In which someone uses finally uses “they” pronouns for a legendary. We also get an idiot mad scientist who sees no downside to making a supersoldier that hates him. One of these days I’d like to see one of those stories where they don’t abuse the experimental monster, just for the novelty.
Category: Reviews
[19] The Other Pokereviews, Part 126
[39] The Other Pokereviews, Part 127
A very decent OT fic that sadly does not show any indication of being in it for the long haul, a moemon fic that appears to not be porn, a fic about how hard it is to be persecuted for wanting to screw your property, a fic that just describes a game battle, and finishing off with a cool what-if where Mewtwo wasn’t abused.
Anime count: 13
[18] The Other Pokereviews, Part 128
Mostly boring, though someone had the same idea as me and named their sylveon Oberon and Titania. We end with what looks like a really good OT fic, except for the fact that battles are gruesome and deadly and no one seems to care.
Anime count: 6
[13] The Other Pokereviews, Part 129
[17] The Other Pokereviews, Part 130
A pokescrewing fic that most definitely is a total master/slave thing; a weirdo who attacked me in the author’s note but did not block; a very wordy thing about professionally diagnosing Cyrus’ mental illnesses; and a really good short story collection about different ways to get a starter.
Anime count: 8
[19] The Other Pokereviews, Part 131
An author I liked before posted a new story! Pickings were otherwise pretty average. Even our token pokescrewing fic is only moderately creepy. There is one weird thing about the gods acting like high schoolers, though.
Anime count: 10
[13] The Other Pokereviews, Part 132
[12] The Other Pokerviews, Part 133
[16] The Other Pokereviews, Part 134
A neat oneshot about the Lake fairies, a decent SuMo novelization, and a lot of incoherence.
Anime count: 5
[15] The Other Pokereviews, Part 135
An interesting fic from a voltorb’s perspective, and a story with a paralyzed protagonist that completely glosses over all the challenges this would imply.
Anime count: 10
[19] The Other Pokereviews, Part 136
“I think that I should challenge the Elite Four,” she had told them, “After all it was what I set out to do, and it is why I continue to push forward,” Valerie stared at the intelligent faces surrounding her, “However, there’s always a chance that you won’t make it,” Her eyes began to sting, memories of the most recent death threatening to push free of her eyes. She fought them back and continued, “I won’t force any of you to fight in those conditions,” Here she took a deep breath she had thought about this for awhile now, “If you would like to back out now, I offer you the opportunity to leave. You can stay in the PC, or even return to your wild homes. I won’t make you fight, and I won’t hate you for leaving,” Valerie’s vision began to blur, and she was staring at her legs, travel worn and strong. She felt a touch from one of her pokemon, and looked up, without fail each pokemon looked her in the eye, and stepped forward, ready to help her achieve her goals.
Nuzlocke authors continue to not understand you can’t transplant epic fantasy stakes into a sports anime.
Anime count: 10
[17] The Other Pokereviews, Part 137
A “Team Plasma wins” AU that may not be completely awful, a poke-empath who actually focuses on helping pokemon, and a few other semi-interesting things.
Anime count: 3
Pokeauthors: The Masqued Avenger
St Elmo’s Fire,
A new review has been posted to your story.
Story: Blood is Thicker than Water
Chapter: 1. Chapter 1
From: TheMasquedAvenger ( https://www.fanfiction.net/u/11189057/ )
Reply URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/pm2/post.php?rwid=265357138
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On the one hand, I appreciate the attempt to try and flesh out Hau’s character to something more than just happy-go-lucky just for the sake of being jolly that the game gives him. In this way, there is at least purpose behind his actions, and hearing his thoughts and fears is nice.
But, this story is really…dull. It’s like, are you even writing for fun anymore? It’s a lot of “event A happens, then event B, and so on.” Aside from giving the character motivation, you leave the rest of the actors in this tale desperately lacking in any sense of characterization. You tried so hard to make Hau not a cardboard cutout, that that’s exactly what you’ve done to everyone else in this. They’re just there to fill out the scenery.
Like others have said in the reviews, this is incredibly dialogue heavy. Though, I’m not going to tell you that you should add more descriptions of scenery or battles or crap like that. Sometimes that gets way too into the purple prose territory, which so many young authors fail to grasp that it can get ridiculous. But, I might also suggest that maybe try to put more feeling into the characters’ body language. Show us how Hau, Lillie, or anyone else feels because God knows these other characters need fleshing out in this story. Most of the language we convey is not in what we say, but how we say it. That’s where I think you can remedy the dialogue issues.
But, one thing I’m not going to do is complain about the OOC thing. I do think it’s important that writers, fanfic writers specifically, find other ways to read into the canon and find new meaning or reinterpret it in their own way. I think you did do that well, and anyone who’s calling you out for making Hau too OOC is just blowing smoke because duh, that was the whole point of this story.
So, all in all, this story is kind of “meh” for me. It’s got some good concepts behind it, but the execution is just dead and lifeless. I think some efforts in characterization and expression would make this story not look like it’s held together with chewing gum and paper clips.
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What’s interesting is that this is pretty much the opposite of what other critics have told me, so let’s see if this definitely completely impartial and not at all vengeful stranger whose only other review is on Farla can elaborate.
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