Out of the Blue

[TikTok13]

Thanks for all the reviews!

Slow down when it comes to editing

I was so eager to post the final chapter that I forgot to triple-check. That, and the program I use is an arse, and doesn't register when I'm typing short words some times. (It must have thought I had typed "O" and "nce", correcting the latter to "Ice". It's a little thing, and I've been contemplating using a new program for writing and editing.I guess I'm still Lear the ins and outs of writing.

But here, it's great because it says so much about his shifting priorities

Thanks! I felt that the transition in Blue's focus was something that could have gone really bad, and I'm happy that you were happy with it!

an enjoyable read

Cheers!

I don't really know what kind of an ending I expected, but this one is very true to Blue, as this fic has been throughout.

Thanks! I really wanted to show what it was like to be Blue, and how he handled it all, so I'm really happy you thought it was "true to Blue" (Can't help noticing rhyme )

I like your interpretation of Red

Red always had this stoical personality in my mind that could not be hindered, and that he was above trivial things, like, y'know, life. But I wasn't sure if it was actually a good twist. Glad to hear that it was good!

Excellent stuff.

Yippee!

you've got a lot better at keeping the tenses regular, too, which is great.

Yeah, I took on your comments previously and tried my absolute best. I find it's harder in first person, especially in this Fic, with switching tenses each chapter. But I'm a fan of this style now, and it will be present in my next works.

So, thanks again, for all your support and criticism that has helped me become a better writer!

 

[Chibi Pika]

Ahaha, I don't know how, but that ending was simultaneously exactly what I would expect from Blue and yet also completely not how I was expecting it to go, and that is great.

First of all, again echoing the sentiment that I love your battles. There's so much variety in the move effects and the way the fighters react to them and the way the trainers react to them (All the little physical details of what Blue was doing during the battle.) That bit when Blue realizes that Pikachu hasn't used a single electric move and gets so enraged and then Red immediately takes the battle up to eleven.

And the way Blue's victory didn't actually change anything. It wasn't a triumph. It just made him realize who he wanted to be. Red was trying to be all self-righteous about his burden and then Blue just cuts straight through all that crap, but then figures out how to cut straight through his own crap and that is just so delightfully Blue and I love it. Not to mention the way they just slip seamlessly back into ribbing each other after all the stress and anger has been burned away. Just...a great end to a great character study, like the others have said, just work on polishing up some writing mechanics and you'll be on your way to being a great writer.

Looking forward to seeing more from you in the future. Keep at it!

~Chibi~;249;;448;

 

[[Imaginative]:[Clockwork]]

I'm not sure I have a lot to say that hasn't been said by the other reviewers, but the ending made me tear up, so I felt like I had to leave a review haha.

To start, this fic is almost exactly what I like to read, especially in terms of fan fiction. Nostalgic, focused on the progression of time's effects, and emotional in a relatively straightforward way. It adds up to something really satisfying, and because the characters have been around and existed in most of our lives for so long, the emotional attachment is kind of baked in (even when canon hasn't given you just a ton to work with). Because of that, I was more than happy to follow Blue's emotional and physical journeys. It was a bit of a gut punch in Chapter 2 when he realizes that he's actually going to see his friend soon. It's easy for us and Blue to see Red as just a rival, and we certainly spend a good amount of time obsessing over how much his success negatively affected Blue. But despite that, at the end of the day Red's Blue's friend, and they've been separated for a very long time. It's both a sad and happy simplification of a complicated relationship, but that's what makes it so affecting: Despite everything, even when he wins the battle and finally comes out on top again, Blue just misses his friend.

And thanks to that the very last scene was a real nail biter for me. I was stressed thinking that Red might stay up there and so relieved when they headed back down together. It was a nice, emotionally satisfying ending that (like Chibi Pika said) really didn't change anything except for the fact that it not changing anything helped Blue grow a little bit.

I agree with everyone that your characterization (particularly in some of the specific phrasing and attitude choices you make for Blue) is spot on, and your battles are surprisingly great. I've also gotta echo the criticism of the sudden tense shifts and small, polish-able errors here and there. The one new note I have to add, unless I missed someone else saying it, is that the narration does seem a little verbose for a first-person story. Blue's obviously fairly educated and a smart guy in general, but the number of adjectives, scenery descriptions, and creative choices in relaying action did sometimes feel a little more like third-person prose than first-person narration.

Despite that, this was honestly great. I enjoyed it, was moved by it, and was overall impressed. Awesome job!

 

[TikTok13]

Alrighty then, first off, I'm happy that you all like my battles, as they're actually a part I struggle with, if I'm honest, and I constantly have to reassure myself that they're alright. I'm also happy to see that you like the end and the characteristics I showed in Blue!

It's also pretty cool that I managed to force some emotion out of you. I didn't think it'd be that powerful, but hey, who am I to judge?

narration does seem a little verbose for a first-person story

I'm happy you brought this up. The amount if description I use comes from my teachings. I feel that without enough description, the Fic will just be rather bland and possibly too fast-paced. I use description as a sort of cushion, and I try my best not to overdo it. I also used a lot here, especially in the visual sense, as I wanted to show a sort of sensory perspective in Blue, and he's surprisingly aware of what's going on. Overall, it's just my style of writing.

So...thanks! I hope you'll all continue to give me advice in my up-and-coming works, and that you'll enjoy what I do.

 

[Negrek]

This is a neat little fanfic! Blue is my favorite rival, so I'm always excited to see stuff written about him. People have already mentioned prose sorts of things to look out for in your writing, so in my review I'm going to focus on larger structural things.

As has been said, you write battles very well. You have a good sense of the back and forth, where one trainer appears to be on top and then they reverse roles, and of keeping track of all the action as it's going on. You also do a nice job of incorporating the trainers and their emotions in the fights, rather than having them just stand around and shout commands. I'd say that's easily the best part of this story: how character moments play out in the context of action scenes. It's something that so many authors struggle to get right.

At the moment, though, I'm not totally sure why the flashback battle with Gold is in there. In the prologue, Blue's setting out to Mt. Silver, and then in Chapter Two he's on Mount Silver, and then he's actually battling Red. I think if you removed the battle with Gold, I don't think the story would actually change at all.

If what you wanted was to show Blue at his cockiest and getting taken down a peg, why not flash back instead to his Championship battle against Red, where he was handed his most decisive defeat? Or any one of his other battles against Red that he presumably lost. As it is, he already spends most of the battle comparing Gold to Red, so why not show us all the reasons he enjoys fights with Red... by showing us an actual fight with Red? (Before the final one, of course, which has a rather different tone.)

Now, I did like that this scene showed how obsessed Blue is with Red, with how he's thinking about his rival CONSTANTLY. But I think you could have gotten that across a different way if you wanted; this scene seemed rather long (especially considering the length of the story overall) and out of place just to give that bit of flavor.

When Blue's fighting Red, I found some of his reversals of emotion kind of... abrupt? Like, when Red says he's obsessed with the pokédex and doesn't want the same thing to happen to Blue, and Blue's all, "oh my god how did I never guess this?" it feels pretty abrupt to me? I mean, like, sometimes one little sentence can completely change your understanding of something or someone, but here it felt kind of out of the blue and glossed over a bit. If Red's obsession with being the Champion and completing the pokédex had been a bigger theme earlier in the story, I think it would have landed better, but as it was I'm not sure how it fits into the scheme of the overall story. I love that it makes Blue feel like the smaller person and that immediately makes him angry, though.

Later on, Blue's statement that he's not angry with Red anymore and sees him more like a kid strikes me as similar. If you'd drawn more attention to Blue noticing how Red's like his old self, more explicitly shown how Blue's enjoying the battle like it was the Good Old Days, I think it would have come across better to me. You did fine in terms of showing why Blue was enjoying his battle with Gold and drawing parallels to how his fighting resembled how Red used to fight, so writing this battle more like you did that one would probably work great. In the current version I think the revelation again comes on a little too fast and isn't properly built up by what passes before.

Also, I have to admit I find ALLCAPS shouting a bit cheesy.

But on the other hand, like I said, I think you do a good job of showing how thorny and all-consuming Blue's relationship with Red is. And as far as exploring the more thoughtful side of Blue, you definitely accomplished that, without losing the feel that it's Blue we're talking about, here. He may be unusually reflective, but he's still got a wide bratty, arrogant streak. You defintely complexified his character in a believable way, and you played him off Red quite nicely. I think the core of this one-shot is very solid, and aside from issues of polish, it plays out quite nicely.