Pokémon TCG2: Doduo Adventures - Book One: TCG Island

[Tango]

Alright, I’ve kept you waiting long enough for an update to that review exchange. Let’s give this thing a quick and dirty bump to get things rolling again:

Chapter 4

Awesome!

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

Gentleman: “... I’m sorry, why do you even have that thing with you right now? Shouldn’t you have left it at the coat rack?”

I’m assuming from the emote, that that’s a ‘yes’

They do have the effect of telegraphing things a bit lol...

Ah yes, the Gentleman let a pungeon master into his house. I can already see him regretting this in live-time.

It amuses him and he hates it.

Um… do I want to know how many beers this guy has had up to this point?

No, you probably don't.

Quite a few, apparently. Even if I do wonder if there should’ve been a bit more indication before the after-the-fact mention in the dialogue that Rick went through quite a bit of beer.

Good point! I went back to specify he had multiple beers.

Oh, hello surprise out-of-series music. I can’t say it doesn’t fit a scientist character, though.

Yep. I do dip into other stuff when I feel like a scene calls for it!

Okay, Mr. Gentleman, just how much beer have you had since that scene cut anyways? >:V

More than he ever would by himself, that's for sure...

Huh. I’m a bit surprised that they have minced oaths involving Pokémon when only Doduo exist outside of being characters on trading cards.

Well, if you remember the lore of the three legendary mon from the previous chapter, Ho-Oh, Mew, and Lugia, is it really such a stretch?

I can already see the army of fantasy anoles swiveling their heads across dimensions.

So what’s the over/under of Gotan getting a sandwich at some point in this story?

A sandwich? He never gets offered one. He does, however, get offered pizza. And what an interesting spectacle that becomes...

I mean, Rick’s kinda drunk right now, so isn’t him swinging his head around not particularly out of the ordinary? ^^

I suppose, but I'm drawing a blank on how else to have him react.

Just how many potential romances has the Gentleman let slip through his fingers in the past anyways?

All of them.

And you did! They just were all transparent gold diggers, but that’s why you should try to find romance before making it big in life. ^^;

Yeah... too little too late for that now... 😅

Ah yes, I can already tell that things are going to get nice and awkward in short order. Though for your readers who don’t have Spotify accounts, you’d probably find the following YT link a better alternative (I’m pretty sure it’s the same one since ‘Jonne Kokkonen’ is brought up as an alias):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApkPLhmWng

Ok, it didn't occur to me to check and see if there was a youtube channel for this guy in particular. I'm going to swap the link out for this. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApkPLhmWng

See, I knew that things were going to get awkward, even if I didn’t expect it to get awkward for this reason.

Yes, that tends to happen when you put your entire social and personal life on hold to play trading card games, Gentleman.

Yeaaaaah... 😅

Let’s check in on how the Gentleman’s doing right now:

So true.

I warned you about the card games, bro.

Tis lonely at the top.

Yeah, I figured. Though I feel that a bit more lead-up to the Gentleman breaking down would’ve been called for here.

With his inhibitions reduced, I preferred a quick transition.

Because she assumed that your true love was card games and she gave up on you?

Nah, she was just shy and needed him to be the one to confess his feelings first.

Beer, obviously.

Ah yes, let’s check in on our beloved protagonist right now:

Gentleman:

Yeah. This bit is a total bombshell for him. Very true!

Oh hey, there’s a song for this moment:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCz_DF7SQA

Well that was a unique thing to see in a review!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCz_DF7SQA

Though I suppose I shouldn’t rule it out entirely given the overall tone of this story so far.

Yeah! You never know for sure!

Ah yes, the Stein’s Gate music is back.

That’s Rick doing that in reality, isn’t it?

Yep!

Even if I kinda wonder if this dream sequence should’ve had a bit more detail relative to what we got.

I mostly just wanted it to make a point and move on. Especially since I added another similar dream sequence at the start of chapter 1 (I don't think you saw that one since I added it after you had reviewed, I think.)

Yeah, it’s totally Rick, I can tell.

So what’s the over/under that someone got this on tape?

Well, neither of them would have got it, so unless Gotan taped them, I think the chances of that are slim.

Even if I feel like it’d be funnier to have the Gentleman realize he’s sleeping on Rick a bit more gradually than this

Maybe I'll look at expanding that somewhere down the line. Glad the humor still landed, though.

I can already tell that these two will never, ever bring this up to anyone else beyond their personal journals after this.

That's almost true!

I’m now morbidly curious as to what “disheveled and hung-over” Gentleman would look like as a picture now.

You will have to use your imagination on that, I'm afraid. My wallet protests the expenditures on art commissions as it is lol...

… The Gentleman really never just looked outside the window at all in the prior day?

My headcanon is a 'no' to that. He enjoys privacy and shutting out the world outside when he is indoors.

Since if Gotan never went anywhere, you’d think that he’d be quite noticeable as a background thing on the prior day’s entry.

Not if the blinds were closed!

You have a superfluous word in the start of your second scene here.

I fixed it.

Though I feel the prior scene ends a bit abruptly. Even something as simple as noting that the Gentleman left since he had card games to get to I think would’ve made for a better ending note.

Thanks, I've added another line to make this a bit smoother!

Small missing punctuation there. Though I actually wonder if we’re going to cliffhanger on a battle here or else if the Gentleman’s just going to curbstomp Erik badly enough that he barely gets a mention in his journal.

Curbstomp, of course.

I actually think that this would’ve been one of those battles that would’ve been worth depicting in more detail. Not necessarily because it would be particularly climactic, but more because it’d be an opportunity to show off more of how Gotan will be interacting with future encounters like this.

Don't worry, there will be plenty of examples of that to come!

Erik:

Gentleman: “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it right now.”

But as completely insane as this is, it is something the general population is aware of and shrugs at.

Priorities!™

Erik: “Really, you spend more time in your journal talking about your bird losing a few feathers than what strategy I used?”

Gentleman: “Your strategy was the sort of stuff that I face on a day ending in ‘y’, so… yes?”

So on-point for it.

Oh, so Rick is going to be sticking around, or at least for a while. Duly noted, then.

Rick is in it for the long haul in the book. I didn't even plan for his character to be such a big thing but he just wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

I think that I’ll leave things off for now since I’m feeling a bit under the weather.

Sorry to hear that! I hope you feel better soon.

But I found myself my getting reminded of just how different and standout this story is as a premise, which you know what, kudos for picking the lane less traveled and owning it.

I do that, if nothing else!

But oh man... if you are saying that now... you've barely scratched the surface.

I feel the main standout strength of this chapter was the character focus on the Gentlemen, since it helped get more insight into the Gentleman and his backstory.

Apart from the humor, yeah, I'd say so too. Though I suppose the humor was just complimentary towards that goal.

I also thought that Rick was a fun addition to the story.

I’m not fully convinced that he’ll be around for the long term, but he’s been fun to watch so far, and I’m glad he’ll be back for more chapters in this story after this.

As I mentioned earlier in the review, Rick is around to stay for the Book! Rick is probably one of the best aspects of Book One which is crazy since I tossed him in on a whim!

Once again, the multimedia component added a lot to the reading experience, especially the custom art which helped a lot for visualizing the characters. You really pulled out all the stops for this chapter.

Thanks so much!

By the way, if you want to see a new art I got for Doctor Wem, go scroll through my Prologue!

And onto the less fun and more critical parts of this chapter. I’m not really sure how much you intend to further overhaul your chapters that you already published up to this point, but in this chapter, it felt like there were some parts of the prose that were a bit too hazy and high level, and like they’d have benefitted from getting into things in more detail. I also felt like there was room to get a lot deeper into the Gentleman’s thought process, especially since this is a more character-focused chapter and his journal is his space to bare his soul, while we spent a weird amount of time from the outside looking in, especially at moments that could’ve been particularly impactful as the Gentleman grapples with how he inadvertently wound up pushing Nikki away when she genuinely loved him. Lastly, I feel like the first card battle with Gotan riding shotgun should’ve been shown off a bit more. I get that this story generally fast-forwards through the card battles where it’s another “day ending in ‘y’” for the Gentleman, but it did feel a bit weird that we didn’t even get an acknowledgement of what standout cards Erik had in his deck and spent more time focusing on how Gotan took damage from the card battles. For that matter, Gotan is weirdly absent in a way that you’d think wouldn’t be the case where the Gentleman literally just needs to look out his window to see him, which just felt a little strange to me since it was a missed opportunity to get in a bit more humor.

For the moment, I'm satisfied with the general beats and writing for Book One with the exception of improving the dialogue which I am currently working through. Going to be implementing hovertext more too.

I may eventually return to improve things further, but I'm also wanting to get to work on Book Two. At the very least, I think the overall quality of the book is satisfactory even though it took my best efforts just to get it to the point it is currently at.

But altogether, I think that things are still quite a bit more put-together than your v1 of this story,

Hearing this really helps. I appreciate that a lot!

and while I still saw areas that I felt would benefit from further polish, things largely accomplished what you set out to in this chapter, and it does a good job at getting us invested in what comes next.

I'm very happy to hear that the overall impact of this chapter was a positive one. The next chapter is probably the weakest and is also one of the shortest chapters in the fic. But even that chapter is way better than my v1 writing. Also, based on feedback form other reviewers, the book gets better as it goes! If you like the first half, I think you like the 2nd half even more!

Hope the feedback was helpful, @Tango , and I’ll be looking forward to seeing you around again sometime soon.

As always, reviews from you are imbued with energy and substance! Thanks @Spiteful Murkrow!

I'll be looking to get the next review up for you sometime soon.