>>22651579Glad to have you back.
The last fic I read from you was the TimeRyS arcade fic, and wow, I'm so impressed by how far your writing has come. I just wanted to take the time to give some of my thoughts on your writing in Chocolate versus your writing from the past, hopefully to put into perspective just how much you've improved!
I've said this before but the strongest point of your writing has always been the dialogue. You have an uncanny way of drumming up incredibly engaging dialogue. And almost all of this comes from how well you portray the characters in your writing, from their personalities to their quirks to how they move and act. It's incredible. It lends itself to a very immersive experience when reading, while also tying in all the humorous aspects we come to love from the girls and their interactions.
Here, again, your dialogue was incredible and you were representing it at all levels. Whether it be through just conversation, or behaviour (>IRyS sticks out her tongue at Kronii, the clock ignores her and keeps pampering Clover.), or even the cute little group chat texts near the end of the story. Everything felt real, genuine, and that's the most important thing to any fanfiction piece (in my opinion). Knowing the characters well enough to deliver a believable, yet fictional scenario involving them. And obviously, the way you described the little interactions during the more romantic scenes at the end was just heartwarming.
Outside of your dialogue, however, I've briefly commented on a few weaknesses in your writing. Most notably, your world-building, which was quite shallow in your old works. For example, I remember a sudden time-skip in the arcade fic where they went from point A -> suddenly into an arcade, and there wasn't much description about the arcade itself to set the scene.
Though I was positively blown away by how different your worldbuilding was in Chocolate, it was apparent that you carefully took the time to craft each scenario and ensure that everything flowed logically (and temporally, heh) from one place to the next. Like when you described the scenario while walking to Fauna's place, you got (a) the distance, (b) the spatial surroundings [shops, described in great detail], and (c) even things like the temperature. You gave the reader all the tools necessary to craft that scenario in their head and it was great.
And to piggyback off of that point, another weakness in your previous writing was the dialogue, while great, often got too overwhelming at times. Just blocks of constant talking and it was easy to sometimes lose the speaker order. Here, you managed to break up the dialogue-heavy bits with little pieces of worldbuilding (like when you described Fauna's place), or just non-verbal communication bits that really helped provide a deeper characterization of the entire scene (>While chatting a little more, you notice Kronii keeps staring at the gifts the both of you made. She also makes a worried face whenever one of the girls eats another chocolate or a cookie. She’s probably wondering if they liked the gifts or not. The others have a hard time trying to ignore the clock’s piercing gaze).
The last thing I think you really improved on was your plotwriting. Obviously, it's difficult to get a good, detailed plot line for one-offs. Though it's nevertheless important to have a really good plot just to string the events in your story together and to keep the reader engaged. Your previous writing, while great, had pretty stale plot lines like a party at X's place -> TimeRyS doing other things because party is boring -> etc.
The plot for Chocolate was incredible though. It was a very simple idea on the surface (Valentine's day date), though carefully crafted with a lot of very interesting plot points (the watch, the store ploy, etc). It really kept me engaged when I was trying to solve the puzzle myself from the reader's perspective, and you timed the exposition of key details really well by meshing it into dialogue at critical points. I also loved how the plot is always a part of the story. Even when Kronii and (You) are relaxing at the end of the day, you're still reminded about what happened - and how it influences the narrative - with the whole text message scenario.
All in all, I really enjoyed reading this work and I look forward to finishing the rest. Thank you for taking the time to write this for us!
