girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Feb 20, 2020 23:34:02 GMT
Welcome to the forums! And it’s an interesting offering you’ve brought with you, isn’t it. There’s a lot here that’s instantly familiar – Koda is every bit a noir protagonist, a bit of a grouch, world-weary, cynical in the sense of ‘shorthand for "I’ve been burned"’ – and a lot that’s not: the mass PMDification, for instance. It’s an immediately striking setting, with a lot of obvious, messy and far-reaching consequences that I’m looking forward to seeing explored as the fic goes on.
Not least of which are the effects on Koda. The change is there constantly in the narration; Koda can’t seem to stop thinking about it, can’t stop saying ‘this is different to before, that’s something that doesn’t work the same way as it used to, this is harder, that’s easier’. It’s omnipresent. And like, as well it should be, given the massive individual and collective trauma of mass transformation into pokémon. You can totally see why Koda’s so obsessed by it.
And we’re very much in Koda’s head the whole time. Maybe a little too much, actually; a lot of what happens is related at what feels like some remove from the actuality of it. The incident in the park with the lurantis, for instance, is viewed almost like something Koda remembers rather than something we actually witnessed. It might’ve been a good scene to show as it happened, rather than just as pure narration – it would have shown off Koda’s personality and situated everything a bit better if we’d seen dialogue, action, that sort of thing. That’s probably the main thing overall, I guess – maybe the parcelling out of information could be a bit smoother, especially since we sorta just get told who Moxie is and what she's about at the end there without actually seeing any of it in action.
But honestly, I’m mostly here to see where all this is going! I quite like a noir story, and you don’t often see those in this fandom. I’ll be watching this one with interest.
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Dtmahanen
Witnessing (and participating in) shenanigans
Posts: 123
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Post by Dtmahanen on Apr 3, 2020 22:57:01 GMT
If that doesn't scream noir, I don't know what will.
Anyway, I have to say, this is radically different than any PMD-esque setting I've ever seen. It's not often that one finds a story about the game-verse and PMD colliding in some. way, so to have the people of Sinnoh start to actively transform into pokémon is a very cool concept. And it seems like it has shades of a post-apocalypse, what with cars no longer populating the streets and reporters predicting the end of civilization as they know it. Honestly, it leads to an atmosphere of mystery, which is friggin' perfect for a noir story.
Now, as for the more technical aspects of the story, I agree with girl-like-substance that there's quite a bit of narration, but I think that actually works to help set the tone. It lends to a more brooding and distant atmosphere, so I'm not gonna complain about it too much. Would I have liked to see some dialogue? Sure, but that's just because I really like reading and writing it, so to each their own.
However, one aspect of the writing that I think could use a bit of work is your sentence length. In particular, it's that you have a lot of run-on sentences. For example:
It would probably flow better if you ended this sentence — which is the first sentence of the story — at "life", and begin the next sentence on the "Of course". It might serve you well to take a look at the story as you have it and find other examples of this, because there are quite a few.
Aside from that, though, I'm definitely very interested in seeing how this will turn out! I look forward to more.
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Post by admin on Apr 12, 2020 2:49:49 GMT
Man, not to echo what the others have said so far, this is like a mash-up of two things I'm into: noir detective-ish fic and transformation shenanigans. Like, that entire first scene is just my jam, with this very introspective, just a touch depressing look at Koda in his natural element (that is, hanging out in an office). It just feels like it's one coquettish dame or frantic victim short of a pulpy detective novel, and I'm here for it. Granted, you actually gave us something much more interesting in the form of that article with the changed ending there. Quite honestly and to put it in short at that, that whole first scene is an excellent way to springboard the rest of the story. You have your conspiracy, you have that uncertainty in Koda's mind (about whether he's misremembering the article or something much more sinister is up), and you have every motivation for him to go out and investigate this further (his idol's words have just been changed for a reason he can't put into words, after all). It's like you plopped down a rabbit hole with a neon sign that reads "BUCKLE UP, FOR THIS IS THE PLOT," and it's great.
And of course, you throw in transformations too, which is always fun in my book. Not only is it laced with mystery (and conspiracy) in itself, but you also have, as girl-like-substance pointed out, a protagonist who is clearly fixated on this. I mean, sure, it makes sense that he would be, given that he's been forced into this strange body for reasons he and the rest of the world have yet to figure out, so although he's apparently been like this for long enough to figure out his powers and how to navigate this apparently drastically changed world, it's still a question for his naturally curious mind—one that, judging from the first scene, he might just take more of an active stance in answering.
I do have to admit that I agree with girl-like-substance on the subject of the second scene, though, and in fact, the lurantis bit was exactly what I was going to point to to describe what's going on. Like, don't get me wrong. I love worldbuilding, and it's clear through Koda's description of the transformation pandemic that this is a world rich with detail, one that you've put a lot of effort into putting together. I even love how much thought you've put into everything. It's just that for that entire scene, we're not really allowed to "observe" what's going on; rather, we're simply told things happened. Think of it like this: with the lurantis scene, we're only told in a brief paragraph that this mugging happened. It's just an off-handed thing, so it gets a little lost in the details Koda is relating to us regarding the history of his world. A stronger angle would have been to have this play out like any other story, where Koda sees the lurantis being mugged and approaches. You'd describe what Koda did to chase off the attacker or comfort the lurantis, then you'd follow up with some dialogue between the lurantis and Koda, to allow Koda to get that information about how the lurantis had just changed. Maybe you'd even have a bit of a scene in which Koda leads the lurantis to a police station but immediately ducks out. Either way, you'd focus a lot on the action, rather than on simply telling us what happened. Show instead of tell, in other words.
The main reason why this is important is because you'll want to break up a lot of what you're saying in that scene. After a while, your story feels a little slow because it feels like the focus is less on a story and more on teaching us something. It may even be a good idea to break up the history of your world into chunks that you distribute throughout your story, wherever it's most immediately relevant to the action. Either way, focusing more on describing what Koda is doing at any given moment and less on the worldbuilding will help you create more of a dynamic story that holds a reader's attention and drives them forward through the plot.
Finally, I also caught the same issue with run-ons that Dtmahanen caught. My advice there is to read your work aloud as you edit, right before posting, but as you do, treat every comma like a short breath and every period like a long breath. If anything feels like it's going on for too long, you may want to replace a comma with a period instead.
Best of luck with this! I'll keep an eye on it because heck yeah, noir transformation fics. 8)
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Zorquil the Fluffy
Excuse me while I catch up and comment on all the fiction!
Posts: 35
Pronouns: Any pronoun allowed! Usually he/him or they/them.
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Post by Zorquil the Fluffy on Apr 15, 2020 22:50:44 GMT
Okay, so I wrote up a review earlier, but I forgot to post it. Which means that I got a second chance to read through it again!~
I'll try not to repeat what was said with "run-ons" and how amazing the world-building is. I do want to mention the great analogy you have with your story-telling: Koda, having a distant and unconnected feel to the world, really does ooze within this story. A lot of it is him being obsessed with what occurred, and it's really emphasized with how the Lurantis scene doesn't feel like something that happened within that moment, but felt like another memory he's going through and how disconnected he feels with the world and sees it as "another event". There's a bit of a strong "tell, don't show", which can get monotonous and preachy as Minty described, but it also further emphasizes Koda's personality and reporting style of "stating the facts".
It's interesting though since there are two big mysteries presented: the transformation of humans into Pokémon, and why many Pokémon went wild and ran away. These two aren't really connected on a surface level, but the fact it was brought up before the transformation stuff intrigued me. What if the organization separating trained Pokémon from their trainers was also spreading the "virus" of making humans into Pokémon? If so, why would they use this "virus" as a distraction instead of going for something easier? Is the evil organization planning something bigger with how trained Pokémon turned wild by stripping away humanity from these transformed humans? Or did a freak accident happen to cause this "virus"? There's a lot of vagueness and intrigue within those two premises, and the way you describe how the "virus" spread only further brings speculation of the cause. In other words, this is a well-crafted Noir story since you offered something for us to dwell on, making us want more.
Overall, I enjoyed this story! I hope to see more of this world built and more of the mystery expanded on!
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Post by Manchee on Apr 16, 2020 20:09:40 GMT
Wow! When I read your intro about the PMD element in this, I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect. But this was unlike any other PMD works I’ve seen and also unlike a lot of normal fics I’ve read. I looooove the overall tone! It kept giving me a very noir vibe, and I could totally picture the setting that you created here. I think a big part of this came from the first-person narration. I always felt like I was right there behind it, watching over their shoulder everything that was happening. And the way they described everything felt very reporter-like, which lent well to that noir vibe. Very, very nice!
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