Negrek
Lost but Seeking
All right, here we go. I first read this back in the summer and quite enjoyed it, which makes it extra dumb that the review is this late, but nevertheless, here we are. I'll start off with a whole bunch of line nitpicks and get into meatier topics at the end.
These next couple sentences are in passive voice, which often reads as unwieldy:
One of my pet peeves is dialogue tags that relate to the content of the dialogue instead of how it's said, which you do now and again. Some examples:
But moving on...
Also, oh no, Shirlee, don't be a troubled alcoholic.
All right, moving on, this fic is a lot of fun! For me the highlight is definitely the interactions between Red and Shirlee; the two of them are so well positioned to play off each other in a hilarious way, and getting to see Red struggle to deal with someone he has to deal with but can't simply murder is a lot of fun. There's plenty of humor here even without Shirlee, but I think she brings out the funniest moments. One of my favorites was definitely when she was blowing up Red's phone with typical gossip about how annoying her co-workers are and Red is like "oh my GOD is she STILL. TEXTING????"
At times I can find Red's narration a little tiring--he definitely lives in his head, and sometimes all the internal narration grates on me, but in general you do a good job of writing a despicable character while still making him entertaining to read about, if only because he ends up being put upon so much of the time. Future ascended God he may aspire to be, but for a future god he seems to have a surprising amount of trouble simply dealing with normal life! Unlike Hunter, Haunted there's less opportunity for Red to do what he really wants, so the tone's more lighthearted overall, and I think you handle it well--this is simply a fun read.
Shirlee is pretty great, too, and I think presents a nice balance between stereotypical out-of-touch starlet and genuine-feeling character. Obviously she gets on Red's nerves, constantly, all the time, but with the information you present for your audience, it's obvious that she has her own problems--like, some pretty substantial ones--and is really clinging to Red because she's lonely and scared and he seems to have some interest in her besides the fame. It's easy to root for her to figure things out and escape from Red's clutches, although unfortunately I don't think that's too likely at this point. She might not die, but I have a feeling her music career's going to take a hit. In any case, her character is a bit of a cariacature in ways, like the whole drug problems, secret insecurities thing is a pretty common riff for pop-star characters, but Shirlee manages to really light up the narrative and works perfectly with the humorous tone of the story; I think she makes a great antagonist.
One thing I might like to see a little more of is Red's interactions with Him. In your sig you describe this story as a love triangle, but it feels to me like there's one leg of the triangle that's been kind of absent in the last few chapters. It makes sense that Red finds it really painful to be around Him when He's just ignoring Red in favor of Shirlee, but aside from a couple of instances it doesn't seem like he's even thinking all that much about li'l Helix, even though He's the entire impetus for Red's crazy Shirlee plan. Like, I wouldn't want him to be angsting about Him all the time, but to me it seems like He's been pretty well absent for a curious amount of time. A little more opportunity to actually see Red's relationship with Him would make it all the more poignant when the situation really does get to him, I think, like where he breaks down at the end of Chapter 10 while trying to pretend that Shirlee is Him. That was a good moment nonetheless; you could almost feel sorry for the guy... but only almost.
There's also a lot of cool worldbuilding in this story, both in terms of connecting it to the TPP lore and your own embellishments on things. Red fearing technology because of his traumatic experiences with the PC (where apparently releasing pokémon actually kills them somehow, or Red thought as much? yikes) makes sense and is a fun nod to his past, as is, of course, the whole Helixean thing. I don't know if you'd ever be inclined to write it, but I think it would be fun to see how Red and LORD HELIX actually met, and how Red became devoted to Him in the first place, but as it is echoes of Red's strange journey continue to run through his entire life, which both feels appropriate and gives the story part of the unique appeal that lets it stand out among fanfics.
The broader world where Pokémon exist in a kind of uneasy place between animals and humans is interesting, too. I can kind of see where you hadn't necessarily thought through what was going on there from the beginning, but overall I think it works as a background against which the story is set. The whole "pokémon start out animalistic but have the potential to develop sapience over time" is a concept I've seen proposed by several different authors, but rarely actually used in stories, and I think it has the potential to make for a really interesting world. Here it doesn't have so much of an impact on the story, since virtually all the pokémon encountered are fully sapient anyway, but nevertheless this story is one of relatively few where pokémon feel like a deeply-integrated part of the world as more than just objects of battle: they can be pop stars, body guards, attend school, and so on, and it helps give the world a very distinct feeling of being a place where humans really do live alongside monsters. Overall just a cool and different dynamic.
I also love details like a sign of inkay evolution being sleeping upside-down or it being possible for pokémon to get everstone implants to prevent evolution. It's interesting because in this story pokémon don't really seem motivated by the whole "become strong" thing that you see in most pokémon stories, where evolution is portrayed as either a universal good, something to strive for, or where a pokémon may angst about it for a bit but it doesn't end up meaning much in the end. Here it just seems like experiencing super-puberty but in a very short space of time, which can't be fun, and you might end up, like, growing extra legs or something, which can't be a lot of fun. It makes a lot of sense that pokémon would be more nervous about it and it might be more popular for the civilized ones to not want to do it at all.
There were some things that felt a little off to me. For example, the dream Red has of getting killed by Arktos struck me as kind of out of place. It's a neat little bait and switch, but as of now I'm not really sure what the point of it is, since obviously it's a dream and has no actual impact on the events of the story or Red's behavior. My only guess at this point is that it might be foreshadowing for what's going to happen when Red goes to meet Shirlee in the near future--like seriously, Shirlee, meeting the guy you're unsure about alone in an alleyway is just freaking dumb, if you don't have some kind of plan--but even then I don't know that that woud be a super important reason to keep it around in any case.
The scene where Red apologizes to Tamaki and a bunch of people from the school start filming felt a little over the top to me. Like, sure, I could see a handful of people being curious or filming things once it became clear what was going on, but the degree to which people were interested in what was going on between these two randos seemed a bit overblown. I mean, you ended up with a literal "and then everybody applauded" moment. I think there's a kind of more believable medium where you have some people who might be particularly nosy or invested in Tamaki or Red (e.g. some of Tamaki's closer friends) hanging around and maybe even filming it, without going to quite such a "crowd gathers and is totally moved by what's going on between these two randos."
I definitely liked that Tamaki wasn't fooled and was only accepting the apology due to peer pressure, though. If you'd literally been beaten up by somebody once a week for like a year(?) and they tried to strangle your ninetales yesterday, I would think it'd take more than that person showing up at your school with a kinda generic apology for you to be ready to let bygones be bygones, haha. I'm curious to see whether Tamaki will show up again later.
And, finally, Red's relationship with his pokémon and other family members strikes me as kind of weird sometimes. Like, he obviously has a pretty serious aversion to technology, whether or not they know how deep it goes (Fonz doesn't really seem to), so seeing him with a cell phone, much less one he's actually using and appears to be talking to some other person with (!) is something I'd expect to arouse much more interest than it does. Like, with Jess catching one of his conversations with Shirlee, it struck me as odd that Jess' comment was about how that obviously wasn't the real Shirlee, rather than oh my GOD you're actually using a PHONE to TEXT SOMEONE, like, willingly??? With the fact that it was some weird Shirlee-impersonator being kind of secondary. Like, I get the impression that Red kind of does his own thing and even avoids interacting with his pseudo-family as much as possible, but there's been seriously weird **** going down for a while now at this point. Like, Fonz is the only one to comment on the freaking limo? Abe isn't more curious about Red's mysterious friend? And li'l Helix is presumably still distracted by Shirlee, but even given his obsession, my impression is that Red used to spend a lot more time with him and give him more preferential treatment than he has been recently... surely that must have registered on some level? Does li'l Helix miss Red at all?
Anyhow, I haven't read Pletora's Story yet, but thus far I'd say Seiren is my favorite of what I've read from you. It has memorable characters, great humor, and I think that the plot has been moving along at a good clip. My guess is we don't have a ton of ground left to cover at this point, and that one way or another Shirlee's going to end up malamarized and out of showbiz. All in all it's kind of a refreshing little story that's very different than the usual fanfic (and even the usual TPP fanfic, I'd guess, heh). It's been a while since you posted a chapter, but I hope you're still planning to continue this one. I'll definitely be sticking around to see the end.
Also, unrelated to the actual story, I do really love the cover art you did for this one. In particular I love Red and Shirlee's expressions and the way you use color to differentiate between them. All in all I think it's a pretty, dynamic composition, and obviously it fits the story perfectly, heh.
Missing a Significant Capital here.
These next couple sentences are in passive voice, which often reads as unwieldy:
"The silence brought by the conversation's end" is kind of clunky in and of itself, but this would probably read more smoothly in active voice: "The winds outside the window fill the silence brought by the conversation's end."
No direct way to rephrase this, but something like "My pulse speeds up again" would read a little more natural, I think.
I think you want "jolt," not "jut."
This is a cute image, the fruit being sad about having to wait. Should be "looks" miserable, though.
Red's... air?
I think you're missing some quotation marks here.
It would be cool to give a couple examples here instead of make this general statement. More vivid, you know?
Okay, I snickered.
This is kind of odd phrasing. "Shirlee likely lacking in wits" is just kind of a convoluted way of describing the situation.
It'd be better to just say "replace *them* with a clean white card." The spot isn't really what Red's replacing, but the drafts.
Not totally sure what's going on here. Ordinarily I wouldn't take "growling wounds" literally, but Red's not all there and that's a supposedly-magical symbol, so I'm not sure. My best guess is he starts scratching the sigil, but it hurts so he stops. The way things are phrased currently, "Gotta get used to that around her" refers to the wounds growling, which I guess if that's supposed to be them stinging means Red needs to get used to having something that hurts carved into his skin, but it took a bit of thought for me to come up with an explanation I thought made sense.
Earlier Shirlee wrote that the video would be posted at 5.00. Did you intend for the two of them to be using two different time notations?
Got confused here because Fonz was saying this and he presumably doesn't do the capitalization thing himself. Red's just "hearing" the caps, yeah? That strikes me as kind of weird, as does putting the significance on "We" when Omanyte is included in a group. Usually caps are only used like that when specifically referencing the revered person, alone.
One of my pet peeves is dialogue tags that relate to the content of the dialogue instead of how it's said, which you do now and again. Some examples:
"Omanyte, yeah," is clearly a correction, so I don't see what you gain out of "I correct."
Again, "Nice to see you" is clearly a greeting, and "I greet" doesn't provide any information about how it's being said, so why use it?
"I announce my presence" is just clunky in addition to being redundant.
Again, it's clear that Red's (re)assuring Shirlee from what he said,
And "patch up" is not even close to being a speech tag, in addition to just reiterating what the dialogue makes clear.
But moving on...
Some kind of typo going on in here.
This is interesting. How do age limits on drinking even work for pokémon, or do they all mature at the same rate as humans? I guess that restaurant just looks the other way when it comes to serving alcohol to minors if they're underage, heh.
Also, oh no, Shirlee, don't be a troubled alcoholic.
You'd generally say "waiting" over "awaiting" in a scenario like this. Usually when you use "awaiting" you mention something specific the person's waiting for, like "awaiting the train" or "awaiting a better answer." If there's no specific thing being waited for, then it's typically just "waiting."
You'd usually say "in search of the source."
Tips of what?
This is a misplaced modifier. Red's the one walking towards the limo, but then the "its" after the comma is supposed to refer to the limo, not to Red. Also should be "opens," not "open." You could fix this by rephrasing to something like, "I walk towards the limo for a while, and one of its doors opens."
This sentence gets a little confusing. Red apparently raises both his hands, but only puts one ("its") on the table? If it was supposed to be both hands, it would be lower them, not lower the, but was he supposed to raise only one hand in the first place?
The air thing again! In some ways I like it, because it kind of suggests that He takes Red for granted, like he's just there without being noticed, like the air someone breathes. But I'm guessing it's actually an idiom that doesn't translate well.
All right, moving on, this fic is a lot of fun! For me the highlight is definitely the interactions between Red and Shirlee; the two of them are so well positioned to play off each other in a hilarious way, and getting to see Red struggle to deal with someone he has to deal with but can't simply murder is a lot of fun. There's plenty of humor here even without Shirlee, but I think she brings out the funniest moments. One of my favorites was definitely when she was blowing up Red's phone with typical gossip about how annoying her co-workers are and Red is like "oh my GOD is she STILL. TEXTING????"
At times I can find Red's narration a little tiring--he definitely lives in his head, and sometimes all the internal narration grates on me, but in general you do a good job of writing a despicable character while still making him entertaining to read about, if only because he ends up being put upon so much of the time. Future ascended God he may aspire to be, but for a future god he seems to have a surprising amount of trouble simply dealing with normal life! Unlike Hunter, Haunted there's less opportunity for Red to do what he really wants, so the tone's more lighthearted overall, and I think you handle it well--this is simply a fun read.
Shirlee is pretty great, too, and I think presents a nice balance between stereotypical out-of-touch starlet and genuine-feeling character. Obviously she gets on Red's nerves, constantly, all the time, but with the information you present for your audience, it's obvious that she has her own problems--like, some pretty substantial ones--and is really clinging to Red because she's lonely and scared and he seems to have some interest in her besides the fame. It's easy to root for her to figure things out and escape from Red's clutches, although unfortunately I don't think that's too likely at this point. She might not die, but I have a feeling her music career's going to take a hit. In any case, her character is a bit of a cariacature in ways, like the whole drug problems, secret insecurities thing is a pretty common riff for pop-star characters, but Shirlee manages to really light up the narrative and works perfectly with the humorous tone of the story; I think she makes a great antagonist.
One thing I might like to see a little more of is Red's interactions with Him. In your sig you describe this story as a love triangle, but it feels to me like there's one leg of the triangle that's been kind of absent in the last few chapters. It makes sense that Red finds it really painful to be around Him when He's just ignoring Red in favor of Shirlee, but aside from a couple of instances it doesn't seem like he's even thinking all that much about li'l Helix, even though He's the entire impetus for Red's crazy Shirlee plan. Like, I wouldn't want him to be angsting about Him all the time, but to me it seems like He's been pretty well absent for a curious amount of time. A little more opportunity to actually see Red's relationship with Him would make it all the more poignant when the situation really does get to him, I think, like where he breaks down at the end of Chapter 10 while trying to pretend that Shirlee is Him. That was a good moment nonetheless; you could almost feel sorry for the guy... but only almost.
There's also a lot of cool worldbuilding in this story, both in terms of connecting it to the TPP lore and your own embellishments on things. Red fearing technology because of his traumatic experiences with the PC (where apparently releasing pokémon actually kills them somehow, or Red thought as much? yikes) makes sense and is a fun nod to his past, as is, of course, the whole Helixean thing. I don't know if you'd ever be inclined to write it, but I think it would be fun to see how Red and LORD HELIX actually met, and how Red became devoted to Him in the first place, but as it is echoes of Red's strange journey continue to run through his entire life, which both feels appropriate and gives the story part of the unique appeal that lets it stand out among fanfics.
The broader world where Pokémon exist in a kind of uneasy place between animals and humans is interesting, too. I can kind of see where you hadn't necessarily thought through what was going on there from the beginning, but overall I think it works as a background against which the story is set. The whole "pokémon start out animalistic but have the potential to develop sapience over time" is a concept I've seen proposed by several different authors, but rarely actually used in stories, and I think it has the potential to make for a really interesting world. Here it doesn't have so much of an impact on the story, since virtually all the pokémon encountered are fully sapient anyway, but nevertheless this story is one of relatively few where pokémon feel like a deeply-integrated part of the world as more than just objects of battle: they can be pop stars, body guards, attend school, and so on, and it helps give the world a very distinct feeling of being a place where humans really do live alongside monsters. Overall just a cool and different dynamic.
I also love details like a sign of inkay evolution being sleeping upside-down or it being possible for pokémon to get everstone implants to prevent evolution. It's interesting because in this story pokémon don't really seem motivated by the whole "become strong" thing that you see in most pokémon stories, where evolution is portrayed as either a universal good, something to strive for, or where a pokémon may angst about it for a bit but it doesn't end up meaning much in the end. Here it just seems like experiencing super-puberty but in a very short space of time, which can't be fun, and you might end up, like, growing extra legs or something, which can't be a lot of fun. It makes a lot of sense that pokémon would be more nervous about it and it might be more popular for the civilized ones to not want to do it at all.
There were some things that felt a little off to me. For example, the dream Red has of getting killed by Arktos struck me as kind of out of place. It's a neat little bait and switch, but as of now I'm not really sure what the point of it is, since obviously it's a dream and has no actual impact on the events of the story or Red's behavior. My only guess at this point is that it might be foreshadowing for what's going to happen when Red goes to meet Shirlee in the near future--like seriously, Shirlee, meeting the guy you're unsure about alone in an alleyway is just freaking dumb, if you don't have some kind of plan--but even then I don't know that that woud be a super important reason to keep it around in any case.
The scene where Red apologizes to Tamaki and a bunch of people from the school start filming felt a little over the top to me. Like, sure, I could see a handful of people being curious or filming things once it became clear what was going on, but the degree to which people were interested in what was going on between these two randos seemed a bit overblown. I mean, you ended up with a literal "and then everybody applauded" moment. I think there's a kind of more believable medium where you have some people who might be particularly nosy or invested in Tamaki or Red (e.g. some of Tamaki's closer friends) hanging around and maybe even filming it, without going to quite such a "crowd gathers and is totally moved by what's going on between these two randos."
I definitely liked that Tamaki wasn't fooled and was only accepting the apology due to peer pressure, though. If you'd literally been beaten up by somebody once a week for like a year(?) and they tried to strangle your ninetales yesterday, I would think it'd take more than that person showing up at your school with a kinda generic apology for you to be ready to let bygones be bygones, haha. I'm curious to see whether Tamaki will show up again later.
And, finally, Red's relationship with his pokémon and other family members strikes me as kind of weird sometimes. Like, he obviously has a pretty serious aversion to technology, whether or not they know how deep it goes (Fonz doesn't really seem to), so seeing him with a cell phone, much less one he's actually using and appears to be talking to some other person with (!) is something I'd expect to arouse much more interest than it does. Like, with Jess catching one of his conversations with Shirlee, it struck me as odd that Jess' comment was about how that obviously wasn't the real Shirlee, rather than oh my GOD you're actually using a PHONE to TEXT SOMEONE, like, willingly??? With the fact that it was some weird Shirlee-impersonator being kind of secondary. Like, I get the impression that Red kind of does his own thing and even avoids interacting with his pseudo-family as much as possible, but there's been seriously weird **** going down for a while now at this point. Like, Fonz is the only one to comment on the freaking limo? Abe isn't more curious about Red's mysterious friend? And li'l Helix is presumably still distracted by Shirlee, but even given his obsession, my impression is that Red used to spend a lot more time with him and give him more preferential treatment than he has been recently... surely that must have registered on some level? Does li'l Helix miss Red at all?
Anyhow, I haven't read Pletora's Story yet, but thus far I'd say Seiren is my favorite of what I've read from you. It has memorable characters, great humor, and I think that the plot has been moving along at a good clip. My guess is we don't have a ton of ground left to cover at this point, and that one way or another Shirlee's going to end up malamarized and out of showbiz. All in all it's kind of a refreshing little story that's very different than the usual fanfic (and even the usual TPP fanfic, I'd guess, heh). It's been a while since you posted a chapter, but I hope you're still planning to continue this one. I'll definitely be sticking around to see the end.
Also, unrelated to the actual story, I do really love the cover art you did for this one. In particular I love Red and Shirlee's expressions and the way you use color to differentiate between them. All in all I think it's a pretty, dynamic composition, and obviously it fits the story perfectly, heh.
