[Pokémon] J... E... I... D... V... E... R... S... I... O... N...

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Although I am interested to see what the story is the main character has to tell, I have to say I was mostly confused by the opening all in all.

Firstly though - I'll say that the presentation seemed off to me. The centring of the story felt unnecessary and kinda distracted from the story as well - not sure why it wasn't just as normal (as in, on the left-hand-side of the post) and it can be harder to read for people as well, especially if they are not used to reading stuff in the middle of the post box all of a sudden. I also feel that the use of italics/bold/underline was a bit overdone as well - although a bit can be good it seemed to be used too much for my liking - such as in one line where there was three different instances of it in the one sentence to little effect when imho nothing at all with formatting would have been fine too.

That, and if you tried to throw in some Kanji or the like:

⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣
EN PREDIVINIATO
⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣⏣

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the forums didn't like it and turned it all into small boxes with question marks around 'EN PREDIVINIATO' which seemed confusing to me, and nor did I understand the part that wasn't made up of boxes either. Furthermore - what would the point of said kanji be for the story anyway? Maybe it's be neat if you say explained what it meant in author's notes at the least (assuming you could get said Japanese to be posted on the forums, and assuming that was Japanese rather than just boxes with question marks =p) but otherwise I can't say many readers would know it and hence it'd just seem out of place or thrown in for the heck of it.

The story in short also, well, confused me - I'll just quote this bit here...

There has not been a blue sky for almost two hundred years."

I was very young at the time, perhaps six at most. So like any six year old, I believed it at once despite all evidence to the contrary.

At that moment, my sunny day shattered.

At that moment, I saw Objectivity.

At that moment, I became a player in this world's deadliest game.

At the moment, I was born.

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I'm not really understanding for instance why 'like any six year old' that he believed this at once - what reason would he have to believe that there hadn't been a blue sky for 200 years beyond the fact that it was written on a piece of paper? I didn't really buy that he would believe it just like that - not all young children I know are quite so accepting after all. Why would that also shatter his day and let him see 'Objectivity' as well as make him born? It just seemed too confusing and vague to be deep or meaningful or the like to me, but maybe that's just me - but it seems too much to swallow that a six year old suddenly understood the world's lies or the such from that sentence alone. =/

What I am about to tell you...

Is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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Besides the formatting thing I mentioned, I'm not sure why there is a need to separate into two sentences/lines as well as-is - the ellipse doesn't really completely end the sentence imo as it just sounds better as one sentence (ie '...tell you is the truth, the whole truth and...').

In all it's horrible beauty...

And all it's beautiful horror.

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its rather than it's (it is).

One last note:

The story will be told from the perspective of an OC.

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You mentioned that you had been writing this for years so using that assumption then you'd have started this before the canon character N was revealed to be in Black/White, so I take it the N in your fic is not the same, but if so I would advise considering changing the name, as readers may easily assume your N is the same as Black/White's N. Unless you mean for it to be that way which is confusing given the 'writing for years' comment.

So I guess that's all I have to say in this not-really-positive review, but that's my take on it anyway. It's not a bad concept and basis but I feel the presentation could use some work and still am confused by the main bit I quoted.

bobandbill, thanks for reviewing my story. My reply follows.

bobandbill said:

Although I am interested to see what the story is the main character has to tell, I have to say I was mostly confused by the opening all in all.

Firstly though - I'll say that the presentation seemed off to me. The centring of the story felt unnecessary and kinda distracted from the story as well - not sure why it wasn't just as normal (as in, on the left-hand-side of the post) and it can be harder to read for people as well, especially if they are not used to reading stuff in the middle of the post box all of a sudden. I also feel that the use of italics/bold/underline was a bit overdone as well - although a bit can be good it seemed to be used too much for my liking - such as in one line where there was three different instances of it in the one sentence to little effect when imho nothing at all with formatting would have been fine too.

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The centreing is meant to establish a different atmosphere from the main narrative, which will be left-aligned. I'll try to think of a better way to do that, but for the meantime it has to stay.

Those are some valid points, and I've changed the text in response. I had to keep some of the bolds, italics, and underlines there, because they're there for a reason. If you've ever heard of Umineko no naku koro ni, the concept is something like the coloured text in that game.

bobandbill said:

That, and if you tried to throw in some Kanji or the like:
the forums didn't like it and turned it all into small boxes with question marks around 'EN PREDIVINIATO' which seemed confusing to me, and nor did I understand the part that wasn't made up of boxes either. Furthermore - what would the point of said kanji be for the story anyway? Maybe it's be neat if you say explained what it meant in author's notes at the least (assuming you could get said Japanese to be posted on the forums, and assuming that was Japanese rather than just boxes with question marks =p) but otherwise I can't say many readers would know it and hence it'd just seem out of place or thrown in for the heck of it.

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Actually, those weird characters were not kanji. They're a somewhat obscure symbol called "benzene ring with circle". It looks nice, so I was using them as text-separations, seeing as I can't use the html horizontal line tag here... But I forgot that most people wouldn't be able to see them. The question marks and so forth were caused by your computer lacking a font capable of rendering the characters. I'll try to change them for something a little more universal.

bobandbill said:

I'm not really understanding for instance why 'like any six year old' that he believed this at once - what reason would he have to believe that there hadn't been a blue sky for 200 years beyond the fact that it was written on a piece of paper? I didn't really buy that he would believe it just like that - not all young children I know are quite so accepting after all. Why would that also shatter his day and let him see 'Objectivity' as well as make him born? It just seemed too confusing and vague to be deep or meaningful or the like to me, but maybe that's just me - but it seems too much to swallow that a six year old suddenly understood the world's lies or the such from that sentence alone. =/

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I based that on how I acted when I was a kid. Of course a kid won't automatically believe any random fact, but when I was young, I would always trust first, before thinking about it more and finding any contradictions in something fallacious. Now, I find myself distrusting everything until I can find evidence to back it up.

Anyway, that instant of belief was all that was required to change everything. Regarding the comments about the sunny day shattering and so forth... I really can't say anything. They're plot relevant details. I can promise you that everything will be revealed over the course of the story, though. Clues will begin even in the prologue (Which follows the presentiment, which you just read).

bobandbill said:

Besides the formatting thing I mentioned, I'm not sure why there is a need to separate into two sentences/lines as well as-is - the ellipse doesn't really completely end the sentence imo as it just sounds better as one sentence (ie '...tell you is the truth, the whole truth and...').
its rather than it's (it is).

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It's sort of... an idea about negative space I have? Basically, the separation onto multiple lines is meant to convey they same type of pause that you normally get with a colon, but allowing me to separate certain elements of the text onto different lines. Regarding the ellipses, I wasn't using them as the end of a sentence and trail-off to silence, but as a very long pause inside the sentence.

Guess neither of those worked too well...

bobandbill said:

One last note:
You mentioned that you had been writing this for years so using that assumption then you'd have started this before the canon character N was revealed to be in Black/White, so I take it the N in your fic is not the same, but if so I would advise considering changing the name, as readers may easily assume your N is the same as Black/White's N. Unless you mean for it to be that way which is confusing given the 'writing for years' comment.

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This is why I should never write introductory posts to a story after being awake for thirty six hours. I meant "building the world of my setting" for years. I only actually started on the story proper recently.

N is the N from black and white, or at least this universe's version of him. He wasn't there originally, but I decided to include him later on because it worked, it's going to let me do some things that I was struggling to integrate into the story by any other means, it didn't require me to change too much, and those changes caused no plot holes. He's the "narrator", but once he begins telling the story, it is narrated from an OC's perspective. Sorry for the confusion.

bobandbill said:

So I guess that's all I have to say in this not-really-positive review, but that's my take on it anyway. It's not a bad concept and basis but I feel the presentation could use some work and still am confused by the main bit I quoted.

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Thanks for the review. I appreciate the time you took to go through and critique the work.

愛点三三 said:

The centring is meant to establish a different atmosphere from the main narrative, which will be left-aligned. I'll try to think of a better way to do that, bot for the meantime it has to stay.

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Making it right-aligned does not help. Actually, it makes it worse. For lack of a better word, what you have here is an eyesore. As for it being about atmosphere, you can do that perfectly well just by writing in different voice; you don't have to mess around with the formatting. I think very few people who come across this story are going to bother with it the way it is laid out now. I would advise you to forget about creative formatting, even if you think it adds something to the story, because it will come across to most readers as gimmicky and distracting.

icomeanon6 said:

Making it right-aligned does not help. Actually, it makes it worse. For lack of a better word, what you have here is an eyesore. As for it being about atmosphere, you can do that perfectly well just by writing in different voice; you don't have to mess around with the formatting. I think very few people who come across this story are going to bother with it the way it is laid out now. I would advise you to forget about creative formatting, even if you think it adds something to the story, because it will come across to most readers as gimmicky and distracting.

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You caught me between edits there. I was testing it out, and as you observed, it's quite a bit worse than putting it on the centre, almost being at the level of cringe-worthy. I used to have a blog, and the theme I used centre-aligned all of the text. I wrote a lot there, and revised a lot too. Perhaps that's why that alignment doesn't feel as discordant to me as it seems to be for everyone else?

At any rate, I'll try to see if I can develop an intrinsically different style... though I'm not even sure what that would entail.

Thanks for your review.

Index of Content
1. Presentiment/EN PREDIVINIATO
2. http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=6797670&postcount=5Prologue/GINYA
3. Prelude 1/ENON PERFECTA
4. Chapter 1/AKANOKO (NYP)

Breath fogging in the muted twilight. Rain splattering against the ground. I am surrounded by utter motion, surrounded by the screams of madmen who have deadened their hearts against the atrocities of the world. She is in front of me, just across the bridge, her cerulean hair whipping around her and catching the bloody moonlight.

She is my one hope,my one chance of salvation in the face of this catastrophe, but the harder I run to her the farther away she is, and even now the distance across this bridge seems impossible to cross, but even so, she slowly reaches out to me, holding out her hand.

And even if it is futile, I reach back. Even as the ground lengthens under my feet, me fingers stretch out. Even as she recedes beyond infinity, for the briefest moment, our finger brush, and I catch one last glimpse of her sad smile.

Then she is gone.

I scream her name without hearing it, my hand grasping at the space that held her only seconds before. I feel as if I should cry, but the tears do not come, will not come, can not come, and finally in that moment of raw despair, I trip.

Faltering, stumbling, I fall, rolling out onto my back. The mob is mere seconds away now, but it may as well be a eternity distant. Time has slowed to nothingness, and everything is fragmenting and scattering away. I catch a glimpse of the moon reflected in the knie of one of my attackers... And then there is nothing but that moon, shining, pale, and yet tinged with a colour I would almost call crimson. Upon it, I swear that one day, I will find her.

And I don't even know her name.


To the old man, I said, "So..." and then more quietly, "so. That's my story, or what I can still remember of it anyway. I woke up two years ago in the gut of an abandoned RICHTER facility, with only the barest memories of my past... That last one was the strongest."

There was a long moment of silence as a deafening gust of freezing wind blasted through the cave. Neither of us really noticed it, Atarashi probably because he had lived here for longer than anyone could remember. As for me...

I smiled, but it was bitter.

"I've been searching for her ever since. I heard of you, Atarashi. They called you a man who could find anything... Even had a name for you-- What was it? The impartial gateway to..."

"▓█▒▓█░ ██▒ ░░▓█", he said.

"Yeah, that. Whatever the hell that is."

"I see... So you can't understand it after all..."He knitted his leathery fingers together. "While I am aware of many of the leaders of the... No. No, I've never known of anybody with the description you provided for me. She's either new, or doesn't operate at that level."

The old man looked at me sharply for a second, and then nodded. "Jeid, are you averse to travelling with a companion?"

"Not at all."

"Very well. While I don't know the lad you're looking for... I think I know someone who could find them." Atarashi paused for a moment and then yelled, "Satasha, come out! We have a visitor!"

I heard some grumbling before a head covered in unruly black hair popped out of one of the hundreds of burlap veils lining the cave's walls.

"Atarashiiiii, I was sleeping!"

"Then you'll have problems later. The sun hasn't even set yet, you know."

"What? No, wait, how can you even tell!?"

"When you live here as long as I have..." He began, trailing off.

"Apparently." She conceded, stepping out into the antechamber and before glancing over at me. "Who's this, Atarashi?"

"Satasha, meet Jeid. Jeid, Satasha. You'll be travelling together."

"Hey there," I said, extending my hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Satasha."

She stared at my hand for a second before smiling and taking it in a firm grip. "I'm sure you're the first person to really mean that in a few months," she said, before looking over to Atarashi "So, why will we be travelling together?"

"Mmm. You're both looking for something, and I have a certain feeling that they might be connected. Besides that? You can't hold them off forever. Nor hide here."

She nodded as if she expected the answer before abruptly turning away, walking down one of the natural tunnels that riddles the cave. When she was almost out of sight she turned around and gave a little wave. Somewhat bemusedly, I waved back.

She didn't return that night.

Atarashi and I sat in front of the fire for a few more hours. He read various books he had somehow managed to get up here while I just stared into the flames, mesmerized by their flickering dances. Eventually the old man finally sighed and snapped the book he had been reading for the last two shut.

"I'm going to sleep. I have a spare bedroll behind that curtain; you can use it, if you like."

"Thanks but, ever since RICHTER did... whatever they did to me, I've found it more comfortable to just lean against the wall. Appreciate the offer, though."

Atarashi looked at me for a moment before he shrugged. I turned and began to walk to the smoothest section of wall. Just before I reached it, I heard two quietly muttered words.

"Not good."

I turned and leaned back, looking up with a questioning reply on the tip of my tongue, but the room was empty. I was, more or less, alone.

As the fire guttered out, the cold winds of Mt. Silver howled through the room.

But they didn't bother me.

Not one bit.

Unseen, that bitter smile returned.

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Thanks for that! The asterism is supposed to be visible even on older systems with less extensive font collections, but I think I'll switch over to horizontal lines.

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You know, once upon a time, I was something else.

Slated for greatness, or perhaps, destined for perfection...

It's not a very human state, perfection. It is, more or less, to be inhuman.

To become less than human, in the execution of humanity's ideals.

A sphere is the most perfect shape. It is also the least interesting.

For one to be perfect, and to be a real person simultaneously...

A shattered mockery of a human being, is, I think, the only way to describe that state.

Take your dearest companion and chip, chip, chip away at everything you hate about them.

You have made them perfect for you.

You have done so by destroying who they are, but even then, they are still imperfect.

To create a perfect human is to create a breathing corpse.

It was a fate I only narrowly escaped.

The difference between that path and the one I tread today is nothing more than the decision to chase a wind-blown scrap of paper.

And really, that's a deep truth about this world. A small change, a tiny, insignificant detail, can rewrite the course of history.

But only if you notice it.