So, finally getting around to this. Apologies for the delay, I have a tendency to underestimate how much time it’ll take me to get to something, and that happened here.

I’m going to say I don’t have a whole lot negative to say here off the bat. I’ll get the one thing I do have to comment out of the way in that sometimes transitions aren’t… descriptive enough to properly show the reader what is happening (like with the Bewear preventing Angela being seen with them out by going down the stairs… when both routes were already described as being closed off.) That’s kinda nitpicky, and I’ll recognize that, but it was something I felt probably should be brought up.

As stated before, that’s about it for negatives. So let me now delve into everything I think this fic does right, and follow along the tale it is beginning to tell here.

First off, I’m going to say Benjamin is precious. The way you have characterized him without him having to say anything, the protective nature he is established to have over Angela, the imagery of the scars which proceeds to be used to characterize a bunch later on (an honestly impressive usage of motifs. there), it works really well for what it wants to do.

I can tell you had some fun with characterizing environments. Black city is shown as this distraught, really creepily artificial place made of what looks like children’s blocks, with fun howls of ‘mons battling on the tower above and grins resembling feral Liepard that slashed at Angela’s protector. It’s almost feels like a slightly demented version of the earlier elements of hearing about Angela working in the theme park and having to listen to Benjamin howl in pain over his injuries (something he… presumably did after getting that injury.) I don’t know how intentional it was, but it works quite nicely.

(As a random note, I was… slightly confused over where they lived. At first I assumed it was Nimbasa, since you know, she works there at the theme park. Then I hear the taxi goes through Castelia and Nimbasa and I was stumped for a moment. Might want to mention that, maybe she getting not fond of having to do a long commute from the south up there or something? Up to you how you want to go about it.)

Let me talk about Angela’s characterization as well. She… fairly clearly has some self-confidence issues. So far we’ve seen that about how she feels on her work, but from there, we might see it come up in other aspects of her life? I personally don’t know how far you plan on taking that, but I will say what you have shown came off as fairly well done here, and a good establishing act for our character we’ll be following for the rest of the story.

Beyond that, I don’t have a whole lot else to add. Overall, great beginning, and some great set-up. We’ll see how that develops from here, and how the story progresses in general.

With that said, I’ll be off. See you later, Midnight!

I think Angela is an interesting character, in that her self-esteem issues manifest in the form of anger, bitterness, and an unhealthy drive to impress others. Usually I would expect a character with low self esteem to feel helpless and despondent, but I think this is also a very realistic take that might go somewhere interesting. What I would say, though, is that it isn't terribly fun to read. Angela's relationship with her pokemon kind of just makes me feel down, for example. It might help if the chapter were parsed down a bit-for example, maybe the bit where Angela takes a walk with Benny could have been cut. I just got the general sense that this chapter could have been shorter-it was more than enough for me to get a sense of what Angela and Benny are like. Maybe a little less internal monologuing? My hope is that things will feel a bit less dreary once we get to the main conflict, because at least then we will have something to focus on other than Angela's self-induced misery.

Also, Amy picking Angela up to meet an undisclosed person (and her general physical touchiness toward Angela) felt pretty sketchy to me lol, but oh well. Maybe she's just a sketchy chick.

Full disclosure: I refuse to call the main character Angela and instead will be referring to her as Angelo for the entire duration of this story. Yes, this is because of the meme you’re probably thinking of, and no, you cannot stop me (unless you ask nicely, but that’s no fun).

I’ll start with some finer details and give a broader analysis at the end:
— [slim slivers] is a bit of a tongue twister. As a descriptor describing a noun, they sound a bit too similar.
— Good job at keeping things vague with the first few paragraphs while not throwing me out of my immersion. That makes for a good immediate hook.
— Ben is cute.
— [My pokémon burnt/froze/chewed my homework] made me giggle. A Pokémon world would certainly have stereotypes like that, I’d think.
— This doesn’t really pertain to the writing itself, but you might want to consider using horizontal lines instead of the scene break you’ve used here. You can find them in google docs, word, and if nothing else, the doc uploader itself. It’s purely stylistic and totally up to you, but I feel like they’re easier to see than: 0
— Gen 5 setting? Cool!
— I was prepared to comment on how Amy was being purposefully uncommunicative, but Angelo herself acknowledged it in her thoughts, so… props there. Nothing’s more relatable than a main character thinking the exact same thing as the reader.

Alrighty. One thing I immediately liked was your ability to show rather than tell. You didn’t explicitly state that Angelo was a photographer or in a financial hole, but I was able to piece that together with minimal thought based on what you conveyed. It never came off as maid-and-butler either; the intro really did feel like a natural discourse of thought and dialogue and action that taught me a lot about the main character.

The first scene dragged on a bit. Don’t get me wrong, the back-and-forth between Angelo and Benjamin was cute, and the scene as a whole was very effective in doing its job. But I feel like it could’ve been made more concise in some places so that the pacing didn’t slow down as much. I don’t think it needs immediate editing or anything like that, but it’s something to keep in mind for future scenes. Pacing is important.

Speaking of pacing, holy cow did it pick up fast. Very fast. This isn’t a bad thing though, if you ask me; judging by the narration and Angelo’s reactions to the whole second half of the chapter, it’s pretty clear that’s what you were going for. Even the details were tuned to fit the faster pacing — namely Madeline’s ‘manhandling’ of Angelo, and then right up to the ending where you summed up Angelo’s perspective in a single word. Well done.

The reveal of Angelo’s probably inevitable fate as an isekai wasn’t detailed out, as per the cliffhanger. So I’ll reserve my thoughts and judgement on it for now. But in the meantime, good start! I’ll stay tuned.