Pokémon Hey, Space Cadet! (discontinued and old version -- see start of thread)

[Flyg0n]

Hello again! Back for chapter 2!

I have to say, I found myself enjoying this chapter a lot more. Seeing chapter 2 clarified things for me, and it seems at the very least, that the unusual opening was intentional. The first part of ch 1 is not in fact a dream, as I briefly wondered. Instead it feels more like a strange ethereal moment. While I still mantain that me personally, specifically (subjectively) am a boring person who prefers concrete and simple openings, I think for the story you're telling, there's strong objective reasons for the direction you chose.

I had a bit of a hard time reading Connor fully as a character in the first chapter, but he definitely begins to take more shape in 2. We get a glimpse of a friend circle, more inner thoughts, his feelings on what happened, and even the way he wanted to play hero but has regrets too. There's a palpable feeling of anxiety and worry, as well as Connor just. Overthinking everything (bless him).

AND AN ARON

Good choice. It should have been a Trapinch but an Aron is an excellent second choice.

I also have to compliment you on your prose again. Your style made me feel grounded in Connor's mind, so to speak. Everything is very filtered through is perspective (something I don't always do, whoops) so I'm taking notes too. I myself am rather basic about prose, so reading something like this is very cool. There were some choices lines that stood out, and the piece as a whole mantains a very otherwordly vibe. Yet the setting also feels very grounded in its details and aspects of how it handles the pokemon the world.

Good stuff.

. Yesterday, he'd been strapped to a chair and examined by a gardevoir to check for any long-term damage. This wasn't neurosurgery, technically; this was a psychic examination that prioritised his mind over the physical organ that contained it.

This is such a nifty idea!

"Do you know the name Giratina?"

"Uh— I do, I think! I don't know where I've heard it before," he replied, wracking his brain. He didn't remember anyone ever saying it to him, but the name rang a bell; he couldn't deny that. "Who is it?"

Ah! So Giratina is not at all a widely known being. Fascinating!

He'd been warned not to look further into it, but how was he to see those things — the end of the world, the Plates of Arceus, the two felines — and move past it? Why did someone who knew all this go to the Windworks anyway, and why did that someone tell him all this? Was it deliberate? Why did they hide in the shadows before attacking? How did it make him sleep?

Ah hah hah! In light of this, the previous chapter makes even further sense because Connor himself was equally confused and lost by the goings on.

You know, I redact some of my harshness on ch1 since the intention seems to be to make the reader feel the confusion Connor feels, and the oddity of the situation. Given that seems to be done for a good reason, I can see that it mostly works well.

That night, he dreamed that hundreds of hands reached out from a dark temple door into the cold. He dreamed of returning to a home that was just beyond reach.

Hey im gonna rob you of your ending lines, okay? Love them. I have a specific love of chapter ender lines and scene break ending lines.

Ronnie — being an aron — was very low maintenance

ARON!!!! WHOOOO

Once or twice about ten years ago, he showed up on a celebrity game show and got asked a bunch of questions about music. Specifically, old Kalois progressive rock. It turned out that was one of his favourite subjects. Everyone he knew agreed this was bewildering, but nobody really complained.

Okay tiny details like this that you include are so cool and make the world feel so unique.

"W-well, trains are like that, sometimes," Connor replied with a curt nod. "Thank you for coming." He realised that this was a joke, but by now it was too late to laugh.

oh my gosh this boy is so awkward. Bless him.

"Okay, good. That's good to hear. Th-this might sound silly, but I had been worrying about that, to be honest."

Awww thats so precious. Makes me wonder about Connor and his dad too.... HMMMMM :thonk:

 

[slamdunkrai]

Ah geez, Blitz has really left me spoiled, hasn't it? :V Here are some review responses. Just in general: there are changes suggested by some of you that I still want to implement that aren't addressed here, but I have noted them and will be sure to put them in when I eventually revise these chapters (after writing the rest of this arc, anyway). Also in general, and more importantly, it absolutely was an absolute delight seeing so many people have things to say about what I'm doing here, and as I've said before, it meant a lot that so many people had (and still have!) this on their to-do list. Once more: massive thanks for the feedback. <3

Spoiler: Pen (ch.2)

The conversation with Rowan was the highlight of the chapter for me. You really made him vivid on the page as this larger than life figure who Connor respects and admires and doesn't really want to meet face to face because ahhh scary. I can think of some people I feel that way about.

Glad that this came across! I had worried initially about that scene being extraneous and unnecessary; extremely happy that this is the part of the chapter people seemed most taken by.

He's also in an environment that he has a vested interest in getting out of and so an incentive to be as 'fine' as possible. I don't feel like he'll be able to truly unpack his reaction until he's in a different environment.

I love how confident you are that he'll unpack this. :>

There's also some hints at Connor having a backstory with the Association and his father's death. Whatever it is, it's a big enough deal that Rowan knew to apologize about it. I get shades of Jim Kirk in the Star Trek reboot movies.

Interesting! Most of this was intended.

Connor seems awfully quick to jump to conclusions after how much doing so screwed him over last chapter.

Yeah, I think Connor's just generally a little too beholden to the whims of the plot in these first three chapters. I've revised that a little in chapter three already and will be having another look at it, but I'll def have to go over this bit again too.

Spoiler: Bluesidra

All while one of the later Beatles songs (the ones that nobody understands) plays in the background.

The surreal descriptions gave me such hard throwbacks, you can’t not have taken some inspirations there. SCP or the really really good creepypastas. Or drugs.

I have read three SCP entries ever (one's this, another's this), never sought out a creepypasta, haven't done drugs before, and am more of a Beach Boys guy myself (though, there is one band who tends to come onto my rotation when I write the weirder stuff here). ;P

The shop clerk studying journalism and just doing this for the money. (Though I have to say, the random infodump on Connor, who really doesn’t strike me as a smalltalk provoking character, seemed a liiiiittle forced)

That bit is something I'll have to take a look at — already revised it slightly, but I think I may have to give it another go in editing at a later date.

The introduction to their teams when they walked through Eterna Forest was too fast. I couldn’t keep track and now don’t remember half of them. It wasn’t bad, since all I needed was Ronnie and Ponti in the long run.

I think this is a natural casualty of how this fic goes in its early stages. I'd love to dedicate some more time to the 'mon going forward, though; there will be actual training in this at some point. :V

She seems to have some history with Moira, the only famous trainer from Snowpoint.

They're sisters! Might have to see how clearly that was communicated here, but they do share a surname.

I have a hunch that this might be intentional on your part. But so far, I haven’t gotten a confirmation, and thus it feels more like an inconsistent character.

It was intentional! I'm too attached to how it comes across already, but if it's a recurring issue in people's feedback, I may have to take another look at it.

This might be the basic mainline-bitch in me speaking, but I’m really into that, and you give me such interesting tidbits, that I find the dream sequences almost distracting. Go away, I want my journeyfic! ;)

Spoiler: Q

i know other people have pointed it out and you've made some edits, so i won't belabor it, but connor's time in the corridor does drag a bit from repetition/redundancy. i've read this bit a few times and i think my impression is that it just feels a bit disorganized, perhaps; if i were to summarize the information imparted in that portion, i think the result would actually be fairly short. the section feels like it's more concerned with description and establishment of atmosphere than it is with progressing the events that are going on, and i think those two facts combine poorly; imo this is the sort of scene that would benefit from a more to-the-point style of narration

Definitely a priority for the next revision! I think this is ultimately me trying to have my cake and eat it — atmosphere was absolutely my main concern there, and I wanted to really emphasise that part feeling dreamlike/ominous, but enough people have had issues with the pacing that I just have to accept that this wasn't the right approach. :V

something that jumped out at me was connor's sort of nonchalant treatment of the girl and her father. rowan does eventually reassure him that they're okay but before that point i would have really expected him to be wound up about it—he seemed to think the situation was life-or-death and then zonked out before getting to resolve it—so it sort of surprised me that it didn't really seem to come to mind for him at all, at one point even saying that he regretted getting involved in the first place.

Also something I need to fix! He should come off as exhausted here, but not unconcerned.

connor returns to the material plane and writes a paper on what he saw there and becomes the world's most celebrated cosmologist.

lmao that's a good one [throws manuscript marked "ENDING" into furnace]

rowan's characterization is great too. he feels perfectly stern yet warm, just as you'd expect him to. i thought connor's interest in him and star-struck behavior was great and the way rowan takes it in stride and treats connor with respect despite his excited stammering was 👌.

Once again delighted that this bit actually worked, lmfao. Cheers!

a pretty big portion of this chapter is dedicated to connor's conversation with the clerk and unfortunately i did find that portion a bit info-dumpy and hard to believe. it just feels like a lot that she would go into such a detailed, protracted conversation about the chateau (and, eventually, their personal lives, to some degree) with this random guy that went through her checkout. it felt a bit too convenient for me and as the conversation wound on i found it increasingly testing my suspension of disbelief.

Minor revisions have been made to remove one little bit of it, but I definitely plan to take a look at this scene again and make it flow a little more naturally, aye.

i wonder how the league is structured exactly that makes that possible; does the whole circuit take place over the course of a single year, with no previously-trained pokémon allowed?

Yeah, p much. I'm going to elaborate more on how it works in later chapters (though I do gotta iron out some kinks before I write them), but I mostly just had collegiate sports in mind when writing it.

Spoiler: Flyg0n (ch1)

If questioning reality is something you intended to evoke for chapter 1, then I think this works.

Hesitant to comment too much on this particular review because it seems a lot of your concerns were alleviated in the next one, but yea :~)

I also loved the lore and myths and worldbuilding you bring up! As a fellow Sinnoh-fic writer myself, I am in love with Giratina and Arceus and timespace duo, so those bits were a treat. There's a lot of thought and confidence in your takes that I admire (and I want to rob from you too ;).

I'd be absolutely honoured if you did ;>

So, this seems to be Mewtwo, which fascinates me to no end, because its somewhat uncommon to see Mewtwo outside of Kanto/Johto stuff! I'm really curious how Mewtwo will fit into this tale.

Spoiler: Pen (ch3)

Okay, you know that I'm not one to talk about characters making Extremely Good Decisions, but seriously, Connor? Has he not heard of 'once walked into a dark spooky building and gotten mentally attacked by a supernatural presence, twice shy'?

This story would be a lot shorter, and his life a lot easier, if he had!

Here we see him making another choice, and I didn't find his internal reasoning completely convincing. For one thing, there's just not much of a reason for him to do this. If he thinks it's just a folk story and not really a big deal, then it's not something "completely new" and of "historic importance." If he thinks there's a real chance that there's some truth in the darker stories--why risk it? The motivation I found most convincing was his desire to go along with his friend. But the peer pressure motivation only kicks in later--he's the one who brings the house to her attention and sets things in motion. It's all just a pretty perplexing flex from someone who was just discharged from a hospital after getting his head messed with by an unknown shadow creature. . (I am open to the possibility that Connor's decision here is influenced by some lingering suggestion of the possession.)

Mmmmmm, that wasn't the intention, but I do like that it could be a possibility. Tried to fix this a little bit in my minor revisions earlier, but this might require a second look later on.

Anyway, I'm sure Florence is right and this will be a fun little trip where absolutely nothing goes wrong. Excited about the upcoming fluff chapter where Connor plants pansies with the friendly garden ghosts.

Haven't read that far but you're on the money I think

'Just' renovating a completely ramshackle mansion would take hundreds of thousands of dollar--not something anyone's going to undertake without a lot of money and incentive.

I'm not sure who the 'they' is here or why eminent domain is being referenced. Has the government seized this property for public use after properly compensating its owners? When the owner of the house died, title passed to whoever was specified in their will, and if they left no will, presumably the state intestate laws kicked in. If the area assesses any property taxes on it, they have an interest in knowing the owners. I won't write a whole essay, but none of this seems super surprising and isn't really haunting indicative at this point. Old buildings are a massive amount of work.

Yeah, I just removed this bit entirely, tbh. Moral of the story: don't pull stuff out of your ass to explain stuff you don't really need to explain! (Also, I tried to tweak some of Connor's reactions/the dialogue to justify why he approaches this situation the way he does — may need to make some bigger revisions later on to really fix this though.)

I feel like the relevant question here is less whether he minds and more whether his pokemon mind.

Extremely true! Had a go at fixing that, which added a bit more description too.

Did I miss her saying they should chat about the hospital now or is Connor projecting?

Projecting, but I forgot to make this clear enough — amended that bit.

Spoiler: Flyg0n (ch2)

I have to say, I found myself enjoying this chapter a lot more. Seeing chapter 2 clarified things for me, and it seems at the very least, that the unusual opening was intentional. The first part of ch 1 is not in fact a dream, as I briefly wondered. Instead it feels more like a strange ethereal moment. While I still mantain that me personally, specifically (subjectively) am a boring person who prefers concrete and simple openings, I think for the story you're telling, there's strong objective reasons for the direction you chose.

I had a bit of a hard time reading Connor fully as a character in the first chapter, but he definitely begins to take more shape in 2. We get a glimpse of a friend circle, more inner thoughts, his feelings on what happened, and even the way he wanted to play hero but has regrets too. There's a palpable feeling of anxiety and worry, as well as Connor just. Overthinking everything (bless him).

This was the intent, and I'm extremely happy that it came across! Wanted to throw the poor kid into the deep end and then show who he is a little later — wanted to strike a balance between "the story begins with a life-changing event for him, he is right in the action" and "he's still a character, the reader has to have something to grab onto here".

Hey im gonna rob you of your ending lines, okay? Love them. I have a specific love of chapter ender lines and scene break ending lines.

Once again, I'd be honoured ;>

 

[Negrek]

All right, looks like Catnip is sending me back here a little early! I think I'd like to take this story one chapter at a time, so here's #2.

The results of the psychic examination were curious. It sounds as though Connor remembers everything fine (or, like, as fine as can be expected after a big traumatic experience), but the memories are blocked so that no one but him can access them? That's pretty slick... Definitely makes me curious what the lurking pokémon in the Windworks was. Darkrai would be an obvious choice, given, you know... meta things, and also Connor's emphasis on how the pokémon put him to sleep, and he had a nightmare. But at the same time that sort of memory modification reads very psychic, and the pixies are possibly in control of Team Galactic, so who knows! Maybe both Darkrai and some other legend got at him. Why should Connor be getting trouble from only one superpowered pokémon, after all?

One way or another, I don't imagine it can be too long before Connor has a good think about those stories he doesn't dare think about, heh.

I think this works pretty well as a first "proper" chapter after the Windworks, which feels like it functions a bit like a prologue to me. Here we get a proper introduction to Connor and his situation--and to Ronnie, who's adorable! We get a bit of backstory, get those tantalizing Team Galactic and Association namedrops, and generally start to get acquainted with the setting. I think that this generally works as a follow-up to the first chapter and as a jumping-off point for the next. We've got both a sense of Connor's immediate desires and plans (to continue with his entirely normal trainer's journey, alas that it's never going to happen) as well as what we'll be tackling for the broader plot with both Connor's dream and Team Galactic floating around out there.

I liked the introduction we got to the characters here. I enjoyed Connor's delight at getting to meet the gardevoir and then his quiet fangirling over Rowan--you certainly get the sense that he's a bit of a nerd and a bit awkward, but also with a good heart and a lot of passion for subjects he's interested in. Ronnie is, again, adorable, and I loved how he served as a point of connection between Connor and Rowan. LOOK AT THESE NERDS, PETTING A ROCK TOGETHER. Rowan himself seems like a good egg, and I hope we'll see more of him later. Florence seems like she's going to be a fun foil for Connor, and I look forward to seeing her (presumably) next chapter. Their chat exchanges are fun little inclusions here--good way to characterize Florence without us properly meeting her yet.

I'm a little curious about how Connor, unconscious, ended up at the hospital. I guess Association members showed up to deal with Team Galactic and found him there? I understand it's something you're planning to address already, but I was also surprised that what happened to the girl's father doesn't really seem to concern Connor until after Rowan's showed up--despite how concerned he was about that mug, heh.

Finally, a few line comments:

Spoiler: Line-by-Lines

First, a quick note about commas: if you have a sentence with a conjunction, like "and" or "but," you don't put a comma in front of the conjunction unless there's a complete sentence on each side. So here:

He gulped, and found himself trailing off.

Here "found himself trailing off" isn't a sentence, so you don't want a comma. Similarly:

He felt the weight above his lap shift a little, and removed his face from the dark of his hands to find Ronnie gazing from mere inches away.

"Removed his face [...] mere inches away" isn't a sentence, so no comma here, either.

While putting his notepad in his pocket, Rowan paused for a moment, and looked up as if to ponder something.

Final example here. Because "looked up as if to ponder something" isn't a sentence, the second comma shouldn't be there.

This cropped up a fair amount; the above are just some selections.

He tried to wrap his head around the things he'd saw after the creature he'd met sent him to sleep,

*he'd seen

InTheCourtOfTheNidoqueen: glad you're okay <3
That was on-brand, and the sort of thing he imagined her saying out loud with a cackle.

Looks like you missed a line break or two here.

Connor tried to stop worrying about it every time it came time.

Every time it came time to what?

While studying for his trainer scholarship exams, he scoured through archives of his lectures for inspiration; any time a new one went live, he scrambled to watch it.

You want "he'd scoured" and "he'd scrambled" here.

coming from online forums and odd news article where some poor reporter tried to doorstep him.

Interesting! I've never seen "doorstep" used like this before. I'm guessing it's a regional dialect thing.

"He seems more than happy in your company," opined Sinnoh's foremost expert on pokémon.

I think you're emphasizing how much this comment means to Connor because of Rowan's status, but "opined Sinnoh's foremost expert on pokémon" strikes me as a bit of an over the top epithet.

Connor nodded and undid his scooting, fixing his attention focused on the large man in the chair.

Perhaps an edit artifact here; you want only one of "fixing his attention" or "focused."

He did exactly that, pouring over everything he could remember.

*poring

Eventually, when everything had been covered, Connor paused, thrummed his free hand across his lap, and nodded.

"Thrummed" strikes me as a little out of place. What sort of gesture or movement were you thinking of here?

He had behaved, as promised; in fact, he'd forgotten his pokémon was there.

The pronouns end up a little confused here. "He'd forgotten" actually means Ronnie had forgotten in this context.

A good second chapter and what feels like a definitive kick-off for the fic. Looking forward to #3!

 

[kintsugi]

hiya! here for catnip! I ended up reading a ton more but then this afternoon got away from me + I accidentally deleted a ton of line quotes that I'd pulled for those chapters, soooo. oops. Silver linings, I'd intended on keeping the review for this first chapter as devoid of line quotes anyway, since it looks like Blitz has already given you a lot of those and I'm not sure if I could add much more on that front--but uh, here we are, lol. All this to say this review uses knowledge from future chapters but doesn't really address them yet, and also that I should stop trying to be a perfectionist about reviews and just post them instead of letting chrome eat them.

---

- the real (?) -

The Windworks sequence is a little more verbose than the future chapters end up being--honestly I thought the entire first chapter was a dream (which I vibed with tbh; dreams switch locales all the time and "first I had to run an errand for a random kid and then I watched someone try to kill god" does feel kind of like dream logic), but it seems like from future chapters this all did happen. The first section does feel very narratively heavy; I don't think it's necessarily a bad decision or anything and I agree with the general assessment that the prose itself works well, but I did find it hard to anchor myself, that I was having to work a lot harder to sift details for Connor/plot than I might normally expect. Add that to the surreal dips into anitmatter Sinnoh and the intro feels a little disjointed.

(but luckily there's more than one chapter. I think in general a lot of these comments on first chapters are hard for me to formulate in a way that makes sense since there's a lot of room for intentional narrative decisions that get obscured because it's hard to critique the decisions that are being made this early.)

General characterization from Connor this section: he strikes me as highly observant and/or hyperfocused (that's a lot of inferences to make from a mug), and generally self-sacrificing/trying to be helpful or meaningful (can't say no to the kid, and I mean his last thought when he thinks his consciousness is about to dissolve is more or less literally this). There's a lot of introspection going on in this section, a lot of internal monologue--most external descriptions are paired with some thoughts on what they mean, why they're happening like this. He's generally cautious about his environment, but that also might be because he's in an industrial complex trying to hunt down murderers, and not because it's his default state. I get a lot of self-awareness of his vulnerability and fear; he often doubles back on what he's thinking ("it was probably nothing ... as if probably guaranteed safety") and in general he's trying to do right things but isn't super confident in what he's doing.

Also he apologizes to the shadow in the gloom for bothering it, like it's awkward now or something. Amazing lol. I'm kind of reminded of classic millennial behavior I guess?

It was his house now.

except for that part

Also, he knows what thick dust smells like. I'm not sure what life experience brings you to that state, but that's interesting.

- the dream -

Dreams are usually important in fiction, even if they aren't in real life, so I can't help but assume that everything in the dream here is included for foreshadowing. My treatise on why it's critically important that everything is red-shifted in maybe-distortion-world-Sinnoh will be coming next week.

I liked how in his dream state Connor kept assuming he was god, that he'd somehow ascended. It's kind of consistent with the weird haziness of dream logic (like, oh yeah, in this world I'm magic, that all tracks), it contrasts really nicely with his general timidness in the Windworks section, and overall I can't shake the sense that maybe it's not all-Connor talking here.

There's a lot of mythos in this chapter. Always love to see it tbh, and I'm curious how it'll develop from here--Sinnoh is kind of unique I think because it was the first pantheon to really jump to these abstract concepts of creation and the beginnings of the universe and shit; before it was just really big color-coded kaiju. Connor seems insistent that these are all concepts that are beyond him and that he doesn't end up involved with, but they probably wouldn't be in the first chapter of the story if this ends up being true.

(I didn't quite understand why he didn't recognize the spear/wheel sigil--that just seems like the sigil for Arceus, whom he can recognize? idk i don't actually know Sinnoh; multiple people can confirm this)

“What good is knowing without making the decisions? Will reason keep you safe at night when the killer comes to the door?”

I thought this line was metal as fuck, and also real lol. It's true that decision paralysis is real, and I'm curious about the implications of it in this context. Darkrai (?) (look I've made a lot of jokes and I'm 99% convinced it's Darkrai, but I've died on stupider hills and I need to hedge my bets) strikes me as a really sad character, one who I'm curious about seeing more of as the fic develops--"learn from my mistakes and just give up" is, wow. A mood, I guess, but also there's a lot to unpack in that statement.

---

I liked the broad strokes here--intros are for establishing character and setting, and often they don't perform more than that (or at least they don't seem to), so it's hard to say much else beyond temp reads here, but the segue into the action proper works really well with the next chapter. I'm super sorry it's taken me 3000 years to get around to this; I enjoyed the story back when I read it but my brain sometimes just refuses to let me write my thoughts out in a coherent way. Pinky promise I will return during Blitz tho.

[Sidebar, whether or not Darkrai's actually here, I think you might enjoy Persephone's World Myth Encyclopedia--it's similar to this chapter in a sense that it mostly focuses on telling the stories of legendary pokemon viewed from afar. I have linked to the entry on Darkrai for no particular reason.]

 

[Negrek]

Chapter three! This is kind of a transitional chapter. Connor learns about the haunted mansion, he meets up with Florence, and then we cut off when they actually enter the haunted mansion--I imagine the next chapter's when shit's really going to go down. Will have to read on for a couple more chapters before I'll get a sense of whether the way you've broken up the chapters makes sense to me.

I enjoyed the worldbuilding tidbits we got about the League circuit and training in general we got here. I've always been a fan of the "many try, few succeed" view of the pokémon journey. Although 137 really isn't "many," considering! Either doing the league is way less common in this story than most trainerfics I've read, or Sinnoh has a way lower population than I expected. With so few people participating across the region, how do you even reliably find other trainers to practice with/against? Unless the idea is there's plenty of people hanging out on the routes with pokémon/plenty of people are the battle-y type of trainers, it's just that very few actually do the league each year? Logistics of that aside, I'm interested to see how the training side of the story's going to interact with the supernatural shit side of everything. Should be fun! I'm also really curious about Snowpoint's trainer #3, heh. Got a feeling that guy'll turn out to be important somehow...

It was great to meet Florence this chapter! I've really enjoyed the relationship between her and Connor so far, and I think she adds some great energy to the story. Cute piplup, too. I wonder how she's going to handle her friend getting caught up in all this weird gods and evil organizations shit--and how much she'll get caught up in it herself. I guess we'll see whether she ends up having any super spooky visitations on her return to the mansion, or if it's just Connor. (Because Connor's totally going to have a super spooky time, isn't he? :P )

I will admit, I was kind of surprised by how enthused Connor seemed to be about immediately going out to visit Creepy Building #2 immediately after getting out of the hospital that he landed in as a result of his experience in Creepy Building #1. My impression of him was as a fairly cautious/timid guy, but I guess I was wrong there, heh. I notice in the patch notes that you'd tried to make it more clear that Connor was going along with the visit to the haunted mansion because he wanted to hang out with Florence. That came through for me perfectly well at the end of the chapter where he's actually feeling dread about entering the place but doesn't want to be a downer/have to explain to Florence about the Windworks; I thought that bit worked just fine. For me what was weird was towards the beginning of the chapter, where it's Connor who even semi-suggests going to the haunted mansion in the first place. I admit I kind of boggled at his "eh, it's not like I have anything better to do" nonchalance, like, bro, do you want to go back to the hospital??? Do you have anything better to do than potentially be bored out of your skull for several more days when you're under observation? (Though he might get to see the gardevoir again, so point there.) I get that he's thinking there's no way he's going to have another terrifying nightmare encounter in this place, and if he wasn't the main character in a story that would be a totally reasonable expectation to have, but I guess I didn't realize that Connor's interest in folklore/ghosts/cool shit was so strong that he's feeling like "hmm maybe I should go" when presented with this opportunity rather than "nah I've had enough adventure for the next couple weeks actually."

The conversation with the cashier was definitely way more involved than any I've had with someone in a similar position in my life, heh; if there was nobody else in the mart and the cashier was super bored/naturally super chatty, I could see it happening, but it did feel like an oddly large amount of exposition from someone who's on the clock to me.

Other things...

Rottenhat

Well, that's certainly a different kind of nickname than Connor's other pokémon. Perhaps Rottenhat is adopted? :P

He took everything to the cashier. She scanned it and handed it back to him, and he put it in his bag.

This felt like a bit of unnecessary stage direction to me--you could probably cut or reduce it.

“Mmm.” Connor found himself intrigued by the tall yarn spun here. It wasn’t that he doubted it; rather, something about it didn’t click as he went over it in his head. “So the house is just… there, still? And people can go visit it?”
“Yeah! Pretty cool, right?”

Missing a paragraph break here.

People have tried, of course, but they’ve not succeeded.

Tried what? Tearing it down?

Well — I want to do it, of course, but even if I didn’t, I do sort of have to. It’s for personal reasons, y’know?

👀 We've gotten hints about Connor's backstory already, and I'm definitely intrigued! I think the rate you're revealing this information is appropriate.

There could well have been another creature lurking in the shadows to inflict nightmares onto intruders, but he doubted that; nobody was that unlucky.

why do i strongly suspect somebody's about to be that unlucky

DogManStaryu: sounds good beo! i’ll see you there :)
DogManStaryu: *bro
InTheCourtOfTheNidoqueen: beo
DogManStaryu: beo

Aww. Love Connor and Florence's chats. They feel like really genuine friends!

Connor and Florence approached one another, and soon found themselves wrapped in a tight embrace.

I harped enough on this kind of comma last chapter, and I know you haven't had the opportunity to look for them anyhow, so I'll keep my commentary on it this chapter to pointing out this one instance of a comma not belonging.

He waved the concern away and smiled a smile that was in spite of it all.

"A smile that was in spite of it all" strikes me as odd phrasing here; makes me want to ask "in spite of what all?"

She’d wrangled up her curls and tied them up at the back, letting them fall across her nape. The result was chaotic, though it was a well-tempered sort of chaos that made her features more visible — her long thin nose, big grey eyes and the smile anchored to them.

Incredible nitpick, but it's nighttime, isn't it? I presume they're standing under a lamppost or something, but the lighting probably isn't going to be great. To me that makes it kind of odd to take this opportunity for description of physical traits Connor isn't going to be able to see well.

Two of his three pokémon were in their balls, which they didn’t seem to mind all too much — recent technological advancement ensured they were safe and humane pokémon carriers fit to be used for a few hours at a time, so long as they were provided with adequate enrichment.

The "they" in "they were provided with adequate enrichment" here are the pokéballs! Something like "so long as the occupants were provided..." would fix that up.

There was no way he would know for sure if his pokémon were truly happy being his pokémon, because he was not a mind-reader, but he chose not to think about that right now. As far as he could tell, they had all joined him of their own volition.

This struck me as weird and ominous! I could totally see Connor ruminating on this kind of thing even if there's no cause for concern, but if you didn't intend for this bit to be kind of alarming, I don't know if it makes sense to put a lampshade on the fact that Connor has no way of knowing whether his pokémon even want to be there with him. (Also how do they feel about going into spooky buildings all the time? :P )

Maybe the ghosts of the chateau were not human spirits, he thought. Maybe they were the ghosts of trees, who had taken up a different form to trick those intruding on the area. This thought wasn’t exactly reassuring, nor was he quite sure where he got the idea from — it was wildly implausible, even if it seemed otherwise here. If nothing else, he got a kick out of picturing this: just standard trees, innocent enough in the human world, dying and being reborn as angry spirits who drove rich people out of house and home and then pretended to be their ghosts. After all, the spiteful, petty tendencies of nature were certainly not new to Sinnoh.

This is a really fun paragraph!

“…What’s the deal with all the flowers?”, he whispered.

No comma here! The question mark is all you need.

“Actually,” he said, smiling unevenly — why did this come to mind now of all times? — “don’t you mean beother?”

“You’re right,” Florence replied, masking her chortles with the back of her fist. “Beother.”

The stupid chat typo coming back here is so good.

Really look forward to seeing what happens next chapter! Back soon.

 

[Negrek]

Chapter Four! Or, "Connor goes into a sinister building and has an intense hallucinatory experience, take two." :P It was interesting how having someone else around to look out for him changed the dynamic here. Ronnie hasn't been a lot of help, obviously (poor Ronnie!), but Florence is naturally doing everything in her power to find Connor again. It was fun to see her having her own mildly spooky experience in contrast to Connor getting yeeted into the nightmare void again--quite a different flavor than the first chapter, with the hallucinatory experience surrounded by much more normal ones.

So, confirmed, Darkrai is involved in all this. Presumably the pokémon appearing to Connor here is... Giratina? Everything seems to point to it, I think, aside from her referring to Darkrai as her brother. Normally I'd expect Darkrai to be related to Cresselia rather than one of the Creation Trio, but, well, this would certainly be a different spin on Cresselia! It seems like the mystical bullshit hasn't quite had its way with Connor yet--curious to see what he'll encounter on the other side of the spooky portal (or perhaps Florence will manage to get there in the nick of time and drag him away!).

Meanwhile, Florence's encounter with the mansion's rotom is a fun take on the in-game event. Rotom's a pokémon whose role has changed so much since its initial introduction, and seeing one float around inside a phone here feels like an interesting bridge between the "past" Sinnoh generation and the modern pokémon world. I guess under less dire circumstances Florence probably would have wanted to bring Connor up to the room and have him meet Rotom--probably would have been one of the mansion's highlights. I'm curious what the rotom's ultimate fate will be; seems like a shame to put it back into the TV, if it can even return to the thing, but I don't know that it necessarily wants to hang out in Florence's phone from now on, either. (If her phone survives, of course!)

One thing that did stick out to me in this chapter was that the characters often feel distant and detached to me--I don't get a strong sense of emotions off them. This seems entirely appropriate for Connor's dream(?) sequences, because he is detached from reality and struggling to understand things that strain his comprehension. However, for something like Florence's conversation with Rotom, I think it may make it hard to connect with the character. Florence is supposed to be tense during that sequence, worried about Connor. And there are a couple of flashes where it feels that way to me, where she realizes she's being intense. But the bulk of it read pretty calm to me. I think some of this is the structure of Florence's dialogue; she overall reads as casual to me, not harried. Like, if my friend disappeared and I was desperate to find him, I don't think I'd be wasting time on a phrase like "I frankly could not care" in "I frankly could not care if you had to smash it into the wall a million times until it broke into a billion tiny little pieces." Also, there isn't a lot of physical description of Florence's physical state. Is she breathing fast? Are her fingernails digging into her palms? I think a bit more description of the characters' physical state would make me feel more as though I were in the story with them--it would make their emotions feel more visceral and ground them better in the scene.

Spoiler: line comments

It moved through the air as fast as a crawling bug, and it was incomprehensibly vast.

The simile isn't helping me here; is a crawling bug supposed to be fast or slow? Kind of an odd comparison imo.

This was his mistake, as the living jacket constricted around him hard enough to pluck the air from his lungs.

"Pluck" seems like an odd verb here since Connor was being constricted--seems more natural that the air should be crushed/squeezed/pressed out of him instead.

A girl aged no more than twelve entered being, and stood totally motionless in the centre of the room.

"Entered being" is kinda vague. Did she appear abruptly, all at once? Did she kind of fade into view? Appear to step from behind a corner/an object? I think you could have a little fun with how Giratina(?) arrives on the scene here.

She stared ahead and smiled, though Connor could not help noticing the sound of the Malice pounding the walls in every direction. This was silence, and it was inescapable in its volume.

Not quite sure what you're getting at with the "This was silence, and it was inescapable in its volume" thing. Meaning that the sound of the Malice pounding walls isn't a real noise/is all in Connor's head, so it's actually silent? This sounds nice but isn't helping me figure out what you're going for, I don't think.

I am surprised you hadn't figured this out by know!

*now

At that moment, he glanced Ronnie from the corner of his eye.

*glanced at

Connor could direct no anger directed at him

Not sure what's going on here. Maybe "direct" is a typo for "detect?"

The line went dead immediately. Every time she tried it, nothing happened.

Little confused here; last time we got any orientation for Florence, she was standing with her hand on the doorknob. Where'd the phone come from?

Unfortunately, the two of them would have to return to their balls here.

Here the two of them are Gladre and Florence.

Poor Connor, getting an entire one chapter of Just Trainer Things before it's back to nightmare bullshit. :P At least if he's not actually asleep/getting psychically fucked with here he might escape without needing another trip to the hospital. I mean, I assume he's not headed right back to the hospital, although I'll admit that I'd find that pretty hilarious. Onward!

 

[Negrek]

Back to Connor and Florence's big, spooky misadventure! I really enjoyed Connor's weird nightmare/ghost hallucination/dread plate experience, and the haunted radio in particular. For some reason the radio broadcast being so almost normal, combined with the ghost-announcer seeming so apologetic (or perhaps faux-apologetic) and at the same time so extremely unhelpful. Or perhaps it was a spooky Team Galactic (distorted?) broadcast, since Connor sees what I'm assuming is Mars shortly thereafter, and the radio refers to "the team?" One way or another, I really got a kick out of that segment--there was a lot of character pacted into that particular haunting, if that's what it was, and one distinctly different from your typical angry/sneering/sad ghost sort of thing. Reminded me a bit of Rotom, who's also fun.

I also liked the Dread Plate sequence, although I'm not totally sure that I got what you wanted me to out of it. At the end Connor's like, "ah, so that's what the Dread Plate can do," and I was like "???" It can... cause hallucinations? Create a portal thing like what Connor went through right after? Summon Giratina? Totally fine if Connor's supposed to figure out something the audience isn't, but if you were expecting readers to be on the same page as him there, I myself wasn't, heh. Also very curious whether what Connor saw here was maybe a premonition or warning or something that happened in the past.

Important question, though... What happened to Ronnie? Might've been that Connor was able to recall him earlier and I forgot/missed it, but if not, big D: at him not being there and Connor not appearing to notice he isn't there.

Meanwhile, I wasn't totally sure what tone you were going for at the beginning of Florence's section. The light banter about gender/things referred to as "it" would be fun as a general characterization thing but definitely felt out of place assuming Florence is in fact worried about Connor and working hard to find him. The "Rotom made for fun company in what would have otherwise been mind-numbing boredom" comment in particular left me feeling very "???" I'm guessing that was meant to be a joke? But Florence really did seem to be that nonchalant... Based on later sections, I think what you were going for was "pretending everything is cool and fun to cover up my terror," but in that case I'd expect more signs of how worried she was to be breaking through, similar to what was going on at the end of the previous chapter. The beginning of Florence's section read so much like a real "me and my ghost pal having a good time" scene that it threw me a bit.

After the encounter with the unown, though, things did shift to a more clearly horrifying atmosphere, and I thought it was well done! Florence/Rotom felt more scared to me during this part than any character has up to now in the mansion... perhaps appropriate since it looks like we may be reaching the climax of the spooky adventure! It was fun seeing the unown here--were they speaking Braille? That would be super cool. It's interesting because I feel like we're five chapters in and we've already seen some of Sinnoh's hardest-hitting supernatural weirdness, heh. Getting chucked right into the deep end before the first badge; I'm here for it!

Spoiler: line comments

“Anyway, thank you for your time. Back to the music. Our next request is from a different caller, who asked for ‘the same song’. We’re enthusiastic tonight, aren’t we? I suppose the music will oblige…”

This is cute!

Everything in the mirror vanished, and like a door had opened there, a new space opened there.

The repetition of "there" is awkward.

His mind went back to the time he went with Florence to try and see the creature of their fables; the two of them swore they were heroes and called out his name. Uxie responded by withholding his presence and staying silent, either not hearing their message or not caring. This was as he had done for many decades, because no fit hero reached out to him. Florence and Connor weren’t heroes. Not then. They were seven.

This was also very cute!

Briefly, they assigned themselves in formation, communicating like massive insects or old computers — four rows of characters filled the hall to form a warning with their bodies.

I think you may mean "arrange" rather than "assigned."

She was familiar with feeling like she didn’t have a body, funnily enough.

Well, that certainly is odd!

She was better at this — better at keeping her thoughts on track than this, better at staying focused; she simply had to be.

better *than this

She had practiced this for years.

So something's clearly up with Florence...

One chapter left! I'm guessing this one will wrap up the adventure in the Old Chateau. This excursion has been a good time (and indeed a bad time for all the characters), and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all resolves!

 

[Negrek]

All right, finally caught up! I'll talk first about this chapter, then the fic overall so far at the end. Connor and Florence's escape from the Old Chateau brings us to the end of this little arc and is a natural place to take a quick break. For them and for readers as well!

I enjoyed the opening scene with Giratinan quite a bit! I thought you did a great job of capturing how immense it was, as well as how strangely graceful. Very regal, very powerful image. And super different than "Darkrai's sister" that Connor encountered earlier, mmm... he at least also seems to think it wasn't Cresselia, but Giratina doesn't seem to fit as well, either, unless Giratina just has dramatically different aspects. In any case, I liked the opening scene quite a bit. Very curious who the little human figure was that Florence pretty well ignored is. I don't think it would have been Cyrus yet? Could even have been Connor. Hmm.

I thought it was very interesting that Connor didn't mention Team Galactic to Florence here at all, despite knowing they're involved with the Windworks (and potentially Darkrai) and them featuring a fair amount in his visions in the chateau. Trying not to worry her? Or something else...

I thought that it was interesting that Florence is going to have Rotom picked up by the rangers because she can't care for it! Super rare to see that in fanfic, and I like that you've thought through what sort of recourse there would be for helping out a pokémon that you can't or won't catch or care for yourself as a trainer. I'm kind of surprised that Rotom would be someone Florence would need to leave behind out of concern for its care, though--seems like one of the more low-maintenance pokémon, so long as you keep your devices charged. Was it more like Florence needs to focus on her team for the gym challenge, and a higher-leveld(?) rotom wouldn't be able to participate with the rest of them? Rotom isn't interested in traveling around and would rather find ? Or, perhaps, based on Connor's visions, Rotom needs therapy/specialized care beyond what she can provide?

Glad to see Ronnie return, though! Looking back I think indeed he wasn't mentioned at all since he was floating in the void with Connor/it wasn't clear what his fate had been; a note somewhere about Connor recalling him or wondering what had happened to him would have worked well for me, then.

I was a little confused by the focus on the new moon in this chapter. You can't see the new moon at night, except asterisk asterisk some very specific conditions that wouldn't apply here, so it was weird for e.g. the clouds to part and reveal the new moon, or Connor to look up at it... At night during the new moon there should be no moon in the sky.

Spoiler: line notes

Those far-away moons ruby eyes landed on Florence as if by gravitational pull, with eons of experience in this world that the lost trainer could not have conceived mere minutes ago.

Something looks a little off at the beginning of this sentence: "moons ruby eyes?" I think "conceived of" is the more typical construction than just "conceived" at the end.

The creature nudged its head closer to Florence, still fixed on the speck of dust-sized trainer.

The entire phrase "speck of dust" is modifying "sized" here, so it all wants to be hyphenated: speck-of-dust-sized trainer.

But it was still too large for her comfort; there was every chance she would fall off her platform if she stretched out too far, and there was no daring to imagine what lay below.

"No daring" reads odd to me here; "no imagining" or "and she didn't dare to imagine" perhaps would work better?

He was still trying to get his head around what had just happened, and he’d likely be figuring out for days to come.

Figuring *that out?

This was the sort of thing that just happened now.

lmao, I feel you, Connor.

There was another sputter, and then the feedback took a back seat to the sound of nonsense words, only some of which could be understood.

If they're nonsense words, I think it's redundant to say only some of them could be understood. Unless you meant some couldn't be heard at all due to static or distortion or something?

That was a state of being that brought with it bad decisions, worse consequences, and debts inherited from some evil past life and due for collection.

Very interesting that this is where Connor's mind goes!

“...You know, I’m more open to new beliefs right now.” she replied.

Want a comma at the end of that dialogue.

“Yeah — it might sound a bit far fetched, but I want to get it off my chest.”

Far-fetched is hyphenated.

She was just as familiar with the stories as he was, after all; printed in worn-out children’s books at the library and shared over the campfire late at night.

You want a colon or comma here rather than a semicolon.

It's good to see Connor and Florence back together, and for Connor to come clean a bit about what's happened to him. And Florence... not so much. Intriguing! I'm definitely curious to see where things go from here.

As for the story as a whole so far, it's been a fun ride! You obviously enjoy your surreal set-pieces, and fortunately you're very good at them! I think you do a particularly good job of capturing the essence of dream logic, where scenes transition from one to another in ways that only seem to make sense for the person immersed in the dream, where things are nearly the way they are in real life and the dreamer just kind of goes along with it even though the situation would register as immediately strange to anyone awake, and the juxtaposition of different images that couldn't coexist in the waking world. Connor and Florence's encounters with legendary powers throughout this story are some of the trippiest I've seen in fanfic, and they're a lot of fun--they add a real eldritch sort of feel to the story, the real sense that Connor and Florence have accidentally gotten involved with something beyond their comprehension. The atmosphere is great and a real highlight of the story so far.

At this point, though, I am ready to be done with the trippy stuff and move on to some more straightforward plot/character progression. A lot of what Connor and Florence have encountered so far has felt like it portends stuff--it sets up a lot of questions and mysteries that should pay off nicely down the line, but it's kind of more promising stuff in the future than advancing the situation in the present. I've had fun picking through Connor's dreams and trying to figure out what they all mean, but I'm ready to see him start figuring it all out now! I don't doubt that we'll be encountering more wild nightmarish stuff in future chapters, but for now I'm more interested in how these two are going to deal with the situation now that they aren't being (so actively) toyed with by powers beyond their ken. I guess it's a question of agency--Florence got to have a little bit of it in recruiting rotom, and Connor in deciding to go into the Windworks in the first place (off-screen), but up until now they've been doing a fair amount of wandering around and having things happen to them, rather than trying to make things happen. I'm curious to see how they act when they have a little more control over the situation!

I'm really curious what's up with Florence. She seems to have her own secrets, and seems to be weirdly familiar with dealing with eldritch/possibly legendary-influenced situations? At least that's what statements like her commenting that interacting with a gigantic space-worm has anything to do with a "familiar routine" would seem to imply. Or perhaps she's drawing some connection between the happenings in the mansion and some unrelated part of her life that requires her to deal with otherwise dangerous/baffling situations that aren't necessarily supernatural, idk. Connor seems to have his secrets, too. I'm looking forward to learning more about these two's backstories as the fic goes on.

I enjoy Connor and Florence's relationship a lot. They really do feel like old friends, with a great deal of shared history, silly in-jokes, and a natural degree of comfort around one another that speaks of long familiarity. I think they make an excellent central duo. Definitely rooting for them to succeed over whatever weirdness is dragging them into its orbit!

All in all, this is a stylish spin on Sinnoh lore and the sort of story that really feels unique to its author. I think you've put a lot of stuff that you enjoy into this story, and it really shines for it! Good luck with your work on future chapters, and thanks for sharing this one with us.[/spoiler]

 

[Pen]

4. Arceus Closes a Door and Opens a Portal

I'll preface this by saying that I am actually caught up--I read chapters 4-6 in one big swoop while on a train, and I thought the three of them flowed into each other together nicely. But in the interests of less impressionistic feedback (and writing this before the Blitz deadline ends), I'm gonna just take chapter four for now and circle back for five and six shortly.

To everyone's complete surprise, things go to hell extremely quickly. We're introduced to two more mysterious figures: the Malice and Mordred. Mordred claims to be Darkrai's sister, which I would naturally assume means Cresselia, except that she's described as having eight black tendrils, which suggests Giratina, except that in chapter 6 Florence seems to encounter Giratina, and the vibe is completely different. So I'm not really sure what to make of Mordred. Connor is very resistant to the idea that force he encountered in Windworks was Darkrai--irrationally resistant, is my current feeling, though perhaps it's something in his Snowpoint upbringing that's making him so firm on that point. He seems to be very convinced that he knows what Darkrai is like and how Darkrai interacts with humans, and that it does not fit his own interaction. It's fun to see that in this world, the default portrayal of Darkrai isn't actually a negative one! It's also interesting that Connor seems to feel a lot of goodwill towards the entity that gave him the visions--I hadn't realized he felt that way from the previous chapters, though it's not like he's spent much time reflecting on it.

Florence POV in this one! She's definitely a bit more gutsy and inclined to take the initiative in this kind of situation. She's also more inclined to try some basic precautions, like recalling her pokemon when she thinks things are dangerous and considering getting outside help. The main confusion I kept tripping over with Florence was the fact that she has recently been to the mansion. The whole set-up of Chapter 3 seemed to be that Connor wanted to show her this cool haunted house he'd learned about. Was she just sitting the whole time on the fact that she'd literally already been there? I glanced back over ch 3 and there's a place where Florence says she can "personally vouch" for the ghosts there, which is a pretty pompous and indirect way to say "I was here last week and it was chill." I expect characters in dream sequences to act in inexplicable ways, but I start to raise an eyebrow when characters are acting in ways that don't add up in everyday life.

That aside, I really enjoyed meeting the rotom. The scene-setting with the decrepit TV and how it alters Rotom's voice was cool and I loved how chipper he got once he was in a functional bit of electronics. Florence seems quick to assume that he's basically vindictive in nature, and shocks people for the fun of it, but his circumstances suggest that he could be experiencing the ghost-electric type equivalent of a slow death by starvation, if he's trapped in a dying TV. The fact that he asks before entering her phone and even warns her that he might destroy it felt like pretty considerate gestures from a wild ghost pokemon with no reason to help her out. In general he comes off to me as a very benevolent spirit. (It's cool that Florence already has some experience with ghosts--I did wonder why her gastly was so useless here. Are gastly extremely young or unintelligent spirits, in comparison to rotom?)

We end with both of them in the Distortion World. I'll be back to try and untangle the next two chapters of dream sequence fun!

Also, wanted to quickly rec of Zion of Acadia's fic I Walk Through Your Dreams and Invent Your Future. It has a Rotom encounter I think you'd really enjoy and the general vibe, with lots of surrealism and imagery seems majorly up your alley.

Spoiler: Line-by-lines

He froze before stepping in; in fact, it was Ronnie who led the way in. Connor wasn't sure if the aron felt the same deep wrongness as his trainer, but as those two blue eyes glanced expectantly — and innocently — at him, he realised it didn't matter. He forced a smile onto his face, and Ronnie chirped, satisfied; here, Connor took the lead again with renewed hope in his heart.

I wasn't sure why Ronnie chirping gave Connor hope here--hope for what? About what? It seems odd that he's not trying to warn Ronnie if he thinks something is up.

Beyond a lost trainer and his pokémon, and all the incidental things described here, the room was empty.

Narration felt a little too cute here.

A girl aged no more than twelve entered being, and stood totally motionless in the centre of the room.

Entered being?

She stared ahead and smiled, though Connor could not help noticing the sound of the Malice pounding the walls in every direction. This was silence, and it was inescapable in its volume.

I'm not really getting this. Sure, there are some silences that feel loud, but saying someone couldn't help noticing a pounding really doesn't sound like it's describing any kind of silence.

I guess I have to look into this, he admitted in defeat.

Maybe he should leave. He wanted to leave, he wanted to leave so bad; there was no good outcome from him sticking around.

It seems to have been established only a few paragraphs ago that a force is physically keeping him from leaving--why does he suddenly think leaving is an option? And why does he frame the fact that a force is compelling him to not turn back as something he has to "look into"? That makes it sound a bit like it's his job.

“The fall! When will we stop falling?”

“Oh,” she said, feigning forgetfulness in the midst of his accidental scream. “Whenever you want to.”

But that was the thing! "That's the thing! I never wanted to fall in the first place!"

Very Alice in Wonderland vibes from this.

Neither was Ronnie, though he seemed to be out cold. The poor thing.

"The poor thing" seems a bit dismissive here. Connor doesn't really sound worried about him.

"Okay," said Connor, greatly unhelped.

Things like this make it a little hard for me to know what tone you're reaching for. A lot of this encounter seems to gesture at being menacing, but then the narration will be very tongue in cheek.

She wasn’t the Malice, Connor decided — no, he deduced it. From a gut feeling, sure, but he was pretty sure he'd figured it out. They were two distinct entities, but they were related.

It's pretty incoherent of him to claim a gut feeling is a deduction.

“What is this, Mordred? Do you… do this to everyone, or am I unique? F-Florence said this place was haunted; she just wanted to show me around — b-but she wouldn’t have brought me here and abandoned me, left me in this mess if she knew it would be like this. I know her. She wouldn't do that, and when I felt the… when I felt you, I don't think she noticed it at all. And I thought it wasn't there, and to tell you the truth, I'm still not sure what all of this is. I can't say whether or not this is real, and then give you evidence for it. But it is! We both know it is, don't we? Yet she didn’t!

"Didn't you tell her something was up? Why? Where is she now? Please answer me; I-I know I shouldn't admit this, because you can just use it against me somehow, but... I don't know what I'd do without her. I think whatever it was, it'd be very unwise, a-and I'd do everything in my power to make you regret it. But I don't think I've got much power here... and you wouldn't feel a thing, would you? Oh, what's the point...”

This is a very odd monologue. A lot of what Connor's saying doesn't make sense to me as things he'd be saying--I'm starting to wonder if he's possessed or a reincarnation and sometimes stuff from that comes out of his mouth without him being aware. Like, threatening a mysterious ghost-god entity that you'd do everything in your power to make them regret it? And why does he mention giving evidence about whether this is real or not?

“You met him. You know him. I understand if you'd rather nothing to do with him, but you— you have heard the folk tales about him, haven't you?" much of your kin; I am the part of him he wishes he was, and he hates this of himself!”

Think something got scrambled here.

But that couldn’t have been true. Connor was sure of it; that wasn't the case. What folk tales was she referring to? Who were they about? There was only one candidate. There was the creature who was cursed for stealing Cresselia's shadow, and forced to remain in solitude lest he spread his nightmares like seeds in the wind. The one who wished to repent and live peacefully, but could not, for the gods did not want him to go unpunished. That wasn't him.

I wasn't sure why there's only one candidate--surely there are folktales about other entities? If Connor's so sure it can't be Darkrai, it seems odd that Darkrai is the only one he thinks she could be referring to.

It couldn't have been him, Connor reasoned, because he knew all the stories about his interactions with humans. There were the ones that were kinder, describing him as a timid, stoic creature who warded murderous spirits away from children and saved lost travellers from falling to their doom, all before disappearing from view. Then there were the cautionary tales that came with death tolls, about fools who left their windows open and wandered into the woods to beckon him in, only to find themselves falling into endless sleep. These couldn't have about been the same... the same individual as the one Connor had met. It wouldn't happen to him! He wanted no part in this! And besides, that D— that... could not have been the same one who was in the Windworks...

Interesting that Connor describes fools wandering into dark places as ones who run into Darkrai and then rejects the possibility that he, after foolishly wandered into a dark place, met him. I'm a little baffled by Connor's certainty, just because he knows some folktales. I guess I don't know if Connor believed in the existence of Darkrai before all this or not.

At that moment, he glanced Ronnie from the corner of his eye.

* at

Darkrai had no influence here, he was certain of that — and he swore, in that meeting, that his adversary made no effort to hurt him. Connor could direct no anger directed at him, anyway, and swore that the actions he had taken were not ones of hate — but the idea of Ronnie coming into harm over this…

Why is he so certain of that?

The language feels particularly stilted here "direct no anger directed at him" "actions he had taken were not ones of hate."

Slowly, he turned around, and found an ever-expanding hole ready to swallow him. It radiated sheer contempt as though it were a dark star, going cold.

This was also the Malice. He felt it. It came for him.

Huh, is this a distortion world portal or something else?

Meanwhile, Florence had no clue what was going on.

Don't think you need the "Meanwhile" here.

The line went dead immediately. Every time she tried it, nothing happened.

Outside help was completely off the table, then. This matter simply had to be solved by her, and her alone…

I like that Florence at least makes some try at getting help.

Barging in would leave her prone to a surprise-but-not-really blast of electricity. She knew this from experience, because as the ghost justified it, “you surprised me when you barged in like that.”

Wait, Florence has been here before?

Instead, overcome by a wave of embarrassment, she hesitated. She was (to understate things) wildly unqualified to talk to these spirits, let alone come in and strut around their house like a tour guide. Why had she ever thought this was okay? She wasn't a medium, and she didn't know anyone who was; she just liked reading about them!

This moment felt forced. Florence has been here before and been fine and had no problems strong-arming Connor in. And she clearly has done more than just liking reading about ghosts--she has a gastly and has talked with this rotom before.

Florence had neither the means nor the time to look up how old this poor thing was.

Florence describing a pokemon as a "poor thing," which Connor did earlier, makes their internal voices feel same-y.

This was the second kidnapping situation she’d been near, after some other incident years ago.

Uhh, seems relevant? No more details, Florence's internal monologue?

“Thank you, kind human! This is far more comfortable,” it said. “Now, to answer your question: yes, I could see you, and I still can. More clearly this time. I’ve got eyes, you know!”

It did. Big blue ones that sat in the middle of Florence’s phone screen as it hovered near her face and a little goofy smile just bridging the gap.

Love this.

If you don’t mind me asking, why did you come here again with him? I don’t often get repeat visitors; I think most other people find this place a bit too scary. Or, dare I say it, boring. But I knew your first visit wasn’t boring.”

Florence did not indulge the ghost that had nearly electrocuted her mere days previously. Not even when it stuck its pretend tongue out. “He asked me about it. I offered to go in with him. Simple as that.”

It's weird that this is framed as her choosing not to "indulge" the rotom. She's the one who has come in asking for a favor.

“There’s no need to apologise.” The poor thing spoke in a more sullen voice, a glimmer of sadness present in that averted gaze. “He sounds like someone you couldn’t bear to lose. I understand. I will try to avoid questions about him as we proceed.”

Florence felt strange seeing her new ally in such a mood. After all, it had lived in a rotting old TV for so many years, got its entertainment from trying to zap the unfortunate strangers who wandered in, and its housemates were kidnapping bastards who only spoke to scorn and deceive. She didn’t think she’d be the one to break that mood by talking about Connor.

Mood is mentioned twice in this sentence, and I think two different moods are being referred to, and I'm not sure what either is.

It was here Florence realised she’d never seen the spirit outside some sort of electrical device. With those big eyes, it reminded her of a dwebble scuttling between new stones for shells.

I like the dwebble comparison a lot. Fits Rotom's skittish energy.

“This might be a bit dangerous, so I’d advise standing behind one of those chairs, but I could open one last portal to the place I see the other spirits wander using this old thing…

Does rotom not know what the place is?

“Uh, be warned; this place we go to… you won’t have your pokémon on you, but do be careful, and try not to freak out too much, if that’s okay?

It feels a bit strange to me that a ghost that lives alone in a mansion like rotom would think to warn a trainer that she won't have her pokemon on her. How does he even know that--it's not like he's pulled trainers in before, has he?

There was a loud buzzing sound, like a swarm of beedril drawing nearer and nearer until something started to burn.

Interesting how sound converts to smell sensation here.

Just for a brief moment, it was like wore a floating coat that left her weightless.

Think you're missing a word.

 

[Sinderella]

Hi Slamdunk!! I took on chapter 1 for reading rookidee because this has been at the top of my list of fics to start since you posted it!!! I’m not going to get super critique heavy rn, I just wanna get into my initial thoughts reading all this.

I get very “prologue, just barely scratching the surface of whats to come” vibes from this chapter, which is VERY compelling. It’s super introspective, and a lot of Connor just wondering what the fuck is going on…because honestly same. I feel like what has happened to him here is merely planting a seed for whatever is to come in later chapters and all i can say is buckle up buckaroos.

Also, DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER GET SLEEP POWDERED AND WHISKED OFF TO THE DISTORTION WORLD??? Honestly from the descriptors I got big distortion world vibes which made me SO EXCITED BECAUSE I LOVE THE DISTORTION WORLD SHEEEEEEEEEEEEESH. Also I’m guessing it wasn’t a Driftloon that roofied him :,) Was it Mewtwo???? I think it was Mewtwo.

Connor seems like a logical character and I LOVE me some logical characters. I’m hoping to see some more dialogue and thought from him in a tangible setting, so I can get a better grasp on his character. But, from what I’ve seen, I like him to start.

Also holy fuck please teach me a class on prose because your exposition is top notch. Write a fucking book already.

Will be back when I’m not being crushed under the weight of adult responsibility:’) GUD FOC PLS UPD8

 

[slamdunkrai]

About to start redrafting and revising these six chapters, which gives me a handy excuse to finally reply to the feedback y'all have given. Before I do that, some little author's notes on my progress and my intent for future chapters/revisions:

• It looks like I'm going to end up condensing the content of these six chapters, which should help solve some issues with both the exposition and pacing of the story so far. Chapter one is going to end up covering as much ground as it currently does, but as per the advice I've gotten so far, I'm definitely gonna tighten up the prose for it a bunch; chapters two and most of three should end up fitting neatly into one, and the chateau stuff will probably end up being shortened from three chapters to two -- this part will probably see the heaviest revisions, for plot reasons. Blame the fact that they're a bit vague on where things will go next. And PLA. (Blame PLA for a lot of things.)
• I have first drafts up to chapter 14 written! They're first drafts, of course, and like these chapters will be subject to some restructuring; however, it's progress I'm very happy about, and I usually end up doing restructuring/revising faster than I do writing new stuff outright. The stuff covered in those 14 chapters will probably end up being shortened into about 10, I think? My estimation is that this covers about 60-65% of what I want to cover in this first part of the story. My hope is that I can get to (or near) the end of the drafting stage before this year's one-shot contest, and with a bit of luck, get it all at least ready for publication in time for this year's Blitz.
• tl;dr: probably don't worry about rushing to read and review this for now, a lot of it will be significantly different in a few months. but if you wanna? go ahead.
• also I've concluded like 80% of my problems with these chapters as they exist (which overlap with many of the ones flagged here) are there in part because I went into these chapters and put a bunch of stuff in there that I came up with while writing it and just... wrote it here for fear that either I'd forget it otherwise or that I'd launch into the story proper. imo: the end result leads to a lot of the weird pacing, some tonal inconsistency (e.g. Florence's bit in chapter five), and also leads to chapters three through six feeling a tad too slow and kinda directionless wrt the actual plot for my own liking (e.g. chapter six just sorta ending without much of a plot hook beyond Connor and Florence having a clear thing in mind to explore, which doesn't feel like it justifies so much wordcount to justify). all this is a big part of why I think they could be shortened.
• I do not know what "too long, didn't read" means.

Also, just a general note of thanks as ever for all the feedback! :) It has been both heartening to see people willing to read my funny little story and insightful to read everyone's thoughts on it. (There might be varying levels of depth the further we get beyond chapter one because of what I do and don't intend to revise, and also because I'm replying to these in two sittings, the second of which is drastically later at night, lol.)

Spoiler: kint

All this to say this review uses knowledge from future chapters but doesn't really address them yet, and also that I should stop trying to be a perfectionist about reviews and just post them instead of letting chrome eat them.

Perpetually a mood, if I'm being honest. :V

The first section does feel very narratively heavy; I don't think it's necessarily a bad decision or anything and I agree with the general assessment that the prose itself works well, but I did find it hard to anchor myself, that I was having to work a lot harder to sift details for Connor/plot than I might normally expect. Add that to the surreal dips into anitmatter Sinnoh and the intro feels a little disjointed.

Yeah, I'm at the point where I definitely agree with that assessment. Sometimes you just go way too hard on establishing atmosphere in lieu of plot/character and it comes back to bite you later on (and by "you" I mean "I" and "me", this is me calling out myself in particular). The intro is sorely in need of tightening up and smoothing over.

I think in general a lot of these comments on first chapters are hard for me to formulate in a way that makes sense since there's a lot of room for intentional narrative decisions that get obscured because it's hard to critique the decisions that are being made this early.

True! Thank you for mentioning this, also, because on reread it did remind me that there are some decisions here that I think I may need reconsidering (though this mostly goes for the second half of the chapter in terms of narrative, and the first half in terms of establishing Connor as a character).

Also, he knows what thick dust smells like. I'm not sure what life experience brings you to that state, but that's interesting.

this life experience would be "sometimes the author tries to evoke a mood in a weird way that doesn't quite work, and should really fix that"

I liked how in his dream state Connor kept assuming he was god, that he'd somehow ascended. It's kind of consistent with the weird haziness of dream logic (like, oh yeah, in this world I'm magic, that all tracks), it contrasts really nicely with his general timidness in the Windworks section, and overall I can't shake the sense that maybe it's not all-Connor talking here.

Good catch! ;) Very glad that this contrast ended up coming across, too.

(I didn't quite understand why he didn't recognize the spear/wheel sigil--that just seems like the sigil for Arceus, whom he can recognize? idk i don't actually know Sinnoh; multiple people can confirm this)

You're right, and I think upon reread, that also doesn't make sense. Chalking that one up to "too many redrafts without rereading to check if everything is consistent"-itis.

I thought this line was metal as fuck, and also real lol. It's true that decision paralysis is real, and I'm curious about the implications of it in this context. Darkrai (?) (look I've made a lot of jokes and I'm 99% convinced it's Darkrai, but I've died on stupider hills and I need to hedge my bets) strikes me as a really sad character, one who I'm curious about seeing more of as the fic develops--"learn from my mistakes and just give up" is, wow. A mood, I guess, but also there's a lot to unpack in that statement.

Ah, very happy to hear this in particular! :> I really struggled with trying to get across Definitely 100% Mewtwo I Promise (Don't Look At My Profile) as a character in this chapter, so it's a huge relief to hear this line helped get across what it did. Thank you for the kind words; it means a lot!

Spoiler: sind

I get very “prologue, just barely scratching the surface of whats to come” vibes from this chapter, which is VERY compelling. It’s super introspective, and a lot of Connor just wondering what the fuck is going on…because honestly same. I feel like what has happened to him here is merely planting a seed for whatever is to come in later chapters and all i can say is buckle up buckaroos.

A good assessment! I cannot elaborate further on a bunch of what you point out in your review (yet), but I'm glad this came across.

Also, DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER GET SLEEP POWDERED AND WHISKED OFF TO THE DISTORTION WORLD???

I cannot elaborate on this especially but There's More Where That Came From

Connor seems like a logical character and I LOVE me some logical characters. I’m hoping to see some more dialogue and thought from him in a tangible setting, so I can get a better grasp on his character. But, from what I’ve seen, I like him to start.

Thanks! I've decided one of the cardinal sins this chapter commits is not communicating anything about him and that I've gotta fix that, but this is a good enough assessment. He tries to be logical and succeeds inasmuch as his constantly-scared-deer-that-WILL-run-from-loud-sounds brain allows.

Also holy fuck please teach me a class on prose because your exposition is top notch. Write a fucking book already.

1) write
2) redraft more times than is sensible
2.5) you wanna listen to unhealthy amounts of progressive rock while doing these two
3) mystery zone (terrible things occur here)
4) you have graduated from my class

Spoiler: negrek

Darkrai would be an obvious choice, given, you know... meta things, and also Connor's emphasis on how the pokémon put him to sleep, and he had a nightmare. But at the same time that sort of memory modification reads very psychic, and the pixies are possibly in control of Team Galactic, so who knows! Maybe both Darkrai and some other legend got at him. Why should Connor be getting trouble from only one superpowered pokémon, after all?

Good question! I like your thinking there. ;)

We've got both a sense of Connor's immediate desires and plans (to continue with his entirely normal trainer's journey, alas that it's never going to happen) as well as what we'll be tackling for the broader plot with both Connor's dream and Team Galactic floating around out there.

Glad to hear that the sense of him actually wanting to do stuff (and what that stuff is) comes across!

I'm a little curious about how Connor, unconscious, ended up at the hospital. I guess Association members showed up to deal with Team Galactic and found him there? I understand it's something you're planning to address already, but I was also surprised that what happened to the girl's father doesn't really seem to concern Connor until after Rowan's showed up--despite how concerned he was about that mug, heh.

One of those rare times where I'm like "hey I actually have an answer planned for this later" wrt the first part of this. As for the second: yeah, that really does need addressing, I think.

With so few people participating across the region, how do you even reliably find other trainers to practice with/against? Unless the idea is there's plenty of people hanging out on the routes with pokémon/plenty of people are the battle-y type of trainers, it's just that very few actually do the league each year? Logistics of that aside, I'm interested to see how the training side of the story's going to interact with the supernatural shit side of everything. Should be fun! I'm also really curious about Snowpoint's trainer #3, heh. Got a feeling that guy'll turn out to be important somehow...

This is a mix of something I plan to explore later, and something I think I've drawn attention to at the wrong time (in the midst of Weird Ghost Time) without giving it enough time to really breathe. But also, thank you for flagging that this is a bit of a low number; this is kinda the intent on the one hand (I am angling towards the idea that the trainers who are out actively doing the circuit at this level every year is quite low and determined by, like, a mix of having the money for it through scholarships or rich parents, and going to a good school where your aptitude is proven), but on the other, it may leave me in a spot of bother if the nuts-and-bolts of training end up being particularly important later on. The how and why of finding other trainers to battle among a relatively small field might be something I need to consider.

For me what was weird was towards the beginning of the chapter, where it's Connor who even semi-suggests going to the haunted mansion in the first place. I admit I kind of boggled at his "eh, it's not like I have anything better to do" nonchalance, like, bro, do you want to go back to the hospital??? Do you have anything better to do than potentially be bored out of your skull for several more days when you're under observation? (Though he might get to see the gardevoir again, so point there.) I get that he's thinking there's no way he's going to have another terrifying nightmare encounter in this place, and if he wasn't the main character in a story that would be a totally reasonable expectation to have, but I guess I didn't realize that Connor's interest in folklore/ghosts/cool shit was so strong that he's feeling like "hmm maybe I should go" when presented with this opportunity rather than "nah I've had enough adventure for the next couple weeks actually."

Oof, good point. In hindsight, I think suggesting that Connor has the possibility of another no-good-very-bad-haunting taking place seriously enough in mind that he has reason to think twice, just in case it happens again, doesn't work here for the reason you're flagging. Definitely need to reframe how this encounter ends up happening, I think.

The conversation with the cashier was definitely way more involved than any I've had with someone in a similar position in my life, heh; if there was nobody else in the mart and the cashier was super bored/naturally super chatty, I could see it happening, but it did feel like an oddly large amount of exposition from someone who's on the clock to me.

I would agree. Probably just going to end up excising that whole bit entirely at this point; if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. :P

Chapter Four! Or, "Connor goes into a sinister building and has an intense hallucinatory experience, take two." :P

He has a knack for this, huh. :V

Presumably the pokémon appearing to Connor here is... Giratina? Everything seems to point to it, I think, aside from her referring to Darkrai as her brother. Normally I'd expect Darkrai to be related to Cresselia rather than one of the Creation Trio, but, well, this would certainly be a different spin on Cresselia!

It would be!

I also liked the Dread Plate sequence, although I'm not totally sure that I got what you wanted me to out of it. At the end Connor's like, "ah, so that's what the Dread Plate can do," and I was like "???" It can... cause hallucinations? Create a portal thing like what Connor went through right after? Summon Giratina? Totally fine if Connor's supposed to figure out something the audience isn't, but if you were expecting readers to be on the same page as him there, I myself wasn't, heh.

Not the expectation, BUT again, I don't think I could answer why those ambiguities are present in a way that satisfies me, so idk how well this has worked out. I'll likely end up revising this sequence as opposed to cutting it, because it's important, but neither are out of the question. Will keep this in mind when those revisions are made.

Important question, though... What happened to Ronnie?

I guess it's a question of agency--Florence got to have a little bit of it in recruiting rotom, and Connor in deciding to go into the Windworks in the first place (off-screen), but up until now they've been doing a fair amount of wandering around and having things happen to them, rather than trying to make things happen. I'm curious to see how they act when they have a little more control over the situation!

I do think six whole chapters of them just basically getting thrown from point A to B by the plot is a bit much, honestly; I'm glad you've raised this point. Excited to have them actually have a bit more of a say in how they do things when I write that, which should be a bit earlier upon revision.

I enjoy Connor and Florence's relationship a lot. They really do feel like old friends, with a great deal of shared history, silly in-jokes, and a natural degree of comfort around one another that speaks of long familiarity. I think they make an excellent central duo. Definitely rooting for them to succeed over whatever weirdness is dragging them into its orbit!

All in all, this is a stylish spin on Sinnoh lore and the sort of story that really feels unique to its author. I think you've put a lot of stuff that you enjoy into this story, and it really shines for it! Good luck with your work on future chapters, and thanks for sharing this one with us.

Thank you so much for the kind words, and for so many of them too; you really went all out in reviewing everything in the story so far, and it's given me much to think about. I'm particularly glad that these two have a compelling dynamic that implies that familiarity! Means a lot to hear that this came through, and the way you've worded it gives me hope that I'm doing something right, there. :]

Spoiler: pen

Connor is very resistant to the idea that force he encountered in Windworks was Darkrai--irrationally resistant, is my current feeling, though perhaps it's something in his Snowpoint upbringing that's making him so firm on that point. He seems to be very convinced that he knows what Darkrai is like and how Darkrai interacts with humans, and that it does not fit his own interaction. It's fun to see that in this world, the default portrayal of Darkrai isn't actually a negative one! It's also interesting that Connor seems to feel a lot of goodwill towards the entity that gave him the visions--I hadn't realized he felt that way from the previous chapters, though it's not like he's spent much time reflecting on it.

Kind of the intent, though I think it may need some retooling if that goodwill seems to come out of nowhere; I fear it may just come off as contrived. Which, honestly? It kinda is. I do not think I had enough of an eye on future chapters when writing this.

So I'm not really sure what to make of Mordred.

This seems to be a fairly popular reaction, in a way that half has me like "ah, yes... all according to keikaku..." and half of me feeling there's something I've not quite nailed here. If the point is that you're not sure what the point is supposed to be, but I've written it in a way where you're not sure that that's the point, I've probably just written something quite needlessly confusing (which, on reread, I do get the vibe I may have done).

I glanced back over ch 3 and there's a place where Florence says she can "personally vouch" for the ghosts there, which is a pretty pompous and indirect way to say "I was here last week and it was chill." I expect characters in dream sequences to act in inexplicable ways, but I start to raise an eyebrow when characters are acting in ways that don't add up in everyday life.

A far more egregious case of me having just contrived something for some interactions to make sense, and then those interactions end up not really making sense. Cheers for flagging this! Definitely going to have to think about her relationship to the chateau before this chapter.

In general he comes off to me as a very benevolent spirit. (It's cool that Florence already has some experience with ghosts--I did wonder why her gastly was so useless here. Are gastly extremely young or unintelligent spirits, in comparison to rotom?)

Oh I didn't have the part about gastly in mind writing this, but, like -- on the one hand, they're pretty young and not particularly bright as a result, on the other, rotom probably is more powerful and intelligent but behaves quite similarly? Both are inclined towards being pranksters. Which isn't really the question you were asking, but it did give me an excuse to think some more on that, so... cheers!

 

[kintsugi]

soooo, one thing led to another here and like pretty much everything I do this is shamefully late and over budget, but I've finally shaped some of my thoughts into words here. My monkey's paw of "I'll do this for blitz" turned into "I'll read this for a nine-author crackfic crossover", so scope creep at it's finest. In general I kept things high-level since you'd mentioned you were going to be doing a lot of rewriting (so a bit lighter on line edits + in general I think a lot of the things I'd edit are more stylistic rather than set in stone anyhow), with maybe one or two detailed examples/general form things called out. There's almost no structure in this review because I am the worst, but on the plus side I've read all the published stuff and am about the promises of all those drafts hiding in the back.

Bear in mind that I have very limited Sinnoh knowledge so I'm not entirely sure to what extent the cake is a lie, meant to be a reference to something in the games (Bulbapedia suggests yes?), or some deeper plot point about how this is a subliminal dream sequence advertisement for master chef or something--which is to say mostly that I don't think my reading experience was hindered or anything, but more to apologize for not getting what I'm sure are other very clever references about room/hallways layout, NPC's, etc. It took pretty much all of my functional brain cells to recognize that the irreverent bobcut-with-a-horn redhead who definitely works for the evil team is probably Mars, so this is definitely more on me than on you lol.

Long preface aside, let's jump in!

I took some random notes while I was reading, and by far my favorites are just:

gardevoir are relatives of decidueye!! BEAKS

oh shit dead dad. do you even have a dad in sinnoh?

Which is actually shorthand for, I really liked the slower pace of these chapters, and the attention to a more "normal" Sinnoh, as it were, with things not quite melting into dissolution at every moment and reality more or less behaving the way we expect it to. It's been a while since I read the second chapter for the first time, but I remember finishing the first chapter and not really knowing where things would go from here. The return to a sense of normalcy was kind of surprising, but in a welcome way, and I liked the time taken to unpack things in a more controlled environment, where Connor can get his head around things and also deal with people who might be able to help shed some light. In general I think you did a really good job of making your Sinnoh feel very lived in and realistic while still feeling kind of alien and unique from our own. I loved the random small details like Uproar as their primary communication app, or the fact that a ton of people just know that esteemed academic Rowan has deeplore level knowledge on Kalois progrock and that's just an accepted fact; these were fun little casual bits of information that were genuinely just a lot of fun to read about. Some of the deeper bits of worldbuilding, like how the cashier treats the folktale/horror sense of the haunted chateau, are nice on a deeper level, and from a narrative perspective I liked how you were able to play with the storytelling there--how much of this is real? How much is speculation or lost to time? Who knows?? Certainly not this cashier who's being way too nice and giving infodumps to this guy buying lumps of iron lol. But it's a nice way to have a sense of ambiguity and mystery in the world while there's still room for narrative questions. And on the flip side, with the psychic examination, there's a nice sense that a world with pokemon would evolve a little differently from ours, and medical technology would be a little differently shaped if there are creatures who can basically x-ray your brain. It's a neat little look at how some of the crazier aspects of this type of world might end up a little mundane, and I thought that was pretty neat.

(Sidebar, I remembered being a little confused about the whole "you know the name Giratina?" bit with the gardevoir's handler. I wasn't entirely sure what was being implied here--that all the humans in Sinnoh are expected to not even know the name Giratina, but also that this scientist somehow does (but then either doesn't disclose anything further besides to stress how weird it is that Connor knows this, either because she's lying to protect the giratina erasure illuminati or she literally only knows the name). Later, when Connor gets recognized by woman-I-think-is-Galactic-Commander-Mars, in the sense of "but what are you doing here" implying that something's super up with Connor, it's a bit more clear that maybe-Mars is up to some shit and that can be chalked up to narrative. Here, though, I'm not entirely sure to what extent the scientist is in on the joke, or if she literally only knows enough to recognize this one thing and then know that no one is supposed to know this. If the former, gotcha, rock on. If the latter, I think it might be easier to frame it by way of the gardevoir instead--all humans have forgotten the name Giratina, the handler has no idea what's making the gardevoir freak out so much about it because it's just a name, but she's never seen a gardevoir this spooked about anything,,, sorta thing.)

I think in general there are two narrative styles--one where Connor's in deep panic/dreaming/kidnapped by one god or another, and one where he's just enjoying life/texting his friend/hugging aron. Admittedly I'm putting most of my chips on "Connor is fused with an aspect of Darkrai and these are literally two different narrators dressed up as the same narrator" and I will gladly die wrong about that, but I did find the second narrator a little easier to get around. I think a lot of it has to do with agency/knowledge--in the more mundane setting/narration style, where there's less time for Connor to consider the vast amount of things he doesn't know/understand without really being able to make a conclusive/impactful decision on them. He feels a lot more active/with more agency in the mundane settings, mostly because the conflicts in these chapters--Rowan is kind of scary, texting shitposts to my friend--are a lot more manageable for him in his current state of ability/understanding. So the story ends up feeling a lot more in his control, rather than a series of mysterious events whose full meaning will be revealed to him/us eventually. I think you've mentioned wanting to repace this, so I don't want to linger on it too long, but at the same time it's 30k in (which by fanfic standards could be a lot or a little compared to the total length of the story lol) and it's hard for me to pinpoint a lot of tangible things that have happened compared to that length. And it's especially hard for me to comment on setup/payoff without having much sense of what that payoff is--all this to say that of the 6 chapters so far, 4 of them have been haunting or dream sequences and as such it's been difficult to get a grasp on what's fake, what's real, what's symbolism, and what's in the weeds at this point.

(Although, all that said, I'm kind of interested in the very marked difference in narration in the segments [inside Valley Windworks/Haunted Chateau] and [everything outside of that]. The latter certainly feels less oppressive, but it's especially fun to see Connor pingpong back and forth between his interactions with humans vs with the nightmare environments he keeps finding. It's really interesting to see how he ends up mapping out how he thinks his talk with Rowan is going to be stern, his anxiety over his talk with Florence--and then seeing none of those play out remotely like he thought. There's definitely a sense of anxiety/disaster in the other sections when everything is going pear-shaped, but the sense of what he's feeling is a lot less defined, for better and for worse).

All this to say, there's Connor refuses to look disaster in the eye and is constantly in fear of the potential pitfalls of a conversation with a good friend, but will also stroll directly into a notably haunted house with documented disappearances, which is a great gen z vibe and I'm here for it lol. I also like how Rowan accidentally ??? lets slip the name of a terrorist group to a jumpy child who just admitted he can't control when he feels like he needs to be the hero and rush headlong into danger, and then is like "but don't tell anyone" because saying "but don't do anything stupid" is already off the table.

---

I have interspersed a bunch of my random notes into this section because I was not lying when I said this review was an unstructured mess.

---

two felines

so I went back to the prologue to reread because I did not remember two felines and OH WHOOPS OH WOW um i mean yeah me guessing darkrai was 1000% a shitpost why do so many pokemon in this franchise has three-fingered hands smh

barrage of barely comprehensible shitposts

perfection

He could not help but wonder if these things were connected. They weren’t, but it would have been funny if they were.

: thonk :

He had nothing to worry about.
“Yeah, you’ll be fine,”

lil paragraph drop here

That only made him smile some more. “Maybe she is. Maybe Mew’s just taken that form to trick you out of all your treats — I know I’d do that, if I were her.”

Florence raised an eyebrow. “If you were a god?”

I'll take "lines that are absolutely 1000% not suspicious" for $2000, Alex, followed by "connor getting a kick out of dead tree vengeance sure is something" for $4000.

Between them lived colonies of wurmple, budews, silcoon, cascoon, seedot, kricketot, bunearies, and even some roselias.

Your call here but I think listing out most of the species here is kind of overkill--either they'll all become important later (at which point it doesn't really become necessary to list them out now) or the exact species aren't super important (at which point it doesn't really become necessary to list them all out at all). I find that with scene-setting it's nice to give some details (like in the paragraph before, with the lights shaded with lil domes to prevent light pollution) to give an impression of a greater area (i.e. humans have made modifications to this forest to make it more accommodating for them, but in a way where they try to minimize their impact)--which is to say that the takeaway here of "old forest with ancient ecosystem" might not require listing out the minutiae. In general I really liked the imagery of this forest, with the ancient, flourishing ecosystem gradually fading away into the decaying one.

Tomar, whose name means to "take" rounds out the trio of girl who's name comes from flowers, boy whose surname comes from the sea. I love barking up trees that are empty but there will be very few forces on earth that can convince me this person will not be important later.

“…What’s the deal with all the flowers?”, he whispered.

extra comma here

A big room in which nothing ever happened. Thinking about it, Connor would've welcomed that.

nothing to see here, gents

you have heard the folk tales about him, haven't you?" much of your kin; I am the part of him he wishes he was, and he hates this of himself!”

some punctuation oops here

like a swarm of beedril

two L's on beedrill I believe

manageable:a soft

lil space drop

---

There's a notable tone shift back in chapters 4-6, mostly mentioned above. I think the most jarring moment for me was when this kind of narration carried on to Florence--I was expecting her way of interacting with the world to be a bit more different than Connor's, perhaps a bit less anxious/introspective/almost rhetorical, and stylistically there's a part after Rotom comes out of the television in her section where that tone shift happens. I'm kind of surprised that she takes all of this into stride so well tbh (or that they both do, honestly, but protagonists tend to get a bit more slack + above theory that Connor is lowkey god), and there's some hints that this kind of is old hat to her? She's definitely a fun addition to the cast and I love her banter with Connor; introducing her via text is a nice snappy way to nail down broad character strokes and they have a great dynamic with each other.

I also liked the general characterization of the chateau, and how Florence interacts with it. There's a sense of supernatural and mystery from it, in that the walls are literally melting and people have probably died, but the initial matter-of-fact approach, Florence's whole "just knock and ask to enter rooms" sort of thing--again, it feels like a very real, very grounded sort of coexistence that might evolve if squishy humans did actually live alongside these sorts of things. Rotom was a really cool addition to the cast, and I love the desperation with which Florence goes to find it, its sort of tenuous cheer and the tiny little "... an explosion!". Such a cute and lovely friend; I wish they got to stay lol. The DJ section in Connor's bit is also really weirdly on point with all their comments about distance and understanding and music; maybe it's the stuff I've been listening to recently but that was all really interesting to see and I'm curious about what that'll mean later.

I admit I didn't really follow the Mars stuff--from the way the chapter is set up, I was thinking that the Dread Plate was a means to control/bribe Darkrai, but Connor is pretty convinced that Darkrai was already coerced to work with them at the Valley Windworks and that folk stories have never been wrong about a pokemon ever so this is wildly out of character for someone Connor has never met and isn't him. But things are really screwy anyway, so maybe this is also secret time travel dimension and Team Galactic already has the Dread Plate in the future?

Malice/Mordred is cool as a concept and there's definitely something to be said for weird entities existing in weird dualities with themselves/each other, but I admit a lot of this was lost on me as well. Definitely feels like one of those things that'll make more sense in hindsight (maybe origin and altered Giratina? the more I read the more I realize I do not know Sinnoh lmao), but for now I'm pretty lost and not just because there were eight black tendrils specifically called out and after much research I have learned that the only pokemon with eight tendrils are 1) lileep and 2) cradily and 3) tentacruel except for half of it's official art and 4) that's it, all spider pokemon and both octopi are lies so my theory that Mordred is a shadow lileep gains traction by the minute.

Overall, though, I thought this was a lot of fun. Definitely something I had to reread a few times/would need to reread again once the bulk of the plot has been revealed, as I'm sure there's a ton of foreshadowing/weighty stuff going on. For me the more enjoyable moments were definitely the more human ones (BIMP!!!! BEO!), which lend a bit more grounding to this epic cult/apocrypha plot building behind everyone's backs, but I'm excited to see how these continue to weave together in future chapters. Glad I finally managed to catch up, and looking forward to seeing more!

 

[Sinderella]

Hi Jeef! You were my target for the anni review, so here I am with a beeg review of chapters 2-6! It's actually almost 2am so I'm not entirely sure if it's going to be as beeg as I think it will be, but I do have thoughts to share because WOW did a lot happen and WOW do I have a lot of questions.

So first off, your worldbuilding is stellar. Like. I love Sinnoh but I adore it even moreso with these little tidbits you've seemed to inject into it. Like, the whole concept of trainers going through a gym circuit, or the concept of Snowpoint not putting out enough trainers--idk I just thought it was so fucking lit how it was like KNOWN that Connor and Florence were among the only three to come out of Snowpoint; it gives them a sense of........underdog-ness, I think? I don't know, I just fuck with it. I ALSO really enjoyed the concept that certain higher level/higher evolved Pokemon require licenses for training, and like????? That makes so much sense???? Because why would anybody in their right mind trust some average schmuck with a fucking Gardevoir??? Super realistic. I totally empathized with how hype Connor (and later Florence) was at the idea of coming face to face with one because that was deadass me when I first started playing Pokemon LOL.

Speaking of Connor and Florence, I really like their relationship!!! I love me some platonic male/female duos (clearly lmao), and I think you do a great job in establishing that they're pretty close, especially through their text chats. I fucking loved those, down to the typo joke that kept coming up--I LIVE for that shit, shove it all into my whore mouth omg. I also just really like Florence in general--I feel like she counterbalances Connor's more logical and nervous persona because she's just so boisterous and out there, yk? I love it.

I also love the names for the Pokemon. Ponty is a precious ass name for a Piplup omg.

And moreso THE OLD CHATEAU!!!! I LOVE THE OLD CHATEAU!!!! That background music gave me fucking nightmares as a kid, and I could hear it buzzing at the back of my head as I read the last three chapters. I felt like the absolute buck fucking wild weirdness that was going on in them really suited the Old Chateau's creepy vibe and really gave me a sense that something was damn wrong. Because there clearly was; I left those chapters having ABSOLUTELY no fucking clue what just happened, and being a little creeped out in the process.

However, that being said, I guess that's where my critique comes in--I deadass have no idea what just happened to them. I got the gist that Darkrai is involved, and OBVIOUSLY that 12 year old was Giritina (right???? Gods I hope I'm right), but there were a few points where I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on, and what was being said. Granted, it might be a mix of the fact that it is almost 2am, I am tired, and that is what you were going for LMAO. I definitely got the vibe that the goal was something nightmarish (obv Darkrai, makes sense), and dreams normally don't make any goddamn sense, so for the dialogue to be a little like "wtf????" really helped suspend that reality a little more. I THINK that was the goal of the prose overall, which is why I won't clock you too hard for it. It really gave me a sense of "dawg WHAT" which is fitting for a trippy nightmare sequence.

I will once again reiterate that your prose is stellar. That hasn't changed. However, I did notice that you tend to really hyperfocus on things describe the absolute shit out of them. This is great sparingly, but when you're taking every other paragraph to describe a scene in as much detail as possible, it starts to bog the piece down. I found myself having to double back a few times during that dream sequence (especially as he was talking to the little girl apparition) because I was getting so lost in the descriptors that I wasn't computing what was supposed to be going on, if that makes sense. I think my biggest critique so far is that you need to work on tightening up that balance between that fantastic descriptive prose of yours and just simply saying "a light turned on and some bullshit happened." It'll keep the piece much more snappy, and you won't run the risk of readers getting mixed up in the descriptions instead of the actions at hand.

This was a lot more minor and more confined to the earlier chapters (between 2 and 4 I believe) where I noticed you had the tendency to repeat things more than once. What I saw come up the most was discussing how Florence moved along to another city--it was mentioned in chapter 2 a few times (I think, I'm v tired rn), and at the opening of 3 it was mentioned again. That repetition is also something that'll bog a story down, because the readers are going to get tired having it constantly drilled into their heads that something IS, when they're already aware. I used to have this problem myself, and my best advice (that I learned from somebody else lololol) is to TRUST YOUR READER. Give them the benefit of the doubt that they understood the first time that Florence had left Floaroma town already, and you'll be gucci.

Much much much more minor, there was also some head hopping going on a few times around. The most blaring instance was the conversation between Prof. Rowan and Connor. There was more than one point where like POV briefly shifted from Connor's head to Rowan's, and it was a tad bit jarring. This story seems to be primarily from Connor's POV, and while third person omniscient is fine, always, being that Connor is our primary character and that you seem to be primarily functioning in third person limited, you might just want to tighten that area up a little bit more, or perhaps indicate a POV change like you did when you were alternating between Florence and Connor in these last three chapters.

All in all, GREAT READ SO FAR. I have even more fucking questions than I did before and desperately want to know why the fuck these two kiddos are being cyberstalked by Giritina. Also, I hope Florence keeps Rotom because he's baby uwu.

Gud fic pls update <3