wish not qish

I qish you'd update this

ahh ive been slowly reading through this over the past couple of months stuck at home, and i really love it! Every character is just so interesting! Thank you for sharing it with us!

Oh my goodness.

Omg I truly hope you update again some day soon. I want to hear more about Char and the gold division.

I'm sorry but Eva refusing to test is bs and if it hurt so much then surely the other pokemon should know the difference. This reeks of artificial tension thats just frustrating, not exciting

Mc get captured and instantly loses "oh its going to one of those stories where the mc has a win/loss ratio of 1 win to 100000 losses yay

Omg instantly hooked never read a fanfic with such solid intro, it helps that the character you made was almost exactly like me irl

It's nearly two years without an update... I hope it's not dead already...

Review of chapters 11 - 21

Alrighty, these next ten chapters were interesting. I think that they were a slight bit messier than the first ten, however. There were some moments that I really liked, but also some where I thought the story dragged a bit or went too over the top in places.

So one of the parts that I thought really dragged for me was the first mission with Team Stripes. I feel like you essentially spent two chapters showing everyone just going on a dungeon stroll and being OP to dungeon ferals, and there wasn’t much conflict at all. Not to mention that Taka’s Team has essentially already been introduced, and this just seemed like a long-winded way of showing that they’ll probably be plot relevant later on. The part where the mission gets interesting is the part where the Dispelling happens, so I feel that there could have been a little less of everything before.

As a side note, while I get that Leo is happy-go-lucky to extremes, but I don’t think writing that entire song out was the best way to get it across. Firstly because unless you’re a born poet and have an elegant way with words (and I don’t really think that Leo possesses either of those things), you can’t just ad-lib a song like that (especially not when you’re as young as Leo is), and secondly because it was quite frankly boring to read. That did not give me the feeling of happy-go-lucky; it gave me the feeling of cringe and made me skip down to the bottom. I guess it’s sort of a nitpick, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Something that interested me is that you appear to be doing ‘sections’ of mystery dungeons, instead of floors. I assume to get rid of the conundrum of stairs in a dungeon? I think it’s a bit more ambiguous with Sections than Floors, though – unlike with a floor, where does one Section end and another begin? You don’t really do any dramatic imagery with words where they walk through a large starry gate or anything, so I can only assume the dungeon environments gradually change or something. But then how are there hard and fast sections of a place and how do you know when you’ve passed over from one section into another? And how do you tell which section it is ‘cause the dungeon might swap them aroun– ugh, I’m tying my brain into pretzels over this.

I like the idea of ‘dispelling’ dungeons. However, I wonder why this isn’t used more often. Mystery Dungeons seem to be a pretty big hindrance in the world, and however dictatorial The Master is; there isn’t really a reason they would want to keep them around, outside of ‘they aren’t organized enough to actually get rid of a dungeon’. Which I would believe. I’ll cover that now:

So, the Master is essentially a dictator that has de facto control of all of Ambera. They have a legion, a castle, no outwardly declared opponents, and basically rule over Ambera… except not really. I mean, what is the Master even doing? What do they want? If it’s control of everything, they’re failing pretty horribly. You have Scythe talk a lot about what the Master does while apparently trolling ‘LOL, Evulz ROFL’ all the way from their castle that they never leave, but in time with the story? All they’ve done is send out their army and unintentionally wreck Team Remorse’s sandslash reinstitution plan. And even in theory, the Master is pretty shoddy at ruling. Their main ruling tactic seems to be ‘if I cannot have it you also cannot have it’, but this leads them to pass up possible diplomatic actions in favor of ‘DESTROY REEEEEEEEEE’, like when they occupy Basin Cave for the feral shards or tear apart the school that will become Gold Division in the future, leaving them both in shambles like a child throwing a temper tantrum. And even now, they’re kind of slipping. Obviously they or at least Adiel knows where Gold Division is, and that the Resistance exists – there is no way that they are that oblivious. So, why leave them standing? This doesn’t seem like some long-term bargain; it seems like the Master doesn’t know what they’re doing at all.

One of the parts that I liked is the scene where Char first utilizes the Call. I felt like that was built up to well, and their usage of the vault worked because the vault was a previously set up location. I do think that Saura got a bit sidelined in that scene, though. I remember going back and reading that passage a few times to figure out when he had entered the vault with them, until I just gave up and assumed you assumed that the readers assumed Saura came with them by proxy or something.

So Scythe *knew* that Eva was untrustworthy, and he still went to her anyway? Odd. She isn’t the *only* psychic in Gold Division, and Dr. Orde is probably much more trustworthy than Eva is. Not to mention that The Call is something completely worth High Intelligence’s time, and Scythe is trusted enough to lobby some time with Dr. Orde, if not the rest of them. So, the only reason I can see that he would go to Eva and not another psychic is that Eva was relatively shady, and Scythe wanted to cover something up. But then later, he flips out when High Intelligence did what he was planning to do from the start, so ? Something about all this just isn’t adding up. I also wonder how long Eva will be able to stay in Gold Division will security cracking down on her. Considering she’s essentially a peasant, I’d be surprised if she left.

Not really a plot hole, but something weird I noticed: When Char and Saura are returning to Team Remorse's base after the Call upsets Gold Division, the gabite keeping the door complains about not being able to make the mission tomorrow. Although... even if the ban was on training teams only, it feels like pokemon should be more cautious than they are being, and yet no-one seems particularly concerned with it.

In fact, security on this isn't tight enough. Raising missions to five-star isn't a strong enough response to one of the Master's most renowned generals showing up in the area and essentially revealing that the Master knows Gold Division exists; that area should be banned entirely for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the base should even go on lockdown/siege mode entirely until Adiel leaves. If he’s caught on to the fact that resistance rescue teams go in and out of that area frequently, then – whether he knows it or not – he’s only about twenty minutes of distance away from the resistance base. A departing team of *any* rank could set him off, and since Gold Division is the largest Division and the closest one to society that seems like it would be a pretty crappy location for the Resistance to lose.

Oh, *please.* They were so definitely bought off by High Intelligence. That's not even a question.

I also noticed a typo in the scene where High Resistance summons a meeting, where Metagross is referred to as ‘he’ twice before pronouns switch to ‘it’. I think it’s an exchange between Char, Saura, and the Team Remorse Umbreon whose name I forget.

I think it’s interesting that Scythe, who has been labelled in this fic as ‘a master strategist who always thinks ahead’, complains about the Call being kept a secret. Thinking tactically, it *is* the most plausible decision to make, and from what I recall of reading this a while ago Scythe is keeping his own secrets, so I doubt it’s his sense of morality and honor.

So Dusknoir works for Adiel. Interesting. Adiel is a higher-up, so I assume Dusknoir knows he’s ultimately working for the Master, but does the Master know about Seviper and Croagunk?

I also find it interesting that Char was offered a poke-ball in his dream with Dialga and Palkia, and then Dusknoir takes out a Master Ball that is later revealed to belong to Adiel. This makes my conspiracy-theory brains begin to whir, but I’ll hold off on theorizing for now since little of consequence in the big scheme of things has happened yet.

That nightmare scene LOL. Obviously it couldn’t happen because plot reasons, but not gonna lie I would have loved to see how that would have turned out. You also completely had me on the pretense of it being real until Char woke up screaming, so… I guess good job on that?

I enjoyed the mission with all the buneary children. I think you struck a good balance between the “Gee Golly Mister, I hope you weren’t hurt!” and ‘Screech Demon Maniac’ extremes of how little children are portrayed in fiction, and they’re pretty realistic. Granted, they don’t fist-fight much (Which is doubly weird since they are pokemon and would probably have even more of an inclination to do that), but since they’re in a suitably grim situation I think that’s appropriate. Beary running off and getting lost to prove himself is exactly the kind of thing a little kid would do, lol, although I do think that was a bit negated by how the dungeon trapped him and may have separated him by force at the beginning.

If Kecleon is willing to pay large amounts of money for a simple piece of fruit, that means you have something very very valuable in your possession. Plant the seeds and grow them, plz

Something I’ve noticed is that Saura has been used disproportionately as an exposition bot in these chapters than he was in the previous set. Which is understandable, since he’s schooling Char on how the world works, but it’s also taking up a lot of his dialogue and making him a little less unique as a result. Just something to watch for.

I refuse to believe that Char did not make that ‘peanuts’ comment on purpose.

I have a feeling that Scythe set up Saura’s ‘happy freedom’ party in Team Stripe’s room, and also bought the mobile scarf for Saura. It would explain why he was so gung-ho about them getting down there, and why it existed in the first place, since Saura has been pretty tight-lipped about it to everyone but Char and Scythe.

Is this bulbasaur so important to Adiel and the Master that Adiel is willing to put himself in a vulnerable situation just to get ahold of him? Also, I wonder who the Master Ball is for. Adiel says it’s not for Scythe, but he leaves it behind when he goes to hunt for Saura (Or at least I *think* it’s Saura?). Only other large player I can think of at the moment is Char, but IDK.

I wonder if ‘Spacial Distortions’ that form mystery dungeons have anything to do with Palkia. Also why Palkia can’t/won’t do anything about them.

So, overall, I think this story is off to a pretty interesting – if hiccupy – start. I feel like the writing itself is good and (most) scenes aren’t boring, but my biggest problem with Silver Resistance is that it is so goofy that you can’t give serious scenes the proper weight they’re due. You’re essentially trying to deal with a large, lore-filled world, but most of the ‘lore’ just isn’t there; only the illusion of it exists. And I feel as though what *does* exist is very black and white, instead of grey. Gold Division is, above all things, a war base, but life there doesn’t ever get hard at all. The resistance carries out petty slights against a Master who basically just trolls from a castle that’s never shown, and overall I’ve never gotten the impression that all of Ambera is actually suffering from the Master’s reign. Sitrus city seemed to be in rather good condition, after all. I feel like so far this is my largest problem with the story. But in the big picture of things I liked it. I shall return in ten chapters to see how everything has improved!

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Raider’s March – John Williams

"Let's not let the story end here, see you all in season six!"
- Epilouge of Chapter 97.

So I guess thats not happening anytime soon. Two years later and all...

Review of Chapters 1 – SE The First

…

*Copypasta about pokemon capitalizations* *laughs evilly*

I return :D

These first ten chapters (Really eleven, but I don’t know if the special Episode counts as a proper chapter so much as it does an interlude of sorts) did a good job of setting up all the exposition that the story needs to keep running, as well as keeping things both moving and interesting as well. There were some things I liked, and some things I didn’t care much for. [But there are always] I shall go into more detail below.

So, the first section of the story that I’ll cover is the first couple of chapters of the story. Right from the beginning there’s a tone of mystery that’s set, with the characters later identified as Scythe and Shander walking through the woods and taking a detour for reasons yet unknown to the reader. That’s all well and good, but what interests me the most is the fact that you open on Saura instead of Char.

I know that PMD Explorers opened with the partner (or at least enough Explorers fics have done that that I’m almost certain it does), so given that this story seems to be cleverly sneaking in a few plot elements here and there (like The Call and Dialga being plot important), I wouldn’t be surprised if that was where it came from. From a story structure standpoint, though, there’s a lot to break down about it. Firstly, what this means for the plot at large: Usually, the character you open with on a story is either the main character, or the protagonist (Which may or may not be the same thing). And even though the POV switches almost exclusively to Char once he’s introduced, Saura seems to be far, far more conflicted than Char is. He also seems to be getting nearly all the major character setup, while Char essentially plays a supporting character. Saura is on the run from the Master’s army. Saura is the gung-ho explorer. Saura is the one who goes through the most distress over things like their team name, and he’s the most talkative as well. Everything revolves around Saura. We’re just watching it from Char’s eyes. Even Char himself revolves around Saura, as he joined Gold Division partly at Saura’s behest. And it seems that Saura is going to be the one with the most lessons to learn, as nearly all Char’s failures come from him basically having spent all of three days in Ambera. With all that in mind, I now wonder: Who is truly the MC?

The second thing is what it means for the story at present: I think that opening with Char would have ultimately worked to your detriment. Not because opening on the Human is a cliché (Even though it is), but because for what you set up I think that the reader had to know Saura first. In that first scene where he runs from the soldiers and then curls up outside the mystery dungeon to hide, we learn several important things about him that Char does not learn immediately: We learn that he is on the run. We learn that he doesn’t know where to go or what to do from that point wonwards, which helps the audience relate to him, and we also learn that he might be just a tiny bit cowardly. But when Char wakes up, he doesn’t know any of that. Seeing things from his perspective, the chapter would have taken a much different tone and seemed much more random, since all the exposition would have had to have been delivered in the dungeon by Saura (whom we don’t know if we can trust yet), and then Scythe and Shander randomly swooping in to abduct them would be random and unprecedented. I wish that I could say this section of the story was super original and blew me out of the water because I had never seen this before, but the truth of the matter is that it’s not. In theory, it could have been a tutorial scene ripped straight from a game (and in some areas, reads like one a bit too). But I think giving the readers that emotional attachment to Saura was what elevated it above that.

So then the story moves on. Char and Saura are captured by Scythe and Shander, and carted to Gold Division at Scythe’s behest. The main thing I want to address for this part is that there seems to be a particularly large difference between Scythe in these pre-Gold Division scenes and Scythe afterwards, and I wanna take a closer look at it. There’s a particular exchange that comes from him in Chapter 3 that seems artificial:

["The Master..." growled the Scyther. "My heart races even at the mention of his name. He... is my worst enemy."]

I have two theories for why he acts differently in between these scenes. The first one is that you were still figuring out how to write his character and changed it a lot after they enter Gold Division. The second, in-universe theory I have comes from a piece of future context: He’s a master strategist. So assuming this exchange is as artificial as it reads to me, then there’s only one reason he would utter those words: he's thinking ahead, to what might happen if Char and Saura aren't the Chosen Ones, and is attempting to condition them into joining Gold Division once they arrive. In other words; taking a small risk to prevent a bigger one later on. It just seems odd to me; how he goes from being sullen and grumpy and edgy (Although they *were* long overdue for a rest) to suddenly being the guild’s cheerful superstar. It seems like such a large character change…

And now for worldbuilding nitpicks, because I love worldbuilding! ~~(Probably too much but we don’t talk about that)~~

So, while giving Char and Saura a tour of the base, Ursa mentions that Gold Division used to be a school where elite pokemon were trained, before the Master sacked it and left it to rot. Only… Why does the Master just leave it there? It seems like a strategic position that wouldn’t be in the Master’s best interests to just give up like that, and it’s rather dubious that he (?) wrecked it in the first place. Why wreck something like that when you can make them work for you instead? If the Master is powerful enough to destroy a school like that, then it stands to reason they hold enough sway to win over the school. I also wonder why the Resistance has been able to hold that position for so long when it’s basically public knowledge that there are ruins there. Very irresponsible of the Master.

Team Regret (Which is totally not edgy in the least) is apparently the rescue team that founded the Resistance, and they’re helmed by Lucario. Don’t quote me on this but I *think* there’s a Lucario that has a statue in the PMD games or something? Presumably credited with something famous? Probably grasping at straws but there might be connection there?

I think the idea of Domo being able to copy forms and keep them after becoming Mew for a bit is interesting and plausible. What seems odd to me, though, is the way that he just decides to reveal this to Char and Saura. Even if they asked, it’s just like he decided ‘Oh, I’mma finna reveal my life story to two strangers ‘cause I became Mew in front of them!’ and not really natural at all. It just feels like he made some big leap in logic when he just decided it was storytime.

…Poor Domo, though. His mission is to lay eyes on and become every pokemon in existence, but he doesn’t realize that there are now over one thousand pokemon in existence, with more to be inevitably added with each passing gen. Domo will travel across the land, searching far and wide for every pokemon in the world, but he will never accomplish his goal.

So, something I’m noticing in the first ten chapters of this is that there seems to be a developing theme of Running from Things. The Master is essentially dictator of Ambera; they’re holed up in their castle for some reason. Saura is wanted by the Master; he’s running away from that and donning the life of an explorer to hide. The Resistance itself could probably rally enough support to overthrow the Master, given how they seem to treat their subjects, but instead they stay secret and just take petty blows at them instead. This is only the beginning of the story and hardly the time to speculate about theme, but we shall see how this develops

I don’t have much to say about the Special Episode. Except that I am *very* sure there is some hidden meaning to this ‘nonsense’ creed that I am just too tired to glean now. It’s not *so random that it’s garbled nonsense, and clearly this was crafted in layers of meaning instead of just being random old gibberish. Will return later with a deciphering of some kind, hopefully. I also wonder if Zachel will come back. or is he just a one-off character?

I will never forgive you for spoofing the Team Rocket Motto :Judgement:

So overall, these chapters were good. Even though we’ve only covered three days and Team Peanuts (now Ember, although I agree – Team Peanuts is amazing!) is barely even getting on their feet, it feels like an entire arc has passed and the placement of the Special Episode is fitting. I await to read more of this as it goes on :D

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Ragamuffin – Sonya Belousova, Giona Ostinelli

Vort,
somewhere out there, there's a tree whose single purpose on earth is to replace the oxygen you waste. Go find it and apologize.

Vort here, sorry I cut off last chapters review like an idiot by pressing send.

Look, I love your writing and your ideas. But I feel your just restraining yourself and losing sight of it all.
Take a step back and think about what you want to convey to your readers. If it's a intricate unanswered question then say screw my advice and do what you want! It's your story so you choose what to put on it, no one else.
However, just as a piece of advice. Don't make your story focus around one meaty, juicy idea and have everything else be bland filling. Make your entire story and every aspect of it jump from one juicy idea to the next in whatever way suits that particular storyline.
If you base everything around one or two unanswered question and not put any spirit into the rest of your story, readers will get infuriated and start skipping the boring and jumping to the juicy. Which will ruin your well planned out story and devalue the obvious effort you've put in.

God... I went on a rant and a half...
I stopped reading because your story was only hooking me on one thing, progression of characters and getting to interesting or big events, and that progression kept stopping and starting too much for me to stay on that hook, while the interesting or big events just never arrived fast enough to get me hooked again.
Your ideas are top notch, thanks for the read, and I hope you found my reviews inlightning and in a different perspective taken on how you write. Take what you can from it and you do whatever the bloody hell you fell is right with it! Trash it, burn it or change everyday you think about writing or just a few ways to write!
It's your life, don't settle for anything else other than your own path.
You made my day reading some cool ideas, even if I got bored 4 chapters in.

Have a good one!
- Vort

Sooo, I stopped reading your story a chapter ago because I lost interest, then I saw your general writing tips and was like, O-o that's what I do when I'm writing my book!
So I went through a few of them (haven't done them all yet) and found your idea of what a hook is - an unanswered question.

I just want to say, I think you have that completely wrong. A hook is the basis of your story, it is the reason your readers keep reading, yet you've constrained yourself to the idea it's just an unanswered question?

People get hooked on books because they find it intriguing, interesting, nurturing, relatable, wonderful and fantastic. Where the characters don't just sit around all day and live normal lives but are pushed to limits that can be high or extremely high depending on the story and context.
People get hooked when they see a scene that has multiple layers happening at once, where against all odds a character changes their ways because they believe in something or someone or even themselves. Where multiple character all do this at the same time, push boundaries whether they may be mental, physical, magical, perspective based, understanding or otherwise.
Example: Someone is constantly afraid for their lives, their people starve but culturally he knows that the heroes from the stories he has been told will arrive and save them. For weeks on end he tries to survive (quickly and concisely explained to get past the info dumps and exposition - the less exposition, generally the better) yet the heroes never come. Broken and beaten everyday eventually makes him snap. Runs out into the fray and does his best, maybe a hero is born from this or maybe he dies and sparks a revolution due to becoming a maytr or maybe he slowly loses his way in all the conflict and ends up becoming a monster himself in the process.
The hook is an idea that is intriguing or the audience/reader wants to read and get to know about. It is not an just simply an unanswered question, it is the entire world you build, characters and all. Throw ideas at it, smash it, break it and rebuild it until it resembles an idea so insane, so out there and so crazy that it doesn't even make sense. Then put your foundations in, make it realistic, iron the edges and edit it until the ideals and crazy ideas are at the forefront of a readers mind when reading. These ideas and ideals are your theme for different characters, you'll follow them and add to them as you continue and your story will start arching into realms untraveled.
It ain't rocket science, it ain't a bloody simple unanswered question either cause that's called being tunnel visioned on a fundamental level. A hook is whatever might get the audience hooked! And that means anything you can think of!

So please, PLEASE don't go writing books only foundationed around unanswered questions about your characters, world and storyline. Your foundation/hook is your book