[1:41 AM] Manifold: Your birthday approaching was a good way to help me follow through on what I meant to read way back in December. Apologies for the delay in getting to your fics, and Happy Birthday once again! =)

Passerine

-Some of my bullet points will apply to both to Passerine and Pompeii, when it comes to your prose and style. It'll come up multiple times, but you have a strong ability to craft a setting itself as a character, rather than a backdrop to your stories, and I'll try to point this out several times when it comes to mind as I go back through the fics to sort my thoughts for commenting.

-This applies to the way you describe Kanto, of course. Some of the playful jabs you take at Kanto (people fall back on it) are missed on the first read through, since this is before the reader is fully aware of the idea behind the story. That's not a problem, since those digs are loud and clear later on.

-But even on first read through, what really stood out for me, and what makes Kanto begin to feel like a character on its own, is as you go to the idea of the eternal daylight and the interesting consequences like Sunny Day Teams and Eevee evolutions. The connection to the gameplay is immediately clear, but it also heavily promotes the idea of time not progressing linearly in a straight arrow, and a feeling of stagnance/repetition, which prepares the reader to more strongly connect with the meat of the story. It makes Kanto feel like an active agent in shaping the context of the narrative.
[1:41 AM] Manifold: "When she speaks with Gloria, morning glory, gentle things like petals and bourbon in the dim, she can’t help but be a little mean when the conversation drifts." Kind of a funky sentence structurally, but I like how the imagery sprinkles in.

-I'm dumb and just forgot that Gloria was the SwSh protag default name until just now, and maybe that explains why you may have been a little more loose in this passage with that extra leniency, but I admittedly did have a hard time tracking whether Gloria was supposed to be the trainer from Galar or Kanto at first. I found my bearings initially, and now that I've had my epiphany, it probably was obvious for everyone else to begin with. Either way, this was a small thing, not a huge flaw.

-The discussion of how their regions' respective in-game-plots is so fun and silly. Despite the peculiarities of the setting beforehand, I think this is the part that really got me wondering wait, what's going on here. Although it's interesting, getting to talk to you more first before reading your fics probably helped me catch quicker, because I come in with awareness of what you're about.

-lmao when they blatantly start saying "arcs"
[1:42 AM] Manifold: -double lmao at the toast to character arcs

-Overall I think your penchant for how you sprinkle in more loftier images against what's more concrete in the dialogue works well with you stylistically (will end up rambling about your writing style in the Pompeii section). As I said before, "gentle things like petals and bourbon in the dim" was a hit for me. "Like the city in Johto, and then like the flower, and never like the color" was also a hit for me. There were a couple times where it got a little loose for me, like it works for me for two-thirds of the sentence but in the last third I loose my ground (ex: the "flower, sun, wind, reach for the moon" statement that leads to several embedded parentheticals).

-Then you lay your cards down on the table for everyone to see them in the next section, and it's amusing to see you dissect everything about the relationship Nuzlocke narratives have to their deaths. All of which people generally understand, but a fair amount of which gets left unsaid by people normally.

-My favorite and the funniest aspect to this for me is how she contemplates shaping the narrative about hiding the Pidgey's death/existence, since it's not like readers have to know. LOL at “I should’ve built up to it. This one won’t count.” So relatable

-I see that Impulse reference with the Rapidash

-This is where the sense of stagnance / cycling that you established earlier with the opening description of Kanto really pays off imo, because I feel bad watching Violet locked inside this situation.
[1:42 AM] Manifold: -The part where she's studiously breaking down the right amount of deaths and pacing it is such a fun shot at how nuzlockers massage their runs into narratives. Whether the author or artist wants to admit or not, the gameplay of most runs probably did not emerge as naturally into their narratives as they would like, and all the creators in some way end up engaging in the relationship to the story genre and gameplay expectations that you've fleshed out here.

-The way you hold off on definitively stating the second character in the section with Green is "Violet," then revealing, is an effective way to reinforce the cyclical nature you set up in the first section.

-It's an interesting ending! The agency behind "Violet can do anything" is strong and resonant, especially as you've repeated this throughout the story a few times, which is a lovely touch. In some ways, it feels what's missing is, well, the character arc (lol) of Violet as she wrestles with the problems depicted in the conversation with Green and emerges on the other side of it free from the grip of the Nuzlocke genre and its narratives. But of course, if we had all that in-between and we had that full arc available to us, it might on the surface seem more fully satisfying as a story, but it might make Violet's escape hollow, as she would've been subject to a different kind of narrative. So I definitely don't disagree with how you tackled it, and I think what you went for is stylistically more you anyway (which I'm about to get into).

-Miscellaneous thoughts: The trainergloria avatar on the forums is hilarious to me. And it's amusing that this is your parting fic to the community basically (although I'm guessing you're still going to go back to Dog Days at some point).
[1:42 AM] Manifold: Pompeii

-Gonna start with the broad stuff about form, prose, style, etc. before getting into content for the most part, because right at the end of Passerine and right at the start of the Pompeii comment seems like a good in between time for stuff that's largely applicable to both, but especially to Pompeii.

-Your writing style occupies a very interesting space, which is that I feel it covers two very disparate spaces and goes between them. And I'm not sure which came first here, the stories you prefer to write or the style you write them with, and which influenced the other, but I think the combination works well.

-To start, I think you are very comfortable with a wide, broad view with a high amount of narrative distance. This is where I think your loftier imagery really shines, since it works well in conjunction with what I said earlier about how you can make a setting an active participant in a story. This faraway narrative distance also allows us to see the characters as how they fit the broader arc of the setting, rather than their own personal arcs, which again works well when you're navigating how these characters live in worlds with cycles and repeats.

-Your second mode, I feel, is when you zoom in up close, and these sections are almost always dialogue intensive. The way you connect these two moods creates an interesting stylistic effect that has a couple of implications, some positive and some negative, but again I think the fit to your stories is really good. The dialogue moments heighten those personal moments, and in the way that the faraway view lets us see how characters navigate the rules of their world, your up close view lets us see how the emotional impact of this setting (Passerine's cyclical nature and nuzlocke genre demands, or the eventual revelation of Pompeii's past apocalypse that got rebuilt into ORAS) affects the characters.
[1:42 AM] Manifold: -Structurally, I notice you take a moment, write it to its fullest, and then move to the next moment, rather than focus on the thread that travels between the moments, if that makes sense. It's definitely an approach more common in fanfic (not that there's anything wrong with that; it's also much better suited for the medium, especially in one-shots). Static vs. dynamic is the wrong dichotomy to apply here, (static is usually used negatively in a writing context, which isn't what I'm trying to say), but I guess is what I'm trying to say is that each of your individual scenes are frozen in a moment of time and emotion, and the development is seen as the motion from one scene to the next, rather than the scenes themselves being the site of development. I hope this makes sense, and again, it's not a flaw, just an observation.

-A reason I want to bring that structure up is again, I think you're successful with it in Passerine and especially Pompeii, because it works well with your story (it's "about nothing," as you say), and because it works with your stylistic tendencies that I outlined earlier. Because you write these individual moments in this fashion, I think a lot of their effect on the reader hinges on the power of your descriptive imagery. Which, as I guess you probably know, is a strength of your prose especially when you get loftier and again, bring the setting into the forefront as a character through your imagery and narrative distance. It's great! Big fic so I think listing out excerpts of imagery and going through them is inadvisable if I want to finish the comment.

-One potential shortcoming of this approach is I do think it admittedly lends itself to repetitive elements at times, but I think this is mitigated by these being one-shots. There are some sentence structures and bits of imagery that imo get overly recycled, but again, within the space of 15k words, it holds up and is sustainable.
[1:43 AM] Manifold: -She doesn't usually write this way, but there are a couple short stories by my favorite author where I feel she employs a similar stylistic approach. The first is "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," which is basically entirely in your first mode stylistically as it's about describing the city of Omelas. The second, which might be my favorite LeGuin short story, is "Unlocking the Air." It's beautifully written and I think it has similar tendencies as you when it comes to going between the city-view and the up-close dialogue intensive passages.

-Okay, let's get back to what actually happens in the story!

-Actually, first I have to say that Gen 3 games are my least favorite, and when I picked up ORAS, I was like why does this game even exist and put it down after the fifth gym. Well now, if the reason ORAS exists is as the New World after the End of the Old World, I'm okay with that lol

-I definitely came into the story waiting for the apocalypse to happen, and the chill beginning of the story definitely tricks the reader into thinking this is the calm before the storm, but then I realized wait, it's you, which means the apocalypse must've already happened. Knowing you probably had me catch it on earlier than I was supposed to, but May commenting with active awareness about Brawly's change in skin tone was what first cued me into what must've happened.

-It's fun to look through the first part of the journey and see, underneath the chill, the moments where May cracks under the pressure of her knowledge. Sometimes it's fun, like when she's interacting with Brawly or Flannery, but the Lisia section was an interesting look inside of May's head.
[1:43 AM] olivinearc: OH I GOT A COMMMMMENT
[1:43 AM] Manifold: -The Steven scene where you have to deal with the Kecleon is obviously where it's confirmed, and I think you nailed the emotional gravity of this scene. Watching May crumble as Steven insists on repeating his lines was heartbreaking, and the outpour of emotion from May resonated as I read it. And the fact that Steven keeps fucking going even as she's in her breakdown drives it home.

-I think I personally would've liked to see a little more of the scene where May returns to the primal orbs and puts this part to rest, as this seems to me like it would've been an essential part to the process of recovering and moving forward to the new lives they live.

-I do love the content that is in the scene, however, and thought your descriptive prose when she's at the orbs and turns left and right, and what she sees, is fantastic here. One thing that I think is uniquely effective about this scene is it's actually a moment where you're not in one of your two most common stylistic modes of writing.

-Awww, Steven and May getting together is cute! All I really have to say about that haha

-You've probably heard this, but it's so chill for a story about the people who remember the apocalypse of their old world. Nowhere near as traumatic as I thought. But it's pleasant how well it works, and to see how they come to peace with and find enjoyment living in the ORAS Hoenn, and again I think it has to do with your stylistic tendencies in writing.

-Most important point: I enjoyed both of these stories and hope you do more prose-based fiction in the future =)
[1:43 AM] Manifold: 2 comments!
[1:43 AM] Manifold: happy birthday
[1:43 AM] Manifold: also lmfao i copy pasted the very last part just in time
[1:43 AM] Manifold: before you dmed
[1:43 AM] Manifold: so it is Unbroken
[1:43 AM] olivinearc: STARES