Well, okay, more like "a week and a half since I was supposed to post this", but better late than never, so let's get right into it:
First Readthroughs:
Name of fic- Hoenn Short Stories Collection: The Elite
What I Read: Prompts #40-#42
How I Felt:
The mix of prompts that I drew were a mix of humorous ones, including an old "colored object in white laundry" gag, a surprisingly touching one involving Drake reflecting on how he handed the torch to Steven as the former Hoenn Champion, and a cringe comedy one-shot involving Sidney getting way in over his head with Alolan cuisine.
@Panoramic_Vacuum 's ability to breathe life and personality into characters that were... uh,
underexplored in canon to say the least never ceases to impress me, and on such a small word budget to boot.
If you're looking for a good low-stress, low-commitment story with a good dash of Hoenn in it, you could do worse than this story. It's a great companion piece for nights when you're marathoning chunkier to give a little dash of bite-sized variety alongside it.
Name of fic- Legends Legacy: A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Adventure
What I Read: Chapter 4
How I Felt:
Ah yes,
Legends Legacy, it's been far too long since I've read you. One thing that I have to admire about this series thus far is its ability to balance more serious hints at things to come and touching character moments with a boatload of humor, which this chapter wasn't a slouch on. It's not every day that a chapter of a story implying that the world is on the eve of an apocalypse gets you to snerk through large chunks of it, but
@BlackHairedPsycho pulled that off pretty well here.
Can't speak for where things will go from here since I'm still early on in the story, but it's worth keeping an eye on if you want a PMD story that's a bit bite-sized with a good dash of humor to it.
Name of fic- Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Guardians of Balance
What I Read: Chapter 5
How I Felt:
It's a bit of a transitional chapter, which isn't the end of the world since the last 2 chapters in particular were... um...
an experience for the main character, and it hints at some stuff about the broader state of the world and things to come in the future. I mean, sure I'm partly convinced that
@StolenMadWolf is going to burn down the starting village in like 5 chapters at this rate, but hey. MCs are entitled to their breaks sometimes, and the chapter was an effective release valve to a giant wad of tension that had been around just beforehand. Even if I would've liked to see more of the world described and hinted at a bit more.
Name of fic- The Queen of Kalos
What I Read: Chapter 2
How I Felt:
It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's a cute piece showing Serena finally getting a breather on a thus-far ill-fated journey to try and gain stardom as a Pokémon Performer, with the promise of looping in Gloria as a recurring character tooling around Kalos. Not sure what
@CinderArts ' strategy will be for sanding down some of said rough edges, but it's worth keeping an eye on, since the narrative has promise, especially if you're a fan of PokeAni.
Name of fic- PMD: Flowerbeds
What I Read: Chapter 12
How I Felt:
The entire chapter was basically an exercise in taking the hinted skeletons of Kebia Castle out into the open and brutally running over the human-turned-Dewott MC repeatedly and making him feel small, powerless, and alone. It... uh, was
pretty effective at doing that and it was honestly a bit hard to read at times. Granted, the meta purpose of that was to get him closer to his partner, but still.
TheSnapDragon and his story unfortunately aren't here on TR yet, but even if there's a few things that I feel could stand to be buffed out, his story's worth keeping an eye on. It's definitely got an eye for character dynamics, which is arguably the story's strong suit along with gradual reveals of things not being all as they seem and hinting at something much deeper and more sinister going on in his setting's neck of the woods.
Name of fic- Edgeworth
What I Read: The whole one-shot
How I Felt:
Moral of the story, don't piss off the eldritch Genius Loci. They hold long grudges and
will go out of their way to get back at you. This was an experimental piece by
@zion of arcadia that was put up on Halloween that tries to get into the mind of a Mystery Dungeon that's a living being and how it parses the changes of the world around it, as well as the effects of when those changes cut at its emotions and set it off. It's... not a pretty sight to say the least.
Recommended if you want a short but unsettling read for a spookier night. My one regret is not reading it on Halloween, since it'd have worked
amazingly for it.
Name of fic- Divided I Fall
What I Read: The whole one-shot
How I Felt:
I mean, the story could've rightfully competed with
Foregone Conclusion for the title given what it deals with and... yeah, if you know your Gen 5 fluff, you know exactly where the story is going to go by the end. I have some structural quibbles with a few parts of the story and there were bits of it that made me wonder if it would've worked better as a multipart short story, but honestly, it's still an effective tragedy and worth a read.
Now
@Umbramatic just needs to be badgered into writing a follow-up, since bruh,
you can't just leave Kyurem like that after everything that just happened.
Name of fic- Journey: Death of Duty
What I Read: Chapter 1
How I Felt:
I distinctly remember that
@Joshthewriter kept raving about the battle choreography in
Journey and heard second-hand from others who were impressed with it. And, honestly, the first chapter at least lived up decently well to the hype given that it managed to turn a battle of a style that is normally
extremely boring to see play out in the games into something that felt riveting and exciting to watch unfold. The way that it's able to make a darker and grittier take off of Pokéworld feel like a living place doesn't hurt either.
I'll be keeping an eye on this one, not least of all since it might give me a few ideas to play around with in my own battle choreography since I can already tell there is a
lot of gold in this story.
Name of fic- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Path of Valor
What I Read: Chapter 47
How I Felt:
Yeah, yeah, this is a running trend with this story, but I legit wasn't expecting Yiazmat to wind up getting roped into the core plot like
that. I've fallen a bit behind on this story since my Reading Rookidee assignment, which is probably as good a sign as any that I need to catch up in the imminent future since... yeah,
@Ambyssin 's got some gold for a story there and the place where I left off was kinda a killer for suspense.
Name of fic- PMD: Below
What I Read: Chapter 7-9
How I Felt:
The entire arc of three chapters can more or less can be summed up as "I didn't see
that coming" up until literally the very last scene, but that's very much to its credit. I had some nitpicks with the story about being a bit light on description, but honestly, even in spite of it, it's a fun read and it's a really unique vibe for PMD stories that I have only seen broached before once in almost a decade. Keep your eyes on this one, since
@BestLizard 's got a yarn with a lot of promise to it.
Second Readthroughs:
Name of fic- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rebirth
What I Read: Chapter 31
How I Felt:
Yeah, one of the benefits of reading a story twice is that you get to have a fuller understanding of all the little implications of different things that get brought up in it, and... uh...
there are some implications with the events that went down in this chapter. Honestly really looking forward to whenever
@Shadow of Antioch bumps this story again, since things have been building up to a point where I expect things to get really lit really fast in spite of the cast thinking that they've finally found a safe harbor from their troubles in-setting.
And that's a wrap. Til the next Rookidee, anyways. See you all then! ^^