Oh my Arceus, you are getting even better in this and really, you are the master of handling emotions and psychology of the characters. It's rare to find fics with such great view of realistic characters. I love this. Many scenes were painful to read because they were well written and conveyed the pain exactly the way it should be. The only complain I have is for describing blood and wound as rubies. Blood does not look like rubies. At most they look like impure cinnabar ore, but no, not even. Blood is blood. But after all the nitpick this is the only thing that bothered me. You know how to pace the plot, how to set the intensity of scenes, the tone and all that. You know how to punctuate (voc?) the emotions. You give each character distinct, strong personality that fit with canon. You conveyed the pride of a child who first saw the frightening illusions of the world crumble and reveal truth and vulnerability. You remember the age of the characters and write them the way they should be. I'm seen too many fics were 10 year-old act like young adults, so I'm glad that you wrote them as real children. Really smart children, but children nonetheless, with all the naivety and simpleness of children. And you put the right contrasts to them: Archer and Giovanni. They are adults who have more complex thoughts. Archer knew how to inhibit his desires to punish the children because he knew his place. Giovanni knew how humans work. Green, on the other hand, talked to Giovanni like to another ordinary person and saw all as games and game rules. He saw only acts and consequences, no human motivations and complex desires and inhibition of desires. And both children did what they want to do, without a series of value-assignment and inhibition. And I love how honest your story is. And all the conditioning trainings are dead on. I suppose you study psychology? Or just pay attention to that sort of thing? Either way, you did good research and application of it.
I have to however ask if Red's perception of 'Pokemon does not deceive' will end up betray him somehow. Many pokemon knew how to deceive. I mean, there's mawile, the deceit pokemon. There was the gastly who pretended to be the ghost of a young woman to help the real ghost and make money at the same time by selling fake wards. There's Meowth of Team Rocket.
Sorry, my comment was a mess. But really, I'm excited to see good fanfiction. Thank you for writing this.
Your comments are always a good mixture of constructive criticism and praise, so I can always learn a thing or two from them. I really appreciate that.
That being said, the fact that you commented positively on my characterization of Green and Red puts me at ease. I'll admit that I had a lot of worries about this. I'm not too experienced in writing from a child's perspective and was concerned that I might make them seem like they were, like you mentioned, young adults. I was hoping that I could skirt by on the grace of them being geniuses (who else could win the Championship as ten-year-olds?), but it seems that I've somehow succeeded in keeping them in character. I hope I can keep this up. This fic takes place over the course of a decade, so I'm hoping that I can keep pacing their developments appropriately.
I was originally going to devote a lot more time detailing the conditioning process, but I had to cut it back due to time constraints and the fact that I didn't want to split what was originally a single chapter into three chapters. In reality, I'm a Creative Writing major/prospective Biology minor who's currently seeking a second major to round myself off. I have studied psychology before though, so I knew that the transformation, particularly Green's, had to be paced appropriately.
About the rubies... in retrospect, that was a bit purple of me. My intention was to compare the blood to rubies in order to grant an insight into how "precious" the sight of Archer bleeding was to Green... Obviously, it didn't really work out.
I'm glad you're interested in this and are enjoying it. This is a very demanding project, mostly because I keep adding layer upon layer to it. I've mentioned that one of the reasons I'm doing this is to make each of the characters nuanced and sympathetic in some way, but it's also because I'm going to be adding some political, cultural, diplomatic, and ethical depth to the fic in the next few updates... that's the History nerd in me shining through, I guess.
Again, thank you so much for your comment and the constructive criticism! I hope you are as pleased with what's to come!
And in response to your question about Red (sorry, I hadn't noticed that I left it unanswered before):
Yes and no. I know I might draw a lot of criticism for the direction I'll be taking Red in this fic. I'll probably draw some for what I do with Green too, but I think that relative to the games, maybe the direction I take Red is the most out of character.
I'm not going to say where I take him, but I will say that it has a lot to do with this perception of his and the environment he's been thrust into.
I think Red operates on the presumption that there are no bad pokémon, just bad trainers that make their pokémon bad. I watched the episode where Meowth explains this to the other pokémon a long time ago (I believe it's the one where they get separated from their trainers and have to fend for themselves against those robotic pokémon), but it stuck with me.
Sorry that I skirted around your question, but the best answer I can give is... wait and see? That's a cop-out, I know, but I don't want to spoil it for you.
I have to however ask if Red's perception of 'Pokemon does not deceive' will end up betray him somehow. Many pokemon knew how to deceive. I mean, there's mawile, the deceit pokemon. There was the gastly who pretended to be the ghost of a young woman to help the real ghost and make money at the same time by selling fake wards. There's Meowth of Team Rocket.
Sorry, my comment was a mess. But really, I'm excited to see good fanfiction. Thank you for writing this.
Reply
That being said, the fact that you commented positively on my characterization of Green and Red puts me at ease. I'll admit that I had a lot of worries about this. I'm not too experienced in writing from a child's perspective and was concerned that I might make them seem like they were, like you mentioned, young adults. I was hoping that I could skirt by on the grace of them being geniuses (who else could win the Championship as ten-year-olds?), but it seems that I've somehow succeeded in keeping them in character. I hope I can keep this up. This fic takes place over the course of a decade, so I'm hoping that I can keep pacing their developments appropriately.
I was originally going to devote a lot more time detailing the conditioning process, but I had to cut it back due to time constraints and the fact that I didn't want to split what was originally a single chapter into three chapters. In reality, I'm a Creative Writing major/prospective Biology minor who's currently seeking a second major to round myself off. I have studied psychology before though, so I knew that the transformation, particularly Green's, had to be paced appropriately.
About the rubies... in retrospect, that was a bit purple of me. My intention was to compare the blood to rubies in order to grant an insight into how "precious" the sight of Archer bleeding was to Green... Obviously, it didn't really work out.
I'm glad you're interested in this and are enjoying it. This is a very demanding project, mostly because I keep adding layer upon layer to it. I've mentioned that one of the reasons I'm doing this is to make each of the characters nuanced and sympathetic in some way, but it's also because I'm going to be adding some political, cultural, diplomatic, and ethical depth to the fic in the next few updates... that's the History nerd in me shining through, I guess.
Again, thank you so much for your comment and the constructive criticism! I hope you are as pleased with what's to come!
Reply
Yes and no. I know I might draw a lot of criticism for the direction I'll be taking Red in this fic. I'll probably draw some for what I do with Green too, but I think that relative to the games, maybe the direction I take Red is the most out of character.
I'm not going to say where I take him, but I will say that it has a lot to do with this perception of his and the environment he's been thrust into.
I think Red operates on the presumption that there are no bad pokémon, just bad trainers that make their pokémon bad. I watched the episode where Meowth explains this to the other pokémon a long time ago (I believe it's the one where they get separated from their trainers and have to fend for themselves against those robotic pokémon), but it stuck with me.
Sorry that I skirted around your question, but the best answer I can give is... wait and see? That's a cop-out, I know, but I don't want to spoil it for you.
Reply
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