TEEN: Orre: The Desert.

[Welkamo]

Hello! I've been meaning to read your fic because you seem like a cool person, so hi!

The premise of this fic is really interesting! Admittedly, I've never played Colosseum/XD, but I still find the Orre region really interesting. Having an artist protagonist is really cool! You can do a lot of fun stuff with an artist protagonist: how do they see the world? Do they see it in terms of composition/color/etc.? What details do they notice that others don't? I also think that Cecilia's relationships are interesting: we have her estranged relationship with her father and her "oh my god they were roommates" relationship with Tomoko. Also, I like the imagery of Orre as a barren wasteland. Good stuff.

I'm guessing this fic is in what I call a diary tense—first person, with actions being in past tense and information being in present tense. However, I noticed some grammatical stuff that I can only point out by directly quoting it and then bolding corrections.

I lowered my goggles down onto my neck.

Well..

Double period or a missing period in an ellipsis

in a half cross legged way

I felt like I’ve been coming to this spot forever and with it so out of the way, it begs the question how I found it to begin with

I scratched my head.

I changed my posture on my bike

I ended up just putting my knee up to my chest the best I could with my other leg just spread out normally, and then I returned to my drawing.

The Orreisian desert’s wind picked up and kicked the sand all around, barely hitting my eyes. Each strike of the pencil was the only sound I heard besides the beating sun and the gust of wind.

The sketch was turning out alright. The newest rock formation I was basing it on was in the shape of a giant hand.

It was when I was kid, and I just kinda kept doing it after all those art classes in school.

Right now, the job I have now will satisfy me until I figure out what to do with my life. I never really did figure that out. All I know is that I don't want to be a mechanic fixing bikes and cars for the rest of my life.

I raised my sketchpad in front of the rock I was sketching. Was I getting it right? I thought about adding a background besides just the rock. Depth always helps. Yeah. That was a good idea. I went with that.

I thought about coloring this piece, but I don’t often sketch with colors.

Right around As I was doing the finishing touches upon the sketch

The screen lit up with the words:

“I was just worried since you didn’t come back to our apartment.”

I stared down at my watch out of habit. Oh crap, it’s around six already? I supposed I was there longer than I thought. No wonder my roommate got worried, I haven’t taken the majority of rejections well.

“Ah, Tomoko, she’s too kind for her own good sometimes,” I said aloud.

I put my sketchbook away in my messenger bag and threw it into my hoverbike’s sidecar. I proceeded to sit down properly onto the vehicle. I turned the key as the engine roar engulfed the lifeless desert once again.

As I looked into the distance, I saw something blue, a flash of blue more like it. It couldn't be, could it? I thought it was just my imagination back then, but it couldn’t be real.

I blink and just like it appeared, it was gone once again. I guessed since I was thinking about it earlier my mind decided to play tricks on me. I decided I just had to go to bed early tonight.

I raised my goggles to my eyes properly this time. I kicked a stand-like mechanism, which prompted the bike to rise above the ground and hover amongst the sand. I put the pedal to the gas and took off.

Overall, I think this is a really good fic! Definitely gonna check out the rest of it.

 

[AetherX]

Hi there, finally got around to reading this. No experience with Orre to be honest, but I've absorbed some stuff over the years so we'll see how far that gets me. Please forgive my ignorance. I like cute slice of life stories, so this is nice. Low stakes, interesting world, character drama. Slowly learning more about the characters' backgrounds over time. Good stuff.

In my room I have an old desk and bed frame originally from when this place was the Snagem place.

Casually inheriting furniture from terrorists. Like you do.

“I don’t think it even is albinism since as a Fire-Type she would need to encounter the sun and the sensitivity would counteract that, possibly canceling all
function in a way, which she doesn’t have any problems with. I think the working theory between both her Johtonese doctor and her new one as well as myself
with what I know about Pokémon biology from my minor in university is that one of her parents is an Alolan variant who passed down a gene to make her
mostly white with some tints of red remaining from her regular Kantonian variant.”

I noticed several instances of this throughout, but it appears there are newlines deliberately inserted in this paragraph? I know it can look nicer to bunch stuff together sometimes, but I'm not a big fan of that from a syntax perspective. Just let your writing look like what it looks like.

"Oh, I’m a psychologist and sometimes I can’t get out to do research on people, so Adam usually sent someone here for me to psycho-analyze or more in layman's terms, simply read people. But I’ve stopped intentionally doing that after some complaints."

This sounds thoroughly unethical.

“I snapped back as we grew closer to the community center as I saw Cole in the distance, sitting on the collection bid

Typo.

broke the Camprupt’s back.

Typo. Also as an aside, I get the fact that it's just an analog to a real world phrase, but I feel like putting any amount of straw on a Camerupt's back would be an exercise in futility. Less of overburdening a beast of burden and more... Sisyphus. Flaming straw Sisyphus. That's me overthinking tho lol.

“Yeah, I think so,” I say. “Just a lot to take in from all the various tasks and stuff.”


“I know, but once you get used to it, it just becomes a breeze,” Mr. Dodds explained.

Extra newline.

One of the main things I picked up on was how wordy the prose was in places. Some scenes had a lot of words to get through a relatively minor point. Slowing down and letting the prose be the enjoyable part is definitely a legitimate approach to writing, especially for this kind of fic, but there were a few times it stuck out to me.

Oh right, I forgot you were working the day I fully moved in where she and my step dad helped.

This is... really on the nose for exposition. It's not literally saying "as you know" but it's real close. I don't think it's a necessary detail to mention at all how Tomoko wasn't there and how her mom and stepdad helped her move in. It wouldn't have made me scratch my head for Tomoko to simply state that she's never met Cecilia's mom. I would've taken it in stride. But I don't know, maybe these details are important. You're the writer after all.

“Between him and your Noctowl, Cole, your family has some very unique Pokémon.”

“Come on, Cole's not that different from a normal Noctowl,” I say.

Less extreme here, but Tomoko saying "your Noctowl, Cole" sounds kind of awkward. I know this intended to be naming him for the reader, but Cecilia's line does that just as well, if not better. If you deleted Tomoko saying either "Cole" or "your Noctowl" it would sound a lot more natural and still give all the same information. She doesn't need to remind Cecilia of her own Pokemon's name.

“one of the two heroes of the first Shadow Crisis, Wes Thompson”

...

“Wes Thompson, considered one of the two heroes of Orre during the first Shadow Crisis”

These are like one paragraph apart and give the same information almost word for word. One of them can be cleaned up or removed entirely I think.

Overall there were a number of times where a lot of words were used (or repeated) where just a few well chosen ones would do. It's a hard skill to develop for sure, but it's one of those things we all get better at with time. Think about what the purpose of each scene is and the information that needs to get across to the reader. Focus on those things. Sprinkling in some extra details for worldbuilding or character depth is always cool, but you have to be careful to not overdo it.

I also wanted to mention that I love that you went back and revised/updated these chapters. That is almost never as fun as actually writing new chapters and feels like it has less of a payoff since it's hard to ask people to reread stuff. But we all improve as writers over time, and pulling old writing up to our current standard can really really help a story. So good on you for doing that.

I'm sure Cecilia and Tomoko will continue to be very close friends and roommates for a long time. Neither will marry, for some reason.

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one. Keep up the good work!

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Okay, two reviews to get to and respond to, need to get them out of the way and not take forever like I usually do.

Hello! I've been meaning to read your fic because you seem like a cool person, so hi!

Hello!!

The premise of this fic is really interesting! Admittedly, I've never played Colosseum/XD, but I still find the Orre region really interesting.

Why is this a trend between everyone who reads my fic? I notice it a lot, I think only a few have actually played both in full who've come to read it or at least a Let's Play of it.

Having an artist protagonist is really cool! You can do a lot of fun stuff with an artist protagonist: how do they see the world? Do they see it in terms of composition/color/etc.? What details do they notice that others don't?

Helps segues into the descriptions a bit better and justify them when showing it to the reader, unintentional at first when first creating this story but became helpful since I love designing areas and characters (the latter through text since my drawing skills are pretty bad).

I also think that Cecilia's relationships are interesting: we have her estranged relationship with her father and her "oh my god they were roommates" relationship with Tomoko. Also, I like the imagery of Orre as a barren wasteland. Good stuff.

Curse Encanto for bringing that Vine meme back into the spotlight.

I'm guessing this fic is in what I call a diary tense—first person, with actions being in past tense and information being in present tense.

Whistles nonchalantly....

However, I noticed some grammatical stuff that I can only point out by directly quoting it and then bolding corrections.

I know my grammar is bad! Despite English being my first language and being an English Literature Major!

Overall, I think this is a really good fic! Definitely gonna check out the rest of it.

Enjoy! Glad you're liking it.

Hi there, finally got around to reading this. No experience with Orre to be honest, but I've absorbed some stuff over the years so we'll see how far that gets me. Please forgive my ignorance.

HALLO!! Also love that avatar you use here. And this no-Orre (Norre?) trend continues. But welcome aboard and welcome to Orre: The Desert!

I like cute slice of life stories, so this is nice. Low stakes, interesting world, character drama. Slowly learning more about the characters' backgrounds over time. Good stuff.

The current place the story is in makes me happy reading this sentence. The spoiler side of me who knows what's going to happen which may complicate this sentence also makes me happy.

Casually inheriting furniture from terrorists. Like you do.

Granted, Snagem were technically never terrorists, just a team of Pokémon thieves before Cipher got involved but even still kinda never went to that level.

I noticed several instances of this throughout, but it appears there are newlines deliberately inserted in this paragraph? I know it can look nicer to bunch stuff together sometimes, but I'm not a big fan of that from a syntax perspective. Just let your writing look like what it looks like.

It's an error from copying and pasting from my Google Doc. I've been meaning to go back and fix them, which I need to do real soon just school and stuff have been getting in the way.

This sounds thoroughly unethical.

Which is why they stopped and was kinda the point.

Typo. Also as an aside, I get the fact that it's just an analog to a real world phrase, but I feel like putting any amount of straw on a Camerupt's back would be an exercise in futility. Less of overburdening a beast of burden and more... Sisyphus. Flaming straw Sisyphus. That's me overthinking tho lol.

About a steel type straw to break a Camerupt's back instead?

One of the main things I picked up on was how wordy the prose was in places. Some scenes had a lot of words to get through a relatively minor point. Slowing down and letting the prose be the enjoyable part is definitely a legitimate approach to writing, especially for this kind of fic, but there were a few times it stuck out to me.

Guess I need to go back and redo some of that.

This is... really on the nose for exposition. It's not literally saying "as you know" but it's real close. I don't think it's a necessary detail to mention at all how Tomoko wasn't there and how her mom and stepdad helped her move in. It wouldn't have made me scratch my head for Tomoko to simply state that she's never met Cecilia's mom. I would've taken it in stride. But I don't know, maybe these details are important. You're the writer after all.

Probably another thing to fix up at some point.

Less extreme here, but Tomoko saying "your Noctowl, Cole" sounds kind of awkward. I know this intended to be naming him for the reader, but Cecilia's line does that just as well, if not better. If you deleted Tomoko saying either "Cole" or "your Noctowl" it would sound a lot more natural and still give all the same information. She doesn't need to remind Cecilia of her own Pokemon's name.

I could chalk it up as it's obvious that English (no Pokémonized name yet) is not her first language with it being Hindego (Japanese) instead and her making a small flaw despite speaking it so well. But it's probably another error I need to fix.

Overall there were a number of times where a lot of words were used (or repeated) where just a few well chosen ones would do. It's a hard skill to develop for sure, but it's one of those things we all get better at with time. Think about what the purpose of each scene is and the information that needs to get across to the reader. Focus on those things. Sprinkling in some extra details for worldbuilding or character depth is always cool, but you have to be careful to not overdo it.

I've been meaning to expand my lexicon and but I guess all the trips to Thesaurus didn't help.

I also wanted to mention that I love that you went back and revised/updated these chapters. That is almost never as fun as actually writing new chapters and feels like it has less of a payoff since it's hard to ask people to reread stuff. But we all improve as writers over time, and pulling old writing up to our current standard can really really help a story. So good on you for doing that.

Thank you. Yeah, the first two chapters we're much smaller and needed a real good polish and the others just really needed redos. The fact that I was able to get them all done in about half a year was great too! Plus I could tease some things for much later down the line for plot lines and stuff.

I'm sure Cecilia and Tomoko will continue to be very close friends and roommates for a long time. Neither will marry, for some reason.

Whistles again....

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the review!

 

[OrionTheAbsol]

Alright, Ryoma, here for Round 2... kinda. I've been strapped for time lately so I can't cover too much today (putting aside the fact that today is the last day of the February event, lol).

Spoiler: My Commentary

Chapter 1: Sands and Wind

• From the first couple of paragraphs, I see some major improvement from the older draft. There's a clear voice narrating the story. We get a better grasp on what Orre is like as a place and what Cecilia is like as a person.
• “It’s been a while since I’ve been here.” I said to the scenery.
  • Quoted statement should end with a comma instead of a period.
• Raising my leg onto the bike in a half cross legg way...
  
  • Typo?
• I change my posture on my bike, trying my best awkwardly to sit on my bike in the most comfortable way possible.
  
  • 'Awkwardly' feels like it's in an awkward spot, ironically. The sentence works fine without the word. Though if you want to use it, I would place it before 'trying.'
• Nice use of cliffhanger. Sets up a mystery on what this blue light really is.

I noticed the present and past tenses were used interchangeably. Implied from the text, it seems like you want to go for the present tense since it feels like the scenes are in real time. Something like this for example used two tenses at the same time:

Tomoko just looks at me as she raised her glasses to rub her eyes.

Other than that, I liked how much more depth you added into this first chapter. Great job, Ryoma!

 

[kintsugi]

Hi Ryoma! Here for your prize review. I went ahead and reread the first two chapters + read up to chapter five; these chapters are pretty breezy and it was helpful to get more fully immersed in the story you were telling, so this is a bit of an overarching review rather than a blow by blow of anything in particular.

I remember thinking when I first read this that this was going to be some sort of Violet Evergarden take, where a youngish woman in a post-ish war world ends up getting a job delivering things to people, and learns a little bit from each of her clients along the way. I'm not entirely sure where that notion came from tbh. But I like the more grounded nature of this, where there was sort of a destructive event but for the most part people shrugged and were able to move on; dramatic things happen to our protagonist but it's not anything super ridiculous for a teenager/young adult to have gone through. Stories about healing, learning to love yourself and others, coming of age--I think those can be told in a very quiet sense, and don't particularly require much more than someone ferrying some boxes around or enjoying curry with their roommate.

Cecilia's a fun viewpoint character. Characters who do artsy things speak to me a lot the more I get older; it's nice to read about people taking joy in creating this one silly pencil drawing of a cool rock that no one else will really get, but it brings them joy so they do it. I think you capture the therapeutic reliance she's got on her sketching, and she strikes me as very self-taught--not much focus on the actual technical aspects of it, but mostly just shooting from the hip and finding things that she thinks are neat. It speaks to (what I associate) as a very early stage of learning a hobby, where shit's sort of just fun and there aren't really rules or pressure to create something incredible, which is a liberating place to be in. And I think this segues into the broader parts of Cecilia--I think you do a good job of capturing that sort of naive grit that gets a lot of people through the late teens/early twenties. She's especially unconfident and dismissive of her own skills and very happy to sing Tomoko's praises (uwu); she expects strangers to be jerks (mostly thinking of her anticipation when knocking on Dr. Stacy's door) but also is deeply vulnerable to Ari within the first day of meeting her. She believes she's gotten lucky with this job because she couldn't possibly amount to anything, but she's also confident that the universe is going to err against her and leave her out to dry eventually. It's the sort of vicarious dichotomies that I really do associate with just trying out adulthood, and I think you convey those ideas really nicely. She had one line pretty early that was along the lines of "I feel like a kid, but I'm actually 20 so I'm definitely not a kid" that I thought was interesting; it's clear that she's still learning a lot about how adulthood/rent/jobs/roommates/friendship/healthy relationships work, but at the same time that pressure to tell everyone that you're Definitely An Adult because you've reached the age of Being An Adult hits real hard, lol.

The one thing I'm most interested in so far is how she perceives others: everyone seems to be either worthy of effusive praise or the actual worst. And because it's first person POV, that's sort of just the entirety of how we the readers understand the story so far. Are these accurate assessments? Is she being too harsh on the people who have wronged her because mentally crushing them is a (temporarily) effective way to recover from the slights they've caused her? Is she projecting too much kindness on the people who are around her now because she's desperate for affection and will seize it at any chance she can get? I associate a major part of coming into adulthood with understanding that other people can have complex backstories and motives--so when Cecilia almost runs out of questions for Ari after "Are you a student?", I do end up being really curious about that, and how it ties into Cecilia viewing the people around her in general.

(Some smaller notes--I liked the little details of her making to-do lists about miscellaneous things across chapters, and briefly forgetting. Felt very real. I really wish she'd wear a helmet though, my goodness)

I thought Tomoko was going to be the other major character here (although after meeting Ari, who knows?). She offers a nice outsider perspective, both as a relative stranger to Cecilia's homelife and also as a relative stranger to Orre. It's always fun to see two characters do the spiderman meme and point at each other while saying the other person is way too amazing if they could only see it. These are two very platonic roommates who are cooking meals for each other and calling each other incredibly beautiful and tearing up while talking about how much their lives have improved after meeting each other. As friends do.

Here we treat everyone like family.

We adopted her to be our assistant Pokémon, especially for me.

Mr. Dodds and Dr. Stacy are characters that I feel like I'm supposed to trust, and I just inherently don't, lol. Oops. (For what it's worth, I don't think it's a telegraphing issue, and more of just a me issue, although feel free to chime in here.) I do think that the emphasis on family is interesting here, especially coming from Cecilia's POV + her generally subpar experiences with her father. "Our business treats everyone like family" is one of those lines that's easy to say and hard to do; and beyond that, it's kind of muddy since the experience of being "like family" isn't really universal to anyone, and in some cases is actually shittier than not being family--we often expect our family members to put up with more than we'd expect a stranger. And honestly his idea of a blind intro first day is kind of bonkers anyway; it feels like he was sort of setting Cecilia up to fail, and if she succeeded her prize was to be psychoanalyzed by his galaxy-brained friend who is too smart to stop psycho-analyzing people based on sight alone. But he doesn't communicate any of this to his daughter (who is presumably "like family" because she works there and also "literally family"), so she immediately plows over his blind test and then also spills the beans on the whole psycho-analysyis/oops surprise therapy thing, but also this wasn't really something she thought it'd be helpful to warn Cecilia about when she first saw her uncle's address on the package. Also, kind of an odd business model to have people walking around a desert city delivering packages on foot.

And the idea of adoption is an interesting one in light of the other adopted pokemon we've seen so far (Citrine and Cole), who are adopted more as companions/pets and not to fill a specific role. Again, something I wouldn't really bat an eye at in isolation, but in light of, say, learning that Cecilia's father purposefully delayed her applications to schools so that she could stay on and become a mechanic--the idea of adoption/bringing someone into your family so they can fill a specific role again feels a bit more sinister.

But I'm not sure! I think a lot of these are lessons that can be learned in totally non-sinister ways. Tying back into the whole "how Cecilia perceives others" thing from above--these situations aren't all black and white, and people can be fallible and still be trying their best to help you; they can also have cruel intentions but no personal desire to screw you over specifically. These two are ones that I'd have to read a lot more to understand, I think. I imagine the main plot is going to be more about the Cipher admin who escaped and the strange blue light that keeps showing up in the desert, as well as the blossoming-definitely-roommates vibe between Cecilia and Tomoko, but I'm definitely curious about the background characters as well.

---

(a small ad break in which I vouch for academia, libraries and motorcycle builds)

her masters in ecology focusing on Pokémon habitats and a minor in Pokémon biology

I don't think you can get a minor in a master's program under most education systems--there's simply no point in a minor after undergrad. Typically once you're aiming for master's-level education, no one really will pay attention to the effort that would constitute a minor anyway; your master's is meant to say "I am pursuing this field to attain mastery". Especially if the two field are as related as "Pokemon habitats" and "Pokemon biology"--it feels sort of redundant, as it's basically saying "this person has an extensive amount of knowledge about Pokemon habitats, and also they know some biology" (or like, "this person has extensive knowledge about Pokemon battling, and also they know how type-effectiveness works"--one very much informs your ability to master the other)

You could argue that Johto has weird academia, but I'm not really sure if getting into the nitty gritty of AU degree structures is important to your story since the overarching point here was probably just "Tomoko studies Pokemon".

My mother was never a fan of a lot of modern things like sending messages through a M*DA, it’s probably why she works at a library.

Libraries get a bad rep for being fuddy duddy halls of dusty tomes or whatever, but they tend to modernize pretty well since they get a ton of government funding and are one of the few places where you can exist indoors without the expectation of spending money--so they tend to have a lot of community outreach and tech-oriented programs specifically, since their prerogative is mostly "learning" and not "books". I bring this up specifically because I used to volunteer at a library program helping ESL folks learn how to send emails, and that was over a decade ago! tl;dr libraries are cool + know they're in a constantly-evolving niche.

(And again you could argue that Kalos has weird libraries, or that Cecilia is just uninformed about her mom's job--again, speaks a bit to the idea that Cecilia is learning that a lot of her world isn't the same as books/movies, but it's a little unclear as it stands, since we're so steeped in Cecilia's POV.)

“A MAR-299 Garchomp hoverbike,” I answered without hesitation. “A custom build that includes a sidecar.
[...]
“My model is just the shell of one, it was found in an old scrapyard we used to rummage for anything salvageable.”

Having spent a lot of time with gearheads, I think it's a little odd that she would call this a MAR-299 Garchomp even though she's more or less done a full engine swap, and also redone the exterior (with the sidecar). Usually with project bikes you might reference what it used to be (like when she mentions she ripped the internals from a NVR-1717), but you wouldn't really do a full teardown/swap/rebuild and then call it by the original name unless the goal was to explicitly make it look just like the original (in which case you'd probably be like, it's a refurbed MAR-2999 Garchomp but I did an engine swap), which she's also not doing since she put the sidecar in there.

(And again you could argue that Orre has weird motor culture--which tbh I could really get behind! Hoverbikes are a different breed and being a mechanic was an important, albeit stressful, part of Cecilia's life, and I think it'd be interesting to delve into that. Especially in light of Cecilia relying on the skills that she learned for everything from daily transport to getting a more stable job, the general idea of art/creation/modification, themes of ship of repairing your innards while your outside stays the same but also grows a sidecar--all this to say I think there's an interesting set of themes/ideas to explore here if you chose to go "shuddup kintsugi the bike culture in my universe is AU because they live in a supply chain vacuum and also the bikes literally fly").

---

Ad break over!

We talked a bit before this, so I mostly know where you stand--I do think it's rad that you're still doing prose edits + that you did a huge overhaul; these chapters do look a lot different from when I first read, and I know editing is daunting, so I wanted to give you a shoutout for that level of commitment. I put together a markdown version of chapter 1 here, with grammar corrections/prose edits that I would've normally made in linequotes--it didn't really seem feasible to do this in the review itself + I was afraid it might come across as a bit overwhelming, plus you mentioned working in gdocs anyway. Let me know if this kind of overhaul is helpful to you; I can revisit the other chapters with the same method if you'd like (and only if you'd like lol).

I'm a little curious what your general process is for doing copyediting on your writing--I mostly ask because I struggled/struggle to find one that works for me, but I did get a lot more successful with spotting typos/cleaning up prose after trying different methods. "Grammar isn't my thing" is a mood and I've been there for sure, but the technical prose-level stuff here is spotty, and was a little tricky to keep track of what was actually happening in some places. Personally I find it helpful to 1) read the story backwards, paragraph by paragraph and also 2) to try to look at things in a different format than where I wrote them (so reading the fic on Bulbagarden instead of in my word processor, on my phone instead of on my computer, in a funny font/different color than I normally write in, etc). Idk! I was raised my entire life thinking there was one way to edit, it didn't work for me, and my mind was blown when I tried different things instead and got a lot more results--might be helpful to you as well. Don't want to harp on that too hard because I get it, writing is hard, but also from a reader perspective the grammar stuff did end up distracting me from the plot/characters.

For a team like Snagem being a part of Orre for so long, it was just weird how easily we forgot about them when they dissolved and then this place remained, broken like the team who called it home here before.

[Wes has] always been one of my heroes and role models, I mean who wouldn’t have him as those?

I really like the choice to set things in Orre--not just because I'm a massive Orre shill, but mostly because I think there's a lot of relevant themes for Orre in general that mesh well with Cecilia's story. As a place that's a little outcast from the rest of the world, and also one that doesn't have the same opportunities that the rest of the pokemon regions do (primarily wild pokemon), it makes for a fun fish-out-of-water story, and it's nice to see folks like Tomoko jump in and be like, holy shit, you guys have deadly sandstorms as well? And in general being one of the few regions that sort of implies that widespread terrorist networks would really come about in a social way, in the sense that your community's probably got to be real shit if people are going to start selling themselves to abusive deathcults/gangs/the mafia in order to survive, rather than treating everything as sunshine and rainbows where occassionally people in turquoise bowl cuts decide it's a nice day to yeet the universe--I think there's a lot of potential here for a story about rebirth/reconstruction, literally trying to make a new life from the cards you were dealt while still coming to terms with the bad things that happened. Bits like how Cole's got special adaptations to the environment were really cool in particular; regional variants are neat in general but Orre-specific variants and owl variants are excellent.

In particular I like Cecilia's commentary about how weird it is that Snagem is forgotten but the brokenness remains. I know she's talking in a literal sense about the apartment, but it's hard not to see this in a different light once we start learning more about her home life. She doesn't really think about her dad unless confronted, but the habits she's learned from him--being jumpy around strangers/easily startled, eager to please Mr. Dodds, low-self esteem about her accomplishments + denial about dating in general--are pretty constant. And of course it's hard to pinpoint how much of someone's personality is formed by trauma/a specific event vs how much is just them--but it's also hard to tell how much of Orre's brokenness is caused directly from Snagem/Cipher doing crimes, and how much comes from the kind of society that would result in a ton of people thinking shadow pokemon were a good idea in the first place. It's a fun bit of amorphousness that I think works really well for Cecilia in particular, since I found that she likes to box things into black/white, even when that isn't often the case.

Wes as a role model is a lot of fun as well, since Cecilia doesn't really seem to know/otherwise bring up his history? Idk how much of this is AU (it's been a hot sec since my last playthrough but Wes's actions never really struck me as "future police chief" material), but I'm mostly operating off of the idea that this is based in Colo canon, so a ton of crimes and some casual arson to the building that Cecilia literally lives in is on the table, heh. And I do vibe with the idea that he's Cecilia's role model despite her not knowing much about his past less-role-model-esque actions--she's also someone trying to get out of the shadow of her name/her backstory, so I do think that it's fitting that she'd admire someone who successfully did the same, even if he was so successful that she literally doesn't know that they have this trait of "not wanting to be known for that thing" in common.

And all this to say:

“Yeah, everything is finally going to change for us in Orre.”

I think this is a powerful sentiment. I like stories about change, specifically the idea that change doesn't always bring you what you want, so this entire conversation was a lot of fun, especially once Mr. Dodds started being nervous about Unovan brands showing up. In a more character-driven story, it's neat when the setting itself also is sort of a character, or in a way mirrors the characters--in a sense Cecilia gets to go out and draw the landscapes and take artistic inspiration from the world around her, but there's a lot of other similarities between the two as well.

Thanks for sharing, congrats again on your win, and hope that the editing/writing process isn't getting you down too hard! Sometimes you just gotta pop your leg into a funny angle and sketch the rock.

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Hi Ryoma! Here for your prize review.

HALLO!! Thank you for it! Still surprised I won it when you accidentally spill the beans to me....Sorry Beth.

I went ahead and reread the first two chapters + read up to chapter five; these chapters are pretty breezy and it was helpful to get more fully immersed in the story you were telling, so this is a bit of an overarching review rather than a blow by blow of anything in particular.

Good thing you re-read them. Especially considering the massive updates and overhauls.

I remember thinking when I first read this that this was going to be some sort of Violet Evergarden take, where a youngish woman in a post-ish war world ends up getting a job delivering things to people, and learns a little bit from each of her clients along the way. I'm not entirely sure where that notion came from tbh.

It was probably cause I was rocking a Violet Evergarden avatar at the time (I may have rewatched it at the time I don't remember but I know it was the year it released when I first started writing this) so that may have cause that. This was also kinda the plan at first as some of it remains in the discussion with Dr. Stacy, but I've change my direction from that now. There is one chapter coming up ahead after Chapter 6 that is also like this.

But I like the more grounded nature of this, where there was sort of a destructive event but for the most part people shrugged and were able to move on; dramatic things happen to our protagonist but it's not anything super ridiculous for a teenager/young adult to have gone through. Stories about healing, learning to love yourself and others, coming of age--I think those can be told in a very quiet sense, and don't particularly require much more than someone ferrying some boxes around or enjoying curry with their roommate.

I kinda want to portray the opposite we saw in Colosseum and Gale of Darkness, where we were in constantly on the action, moving from place to place. We never got to see the slower side to Orre, even in the day in the life segment (sorta've) in the beginning of Gale of Darkness it was always harkening back to Colosseum events even though it's much better now. We never got to know what a place like this does in this type of world, which is what I wanted to explore.

Cecilia's a fun viewpoint character. Characters who do artsy things speak to me a lot the more I get older; it's nice to read about people taking joy in creating this one silly pencil drawing of a cool rock that no one else will really get, but it brings them joy so they do it. I think you capture the therapeutic reliance she's got on her sketching, and she strikes me as very self-taught--not much focus on the actual technical aspects of it, but mostly just shooting from the hip and finding things that she thinks are neat. It speaks to (what I associate) as a very early stage of learning a hobby, where shit's sort of just fun and there aren't really rules or pressure to create something incredible, which is a liberating place to be in.

Cecilia doing art was one of the first things I did when this was born, even when it was a free-write in that fabled creative writing class. Honestly it's become something even greater and more important to the fic plans than I thought it was going to during the first draftings of plans. Heck! It got me drawing again no matter how bad I think I am. I do love the last sentence to this where you say there isn't really rules or pressure in doing art the way Cecilia does, which I feel fits her character to a T.

And I think this segues into the broader parts of Cecilia--I think you do a good job of capturing that sort of naive grit that gets a lot of people through the late teens/early twenties. She's especially unconfident and dismissive of her own skills and very happy to sing Tomoko's praises (uwu); she expects strangers to be jerks (mostly thinking of her anticipation when knocking on Dr. Stacy's door) but also is deeply vulnerable to Ari within the first day of meeting her. She believes she's gotten lucky with this job because she couldn't possibly amount to anything, but she's also confident that the universe is going to err against her and leave her out to dry eventually. It's the sort of vicarious dichotomies that I really do associate with just trying out adulthood, and I think you convey those ideas really nicely.

It probably helps that I'm in the same age range as Cecilia, so I know the pain, so so well about feeling adulthood. The part of knocking on Dr. Stacy's door was just her speculating what the test was, expecting the guy to be a stereotypical asshole customer and not a test about how you treat someone who's disabled and their assistant Pokémon. All the talk about adulthood is also really something I also wanted to explore, especially since we never really cover adulthood in the Pokémon universe (closest we got was in the form of Leon and Sonia, with the latter being the more closest to what you're saying since Leon is well...an idiot) and another reason I chose Orre was because it was the perfect setting for this since they don't have the same opportunities like Johto or Galar, so being actual adult is important.

She had one line pretty early that was along the lines of "I feel like a kid, but I'm actually 20 so I'm definitely not a kid" that I thought was interesting; it's clear that she's still learning a lot about how adulthood/rent/jobs/roommates/friendship/healthy relationships work, but at the same time that pressure to tell everyone that you're Definitely An Adult because you've reached the age of Being An Adult hits real hard, lol.

The line was "I feel like a kid in a candy store despite being nearly twenty" cause she was smiling a bit too hard. You always have those moments, especially me since I'm the youngest in my immediate family and among the Workshop most likely.

The one thing I'm most interested in so far is how she perceives others: everyone seems to be either worthy of effusive praise or the actual worst. And because it's first person POV, that's sort of just the entirety of how we the readers understand the story so far. Are these accurate assessments? Is she being too harsh on the people who have wronged her because mentally crushing them is a (temporarily) effective way to recover from the slights they've caused her? Is she projecting too much kindness on the people who are around her now because she's desperate for affection and will seize it at any chance she can get? I associate a major part of coming into adulthood with understanding that other people can have complex backstories and motives--so when Cecilia almost runs out of questions for Ari after "Are you a student?", I do end up being really curious about that, and how it ties into Cecilia viewing the people around her in general.

Man, I love these takes.

(Some smaller notes--I liked the little details of her making to-do lists about miscellaneous things across chapters, and briefly forgetting. Felt very real. I really wish she'd wear a helmet though, my goodness)

Fun fact, the thing Cecilia forgot in Chapter 4 is something I forgot regarding something this fic and I didn't write in down in my notes, I still don't remember what I was going to do in place of her forgetting. And don't worry, she's getting a new helmet soon, she just needs to get her first paycheck. If Wes and Micheal are allow not to wear one why can't Cecilia!?

thought Tomoko was going to be the other major character here (although after meeting Ari, who knows?). She offers a nice outsider perspective, both as a relative stranger to Cecilia's homelife and also as a relative stranger to Orre. It's always fun to see two characters do the spiderman meme and point at each other while saying the other person is way too amazing if they could only see it.

Tomoko and Ari are both supposed to be major characters. Tomoko is a bit more important than Ari but the latter was a spur of the moment creation when drafting Chapter 3 when I realized that Cecilia might be the only one around her age there and somewhat as a narrative foil to Cecilia as well as also be another outside perspective who doesn't know what Cecilia went through but Tomoko does on the other hand.

These are two very platonic roommates who are cooking meals for each other and calling each other incredibly beautiful and tearing up while talking about how much their lives have improved after meeting each other. As friends do.

Laughs nervously.

Mr. Dodds and Dr. Stacy are characters that I feel like I'm supposed to trust, and I just inherently don't, lol. Oops. (For what it's worth, I don't think it's a telegraphing issue, and more of just a me issue, although feel free to chime in here.) I do think that the emphasis on family is interesting here, especially coming from Cecilia's POV + her generally subpar experiences with her father. "Our business treats everyone like family" is one of those lines that's easy to say and hard to do; and beyond that, it's kind of muddy since the experience of being "like family" isn't really universal to anyone, and in some cases is actually shittier than not being family--we often expect our family members to put up with more than we'd expect a stranger. And honestly his idea of a blind intro first day is kind of bonkers anyway; it feels like he was sort of setting Cecilia up to fail, and if she succeeded her prize was to be psychoanalyzed by his galaxy-brained friend who is too smart to stop psycho-analyzing people based on sight alone. But he doesn't communicate any of this to his daughter (who is presumably "like family" because she works there and also "literally family"), so she immediately plows over his blind test and then also spills the beans on the whole psycho-analysyis/oops surprise therapy thing, but also this wasn't really something she thought it'd be helpful to warn Cecilia about when she first saw her uncle's address on the package.

They're kinda supposed to be trusting but a little bit off than what Cecilia is used to if that makes any sense, so it adds to a difference of persepctives. Ari not warning Cecilia could just be not ruining everything about the blind test.

Also, kind of an odd business model to have people walking around a desert city delivering packages on foot.

Well, considering it is ten minutes away and one package for the sake of this test, why waste gas? Plus, you think most of the towns in Pokémon have enough room for cars?

And the idea of adoption is an interesting one in light of the other adopted pokemon we've seen so far (Citrine and Cole), who are adopted more as companions/pets and not to fill a specific role. Again, something I wouldn't really bat an eye at in isolation, but in light of, say, learning that Cecilia's father purposefully delayed her applications to schools so that she could stay on and become a mechanic--the idea of adoption/bringing someone into your family so they can fill a specific role again feels a bit more sinister.

What no love for Hinata the white-fur Ninetales? Also are you implying you think Cecilia was adopted to just become a mechanic by her father?

But I'm not sure! I think a lot of these are lessons that can be learned in totally non-sinister ways. Tying back into the whole "how Cecilia perceives others" thing from above--these situations aren't all black and white, and people can be fallible and still be trying their best to help you; they can also have cruel intentions but no personal desire to screw you over specifically. These two are ones that I'd have to read a lot more to understand, I think. I imagine the main plot is going to be more about the Cipher admin who escaped and the strange blue light that keeps showing up in the desert, as well as the blossoming-definitely-roommates vibe between Cecilia and Tomoko, but I'm definitely curious about the background characters as well.

The blue light (flash of blue) is something was going to show up regardless of the teases in the rewrite chapters. I just added it here to have it more organically into it when it's revealed. I am ready to explore some background characters and the canon characters of course!

(a small ad break in which I vouch for academia, libraries and motorcycle builds)

I will kill for more kintsuigi brand ad breaks.

I don't think you can get a minor in a master's program under most education systems--there's simply no point in a minor after undergrad. Typically once you're aiming for master's-level education, no one really will pay attention to the effort that would constitute a minor anyway; your master's is meant to say "I am pursuing this field to attain mastery". Especially if the two field are as related as "Pokemon habitats" and "Pokemon biology"--it feels sort of redundant, as it's basically saying "this person has an extensive amount of knowledge about Pokemon habitats, and also they know some biology" (or like, "this person has extensive knowledge about Pokemon battling, and also they know how type-effectiveness works"--one very much informs your ability to master the other)

She minor'd during her bachelors degree guess I should've specify that better. I'll probably go over it better whenever I get to the Tomoko Gaiden's I'm planning for in some future chapters (though these will be more like interludes I guess).

You could argue that Johto has weird academia, but I'm not really sure if getting into the nitty gritty of AU degree structures is important to your story since the overarching point here was probably just "Tomoko studies Pokemon".

I mean, would you believe me despite being 100% not necessary that I'm designing Tomoko's whole school life down to what university, high school and uniform she would go and wear? So, I'm going full academia.

Libraries get a bad rep for being fuddy duddy halls of dusty tomes or whatever, but they tend to modernize pretty well since they get a ton of government funding and are one of the few places where you can exist indoors without the expectation of spending money--so they tend to have a lot of community outreach and tech-oriented programs specifically, since their prerogative is mostly "learning" and not "books". I bring this up specifically because I used to volunteer at a library program helping ESL folks learn how to send emails, and that was over a decade ago! tl;dr libraries are cool + know they're in a constantly-evolving niche.

Well I should know I'm studying to be a librarian. I also work in one of my university's libraries and I've volunteered at my hometown one as well for a few years. My hometown one is modernizing finally after trying to get the funds for years and took advantage of the pandemic to do it, so it's kinda just what I know converting onto mine. I was more going on the fact that a lot of younger folks around Cecilia's age or even younger stop going to libraries in this era so it becomes a place for the old times before technology took over our lives.

(And again you could argue that Kalos has weird libraries, or that Cecilia is just uninformed about her mom's job--again, speaks a bit to the idea that Cecilia is learning that a lot of her world isn't the same as books/movies, but it's a little unclear as it stands, since we're so steeped in Cecilia's POV.)

Refer to above, or Cecilia's mother could just work in archives. Don't take that as confirmation.

Having spent a lot of time with gearheads, I think it's a little odd that she would call this a MAR-299 Garchomp even though she's more or less done a full engine swap, and also redone the exterior (with the sidecar). Usually with project bikes you might reference what it used to be (like when she mentions she ripped the internals from a NVR-1717), but you wouldn't really do a full teardown/swap/rebuild and then call it by the original name unless the goal was to explicitly make it look just like the original (in which case you'd probably be like, it's a refurbed MAR-2999 Garchomp but I did an engine swap), which she's also not doing since she put the sidecar in there.

Well I am not a gearhead sooo. But Cecilia in both instances are talking/explaining as someone who wouldn't know that fact like I wouldn't, so she would explain it as a MAR-299 Garchomp as it appears to be but slowly catches up the person in question so they understand.

(And again you could argue that Orre has weird motor culture--which tbh I could really get behind! Hoverbikes are a different breed and being a mechanic was an important, albeit stressful, part of Cecilia's life, and I think it'd be interesting to delve into that. Especially in light of Cecilia relying on the skills that she learned for everything from daily transport to getting a more stable job, the general idea of art/creation/modification, themes of ship of repairing your innards while your outside stays the same but also grows a sidecar--all this to say I think there's an interesting set of themes/ideas to explore here if you chose to go "shuddup kintsugi the bike culture in my universe is AU because they live in a supply chain vacuum and also the bikes literally fly").

"shuddup kintsugi the bike culture in my universe is AU because they live in a supply chain vacuum and also the bikes literally fly!"
Now I'm interested in where you were going before you cut yourself off. Again loving what you are saying.

Ad break over!

Man, that was the best ad break ever!

We talked a bit before this, so I mostly know where you stand--I do think it's rad that you're still doing prose edits + that you did a huge overhaul; these chapters do look a lot different from when I first read, and I know editing is daunting, so I wanted to give you a shoutout for that level of commitment. I put together a markdown version of chapter 1 here, with grammar corrections/prose edits that I would've normally made in linequotes--it didn't really seem feasible to do this in the review itself + I was afraid it might come across as a bit overwhelming, plus you mentioned working in gdocs anyway. Let me know if this kind of overhaul is helpful to you; I can revisit the other chapters with the same method if you'd like (and only if you'd like lol).

Thank you on both fronts. I really need to work on the whole grammar and prose thing, so I hope this will help.

I'm a little curious what your general process is for doing copyediting on your writing--I mostly ask because I struggled/struggle to find one that works for me, but I did get a lot more successful with spotting typos/cleaning up prose after trying different methods. "Grammar isn't my thing" is a mood and I've been there for sure, but the technical prose-level stuff here is spotty, and was a little tricky to keep track of what was actually happening in some places. Personally I find it helpful to 1) read the story backwards, paragraph by paragraph and also 2) to try to look at things in a different format than where I wrote them (so reading the fic on Bulbagarden instead of in my word processor, on my phone instead of on my computer, in a funny font/different color than I normally write in, etc). Idk! I was raised my entire life thinking there was one way to edit, it didn't work for me, and my mind was blown when I tried different things instead and got a lot more results--might be helpful to you as well. Don't want to harp on that too hard because I get it, writing is hard, but also from a reader perspective the grammar stuff did end up distracting me from the plot/characters.

It's really weird to explain my process and I really don't want to get into now. But I'll take your advice and use it.

I really like the choice to set things in Orre--not just because I'm a massive Orre shill, but mostly because I think there's a lot of relevant themes for Orre in general that mesh well with Cecilia's story. As a place that's a little outcast from the rest of the world, and also one that doesn't have the same opportunities that the rest of the pokemon regions do (primarily wild pokemon), it makes for a fun fish-out-of-water story, and it's nice to see folks like Tomoko jump in and be like, holy shit, you guys have deadly sandstorms as well?

I mean, I'm cool with you just liking it for being a Orre shill. I'm always upset on how Orre is forgotten, even during anniversaries where they outright ignore it or when Shadow Pokémon were brought back for GO, they were just used for Team Loser Rocket and no mention of its origins so this fic is where I come in and give it the love it deserves. Tomoko and her reactions to everything that she doesn't expect is what I'm really excited to do, especially when I do her prequels in the future.

And in general being one of the few regions that sort of implies that widespread terrorist networks would really come about in a social way, in the sense that your community's probably got to be real shit if people are going to start selling themselves to abusive deathcults/gangs/the mafia in order to survive, rather than treating everything as sunshine and rainbows where occassionally people in turquoise bowl cuts decide it's a nice day to yeet the universe--

I have a new mental image of Team Galactic now thank you. That can be a meme. But yeah, I always hated how it was just another day in the life when dealing with evil teams, so somewhat post-incident expanding.

I think there's a lot of potential here for a story about rebirth/reconstruction, literally trying to make a new life from the cards you were dealt while still coming to terms with the bad things that happened. Bits like how Cole's got special adaptations to the environment were really cool in particular; regional variants are neat in general but Orre-specific variants and owl variants are excellent.

Yeah, that's what I wanted to do with this version with Orre, a rebirth into a new one that started in Gale of Darkness. Cole's adaptions is one of the favorite things I worked on and I really hope to work on some more. Really got to commission some art based on Cole.

In particular I like Cecilia's commentary about how weird it is that Snagem is forgotten but the brokenness remains.

This relates to Gale of Darkness where Micheal doesn't even know Snagem despite working at a lab that specializes in Shadow Pokémon purification and it being only five years since their last big thing. You think he would know but he doesn't, implying people easily forgot about Snagem.

I know she's talking in a literal sense about the apartment, but it's hard not to see this in a different light once we start learning more about her home life. She doesn't really think about her dad unless confronted, but the habits she's learned from him--being jumpy around strangers/easily startled, eager to please Mr. Dodds, low-self esteem about her accomplishments + denial about dating in general--are pretty constant. And of course it's hard to pinpoint how much of someone's personality is formed by trauma/a specific event vs how much is just them--but it's also hard to tell how much of Orre's brokenness is caused directly from Snagem/Cipher doing crimes, and how much comes from the kind of society that would result in a ton of people thinking shadow pokemon were a good idea in the first place. It's a fun bit of amorphousness that I think works really well for Cecilia in particular, since I found that she likes to box things into black/white, even when that isn't often the case.

I love this analysis but I'm revealing anything quite yet.

Wes as a role model is a lot of fun as well, since Cecilia doesn't really seem to know/otherwise bring up his history? Idk how much of this is AU (it's been a hot sec since my last playthrough but Wes's actions never really struck me as "future police chief" material), but I'm mostly operating off of the idea that this is based in Colo canon, so a ton of crimes and some casual arson to the building that Cecilia literally lives in is on the table, heh. And I do vibe with the idea that he's Cecilia's role model despite her not knowing much about his past less-role-model-esque actions--she's also someone trying to get out of the shadow of her name/her backstory, so I do think that it's fitting that she'd admire someone who successfully did the same, even if he was so successful that she literally doesn't know that they have this trait of "not wanting to be known for that thing" in common.

It kinda semi-imply Cecilia sorta knows by "regardless of your background you can go anywhere line" but I haven't truly figure that out yet so I made it more ambiguous so I can work on if the general public knows. I do have figure the why and how he's up there as well as Wes's whole attitude on the whole matter of being a commissioner.

I think this is a powerful sentiment. I like stories about change, specifically the idea that change doesn't always bring you what you want, so this entire conversation was a lot of fun, especially once Mr. Dodds started being nervous about Unovan brands showing up. In a more character-driven story, it's neat when the setting itself also is sort of a character, or in a way mirrors the characters--in a sense Cecilia gets to go out and draw the landscapes and take artistic inspiration from the world around her, but there's a lot of other similarities between the two as well.

Well, first it was Mr. Longfellow not Mr. Dodds being worried for Cecilia's work due to Unova coming in but I think I implied the same for Mr. Dodds. Moving onto the rest; I want Orre to be more connected to the rest of the Pokémon world, it's why Tomoko was created for this fic in a way. I think I even said in a reply to a earlier review, I want Orre to be as much as a character as the rest of them as we're exploring how much the region has changed and how it continues to change along with Cecilia.

Thanks for sharing, congrats again on your win, and hope that the editing/writing process isn't getting you down too hard! Sometimes you just gotta pop your leg into a funny angle and sketch the rock.

Thank you for the great review! I love this review and I've read it like twenty times now and will be definitely be using it in the future as I move forward with chapters! Once again thank you for this amazing review!!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Time for your second prize review! My apologies for the delay on this one - some real life issues came up at the precisely wrong time, as they will. It seems you've had a lot of comments regarding your plot and characters, so this review is going to focus more on the technical and stylistic aspects.

I read through chapters four and five for this review. My overriding impression is that they could both do with a second draft, with an eye for being concise. Looking at the chapters as summaries, the actual plot beats are fine. I just feel they could be executed more efficiently overall. The second impression is that you tend to write disorganised sentences. There are a lot of comma splices in there and generally odd constructions of phrases. The third impression is of a lot of talking heads. There is some attention paid to Orre as a whole, but a lot of it is narrated rather than shown, and the settings themselves tend to be sparse.

Getting into specifics:

Pacing: Something that may help with your chapters is thinking in terms of the three-act structure (It's something that's helped me a lot when it comes to pacing scenes as much as chapters). Thinking about what's introducing the scene/conflict, where it arises, and how it resolves, will help you decide where to cut extraneous words. Thinking in terms of arcs will also encourage you to think about what you want a scene to actually achieve. This applies as much to the 'slice-of-life' scenes as it would be a high-stakes drama. You can start to see how a cooking scene could double as a way to show a character's mental state as they go through the motions with no real enthusiasm, for example.

Something that stood out to me as extraneous was the focus on the nuts and bolts of package delivery. You spend a lot of time on the exposition of this, but there isn't any conflict in it. It's reasonable on the job training that Cecilia picks up reasonably easily. Likewise, I recognise what you were aiming at with the conversation with Ari in Chapter Five - you just overcomplicated it. You didn't need your characters to come up with a set of rules for a question-and-answer getting-to-know-you session.

Stylistics: Now first up, there is a reasonable argument for saying that dialogue can be disorganised with odd grammar. Personally, I think this technique should be used in moderation. In short, with dialogue readability should come before realism. Opinions can reasonably vary on that.

I'm going to pick on one example that seems representative of what I mean:

“It’s fine, no secrets here,” he said. “We’re brothers-in-law, he married my older sister, Tamara. I help him from time to time with some stuff regarding his business in exchange I can get my packages a tad earlier than intended and I get some research assistance though I’ve stopped the latter.”

That's a big mouthful. Picking apart the clauses:

• We’re brothers-in-law
• he married my older sister, Tamara
• I help him from time to time with some stuff regarding his business
• in exchange I can get my packages a tad earlier than intended
• and I get some research assistance
• though I’ve stopped the latter

That's a lot of information thrown at the reader, there. The final sentence is all one big breath despite being composed of four clauses. Putting aside whether the dialogue rings true - do you really need to give all that information to the reader? If it were me, I think I'd redraft this to something like:

"It's fine, no secrets here," he said. "We're brothers-in-law - he married my older sister. I help him from time to time with some stuff regarding his business. In exchange I can get my packages a tad earlier than intended."

Setting: I think you can afford to lean into Orre a lot more than you are. Indeed, if you trim down your prose in other ways, you'll have more space to be able to do this. I'm sure you chose to set this story in Orre because you like the region - use that! It's ok to paint a picture of what this region, indeed this city is like. And by showing that, you'll end up with a much more immersive setting than if you just had characters talking to each other about what Orre subspecies look like

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Well, time for me to finally get to this....about a little over a month later. School has been a battle as of late and most of time I just want to decompress instead of write stuff, but I have some time and a small break from the millions of essay to finally reply to this, so let's do this.

Time for your second prize review! My apologies for the delay on this one - some real life issues came up at the precisely wrong time, as they will. It seems you've had a lot of comments regarding your plot and characters, so this review is going to focus more on the technical and stylistic aspects.

Thank you regardless. I mean, look at my track record at replying to these.

I read through chapters four and five for this review. My overriding impression is that they could both do with a second draft, with an eye for being concise. Looking at the chapters as summaries, the actual plot beats are fine. I just feel they could be executed more efficiently overall.

I think is mostly because I do sentence structure weird and my weirdness in general in real life. Not to mention, I don't really have a second set of eyes to look at this stuff. Practicing my editing skills really need a long way to go.

The second impression is that you tend to write disorganised sentences. There are a lot of comma splices in there and generally odd constructions of phrases. The third impression is of a lot of talking heads. There is some attention paid to Orre as a whole, but a lot of it is narrated rather than shown, and the settings themselves tend to be sparse.

I thought I used the commas correctly, but I guess I used them a lot then one should, I remember you being the one to tell me not use semicolons so much. The odd phrase constructions could be me just experimenting since I easily in real life forget certain words and I like to experiment with words and sentence if I can.

Pacing: Something that may help with your chapters is thinking in terms of the three-act structure (It's something that's helped me a lot when it comes to pacing scenes as much as chapters). Thinking about what's introducing the scene/conflict, where it arises, and how it resolves, will help you decide where to cut extraneous words.

Chapter 6 is pretty much coming out to be this hopefully. As of where I last left off, I still haven't reach the second act.

Thinking in terms of arcs will also encourage you to think about what you want a scene to actually achieve. This applies as much to the 'slice-of-life' scenes as it would be a high-stakes drama. You can start to see how a cooking scene could double as a way to show a character's mental state as they go through the motions with no real enthusiasm, for example.

I have slivers of arcs starting in the fic and in my head, though this gives me something to add to Chapter 6.

Likewise, I recognise what you were aiming at with the conversation with Ari in Chapter Five - you just overcomplicated it. You didn't need your characters to come up with a set of rules for a question-and-answer getting-to-know-you session.

The rules for the question game was mire something to give into the playful side of Ari, something like twenty questions.

That's a lot of information thrown at the reader, there. The final sentence is all one big breath despite being composed of four clauses. Putting aside whether the dialogue rings true - do you really need to give all that information to the reader?

That's kinda always a problem of mine, especially with essay writing in school to bloat the word count if I can when I can't think of anything to continue. More stuff I got to work on.

Setting: I think you can afford to lean into Orre a lot more than you are. Indeed, if you trim down your prose in other ways, you'll have more space to be able to do this. I'm sure you chose to set this story in Orre because you like the region - use that! It's ok to paint a picture of what this region, indeed this city is like. And by showing that, you'll end up with a much more immersive setting than if you just had characters talking to each other about what Orre subspecies look like

Huh, I thought I was doing more showing than telling in some cases and more telling in others. I thought I did the Cole description pretty well but I guess not, another thing to go back to at some point.

Well, thank you for the review and the advice. I am still surprised I won the bonus reviews, even over a month later. I apologized on the major delay on replying to this and I will be trying to take in all the advice you've given me. Thank you again!

 

[bluesidra]

Hello! I came here for the sole reason that your banner in the review event thread caught my attention, and I'm not disappointed.

Chapter 1 is a very scenic introduction to our main character, Cecilia. She's a bike-mechanic who dreams of being something else, but isn't sure what even. Just restless. What she does like is drawing. And her roommate.
Nothing much happens, but I didn't mind at all. Somehow, you painted a very vivid image in my mind of Cecilia, and the desert, and even of the hoverbike. Brings back good memories of the more techno-punk world of Colo, and I'm excited to have another 4 chapters to read about it.

On the technical side, there are a few hiccups. First, a few words are missing: Just little ones, "a"-s and "the"-s. Second, the tense: You seem to narrate in present tense, but ever so often, it slips into past tense. At the beginning, I got really distracted with it, until I tried to consciously not pay attention to the tense any more. The fic is a bit older now, so I figure you're not hunting down every last typo any more. But if you do, I'd be happy to give you a fuller breakdown of where the tense needs to be changed.

Oh, one thing I wanted to mention: From the way you described the sketching progress (and the tablet discussion) alone it feels like you've done a fair share of art yourself. So, from artist to artist:

Am stoked to return for chapter 2! See you soon, blue

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Hello!

HALLO!

I came here for the sole reason that your banner in the review event thread caught my attention, and I'm not disappointed.

Well thank you. Usually it's not my banner, but hey got one.

Chapter 1 is a very scenic introduction to our main character, Cecilia.

Yeah it was like that in the way beginning to and I really wanted to keep it like that since I loved it. I always view the Orre region itself as a character, so I wanted to impart that in the first chapter. Though how I much I succeed on the other hand.

She's a bike-mechanic who dreams of being something else, but isn't sure what even. Just restless.

Yeah, this is kinda something I want to explore that the games don't really do just alluded. There is more to do than just being a trainer and in Orre that matters.

What she does like is drawing. And her roommate.

Yeah drawing! Yeah shipp...I mean what!? They are not engaged in any form of romantic relationship at all, they are just really good friend and roommates. I gotta get moving and ultimately confirmed what their actual relationship is at this point, this is a full fledged meme.

Nothing much happens, but I didn't mind at all. Somehow, you painted a very vivid image in my mind of Cecilia, and the desert, and even of the hoverbike. Brings back good memories of the more techno-punk world of Colo, and I'm excited to have another 4 chapters to read about it.

Thank you. I go a little crazy on descriptions but I'm happy some people were able to imagine this world like this.

On the technical side, there are a few hiccups. First, a few words are missing: Just little ones, "a"-s and "the"-s. Second, the tense: You seem to narrate in present tense, but ever so often, it slips into past tense. At the beginning, I got really distracted with it, until I tried to consciously not pay attention to the tense any more. The fic is a bit older now, so I figure you're not hunting down every last typo any more.

I KNOW STOP REMINDING ME! I SUCK AT THIS I KNOW!

But if you do, I'd be happy to give you a fuller breakdown of where the tense needs to be changed.

Thank you.

Oh, one thing I wanted to mention: From the way you described the sketching progress (and the tablet discussion) alone it feels like you've done a fair share of art yourself. So, from artist to artist:

I do art some occasions but I don't consider myself that good, it's why I switch to writing originally since I feel like I could do art in a way I could more easily practice and improve in before moving completely into. I have done my three main characters of this fic, but I've only shared Cecilia with some people on the forums.

Am stoked to return for chapter 2! See you soon, blue

Glad you enjoy the first chapter, hope to see you enjoy the rest.

 

[bluesidra]

Tadaa! Chapter 2 done!

Ohh, I like the vibe here a lot! Your description of the desert isn't long or drawn out or anything, but somehow, I have very vivid images in my mind regardless. Turning the old snagem base into an apartment complex sure is an interesting choice, but hey-- If I can live in a small village in the middle of nowhere, why not these folks! Your description gives it a cosy feeling of suburbia (wrong term, but I don't know how else to describe the domestic bliss of apartment complexes). Seeing Orre change slowly for the better (I hope) is such a bliss.
Tomoko and Mr Longfellow feel very much like real people. Kinda small, preoccupied with their own lives. I like it a lot. Makes Orre seem bigger. Oh, and some hints about Cecilia's past, which I'm of course very curious about. I heard something about an abusive father? I'm down for that sort of content!

On a technical level, I noticed fewer tense-slips than last time. They were still there, here and there, but overall an improvement

Looking forward to the next chapter. Oh boy, I sure hope Cecilia's job doesn't turn out to be shady or fraud or something...

 

[Cresselia92]

Howdy, Ryoma! (Not so) Surprise review from yours truly!

As a huge Orre fan, I knew I had to check out this story and leave a comment or two, and now it's a good chance to kick my brain into gear and get to it! As such, I'll start with some live reactions before moving into a general commentary and opinion of what I've read so far.

Time to wear some cool black glasses and get to it!

The Reactions Compilation

Spoiler: Chapter 1

• Ah, yes! It can't be Orre without roaring motorbikes!
• Cripes! When I read that the "beast died down", I thought that the motorbike itself broke down and she was stranded in the desert or something. ;p Which... would have been quite the beginning, not gonna lie.
• Okay, so, I noticed quite a lot of changes back and forth between past tense and present tense (which is also something that other people have pointed out).
  
  In order to streamline this reaction list, I'll mark all lapses in a separate list, so that you'll get to decide what verbs to change when you choose whether to go full past tense or full present tense.
  

• About six to seven months ago, I honestly don’t care to remember how long ago it was; I left my old job as a mechanic at my father’s shop.

  
  This semicolon is kinda out of place here, since it basically splits the first part of the sentence ("About six to seven months ago") from the last part ("I left my old job"). A regular comma works just fine.
• That place sounds like a lovely place to get away from the noises of cities and to have some introspection/time for yourself!
• Aww! An artistic character in Orre would have been such a neat concept!
• Flash of blue... What is Sonic doing in Orre?
• The "beating sun" has a sound?
  

• I haven’t been able to sketch much though recently due to the long job hunt outside of a few pieces every now and then. Ironically, one the ones I made during this chaos is one of my personal favorites. I wish I could make a job out of this, but I don’t think many people have the demand for it. Plus, everything is going digital nowadays, even if the change is taking longer to take effect here in Orre. I don’t feel comfortable with my funds right now to purchase those drawing tablets or tables.

  
  I'd probably introduce this detail earlier, when she mentioned the difficulty in going to her quiet place because of job hunting, in order to avoid repeating that she hadn't time to do X because of job hunting. But still, big yay for the deep dive into this character!
• Well, she's got quite the background! I like that we find out pretty early that she was looking for a job, got one, and she has an artistic streak!
• Drawing backgrounds and deciding what details to show is a mood!
• “Seriously!? Just after the interview like that!?” -> If you point that detail out like this, it makes the job sound shady or suspicious. ...What if it is a shady or suspicious job?!
• Name reveal!
• The blue flash strikes again!

Now, as promised, here are the lapses I have noticed.

Spoiler: List of Past Tense / Present Tense Lapses

• The beast within my hoverbike died down as I put into a stop. I lower my goggles down onto my neck. I could only hear the gentle breeze of the desert fly by.

  
  Present to past.
  

• I could barely hold any excitement as I went to pull out my sketchbook. People celebrate through different ways but I celebrate through drawing. Why am I celebrating? Well...

  
  Past to present.
  

• I come to this spot to draw often. All it is just a bunch of rock formations a little bit ways off from an abandoned building around the center of the region. I always end up coming back here to draw, even if it is just rocks. The peace and quiet is really just nice, no one would really come out all this way for this small spot. I even come out here to clear my head once and in awhile, not even bothering to draw.
  
  Due to job hunting, I haven’t been able to come to this spot recently. I think the last time I came here was two or three months ago? But hopefully, now with a more permanent job than the few temp jobs I did the past few months in the middle of job hunting, I can come here a bit more often. Maybe I’ll take Tomoko here one day. I remember her mentioning she wanted to see it after I told her about this place.
  
  When did I find this place? It’s hard to remember. I felt like I’ve been coming to this spot forever and it so out of the way it begs how I found it to begin with.

  
  Okay, this was an awkward paragraph to read through, because it is structured to work in a present tense format with her musing done in the present, while the premise of the story was that this is a retelling of sorts (since you began with the past tense).
  
  Depending on your choice, there are two ways to approach this paragraph: either you turn this part into a memory from the past, or you convert this into her thoughts. For example, "Maybe I'll take Tomoko here one day" would work perfectly as a thought in the past.
  
  For a past tense format, it could be rephrased like this:
  
  

  Due to job hunting, I wasn't able to go to that spot as often as I wished. I think the last time I went there was two or three months ago? But I hoped that with a more permanent job, rather than the few temp jobs I did the past few months in the middle of job hunting, I would be able to visit it more often. Maybe I’ll take Tomoko here one day, I thought, recalling her mentioning she wanted to see it after I told her about that place.

• I look up from my drawing for a brief moment.
  
  “Now that I think about it,” I say aloud. “Wasn’t there that one time...something was here right?”
  
  I scratch my head. Maybe I was confusing this place with something else, or even a dream for that matter. I just felt I saw a flash of blue at one point here, just can’t place my finger on what it was. It was probably just my imagination that day.

  
  Present to past.
  

• I change my posture on my bike, awkwardly trying my best to sit on my bike in the most comfortable way possible. Think I would have learned how to find the most comfortable spot by now, yet to no avail, still haven't figured it out.
  
  I end up just putting my knee up to my chest the best I can with my other leg just spread out normally and then returning to my drawing.
  
  The Orreisian desert’s wind picks up and kicks the sand all around, barely hitting my eyes. Each strike of the pencil being the only sound heard besides the beating sun and the gust of wind.
  
  The sketch was turning out alright, the newest rock formation I am basing it on is in the shape of a giant hand. I think there’s another rock formation like this at one of the colosseums but even larger but I don’t think I've ever seen it but I would love to draw it.

  
  Present to past.
  

• Right now, the job I have now will satisfy me until I figure out what to do with my life. I never really did figure that out. All I knew is that I didn’t want to be a mechanic fixing bikes and cars for the rest of my life.

  
  Present to past.
  

• I raised my sketchpad in front of the rock I’m sketching. Am I getting it right? Maybe I should add the background besides just the rock, depth always helps. Yeah, I’ll do that.
  
  Luckily, thanks to the desert background and the simple sketch I’m doing, I don’t really have to go hardcore on the background.

  
  Past to present.
  

• And like I said, I was almost done with the background. There were not many other rocks visible around this one and most of the details come from shading as well as the mid-setted sun. I might need color for this piece but I don’t often sketch with colors. A few pieces I do have color, but most of the sketches from this spot often don’t get colored. I like them better with the default pencil gray.
  
  Right around as I was doing the finishing touches upon the sketch, I felt a rumbling coming out of my pocket.

After that paragraph, the rest of the narrative stays in past tense.

This basically goes from past tense to present tense to musing in real time to being slammed back to the past.. It can throw readers off and slow down the pacing, so you ought to pick one tense and stick to it. Since for around 60% of the narrative you used the present tense, perhaps you ought to ditch the past tense entirely and go with a full present tense narrative.

So! For future chapters, I'd suggest you get yourself a beta reader, who might check your scripts and let you know when you slip into a tense or another. As the author, you might not notice the minor slip-ups, so another pair of eyes can help you cover your bases.

Final Thoughts

Welp! I wished to review at least two chapters but I'm feeling drained today, so I'll get back to the other chapters at another time.

Anyway! This was quite the nice start! We got to learn some details about the main character from her POV without being info-dumped, which is pretty neat. They might be simple details, but they give depth to the character from the get-go, so kudos for accomplishing that.

Also, it's always a pleasure to read about Orre, its sands and deserts, and Orre, and what happens after the events of XD, and Orre. And with the bite-sized chapters, even people with low attention span can follow the plot without problems. ^^

However, as I pointed out in both my lists, the flaw of your story is the continuous switch between past tense and present tense. If it was a couple of typos or so it wouldn't be a problem, but since at least half of your chapter is in past tense and the other half is in present tense, it can be a huge turn-off for people. As I recommended, I'd suggest you to find some beta reader (which shouldn't be a problem, since your chapters are short and easy to get through and fix), so that they can point out the inconsistencies.

Having said so, I had a lot of fun with this reading, and I definitely will R&R more of this story in the future!

Keep up the good work, mate!

 

[Ryoma Maser]

Tadaa! Chapter 2 done!

TWO! TWO CHAPTERS HA HA HA HA!!

Ohh, I like the vibe here a lot! Your description of the desert isn't long or drawn out or anything, but somehow, I have very vivid images in my mind regardless.

I am surprised I am accomplishing it.

Turning the old snagem base into an apartment complex sure is an interesting choice, but hey-- If I can live in a small village in the middle of nowhere, why not these folks!

It was a strange idea at first, but it isn't the first time we've done something weird in Pokémon. Like we turned a graveyard into a Radio Tower for some stupid reason. One of my first ideas when drafting the story was to have Cecilia own it and have it in the process of being repurposed and renovated, but I figure it wouldn't make sense since she would be drained of funds real quickly.

Your description gives it a cosy feeling of suburbia (wrong term, but I don't know how else to describe the domestic bliss of apartment complexes). Seeing Orre change slowly for the better (I hope) is such a bliss.

Yeah, I kinda wanted to give it a refuge feel to it and show how Orre has changed since Gale of Darkness.

Tomoko and Mr Longfellow feel very much like real people. Kinda small, preoccupied with their own lives. I like it a lot. Makes Orre seem bigger.

I'm surprised I managed that. Also I'm planning to expand Orre besides what we've seen, so it will seem bigger.

Oh, and some hints about Cecilia's past, which I'm of course very curious about. I heard something about an abusive father? I'm down for that sort of content!

That last sentence can be taken so bad out of context.

On a technical level, I noticed fewer tense-slips than last time. They were still there, here and there, but overall an improvement

I'm going to mess that up forever I feel.

Looking forward to the next chapter. Oh boy, I sure hope Cecilia's job doesn't turn out to be shady or fraud or something...

Glad you are enjoying it.

Howdy, Ryoma! (Not so) Surprise review from yours truly!

HALLO!!

As a huge Orre fan, I knew I had to check out this story and leave a comment or two, and now it's a good chance to kick my brain into gear and get to it! As such, I'll start with some live reactions before moving into a general commentary and opinion of what I've read so far.

It's about time.

The Reactions Compilation

• Ah, yes! It can't be Orre without roaring motorbikes!

I mean, I couldn't not have one. I just like motorbikes in general thanks to the Kamen Rider fan in me, so like usually my characters end up having one even if its not a hover version.

• Cripes! When I read that the "beast died down", I thought that the motorbike itself broke down and she was stranded in the desert or something. ;p Which... would have been quite the beginning, not gonna lie.

Nope, the engine is just referred to as the beast

• Okay, so, I noticed quite a lot of changes back and forth between past tense and present tense (which is also something that other people have pointed out).

I KNOW CRESS!

• That place sounds like a lovely place to get away from the noises of cities and to have some introspection/time for yourself!

I'm jealous of my own character for having a place like this.

• Aww! An artistic character in Orre would have been such a neat concept!

MINE!

• Flash of blue... What is Sonic doing in Orre?

Gotta go fast Crass...

• The "beating sun" has a sound?

It's more like that sound you hear sometimes when it's hot, but I never could figure out what it is called.

I'd probably introduce this detail earlier, when she mentioned the difficulty in going to her quiet place because of job hunting, in order to avoid repeating that she hadn't time to do X because of job hunting. But still, big yay for the deep dive into this character!

Deep dives for the win.

• Well, she's got quite the background! I like that we find out pretty early that she was looking for a job, got one, and she has an artistic streak!

Yeah, I was trying to convey this was different type of story in the Pokémon world.

• Drawing backgrounds and deciding what details to show is a mood!

Moods are moods.

• “Seriously!? Just after the interview like that!?” -> If you point that detail out like this, it makes the job sound shady or suspicious. ...What if it is a shady or suspicious job?!

I have had jobs just like that actually where I got hired soon after the interview or during the interview process. It's usually a sign they're in desperate need of help.

• Name reveal!

Who says that this is the full reveal? Nah, I'm kidding.

• The blue flash strikes again!

HAH! Surprised no one has guess what this is so far.

Now, as promised, here are the lapses I have noticed.

Thank you, I need to really work on this.

This basically goes from past tense to present tense to musing in real time to being slammed back to the past.. It can throw readers off and slow down the pacing, so you ought to pick one tense and stick to it. Since for around 60% of the narrative you used the present tense, perhaps you ought to ditch the past tense entirely and go with a full present tense narrative.

Yeah, again I need to work on it. I try to stay in one but go into other.

So! For future chapters, I'd suggest you get yourself a beta reader, who might check your scripts and let you know when you slip into a tense or another. As the author, you might not notice the minor slip-ups, so another pair of eyes can help you cover your bases.

I've been recommended this before, I just really don't have one for stuff like this.

Final Thoughts

Welp! I wished to review at least two chapters but I'm feeling drained today, so I'll get back to the other chapters at another time.

Hey, take your time.

Anyway! This was quite the nice start! We got to learn some details about the main character from her POV without being info-dumped, which is pretty neat. They might be simple details, but they give depth to the character from the get-go, so kudos for accomplishing that.

Thank you, am glad I'm not info dumping about characters.

However, as I pointed out in both my lists, the flaw of your story is the continuous switch between past tense and present tense. If it was a couple of typos or so it wouldn't be a problem, but since at least half of your chapter is in past tense and the other half is in present tense, it can be a huge turn-off for people. As I recommended, I'd suggest you to find some beta reader (which shouldn't be a problem, since your chapters are short and easy to get through and fix), so that they can point out the inconsistencies.

I KNOW! I need to get better about this.

Having said so, I had a lot of fun with this reading, and I definitely will R&R more of this story in the future!

Keep up the good work, mate!

Glad you enjoyed it and hope to see you back!