Arg, something messed up and the document reset, so I may have lost some reviews. Edit: okay, found the original, none were lost!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168343/1/Pokemon-Beautiful-Dreamers

[I decided to leave this child by the fountain since it is the place where all the people of this town gather]

There’s a reason people leave them at hospitals.

While the specific event of a huge storm might be unforeseen, the fact is there’s few places that are both empty enough to leave a baby without anyone noticing but populated enough that someone will find it quickly.

[The nurse huffed up, clucking in indignation at such callous behavior. How long had that boy been out there? Probably before the storm even started; the nurse could not imagine any mother, even a callous one, deliberately choosing to abandon their baby in the middle of the storm. In any case, once the storm ended, she would have to call the police to figure out what to do about this situation.]

Also, you seem oblivious to the really fucked up politics of this.

The father was already a trainer, but the mother is leaving the kid because she wants to be a trainer? So the mother is a kid. A kid who was taken advantage of by either an older kid or, more likely, an adult. You even say that both his parents left to be trainers at age ten, which, given his mom says it’s her dream to just become a trainer, suggests she got raped at nine. (I really hope you miswrote that and meant to say it was her dream to become a pokemon master.)

You’re writing a story where the sole reaction to learning all this is to start a manhunt for a raped child to further punish her and it only fails because people cared so little for her before this no one can even remember who she was.

[Except he didn’t, because his sister stopped him. And the year after that. Now he is thirteen years old, three years older than most trainers are when they leave on their journey]

Now, this part works fine. Getting abandoned as a baby because your parents would rather raise pokemon and being raised by someone who was also abandoned for the same reason is a perfect fit for explaining why the main character’s family would be so against him leaving to be a pokemon trainer. But if the important element is just that his parents are gone because of pokemon training, you should be focused on that and not on how the mother is the only one at fault and was also probably raped as a preteen but what a callous bitch she is anyway. Given he apparently ends up with a relative, it’d have gone much smoother to just say at he was dropped off at his sister’s house directly, and that’d also have let you establish really important facts like both parents were adults and so it’s actually judgement-worthy that they chose to have a kid and then chose to ditch the kid.

[That simple calendar was but a single conspirator within a vast web of conspiracy, other members including every calendar, clock, computer, and those two wood blocks with the numbers on Remora’s sister Sarai’s work desk. Not only those objects, but all those in the neighbors’ houses that Remora’s sister regularly visited, as well as those in the local community library, grocery store, and the big one in the middle of the square.]

And here it’s horribly over the top again.

I could buy that the rest of the town is okay helping him become a trainer, particularly if it’s a really small town, but which is easier – everyone altering their calender for four months, or just having the professor give pokemon out a day earlier and not telling his sister?

[And, and, all my librarians are women. The mayor, all her staff, they’re all women. There are hardly any working men in town and not that many elsewhere. Because there are no jobs for men, and they run off to become trainers and never come back. Of course, a lot of the women go, too, like your mother. ]

Okay, so I appreciate that you didn’t completely gender this by saying “a lot” of women leave too, but it really didn’t need to be gendered in the first place. There’s no sign in canon that all men become trainers but most women don’t. And it’s got particularly bad implications that the next thing is to talk about how awful his mother was for leaving him while his dad continues to get a free pass on the whole thing.

Also, you need to really think about the demographics here. How is society functioning if most of the the adult population is completely gone? Because that’s what all the men and a whole lot of the women adds up to. And not only should everything be collapsing, but all the kids growing up shouldn’t be idealizing pokemon trainers when they see nonstop failures.

[ Coraline’s mother served as the mayor’s secretary and subscribed to similar views at Remora’s sister, which she had spent much of the last decade spreading around. Nearly all the women had been convinced ]

…so he convinced everyone including city hall as a whole to change their calender, but also almost everyone in town thinks training is evil and isn’t on his side.

Also, at this point, it’s really looking like everyone’s right.

Remora having an unusually tragic trainer-related backstory works great – it gives a reason why his family in particular would refuse to let him leave for something that’s not inherently an awful idea. Remora’s experiences being completely standard, the world around him being somehow depopulated by the majority of adults running around trying to be trainers with a skeleton crew of adults desperately trying to hold things together…why are they even allowing kids to leave at this point? For that matter, why hasn’t the government, from the local town all the way to the national one, started passing laws to do something about all this? Canon’s said when it comes up that there are rules saying only successful trainers get to keep training after a year or so and it seems like that’d completely solve the problems they’re facing here.

[Our Moms]

[the Professor]

[a Pikachu.]

You only capitalize for names or things being used as a name.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168354/1/Relishing

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

This really needs more to it, even something as minor as her starting off unsure and then ending feeling more sure. Right now we begin with her being glad get to relax and end with her glad to get to relax. Maybe she’d sort of believed her mother that this was too much and she shouldn’t leave yet, but now feels sure she made the right choice. That kind of thing.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168394/1/Dear-Lillie

[I thought the prize money I’d saved up in Alola would help—but when I took it to the conversion exchange, it hardly amounted to anything. Alolan currency doesn’t mean much, it turns out, in Unova.]

I’m impressed by how well this all works. It’s often awkward to try to make the jump between the player character winning everything during the game only to end up struggling right after, but Alola is so very, very different from the previous regions. It makes perfect sense that everything would end up wrong in another region, from the money to the battles.

And trapping her through her sick mother addresses the other half of the issue, the question of why not just take off again if things aren’t working out. [I’m pretty horrible, huh? Here’s my mom, on the edge of dying, and I want to leave her.] Such grounded, well-constructed misery where there isn’t an easy solution.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168394/2/Dear-Lillie

[ If she hated living in her tiny room, what must it be like for Medusa, trapped in a bathtub, barely able to turn herself around?
After a few weeks, Medusa’s vivid coloring had begun to dim, and the slick firmness of her tentacles had softened, the flesh yielding frighteningly to Moon’s touch.]

Oh no!

As bad as things are for all her pokemon, I love how much she’s trying to accommodate them to the best of her ability, even if that’s often little more than checking in and asking them if they want to do one thing or another.

[There were laws against non-trainers who kept high-level Pokémon, that much she was sure of. She didn’t have a license anymore; without that protection, her Pokémon could be taken away if they misbehaved.]

I’m not clear on why she’s lost her license so quickly – is it an ongoing fee she couldn’t justify keeping up when she’s decided not to battle, or did it lapse automatically when she stopped battling? Was she in a grace period using Alola’s licensing before and never got a Unova one at all?

(You’re also hopping back and forth on the capitalization.)

[Each day, the bright Alola she gave to customers grew more insincere. The cafe was a mockery of the culture she’d left behind, distilling a world of dark azure ocean and hidden groves to a cheery postcard image and a few exotic dishes.]

Another perfect bit of misery!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168453/1/For-Dessert

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

Dialogue shouldn’t be completely separate from the rest. Put speech and a speaker’s actions together.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168487/1/Flaming-Ashes

[“Hey” – Human speech
“Pikachu” – Pokespeech
“Dexter” – Pokedex
‘Think…’ – Thoughts
‘Mind Talk’ – Telepathy / Auraspeak]

You really shouldn’t need a key for people to decode what’s going on in your story. Especially the pokedex – it’s making the exact same sounds as the human characters, just doing it through a speaker.

Write out numbers with letters.

Spellcheck.

“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.

Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168887/1/Never-Give-Up-Until-It-s-Over

Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13168976/1/Self-Reflections

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym. And especially when it’s something like [the Moon] when you’re writing fanfic where that’s a character’s name but she’s not present, so it’s extra distracting to keep running into.

[I guess it sounds a little silly now that I’m older, because I wanted to become a Pokemon master. And before you ask, no, it is not an official position. It’s honestly just a title. Believe me, I checked.]

I think this could stand to be explained a bit better – while it’s true we never get a coherent explanation about what exactly it is, we see various people using the term “pokemon master” like it has some agreed-upon meaning and no one seems to think Ash’s insistence he’ll be one is that weird, so it seems like a cop-out to just say he made the whole thing up out of thin air. It seems more like being, say, a baseball legend – it sounds reasonable for a kid to say that’s their dream, but a lot sillier if the kid explains that he thought there was an official A Baseball Legend Trophy that was the sole decider of if you were or weren’t.

Ash is certainly overdue for some self-reflection, and it’s nice to see him taking a moment to think about what exactly he’s doing and wants out of life. Lillie’s presence ends up feeling weird, though – she’s got way more going on so it’s distracting to have all that hovering just off-camera while focusing on Ash. I think the idea is to draw some comparison between them and the whole growing up thing, so maybe it’d help to bump the presence of her issues up a tad to make that explicit.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169002/1/Limitless

[“What makes a pokemon strong? Power and skill. They are two different metrics, each of which is as important than the other. A master samurai wielding a stick and an idiot with the strength of a machoke are both equally ineffective in a fistfight.”]

You lost me at the end there – being dumb or having a stick is certainly going to hamper them, but “ineffective” is really overselling it. Plenty of idiots manage to be good in a fistfight due to strength, and you can totally beat people to death with sticks – honestly, given people train with sticks all the time, it’s not even that big of a problem for the samurai and he’s still got a big advantage if it’s a fistfight and the other guy’s completely unarmed. Something more measured, like that a master samurai isn’t much good without their blade, would work better than the more dramatic statement that they’re outright useless.

[“Excuse me, young man, do you know where I could find some accessories for my pokemon?” As expected, she looked down at him, her tone clearly one of impatience.
“Fourth floor, general accessories. Fifth floor for contest pieces. We hope you find our selections satisfactory.” Thousands of repetitions had him speaking the phrase, as if on autopilot. Now go fuck off and leave me alone, thank you very much.
“Hm. You look a little young to be working here.” With that parting comment, she turned on her heels, her small, red leather purse dangling from her arm.
And you look like a glorified prostitute, but I didn’t say anything, now did I?]

So I realize that he’s working in retail and so it’s understandable if he just wants everything to burn, but it seems like the narration is pushing for the idea that people really are super annoying. It’d work a lot better to show that more in her words than her just sounding impatient when asking a reasonable question or the relatively bland mention that he looks young when he is, in fact, super young. For example, introducing him on the tail end of a conversation where she keeps demanding he go look in the back for a product they’re out of or honor a coupon or haggle or whatever. There’s so many things that are so much more worthy of hatred.

[“Well, Emily can take over. I know she definitely deserves it, she’s worked hard. I’ll put in a word for her with Smith. You’ll back me up, right?]

I do really like that he’s nice to his coworkers.

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

[a Garbodor]
[her Gloom ]

You’ve mostly got it right but you have a couple errant capitals here.

[He scowled as memories of his last visit a couple months back resurfaced; specifically, the one of the official telling him that he needed a letter of recommendation from someone who wasn’t their legal guardian, and so the whole affair had been moot.]

This really doesn’t make fit with anything we see in canon. It doesn’t even seem trainers need permission from a legal guardian. If it’s just to explain that he had to work retail as part of getting that recommendation from his boss, wouldn’t it be easier to just say he needed money first?

[It’s like how mom used to make them.]

So, when you are using a word in place of a name, it’s capitalized, so “Mom”.

[“What’s this about you getting a beldum? Last I heard, the market price was two-hundred grand.”
“I cut a deal and got mine for three-quarters the price.”]

I really didn’t follow this. He just says he can’t pay more so he gets it? And that even after Steven brings up that a beldum from a champion’s pokemon is worth more than usual.

[This beldum knows the moves Take Down, Iron Head, Iron Defense, and Zen Headbutt.]

Huh. Well, that does cover the main problem with beldum, them starting off with just take down and battering themselves to death when you try to train them. On the other hand, their godawful moveset is an interesting limitation while without it they’re just kind of overpowered.

[In the wild, beldum are considered omnivorous creatures. While they do not hunt for meat, they will certainly attack other wild steel-type pokemon, such as aron or magnemite, for their metal exteriors. Once the shell has been consumed, the Beldum will often leave, either in hunt for another steel-type, or back to the colony, leaving the meat for other pokemon to feast upon.]

Omnivore solely refers to what they consume and has nothing to do with how they get it, if there are other bits they’re not eating, or if anyone dies in the process. Possibly you mean “predatory”?

[“So if I ask you a vague question which returns contradictory responses based on how I further the question, you respond with both answers, right?”
Yes.
“Rather than respond with both, could you ask for clarification?”
Titan stopped bobbing in midair for a second, causing Max to frown in worry for a little bit, until the beldum resumed bobbing up and down.
Yes.
“Alright. Back to the first question, then. Do you think you can get some more training in today?”
Perhaps. Further clarification on training required.
Max chuckled. It seemed that Titan’s vocabulary had also expanded slightly.]

Mm, not really slight.

Having his pokemon say yes/no and having to interpret that is a lot more interesting than the idea that in the future, it’ll just be able to say what the problem is without any difficulty on his part. It’s like the better moveset making it less challenging only without the balance where there’s also a benefit storywise to having his starter be functional and battles be more varied. Also, the more pokemon talk and otherwise indicate they’re about as smart as humans, the weirder it gets to own them and give them orders. When he’s just getting one-word simple bursts from his pokemon, he comes off as nice in how he treats it because it makes sense he’d be making the decisions and that he’s taking into account his pokemon’s own best interests in the process. The smarter the beldum gets, the more it starts looking controlling.

…also, I’m not really clear where this is going. Is it just going to be him and his beldum doing the trainer thing? There’s a lot of detail to the world right now, which is nice, but so far it doesn’t seem like the detail is going in any particular direction – him getting a beldum super cheap that’s actually a particularly exclusive one was extremely weird, but seems to have just happened and been done with. There’s the mention pokemon training is dangerous, presumably to clarify to the reader what the general situation is in this fanfic and not anything to follow up on further. Max is being very thoughtful about being a trainer, but doesn’t seem to be thinking beyond the immediate.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169026/1/A-Strange-Pok%C3%A9man-Story

Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169027/1/The-Final-Test-Intro-and-Kanto-Arcs

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

You really don’t need to start off with a list of ages. I am glad you didn’t make Misty younger than Ashley, though.

[That is until Pikachu smirked, looking straight at her and said “Pi pika chapi pikachu?”]

Should be [said, “Pi].

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169298/1/Lonely-No-More

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym. Meanwhile, if you’ve got words like “mom” getting used in place of a name, they are capitalized.

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

[“Ah! Money smoney, I can write you a check and things’ll be fine. Better yet, I’ll even order it for you, have them come in and install the bad boy,” she didn’t want to play maid for Gary Oak. She barely liked playing maid for herself and her daughter.
“Nah, I like my idea better. I’ll even get you a uniform to wear,” Gary spoke, sending her a rather private smirk.]

Eeh, that he’s pushing for something like this seems a poor choice given you seem to be going with the idea they’re otherwise mutually into each other. If she was positive toward the suggestion or just disinterested, then his followup comment would be a decent flirt. That he’s pushing like this in response to her emphatically saying no and sounding like she really hates the idea makes it really uncomfortable. And if this is supposed to be him trying to get her to agree by making it a romantic thing, it should be something like phrasing it as a question (“Really? I can get you a uniform to wear.”). If it’s a demand and not an offer, it’s not flirting.

[[Text:
Hope you’re ready to work, Red. Hope you like lace, you’ll be wearing it tomorrow.]
Misty rolled her eyes. What a cocky bastard. What makes him think that she would…? Then, reality dawned on her. Her kid had broken his window. He could hold that over her head for as long as he pleased.]

If what you want is Misty getting forced into this, then you can write that, but it’s a really bad fit for an actual romance, trying to write Gary as a decent person, or make it believable that Misty’s into him. Pushy flirting is only cute when the other person is giving some degree of go-ahead.