
Wasn't entirely sure what the second clause is saying. The sun drew the rainbow across [? - firmament refers to earth] with feathers.
Chapter Two:
This sentence feels like it wants a little more--how long did it take her to complete the gym challenge, for example?
Does she have time for that if she's prepping for a major challenge?
I wasn't sure what it meant for the pose to be "provoking"--provoking what? Provocative would be the more typical word to describe a pose, but that often has sexual overtones.
Dropping the "icy blue" would make this land better, I think--with those adjectives, it kind of feels like the point of the sentence is to sneak in more physical description.
(Obligatory fic rec: if you're into being thrown around in time in Johto, you might like Spring! It's the opposite situation--about a girl thrown forward in time and the boy she meets and travels with.)
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bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
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Hey Pen! Thanks for the thorough review! Your takes are very interesting. I'll take them to heart, though I don't know if I find the energy to implement them soon. Still, you tackle some points here that have been sitting in the back of my mind for quite some time now.
But then again, it probably ties back into people not knowing the plot of SwSh. Seems I really gotta do something about that.
Yes! I was so happy when I saw that we rolled each other's fics in the catnip! Couldn't have been a better fit, at least for me
And, oh god, me and sensory details. I'm awful with them
This is 99% authentic Leon-feeling from the games, and I love that you see it that way. His "character development" in SwSh is shown when he finally stays for the entirety of the cutscene to listen to it.
I've heard that before, but the SwSh plotline is by now so deeply ingrained in me, that I am not able any longer to put myself in the shoes of people who have zero experience with the game. From what I gather, you seem to need some more input on who we are dealing with here -- as in, what their "social standings" are in back at home in Galar. Though, I have no clue on how to bring that across, sadly... I'll think about it...
That is very very true. The fun thing is, that without Kint pointing it out months ago, I wouldn't have noticed that myself and so I decided to keep those vibes in the rewrite. I'm glad you picked up on it too. And I'm also glad that Leon comes across as more competent in this department. He gets a lot of flack in reviews for his admittedly immature behaviour, but I do not plan on changing that any time soon. Explaining it would take the fun away >:)
But then again, it probably ties back into people not knowing the plot of SwSh. Seems I really gotta do something about that.
Now you're asking the good question. Gotta figure that out myself still...
Yes! I was so happy when I saw that we rolled each other's fics in the catnip! Couldn't have been a better fit, at least for me
Oh, I'm so torn on this one... On the one hand, I wanted to convey everything you mentioned here about Hana, and it does fit right into my narrative with her, but it concerns me that you seem to have a kind of dissonance with her on a basic level?
And, oh god, me and sensory details. I'm awful with them
👀
Hah, good pointer! I'm not a native speaker, so when I look up words, I'm always unsure if they are commonly used or not. But I looked up those as well.
Ties in with the point before -- good to know, I always saw them as kind of overlapping.
This is 99% authentic Leon-feeling from the games, and I love that you see it that way. His "character development" in SwSh is shown when he finally stays for the entirety of the cutscene to listen to it.What styling?
No, but interesting that you take it as such
Interesting point! Again, another word where I'm not in on the exact use. The Carb-talk might come from my years with an ed, when you start looking at your food as a collection of proteins, carbs and fats. Kinda fits Hana, though.
Oh! Interesting! Always cool to see other people react totally different from what I do! Loud noises always make me cower on the ground in fear, and I kinda assumed all people do that, they are just less afraid than I am.
Yes! Provocative was the word I wanted! Though not with the sexual overtones...
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The review's certainly not going anywhere! Editing takes time and deliberation--I know for me it's often quite a while before I can figure out a way to implement feedback I get.
I can let you know where I was drawing blanks--I think the biggest one is that I don't know what the Darkest Day is. Some form of eclipse? Hana mentions the sky falling. Caused by Eternatus? I wasn't sure how Leon and Hana ended up in the situation they were in re getting swallowed by the void/light thing. I wasn't sure what was happening at Hammerlocke. I know Hop is there and Hana left her pokemon there with him--I'm not sure how she ends up being with Leon and Eternatus in the middle of a disaster without her pokemon there. The summary says she was about to have her championship match, further confusing me re the lack of pokemon. Leon says something is wrecking Hammerlocke and the way he says it implies it was still happening when they left Hammerlocke, though I didn't get that same sense of urgency from Hana--in her POV it felt more like a disaster that had already happened, that is, finished happening.
I'm sure most of this is known by the average reader who clicks on a fic starring the Galar Champion and the Galar protagonist, but that's the zero game knowledge POV on my end! Even for a reader with experience, I think dwelling a bit on this crisis at Hammerlocke in Hana's mind would be helpful. We get a very abbreviated mention [Chairman Rose. Darkest Day. Hammerlocke. The falling sky. Hop!] but we don't get any images of the scenes she left behind, and having that would make the moment feel real to me. Where was Hana when things started to go wrong? What was the first sign she noticed? What actions or sensations does she remember--sometimes odd, inconsequential things stick with us. It doesn't take too many words to paint a picture of a scene if you use images and details.
I think it was hard for me to locate myself in her POV, since I don't know much about where she's coming from and her reactions to the current situation seemed a bit muted. For example, here [Damn Macro Cosmos and their quality control, I thought as I struggled against the strong glue. Rotom wailed on the inside, panicking.] her internal monologue seems quite casual and almost unconcerned as Rotom is being potentially suffocated to death. There's also a lack of, hm, curiosity, perhaps? [“It’s okay. You didn’t die!” I struggled to get the tiny ghost away from me. “Now calm down, please!”] She doesn't seem taken aback by this sudden petrification growth or thinking at all about why it happened or what it means. She just wants rotom to calm down. In her interactions with Leon as well she seems mostly focused on calming him down. Like, [“Leon…”, I said. Mostly because I needed to think. “Just breathe! Please. It’s going to be alright.”]--after he does calm down, we don't dip back into her inner monologue again that scene, so I'm left wondering what it was she wanted to think about. Or again, here [By now it had fully turned into stone and weighed heavy in my hand. So much for calling for help.] That's a pretty dismissive acceptance of her phone turning to stone, cutting her off from all map info and communication when she is who knows where without her pokemon. I guess the one downside of starting right in the middle of the action is that I don't have a baseline for what Hana's like in normal circumstances, so I don't know how the stress of the situation is potentially altering or not altering her reactions. If it's true that this happened right as an emergency was going down, her lack of urgency confuses me.
Trying to insert one sensory detail involving touch and one sensory detail involving smell in each chapter could be a way to start integrating more! Leon's cape is heavy, but what material is it made of? What does it feel like as it starts to get wet? Contrast is also a really effective tool, especially since Hana just suffered an abrupt disjoint in location. How does the smell of the forest compare to what she left behind?And, oh god, me and sensory details. I'm awful with them
I definitely would not have guessed! Your handle on word choice wasn't raising flags except in the places I noted in the line-by-lines. Frequency of usage and connotation is for sure super tricky to navigate.
I think cape is the way to go. Cape is something sleeveless and is not an ordinary item of clothing unless your name is Leon or Lance.
Hm, challenging, perhaps? Something like:
The card showed a young woman with tan skin and black hair pinned into an elaborate bun. Underneath the required challenger uniform, her trademark rose singlet was visible. She stood straight, cutting a sharp silhouette against the sky. Her gaze was cool and almost challenging, but her arms, crossed stiffly in front of her chest, betrayed her discomfort with the photo shoot.
(I noticed looking again at this paragraph that the sentence describing Hana has a lot of adjectives jammed in. It's weird with adjectives--there's only so many we can digest at once, so focusing on a few details tends to create a clearer picture than piling on more adjectives.)
Hope that's helpful! Feel free to DM me if you want to chat about scene-building and details--I always enjoy digging into stuff like that.
Chapter 24: Whiteout
bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Chapter 24: Whiteout
Chapter 24: Whiteout
December 2nd 1993, 11am.
Going into 1973, I knew we were making good progress. Both Leon and I were focused today, and it showed. Of all his bad days so far, this was the best one. If things went on like this, maybe we could even get one of his stupid games in after lunch.
Outside, a steady, howling sound rose and fell. We both perked up for a second, then went back to work. The weather alarm was a common thing around here. It warned of a sudden shift in the weather and was a sign for all people working in the forest to return or seek shelter immediately.
Today, however, it also meant that we most likely wouldn’t get the visit we hoped for. After Azalea had been cut off from the rest of the world for over a month now, Hirotaka Air Courier had dispatched their first test flight over the Union Mountains. If it went well, they could improvise a supply chain until the passes were free again. But a weather alarm was not helping this situation.
I shifted my focus back to my folder. Leon was making steady progress and my pride forbade that he overtook me. I quickly sifted through the papers, stopping only at the monthly balances. Everything about this task, down to the movements, had become routine by now.
The archive had got a lot less crammed, now that many of the folders and their contents had reprised their useful days by being turned into tinder. And ever since I had taken an entire morning to dust off the shelves and the floor, it felt almost cosy. Or maybe I had just got used to it. Nevertheless, there was still a lot to go through.
A dull “thud” shook the shelves. Now we both looked up. Dust rained down from between the ceiling boards, but if there were other sounds, they were muffled out by the siren’s cries.
“I’ll go and check,” I said and got up. Leon was about to get up, too, but I motioned him to stay. “Don’t worry, it’s probably nothing.”
* * *
Upstairs in the common room, Sara told me exactly the same. For one moment of self-awareness, I pondered how dissatisfying this answer was, but those thoughts didn’t go far.
Suddenly, the westward window shattered. Splinters of glass bounced over the wooden floorboards and froze in mid air along the streak of ice that formed in the blast's wake.
Both Sara and I had fled to the other side of the room, but whatever had caused this didn’t come in. Instead, the powerful Icebeam went further up the side of the house and along the roof. Watching the old, barren beams shake under the impact, I could trace the line of destruction that the blast caused.
When there was only the settling of dust again, I noticed something else. This time, the siren wasn’t howling. It didn’t drown out like it usually did; rather, it was cut off abruptly during the attack. I flicked the light-switch to my left on and off. Nothing happened.
As much as I wanted to believe that this was only a tree that tore down the power supply, the trail of ice on the floor hinted at something more sinister.
“I’ll go check,” I said. Before Sara could make any effective objections, I jumped into the thick anorak and made my way outside.
* * *
The blizzard was almost strong enough to push me against the door once I closed it behind me. I could barely see past my fingers, so dense was the chaos of snow and ice around. Furret curled herself tight around my neck, providing me with a little warmth.
But there was something beyond the howling of the storm. A melody, faint but filled with panic and pain. It was interrupted by the cries of a bird, albeit its voice bore the same emotions.
Through all this cut a human voice. “Heracross, use the storm as cover and try to get a Horn Attack in on it!” It was Kurt. A buzzing sound followed and soon after that, the distinct sound of two pokemon engaged in battle.
I was about to run toward his voice when Furret perked up. She climbed onto my head and pricked her perceptive ears. I tried to do the same. And indeed, there was something else. A whimper, almost inaudible against the storm, but unmistakably human, was coming from the roof right next to me.
Furret and I exchanged a glance and a nod. I ran to the corner of the Pokemon Center, where the roof was almost touching the ground, and climbed on top of the closest woodpile. A few pieces of wood came loose and fell to the ground next to me, but I managed to pull myself half up onto the steep roof.
The snow covering the old shingles was at least a foot deep. It was so difficult to get a hold on the ice covered ground, and after only a few seconds of not getting a solid grip, I slid back down.
I shielded myself from the tiny avalanche that accompanied me when I felt two hands around my waist and someone carefully setting me down. I didn’t know that even the touch of another person could become familiar.
“What are you doing here?” I pushed Leon away and shook the snow out of my face and hair.
“I can help.” This was the third time he had used his voice today.
“Yes, by staying inside and not getting hurt.” I climbed onto the woodpile again, but this time I heaved Furret onto the roof first.
To no one’s surprise, Leon didn’t move. I knew I should be angry or a bit more compassionate to get him to return back inside, but deep down I was happy to see those weak sparks of defiance in his empty eyes.
I tried again and this time, with the help of Furret pulling my jacket, I got onto the roof. Clinging to the bars that prevented the snow from sliding, I turned back around. Leon still didn’t quite know what to do with himself, other than that he didn’t want to go inside.
“Okay, listen,” I said while I reached for my waist-bag. “Stay here and don’t get yourself in trouble. Understand?” Out of habit, Leon nodded while the familiar sound of a pokeball opening hallowed through the storm.
“Mareep, you take care of him!” The little sheep looked as disoriented as always, but soon gave me an affirmative bleat. In the distance, Kurt bellowed another command to his Heracross.
“Here.” Leon flinched when I nudged the pokeball against his shoulder. When our eyes met, there was still this same old refusal. “Come on, just for now.” My voice started to sound strained from the gymnastics I had to do to reach him. With a motion that must have cost him an immense amount of energy, Leon snatched the ball out of my hand.
Mareep bit the seam of Leon’s jacket and sent me a somewhat confident look. I tried to give both of them my warmest smile before I turned around to scale the roof.
The more snow I had under my feet, the easier it was to crawl over the roof. But that didn’t make it a simple task. More often than not I had to stop to readjust and orient myself, always listening out for either the whimpering or the cawing.
When I came across the path left behind by what had shattered the window below, I could finally see the outline of something. Getting over the long streak of solid ice without sliding all the way down was more difficult than I thought. More out of sheer luck than anything else, I made it. Now only a few more steps until I reached the silhouette.
Before I could get there, however, the hostile cry of a bird stopped me.
“Who is there?” a weak voice asked.
“Ah, my name is Hana,” was the first thing that came to my mind. I didn’t receive an answer, but the bird’s hissing ebbed down and I crawled closer.
In the snow, protected by the wings of a large Pidgeotto, laid a middle-aged man. Pain twisted his pale face. He was holding his left arm, but from the angle his foot was in, I could tell that he didn’t take the fall kindly. Pidgeotto had suffered severe ice burns and was about to pass out. The man responded to my questions, but he needed to get medical attention as soon as possible.
While I was thinking about the best way to transport both of them down, a sharp cry made me jump, followed by Heracross’ buzzing. The same second a powerful kinetic blade cut a deep fissure into the snow right next to me, the roof shook under the impact of two bodies. A moment later, the fight resumed.
This was more serious than I thought.
“Eevee!” From a flash of red light materialised the rather indignant looking pokemon. She soon dropped her demeanour, however, when she realised the seriousness of the situation. Both of us scanned the sky around us for signs of the attacker, but there was no chance in the blizzard’s chaos.
“Use Swift as soon as you get a trace of them,” I said after a few seconds. “You need to have my back here, so I can try to get—” A familiar sound under the roaring of the storm made me stop.
«Oh no, who let her escape?» Of course Hoppip wanted to join the fight.
In the blizzard, her pink body struggling against the wind came into view. She was way too light and weak to stand a chance against the powerful gales. As soon as she dug herself out, she was battered into the layers of snow on the roof again. When she was only about a yard away from me and prepared to jump again, I rolled over and caught her out of the air.
“You’re not joining this fight,” I said, pressing her against my chest. “Not as long as there’s a hailstorm. It’s deadly—” Both my lecture and her complaining were cut short when something hit my shoulder, throwing me into the snow.
With an aggressive hiss, Eevee landed on my hip, fur raised. Next to me, a two feet long shard of ice had dug itself into the shingles of the roof. Eevee’s coat glowed faintly as she charged up a Swift and fired it into the clouds above. Our attacker shrieked as it was hit by the stars. Yet I still couldn’t take my eyes off the razor sharp piece of ice sticking out where I had been only a mere heartbeat ago.
I needed to get the injured couple out of the danger zone as soon as possible. Since I left her pokeball next to her flowerpot, I shoved Hoppip into my anorak and crawled back over to the man. But after a few steps, Hoppip’s leaves re-emerged from my collar, followed by her face and an angry complaint.
I was about to push her back down when I saw she was charging up an attack. Focused intently on the skies and fuelled by anger, a small orb of yellow light formed before her. It grew in size until it was bigger than a fist, then Hoppip launched the energy ball into the blizzard.
For a few seconds, nothing happened, but I hugged the exhausted pokemon, regardless. Having worked in a greenhouse for the last two years, I knew this technique well. And sure enough, the Sunny Day did its duty. The snowstorm calmed down until it was only a light breeze. A few heartbeats later, the clouds themselves were carried away, taking the snow with them and leaving a clear blue sky behind. Maybe the first one in over a month.
* * *
The scene unfolding in front of me was almost dreamlike. Azalea was covered in deep snow. Every last sharp edge was smoothed over with an icy glazing. And in the centre of this crystal-like symphony was a bird, holding itself regally in the air high above the town square. The sunlight broke in its icy blue feathers, scattering and veiling the pokemon in glistening colours as it watched its prey from pupil-less, lofty eyes.
And if all of this wasn’t yet surreal enough, a lingering melody, full of pain and fear, accompanied the predator’s wrathful stares. It took me a while to take my eyes off the bird and remember where I had heard an alto like this before. But Lapras lived in the deep waters, not in… not in tiny villages. Yet on the roof of Kurt’s workshop was one, crying in panic for dear life. It struggled to even keep its long neck up, so grave were the cuts and blows that it had sustained, but it pushed through in a desperate attempt to call for help.
“Heracross! Try to get it with Aerial Ace!” Kurt shouted. With a buzzing sound, the bug type took off and headed towards the bird. As if he could read its mind, Kurt added: “And if it tries to get away with another Protect, use a Brick Break!”
Heracross charged at the bird, but his determination was useless in the face of his opponent's cold calculation. With one swift beat of its wings, it moved out of the attack’s way. Heracross faltered when his horn did not connect, then again when a mockingly small ice shard hit him between his wings.
Something was off about that bird. It almost looked as though it didn’t even fly, just hover in place, tail gliding behind it like an aurora. Its wing strokes were sporadic, but the air was calm. There was no updraft it could have sailed on.
“Aerial Ace!” Kurt yelled. Heracross dove down, repositioned himself, and shot at its target again with vibrating wings, the previous blow already forgotten. But he was still painfully slow compared to his foe. The bird regarded the approaching pokemon almost with pity as it prepared another evasion.
“Thunder Shock, now!” An empty voice cut through the cries, immediately followed by a familiar yell and the crackling of lightning that made its way up to the bird. The weak sparks bounced off the icy feathers with little impact, but it was enough to break its concentration for a split second.
Heracross’s forearm-shell hit the pokemon right over the stomach, sending it backwards a bit.
«It should tumble down. How is it staying airborne?»
Immediately after the impact, the bug-type turned around and charged up another attack. The bird was now too close to evade the attack, but I could see the faint blue shimmer form between it and its attacker.
Another Thunder Shock hit the bird off-guard, but this time it wasn’t enough to stop the Protect from coming through. Heracross’ attack shattered the shield, but had lost all its momentum as an effect.
In my lap, Hoppip tried to wriggle out of my grasp again, but I held her tight. Leon and Mareep had now moved out of the house’s cover and into the open space between the Pokemon Center and Kurt’s workshop to get a better view. The little sheep made sure to stay as close to the man as he could.
Eevee ran over to me, fur still raised. “Baby, prepare a Swift,” I said when she reached me. “You go on Leon’s command, too. Ouch!”
Hoppip now bit my finger in an attempt to free herself.
“You are still outmatched here,” I said, turning her to face me. “You already did great. Now—” Finishing my sentence was useless. Hoppip screamed at the top of her lungs, covering her ears with her leaves.
Very grown-up.
I shoved her down into my jacket again, and turned to the injured pilot, but before I could get far, her leaves again popped out of my collar. A familiar warmth spread across my chest as her leaves began to glow in the sunlight. They slapped my nose one last time, then they transformed into a gorgeous dandelion flower. With another angry yelp, a green face emerged from my jacket.
Next to me, Eevee fired her star formation at the attacking bird, and threw a hiss in there too, for good measure. Skiploom hopped into my lap and looked at me, ready to fight. I was about to protest again when she opened her mouth and spat a single seed in my face.
Alright.
I got to my feet and tossed her in the air, almost slipping on the ice-covered roof. With a happy battle-cry, Skiploom joined the fray. She alone would have been enough to throw the bird off, but on Leon’s command, a Thunder Shock and another Swift hurled its way. Both attacks bounced off the Protect, but left it vulnerable to Heracross’ onslaught. The tides of the battle seemed to turn.
Until they didn’t any more.
With a powerful flap of its wings, the bird lifted itself higher into the sky. With another, even mightier one, it summoned a gale that thrust Heracross to the ground. When the shock-wave hit us, it was still strong enough to force both Eevee and me down.
I hauled myself closer to the injured pilot, who had now lost consciousness. His face was pale, his lips beginning to turn blue from the cold. I motioned for Furret to keep him safe, never turning my back to the display of power in the skies.
The air around the blue wings shimmered in the light as the water froze into tiny crystals. With another powerful, regal stroke of its wings, the bird unleashed the force of ice itself. With horror I realised that this attack was too calm for a Blizzard. It was Sheer Cold.
Heracross’ wings abruptly stopped their buzzing sound, as he was covered in a thick layer of solid ice, frozen in place. He had saved his trainer from the brunt of the onslaught, his body’s slipstream now forming a protective hollow behind him.
Skiploom was still circling the bird. A Gust easily dismissed her angry Bullet Seed, and still held enough force to send her into the next snowdrift.
With two of its opponents down, it turned its pupil-less gaze over to the Pokemon Center. Through the melodious cries, Mareep’s electric wool crackled, and it seemed to have found its next target. The outer edges of its wings glowed in a faint violet.
I got to my feet, scrambling my mind about how to stop it from what would certainly be a lethal attack, when a sharp ringing sound inside my head stopped me dead in my tracks.
Against the pain, I forced one eye open. An invisible force cut through snow and gravel where, a second ago, Leon and Mareep had stood while the bird circled up for another round. Somehow, Leon had leaped behind the nearest tree, Mareep in his arms.
I was frozen in place. Something was pressing its claws into my mind. I channelled all my concentration into forming a command while the glowing wings dove down again. “... Swift!”
The cracking sound of ancient wood. Eevee’s scream as she unleashed another attack. The Pidgeotto’s weak caw. All sounds swirled together under the flourish of the blue bird and the aurora trailing behind it as it shot skywards only a few meters before me.
A shadow grew larger, but when the force binding my mind finally subsided, it was almost too late to react. I dove back, scurrying to shield both the man and Pidgeotto with my body, then the giant fir crashed down on us.
It took me a moment to orient myself and to feel for injuries. But, as by a miracle, nothing seemed to be broken. The trunk had just missed us. It was only an arm-length away, and its branches pressed me into the snow, but I was alright.
With Furret’s and Eevee’s help, I pulled the unconscious body out from underneath the tree that now started settling with small but painful jerks. Pidgeotto didn’t protest any longer. Its eyes were closed and its wing stuck underneath the tree.
The Lapras’s cries swelled with panic as the predator returned to its defenceless prey, but without the sound of battle, the town was terrifyingly quiet. I listened intently for any sign of movement, or even just the crackling of electricity in Mareep’s fleece, but nothing.
«Be quiet, Lapras, please!»
No, there was something. Footsteps. I peeked out from behind the needled branches to see Kurt hurry towards his house and vanish into the door.
Lapras shot a few weak water guns at its attacker. The last one drowned out in a gurgling scream when the bird dug its talons deep into the pokemon’s neck and lifted it up. Horrified, I noticed the crack running across Lapras’ shell. A shiver ran down my spine as I imagined the pain the young thing must be in.
But the bird was not done playing with its prey yet. As if thinking about what to do next, it let its cruel gaze wander over the town — and got stuck on me.
I— «Oh, no!»
With one almost airy beat of its wings, it started circling the town square again, screaming victim in its claws. Then it neared the Pokemon Center.
I braced myself for what was to come, tucking Furret and Eevee behind me while Lapras’s cries grew unbearably loud. But to my surprise, there wasn’t another Sheer Cold coming our way. Instead, this creature had come up with something way crueller. When it was only a few meters above us, it dove up and let go of its prey.
The massive body plummeted down, its shadow blocking out the sun. I closed my eyes before it would crush me.
But then a sudden, stiff brush of air swooped past me, and the deadly impact never came. Instead, another sharp outcry as the bird caught Lapras out of the air.
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes again and watched the bird circling the southern half of town. But when it turned around, there was a cold conviction in its eyes. Playtime was over.
My feet were shaky when I got up. I had about twenty seconds to minimise damage, and the more agile I was, the better. An upward jump on the steep roof would ensure that—
A sharp whistle cut my thoughts short. In unison, both the approaching bird and I turned our gazes toward the source. Kurt had emerged from his house again, a pokeball in hand. But he wasn’t the one that had whistled. Leon stepped out onto the small path between the Center and the workshop. Something about this wasn’t right.
I could almost feel the icy ire of the bird engulfing me, as well as its determination to not let Leon get away a third time.
Mareep, realising what was going on, hurried out of his cover and ran towards Leon, as fast as his injured leg allowed. But Leon reached for his pocket, producing Mareep’s pokeball and returning the pokemon with one swift motion. Mareep protested, though in vain, at least for the moment. He would break out of his ball in a few seconds, but we didn’t have those.
What was he doing? He’d try to get out of the way, right? After all, he was fixating the approaching bird. But his form was lacking the tension for sudden motion. The twenty seconds were running out!
With the quick, precise movements I had held for jumping out of Lapras’s way, I darted across the roof and onto the icy path left behind from the first Ice Beam. Sliding down the roof and the adjacent woodpile, I found myself stumbling onto the street.
The bird was too close. I wouldn’t make it.
Two more lunges, a sharp pain in my left ankle, a mechanical sound, and I collided with Leon’s body. Then the world turned dark, loud and finally, silent.
* * *
Something heavy was smothering me, pushing the air out of my lungs and making it almost impossible to breathe. But its pressure was also calming. Mostly because in its all engulfing silence, I could hear something else. A heartbeat.
Then, with a harsh scraping sound, a small tunnel in front of me opened. Like a halo, light flowed around Furret’s round face when she looked at me with doting eyes. The afterlife was either way weirder than I had imagined, or I wasn’t dead after all.
Spurred on by my confused blinks, Furret resumed digging. I listened to the heartbeat while my consciousness fully returned. Did we make it in time, after all? There was still this pulsating pain in my ankle. And underneath me, the body that heartbeat belonged to started moving too. We did make it.
I shoved handfuls of snow aside, slowly digging us out from underneath the mountain that had buried us when we had crashed against the tree. After a while, Leon joined in. I froze when I saw his eyes. They were hollow shells, the gold almost faded.
“Leon, are you okay?” I patted his cheek. To my relief, his eyes followed me; still, he didn’t answer. “Are you hurt?” No reaction.
Suddenly, the weight of the snow on my body got lighter. Way lighter. Chunks of snow drifted upwards, gravity having lost its influence on them. And then my jacket and Leon’s hair, too. My skin tingled, and a strange coldness overtook my entire body as it was lifted off the ground.
Then something in Leon’s eyes changed. For the briefest of seconds, a spark lit up, and before I knew, he had his hand on my back and pulled both of us to the side.
I landed on top of him when a sharp sound of splintering wood cut through the air. Next to us, a three foot long ice shard protruded from the trunk where we had been leaning just a second before. The impact of the projectile had shaken the last snow out of the needles, which now rained down on us.
I jerked around. Now that Lapras’s melody had so violently ended, the town was quiet. The lack of sound coming from the bird hovering in the sky was terrifying.
“Hanako, Leon! Are you alright?” Kurt yelled from behind the cover of his house. I turned around to the crunching sound of snow when Leon let himself fall flat to the ground, his hand slowly slipping from my back.
Excellent question.
“Leon.” He struggled to keep his eyes focused and to not drift away, but he was there.
«We should be dead. You should be dead.»
Behind me, again the cracking of wood, but I was locked in his eyes. Anger rose in me, keeping down this overwhelming fear that threatened to paralyse me.
«Tell me that wasn’t you on the street! Tell me this wasn’t intentional! For the love of god, say something!»
But nothing. His lost look while my weight pushed his empty body deeper into the snow. Reality was quickly slipping not only through his fingers.
“Watch out!” Kurt’s voice. I turned around and saw an entire tree being flung towards us.
It was Leon again that pulled me to the side and to safety. We rolled through the snow until his momentum faded. Behind him, the clean cut pine that threatened to crush us on the roof of the Pokemon Center bored itself into the wooden wall of Kurt’s house.
«You’re there. You’re still in there. Say something, Leon!»
I didn’t get an answer, but from the settling branches of the tree came a terrifying familiar wince. Furret! She had got caught in the clutter and now hung limply between the needles.
Without a second thought, I crawled over and cradled her in my arms, but every movement caused her more pain. I tried stroking her head instead, and she returned the gesture with a thankful, weak look. And up in the sky, the bird was still floating silently.
I scanned the opposing building. Eevee was on the roof, and even her usual airy facade was faltering. I gave her a quiet sign to come over, then I got to my feet. My ankle protested, but I swallowed the pain down.
“Get up!” I said curtly, and Leon obeyed, at least getting into a sitting position. Behind him, Eevee emerged.
I turned to her. “Find Skiploom! She should be around here somewhere.” Eevee nodded and darted off. Then I turned my attention to Leon. “And you take care of her.”
I placed Furret’s long body on his chest and slowly he wrapped his hands around her, supporting her. In return, Furret nuzzled herself into his protective embrace.
In a snowdrift a few yards away, Eevee dug as fast as her little paws allowed while both Leon and I stared up at the bird. Another ice shard flew our way, hitting the wall a few inches above where Leon had been just a second ago. He had rolled himself and Furret to the side and was fixated on the sky again.
A roar like an avalanche bellowed from the mountaintops and echoed through the valley. Whatever snow was still on the roof and on the trees surrounding us now rained down in an icy shower. The bird did not even flinch.
Even if I would hate myself for it later, I pushed all my sorrow and fear into the back, closing the door on my emotions and letting my rationale take over. This was not a practise battle against Hop. I couldn’t allow myself to lose.
Good for me if the monster above was focused on Leon. His reflexes still put up quite the fight. In the meantime, we could seize one last chance.
The Confusion that had hit me earlier was the first indicator, but levitating the snow and now an entire tree? Sure, taking me with it in the Telekinesis was clumsy. It hinted at a pokemon that could not yet control its powers, but it was still a feat only a true Psychic type could pull off.
Finally, Eevee came running back. To speed things up, she dragged Skiploom in her mouth, much to the displeasure of the dandelion. I retreated into the branches of the felled tree to get some cover from the ice shards that still flew in our direction.
The bird was only toying with us; I realised. But why? The fight had, in fact, worn it down. Why not simply unleash another Sheer Cold and end it already? I glanced over to the road, where its prey was supposed to be, but found Lapras’s body missing. What—
With a long leap, Eevee jumped next to me, setting Skiploom down. I looked at them, stroking each one’s cheek with one hand.
“Eevee, listen. I’ll get you up there, but to really hit it hard, you’ll have to channel all your negative feelings into a Bite. If it helps, imagine me ruffling your hair like this all the time!” I ran my fingers through the fur on her cheek, but to my surprise, she didn’t protest.
“And Skiploom: You’ll have to be a nice, steady platform up there. Don’t let yourself get hit again. And don’t let yourself get carried away to attack, understand? We need you as support, this time.” I looked between the two, conjuring up all the conviction I had left, while another ice shard tore a deep hole into the wall just a yard away. Our attacker had to recharge. The time was as good as it would ever get.
I grabbed Skiploom and jumped up. The pain in my ankle was unbearable, and I put the thoughts of it behind the same door that I already tucked the fear behind. I ran a few steps, and then, with one well-placed shot, catapulted Skiploom up into the air. The little green pokemon flew up, and when my impulse faded, her blossom started to rotate, keeping her steady in place.
While I lost my balance, I watched Eevee dart up, and from her movement alone I could tell her anger. Using Skiploom as a jumping board, she headed straight for the bird, who was either too weary or too confused to conjure up a Protect. With a satisfactory growl, Eevee buried her teeth deep in the root of the bird’s right wing.
I fell into the soft snow while both Eevee and her target plummet down, hitting the ground not too far from me. My little girl did not grant her victim a second of reprise. The sound of her tiny maw biting down over and over again was delightful. If we were going down, we would put up a fight.
Then, as if Eevee hadn’t made enough of a statement, Skiploom shot down, her battle-cry half an octave deeper than usual. Her body hit the downed bird in the back, forcing it flat on the ground again before she catapulted herself towards me and landed on my back. Did she just pull a U-Turn?
A plume of snow rose when our attacker flapped its wings on the ground and I could hear Eevee losing her grip. A second later, the bird shot up again, blocking out the sun with its body.
I couldn’t run, even if I wanted to. If it attacked me now, so be it. It wouldn’t even take a Sheer Cold this time. Eevee hissed, by far not done yet, but we couldn’t pull that stunt again.
For one long moment, there was a staring match between us and the bird up in the sky.
And then it turned away, retreating northwards over Ilex forest and leaving a trail of sparkling ice behind.
I didn’t bother to check if it would return, instead slumping down, whispering a heartfelt “Thank You” into the snow.
From behind us, a faint yelp and the sound of footsteps rung through to me. Even though they were insecure and out of sync, they were unmistakable. Leon collapsed into the snow a few steps in front of me.
The door wouldn’t hold shut any longer, but out spilled only anger. I knew it was wrong. I knew I should show compassion or worry. But I couldn’t forgive him. Not for— my stomach contracted painfully at even the thought of those words.
Not for almost killing himself.
His shaking hand touched my shoulder, and I slapped it away, holding back a scream of frustration while I pressed my head into the cold snow. For what felt like an eternity, we stayed like this; him sitting next to me in silent inertia.
Then a new set of footsteps approached.
“Here, you’re going to care for him.” Kurt’s voice was stern and almost at the brink of resentment, but he did not get an answer. “Your behaviour was more than irresponsible. Not only did you get the two of you in danger, you forced an innocent pokemon to suffer for it. So now he’s your responsibility.”
“No.” Leon’s voice had its stubborn edge back, if only faintly.
«Oh, so now you can talk.» And not only that, he was about to disrespect the town’s eldest. Our stay here depended as much on this man’s benevolence as on my work in the Pokemon Center.
Swallowing down my anger took my last reserves, but somehow I managed. I pulled myself to my feet and immediately had to lean against Leon’s shoulder when my ankle acted up.
I bowed down, partly to hide the pain. “Thank you so much for your sacrifice and for protecting this town. If you wish, I can take care of it.” I looked up again and was surprised to see a strange blue pokeball in the old man’s hand.
“Thank you, girl, but this is not a task for you. I’ll look after Lapras in the meantime. But you won’t leave this town without him.” Kurt’s voice was as superficially polite as mine.
Leon had put one arm around my legs and leaned his head against my thigh. My fingernails dug deep into the fabric of his anorak, but without it, the last bits of self-constraint that kept me from kicking him away would evaporate.
“Thank you again,” I said. “Still, I think I’ve sprained my ankle during the entire ordeal. Leon, can you get me back to the Center?”
A weak nod against my leg was the only answer.
Smeargle Swap for ju! Cleaned up some outside the line coloring and lightened the background so Hana and Leon’s hair didn’t mesh into it. I hope you like it! 🤍🤍
Chapter 25: A Letter To Mum
bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Chapter 25: A Letter To Mum
December 22nd 1993, 3pm.Chapter 25: A Letter To Mum
Dear Mum,
Merry Christmas! I hope you and Poliwhirl are doing great at home.
Now that was a bald-faced lie if I ever told one. But what was I supposed to write? That Leon was only slowly coming back to himself, finally sleeping less than twelve hours a day? Or how I dreaded spending time with him? Not to mention that his beloved team got wiped out by something nobody understood? That both of us had almost died at the wrath of a mythical bird?
Oh no, better focus on the logistics instead.
For some reason, we ended up in the past. I don’t know how or why it happened.
«No crying, Hanako, you aren’t a baby.»
Morty was working on it, and I really needed to trust him here, even if it was hard. My main task right now was surviving the winter, and so was Leon’s. But some mornings, it felt impossible. Then again, being busy was my only saving grace when faced with the prison I found myself in on a daily basis.
We’re stranded in Azalea Town over the winter. It’s a lovely town, but incredibly small. Once
Sara and I got along fine. She was an austere woman, and it was often hard to find a conversation starter, but her strict regime kept my mind from wandering too far. By now I had cleaned every square-inch of the Center at least once, learned how to mend all sorts of cloth and bottle all sorts of food. Regarding life experience, Sara was an unending well of wisdom.
But lately, her voice only amplified this fatigue that overcame me more and more often.
My schedule had got a lot laxer in the past few days. Even in this remote corner of the world, the end of the year slowed the most resourceful people down. Everyone was in some sort of hibernation until the New Year’s Festival, it seemed.
They don’t celebrate Christmas here, so the two of us will have to make do.
I crossed the last sentence out. It was too rude, although it was true. But from all the people in this town, Leon was the one I liked most, even after everything. He was at least earnest to a degree. Everyone else was pretending to be hospitable, but it ran only skin deep. We didn’t belong here, and I could tell from their faces how relieved they were when they didn’t have to deal with us.
The iffy thing was, if I put effort into it, the town-folk liked me quite a lot. They had invited me to several dinners and family celebrations. Leon was the one being ostracised, and I hated them for it.
Sure, he was difficult to put up with, but it wasn’t his fault. Morty had informed me that mourning was a way more private issue over here, but who were they to judge? They had the easy part, inviting only me, not greeting us or straight up avoiding to look at him. And he did them the favour of not bothering anyone but me. So what gave them the right to even have an opinion about him?
But that was nothing I wanted to bother Mum, and by extension his family with. Back to the letter…
I’ve picked up knitting, out of all things, so you can guess what the presents will look like. Once I get home, I’ll have scarfs for centuries for you.
So what else was there to say? That I had cried myself to sleep more often than I dared to admit? That I wanted to throw Leon into the hands of a therapist and never hear from him again? That I wished for nothing more than to hold her and bawl my heart out?
I looked up, startled by my own thoughts. There was this unspoken rule between the two of us that we wouldn’t show these emotions in each other’s presence. We both didn’t really know how to deal with them. Dad couldn’t either, but he wasn’t a problem any longer.
So better to keep this short and sweet.
I think this is the only letter I’ll be able to send. Please hug my Pokemon for me and greet our neighbours across the road from us. Especially Hop. Leon misses him like crazy, as do I. Wish Dad a happy New Year from me, too.
I love you, and I miss you, Mum.
Merry Christmas,
Hana
I sighed, thinking about how dishonest that letter was. But I couldn‘t tell how to make it better, not for the love of me. There was way too much to say; a single page would never do. And even if I wrote all of it down, it might bring up questions I didn’t want to answer.
That right here was a nice and simple thing, not prompting too much worries, hopefully even quenching some. After all, what was Mum supposed to do about our situation? Better to not get her too riled up with this.
Content with the words I put to paper, I read through my letter twice, tweaked it a bit and then wrote it again on a clean sheet. I added a few hearts, folded it and put it in an envelope.
Next to my home address in Postwick, I added the line ‘To be delivered December 24th, 2019’ in bold, red letters. There was no need for a return address.
Abe was still recovering from his injuries, but all signs pointed to him and Pidgeotto being able to fly again. Out of necessity, we had grown somewhat close over the past two weeks. Sara had shown me the basics of nursing, and I spent a lot of time by his bedside.
He owed me a huge favour, and I decided to take the gamble with this letter. Maybe he would remember to deliver it, 26 years from now.
* * *
I stretched myself when I got up from the writing desk by the window and shuffled over to the kitchen. It was such a peaceful, quiet afternoon, and I had the Center almost to myself.
Lighting the fire in the old heath was usually a science, but today I only had to toss a new log onto the still smoldering embers to get it going again. While I put up some water, I pondered the fact that Azalea didn’t have gas lines. Then again, its electricity grid was rudimentary at best. Who was I to expect something advanced like gas here?
I leaned back against a cabinet and stared at the envelope while I waited for the kettle to boil. With a request like this, postage was the least of our worries. And there was room enough for a second page in there. But Leon hadn’t been too thrilled about the idea.
«Tell ‘em I miss them or something,» had been his entire reaction.
The kettle’s steaming cut my thoughts short, and I poured myself a cup of green tea, grown in the garden behind the Center.
Cup and letter in hands, I returned to the common room. The winter sun was out again, giving the usually cold room an almost homey feeling.
The space was vast and open, and I had felt lost in it on more than one occasion. The main area that would handle traveling trainers and villagers returning from the forest was purposively simple. The floor was paneled with wooden planks, dark from all the dirt, boots and wax they had seen over the years. The Center’s high peaked roof was visible from inside — no first floor or even an attempt to cover the ancient timbers up had been made. And so they too had darkened over time from the grime of centuries of fires lit in the room’s central fireplace.
Right now, this fire wasn’t lit, however, and my steps almost echoed in the empty hall as I made my way over to one of the smaller side-rooms. Decked out in tatami mats and with whitewashed walls, they were the polar opposite of the common room — they were actually inviting. One of them even had a couch! This had become my sleeping-place for the last two months, and seeing how it was publically accessible, I had, without a fault, put my belongings away every morning since.
And yet, this was my little corner. I fished for one of the blankets that was stowed away under the modern amenity and threw one last glance into the common room, checking if everybody was doing alright.
Skiploom basked in the sunlight on her windowsill, as did Mareep on the floor next to her. Heracross’s spot still looked empty after he had finally returned to his trainer earlier that day. His recovery came along fine, though Sara wasn’t sure if his wings would ever regrow fully. Leon was out doing something — I didn’t care anymore at his point — with Kon and his sons. Eevee preferred to stay in her pokeball, and if I could, I’d join her.
I stretched out on the couch and threw the thin blanket over my shoulders. Maybe I would just take a nap. Before I had settled, Furret’s dragging, slow steps came closer. She had been paralysed from her second stripe down, but made good progress. I ruffled her head, picked her up, and placed her on the backrest, where she could watch the entire room comfortably.
Forgotten were tea and letter as I soon drifted into a light slumber, lulled in by the winter sun on my feet and Furret’s regular little breaths. The stress of the day began to fade and with it the thoughts about Mum or home or anything. Only me and my blanket on my sunny afternoon.
When the front-door slid open, I didn’t even bother to look up. I was way too cosy, and I knew these steps, anyway. The sound of shoes and a thick jacket being put away. Not too long after, Leon sat on the floor beside me and nestled his head into the free space next to my stomach. The scarf he’d got as an early Christmas present and now refused to take off tingled my hand.
“Leon,” I groaned, half asleep. It took him a few seconds, but he backed off. We’d had that conversation about boundaries so often already.
When it dawned on me that he was still sitting around, not knowing what to do with himself, I reached behind me and angled for a spare throw pillow. Eyes still closed, I shoved it against him and into the general direction of ‘away from me.’
He obeyed with a sigh. A moment later, he had dragged himself to the lower end of the couch. Now I had to force one eye open. He still sat on the floor, holding on to the pillow with one hand and the letter with the other, head resting on the sofa.
I tucked my feet up to make some space for him, but he didn’t move. His eyes followed my motion, then went back to wherever his thoughts were, and I drifted back to sleep.
Panoramic_Vacuum
Hoenn around
- Partners
-
Hello hello! I've read through some of 26 Years prior to now, but I wanted to dive a bit deeper before leaving some thoughts. This review will cover Chapters 1 through 4. I'm lumping these chapters together because I think together they give a clearer picture of the opening "arc" of this fic, as it were. Just reading the first chapter by itself left a lot of lingering questions on my mind, and reading ahead has given a clearer picture of a lot of the things I was wondering.
Right off the bat, the delayed reveal of what really happened to Leon and Hana on the Darkest Day is really smart. There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding what happened, because let's be real, does anyone actually know? Eternatus, Dynamaxing, crazy energy, wormholes, rips in space/time?? It's pretty wild that Macro Cosmos was messing with Eternatus and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with the events of the Darkest Day, but crazy shenanigans resulting from some kind of cosmic energy explosion upon Eternatus's banishment/defeat/retreat(?) works for me.
I think most of the uncertainty for me comes on a character level, not necessarily a plot one. The relationship between Hana and Leon isn't really clear until sometime in Chapter 4:
This, I think, also is the first time Hana mentions specifically how she and Hop are so close (they must be close if she's calling out his name as she's being sucked into the portal/wormhole at the very beginning of the fic, and she has his phone number in her phone (RIP)). Maybe this is something that's also extrapolated from the game, with Hop being the player's rival and also best friend I think?
I guess my confusion comes from not immediately assuming Hana is the SwSh protagonist, since many times in trainer fics, original characters aren't necessarily a substitute of the player character. This confusion could easily be cleared up, though, with a few small lines sprinkled throughout the opening chapter or two hinting at what Hana was doing in Hammerlocke that day, or why she was with Hop specifically, and why or how she got separated in the chaos. Just something to clarify some of the stakes here a bit earlier on, or at least earlier than Chapter 4 in which we finally get into the meat of the plot.
Personally, if I'm able to understand Hana's emotional stakes better, some of her actions would hit home stronger for me. Her retreat into silence, the counting to ten, the way she looks to reassure Leon and try to calm him down. If I knew what was boiling beneath the surface for her, what comes bursting out at the end of Chapter 4, all that emotional turmoil she's been burying deep that finally burst through the cracks in her controlled facade, it would hit me harder with what she's struggling with up to that point. It really is a testament that she made it that far before breaking down (vs Leon's outbursts from the start, which I love the contrast between them.) I think you can turn Hana's eventual meltdown up to an eleven with a bit more hints as to her worries earlier in the fic.
It took me a minute to process her actual meltdown at the end of Chapter 4, because as she notes, are fashion trends really the straw that breaks the Camerupt's back?
I will say, though, of the our two main characters, I think Leon comes across stronger from the start of Chapter 1 (Though by the end of Chapter 4, Hana takes the spotlight). His emotional stakes are clearer with his pokemon being taken from him by the petrification, and his duties to stop Eternatus and protect Hammerlock as Galar's Champion. He's panicked, flighty, fidgety, and to top it all off, injured. Not a good combo, and thank goodness Hana is there to be a voice of reason for him amidst all the high energy and uncertainty. It's almost like he's kept all the adrenaline from the Etnernatus encounter before he was flung into the past. I think it suits his character well. The real fatigue and frustration for him bleeds through once he's calmed down a bit (or at least as much as Leon can calm down). His emotional outbursts are a delightful contrast to Hana's bottling up of her emotions, and it really drives home the point that these two could not be more different from one another.
Back to the point earlier about not knowing Hana's relationship with Leon (until I figured out her relationship with Hop), there's this interesting dynamic between them that reads as complete strangers, but with enough familiarity that there's some comfort between them (or maybe that's the trauma speaking.) Later, knowing that he'd probably have some familiarity with his kid brother's best friend, this makes their interactions mesh a bit more.
That being said, once I got my characters straight, the rest of the story intrigued me so much. I enjoyed the hints of something being horribly wrong right out of the gate. If you forget the summary says there's some time travel shenanigans involved, it's really fascinating to see modern tech sort of seize up: phones and their more modern pokeballs are rendered entirely useless. And not just useless, petrified! It gives this sense of things that don't belong in this time period should be erased from existence. For a second I was worried that Hana and Leon might befall a similar fate, seeing as they don't belong in this time period either! I'm relieved that petrification seems relegated to electronics only, though. Thank goodness, too, for Hana's quick thinking to save Rotom. I like that they do manage to have one pokemon companion with them. I really enjoy the whimsy Rotom adds to the story, especially given the dire circumstances they find themselves in.
These lines when he jumps into the microwave got me laughing:
The comedy is really appreciated when even thinking about what on earth Hana and Leon are going to do about being stuck in 1993 is just :rowlanxiety: I honestly haven't a clue as to how they're going to get out of this situation and what it means for the general timeflow, since as Hana has mused, she can literally go meet her parents before she's even been conceived.
Speaking of timeflow, I've noticed a good bit of other Legendary shenanigans going on, and we're only four chapters in! Ho-oh at the end of Chapter 1, and now Zapdos at the end of Chapter 4. Not really two Legendaries I'd assume to see given the current situation (y'know space/time travel and all that) so consider me very intrigued as to how this is all going to shake out. Maybe even they know something's up with Hana and Leon's presence 26 years in the past.
Also I really enjoy the worldbuilding you've got with Lucy and the old-timey Pokemon Center. At the start of Chapter 4, I thought that Leon and Hana ended up at Lucy and Owen's house, but then it turns out their house is the Pokemon Center. Personally a line at the start of the chapter that mentions this offhandedly would have solved my confusion earlier, but it's in there later so I wasn't left wondering for too long. It's really going to be fun seeing all the differences (and seeing Hana and Leon's reactions to all the differences) between modern day Galar, and a Johto of the kind-of-distant-past, but not like Arceus Legends distant-past. Consider me intrigued, and really kudos to you on making such amazing progress with this fic so far! I'm probably wondering a lot of things that are already answered in the story somewhere, and if I was just patient enough to keep reading I would find out! (<-- your internal monologue at reading my comments, probably lol)
I have a few other small comments that didn't really fit into the overall flow of the review thus far so I've tossed them at the end here.
This bit in Chapter 1 left me a bit confused. Hana's dialogue implies that she's already walked this path before, but I was under the impression that not a lot of time passed between her waking up and going to find Leon, and actually finding him. When did she have time to explore this path independent of Leon?
There was another instance of passage of time in Chapter 4 that left me a bit puzzled as well. The chapter starts at night with Hana not being able to sleep well in Lucy's guest bed, but then the next paragraph opens with Hana drying dishes and it's later shown to be some time in the afternoon. I had no idea that time had passed and assumed that Hana went to clean dishes first thing in the morning, or she couldn't sleep so she went down to the kitchen that night to clean. A small line indicating the time of day as the scene transitions from that night to the next day would be helpful, at least for me!
And last bit, sorry this got long on me!
I really liked this little bit in the Chapter 2 Intermission, because of all the little clues in Chapter 1 (and beyond).
Right off the bat, the delayed reveal of what really happened to Leon and Hana on the Darkest Day is really smart. There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding what happened, because let's be real, does anyone actually know? Eternatus, Dynamaxing, crazy energy, wormholes, rips in space/time?? It's pretty wild that Macro Cosmos was messing with Eternatus and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with the events of the Darkest Day, but crazy shenanigans resulting from some kind of cosmic energy explosion upon Eternatus's banishment/defeat/retreat(?) works for me.
I think most of the uncertainty for me comes on a character level, not necessarily a plot one. The relationship between Hana and Leon isn't really clear until sometime in Chapter 4:
Without reading the summary (or the little intermission of Chapter 2), I don't think I would have guessed Hana was in the act of challenging Leon when the Darkest Day happened. (Though I guess if we extrapolate the events of the games, with Hana being the player character, Darkest Day does happen right as they are heading to challenge Leon, but this isn't clear from the fic, just from prior game knowledge).
This, I think, also is the first time Hana mentions specifically how she and Hop are so close (they must be close if she's calling out his name as she's being sucked into the portal/wormhole at the very beginning of the fic, and she has his phone number in her phone (RIP)). Maybe this is something that's also extrapolated from the game, with Hop being the player's rival and also best friend I think?
I guess my confusion comes from not immediately assuming Hana is the SwSh protagonist, since many times in trainer fics, original characters aren't necessarily a substitute of the player character. This confusion could easily be cleared up, though, with a few small lines sprinkled throughout the opening chapter or two hinting at what Hana was doing in Hammerlocke that day, or why she was with Hop specifically, and why or how she got separated in the chaos. Just something to clarify some of the stakes here a bit earlier on, or at least earlier than Chapter 4 in which we finally get into the meat of the plot.
Personally, if I'm able to understand Hana's emotional stakes better, some of her actions would hit home stronger for me. Her retreat into silence, the counting to ten, the way she looks to reassure Leon and try to calm him down. If I knew what was boiling beneath the surface for her, what comes bursting out at the end of Chapter 4, all that emotional turmoil she's been burying deep that finally burst through the cracks in her controlled facade, it would hit me harder with what she's struggling with up to that point. It really is a testament that she made it that far before breaking down (vs Leon's outbursts from the start, which I love the contrast between them.) I think you can turn Hana's eventual meltdown up to an eleven with a bit more hints as to her worries earlier in the fic.
It took me a minute to process her actual meltdown at the end of Chapter 4, because as she notes, are fashion trends really the straw that breaks the Camerupt's back?
And then I realized that yes, yes it was, because so far she's been bottling everything up inside, trying to keep that calm facade, to not freak out because what good is that going to do for her or Leon or anyone else? But then the reality smacks her in the face so much that she can't avoid it any longer. She's trapped 26 years in the past for no discernable reason and with no solution on how to get back. The how or why doesn't matter (though I did wonder why neither she nor Leon ask these questions either aloud or to themselves up to this point, but it's probably also a moot point b/c they're still trying to sort out exactly what even happened to them) She's stuck, she's scared, and the cracks finally give way and it's about fanny packs of all things! Great stuff.
I will say, though, of the our two main characters, I think Leon comes across stronger from the start of Chapter 1 (Though by the end of Chapter 4, Hana takes the spotlight). His emotional stakes are clearer with his pokemon being taken from him by the petrification, and his duties to stop Eternatus and protect Hammerlock as Galar's Champion. He's panicked, flighty, fidgety, and to top it all off, injured. Not a good combo, and thank goodness Hana is there to be a voice of reason for him amidst all the high energy and uncertainty. It's almost like he's kept all the adrenaline from the Etnernatus encounter before he was flung into the past. I think it suits his character well. The real fatigue and frustration for him bleeds through once he's calmed down a bit (or at least as much as Leon can calm down). His emotional outbursts are a delightful contrast to Hana's bottling up of her emotions, and it really drives home the point that these two could not be more different from one another.
Back to the point earlier about not knowing Hana's relationship with Leon (until I figured out her relationship with Hop), there's this interesting dynamic between them that reads as complete strangers, but with enough familiarity that there's some comfort between them (or maybe that's the trauma speaking.) Later, knowing that he'd probably have some familiarity with his kid brother's best friend, this makes their interactions mesh a bit more.
That being said, once I got my characters straight, the rest of the story intrigued me so much. I enjoyed the hints of something being horribly wrong right out of the gate. If you forget the summary says there's some time travel shenanigans involved, it's really fascinating to see modern tech sort of seize up: phones and their more modern pokeballs are rendered entirely useless. And not just useless, petrified! It gives this sense of things that don't belong in this time period should be erased from existence. For a second I was worried that Hana and Leon might befall a similar fate, seeing as they don't belong in this time period either! I'm relieved that petrification seems relegated to electronics only, though. Thank goodness, too, for Hana's quick thinking to save Rotom. I like that they do manage to have one pokemon companion with them. I really enjoy the whimsy Rotom adds to the story, especially given the dire circumstances they find themselves in.
These lines when he jumps into the microwave got me laughing:
(though in the first quoted passage, I wasn't sure who was speaking at that point, since Rotom's action sits in the middle of the two bits of dialogue like a tag, rather than a response to the first question.)
The comedy is really appreciated when even thinking about what on earth Hana and Leon are going to do about being stuck in 1993 is just :rowlanxiety: I honestly haven't a clue as to how they're going to get out of this situation and what it means for the general timeflow, since as Hana has mused, she can literally go meet her parents before she's even been conceived.
Speaking of timeflow, I've noticed a good bit of other Legendary shenanigans going on, and we're only four chapters in! Ho-oh at the end of Chapter 1, and now Zapdos at the end of Chapter 4. Not really two Legendaries I'd assume to see given the current situation (y'know space/time travel and all that) so consider me very intrigued as to how this is all going to shake out. Maybe even they know something's up with Hana and Leon's presence 26 years in the past.
Also I really enjoy the worldbuilding you've got with Lucy and the old-timey Pokemon Center. At the start of Chapter 4, I thought that Leon and Hana ended up at Lucy and Owen's house, but then it turns out their house is the Pokemon Center. Personally a line at the start of the chapter that mentions this offhandedly would have solved my confusion earlier, but it's in there later so I wasn't left wondering for too long. It's really going to be fun seeing all the differences (and seeing Hana and Leon's reactions to all the differences) between modern day Galar, and a Johto of the kind-of-distant-past, but not like Arceus Legends distant-past. Consider me intrigued, and really kudos to you on making such amazing progress with this fic so far! I'm probably wondering a lot of things that are already answered in the story somewhere, and if I was just patient enough to keep reading I would find out! (<-- your internal monologue at reading my comments, probably lol)
I have a few other small comments that didn't really fit into the overall flow of the review thus far so I've tossed them at the end here.
This bit in Chapter 1 left me a bit confused. Hana's dialogue implies that she's already walked this path before, but I was under the impression that not a lot of time passed between her waking up and going to find Leon, and actually finding him. When did she have time to explore this path independent of Leon?
There was another instance of passage of time in Chapter 4 that left me a bit puzzled as well. The chapter starts at night with Hana not being able to sleep well in Lucy's guest bed, but then the next paragraph opens with Hana drying dishes and it's later shown to be some time in the afternoon. I had no idea that time had passed and assumed that Hana went to clean dishes first thing in the morning, or she couldn't sleep so she went down to the kitchen that night to clean. A small line indicating the time of day as the scene transitions from that night to the next day would be helpful, at least for me!
And last bit, sorry this got long on me!
I really liked this little bit in the Chapter 2 Intermission, because of all the little clues in Chapter 1 (and beyond).
Almost all of Hana's body language or tics felt very physical and centered around staying limber, like she was stretching her ankles, or sitting upright with good posture, or practicing breathing. I honestly didn't know she was a former dancer, and this line in the Intermission was a big "Ah-ha!" reward for me after putting the pieces together that you sprinkled throughout. I like that so much of Hana's dancer training carries through her life even now as a trainer. It's free backstory without having to explain or infodump, and it's great writing.
MintyMimix
Otherworldly Dessert
Review Blitz! Only doing Chapter 1 for now due to time constraints.
Chapter 1’s imagery is incredible – the gravity of the situation with Eternatus and the time travel thereafter felt so crisp and visceral. The use of sensory throughout is brilliant!
I know that Rotom can speak as seen in the Rotomdex from Sun & Moon, but I’m curious if that is the case here, or if it's something unique to Hana being able to understand them.
Overall, this was an incredibly vivid introduction to a heartfelt journey with two characters that have already shown what their personality, motivations and weaknesses are within the first chapter. The perspective is extremely well-executed, and everything ties so wonderfully from image and emotional standpoint! I’m excited to read on!
Chapter 1’s imagery is incredible – the gravity of the situation with Eternatus and the time travel thereafter felt so crisp and visceral. The use of sensory throughout is brilliant!
I didn’t even know what “haulms” meant until now!
Perfect use of first person here to paint the personality of the narrator. She seems to have a bit of an analytical and problem-solving oriented mindset, which will definitely be interesting once faced with something that is most certainly not the most linearly logically (time travel). I get the feeling I’m going to enjoy Hana’s commentary a lot just from these lines alone.
Seriously, I want to put your blend of imagery and personality on a plaque and say “this is how you do first person narration well”. Loving it!
I know that Rotom can speak as seen in the Rotomdex from Sun & Moon, but I’m curious if that is the case here, or if it's something unique to Hana being able to understand them.
Looks like Hana has some history with Hop as well as Leon. Aww…
Is this due to the time travel, due to the battle, or something else entirely, I wonder… Looks like Leon and Hana are assuming the worst, though. Poor pair.
Hana has some esteem issues to work through; I hope she can find her own confidence throughout this journey in the past!
This is very interesting phrasing; I like how it ties into both a sense of emotional confidence and in his literal lacking in sense of direction – now made all the more poignant by an admittance of being “lost”.
Overall, this was an incredibly vivid introduction to a heartfelt journey with two characters that have already shown what their personality, motivations and weaknesses are within the first chapter. The perspective is extremely well-executed, and everything ties so wonderfully from image and emotional standpoint! I’m excited to read on!
canisaries
you should've known the price of evil
Hey there, here for Catnip! Read chapters 2-4 since 2 and 3 were quite short.
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These chapters do a lot to patch up the lack of focus on Hana herself in the first chapter. Her apparently being a Fairy type specialists definitely sets her apart from just the player character when (regular) players almost never focus on a type. She feels a bit more like she's part of the whole pokécelebrity sphere that way, too, though chapter 2 does already make that clear.
The breakdown in chapter 4 felt very true to life. While it was a bit ambiguous what in particular set her off - I'm guessing going through 80s fashion made her more concretely aware of how she'd have to live through 26 years before she could reach her own time again - it felt like a very realistic freakout, and I say this as someone who's definitely gone through her fair share of those.
I think I was either paying poor attention during the very end or making a baseless assumption since I thought the bird she encountered was a Noctowl, but on the quote-picking reread it seems much more like Zapdos, which is interesting - I really wasn't expecting a legendary bird to make an appearance, in Johto no less. Makes me really wonder what that's foreshadowing.
Anyway, that's it for my thoughts - good stuff. Good luck with writing onward, and see you around.
immediate solution to the money problem: make bank betting when you know the outcomes
back to the future arc when?
Both of these parts had the dialogue belong to a different person than the narration in between the lines focuses on, which was kind of confusing.
Having read the first chapter so long ago, I was pretty confused at this part until I remembered the Sentret. Still, I'd argue that a quick mention of the species would go a long way for clarity, even for binge-readers.
I was going to say that a line ending in an ellipsis does not use a comma when a dialogue tag follows it, but for some reason no guide gives that kind of example so I can't source it and so I'm not even sure anymore.
Use either "okay" or "OK" in writing - "okay" is the word while "OK" is the abbreviation.
oh if only you knew
This sentence was a bit weird structurally to me - I expected the "not only" to be paired with "but" and something more, but the sentence stops there.
horny??? 🤔🤔🤔
Nice bit of subtle characterization here - Hana feels apprehensive about taking just a few cherries while Leon casually takes a whole water bottle.
I googled this word, but couldn't find any fitting definition. It does mean dull, but only in the context of a color, paint or surface.
*proved
Inconsistent terminology?
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These chapters do a lot to patch up the lack of focus on Hana herself in the first chapter. Her apparently being a Fairy type specialists definitely sets her apart from just the player character when (regular) players almost never focus on a type. She feels a bit more like she's part of the whole pokécelebrity sphere that way, too, though chapter 2 does already make that clear.
The breakdown in chapter 4 felt very true to life. While it was a bit ambiguous what in particular set her off - I'm guessing going through 80s fashion made her more concretely aware of how she'd have to live through 26 years before she could reach her own time again - it felt like a very realistic freakout, and I say this as someone who's definitely gone through her fair share of those.
I think I was either paying poor attention during the very end or making a baseless assumption since I thought the bird she encountered was a Noctowl, but on the quote-picking reread it seems much more like Zapdos, which is interesting - I really wasn't expecting a legendary bird to make an appearance, in Johto no less. Makes me really wonder what that's foreshadowing.
Anyway, that's it for my thoughts - good stuff. Good luck with writing onward, and see you around.
slamdunkrai
bing.com
- Pronouns
- they/them
- Partners
-
Hello! Here for Catnip, but also, I'd heard enough about the premise that I'm glad I was able to check it out at some point. Reporting back from the end of chapter four.
You know that I am, of course, a sucker for disorienting and deeply abnormal things happening to poor, unwitting protagonists at the hands of some supernatural force, and then leaving those characters to just piece their lives together in the wreckage as they try to escape. Hana and Leon getting vwooped back in time is a good example of this! The opening was certainly pretty striking, and you do a good job in terms of setting up an uneasy atmosphere. Will Leon be able to get his pokéballs to open? Are his pokémon okay? What becomes of Eternatus? How did this happen? How will Leon and Hana get back home? All of these questions came to mind while I was reading this, even before it was revealed that the gang were in 1993. On the level of making me want answers to these questions, this story does its job well.
I had a few qualms with how Leon and Hana were characterised, though; examples concerning Leon are elaborated upon in the line-by-lines, but the gist of it is that I couldn't really connect with his reactions to all the objectively weird and potentially life-ruining things happening to him. It felt like he should have been more stressed than he read as, in a way that I don't think the story really resolves how I'd like it to.
Hana comes across better, I think! My main issue with her characterisation is mostly in how it's gotten across: I like chapter two on paper, as a little cut-away from the action to talk about how Hana's father(?), as part of the rescue team, is desperately searching for his daughter, which should add to the stakes a little and get some nice distance from the main action to reveal the wider stakes here. I don't think it works as well as it should because 90% of it is dedicated to describing Hana's personality, backstory, and appearance, and it definitely feels like there's a more organic way to get that across. It comes across as very info-dumpy as it is, imo.
That being said, I do like her a character! Her stress comes across much more clearly than Leon's does (which is a benefit of her being the POV character, I suppose, but it must be said regardless); her banter with Rotom is charming, and I like how she uses the tried-and-tested method of "keep calm and count to ten" as a coping mechanism. Her bewilderment at being thrown two-and-a-half decades back in time comes across well, and her allowing herself to sob at the end of chapter four is a touching moment. She's been through a lot already; who can blame her? :(
There were a few grammatical issues I had with some parts, which I'll outline in the line-by-line responses — which also happen to include a couple of more general comments. I tried not to comment too much on it, though; only when I actively got caught up on it.
(Also, Cliff's Home Electronics should all be capitalised; it's all the same proper noun.)
On the whole, I'm glad I got to check this out, and enjoyed reading this opening for Catnip. Cheers for writing it! :>
You know that I am, of course, a sucker for disorienting and deeply abnormal things happening to poor, unwitting protagonists at the hands of some supernatural force, and then leaving those characters to just piece their lives together in the wreckage as they try to escape. Hana and Leon getting vwooped back in time is a good example of this! The opening was certainly pretty striking, and you do a good job in terms of setting up an uneasy atmosphere. Will Leon be able to get his pokéballs to open? Are his pokémon okay? What becomes of Eternatus? How did this happen? How will Leon and Hana get back home? All of these questions came to mind while I was reading this, even before it was revealed that the gang were in 1993. On the level of making me want answers to these questions, this story does its job well.
I had a few qualms with how Leon and Hana were characterised, though; examples concerning Leon are elaborated upon in the line-by-lines, but the gist of it is that I couldn't really connect with his reactions to all the objectively weird and potentially life-ruining things happening to him. It felt like he should have been more stressed than he read as, in a way that I don't think the story really resolves how I'd like it to.
Hana comes across better, I think! My main issue with her characterisation is mostly in how it's gotten across: I like chapter two on paper, as a little cut-away from the action to talk about how Hana's father(?), as part of the rescue team, is desperately searching for his daughter, which should add to the stakes a little and get some nice distance from the main action to reveal the wider stakes here. I don't think it works as well as it should because 90% of it is dedicated to describing Hana's personality, backstory, and appearance, and it definitely feels like there's a more organic way to get that across. It comes across as very info-dumpy as it is, imo.
That being said, I do like her a character! Her stress comes across much more clearly than Leon's does (which is a benefit of her being the POV character, I suppose, but it must be said regardless); her banter with Rotom is charming, and I like how she uses the tried-and-tested method of "keep calm and count to ten" as a coping mechanism. Her bewilderment at being thrown two-and-a-half decades back in time comes across well, and her allowing herself to sob at the end of chapter four is a touching moment. She's been through a lot already; who can blame her? :(
There were a few grammatical issues I had with some parts, which I'll outline in the line-by-line responses — which also happen to include a couple of more general comments. I tried not to comment too much on it, though; only when I actively got caught up on it.
Should be "as was I", if I'm reading this right. Not sure what she would be doing, but here it reads like she's being devoured by the abyss of light, and "as did I" means she's doing.
Wasn't 100% sure about this simile. I feel like if a shell is protective, its strength is in its rigidity, so it's hard to imagine one curling.
I don't think I like "dangerously" as an adverb here. Feels a little imprecise and hard to picture, and ultimately just muddled the sentence for me. I'd suggest putting a little more into the description to specifically evoke that dangerous vibe.
His dialogue doesn't read as urgent as the scene demands it should, imo. He's lost (which isn't new for him, tbf), he's desperate, his beloved pokémon — his charizard in particular! — are in a peril he can't immediately do much about; it feels like he should be a lot jumpier and less rambling here! A lot more exclamation points! He's trying to get his thoughts out as fast as he can! Not sure him just describing what "champ stuff" entails and despairing that there's "like, so many things to do now" fits that vibe, if you get what I mean.
Missing a full stop at the end.
Good description, lmao. My tongue curled a little trying to imagine this. Sounds grim!
I took this to be one of the hints that they've been displaced in time (do correct me if I'm wrong), but on initial reading, this lost me, and I think it's because it's not entirely clear what you mean. I don't know what Leon's talking about when he says they should "never be a rare rerun" here — like, is he saying that the finals should never be re-aired? That they should be aired more often? It's definitely not unheard of for old football games to be re-aired, especially not big national finals. Doesn't help that "factually" is a redundant adverb here — we already know he's stating a fact. I do like the idea behind this, because the old Back to the Future technique (where Marty sees an old program and is like "hey, I've seen this one! This is a classic!" and everyone else is like "what do you mean? This is brand new," because he's not in 1985 anymore) is one of my favourite ways to show someone reacting to going back in time without being used to it yet. I'd suggest being a bit more precise with this example, though; have him (and Hana!) react a bit more explicitly about this being weird because they've seen it before, so why's it airing the first time? (That being said, I do think you convey their shock that it's in Kantonian well enough.)
(Also, Cliff's Home Electronics should all be capitalised; it's all the same proper noun.)
Lmao this is also good
Went by in a flash, maybe? Unless Hana spent the rest of the evening in a daze herself.
This'd be fine if you got rid of the "did"; it's not clear what those knots are doing, exactly.
Yeah, that's a thing that would just happen to Leon, tbh.
You could just say cherries as opposed to dark red fruits. It's one of those words you don't need to worry so much about repeating, and describing them feels a little unnatural — we know that cherries are dark red, and also that they're fruits.
I think this means the opposite of what you want it to mean. "Anything but" means that it's not a big city (it's anything other than a big city), so it's "to say that Hammerlocke wasn't a big city would be a grave understatement", which threw me off considering the next sentence is about how historic a city it is. The most historic and biggest one in Galar, in fact! I like what you're going for with that bit, though.
Oh! Well, that's one hell of a thing to just have happen to you, especially on top of all the time travel stuff. Poor Hana!
On the whole, I'm glad I got to check this out, and enjoyed reading this opening for Catnip. Cheers for writing it! :>
kintsugi
golden scars | pfp by sun
I return at long last, with a meme I'm sure you've never seen before ...
For future reference, this review is sort of all over the place, but I've read up to the end of the second chapter 9, when famed reformed serial killer Red Morty shows up and doesn't do any serial killing. generally sorted in the areas of feedback that you'd mentioned in DM's, but honestly I find that characters are at their easiest to read at the very beginning and very end of their stories; in the middle there's a lot of tumult/growth and it's hard to pin those down exactly. But let's jump in.
characters
Hannah
initially i had this all sectioned out and then I realized structure is a lie. sorry.
In particular I liked the last bit I quoted, because, haha, yeah, that's pretty real, and I think it's a good way to ground Hannah's desire to not rock the boat in a very literal way that's basically at the core of who she is. This one hits pretty hard because it's something that's common--do you keep the name that your parents gave you because it meant a lot to them and their culture, or do you pick the one that's easier for your current peers to pronounce? It speaks deeply to how she perceives herself and how she wants to be perceived by others, it's a struggle that gets more and more common in a modern world, and it's one that I think is particularly interesting because there's no right or wrong answer even if it has a ton of impacts for everything else you do.
Looking back on my thoughts on the first few chapters, I do think everything checks out--it's clear that she's got a very set expectation that things need to be a certain way, and she struggles when things don't go that way. A lot of the earlier chapters in this section focus around her unease and discomfort at the lack of status quo--it's not that things are wrong; it's that they're different. She has a really strong sense of expectation/obligation and she's beholden to that on a super high level, to the point that she's grateful to be crying in a ditch because at least no one in the ditch can notice. I like how things are tied together with her past here; ballet is a really pain-on-the-inside, beauty-on-the-outside sort of hobby and it rarely comes up in stories as a metaphor but every time it does, I think it slaps. You do a good job of showing Hannah's regimented thought processes here; most of the time, she's more anxious at the fact that she's inconveniencing other people by being upset than the fact that she's upset.
Which, altogether, is a very realistic thought process but also one that doesn't seem super healthy. And the cracks are definitely starting to show; washing the plates doesn't make them better, sorta thing. Conflict will be there no matter how hard you try to avoid looking at it.
But because of this aversion to conflict, she also strikes me as unempathetic in a way--similar to being unable to understand why Leon would be distressed for his pokemon, we see on the beach section that she only really understands it once she's able to make the comparison back to herself. The more I read, the more I get that this is tied to her character; she seems to expect everything to have a place, and only interacts with things when they step out in a way she doesn't expect--and like, specifically in a way that inconveniences/affects her:
The first two are interesting to me because it suggests that she's surprised to see the life of Lucy once the curtain of "Nurse Joy" is pulled back--and she's just a person, just like Hannah, and that's odd. Which honestly is a realization that I think we all have to make at some point in our lives (and that some people never do); I remember being confused that my teachers went home and did other things outside of their role in my life as "my teacher". A big, wonderous, and sad part of growing up I think is acknowledging that your existence isn't really central to most people's lives, that they'll often do things that run counter to what you want or that aren't even made with your opinion in mind, and Hannah's on the cusp of making that leap. She's surprised that Leon pays enough attention to other people's conversations to recognize who their neighbors are--and since she hasn't known him for very long, it suggests that this isn't something that Hannah's surprised about Leon in particular, but surprised that people would listen when they aren't talking.
In a world that's full of pokemon who do things of their own volition and in general behave of their own accord (often to the inconvenience of humans around them), Hannah treats a hoppip as a gardener's worst nightmare. And it tracks with her whole "each in its right place" mentality, where everyone is a shiny, clean, white plate that has a specific spot on the shelf; if the well-arranged flowerpot decides to move around, that mindset is ruined. Her pokemon are friends, but she doesn't really miss them (I think Whimsicott is the only team member she thinks about in this chunk, and it's only once + in passing); she thinks more about the roles that they're all supposed to play, how her pokemon make it so that wild pokemon are less of a threat, how being a trainer means that she's always prepared for battle.
And in the last example, she's discouraged because she's unable to fulfill a role of being a threat (?), which I guess is a pretty bleak way to see yourself--she seems to expect the worst out of herself (destruction), but is also disappointed that she can't even deliver on that.
Again, these lines are cherrypicked a bit, but this builds me to the general idea that Hannah mostly views the people around her (as well as herself) as roles, not people, and when anyone breaks from that role it's cause for distress. Honestly from a meta-perspective I think that's a pretty engaging concept on paper (since in a sense that's how characters + fictional conflicts are made), but it's also one that's hard to pull off well, since the end result is that Hannah doesn't want to deal with anyone doing things that she doesn't expect, even if "someone does something unexpected" is basically the recipe for fictional plots.
And ultimately I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer here, since this is a realistic way to write a person; it's just atypical to have a conflict-averse protagonist because the point of a protagonist is to throw them into conflict. A huge portion of coming-of-age stories also centers around the revelation that the world is bigger than you, that people will make decisions of their own accord and independently lead their lives regardless of what you personally think they should be doing. And having a protagonist who disagrees with other characters is also pretty inherent to plot--in broad terms, it isn't a bad thing when the hero tells the villain that they disagree. What kind of trips me up is more that Hannah just thinks that everyone should do nothing all the time, that trying to improve your situation is useless, that they should just live with being stuck in the past and Leon should get over trying to get his pokemon back--and it's kind of unclear if this is just Hannah talking or if this is what the story thinks is the right course of action for her/for anyone in general.
In the second example, Lucy also speaks of wild pokemon having their own place, with that place being "fearful of humans" (with the exception of "unless they're cute"). It reminds me a bit of the section I'd quoted coming from Hannah back in my first review--
And this isn't to really start the debate about how pokemon should be treated in any situation; that's an entirely separate can of worms. But it's wild to me to hear this line of thought coming from Lucy, since she's explicitly a pokemon nurse, where her primary job is to interact with pokemon. So to see this dichotomy coming from her suggests that pokemon really only shouldn't be afraid of humans once they're owned by humans, which I find very odd coming from someone whose job is basically to look after the health and well-being of pokemon. And I think there's an argument that's analogous to the real world--that we shouldn't feed wild bears/whatever because we want the bears to remain wild and that it's a good thing for wild animals to be wary of humans rather than friendly. This is more or less because if they stop acting wild/choose to live with us that's often disastrous, since the amount of people who actually want a bear scavenging for scraps in their dumpster is "basically zero" and wild animals losing that fear tends to end with humans killing the now-less-wild animal--which is logic that holds up well in our world but is a lot more difficult to track in the pokemon world, where befriending wild pokemon is literally how the world seems to function.
It's a brief dip where I don't really understand why Lucy would be saying something like this, and since Hannah doesn't really find it odd, the audience doesn't get to find out either--it feels more like a brief flash of someone else sharing Hannah's stance on things rather than a conclusion that this individual character has made.
"this was a specific and at the same time very far-reaching question, and I did not know how to even begin answering it" cuts a bit to the root of Hannah for me--because it comes in response to Leon asking her to imagine, not to follow.
(Sidebar, I do think that the cosmic horror of being trapped in a grandfather paradox where you keep paradoxing yourself in and out of existence is an excellent thought experiment to bring up in the context of a character who struggles with anxiety/perfection, since that's probably the actual worst thing that could happen to them and also a literal interpretation of the crippling anxiety of reliving your worst mistakes).
But ultimately I wish Hannah had an answer at this point. Your main questions about character in our convo were about understanding why people do things and what their emotional states are--and I think those are well-conveyed and realistic. The flaw of "so caught up in a perceived duty/role that I'm utterly unable to imagine what a different life would be" is a relatable, albeit sad one--it just makes for a protagonist who doesn't actually want anything to change, even when the world is going to change around her regardless.
And ultimately, I don't think any of this is bad or unrealistic writing. I think you portray a realistic character here, and I don't think protagonists need to be explicitly empathetic or emotionally In One Way for them to be worthwhile protagonists--it's ultimately really difficult to comment on a protagonist as well since what doesn't work for some readers will probably work really well for others. I think the way you've constructed Hannah is consistent, and while I do find that her thought process bleeds into other characters sometimes, I think she's challenged by the story as well--I just find it difficult to figure out what's next for her, where she's going, when what she wants is for as little conflict to happen as possible.
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pokemon
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Leon
Leon also strikes me as a guy bound by duty and expectation, again with a similar "to each in their own role" thing as Hannah, just in a slightly more empathetic way--empathetic in the sense that he's more willing to consider the impacts that his actions have on others, but also kind of weird since doing that requires him to assume everyone else also has their own role, and that role is "to be protected by Leon". I think in an isekai story this works pretty well for the reasons that I mentioned in my first review + that Leon looks in the face in the second/fourth quotes--if everyone else's job is to be protected by Leon or to admire Leon, what happens when he's unable to perform? It's a compelling question, but also one that really only works if Leon reduces everyone else to that specific role. I think in his case it hits a little harder because 1) the narrative is more clear that this is a bad way to think and 2) it's a motivation that's driving the plot forward.
But ultimately it's kind of bonkers that, while he has many reasons to want to go back, the main reason is so that he wants to be seen putting up a competent fight against Eternatus--not that he wants to make sure that no one else is hurt, it's so that he isn't a disappointment. It's a flaw that I don't think he's aware is a flaw, and one that I don't think Hannah's really in the emotional state to point out to him either--but for me it's the one that drives the plot forward in a really interesting way. Roles, our perception of ourselves, and other people's perceptions of us is basically the heart of isekai, so to see these ideas collide head-on with the characters is a pretty interesting one imo.
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Again, I struggle deeply to pass judgment or even just write commentary on characters mid-fic--there's so many questions still up in the air here. I think the setup works, but it's one of those "it's all in the execution" where the answer is just further down the road and I don't really know if mid-stage temp reads are as helpful as endgame ones are, so here we are. "X character doesn't act the way I expected" isn't bad writing and is arguably associated with good writing (lol)--all this to say that this is mostly just a description of what I think each character is doing, rather than "structurally this does/doesn't work"--it feels like there's a lot more story to go. I do think this is an enjoyable read and once I got into the grove of things, it was a lot of fun. I think for both of our sanity/for the length of review, I'll hold back on pacing thoughts until probably the end of the next arc, but I thought things in general were pretty breezy.
Some other random notes I wrote down--I thought you set the scenes really well. The pokecenter with its plants feels nicely cozy; the beach feels open and inviting and then ultimately scary (in a way that lets you play Hannah's "but we NEED to get there THIS WAY" and Leon's "but we'll get there SOMEHOW" really well); Cuora city is really cute and I liked the little dip we got into their history. A lot of the story is inherently in Hannah's head, which tracks for first person POV, but the glimpses outside are also really effective at characterizing the world, which I appreciated.
Deeply curious where Elm thinks pokemon come from lol.
Swinging around soon, I hope! I'm horribly slow at following up on things but I think you've been slaying it with Blitz + this in general, so I wanted to at least stop by.
Line-edits, pretty much only on typos per the author's note. Please be aware that I'm a shit copyeditor lol, and also that a lot of these things might actually be regional variants. I'm from across the pond, apologies.
(this one in general didn't parse immediately to me as the sentret, since lots of characters in this fic could reasonably have round faces and iirc none of them have been explicitly described as not having round faces. Something like "furry" might help a bit better)
(the last comma there is important since it makes it clear that Hannah isn't flinching when Milo's team is at a disadvantage)
" [...] than even a regular smartphone today?" I hadn't been asking anyone in particular, but upon hearing my renewed interest in the conversation, Rotom flew a happy circle around me.
"He was thin, almost as frail as I was. Save for his bleached hair, he looked like he was definitely from here."
For future reference, this review is sort of all over the place, but I've read up to the end of the second chapter 9, when famed reformed serial killer Red Morty shows up and doesn't do any serial killing. generally sorted in the areas of feedback that you'd mentioned in DM's, but honestly I find that characters are at their easiest to read at the very beginning and very end of their stories; in the middle there's a lot of tumult/growth and it's hard to pin those down exactly. But let's jump in.
characters
Hannah
initially i had this all sectioned out and then I realized structure is a lie. sorry.
I find that characters are built over the course of a story, but there's usually a few lines that I find emblematic of what they're really about, so to speak, and it's a little easier for me to frame my thoughts around those. So all this to say that this is broad-strokes of Hannah summarized around the lines that I found most emblematic of her, less that these are the only lines I noticed, so to speak.
In particular I liked the last bit I quoted, because, haha, yeah, that's pretty real, and I think it's a good way to ground Hannah's desire to not rock the boat in a very literal way that's basically at the core of who she is. This one hits pretty hard because it's something that's common--do you keep the name that your parents gave you because it meant a lot to them and their culture, or do you pick the one that's easier for your current peers to pronounce? It speaks deeply to how she perceives herself and how she wants to be perceived by others, it's a struggle that gets more and more common in a modern world, and it's one that I think is particularly interesting because there's no right or wrong answer even if it has a ton of impacts for everything else you do.
Looking back on my thoughts on the first few chapters, I do think everything checks out--it's clear that she's got a very set expectation that things need to be a certain way, and she struggles when things don't go that way. A lot of the earlier chapters in this section focus around her unease and discomfort at the lack of status quo--it's not that things are wrong; it's that they're different. She has a really strong sense of expectation/obligation and she's beholden to that on a super high level, to the point that she's grateful to be crying in a ditch because at least no one in the ditch can notice. I like how things are tied together with her past here; ballet is a really pain-on-the-inside, beauty-on-the-outside sort of hobby and it rarely comes up in stories as a metaphor but every time it does, I think it slaps. You do a good job of showing Hannah's regimented thought processes here; most of the time, she's more anxious at the fact that she's inconveniencing other people by being upset than the fact that she's upset.
Which, altogether, is a very realistic thought process but also one that doesn't seem super healthy. And the cracks are definitely starting to show; washing the plates doesn't make them better, sorta thing. Conflict will be there no matter how hard you try to avoid looking at it.
But because of this aversion to conflict, she also strikes me as unempathetic in a way--similar to being unable to understand why Leon would be distressed for his pokemon, we see on the beach section that she only really understands it once she's able to make the comparison back to herself. The more I read, the more I get that this is tied to her character; she seems to expect everything to have a place, and only interacts with things when they step out in a way she doesn't expect--and like, specifically in a way that inconveniences/affects her:
The first two are interesting to me because it suggests that she's surprised to see the life of Lucy once the curtain of "Nurse Joy" is pulled back--and she's just a person, just like Hannah, and that's odd. Which honestly is a realization that I think we all have to make at some point in our lives (and that some people never do); I remember being confused that my teachers went home and did other things outside of their role in my life as "my teacher". A big, wonderous, and sad part of growing up I think is acknowledging that your existence isn't really central to most people's lives, that they'll often do things that run counter to what you want or that aren't even made with your opinion in mind, and Hannah's on the cusp of making that leap. She's surprised that Leon pays enough attention to other people's conversations to recognize who their neighbors are--and since she hasn't known him for very long, it suggests that this isn't something that Hannah's surprised about Leon in particular, but surprised that people would listen when they aren't talking.
In a world that's full of pokemon who do things of their own volition and in general behave of their own accord (often to the inconvenience of humans around them), Hannah treats a hoppip as a gardener's worst nightmare. And it tracks with her whole "each in its right place" mentality, where everyone is a shiny, clean, white plate that has a specific spot on the shelf; if the well-arranged flowerpot decides to move around, that mindset is ruined. Her pokemon are friends, but she doesn't really miss them (I think Whimsicott is the only team member she thinks about in this chunk, and it's only once + in passing); she thinks more about the roles that they're all supposed to play, how her pokemon make it so that wild pokemon are less of a threat, how being a trainer means that she's always prepared for battle.
And in the last example, she's discouraged because she's unable to fulfill a role of being a threat (?), which I guess is a pretty bleak way to see yourself--she seems to expect the worst out of herself (destruction), but is also disappointed that she can't even deliver on that.
Again, these lines are cherrypicked a bit, but this builds me to the general idea that Hannah mostly views the people around her (as well as herself) as roles, not people, and when anyone breaks from that role it's cause for distress. Honestly from a meta-perspective I think that's a pretty engaging concept on paper (since in a sense that's how characters + fictional conflicts are made), but it's also one that's hard to pull off well, since the end result is that Hannah doesn't want to deal with anyone doing things that she doesn't expect, even if "someone does something unexpected" is basically the recipe for fictional plots.
But this is also where I think it gets a little rough for me--Hannah's biggest desire is to be unobtrusive, for things to stay the way they are. It's a realistic character trait but it's particularly difficult to implement well in a protagonist, since every single time the plot happens she's going to be resisting it, which is sort of the case here. Her dislike of conflict spills over to a micro-level; she's even chastising Rotom for jumping around lamps because it'll upset the status quo and that makes her uncomfortable. Again, as a character trait I think that's pretty realistic and feeds well into what you've established about her earlier--from a story level though, it makes it so that she's unwilling to pry into details of conversations with Leon. She's tired of thinking about how she got here, so she avoids that until Leon drags the question back into her face. It's hard in a sense because her narrative is about maintaining a good external facade, but since everything's in first person, the mystery is pretty quickly ruined and we know this is a facade and internally she's falling to shit.
And ultimately I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer here, since this is a realistic way to write a person; it's just atypical to have a conflict-averse protagonist because the point of a protagonist is to throw them into conflict. A huge portion of coming-of-age stories also centers around the revelation that the world is bigger than you, that people will make decisions of their own accord and independently lead their lives regardless of what you personally think they should be doing. And having a protagonist who disagrees with other characters is also pretty inherent to plot--in broad terms, it isn't a bad thing when the hero tells the villain that they disagree. What kind of trips me up is more that Hannah just thinks that everyone should do nothing all the time, that trying to improve your situation is useless, that they should just live with being stuck in the past and Leon should get over trying to get his pokemon back--and it's kind of unclear if this is just Hannah talking or if this is what the story thinks is the right course of action for her/for anyone in general.
In the first example, Hannah compares pokemon to tools--and again this tracks with her worldview, which is basically that everyone is a tool--but it's odd that Leon finds comfort in saying that his pokemon being dead is basically like her injuring her foot. I think there's a deeper thought process that could be at play here (it's probably the closest she'll ever get to saying that her pokemon are as vital to her as a limb, for example), but the way it's phrased and the way he accepts it without question is really callous, like this would actually be comforting to the man who yells at Lucy with a broken arm because the dude just really loves his charizard even if Hannah doesn't. This feels more like a Hannah-style response coming from Leon--there's a lot of things he could object to, a lot of reasons he probably would want to speak his mind, but he chooses not to, and it's unclear why, since he argues much more freely than Hannah does.
In the second example, Lucy also speaks of wild pokemon having their own place, with that place being "fearful of humans" (with the exception of "unless they're cute"). It reminds me a bit of the section I'd quoted coming from Hannah back in my first review--
--where wild pokemon are to be respected only to the extent that they fulfill a certain role around humans. Whether or not that role is one of being cute or being dangerous is up to the pokemon in question, but
And this isn't to really start the debate about how pokemon should be treated in any situation; that's an entirely separate can of worms. But it's wild to me to hear this line of thought coming from Lucy, since she's explicitly a pokemon nurse, where her primary job is to interact with pokemon. So to see this dichotomy coming from her suggests that pokemon really only shouldn't be afraid of humans once they're owned by humans, which I find very odd coming from someone whose job is basically to look after the health and well-being of pokemon. And I think there's an argument that's analogous to the real world--that we shouldn't feed wild bears/whatever because we want the bears to remain wild and that it's a good thing for wild animals to be wary of humans rather than friendly. This is more or less because if they stop acting wild/choose to live with us that's often disastrous, since the amount of people who actually want a bear scavenging for scraps in their dumpster is "basically zero" and wild animals losing that fear tends to end with humans killing the now-less-wild animal--which is logic that holds up well in our world but is a lot more difficult to track in the pokemon world, where befriending wild pokemon is literally how the world seems to function.
It's a brief dip where I don't really understand why Lucy would be saying something like this, and since Hannah doesn't really find it odd, the audience doesn't get to find out either--it feels more like a brief flash of someone else sharing Hannah's stance on things rather than a conclusion that this individual character has made.
And again, a bit of an extreme example, but here Hannah grounds the entire "what would the butterfly effect even look like" in "well I'd have a great selfie pose". It's played for humor and I get that, but at the same time it's hard to tell if it actually is, since it's a difficult question to answer and Hannah's response is to just play it off and hope that it goes away.
"this was a specific and at the same time very far-reaching question, and I did not know how to even begin answering it" cuts a bit to the root of Hannah for me--because it comes in response to Leon asking her to imagine, not to follow.
(Sidebar, I do think that the cosmic horror of being trapped in a grandfather paradox where you keep paradoxing yourself in and out of existence is an excellent thought experiment to bring up in the context of a character who struggles with anxiety/perfection, since that's probably the actual worst thing that could happen to them and also a literal interpretation of the crippling anxiety of reliving your worst mistakes).
But ultimately I wish Hannah had an answer at this point. Your main questions about character in our convo were about understanding why people do things and what their emotional states are--and I think those are well-conveyed and realistic. The flaw of "so caught up in a perceived duty/role that I'm utterly unable to imagine what a different life would be" is a relatable, albeit sad one--it just makes for a protagonist who doesn't actually want anything to change, even when the world is going to change around her regardless.
I wish there was a conclusion here--the panic attack feels very deserved and real, but the resolution feels like it washes up, the storm runs itself dry, and Hannah's back to life as normal. This was the thing I got stuck on Hannah the most I think--events happen to her, not because of her, because she doesn't want things to happen (and then things happen anyway).
And ultimately, I don't think any of this is bad or unrealistic writing. I think you portray a realistic character here, and I don't think protagonists need to be explicitly empathetic or emotionally In One Way for them to be worthwhile protagonists--it's ultimately really difficult to comment on a protagonist as well since what doesn't work for some readers will probably work really well for others. I think the way you've constructed Hannah is consistent, and while I do find that her thought process bleeds into other characters sometimes, I think she's challenged by the story as well--I just find it difficult to figure out what's next for her, where she's going, when what she wants is for as little conflict to happen as possible.
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pokemon
This review is running really long so I'm just going to speedrun this section--I struggle to understand how humans see pokemon in this world. Is Leon abnormal for caring about Seel getting enough time outside, or is this just how everyone thinks (and not just Hannah)? Is Morty actually mad at the idea that Hannah would kick Hoppip into a cloud of geodude who might not have attacked them until she attacked them first, or is he secretly just impressed by her soccer technique? This tied back into Lucy's "wild pokemon should be afraid of humans", in that it's unclear how much respect is actually conferred to pokemon in this world by humans in general vs how much is Hannah specifically choosing to withhold that respect.
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Leon
We spend a lot of time with Leon looking at him as Leon-viewed-through-Hannah, so honestly a lot of lines from him ended up shaping my understanding of Hannah more than Leon. Which, totally acceptable (and more or less to be expected tbh) from a first-person narration; this is mostly just to say that we have less of an understanding of the character who isn't literally sprouting the narrative from their head, not that Leon's an underdeveloped character or anything.
Leon also strikes me as a guy bound by duty and expectation, again with a similar "to each in their own role" thing as Hannah, just in a slightly more empathetic way--empathetic in the sense that he's more willing to consider the impacts that his actions have on others, but also kind of weird since doing that requires him to assume everyone else also has their own role, and that role is "to be protected by Leon". I think in an isekai story this works pretty well for the reasons that I mentioned in my first review + that Leon looks in the face in the second/fourth quotes--if everyone else's job is to be protected by Leon or to admire Leon, what happens when he's unable to perform? It's a compelling question, but also one that really only works if Leon reduces everyone else to that specific role. I think in his case it hits a little harder because 1) the narrative is more clear that this is a bad way to think and 2) it's a motivation that's driving the plot forward.
But ultimately it's kind of bonkers that, while he has many reasons to want to go back, the main reason is so that he wants to be seen putting up a competent fight against Eternatus--not that he wants to make sure that no one else is hurt, it's so that he isn't a disappointment. It's a flaw that I don't think he's aware is a flaw, and one that I don't think Hannah's really in the emotional state to point out to him either--but for me it's the one that drives the plot forward in a really interesting way. Roles, our perception of ourselves, and other people's perceptions of us is basically the heart of isekai, so to see these ideas collide head-on with the characters is a pretty interesting one imo.
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Again, I struggle deeply to pass judgment or even just write commentary on characters mid-fic--there's so many questions still up in the air here. I think the setup works, but it's one of those "it's all in the execution" where the answer is just further down the road and I don't really know if mid-stage temp reads are as helpful as endgame ones are, so here we are. "X character doesn't act the way I expected" isn't bad writing and is arguably associated with good writing (lol)--all this to say that this is mostly just a description of what I think each character is doing, rather than "structurally this does/doesn't work"--it feels like there's a lot more story to go. I do think this is an enjoyable read and once I got into the grove of things, it was a lot of fun. I think for both of our sanity/for the length of review, I'll hold back on pacing thoughts until probably the end of the next arc, but I thought things in general were pretty breezy.
Some other random notes I wrote down--I thought you set the scenes really well. The pokecenter with its plants feels nicely cozy; the beach feels open and inviting and then ultimately scary (in a way that lets you play Hannah's "but we NEED to get there THIS WAY" and Leon's "but we'll get there SOMEHOW" really well); Cuora city is really cute and I liked the little dip we got into their history. A lot of the story is inherently in Hannah's head, which tracks for first person POV, but the glimpses outside are also really effective at characterizing the world, which I appreciated.
Deeply curious where Elm thinks pokemon come from lol.
Swinging around soon, I hope! I'm horribly slow at following up on things but I think you've been slaying it with Blitz + this in general, so I wanted to at least stop by.
Line-edits, pretty much only on typos per the author's note. Please be aware that I'm a shit copyeditor lol, and also that a lot of these things might actually be regional variants. I'm from across the pond, apologies.
Double period here.
This one is broader--sometimes you have spaces between your em dashes, and sometimes you don't. General convention is that you shouldn't have spaces, but this is apparently a heated debate in the community. Either way I'd pick a convention and stick with it.
Same speaker, so this should be in the same paragraph.
"But speaking of snow: is it true that you guys have unpredictable weather all year round, and if not, it's raining?"
"by-now"
(this one in general didn't parse immediately to me as the sentret, since lots of characters in this fic could reasonably have round faces and iirc none of them have been explicitly described as not having round faces. Something like "furry" might help a bit better)
I think this one should be "proved" ("proofed" is the participle, more like bread or water-proofed), but this one could be regional haha.
This one was difficult for me to parse--since having the cast on would contribute to the discomfort of sleeping on the couch, I imagine? I think something about why she thinks the cast looks uncomfortable would help--"the colour still hadn't quite returned to his face, and from the awkward way he held his cast, it looked like sleeping on the couch for five hours hadn't been comfortable."
Again, might be regional, but I've never heard of "matt" as a sound adjective before--the one that's synonymous with flat/dull is usually for colors, in the context of "being the opposite of shiny". "sprung" and "handed" also seem a bit in conflict here, as "sprung" implies a lot of speed that "handed" lacks. Also, random dip into present tense with "we've", when you want "we'd"
I don't think you need the hyphen in "one hundred" here
This is grammatically correct but it sounds really stiff. I think "It was in the vortex with us" would work here.
Again, grammatically correct (and also might be regional), but "Hanako, come!" sounds like he's talking to a dog. Something like "come on" might soften that a bit.
"Leon was about to explain how Wallace could defeat Milo in the opening charity match, even though his team was at a disadvantage, when I flinched"
(the last comma there is important since it makes it clear that Hannah isn't flinching when Milo's team is at a disadvantage)
"well-accepted"
"getting praise"
"by-now" and "very-worn"
Grammatically this all tracks but it was a little hard for me to track what was happening. I think it'd be more clear as.
" [...] than even a regular smartphone today?" I hadn't been asking anyone in particular, but upon hearing my renewed interest in the conversation, Rotom flew a happy circle around me.
(no grammar here I just liked this detail and the other section was getting huge)
I think a word got lost here.
The today/ever stack here was kinda tricky since it isn't just happening today--I'd rephrase to "I had suspected that him being 'directionally challenged' was embellished as some sort of media stunt. But in our time together he'd proven the gossip more than correct: his sense of direction was a disaster, and today that was more evident than ever."
I learned a new word today!
might be regional, but "closed up" would read more smoothly as "he drew closer to me"
should either be "a pokemon trainer" or "pokemon trainers"
I didn't quite track how they stored all of their gear in his cargo shorts lol. Those things are enormous + based, but they're doing long-term backpacking, and most of their gear is definitely in their backpacks lol.
I got tripped up a few times on this sentence. I think rearranging would help a bit:
"He was thin, almost as frail as I was. Save for his bleached hair, he looked like he was definitely from here."
*Gastly
K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
- Partners
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Hi, here for the blitz, mainly picked this fic because I meant to do a review cover to cover for it... I doubt I'll get it totally done before the blitz winds down but my goal is to chapter 10 before the 22nd. Let's see how it goes
part 1: tutorial section on the matters you were concerned about.
part 2: responsive review 1-4 and application of tutorial on chapter 2 (I'll apply it more in the later batch of reviews if the mood strikes me and if time permits)
word count: I'm confused as to what should count so I broke it down...
My tutorial featuring my work and other's: 960
review response to the story as well as applying tutorial to Blu's original text: 3400
total words discounting quotes and AN. 4360
An introduction..
While I’m not the best source for brevity coaching (points to my own work) I will say that detailed, long, writing is something of a dying breed. It’s discouraged for being dated and hard to find good examples in modern media that’s easily accessible. My writing classes taken in high school and college, all trained/drilled about more is less so say less more. And the how too books I’ve perused held similar messages.
Again, gesturing at my word counter, I paid some attention to those lessons to keep long from equalling boring. There are some base rules/methods for long works and lush writing that can help make it more accessible and I cued up a few examples that seem relevant to what you asked me to poke at. Once I’ve gone over this I’ll apply it to your work so you can get some concrete examples over what’s working and might need some tweaking.
Chapter one Initial reaction and analysis:
(I’m writing this as if I have minimal knowledge of canon since I’ve only read the sword/shield wiki it’s a fair enough assumption)
The second line in I was a mite confused. Was the narrator moving fast or being devoured by light? It took a reread from the start to where the hand wrapped around pulling the narrator back before I realized what this was and what was happening. Basically, reality/space/time is out for lunch and the narrator is being yanked about back and forth through impossibilities.
I’m guessing since the legend and climax of Sword/shield features Eternatus that this is a Sword/Shield AU/what if. Also, I think only Leon’s got purple hair in the game and was near the site… So Sir. Curl-about-the-main-character might be Leon?
Confirmed. Nice.
(20 words)
Mild redundancy notice… since the narrator is obviously hurt it’s safe to assume they aren’t doing summersaults, so the “roll over away” can be a bit muchish. “Roll away” is concise and establishes the point. You can easily drop the part about the warmth, by establishing the grass is cold wet and making the character notice it as a change this insinuates Leon’s warm/dry. Enough to make contrast/be noticed by the protag between her present cuddle moment and the grass after they roll. Also as they aren’t dying, or seem to think they’re dying, you could drop the “last” if you wanted to.
Here’s how it’ll look altered.
I mustered up my strength to roll away from him and into the cold, wet, grass. (16 words)
I’m noticing you have this bit of extra wordiness throughout your fic, it’s not a ton but appears often enough I broke my word on digging into chapter one. I did so because this was the first example of excess I found in your fic and figure it’d be important.
There’s another way to thin things a bit…
Mustering my strength I rolled away from him, into the cold, wet, grass. (8 words)
Why it can work: Because we’ve established “I” as awake after impact the narrator, ect the “I” at the start of the sentence can be considered redundant. As you usually don’t “muster things down” (or any other direction really) mustering up can be a bit redundant thus dropped.
As you can see we’ve gone from the original word count of 20 to 8. The whole less is more, but only after you play with the sentence structure a bit.
This tactic can be employed in a few other sections of your fic and help break up the long sentences of your tale, giving visual variety to your paragraphs if you’re inclined. I’ll provide at least two more examples so you can see it in action to better recognize it and see if you want to actually employ it.
Alright back to the reactions…
Leon’s really a gentleman, isn’t he? Leaving his coat/cloak thingie out for the narrator (I’m avoiding names since we haven’t one hundred percent verified who the narrator is in text I’ll switch over once you drop a name in tale) considering ribs, impact, etcetera I’m surprised the character is “tumbling” perhaps they’re on an incline… Still any excess motions got to hurt, winces in sympathy.
I’m surprised their panicked motions didn’t trigger the pain, but poking will definitely do it.
I love how concise their freak out is, a list. It’s a little alienating if you don’t know the genre/base game since why these things would be important it’s a bit of a “huh” moment, but their breathing deep ect. to calm down adds to the heaviness of the list. And seriously “Darkest day” never sounded pleasant ever.
Going back and revisiting it, having the narrator tick off each item off of it and expand is a nice use of call and respond. Using it to build up a plan well that’s a nice touch and reinforces the narrator’s cautious nature as well as the finishing counting to ten though they felt sort of ok at 7.
About the petrification scene… at first, I thought there was literally a tombstone getting bigger and bigger pushing at Rotom’s screen, like a deadly progress bar or something. But it seems to literally be turning into granite in Hana’s hand. I’d actually recommend dropping the whole “half-finished tombstone” descriptor, a creeping calcification… fossilization… works a heck of a lot better IMHO.
And here we have a name, at last, Hana huh?
Rotoms literally facehugging… sorry bad alien reference… I can only imagine Hana’s static-cling hair at this moment.
Also if this is happening to her phone what about her pokeballs? They’re tech-heavy too and this forest seems to eat tech…. at least she’s not totally defenseless now. Oh, gods a tall grass reference… I’m sorry I’ll stop now.
Leon… no you’re only going to get lost… no wandering… or wandering while wounded… It says a lot though that he’s leaning on the jr. trainer here for a plan considering he’s the CHAMPION of his home region, he’s coming across as a bit shell-shocked due to this… or perhaps a bit scattered.
Recommendation: What does a “protective position” look like? It’d be a good springboard to either build up Leon's habits (was he a vigorous gesturer and the protective getting in the way of it?), his looks (he’d used shreds of his x colored logo smeared shirt to better brace and protect the arm?) or Hanas lack of knowledge of these things (she wasn’t too sure if his arm being held like that was normal or not but it looked protective…).
And my concern about the pokeballs was concerned. Hana’s Rotom is now their only means to defense… in the middle of a wild pokemon area… oh boy… not good.
Interesting how Leon mentally separates himself from his Champ identity. I’m glad he’s kind enough to apologize (reinforcing my previous hunch about his base nature being kind and also his brain being on the fritz). It’s going to be interesting going forward. Hana’s separation vs Leon’s grief they both lost their teams but in such different ways.
Term? Can you elaborate on that I’m guessing this is a lack of canonical information more than anything but I felt a hair lost without it.
I’m guessing furret? Seems too lanky for a bidoof, and they have "pick up" as a choice trait… Also, I like how because they don’t know then the reader has no clue unless they pay very sharp attention. And that bird nailed it. Ho-oh , so they’re in Jhoto then and… I’m guessing this is where the title kicks in. They’ve got to be stupid far in the past due to Darkest.
This is going to go well.
Chapter two initial reaction and analysis
I like how this gives another perspective and hints at time moving in both timelines. It also gives an outside perspective of Hana adding to her depth it’s a very nice touch
Tech: technically the style shift going from Hana and Leon’s back and forth and “we are in a new world now” to a dry data drop is a bit jarring. It comes across as data dumping but there are ways to fix this by incorporating the sorting system I ran over my own work.
Categories
Action
Character
Setting
Reflection/thinking,flashbacks ect
1 Card info given to reader (name hist ect on Hana) no context beyond it. REFLECTION
2 character introduced rescue worker/RW
3 Handling card (where did he get?) and turn around ACTION
4 Description of Hana given via card REFECTION
5 RW sighing ACTION
6 Card purpose expanded, champion cap info given REFLECTION
7 RW daughter leader of Team Hanako, would be overjoyed (to see card?) REFLECTION
8 No bodies found SETTING
So by default reflection-heavy chapters can lean into info dump traps there are a few ways to combat that the easiest is breaking down the information and spreading it about or reordering how it’s presented.
We’ve got four reflections
Two actions
And a setting establishment moment… As you can see it’s a high ratio of reflects to everything else.
(character introduction is its own standalone beast and I’m ignoring it for now because that’d be another ten pages…)
So the point of this is chapter appears to be
REFLECT on HANA via outside perspective.
Lesser goals
what happening in hamerlocke SHOW setting
Establish destruction SETTING ESTABLISH
Introduce RESCUE WORKER
Here’s one way to rework it to make it less data dump esk but keep things and build up if you want.
Start w RW (character introduction)
(this grounds the reader and leans on the character a bit since you’re writing is character/scenario-focused. Your other chapters worked in a similar fashion. This would help mesh tones and smooth over the jarring feeling)
I’d suggest a back and forth, call response method to tie action to the setting
What is RW doing? helping look for the competitors.
How is he going so? digging through debris/scanning cameras for images, combing over bleachers? How he’s doing so can help build the setting as well.
Setting questions to answer to help build it up. what does the stadium look like post destruction? who can he see, what are they doing? Even answering one of these will help a little
Once some of these (or all your choice) has been squared away we’ve got a working setting/character, then we can dig into Hana a bit.
He can pull out the card, reflect on it (how he got it, how he’s looking for her, she reminds him of his daughter’s fixation on the league ect).
He can also pull the card out at any point after his intro and some minimal setting establishment. Flick back and forth to it while working, or just thinking on it as he’s working. It’ll keep the reflections from being so condensed and draw away from the data drop format and be more in tune with your present/established chapter flow.
CHAPTER 3:
Reaction:
And we can see them putting their heads together to talk about something totally unrelated to the world they are in but such a foundation to their present circumstances and lives. Initially, I thought they were waiting for the ground to dry but you established they were walking when Hana’s pain scaled up… and Leon started to drop his Champ invincibility front and going quiet.
They are such city slickers… well Hana is. Wait… wooden houses… I’m surprised neither one of them isn’t noticing this and mildly freaking out since most of the architecture in Galar is modern with modern materials… Also are those old cars in good condition, as well as those tellies? Because if they are it’d definitely add to the sense of unease going in and foreshadowing so nicely….
It seems that not only Leon failed “I’m fine” one oh one but Hana did as well. I’ve nothing but sympathy for poor Nurse Joy at this point.
And that’s when the time displacement sinks in…
Trimming:
Remember how I said that there were some too long sections that were a bit redundant here’s another example:
Easy tweak: I was tired and the bruise around my ribcage was steadily making itself known with every step. (17 words)
Steady usually implies slowness. Slow and steady and what not. So you can drop the slow part. You’ve established they are traveling/walking and keep to that action for the next few lines. So the every step can be dropped. Honestly, they’re so dispirited and drawn even before this point you could drop getting as well. You could go further and drop the steadily, she’s poked herself and pained her ribs before this point multiple times so it’s not like she’d forget the rib injury.., so you can knock off another few words there too.
Or not, your call.
About point one: chapters 1-7 getting to the point/slowness.
Considering chapters 1-3 I would say you’ve set things up at a good clip. You introduce the cast, where they were from, and what they know by bouncing them off of each other (and Hana’s panic attacks) They are learning in stages thus avoiding data dumps, and you’ve established two main themes of this tale, displacement, grief, that seem like they are going to be lasting/running throughout.
I’d say of the chapters you’ve done so far the only one I’d wonder at was chapter 2. While it’s nice to know time goes on in Galar, that nothing is standing still, unless the cast are going to get some means to get back, or Galar is going to be relevant to Jhoto… then you could technically drop the whole chapter if you were really wanting to cut any extras.
I’ll of course revisit as I go ahead but that’s my initial assessment so far.
Chapter 4 reaction:
I liked how you showed the “joys” have a life outside of their duties. It’s amazing how well the couple is taking their guests and I wonder how much they are being believed.
Noticing a minor typo realized has a z, not an s.
I like how you show Hana’s fixation on the small things is the only thing keeping her sane.
The downside of doing manual labor it frees up your brain to do actual thinking, especially if it’s familiar, I like how the data was handled here. Poping in randomly as she’s legitimately doing something else it feels very organic.
Hmm, I wonder if Rotom appeared as a new type when computers advanced to a certain level. The poor things certainly struggling with the simple mainframes as it were… or rather is board out of it’s mind due to them. I wonder if it’ll cause long term problems, like an illness, if he keeps only having access to simple devices.
I wonder why Rotom calls him boss, as he’s Hana’s phone mon wouldn’t she be the “boss”?
Meowth, well cats, usually are smart and see any sort of stationary activity as a “free furniture card” bonus pints if the “furniture” exudes heat.
I’m wondering if the furret/sentret isn't going to be adding itself to Hana’s team at some point. Or being absorbed as the “nurses” new pet, though not a long-lasting one consindering the meowths reaction to it.
Ah so furret then, the belly spot helped me distinguish, I’d been wondering for a while.
Do you mean to take a leaf out of the man’s book who had a breakdown? I get catharsis is part of the healing process but really I’m hoping she means just taking a nap and nothing else here but her word choice was rather bad there….
It’s interesting to see old methods of research (using books and alongside computers) in sync again. Almost nostalgic really and it screams time travel and going back to me as a reader and probably just seems alien to the more modern cast who grew up with mainly tech-based research. I’m surprised Hana didn’t focus on it a little. Also, I love how Joy’s like… yeah went to the library and got a book on this… and then thinking about Rotom wailing about mainframes… it’s just a nice reinforcement of then vs now.
I get her impulse to help but what she thought she was going to do without her team… granted I’m glad they’re not here now.. but her actions do show a streak of recklessness that contrasts with her present caution and slowness.
Can you explain how a voice can be “matt” it’s either a lingual thing I haven’t heard before or a typo….
I swear Leon’s priorities are a bit skewed, he’s getting culture shock from the clothing non-stop isn’t he?
Huh though it’s amazing what small things can trigger someone. Hana’s and Leon's being clothes, though how it hits them and the depth of that hit definitely lands in different ways…. And seriously Hana’s damage is worse by internalizing or being taught not to cry… I get why some parents go that track but really you can see the damage here with Hana as her internal voice scolds her for just getting hit with emotion.
And that last section, seriously Hana’s as much of a legend trouble magnet as Ash is at this point. I’m guessing the bird was Ho-oh again, could be wrong… but two sightings in a short time, something’s up with that.
part 1: tutorial section on the matters you were concerned about.
part 2: responsive review 1-4 and application of tutorial on chapter 2 (I'll apply it more in the later batch of reviews if the mood strikes me and if time permits)
word count: I'm confused as to what should count so I broke it down...
My tutorial featuring my work and other's: 960
review response to the story as well as applying tutorial to Blu's original text: 3400
total words discounting quotes and AN. 4360
An introduction..
While I’m not the best source for brevity coaching (points to my own work) I will say that detailed, long, writing is something of a dying breed. It’s discouraged for being dated and hard to find good examples in modern media that’s easily accessible. My writing classes taken in high school and college, all trained/drilled about more is less so say less more. And the how too books I’ve perused held similar messages.
Again, gesturing at my word counter, I paid some attention to those lessons to keep long from equalling boring. There are some base rules/methods for long works and lush writing that can help make it more accessible and I cued up a few examples that seem relevant to what you asked me to poke at. Once I’ve gone over this I’ll apply it to your work so you can get some concrete examples over what’s working and might need some tweaking.
It’s the first thing reviewers tend to dig into with long works, is how something is revisited again and again to give it padding.
A rather humorous (if dry) troll fic “those lacking spines” provides a few pretty good example of over-the-top repetition.
Here’s a link to the apropos chapter, it’s a Kingdom heart spoof and a bad fanfic writing spoof that’s a bit over the top at times but does have legitimate tutorials hidden away (and later not so hidden away)…. Anyways the fic…
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2903858/4/Those-Lacking-Spines
Here’s a sampling of the text.
“What do you mean, what are WE doing here?” a cornsilk platinum amber blonde girl with sapphire cobalt aquamarine conflower silk lily midnight blue eyes said-“
And I’m cutting off here as I’m sure you get the idea. Obviously, you’re not carrying it to this extreme –and in the chapter the author slowly expands on the descriptions of the cast, adding a tiny bit at a time so you can see the build-up to that descriptive crash and burn above. It’s a trait of the antagonists to get so over the top as they literally infect the descriptive prose around them… it’s a weird story… anyway you get the idea.
I've supplied some small samples in the reactions section below.
A rather humorous (if dry) troll fic “those lacking spines” provides a few pretty good example of over-the-top repetition.
Here’s a link to the apropos chapter, it’s a Kingdom heart spoof and a bad fanfic writing spoof that’s a bit over the top at times but does have legitimate tutorials hidden away (and later not so hidden away)…. Anyways the fic…
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2903858/4/Those-Lacking-Spines
Here’s a sampling of the text.
“What do you mean, what are WE doing here?” a cornsilk platinum amber blonde girl with sapphire cobalt aquamarine conflower silk lily midnight blue eyes said-“
And I’m cutting off here as I’m sure you get the idea. Obviously, you’re not carrying it to this extreme –and in the chapter the author slowly expands on the descriptions of the cast, adding a tiny bit at a time so you can see the build-up to that descriptive crash and burn above. It’s a trait of the antagonists to get so over the top as they literally infect the descriptive prose around them… it’s a weird story… anyway you get the idea.
I've supplied some small samples in the reactions section below.
The next trick is to keep things moving
AKA avoiding repetition in the narrative (not just in descriptors)
Is something happening, despite popular belief this does not need to be physical action. If so, and it builds on something else keep it. Put it all in, and then later go back and parse repetitive and excess…
How you can distinguish what’s useful, what’s moving, and what isn’t? I’ll provide a sample my own so you can see the system then I’ll try to apply it to your own so you can see the trick in action in a familiar place.
Here’s the base chapter if you’re interested in reading more than the cliff notes version
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24133471/chapters/77061404
“Beedrils and Rivals”
Points of the chapter going in.
Try to pick one main action (physical event) and interspace it with 1-10 lesser action/reactions or reflections to either reinforce, contrast, or expand on the setting/scenario/events occurring.
(MAIN ACTION)
Kakuna evolving, show –throughout chapter- present action! SPECIAL NOTE: drop anything not immediately tied to it or base survival.
(Lesser actions/ect)
Show Gio’s skill at camping (only hinted before will reinforce past narrative)
Show Gio’s ruthless pragmatism, give concrete examples (ditto issue as before)
Show Kakuna’s personality and Gio’s response (ties into Gio/Weedle contrast)
Leave hook to explore Gio/Beedrill relationship post evolution.
Reinforce Gio’s hate of Alola reinforce the past narrative
At first glance, you can see this is a reflective bit, lots of tying things into stuff that was done/mentioned before. Most of this was stuff I had characters talk about, not show, so I’d decided since my cast was stuck in Timbuctoo might as well check off some of that showing of the show don’t tell axiom.
Story scene by scene, showing how the outline looks a bit more fleshed out….
Begins with Kakuna starting to evolve,
Step one, continuous poison seep
Step two, Shell beak down
(action Gio does physical exam, tone casual, reinforce his identity as a gym leader)
Step Threes, Gorging
(action show how does Gio tackle this, show his amoral methods and Kakuna’s response to reinforce their amorality)
Step Four Sweet scent deluge:
Action, immediate effect, everything nearby called to kill Kakuna.
Reflection, why this happens in nature, show what it does outside of those circumstances (‘mon rush), Gio having to kill to defend,
Reflect how others have dealt with it (science babble) to distract from stress.
Step Five: Kakuna evolves to Beedrill
Action Claws out of shell, shows able to fight back.
Set up for next chapters.
List:
Get to IKI,
Intro IKI cast (at least one character!)
Base reactions to IKI cast, setting, and intro.
How to avoid excess (because I was long enough on my page count to realize I needed to trim somewhere)
Skip hike to town. (Showed hiking previously/surviving previous, thus hike to IKI redundant)
Show Gios cultural clash. (Because I honestly had forgotten to do so before this point)
SHORT VERSION:
“Kakuna’s house?”
“Ka-huna. The town elder?”
“What, no gym leader?’
“What’s that? That sounds stupid..”
Alright now that I’ve shown you in action… here’s the plan. A chapter by chapter reaction, after the reaction I’ll pick apart sections (starting with chapter 2, seriously everyone digs chapter one to death) so you can see the system in action and I’ll point out any redundancies that might small scale smooth down issues. Then I’ll go back and give an overview of the concerns you PMed me about.
AKA avoiding repetition in the narrative (not just in descriptors)
Is something happening, despite popular belief this does not need to be physical action. If so, and it builds on something else keep it. Put it all in, and then later go back and parse repetitive and excess…
How you can distinguish what’s useful, what’s moving, and what isn’t? I’ll provide a sample my own so you can see the system then I’ll try to apply it to your own so you can see the trick in action in a familiar place.
Here’s the base chapter if you’re interested in reading more than the cliff notes version
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24133471/chapters/77061404
“Beedrils and Rivals”
Points of the chapter going in.
Try to pick one main action (physical event) and interspace it with 1-10 lesser action/reactions or reflections to either reinforce, contrast, or expand on the setting/scenario/events occurring.
(MAIN ACTION)
Kakuna evolving, show –throughout chapter- present action! SPECIAL NOTE: drop anything not immediately tied to it or base survival.
(Lesser actions/ect)
Show Gio’s skill at camping (only hinted before will reinforce past narrative)
Show Gio’s ruthless pragmatism, give concrete examples (ditto issue as before)
Show Kakuna’s personality and Gio’s response (ties into Gio/Weedle contrast)
Leave hook to explore Gio/Beedrill relationship post evolution.
Reinforce Gio’s hate of Alola reinforce the past narrative
At first glance, you can see this is a reflective bit, lots of tying things into stuff that was done/mentioned before. Most of this was stuff I had characters talk about, not show, so I’d decided since my cast was stuck in Timbuctoo might as well check off some of that showing of the show don’t tell axiom.
Story scene by scene, showing how the outline looks a bit more fleshed out….
Begins with Kakuna starting to evolve,
Step one, continuous poison seep
Step two, Shell beak down
(action Gio does physical exam, tone casual, reinforce his identity as a gym leader)
Step Threes, Gorging
(action show how does Gio tackle this, show his amoral methods and Kakuna’s response to reinforce their amorality)
Step Four Sweet scent deluge:
Action, immediate effect, everything nearby called to kill Kakuna.
Reflection, why this happens in nature, show what it does outside of those circumstances (‘mon rush), Gio having to kill to defend,
Reflect how others have dealt with it (science babble) to distract from stress.
Step Five: Kakuna evolves to Beedrill
Action Claws out of shell, shows able to fight back.
Set up for next chapters.
List:
Get to IKI,
Intro IKI cast (at least one character!)
Base reactions to IKI cast, setting, and intro.
How to avoid excess (because I was long enough on my page count to realize I needed to trim somewhere)
Skip hike to town. (Showed hiking previously/surviving previous, thus hike to IKI redundant)
Show Gios cultural clash. (Because I honestly had forgotten to do so before this point)
SHORT VERSION:
“Kakuna’s house?”
“Ka-huna. The town elder?”
“What, no gym leader?’
“What’s that? That sounds stupid..”
Alright now that I’ve shown you in action… here’s the plan. A chapter by chapter reaction, after the reaction I’ll pick apart sections (starting with chapter 2, seriously everyone digs chapter one to death) so you can see the system in action and I’ll point out any redundancies that might small scale smooth down issues. Then I’ll go back and give an overview of the concerns you PMed me about.
Chapter one Initial reaction and analysis:
(I’m writing this as if I have minimal knowledge of canon since I’ve only read the sword/shield wiki it’s a fair enough assumption)
The second line in I was a mite confused. Was the narrator moving fast or being devoured by light? It took a reread from the start to where the hand wrapped around pulling the narrator back before I realized what this was and what was happening. Basically, reality/space/time is out for lunch and the narrator is being yanked about back and forth through impossibilities.
I’m guessing since the legend and climax of Sword/shield features Eternatus that this is a Sword/Shield AU/what if. Also, I think only Leon’s got purple hair in the game and was near the site… So Sir. Curl-about-the-main-character might be Leon?
Confirmed. Nice.
(20 words)
Mild redundancy notice… since the narrator is obviously hurt it’s safe to assume they aren’t doing summersaults, so the “roll over away” can be a bit muchish. “Roll away” is concise and establishes the point. You can easily drop the part about the warmth, by establishing the grass is cold wet and making the character notice it as a change this insinuates Leon’s warm/dry. Enough to make contrast/be noticed by the protag between her present cuddle moment and the grass after they roll. Also as they aren’t dying, or seem to think they’re dying, you could drop the “last” if you wanted to.
Here’s how it’ll look altered.
I mustered up my strength to roll away from him and into the cold, wet, grass. (16 words)
I’m noticing you have this bit of extra wordiness throughout your fic, it’s not a ton but appears often enough I broke my word on digging into chapter one. I did so because this was the first example of excess I found in your fic and figure it’d be important.
There’s another way to thin things a bit…
Mustering my strength I rolled away from him, into the cold, wet, grass. (8 words)
Why it can work: Because we’ve established “I” as awake after impact the narrator, ect the “I” at the start of the sentence can be considered redundant. As you usually don’t “muster things down” (or any other direction really) mustering up can be a bit redundant thus dropped.
As you can see we’ve gone from the original word count of 20 to 8. The whole less is more, but only after you play with the sentence structure a bit.
This tactic can be employed in a few other sections of your fic and help break up the long sentences of your tale, giving visual variety to your paragraphs if you’re inclined. I’ll provide at least two more examples so you can see it in action to better recognize it and see if you want to actually employ it.
Alright back to the reactions…
Leon’s really a gentleman, isn’t he? Leaving his coat/cloak thingie out for the narrator (I’m avoiding names since we haven’t one hundred percent verified who the narrator is in text I’ll switch over once you drop a name in tale) considering ribs, impact, etcetera I’m surprised the character is “tumbling” perhaps they’re on an incline… Still any excess motions got to hurt, winces in sympathy.
I’m surprised their panicked motions didn’t trigger the pain, but poking will definitely do it.
I love how concise their freak out is, a list. It’s a little alienating if you don’t know the genre/base game since why these things would be important it’s a bit of a “huh” moment, but their breathing deep ect. to calm down adds to the heaviness of the list. And seriously “Darkest day” never sounded pleasant ever.
Going back and revisiting it, having the narrator tick off each item off of it and expand is a nice use of call and respond. Using it to build up a plan well that’s a nice touch and reinforces the narrator’s cautious nature as well as the finishing counting to ten though they felt sort of ok at 7.
About the petrification scene… at first, I thought there was literally a tombstone getting bigger and bigger pushing at Rotom’s screen, like a deadly progress bar or something. But it seems to literally be turning into granite in Hana’s hand. I’d actually recommend dropping the whole “half-finished tombstone” descriptor, a creeping calcification… fossilization… works a heck of a lot better IMHO.
And here we have a name, at last, Hana huh?
Rotoms literally facehugging… sorry bad alien reference… I can only imagine Hana’s static-cling hair at this moment.
Also if this is happening to her phone what about her pokeballs? They’re tech-heavy too and this forest seems to eat tech…. at least she’s not totally defenseless now. Oh, gods a tall grass reference… I’m sorry I’ll stop now.
Leon… no you’re only going to get lost… no wandering… or wandering while wounded… It says a lot though that he’s leaning on the jr. trainer here for a plan considering he’s the CHAMPION of his home region, he’s coming across as a bit shell-shocked due to this… or perhaps a bit scattered.
Recommendation: What does a “protective position” look like? It’d be a good springboard to either build up Leon's habits (was he a vigorous gesturer and the protective getting in the way of it?), his looks (he’d used shreds of his x colored logo smeared shirt to better brace and protect the arm?) or Hanas lack of knowledge of these things (she wasn’t too sure if his arm being held like that was normal or not but it looked protective…).
And my concern about the pokeballs was concerned. Hana’s Rotom is now their only means to defense… in the middle of a wild pokemon area… oh boy… not good.
Interesting how Leon mentally separates himself from his Champ identity. I’m glad he’s kind enough to apologize (reinforcing my previous hunch about his base nature being kind and also his brain being on the fritz). It’s going to be interesting going forward. Hana’s separation vs Leon’s grief they both lost their teams but in such different ways.
Term? Can you elaborate on that I’m guessing this is a lack of canonical information more than anything but I felt a hair lost without it.
I’m guessing furret? Seems too lanky for a bidoof, and they have "pick up" as a choice trait… Also, I like how because they don’t know then the reader has no clue unless they pay very sharp attention. And that bird nailed it. Ho-oh , so they’re in Jhoto then and… I’m guessing this is where the title kicks in. They’ve got to be stupid far in the past due to Darkest.
This is going to go well.
Chapter two initial reaction and analysis
I like how this gives another perspective and hints at time moving in both timelines. It also gives an outside perspective of Hana adding to her depth it’s a very nice touch
Tech: technically the style shift going from Hana and Leon’s back and forth and “we are in a new world now” to a dry data drop is a bit jarring. It comes across as data dumping but there are ways to fix this by incorporating the sorting system I ran over my own work.
Categories
Action
Character
Setting
Reflection/thinking,flashbacks ect
1 Card info given to reader (name hist ect on Hana) no context beyond it. REFLECTION
2 character introduced rescue worker/RW
3 Handling card (where did he get?) and turn around ACTION
4 Description of Hana given via card REFECTION
5 RW sighing ACTION
6 Card purpose expanded, champion cap info given REFLECTION
7 RW daughter leader of Team Hanako, would be overjoyed (to see card?) REFLECTION
8 No bodies found SETTING
So by default reflection-heavy chapters can lean into info dump traps there are a few ways to combat that the easiest is breaking down the information and spreading it about or reordering how it’s presented.
We’ve got four reflections
Two actions
And a setting establishment moment… As you can see it’s a high ratio of reflects to everything else.
(character introduction is its own standalone beast and I’m ignoring it for now because that’d be another ten pages…)
So the point of this is chapter appears to be
REFLECT on HANA via outside perspective.
Lesser goals
what happening in hamerlocke SHOW setting
Establish destruction SETTING ESTABLISH
Introduce RESCUE WORKER
Here’s one way to rework it to make it less data dump esk but keep things and build up if you want.
Start w RW (character introduction)
(this grounds the reader and leans on the character a bit since you’re writing is character/scenario-focused. Your other chapters worked in a similar fashion. This would help mesh tones and smooth over the jarring feeling)
I’d suggest a back and forth, call response method to tie action to the setting
What is RW doing? helping look for the competitors.
How is he going so? digging through debris/scanning cameras for images, combing over bleachers? How he’s doing so can help build the setting as well.
Setting questions to answer to help build it up. what does the stadium look like post destruction? who can he see, what are they doing? Even answering one of these will help a little
Once some of these (or all your choice) has been squared away we’ve got a working setting/character, then we can dig into Hana a bit.
He can pull out the card, reflect on it (how he got it, how he’s looking for her, she reminds him of his daughter’s fixation on the league ect).
He can also pull the card out at any point after his intro and some minimal setting establishment. Flick back and forth to it while working, or just thinking on it as he’s working. It’ll keep the reflections from being so condensed and draw away from the data drop format and be more in tune with your present/established chapter flow.
CHAPTER 3:
Reaction:
And we can see them putting their heads together to talk about something totally unrelated to the world they are in but such a foundation to their present circumstances and lives. Initially, I thought they were waiting for the ground to dry but you established they were walking when Hana’s pain scaled up… and Leon started to drop his Champ invincibility front and going quiet.
They are such city slickers… well Hana is. Wait… wooden houses… I’m surprised neither one of them isn’t noticing this and mildly freaking out since most of the architecture in Galar is modern with modern materials… Also are those old cars in good condition, as well as those tellies? Because if they are it’d definitely add to the sense of unease going in and foreshadowing so nicely….
It seems that not only Leon failed “I’m fine” one oh one but Hana did as well. I’ve nothing but sympathy for poor Nurse Joy at this point.
And that’s when the time displacement sinks in…
Trimming:
Remember how I said that there were some too long sections that were a bit redundant here’s another example:
Easy tweak: I was tired and the bruise around my ribcage was steadily making itself known with every step. (17 words)
Steady usually implies slowness. Slow and steady and what not. So you can drop the slow part. You’ve established they are traveling/walking and keep to that action for the next few lines. So the every step can be dropped. Honestly, they’re so dispirited and drawn even before this point you could drop getting as well. You could go further and drop the steadily, she’s poked herself and pained her ribs before this point multiple times so it’s not like she’d forget the rib injury.., so you can knock off another few words there too.
Or not, your call.
About point one: chapters 1-7 getting to the point/slowness.
Considering chapters 1-3 I would say you’ve set things up at a good clip. You introduce the cast, where they were from, and what they know by bouncing them off of each other (and Hana’s panic attacks) They are learning in stages thus avoiding data dumps, and you’ve established two main themes of this tale, displacement, grief, that seem like they are going to be lasting/running throughout.
I’d say of the chapters you’ve done so far the only one I’d wonder at was chapter 2. While it’s nice to know time goes on in Galar, that nothing is standing still, unless the cast are going to get some means to get back, or Galar is going to be relevant to Jhoto… then you could technically drop the whole chapter if you were really wanting to cut any extras.
I’ll of course revisit as I go ahead but that’s my initial assessment so far.
Chapter 4 reaction:
I liked how you showed the “joys” have a life outside of their duties. It’s amazing how well the couple is taking their guests and I wonder how much they are being believed.
Noticing a minor typo realized has a z, not an s.
I like how you show Hana’s fixation on the small things is the only thing keeping her sane.
The downside of doing manual labor it frees up your brain to do actual thinking, especially if it’s familiar, I like how the data was handled here. Poping in randomly as she’s legitimately doing something else it feels very organic.
Hmm, I wonder if Rotom appeared as a new type when computers advanced to a certain level. The poor things certainly struggling with the simple mainframes as it were… or rather is board out of it’s mind due to them. I wonder if it’ll cause long term problems, like an illness, if he keeps only having access to simple devices.
I wonder why Rotom calls him boss, as he’s Hana’s phone mon wouldn’t she be the “boss”?
Meowth, well cats, usually are smart and see any sort of stationary activity as a “free furniture card” bonus pints if the “furniture” exudes heat.
I’m wondering if the furret/sentret isn't going to be adding itself to Hana’s team at some point. Or being absorbed as the “nurses” new pet, though not a long-lasting one consindering the meowths reaction to it.
Ah so furret then, the belly spot helped me distinguish, I’d been wondering for a while.
Do you mean to take a leaf out of the man’s book who had a breakdown? I get catharsis is part of the healing process but really I’m hoping she means just taking a nap and nothing else here but her word choice was rather bad there….
It’s interesting to see old methods of research (using books and alongside computers) in sync again. Almost nostalgic really and it screams time travel and going back to me as a reader and probably just seems alien to the more modern cast who grew up with mainly tech-based research. I’m surprised Hana didn’t focus on it a little. Also, I love how Joy’s like… yeah went to the library and got a book on this… and then thinking about Rotom wailing about mainframes… it’s just a nice reinforcement of then vs now.
I get her impulse to help but what she thought she was going to do without her team… granted I’m glad they’re not here now.. but her actions do show a streak of recklessness that contrasts with her present caution and slowness.
Can you explain how a voice can be “matt” it’s either a lingual thing I haven’t heard before or a typo….
I swear Leon’s priorities are a bit skewed, he’s getting culture shock from the clothing non-stop isn’t he?
Huh though it’s amazing what small things can trigger someone. Hana’s and Leon's being clothes, though how it hits them and the depth of that hit definitely lands in different ways…. And seriously Hana’s damage is worse by internalizing or being taught not to cry… I get why some parents go that track but really you can see the damage here with Hana as her internal voice scolds her for just getting hit with emotion.
And that last section, seriously Hana’s as much of a legend trouble magnet as Ash is at this point. I’m guessing the bird was Ho-oh again, could be wrong… but two sightings in a short time, something’s up with that.
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bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Me: "Man, I wish I had reviews"
Also me: never reacts to reviews
Hello folks and thank you guys so much for swinging by Time to respond to you!
But in case I don't say it loudly enough in the individual parts: THANK YOU SO MUCH ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ You guys are the absolute bestest!
Also me: never reacts to reviews
Hello folks and thank you guys so much for swinging by
Time to respond to you!But in case I don't say it loudly enough in the individual parts: THANK YOU SO MUCH ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ You guys are the absolute bestest!
Hello Pano! Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a look at my fic
Your review is really really good, and so structured! That thing has more structure than my entire outline for this story ;) And thanks so much for the little hints and pointers. I shall incorporate them one day (not sure if I'm keen on editing them just now after I had a long editing run.) But I'll definitely keep them in mind for similar future situations!
Yeah, I'll definitely try to bring that up when introducing her.
Your review is really really good, and so structured! That thing has more structure than my entire outline for this story ;) And thanks so much for the little hints and pointers. I shall incorporate them one day (not sure if I'm keen on editing them just now after I had a long editing run.) But I'll definitely keep them in mind for similar future situations!
Oh man, can you believe how new I was to the fandom (like, not pokemon per se, but the fandom). I honestly did NOT know that, else Hana would have been called Gloria. Her name is now a big part of her identity and character, but if only I had known that... Oh man...
Yeah, I'll definitely try to bring that up when introducing her.
Oh interesting... I'll try to think of a way. And thanks for liking the dynamic, I love it too ❤️
I can assure you, by now he runs on adrenaline and adrenaline alone.
Minty, omg, your review gives me life ❤️
Thank you so much for your kind words, I really really really needed to hear those. Like, maybe you've seen me over in discord struggling to get emotions right and feel them. I've actually returned to your review multiple times now, because it makes me so happy and I try to find out how that feels. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thank you so much for your kind words, I really really really needed to hear those. Like, maybe you've seen me over in discord struggling to get emotions right and feel them. I've actually returned to your review multiple times now, because it makes me so happy and I try to find out how that feels. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Hello, thanks for dropping by!
I'm so happy you liked these chapters! And thanks for reading up to no 4!
Somebody noticed
I put a lot of thought into that!
I'm so happy you liked these chapters! And thanks for reading up to no 4!
Somebody noticed I put a lot of thought into that!
Huh. Interesting. In german we use it interchangeably for color, surfaces, voice, affect... everything. Will switch it to dull eventually.
Hello Jeff, thanks for dropping by!
And thank your for your super focused feedback! Very interesting.
And thank your for your super focused feedback! Very interesting.
This is interesting. You are probably the first person who said that Leon was the one underreacting. And I understand where you're coming from. There's a considerable amount of scope missing on the Darkest Day, and I deliberately cut it off when I started it out. Now I guess I have to live with the consequences... :(
Yes. It is, in fact, a huge, clunky infodump. Because her moving over from Kanto is important and also I have no clue how to incorporate her physical description into a story narrated from her perspective. I might just use some artwork at some point ngl...
Thank you
Kint, aaaaaaaaaaaah! Thank you so much for your nice and super helpful review!!!
I don't know how you do this, but you have a hand for summing up things really really well that I've been trying to put a finger at for so long . Or pointing out things that I didn't notice before because they are so intrinsic to me but that are absolutely there and might absolutely be a problem!
Thanks for calling out the Lucy and Leon falling out of character. You *are* right, at least with Leon. He might be 3000% tired and just not challenging her at this point, but then I should have indicated it. The way it stands right now, you're right and it is unfitting and it is Hana's/my view spilling into other characters.
Thanks for saying that
People have told me before that she's unemphathetic before and I was always confused because I see her as perfectly perceptive of other people's emotional states. It's just the conclusion she draws from those pointers that are off sometimes. But putting it like that, that makes a lot of sense.
Yes, she can be a total dick, I will sign that right here and now.
Ooooooooooooh! Light-bulb-moment!
Yes. Thank you for writing that down. I have a tendency to write avoidant characters and I have a problem building, and especially moving plots forward. And now it finally clicks!
Also probably explains why I have this outline lying around about Hana pursuing two separate goals she set herself and why I kinda struggle with it.
Super good to know. Will take note and improve in future. For this part we have still Leon, who drives 100% of the action.
Also, yes, probably my initial plan for this coming through, before I noticed that it's actually quite nice to have a character wanting something. Sadly, wanting something is currently far out of Hana's reach, and her main goal the entire arc is, in fact, to keep the status quo.
Thank you! I will print that and hang it over my bed. And try my best to pull it off.
I don't know how you do this, but you have a hand for summing up things really really well that I've been trying to put a finger at for so long
. Or pointing out things that I didn't notice before because they are so intrinsic to me but that are absolutely there and might absolutely be a problem!Thanks for calling out the Lucy and Leon falling out of character. You *are* right, at least with Leon. He might be 3000% tired and just not challenging her at this point, but then I should have indicated it. The way it stands right now, you're right and it is unfitting and it is Hana's/my view spilling into other characters.
Ooooh... That's a nice way to sum her up. Yes, she has a very rigid way to think, but I didn't notice how severe it was. Aaaaas you can probably tell, there's a huge bias from my own mindset in her narration and sometimes I can't take those self-tinted glasses off, because I don't even know I have them. This is one of those points. Same with the aversion to change, but later more on that.
Thanks for saying that People have told me before that she's unemphathetic before and I was always confused because I see her as perfectly perceptive of other people's emotional states. It's just the conclusion she draws from those pointers that are off sometimes. But putting it like that, that makes a lot of sense.
Yes, she can be a total dick, I will sign that right here and now.
👀 👀 👀 💡
Ooooooooooooh! Light-bulb-moment!
Yes. Thank you for writing that down. I have a tendency to write avoidant characters and I have a problem building, and especially moving plots forward. And now it finally clicks!
Also probably explains why I have this outline lying around about Hana pursuing two separate goals she set herself and why I kinda struggle with it.
Super good to know. Will take note and improve in future. For this part we have still Leon, who drives 100% of the action.
I feel kinda called out on my own mindset here... *takes notes*
Also, yes, probably my initial plan for this coming through, before I noticed that it's actually quite nice to have a character wanting something. Sadly, wanting something is currently far out of Hana's reach, and her main goal the entire arc is, in fact, to keep the status quo.
Thank you! I will print that and hang it over my bed. And try my best to pull it off.Hey, don't poke at the 30 seconds of thought I put into this aspect of the setting.
Happy you read him that way!
Yes. YES! He is Not aware of it, but if it was for him, the world could go to shit if there was nobody to heap affirmation upon him. There is exactly one person that he really wants to protect, the rest is really him being insecure.
Thank you ❤️ I try really hard
Yes, I've been wondering that ever since I played silver as a 7y/o.
First of all, MASSIVE THANKS for this huge feedback! Oh my god, I did not expect this and you don't have to feel obligated at all. But thanks so much!
Your tips and tricks are very interesting, especially the structured approach to scenes. I'll have to reread them some more to get a hold of them, they seem really helpful.
About the shortening of sentences you mentioned: That one is very interesting. Some of the choices were deliberate, but some other were especially so I wouldn't slip into passive voice (passive voice can shorten so much, alas, it is deemed bad style). But the examples you pointed out are all very useful and interesting.
Also, your reacts give me life XD
My wb: Legends have lost the world and the people are losing their faith in them
Also me: Throws a new legendary for every normal pokemon at the reader
Your tips and tricks are very interesting, especially the structured approach to scenes. I'll have to reread them some more to get a hold of them, they seem really helpful.
About the shortening of sentences you mentioned: That one is very interesting. Some of the choices were deliberate, but some other were especially so I wouldn't slip into passive voice (passive voice can shorten so much, alas, it is deemed bad style). But the examples you pointed out are all very useful and interesting.
Also, your reacts give me life XD
I'm gonna save that sentence for later, that gets reused :D
Nyehehe
Okay, so you're about the 4th person that pointed that out. I was referring to the British school system, and according to some infographic I found, they address their years as terms. But I think I'll ultimately use "year" or "grade" for that instead if it's confusing so many people.
Yes. It is, in fact, a very clunky infodump, for I have no clue how to introduce the appearance of a 1st or 2nd person narrator. I think I'll ultimately end up keeping that and work on character introduction with that writing style in future chapters.
YES! SHE MEANS TAKING A NAP! Oh god, Leon has exactly 1.5 healthy coping mechanisms, one of them is screaming in a forest and the other is occasionally taking a nap. Everything else should NOT be copied!
She is, she is...
My wb: Legends have lost the world and the people are losing their faith in them
Also me: Throws a new legendary for every normal pokemon at the reader
K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
- Partners
-
Here for the blitz, my last run for the season...
I mean not that I'm going to disappear after (at least I hope not) but it's my last planned fic review so here we go.
chapters 5-8 (so three in total)
theme: yes, I mean you're basically running a huge chunk of the blitz plus participating so I think that counts as pinging someone whos participating! Thanks for all your hard work!
word count: about 2100
Added note: If it's allowed... If anyone could use whatever fraction I crawl over 20 points to round up their points to get a prize go for it. Though please prioritize someone on the lower prize rung rather than the upper. If there's more than one person who qualifies roll a d20 I guess. Thanks.
Chapter 5 reaction
In which Hana passes off her legend encounter with the oh so classic “I tripped” spiel. Wonderful.
While I get while they’re wondering if Leon’s falling into the mental trap of conspiracy theorist… well he’s got a point. Though it seems more likely their story’s/base legendary would drop out of the gate with them in the same spot… it landing in Galar with no opposition would be a disaster. Probably marked by massive radio silence, but I don’t think Leon’s willing to even think of that. And had the Legend landed amongst them that would have that been a disaster. Lance being busy doing who knows what… (possibly either losing to Red or frying random Rocket grunts) and Kanto/Jhoto being hotspots of corruption at best and ineptitude at worst...
Though seriously you do not use your hosts as a search engine. I imagine Leon’s helter skelter rapid fire search habits (part inspired by concern but still a norm in more modern times as it’s a fast paced wiki walking really) are driving Owen up the wall. No wonder he gets snappy near the end.
Hana and Leon’s reactions are such polar opposite and while I get Hana is trying to par things down Leon’s speculation has a place, they need to make a long term and short term plan but they’re both too reasonably wrung out to do anything about it yet and can’t see it.
Draughts… did you mean drafts?
GEN FIC NOTES:
As the fic progresses I’m noticing you use long sentences throughout. While not technically an error it can lead to a feeling of drag. As you’ve expressed concerns about passivity I’m going to offer these suggestions with a grain of salt. Honestly one of the more technical savvy writers like “wildboots” or one of the beta volunteers on the forum might be a better fit on balancing sentence length verses passivity. As it is, all I can say as a layman reader is long sentences back to back with minimal breaks can lead even the liveliest work to drag.
Here are a few examples I thought could be tweaked.
When I sneaked back into the Pokemon Center, the gust of wind that blew in with me interrupted a lively discussion in front of the computer. Owen and Leon soon continued their studies, only Lucy seemed to give me a longer look while I struggled to close the front door against the strong gale outside.
Action: when I sneaked
Setting Pokémon center
Setting: gust blew in
Action: leon/owen looked up
Setting: in front of computer
Action: lucy giving long look
action: Hana struggling to close door
Alright, we’ve got seven actions/setting in two lines. That’s a lot of little things in two long lines.
While the progression of evets works naturally, entrance to scene, to respond to her entering, you could easily tweak the lines using to encapsulate that in to smaller bits and bobs.
So as you can see I kept the order but I tried to place it into smaller sentences. It’s a bit RD but while longer (and possibly a bit more passive) the ideas you set up step by step, can be expressed into 5 lines easily and not be contracted into two super-long sentences.
This is a case of easy parring.
I said as I approached. (5 vs 7)
I’d tried to tidy, but there were grass-stains on my jeans that I couldn’t get out completely. ( 17 vs 27)
Almost all of the first part can be cut down to a few words. The excess words just seem too fussy and while it might be to show Hana’s fussy step by step processes about things we’ve so many examples before this point you can cut this one out easily.
Chapter 6 reaction
God Leon in tourist mode, Hana run for the sake of your sanity, don’t hide behind plants if he’s too enthusiastic he can take the plants with too… I mean consider the protags of ORAS or Sun/Moon and what they do to trees. Your potted plants are not safe.
Nor are your plans.
Leon’s both thoughtless (in his taking of more supplies without asking) yet thoughtful (leaving cloak, checking up with name preference) though they knew each other a bit before this point so I’m surprised this is happening now.
Someone referred to their version of walalce as being someone who’d apologize as if they hit you with a car for bumping into you, that Wallace and your Hana need to stop going to the same classes.
Hanah seriously didn’t know that the nice little old ladies lay traps like that. With long stories, trapped with cookies and offers to tea with the teasing “oh but did not you know” data trails… and here I thought Hana was a bit more worldly. Wonder if Leon would have been sucked in or if he’d of known how to bolt if it was him….
So he knida knows, even if openly passing out from boredom is sort of an answer…
And here’s Leon weaponizing his ditziness… wonder if he ever did that in the League…
You know I could see a bunch of people with pokemon go accounts just tagging along Leon, or those with walking step quotas for fitness. Entertainment and exercise all at once.
Though seriously Leon finding anything sort of reminds me of the last time I was RPing with a really bad luck sniper. He finally hit his target, a multistory beast and I was like “behold, the broad side of a barn” he smacked me with his character sheet then missed his next shot.
I can see Leon pointing to a paper sack “Ah the cul-de-sack of paperbag, been there… got lost in it once… Hop had to pull me out...”
And so Hana has pick up, no wonder the sentret warmed up to her so fast.
And Leon bites the bullet after getting them the more practical items they’ll need to plot ahead, a map and some money.
As well as a plan to get his ‘mon back. I don’t know how an expert can fix temporal deterioration… but maybe.. it’s a hope. And with a license, they can catch and train up a team to keep themselves safe.
Wonder if Sentret will tag along for that.
General suggestions about chapter 6:
Hmm so what does an insecure voice sound like, does it crack, dim in volume, it’d be a nice means to expand if you elaborated. And having a voice go softer or shake or trial off to mumbling sometimes has more character than a generic insecure.
Another example could be when Hana and Leon are talking about temper. When Hana “Finally got out”
Choked out, stuttered out, forced out past a lump in her throat… there’s a lot of room to expand and break away from blander descriptors.
Leon’s countering “plain voice” might be another good spot to tweak a little.
Chapter 7 reaction:
So Leon is the knight of Galar slaying threatening forums so the adventure may continue, how gallant of him.
And nice to see Ms. Barnes succeed in getting her gossip. I’ve encountered that type before and they can be willy, one hours a rather impressive escape time. I’d probably be hiding out with Leon on that count while flowers are useful and it’s nice to know their purposes and how to prep a plant my attention for that topic can only go so far….
Poor Hana having to be Leon’s gild in the horrors of shopping, much less having to make do with dated shopping because your preferred style doesn’t exist yet… Though I suppose if they’d gotten thrown far back enough they’d of wound up back in their styles since fashion is so cyclical… Maybe a bigger store with a retro section would scratch that itch.
Huh so they aren’t getting sentret understandable considering it's newly hatched/born however it works in this fic… But how are they going to get starters considering their original teams are elsewhere and I don’t see Prof. Oak shimmying out of the tall grass to hand out a starter? And also if they get the original starter trio pack… I don’t think Leon can take getting a charmander again, or seeing one at this point. That’d be twisting the knife and adding in five more while we’re at it.
Well we will see if the next chapter explains the ins and outs of what they get and how…
Chapter 8 reaction:
You know there’s a part of me that is interested in seeing Hana get to explore other aspects of her Kantonese heritage, having to backpack through Johto, and possibly Kanto might make her do that and reveal some interesting tidbits or make her learn some interesting things.
If that happens I hope that we’ll get a chance to see Leon’s explored as well…
Or for him to finally just break and admit that he only took classes, like once, like in highschool/term to get his trainer’s license…
So the “him” in the opening line was Mr pokemon, alright…
Poor Rotom must be going through tech withdrawal.
sceptical keeps changing to skeptical when I look it up but googles saying it's spelled both ways and means the same thing….
So why does Rotom call Leon boss you’ve never mentioned yet.
You know Leons going to run out of Galar snacks… and then Rotom will go on a light flickering rampage for the lolz. Then they’ll really be doomed.
I comparing the cast's analogies to old ‘dexs to how youngsters feel when shown an old phone.
Or perhaps old-school gamers showing off original systems to the younger crowd…
And Rotom’s getting jealous and rambunctious… ohh boy…
They’re digging at the “back to the future aspect” of their scenario. I can see Hana really thinking they need to keep their head down after that. The mechanics of it are fascinating and it’s a nice way to world build your cast’s histories…
And to drive Hana to a near panic attack again, that poor girl is inching towards another breakdown you can all but see the steps. I’m morbidly wondering who will have the next nasty revelation/setback, her or Leon. I think Leon’s worldview being so league-centric, probably is cushioning him a little (where tweaking history becomes more of an intellectual exercise until Hana dryly begins up they could erase themselves out of things by accident) but it’s also linked to his biggest weakness. With his team out, and possibly dead/nonexistent he’s very vulnerable in more than one sense of the word. Hana who doesn’t have that keystone personality trait is hitting more snags as it were, spikes of anxiety because she doesn’t have that all-consuming passion and its complexities to shield her and act as a buffer.
In closing I wanted to address a concern you pressed to me, previously I discussed dropping a chapter to thin things down. Reading ahead so far nothing in your story really needs to be dropped. You're accurately, it seems to me, are showing the complexities of this situation. That's this fic's focus. And you going into things at a slow pace gives the reader and characters a chance to feel things out. Yes, it takes time, but this is that type of story and every section works well towards that goal.
If there's any excess... well there's a few lines here and there that could be trimmed, but, perversely, there are a few things that could be expanded upon. Your efforts (I've read up to chapter 10 but don't have time to go into examples furthermore than I have today) work well with your style and this theme and its pacing works. I think shaking up the sentence length and cutting a bit a way from time to time would help, it'd keep it from blurring together in places, but overall this is a very minimal issue and the work stands up fine as it.
I mean not that I'm going to disappear after (at least I hope not) but it's my last planned fic review so here we go.
chapters 5-8 (so three in total)
theme: yes, I mean you're basically running a huge chunk of the blitz plus participating so I think that counts as pinging someone whos participating! Thanks for all your hard work!
word count: about 2100
Added note: If it's allowed... If anyone could use whatever fraction I crawl over 20 points to round up their points to get a prize go for it. Though please prioritize someone on the lower prize rung rather than the upper. If there's more than one person who qualifies roll a d20 I guess. Thanks.
Chapter 5 reaction
In which Hana passes off her legend encounter with the oh so classic “I tripped” spiel. Wonderful.
While I get while they’re wondering if Leon’s falling into the mental trap of conspiracy theorist… well he’s got a point. Though it seems more likely their story’s/base legendary would drop out of the gate with them in the same spot… it landing in Galar with no opposition would be a disaster. Probably marked by massive radio silence, but I don’t think Leon’s willing to even think of that. And had the Legend landed amongst them that would have that been a disaster. Lance being busy doing who knows what… (possibly either losing to Red or frying random Rocket grunts) and Kanto/Jhoto being hotspots of corruption at best and ineptitude at worst...
Though seriously you do not use your hosts as a search engine. I imagine Leon’s helter skelter rapid fire search habits (part inspired by concern but still a norm in more modern times as it’s a fast paced wiki walking really) are driving Owen up the wall. No wonder he gets snappy near the end.
Hana and Leon’s reactions are such polar opposite and while I get Hana is trying to par things down Leon’s speculation has a place, they need to make a long term and short term plan but they’re both too reasonably wrung out to do anything about it yet and can’t see it.
Draughts… did you mean drafts?
GEN FIC NOTES:
As the fic progresses I’m noticing you use long sentences throughout. While not technically an error it can lead to a feeling of drag. As you’ve expressed concerns about passivity I’m going to offer these suggestions with a grain of salt. Honestly one of the more technical savvy writers like “wildboots” or one of the beta volunteers on the forum might be a better fit on balancing sentence length verses passivity. As it is, all I can say as a layman reader is long sentences back to back with minimal breaks can lead even the liveliest work to drag.
Here are a few examples I thought could be tweaked.
When I sneaked back into the Pokemon Center, the gust of wind that blew in with me interrupted a lively discussion in front of the computer. Owen and Leon soon continued their studies, only Lucy seemed to give me a longer look while I struggled to close the front door against the strong gale outside.
Action: when I sneaked
Setting Pokémon center
Setting: gust blew in
Action: leon/owen looked up
Setting: in front of computer
Action: lucy giving long look
action: Hana struggling to close door
Alright, we’ve got seven actions/setting in two lines. That’s a lot of little things in two long lines.
While the progression of evets works naturally, entrance to scene, to respond to her entering, you could easily tweak the lines using to encapsulate that in to smaller bits and bobs.
So as you can see I kept the order but I tried to place it into smaller sentences. It’s a bit RD but while longer (and possibly a bit more passive) the ideas you set up step by step, can be expressed into 5 lines easily and not be contracted into two super-long sentences.
This is a case of easy parring.
I said as I approached. (5 vs 7)
I’d tried to tidy, but there were grass-stains on my jeans that I couldn’t get out completely. ( 17 vs 27)
Almost all of the first part can be cut down to a few words. The excess words just seem too fussy and while it might be to show Hana’s fussy step by step processes about things we’ve so many examples before this point you can cut this one out easily.
Chapter 6 reaction
God Leon in tourist mode, Hana run for the sake of your sanity, don’t hide behind plants if he’s too enthusiastic he can take the plants with too… I mean consider the protags of ORAS or Sun/Moon and what they do to trees. Your potted plants are not safe.
Nor are your plans.
Leon’s both thoughtless (in his taking of more supplies without asking) yet thoughtful (leaving cloak, checking up with name preference) though they knew each other a bit before this point so I’m surprised this is happening now.
Someone referred to their version of walalce as being someone who’d apologize as if they hit you with a car for bumping into you, that Wallace and your Hana need to stop going to the same classes.
Hanah seriously didn’t know that the nice little old ladies lay traps like that. With long stories, trapped with cookies and offers to tea with the teasing “oh but did not you know” data trails… and here I thought Hana was a bit more worldly. Wonder if Leon would have been sucked in or if he’d of known how to bolt if it was him….
So he knida knows, even if openly passing out from boredom is sort of an answer…
And here’s Leon weaponizing his ditziness… wonder if he ever did that in the League…
You know I could see a bunch of people with pokemon go accounts just tagging along Leon, or those with walking step quotas for fitness. Entertainment and exercise all at once.
Though seriously Leon finding anything sort of reminds me of the last time I was RPing with a really bad luck sniper. He finally hit his target, a multistory beast and I was like “behold, the broad side of a barn” he smacked me with his character sheet then missed his next shot.
I can see Leon pointing to a paper sack “Ah the cul-de-sack of paperbag, been there… got lost in it once… Hop had to pull me out...”
And so Hana has pick up, no wonder the sentret warmed up to her so fast.
And Leon bites the bullet after getting them the more practical items they’ll need to plot ahead, a map and some money.
As well as a plan to get his ‘mon back. I don’t know how an expert can fix temporal deterioration… but maybe.. it’s a hope. And with a license, they can catch and train up a team to keep themselves safe.
Wonder if Sentret will tag along for that.
General suggestions about chapter 6:
Hmm so what does an insecure voice sound like, does it crack, dim in volume, it’d be a nice means to expand if you elaborated. And having a voice go softer or shake or trial off to mumbling sometimes has more character than a generic insecure.
Another example could be when Hana and Leon are talking about temper. When Hana “Finally got out”
Choked out, stuttered out, forced out past a lump in her throat… there’s a lot of room to expand and break away from blander descriptors.
Leon’s countering “plain voice” might be another good spot to tweak a little.
Chapter 7 reaction:
So Leon is the knight of Galar slaying threatening forums so the adventure may continue, how gallant of him.
And nice to see Ms. Barnes succeed in getting her gossip. I’ve encountered that type before and they can be willy, one hours a rather impressive escape time. I’d probably be hiding out with Leon on that count while flowers are useful and it’s nice to know their purposes and how to prep a plant my attention for that topic can only go so far….
Poor Hana having to be Leon’s gild in the horrors of shopping, much less having to make do with dated shopping because your preferred style doesn’t exist yet… Though I suppose if they’d gotten thrown far back enough they’d of wound up back in their styles since fashion is so cyclical… Maybe a bigger store with a retro section would scratch that itch.
Huh so they aren’t getting sentret understandable considering it's newly hatched/born however it works in this fic… But how are they going to get starters considering their original teams are elsewhere and I don’t see Prof. Oak shimmying out of the tall grass to hand out a starter? And also if they get the original starter trio pack… I don’t think Leon can take getting a charmander again, or seeing one at this point. That’d be twisting the knife and adding in five more while we’re at it.
Well we will see if the next chapter explains the ins and outs of what they get and how…
Chapter 8 reaction:
You know there’s a part of me that is interested in seeing Hana get to explore other aspects of her Kantonese heritage, having to backpack through Johto, and possibly Kanto might make her do that and reveal some interesting tidbits or make her learn some interesting things.
If that happens I hope that we’ll get a chance to see Leon’s explored as well…
Or for him to finally just break and admit that he only took classes, like once, like in highschool/term to get his trainer’s license…
So the “him” in the opening line was Mr pokemon, alright…
Poor Rotom must be going through tech withdrawal.
sceptical keeps changing to skeptical when I look it up but googles saying it's spelled both ways and means the same thing….
So why does Rotom call Leon boss you’ve never mentioned yet.
You know Leons going to run out of Galar snacks… and then Rotom will go on a light flickering rampage for the lolz. Then they’ll really be doomed.
I comparing the cast's analogies to old ‘dexs to how youngsters feel when shown an old phone.
Or perhaps old-school gamers showing off original systems to the younger crowd…
And Rotom’s getting jealous and rambunctious… ohh boy…
They’re digging at the “back to the future aspect” of their scenario. I can see Hana really thinking they need to keep their head down after that. The mechanics of it are fascinating and it’s a nice way to world build your cast’s histories…
And to drive Hana to a near panic attack again, that poor girl is inching towards another breakdown you can all but see the steps. I’m morbidly wondering who will have the next nasty revelation/setback, her or Leon. I think Leon’s worldview being so league-centric, probably is cushioning him a little (where tweaking history becomes more of an intellectual exercise until Hana dryly begins up they could erase themselves out of things by accident) but it’s also linked to his biggest weakness. With his team out, and possibly dead/nonexistent he’s very vulnerable in more than one sense of the word. Hana who doesn’t have that keystone personality trait is hitting more snags as it were, spikes of anxiety because she doesn’t have that all-consuming passion and its complexities to shield her and act as a buffer.
In closing I wanted to address a concern you pressed to me, previously I discussed dropping a chapter to thin things down. Reading ahead so far nothing in your story really needs to be dropped. You're accurately, it seems to me, are showing the complexities of this situation. That's this fic's focus. And you going into things at a slow pace gives the reader and characters a chance to feel things out. Yes, it takes time, but this is that type of story and every section works well towards that goal.
If there's any excess... well there's a few lines here and there that could be trimmed, but, perversely, there are a few things that could be expanded upon. Your efforts (I've read up to chapter 10 but don't have time to go into examples furthermore than I have today) work well with your style and this theme and its pacing works. I think shaking up the sentence length and cutting a bit a way from time to time would help, it'd keep it from blurring together in places, but overall this is a very minimal issue and the work stands up fine as it.
bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Aaaaa thank you so much for your in-depth review and your time and effort again ❤️
I'm so relieved to hear that you think the chapters so far have been necessary. Yeah, I think I'll just have to make peace with the fact that this thing is waaaaaaaaay more complex than I've given it credit for, going in. Because a lot of things you mentioned I'm going to / planning to touch on.
The hyperbeam guy.
Well, you are in luck, this was actually the base idea for this fic. I really loved the characters and I needed them to get out of their setting to explore these ideas appropriately. But sadly, the things I did to them warrant a plot, and that is really high stakes. I'd love to take my sweet time with that, believe me. But for that, I'll first have to slow Leon down a bunch.
Also, well, this Leon took online-classes since he's 10, so no highschool life for him. And his Kantonian is really good. Because Rose wanted it. And so he does. Ask him about his Hindi and he gets dodgy, though.
I'm so relieved to hear that you think the chapters so far have been necessary. Yeah, I think I'll just have to make peace with the fact that this thing is waaaaaaaaay more complex than I've given it credit for, going in. Because a lot of things you mentioned I'm going to / planning to touch on.
Sounds like Lance, yeah
The hyperbeam guy.Oh man, your comments give me life. Another one that goes onto a secret list of phrases that I may or may not drop in the future.
The double espresso of writing. But I see what you're getting on to. Reading these lines at almost 2am was actually quite taxing.
Yeah... I wonder... If he... may or may not... play a lot of things to his advantage...
Hehehe... that is one idea I've actually never heard before and it's GREAT!
Oh no! The poor guy! I know the feels when your dice hate your character.
Well, you are in luck, this was actually the base idea for this fic. I really loved the characters and I needed them to get out of their setting to explore these ideas appropriately. But sadly, the things I did to them warrant a plot, and that is really high stakes. I'd love to take my sweet time with that, believe me. But for that, I'll first have to slow Leon down a bunch.Also, well, this Leon took online-classes since he's 10, so no highschool life for him. And his Kantonian is really good. Because Rose wanted it. And so he does. Ask him about his Hindi and he gets dodgy, though.
kintsugi
golden scars | pfp by sun
hiya, revisiting for chapters 10/11 here--I was hoping to get a bit more during Blitz, but story of my life l o l
Man, me just blissfully not putting two and two together that sometimes fic authors do research and 1) will write Japanese names in the proper surname/first name format and 2) will actually use Japanese names as more than just set dressing. Between this and reviewing Hospice, I'm the clown meme. Really fun to see Morty from an outsider perspective here, and I like the idea spanning these two fics that he's willing to trouble himself with the supernatural in more ways than just one. I thought he was a biiiit on the nose here with "that's not when you're really from"--even in a world where absolutely anything is possible and the guy literally communes with the dead more or less for a living, I thought that the immediate jump to "these guys must be time travelers" was a little abrupt here, and his reasonings (being able to recognize the cleanse tags, Leon's bracelet) feel pretty thin unless he's somehow 1000% equated with what Galarian culture looks like in this time period. In general I think a reasonable explanation is just that Morty doesn't know entirely what Galar is up to, and maybe they have weird tech or funny fashion; the immediate assumption that it has to be time travel felt a little odd. Although in all honesty I like the idea that Rotom just ruined the entire surprise and Morty is backsolving this galaxy brain detective theory and pretending that this was absolutely how he saw through them the entire time because his brain is enormous.
I like the additional context we get for Hannah here, and some justification for why she's so afraid of conflict and willing to just cover her ears. A disrupted homelife meshes really well with her desire to appear perfect--my parents aren't divorced but in general the self-blame/"but maybe if I'm the perfect shiny plate on the shelf, my parents will love each other and I'll have a family again" tracks as a realistic (but said) takeaway for someone growing up in that environment to make. I'm still kind of torn since this pair of chapters especially highlights how rough it is to have the protagonist being the one with this kind of mindset here; Hannah literally just fucks off and waits for the boys to finish arguing, which is unfortunate since it ends up with her not really having much agency on the decisions made here/the plot still feels like it's a thing that's happening to her rather than because of her. But with more context it's a lot more clear why you were trying to make these decisions, and I think long term I have some faith that you're building this towards something that has a bit more consequences towards Hannah's passivity.
I do think Morty feels a little convenient now--I'm a lot more interested in how his presence will continue to challenge Hannah/Leon's dynamic and a little less sold on how quickly he became friend with Leon to the point that Leon's like, oh no, I'm fighting this guy because I wholly trust his judgment. But long-term I see a lot of potential for him to bring a lot of the more difficult things in the Hannah/Leon school of dealing with things to light, so I'm curious how the new-trio will proceed from here, especially since the near term issue of finding Mr. Pokemon has been solved and it's just the fun, ugly elephant in the room of resolving the Darkest Day left.
some small typos/minor questions per author's note:
Man, me just blissfully not putting two and two together that sometimes fic authors do research and 1) will write Japanese names in the proper surname/first name format and 2) will actually use Japanese names as more than just set dressing. Between this and reviewing Hospice, I'm the clown meme. Really fun to see Morty from an outsider perspective here, and I like the idea spanning these two fics that he's willing to trouble himself with the supernatural in more ways than just one. I thought he was a biiiit on the nose here with "that's not when you're really from"--even in a world where absolutely anything is possible and the guy literally communes with the dead more or less for a living, I thought that the immediate jump to "these guys must be time travelers" was a little abrupt here, and his reasonings (being able to recognize the cleanse tags, Leon's bracelet) feel pretty thin unless he's somehow 1000% equated with what Galarian culture looks like in this time period. In general I think a reasonable explanation is just that Morty doesn't know entirely what Galar is up to, and maybe they have weird tech or funny fashion; the immediate assumption that it has to be time travel felt a little odd. Although in all honesty I like the idea that Rotom just ruined the entire surprise and Morty is backsolving this galaxy brain detective theory and pretending that this was absolutely how he saw through them the entire time because his brain is enormous.
I really do have a knack for timing things in the most ironic ways--this was a nice exchange to see in light of my whole Hana/Hannah questions from my previous review, and in general I think Morty really works as a third leg in this group since he's able to both question everyone as an outsider while still also calling out how weird it is that they're outsiders. The idea of a gym leader role/gym challenge worldbuilding was really fun here, and again it's nice to have an outsider to the insular Hannah/Leon dynamic--sometimes you really do need a third party to just sort of shake you and be like, holy shit, is this really how you guys think things are supposed to go?
I like the additional context we get for Hannah here, and some justification for why she's so afraid of conflict and willing to just cover her ears. A disrupted homelife meshes really well with her desire to appear perfect--my parents aren't divorced but in general the self-blame/"but maybe if I'm the perfect shiny plate on the shelf, my parents will love each other and I'll have a family again" tracks as a realistic (but said) takeaway for someone growing up in that environment to make. I'm still kind of torn since this pair of chapters especially highlights how rough it is to have the protagonist being the one with this kind of mindset here; Hannah literally just fucks off and waits for the boys to finish arguing, which is unfortunate since it ends up with her not really having much agency on the decisions made here/the plot still feels like it's a thing that's happening to her rather than because of her. But with more context it's a lot more clear why you were trying to make these decisions, and I think long term I have some faith that you're building this towards something that has a bit more consequences towards Hannah's passivity.
I do think Morty feels a little convenient now--I'm a lot more interested in how his presence will continue to challenge Hannah/Leon's dynamic and a little less sold on how quickly he became friend with Leon to the point that Leon's like, oh no, I'm fighting this guy because I wholly trust his judgment. But long-term I see a lot of potential for him to bring a lot of the more difficult things in the Hannah/Leon school of dealing with things to light, so I'm curious how the new-trio will proceed from here, especially since the near term issue of finding Mr. Pokemon has been solved and it's just the fun, ugly elephant in the room of resolving the Darkest Day left.
some small typos/minor questions per author's note:
I wasn't sure why the ability to communicate with ghost pokemon is specifically relevant in the context of being able to talk to Rotom, since Rotom can just talk on their own here.
errant comma on this one
I think this would work better as a single paragraph--on first read I thought Morty was the one talking here
you'll want "soothe" here for the infinitive form
I think the intended point here is "the act of raising prices knowing that supply/demand is fucked in a way that consumers can't choose not to pay"--in which case you'll want the phrase "price gouging" instead of "gauging"
You'll want "it had gotten" here
I think this is meant to be a dynamaxed Butterfree, since it's capitalized like how you capitalize pokemon species?
bluesidra
Mood
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
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Hello! Welcome back ❤️
Morty has tinkered long enough with his spelllist to have Fast Friends on it at all times, and by god, Wisdom saving throws are neither Hana's nor Leon's strong suite.
In this story, his main reason for existing is saying "wtf, guys."
Heh. I admit fully to all points you criticised. It *does* go super quickly. I conveniently use and abuse him to get under people's skin frighteningly fast. And I love him for it :D
Morty has tinkered long enough with his spelllist to have Fast Friends on it at all times, and by god, Wisdom saving throws are neither Hana's nor Leon's strong suite.
He was conceived when I realised that the dynamic lacked a bit of... connection to the current world. Morty is the result of me making a table with all the strengths and weaknesses that the two already cover, filling in the gaps and slapping it behind a canon character that has no discernible personality but sufficiently vast knowledge on the setting. And honestly, I kinda like what came out of it.
In this story, his main reason for existing is saying "wtf, guys."
Now that I think about it, yes, the plot has consequences for her passivity. Horrible consequences... And I could build on that... *takes notes*