The First Snow [SWC] - Proofread [a-vulpix]

Pokemon: Alolan Vulpix
Rank: Medium
CC: ~~11,236
MCR:10-20k

When the first autumn snow fell I knew my time had begun. I sighed in the living room in front of the large glass screen door of my house looking out as the snow fell on the rotting leaves and soggy soil. The trees hadn’t completely shaken off their leaves yet. It was kind of living in anticipation for the winter yet to come, but hasn’t fully gone into full force.

Gradually, the snow turned into a light powder over the ground and visible areas of accumulation started to appear. It would only be a matter of time before it would accumulate into anything more significant.

It was warm inside my trainer’s home and I can smell that he already lit the firewood in the fireplace to stay warm. He calls me Abigail. I guess that was a name he saw fitting for a white, wintery Vulpix.

Winter is my favorite season because I’m not just a creature made of ice, but because the whiteness of winter is magical. My mother told me we came from a top a large mountain on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. My brothers and sisters found it strange and didn’t believe mom. I found it magical. We always stayed on our mountaintop on that island, but to think we were in the middle of a vast ocean was mystifying. We lived inside of an icy cave for most of our lives because the outside was too fierce to live in. When my trainer finally caught me, only then did I realize that it was true.

My fiery cousins here always told me that I was an odd one; a rarity, but here I am. I think my trainer, Lester, goes to that tropical island to do research and things. I think on that exact island where my family is. He talks a lot of about working on figuring out the stars. He sometimes takes me to his work and lets me look into a big metal tube pointed at the sky. I think he calls them telescopes. I couldn’t really understand what I saw, he said and pointed to the moon moon before I looked in one time and when I looked in, the details of its surface were so intricate I couldn’t believe that I was looking at the beautiful disc in our night sky.

His wife, Willow, lives with him as well, and she is always very interested in his pursuits and encourages him to travel and such while she stays at home and does what she does. She leaves home every day. She works, as well, but I believe she is a doctor of some sort. She taken me to her office a few times to see patients at this beautiful clinic far away. She works on patients who suffer from something called cancer which appears to be very traumatic for their patients who generally are very grateful for her work. Lately she had been seeing a lot more patients who were more downright depressed. Her work saddens me, but her patients seem like my presence there. I can easily cheer them up; make them feel warm on a cold day, I guess.

But mostly I live in their large suburban home on the fringe of town. It generally is a very peaceful life, kind of boring. I like escaping sometimes when they’re both gone at work, run into the surrounding woods, and explore and meet the other pokemon around. I’m a rare sort and the other pampered, standard Vulpixes around can't grasp how I’m an element their opposite--both in form and behavior. One might say that I am icy on the outside, but my inner spirit is warm like a fiery one. The opposite must be true for the others.

Anyways, I walked up to Willow who was pensively drinking a glass of wine and reading a newspaper while Lester tended to the fire.

She looked at me nervously and motioned for me to hop on her lap while she sat her things down on a sparsely populated coffee table. This home had a modern, yet rustic interior. It had hardwood floors in an old colonial home with large windows, but was also a very contemporary space with contrasting hard lines and gray furniture. I felt just as colorless there as the fresh snow falling outside.

“You know, at least I respect the warmth of your pokemon,” Willow said snidely to her husband as I got up on her lab.

“Well,” as he fumbled with the firewood with long, iron tools, “I can always leave you and Abigail will come with me.” He stopped and looked at his wife, “Do you want that?”

“Oh! How bold of you to say that. You wouldn’t dare…!”

He sheepishly sighed and turned to monitor his fire. “That’s what I thought,” she huffed coldly. I held my head down. Willow grabbed my head leaning over to reach her drink. When she brought it back, she gulped it down as if he hadn’t had any water for days.

It was an uncomfortable silence and all I could think about was the disharmony of these two people. After a few moments the silence became unbearable. The tense Willow abruptly leaned forward to grab the nearest remote control. I jumped off her lap in response and she offered me to return. I didn’t want to. She grabbed me aggressively, I panicked, and sent a blast of frosty air at her which caught her off guard. I quickly ran over to the other couch safely away from her.

She muttered, “filthy mongrel!” as say back down.

Willow turned on the television.

A few seconds passed, and Lester teased, “you know Abigail hates aggressive handling…”

Willow responded by turning up the volume on the television. It was the news. There was a loud female voice speaking, “--news, there were a series of riots held in the city center. Angry protesters summoned their fire type pokemon to burn down the courthouse over a custody battle that had happened there earlier. There have been no reports of anyone being killed but there were several injured officers and protesters alike. Police eventually disbanded--”

“Oh Arceus…” Willow muttered, partly intoxicated from her wine.

“--the protest. Custody battles have become a hot topic these days as global fertility continues to drop, and cancers of the reproductive systems in both males and females seem to become more--”

She turned off the television. Willow bemoaned, “I- I can’t handle it!”

Lester felt some pity for his wife. “I can’t imagine your patients that you deal with every day.”

She held her forehead, trying not to cry, “Well why don’t you, Lester! Women and men come to me every day, wondering about this, about that, how long they have left to live, how they will eat, and how they can afford the very healthcare they need to even live their prognosis--the questions are endless! First they dealt with infertility, and now they have a prognosis that they might not even be able to live a full life! And I’m the one to tell them that!”

Lester got up from in front of the fire and sat next to his distressed wife. He held a long arm around her. His big sweater and bushy beard comforted Willow. Lester patted the empty spot on the couch next to him, looking at me. I was a little hesitant, but if he wanted to, I trusted him. At least he was a buffer from Willow’s clawing pets. I got up from my seat and curled up next to him. That’s as far as I was going. Besides, the fire was roaring and partially melted my icy hair.

Willow curled into Lester and sobbed while he tried to calm his wife down. I took a peek outside and the snow really had begun to accumulate outside. It was hardly visible the snow was coming down so hard. I was surprised those protestors managed to burn down a building; all this snow would put it right out!

Willow sobbed, “Do you think we’re next…?”

“What kind of question is that? You’re being paranoid, now.”

“No, Lester, do you think, we’re…?”

In a reassuring voice, “we’re--”

She interrupted, “Lester, please, this not the time.”

“Oh,” he stopped. “I don’t know. We tried as many times as we could muster, but sometimes people try for the longest time until it eventually works.”

“Lester, we’ve been trying for over a six months. That’s not normal.”

She sat up straight as an arrow and Lester put his arm back on his side. “I… don’t know what to say about that.”

She looked at him intensely, “when you visited Alola last time, did you encounter any vixens…?”

“Any what? I’m not following.”

She sighed, “Of course you aren’t. I have to explain everything to you, don’t I?”

I looked up to Lester up seemed to be confused, he saw that I was concerned over what was happening and pet me.

“Did you or did you not have,” she was too ashamed to finish her sentence, “extramarital affairs with any of the ladies there!?”

“What!? No!? That’s preposterous! Why would that matter if did!?”

“Because, I wanted to know if you… gave life..” the words came out pained, “inside someone else.”

“So you want me to cheat on other ladies to see I am sterile?” There was some amusement in his tone.

She looked away, ashamed of what she just asked for. Lester stopped petting me and rested his arms fully on his lap. Willow muttered, “yes.”

He let out a laugh, and in a reassuring voice, “Honey, I would never do such a thing to you. We need to get tested like everyone else!”

She snapped, “No, we can’t! I- We can’t bear it! We can't bear to hear the truth!”

“Well, we’ve been trying for six months. It could be either one or...both of us, but we can’t know until we get tested.”

“Honey, if it is the cancer--" she stuttered, "the cancer that has plagued the patents flocking in my office everyday-- whose many lives it had destroyed!" She continued, "--and to have us succumb to it as well it would be nature's greatest insult. I have been working furiously on a better treatment for years now. Our lives would be destroyed."

She curled into his arms, sobbing. A few moments passed. Lester gave a kiss on her forehead and said in a scared, but reassuring tone, “If he have it, well, there is nothing we can do about it. It was what Arceus intended. We have each other, and that's what matters.”

She sat sobbing for a few minutes. I got up on the remainder of Lester’s lap and nuzzled Willow’s cheek. She stopped for a moment to look at me. I smiled, wanting to cheer her up. She smiled back, and giggled gently, petting me softly this time.

"I'm so glad you're still happy," she said snivelling, her eyes were puffy from the crying.

I hopped down off the couch, surprising everyone and walked over to the screen door, scratching at it to be let out. Both Lester and Willow couldn't imagine why I would want to go out in a snow storm.

“What’s wrong Abigail,” Lester asked.

All I could do was turn around, cutely scream “Vul--,” fluff my tail, turn back around, and scratch the door again.

“Oh, you want to see the snow?”

I scratched the door some more and cried in agreement, “pix!”

Sniffing, “Lester, let her out please. She wants to go out. Abigail’s an ice type so she would love the snow.”

He agreed. He said, “there, there,” as he walked over to the sliding door. He opened it and a cold breeze burst through and into the home. I quickly ran out as he shut the door. It was dark now and the snowfall lightened. It was about half a foot now, so it was extra fun to hop around in.

I jumped and rolled in it! I stayed close to the house because it was dark, and their house didn't light up the backyard much past about fix feet or so. Being in the snow is such a pleasurable experience; it reminded me so much of home. It was cold, clean, and fluffy. The couple watched me play. I didn’t mind; I was in my element. They seemed transfixed as if they were becoming happy watching me be happy. I guess my warm spirit really is shined even during the coldest hour of their night.

 

snagging

 

PLOT ‘N CHARACTER STUFF

You make an interesting choice here in choosing to tell an apocalyptic/destructive narrative from the viewpoint of a character who doesn’t fully understand its implications. This lets you skip out on some of the more tired clichés of a classic end-of-days tale while still getting some of the weight of the grimdark.

This news broadcast a really clever way to convey some of the details of the world without having Abigal comment directly on them. We get to maintain an innocent narrator while still seeing how dark and depressing the world outside of this house can be, and that’s a cool dynamic to have in a story like this.

That being said, because of this, Abigail becomes practically a non-entity in this story. Her contribution to the plot is almost purely observational, with her only real interaction with the world being when she gets on Willow’s lap, and when she goes outside at the end. This isn’t strictly bad, but given how active Willow and Lester are—and how their actions are pretty center to the plot—Abigal looks particularly extraneous by comparison. For the most part, her input could be replaced with a third person narrator to about the same effect.

This becomes particularly apparent when Abigail does narrate: her comments on where she grew up/little bits of lore about Alola-Vulpix are neat and nice to read, but they don’t really interact with the story on a significant level. Because the central conflict (Lester and Willow’s crumbling marriage) would happen with or without Abigail, and because she doesn’t change her behavior as a result of being a witness to the central conflict, giving her such a key role in the story feels extraneous.

Heck, sometimes, you flat-out remove her viewpoint from the story altogether when you want to convey something quickly:

There is no way, barring telepathy, that Abigail can know that Lester is feeling pity for his wife. So when the story narrated by Abigail says this as a fact, it breaks the immersion in Abigail’s narration.

Your narrator choice can be hugely powerful and influential on the story as a whole: choosing to tell this story largely from Abigail’s point of view, for example, takes the focus from the large-scale conflict (how the global population is steadily declining due to this disease) to a small-scale conflict (how Willow and Lester’s marriage is also steadily declining due to this disease). And that’s a really, really neat way to pull the macro to the micro, but for it to be fully effective, your character needs to actually interact with the events of the story, and to be the primary source of narration.


GRAMMAR STUFF

You had some typos. Please proofread your work. I feel like I’ve said this a few times, and while we don’t typically fail for grammar, repetitive carelessness doesn’t reflect positively on the outcome of your grade.

On that note, I find that I tend to get sucked back in when I try to spellcheck my work, so I like to start from the back and read one paragraph at a time so I focus more on the orthographical stuff.

Your dialogue punctuation does look pretty great, though! Huge improvement from last time. One small systematic thing to look at:

SO I USUALLY SET A BAD EXAMPLE ON DISCORD AND FORUMS AND I’M SORRY. But here’s a quick rundown on those weird dashes:

Hyphen: -

En dash: –

Em dash: —

Hyphens are used to join two words together (mother-in-law); en dashes are used to indicate “through”, or some sort of span (1996 – 2005); and em dashes are used to break up a sentence/basically wherever you used “--”. Microsoft Word typically autocorrects “--” to an em dash, but forums/other things won’t. But you should definitely use the em dash instead of the double hyphen for clarity! Its Unicode is Alt+2014, if that helps.

I noticed that the Pokémon/pokémon capitalization thing is back. While all of your instances of “pokemon” are lowercase, you capitalize “Vulpix”, which is akin to having a lowercase “animal” and an uppercase “Dog”. Doesn’t really matter which one you pick at this point, but it’s good practice to be consistent.

You also swap tenses between present/future about halfway through the story, which is no bueno.


PRETTY STUFF

You’ll probably hear this until the end of time, but I’ll continue to say it: show, don’t tell! It’s honestly a much more effective storytelling method.

There’s so much detail conveyed in this paragraph without anything being said. We can see that Lester is an avid researcher because he loves his subject material enough to bring it home with him. We can see that he has compassion and the desire to instill a passion for knowledge in others because he takes the time to show these things to Abigail. And we can see that Abigail in turn has a desire to understand the larger world around her and an appreciation for beauty because of how in awe she is of the magnified image of the moon.

And this is all really, really cool stuff that you do! It’s subtle but it still gets the idea across, and it’s great at establishing who Abigail and Lester are, both as individuals and with respect to one another. Most importantly, you never needed to say any of the things I said in the previous paragraph outright because it was implied so well in this paragraph.

I really, really wish that you did this more often in your story. So often, you say things like “it is generally very peaceful” or take for granted that your characters are “trying not to cry” or “wanting to cheer her up”—which are true statements, yes, but they don’t have the same weight and depth as that quoted paragraph above does. These bits are really where your characters can shine: what in particular indicates to Abigail that the house is peaceful, or that Willow is holding back tears, or that she cares enough about Willow and Lester to want to help them through this pain?


TALKING STUFF

Writing realistic dialogue is really hard, especially in a story like this where, due to Abigail’s aforementioned limited viewpoint, most of the story’s exposition comes from dialogue rather than her interpretations of it.

That being said, your dialogue should first be a realistic portrayal of a characters talking, and should be a means to convey exposition second. People flat-up don’t say things like this to other people, especially if they know each other well enough to be married:

None of these examples in Willow’s character: she’s previously been incredibly forthcoming in all of her dialogue and shows no qualms in telling Lester absolutely everything that she’s feeling, so this sudden verbal coyness feels false. And the third example doesn’t make sense for an accomplished oncologist who specializes in reproductive cancers to be shy about talking about the act of reproduction.

I find that it sometimes helps to say bits of troublesome dialogue aloud as I’m writing them: not because I want to see if I, the author, can say them without sounding awkward, but to see if I, the listener, can hear this conversation and logically feel like it’s a verbal exchange that I’d hear in real life. I think this might help you too! A lot of your dialogue with Lester feels very natural, but some of Willow’s seems awkwardly stilted.


OVERALL STUFF

Admittedly, very little of this stuff applies to the Medium-rank, but you’ve been around the block a few times and you’ve definitely heard all of my standard advice/praise/crit for this rank, so we’ve started foraying into higher-level stuff. That being said, this was still a solid work befitting of a Medium-rank capture, so Alola-Vulpix is captured!

vote in SWC tho

 

mfw I did proofread it soz it might've not saved the changes or something. regardless claiming the vulpix

 

With all due respect, if this is the extent of your proofreading, we need to work on an additional method. I've seen your work; I know that you know all of the errors that were shown here.

Proofreading takes a small investment of time and has a huge return. These are the errors I caught only in the past 36 minutes since your post:

underline – words/punctuation that were originally not present/forgotten that I added in to make your sentences grammatically correct
bold – typo (spelling, tense change, homonym, etc.)
---
When the first autumn snow fell I knew my time had begun. I sighed in the living room in front of the large glass screen door of my house, looking out as the snow fell on the rotting leaves and soggy soil. The trees hadn’t completely shaken off their leaves yet. It was kind of like living in anticipation for the winter yet to come, but hasn’t fully gone into full force.

Gradually, the snow turned into a light powder over the ground and visible areas of accumulation started to appear. It would only be a matter of time before it would accumulate into anything more significant.

It was warm inside my trainer’s home and I can smell that he already lit the firewood in the fireplace to stay warm. He calls me Abigail. I guess that was a name he saw fitting for a white, wintery Vulpix.

Winter is my favorite season because I’m not just a creature made of ice, but because the whiteness of winter is magical. My mother told me we came from a top a large mountain on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. My brothers and sisters found it strange and didn’t believe mom. I found it magical. We always stayed on our mountaintop on that island, but to think we were in the middle of a vast ocean was mystifying. We lived inside of an icy cave for most of our lives because the outside was too fierce to live in. When my trainer finally caught me, only then did I realize that it was true.

My fiery cousins here always told me that I was an odd one; a rarity, but here I am. I think my trainer, Lester, goes to that tropical island to do research and things. I think on that exact island where my family is. He talks a lot of about working on figuring out the stars. He sometimes takes me to his work and lets me look into a big metal tube pointed at the sky. I think he calls them telescopes. I couldn’t really understand what I saw, he said [missing word] and pointed to the moon moon before I looked in one time, and when I looked in, the details of its surface were so intricate I couldn’t believe that I was looking at the beautiful disc in our night sky.

His wife, Willow, lives with him as well, and she is always very interested in his pursuits and encourages him to travel and such while she stays at home and does what she does. She leaves home every day. She works, [this comma was originally present but is unnecessary] as well, but I believe she is a doctor of some sort. She taken me to her office a few times to see patients at this beautiful clinic far away. She works on patients who suffer from something called cancer which appears to be very traumatic for their [should be ‘her’] patients who generally are very grateful for her work. Lately, she had been seeing a lot more patients who were more downright depressed [this sentence is inexplicably in the correct tense while nothing else in this paragraph is]. Her work saddens me, but her patients seem to like my presence there. I can easily cheer them up; make them feel warm on a cold day, I guess.

But mostly I live in their large, suburban home on the fringe of town. It generally is a very peaceful life, kind of boring [this is a hanging fragment]. I like escaping sometimes when they’re both gone at work, run [tense doesn’t match] into the surrounding woods, and explore and meet the other pokemon around. I’m a rare sort and the other pampered, standard Vulpixes [plural of Vulpix = Vulpix] around can't grasp how I’m an element that is their opposite—both in form and behavior. One might say that I am icy on the outside, but my inner spirit is warm, like a fiery one. The opposite must be true for the others.

Anyways, I walked up to Willow, who was pensively drinking a glass of wine and reading a newspaper while Lester tended to the fire.

She looked at me nervously and motioned for me to hop on her lap while she sat her things down on a sparsely populated coffee table. This home had a modern, [either this comma is irrelevant or you need one after ‘rustic’ to create an appositive] yet rustic interior. It had hardwood floors in an old colonial home with large windows, but was also a very contemporary space with contrasting hard lines and gray furniture. I felt just as colorless there as the fresh snow falling outside.

“You know, at least I respect the warmth of your pokemon,” Willow said snidely to her husband as I got up on her lab.

“Well,” he said as he fumbled with the firewood with long, iron tools, “I can always leave you, and Abigail will come with me.” He stopped and looked at his wife, “Do you want that?”

“Oh! How bold of you to say that. You wouldn’t dare…!”

He sheepishly sighed and turned to monitor his fire.
[line break missing]
“That’s what I thought,” she huffed coldly. I held my head down. Willow grabbed my head, leaning over to reach her drink. When she brought it back, she gulped it down as if he hadn’t had any water for days.

It was an uncomfortable silence, and all I could think about was the disharmony of these two people. After a few moments, the silence became unbearable. The tense Willow abruptly leaned forward to grab the nearest remote control. I jumped off her lap in response and she offered me to return. I didn’t want to. She grabbed me aggressively. I panicked, [this comma is unnecessary] and sent a blast of frosty air at her, which caught her off guard. I quickly ran over to the other couch safely away from her.

She muttered, “filthy mongrel!” as she say back down.

Willow turned on the television.

A few seconds passed, and Lester teased, “You know Abigail hates aggressive handling…”

Willow responded by turning up the volume on the television. It was the news. There was a loud female voice speaking, “—news, there were a series of riots held in the city center. Angry protesters summoned their fire type pokemon to burn down the courthouse over a custody battle that had happened there earlier. There have been no reports of anyone being killed, but there were several injured officers and protesters alike. Police eventually disbanded—”

“Oh Arceus…” Willow muttered, partly intoxicated from her wine.

“—the protest. Custody battles have become a hot topic these days as global fertility continues to drop, and cancers of the reproductive systems in both males and females seem to become more—”

She turned off the television. Willow bemoaned, “I- I can’t handle it!”

Lester felt some pity for his wife. “I can’t imagine your patients that you deal with every day.”

She held her forehead, trying not to cry. “Well, why don’t you, Lester! Women and men come to me every day, wondering about this, about that, how long they have left to live, how they will eat, and how they can afford the very healthcare they need to even live their prognosis—the questions are endless! First they dealt with infertility, and now they have a prognosis that they might not even be able to live a full life! And I’m the one to tell them that!”

Lester got up from in front of the fire and sat next to his distressed wife. He held a long arm around her. His big sweater and bushy beard comforted Willow. Lester patted the empty spot on the couch next to him, looking at me. I was a little hesitant, but if he wanted me to, I trusted him. At least he was a buffer from Willow’s clawing pets. I got up from my seat and curled up next to him. That’s as far as I was going. Besides, the fire was roaring and partially melted my icy hair.

Willow curled into Lester and sobbed while he tried to calm his wife down. I took a peek outside, and the snow really had begun to accumulate outside. It was hardly visible because the snow was coming down so hard [general practice—never have an undefined ‘it’. What is hardly visible?]. I was surprised those protestors managed to burn down a building; all this snow would put it right out!

Willow sobbed. “Do you think we’re next…?”

“What kind of question is that? You’re being paranoid, now.”

“No, Lester, do you think, we’re…?”

In a reassuring voice, he said, “we’re—”

She interrupted, “Lester, please, this not the time.”

“Oh.” He stopped. “I don’t know. We tried as many times as we could muster, but sometimes people try for the longest time until it eventually works.”

“Lester, we’ve been trying for over a six months. That’s not normal.”

She sat up straight as an arrow, and Lester put his arm back on his side. “I… don’t know what to say about that.”

She looked at him intensely. “When you visited Alola last time, did you encounter any vixens…?”

“Any what? I’m not following.”

She sighed. “Of course you aren’t. I have to explain everything to you, don’t I?”

I looked up to Lester up seemed to be confused, he saw that I was concerned over what was happening and pet me. [I do not know what this sentence is trying to say]

“Did you or did you not have—” she was almost too ashamed to finish her sentence “—extramarital affairs with any of the ladies there!?”

“What!? No!? That’s preposterous! Why would that matter if did!?”

“Because, I wanted to know if you… gave life..” The words came out pained. “Inside someone else.”

“So you want me to cheat on you with other ladies to see if I am sterile?” There was some amusement in his tone.

She looked away, ashamed of what she had just asked for. Lester stopped petting me and rested his arms fully on his lap. Willow muttered, “Yes.”

He let out a laugh, and, in a reassuring voice, said, “Honey, I would never do such a thing to you. We need to get tested like everyone else!”

She snapped, “No, we can’t! I- We can’t bear it! We can't bear to hear the truth!”

“Well, we’ve been trying for six months. It could be either one or... both of us, but we can’t know until we get tested.”

“Honey, if it is the cancer—" she stuttered, "the cancer that has plagued the patents flocking in my office everyday—whose many lives it had destroyed!" She continued, "—and to have us succumb to it as well it would be nature's greatest insult. I have been working furiously on a better treatment for years now. Our lives would be destroyed."

She curled into his arms, sobbing. A few moments passed. Lester gave a kiss on her forehead and said in a scared, but reassuring tone, “If we have it, well, there is nothing we can do about it. It was what Arceus intended. We have each other, and that's what matters.”

She sat sobbing for a few minutes. I got up on the remainder of Lester’s lap and nuzzled Willow’s cheek. She stopped for a moment to look at me. I smiled, wanting to cheer her up. She smiled back, and giggled gently, petting me softly this time.

"I'm so glad you're still happy," she said, sniveling. Her eyes were puffy from the crying.

I hopped down off the couch, surprising everyone, and walked over to the screen door, scratching at it to be let out. Both Lester and Willow couldn't imagine why I would want to go out in a snow storm.

“What’s wrong Abigail?” Lester asked.

All I could do was turn around, cutely scream “Vul—,” fluff my tail, turn back around, and scratch the door again.

“Oh, you want to see the snow?”

I scratched the door some more and cried in agreement, “Pix!”

Sniffing, Willow said, “Lester, let her out please. She wants to go out. Abigail’s an ice type, so she would love the snow.”

He agreed. He said, “There, there,” as he walked over to the sliding door. He opened it and a cold breeze burst through the door and into the home. I quickly ran out as he shut the door. It was dark now and the snowfall lightened. It was about half a foot now, so it was extra fun to hop around in.

I jumped and rolled in it! I stayed close to the house because it was dark, and their house didn't light up the backyard much past about fix feet or so. Being in the snow is such a pleasurable experience; it reminded me so much of home. It was cold, clean, and fluffy. The couple watched me play. I didn’t mind; I was in my element. They seemed transfixed as if they were becoming happy watching me be happy. I guess my warm spirit really is shined even during the coldest hour of their night.
---

I highly recommend finding an alternative method of proofreading. Asking someone else to read over your work, reading over it yourself several times, or putting the work away for a day and coming back to it with fresh eyes are all options that take minimal investment from you and make your story infinitely more legible.

This has been a problem that multiple graders have called to your attention across multiple works. If any of the errors I pointed out in the above proofreading of your story are foreign to you, please talk to me about them; I'd be glad to help you through them conceptually. Otherwise, we expect that, with your level of experience in the Stories section, you submit proofread work as well. There are tons of things that can be discussed in a grade, and reiterating the same comma rules over and over again is a waste of everyone's time.

 

even I'm struggling to figure out how I let all of that slip by. Then again, it was also nearing the deadline.

EDIT: Reviewing some of those I distinctly remember correcting in my read though. I'm really thinking I didn't save the revision but others yeah I didn't catch.

 

Thanks to BMG's view history, I actually have access to the original version posted on Aug 2. I can post that if you think it would help you develop a proofreading method; there were definitely some errors you caught in the first readthrough!

 

yeah that would be great! I knew it sounded off when I proofread but being pressed for time for the SWC made me think, "this should be proofread enough!" But sometimes those kinds of thoughts can be deceiving.

 

original Aug 2 post below:

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Pokemon: Alolan Vulpix
Rank:Medium
CC: ~~10,100


When the first autumn snow fell I knew my time had begun. I sighed on the porch of my house looking out as the snow fell on the rotting leaves and soggy soil. The trees hadn’t completely shaken off their leaves yet. It was kind of living in anticipation for the winter yet to come but hasn’t fully gone into full force.

Gradually, the snow turned into a light powder over the ground and visible areas of coverage started to appear. It would only be a matter of time before it would accumulate into anything more significant.

It was warm inside my trainer’s home and I can smell already that he lit the firewood in the fireplace to stay warm. He calls me Abigail. I guess that was a name he saw fitting for a white, wintery Vulpix.

Winter isn’t my favorite season because I’m not just a creature made of ice, but because the whiteness of winter is magical. My mother told me we came from a top a large mountain on a tropical island in the middle of the ocean. My brothers and sisters found it strange and didn’t believe mom. I found it magical. We always stayed on our mountaintop on that island, but to think we were in the middle of a vast ocean was mystifying.

My fiery cousins here always told me that I was an odd one, a rarity. But here I am. I think my trainer, Lester, goes to that tropical island to do research and things, I think on that exact island where family is. He talks a lot of about working on figuring out the stars and such. He sometimes takes me to his work and lets me look into a big metal tube pointed at the sky. I think he calls them telescopes. I couldn’t really understand what I saw, he said moon and when I looked in, the details looking at it were so intricate I couldn’t believe that I was looking at the beautiful disc in our night sky.

His wife, Willow, lives with him as well, and she is always very interested in his pursuits and encourages him to travel and and such while she stayed at home and did what she does. She leaves home every day. She works, as well, but I believe she is a doctor of some sort. She taken me to her office a few times to see patients at this beautiful clinic far away. She works on patients who suffer from something called cancer, and appears to be very traumatic for their patients who generally are very grateful for her work.

But mostly I live in their large suburban home on the fringe of town. It generally is a very peaceful life, kind of dreadful. I like escaping sometimes when they’re both gone at work, run into the surrounding woods, and explore and meet the other pokemon around. I’m a rare sort and the other pampered, standard Vulpixes around cannot grasp how I’m an element their opposite. One might say that I am icy on the outside, but my inner spirit is warm like a fiery one. The opposite is true for the others.

Anyways, I walked up to Willow who was pensively drinking a glass of wine and reading a newspaper while Lester tended to the fire.

She looked at me nervously and motioned for me to hop on her lap while she sat her things down a sparsely populated coffee table. This home had a modern, yet rustic interior. It was hardwood floors in an old colonial home with large windows, but was a very contemporary space with contrasting hard lines and grey furniture. I felt just as colorless there as the fresh snow that was falling outside.

“You know, at least I respect the warmth of your pokemon,” Willow said snidely to her husband as I got up on her lab.

“Well,” as he fumbled through the fireplace, “I can leave you and Abigail will come with me.” He stopped and looked at his wife, “Do you want that?”

“Oh! How bold of you to say that. You wouldn’t dare…!”

He sheepishly sighed and turned to monitor his fire. “That’s what I thought,” she huffed coldly. I held my head down. Willow grabbed my head leaning over to reach her drink. When she brought it back, she gulped it down as if he hadn’t had any water for days.

It was an uncomfortable silence and all I could think about was the disharmony of these two people. After a few moments, the silence became unbearable, even for the tense Willow abruptly leaned forward to grab the nearest remote. I jumped off her lap in response and she offered me to return. I didn’t want to. She grabbed me aggressively, and I panicked, and sent a blast of frosty air at her which caught her off guard. I quickly ran over to the other couch, safely away from her.

She muttered, “filthy mongrel!” as say back down.

Willow turned on the television.

A few seconds passed, and Lester teased, “you know Abigail hates aggressive handling…”

No response from Willow as she turned up the volume on the television. It was the news. There was a loud female voice speaking, “...news, there were a series of riots held in the city center. Angry protesters summoned their fire type pokemon to burn down the courthouse over a custody battle that had happened there earlier. There have been no reports of anyone being killed but there were several injured officers and protesters alike. Police eventually disbanded…”

“Oh Arceus…” Willow muttered, partly intoxicated from her wine.

“..the protest. Custody battles have become a hot topic these days as global fertility continues to drop, and cancers of the reproductive systems in both males and females seem to become more--”

She turned off the television. Willow bemoaned, “I- I can’t handle it!”

Lester felt some pity for his wife. “I can’t imagine your patients that you deal with every day.”

She held her forehead, trying not to cry, “Well why don’t you, Lester! Women and men come to me every day, wondering about this, about that, how long they have left to live, how they will eat, how they can afford the very healthcare they need to even live their prognosis! First they dealt with infertility, and now they have a prognosis that they might not even be able to live a full life! And I’m the one to tell them that!”

Lester got up from in front of the fire to sitting adjacent to his stressed wife. He held a long arm around her. His big sweater and bushy beard comforted Willow. Lester patted the empty spot on the couch next to him, looking at me, I was a little hesitant, but if he wanted to, I trusted him. At least he was a buffer from Willow’s clawing pets. Yeah, so I got up from my seat and curled up next to him. That’s as far as I was going. Besides the fire was roaring and partially melting my icy hair.

Willow curled into Lester and sobbed while he tried to calm his wife down. I took a peek outside and the snow really had begun to accumulate outside. It was hardly visible the snow was coming down so hard. I was surprised those protestors managed to burn down a building; all this snow would put it right out!

Willow sobbed, “Do you think we’re next…?”

“What kind of question is that? You’re being paranoid, now.”

“No, Lester, do you think, we’re…?”

“We’re..”

“Lester, please, this not the time.”

“Oh,” he stopped. “I don’t know. We tried as many times as we could muster, but sometimes people try for the longest time until works.”

“Lester, we’ve been trying for over a six months. That’s not normal.”

She sat up straight as an arrow and Lester put his arm back on his side. “I… don’t know what to say about that.”

She looked at him intensely, “when you visited Alola last time, did you encounter any vixens…?”

“Any what?”

“I’m not following.”

She sighed, “Of course you aren’t. I have to explain everything to you, don’t I?”

I looked up to Lester up seemed to be confused, he saw that I was concerned over what was happening and pet me.

“Did you or did you not have,” she was too ashamed to finish her sentence, “extramarital affairs with any of the ladies there!?”

“What!? No!? That’s preposterous and why would that matter in this context!?”

“Because, I wanted to know if you… gave life..” the words came out pained, “inside someone else.”

“So you want me to cheat on other ladies to see I am sterile?” There was some amusement in his tone.

She looked away, ashamed of what she just asked for. Lester stopped petting me and rested his arms fully on his lap. Willow muttered, “yes.”

He let out a laugh and in a reassuring voice, “Honey, I would never do such a thing to you. We need to get tested like everyone else!”

She snapped, “No, we can’t...I can’t bear it!”

“Well, we’ve been trying for six months. It could be either one or...both of us, but we can’t know until we figure it out.”

“Honey, if it is the cancer… The cancer I have patents flocking in my office everyday… and to have us succumb to it as well…”

“If he have it, well, there is nothing we can do about it. It was what Arceus intended. We have each other.”

She curled into his arms, sobbing. She sat sobbing for a few minutes. I got up on the remainder of Lester’s lap and nuzzled Willow’s cheek. She stopped for a moment to look at me. I smiled, wanting to cheer her up. She smiled back, and giggled gently petting me this time.

I hopped down off the couch, surprising everyone and walked over to the screen door, scratching at it to be let out. Both Lester and Willow were surprised that I wanted to go out in a snow storm.

“What’s wrong, Abigail,” Lester asked.

All I could do was turn around, cutely scream “Vul--,” fluff my tail and turn around and scratch the door again.

“Oh, you want to see the snow?”

I scratched the door some more and cried in agreement, “pix!”

Sniffing, “Lester, let her out please. She wants to go out. Abigail’s an ice type so she would love the snow.”

He agreed. He said, “there, there,” as he walked over to the sliding door. He opened it and a cold breeze burst through and into the home. I quickly ran out as he shut the door. It was dark now and the snow was getting less strong, it was about half a foot now so it was extra fun to hop around in.

I jumped and rolled! I stayed close to the house because it was dark, but their house lit it fine. Being in the snow is such a pleasurable experience; it reminded me so much of home. . It is cold, clean, and fluffy. The couple watched me play. I didn’t mind; I was in my element. They seemed transfixed as if they were becoming happy watching me be happy. I guess my warm spirit really is shining even in this coldest hour of their night.