A reasonably varied bunch! Also, the counter-reviews are getting particularly mad.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169437/1/Nameless-No-More

[ I don’t really have a specific reason for deleting it, I just felt like some chapters were not as well-written as they could’ve been]

…

[this story is a continuation of one of the best fanfictions I’ve ever read, called Nameless Grunt, by an author known as hopefullynotgone. It’s a story about May being born as Aqua leader Archie’s daughter, and how her life as a member of Team Aqua is hell. But then, she meets Brendan, and escapes with him to a new life. I don’t want to spoil it too much, so if you want to read it, search up my username “AIRJ999” on Reddit (the original authornunfortunately deleted the story).]

So the second paragraph of your author’s note covers why your first paragraph shouldn’t be about deleting your previous work at all, rather than apologizing for just doing it suddenly. Your impression of your writing is going to be far more about your own feelings at the time than anything objective. Deleting ensures that you’ll never pass through that feeling – you’ll destroy it, then be stuck with that last impression of it being bad forever. You’re also left with nothing to compare your next work to, making it all the more likely you’ll repeat this or give up because it feels like you’re not improving.

On a different note, if this is picking up exactly where the other person’s stops, you’d be better off with at least a summary of what’s happened. You could also try posting on Archive of Our Own as they allow links in fic, so you could link to the copy of the fic directly instead of giving directions on how to find it.

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/13169515/1/Pokemon-Mirrored-Journeys

I assume there’s a reason everything but the dialogue is bolded but I really can’t imagine what it is. Bold is really tiresome to read.

Waking up is just not an interesting point to start, and neither is summarizing events up to this point.

Write out numbers with letters.

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.

[ In his wondrous excitement, young Jackson had frightened his would-be partner, Charmander, who had consequently burned down a large portion of his parents’ home in Viridian City, in Kanto. The experience was terrifying to him, but he decided to wait a couple of years before trying again.

As time passed, his family had moved on to a new home in Vermillion City, and Jackson had an inkling of persistence. This time around, it was much worse. This time around, having chosen a non-flammable Pokemon in the form of a Bulbasaur. Jackson ran into a new problem: an uncooperative Pokemon, who eventually fought against him in rebellion, breaking his right arm. His older sister, Veronica was the one to subdue it. Emotionally, and now physically, damaged, Jackson found himself unable to cope with ever becoming a Pokemon Trainer.]

I do appreciate that you’ve given a good reason for him to start late and good reason for him not to even keep pokemon during that time, but this is perhaps the most boring way to learn about it.

If you think it’s important the reader learn about this before the rest of your story then you should write them out as complete scenes so people can actually see it happening. If you want to jump in with him at fifteen having already failed at being a trainer twice, then don’t have a preamble about it, just start with him already the way he is and then explain what happened to make him like this later.

Additionally, there is middle ground between never interacting with a pokemon and getting kicked out the door. It’s obvious that he is absolutely garbage at handling pokemon given he’s nearly been killed twice. Even if his family is into pokemon training so much that they can’t accept him not being a trainer, he should really be getting eased into it.

Now, if they super want him to be a trainer and he super doesn’t, I could see them getting him a pokemon that he then refuses to interact with, and them trying to push him into doing so without success until they decide the only way option is to force him to be a trainer so he has no choice. But given his first attempt burned down their house, it’s hard to buy that they’d be so enthusiastic about him even being a trainer – this sort of disjoint is usually set up as a traumatizing personal event, like he got burned and became scared, not making it clear that his mistakes can have plenty of collateral damage for everyone else.

[He considered himself to be terrible with Pokemon, despite the truth of it simply being a matter of compatibility. ]

[ When he was younger, the thought had crossed his mind that it wasn’t him, it was the Pokemon themselves. They were the ones who didn’t like him, and not the other way around. This would be an accurate assumption, but Jackson himself didn’t know this. ]

Also no, he’s absolutely terrible. He wasn’t careful with his charmander or capable of dealing with the fire to in any way mitigate things before the house burned down, and you say the bulbasaur “eventually” fought against him, meaning that faced with a pokemon that had issues with him, he not only couldn’t improve things but instead kept pushing and pushing until it snapped. I could believe that by fifteen he may be older and smarter enough to not do quite as badly, but if dogs keep biting you, you’re terrible with dogs. People who are not-terrible would have modified their own behavior when faced with a problem dog rather than relying on getting a perfect dog. That’s before getting into the fact he picked both those pokemon and the fact they were incompatible is therefore on his own head – a person who repeatedly buys a dog who hates them only to be shocked to realize that the dog hating them causes problems is a person who is utterly godawful at dogs and the absolute last thing that should happen is telling them to buy yet another and then head out to catch random strays.

If what you want here is for him to actually be a perfectly decent trainer then you need to think about why those were freak accidents that don’t reflect on his actual ability to handle pokemon, and probably actually show them to better sell how he wasn’t to blame for what happens.

On the other hand, instead of yet another victim of circumstance and coincidence, where nothing that happens actually tells us anything about who he is, it’d be far more interesting for what happened to him to be a reflection of who he is and his own personality and decisions. Say ten year old him had gotten a bulbasaur because he liked bulbasaur as a species even though it was clearly not enthusiastic about him, then when it started rebelling just pushed harder because it was his pokemon and it had to do what he wanted, he felt it’s fine to ignore its threat displays and aggression because everyone knows bulbasaur are calm and not dangerous, and then finally it ends up attacking him and he gets badly hurt and swears off pokemon altogether. This introduces questions – is he better by fifteen? Will things start off okay because he’s scared so he treats his pokemon with kid gloves, but if things go okay for him, he’ll lose that fear and start ignoring his pokemon’s feelings again and end up in the same situation (and this time with a much stronger, more dangerous pokemon)? Did he never mean to ignore his pokemon’s feelings but understanding them doesn’t come naturally to him, so even knowing better, it’ll be a struggle to work together with them? Is being a trainer actually a good idea for him?

Right now pretty much the only question this chapter raises is if Serena was just there to leer at or if he’s hooking up with her, which is really not doing much as a hook.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169655/1/The-Art-of-War

[with the moving van running over every speed bump there is to find in an unpaved road.]

A speed bump is something deliberately put atop a paved road. You want just “every bump”.

[She couldn’t have ridden her Reshiram and scare the meager population of littleroot.]

It’s Littleroot and reshiram. The names of individual people, places and things are capitalized, general terms aren’t.

Also, given the premise is apparently she’s not allowed any of her pokemon, it’s awkward to give a reason that didn’t apply. You should just say that riding over on her reshiram wasn’t an option without elaborating on something that would’ve prevented it if not for the other things that had already prevented it.

[“Oh, shut it, Nor, I’m not an invalid.” Hilda rolled her eyes, grabbing the crutches at the back of the red tucson. Her mother enjoyed the role of being the doted wife too much. ]

This is even more awkward. I think you mean doted-on, but her only dialogue is rejecting the idea of getting help which would be the opposite. But she’s certainly not being a doting wife to be telling him to shut it either.

You’re also jumping between past and present tense. You’ve got to pick one.

[Her father darted down to kiss her mother on the cheek]

So she just told us he’s some dude assigned to this job, but now she’s referring to him like he’s her actual father and he’s acting like he’s actually in a relationship with her mom and then he’s patting her like they’re close as well. Why? If you wanted to just write him as if he’s actually her dad and actually in love with her mom, why open explaining none of that applies? This can’t even be explained as needing to be convincing for any spies because he waited until they were inside to do it.

The idea of May being relocated Hilda and Norman actually being an officer assigned to make sure this goes smoothly is really interesting, but it seems like you’re shying away from what that should actually mean.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169688/1/The-Way-He-Makes-Her-Feel

Ugh. Stop talking about people as “females” and “males”. If you mean someone’s a man, call them a man. If you mean someone’s a woman, call them a woman.

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/13169776/1/Truce

[She’d set off from Celestic Town early in the morning yesterday – which happened to be Christmas Eve – confident that she’d make it to Snowpoint City in time to call her mother on the Pokemon Center phone and wish her a merry Christmas. ]

It’s hard to believe that the various towns and cities in the game are just a day away from each other and having it work that way also makes this seem like a bigger screwup than I think you intended. If it’s several days travel, then it’d be far more reasonable she wouldn’t want to wait so long in town just to be sure she was by a phone, plus the further she has to travel, the harder it’d be to estimate and more understandable it is that she miscalculated like this. (Plus, a surprise blizzard several days into a trip is just a thing that happens, a surprise blizzard right after you left is more a what-sort-of-person-doesn’t-check-the-weather thing.) But if she couldn’t just relax for a day (on Christmas Eve, no less!) and then call her mom in the morning, that makes it sound like she either has exceptionally bad judgment or that making the call was never really as important as she says it was.

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.

[Well, not all alone, she thought. At least I have my Pokemon with me. Empoleon, Rotom, Chansey, Porygon, Lucario, and Eevee. The friends that had been with her constantly throughout her journey, battling with her for six gym badges, growing with her, traveling with her all across Sinnoh. As long as she was with them, she wasn’t truly alone.]

This seems weird as well. They’re not actually with her because she’s keeping them in pokeballs, and if she valued their companionship she’d be keeping one out. And given the idea of her being on her own and then meeting someone who’s also on their own, it seems far more fitting to have this be the reverse, where she feels extra alone because normally they would be out but she’s keeping them in her pokeballs due to the bad weather.

[“But…we’re enemies. We’re on opposing sides. We have to fight,” the girl said, dumbfounded.]

Team Galactic isn’t exactly the brightest of teams, but even if it’s within IC limits for them to be so easily led around, I think it’d be just more interesting if she could manage a halfway coherent objection – assuming Dawn is there specifically to thwart whatever Galactic is doing, for example. Right now her dialogue feels rather generic sad enemy underling.

[“But you hate Team Galactic. Why do you care if I live or die?”]

And having her dialogue make better points would also help with Dawn – responding to something this pathetic with a speck of decency is super easy. Dawn helping even in in the face of the other girl saying something more forceful, like that helping her now means she’ll be able to head right back to working for Team Galactic, would say more about Dawn.

[The girl fidgeted with her hands. “My…name? I’m the twenty-second grunt in Jupiter’s unit. They call me J-22.”

“Not your name in Team Galactic. Tell me your real name.”

“Before I joined, I was called Nova. I guess you can call me that, but only during the truce. When the truce ends, I’ll be J-22 again.”]

In general, everything seems to go too smoothly for Dawn. This girl’s working for a criminal organization. There’s reasons other than dehumanizing misery to not want to tell your enemy your real, traceable name, but she both breaks the rules of the team she’s so loyal to and takes an enormous personal risk just because Dawn asks twice in a row. This feels like it’s something that should’ve required more of Dawn earning her trust or just coming later in the conversation when she feels more relaxed, instead of after ten minutes of silent walking.

[“Is that why you caught that Glameow? So you could use it in contests?” Dawn asked.

The smile faded from Nova’s face. “I didn’t catch it. It was given to me when I joined Team Galactic. All members are required to have at least one Pokemon with them at all times.”]

Also, I’d have liked to see this explored a bit more. Dawn evidently assumes that people who have pokemon caught the pokemon, as if it’s no big deal. Nova, though, had no pokemon upon joining and this implies that’s true for almost all their members. Is this because there’s some problem that prevents many people from having a pokemon, or is it because Nova and most of the others never wanted to be pokemon trainers originally? To someone like Dawn who loves her pokemon, both of those options should be extremely strange, so I’d think she’d follow up on that aspect rather than being more interested in the fact they all keep the same pokemon.

[ There was no water left in Dawn’s thermos, so she and Nova grabbed handfuls of freshly melted snow and stuffed them into their mouths. It wasn’t the healthiest thing to do, but at this point, Dawn didn’t care.]

The heath is barely a problem compared to the fact that handfuls of snow don’t add up to mouthfuls of water, so it’s just not going to work. If she has both a fire and a thermos, she could shovel snow in there and stick it close enough to melt instead. Plus in a world where kids are traveling like this, they’d likely be well enough educated about things to know to respect warnings about how unhealthy this is – it’s just so easy to avoid get hypothermia and dehydration (the tiny cuts in your mouth from eating it are actually pretty serious) by making sure to melt it first.

[“Look, I know you’ve been through a lot, but Team Galactic steals Pokemon from innocent trainers! And they obviously don’t care about the wellbeing of the lower members. I mean, do you even know how Team Galactic is going to achieve its goals?” Dawn argued, hoping against all odds that Nova would understand.]

This reads weird. Nova’s backstory combined with the fact she didn’t have a pokemon makes it sound like she has no reason to see stealing pokemon as a particularly terrible crime – how much would you respect rights other people had that you weren’t allowed to have yourself? Dawn also doesn’t have much of an argument that Team Galactic in particular doesn’t care about Nova’s wellbeing if she was already a homeless, hungry, mistreated kid. Whether or not Team Galactic could possible be providing more food and better clothes (and really, Dawn doesn’t actually know their financial situation) is kind of moot if regular society provided even less.

This really seems like it should’ve been Dawn speaking first with Nova’s backstory being given as a counter-argument.

[Our best bet is to travel together until we get to wherever your group was going. You can rejoin them there.”

“I’m not going to lead you to where Team Galactic is going,” Nova said sharply. “If you see our next target, you’ll know where to attack.”]

Ah, that’s more like it. There’s a lot of very specific problems the two of them having a truce brushes up against, not just the broad protag vs enemy team overarching plot.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169955/1/To-Be-Undefeated

[After some confusion, everyone got the pokémon they wanted. Well, everyone except Caesar, but that was his fault for wanting a tyranitar. He settled for a charmander after a screaming fit.]

Haha, children. They’re awful! (I love that it wasn’t just larvitar. Of course the kid expecting to get exactly what he wanted wouldn’t limit himself to asking for the first stage.)

[Nicola drew a sharp breath. Yes, she’d said that, but the evidence of her failure lay in her arms, breathing softly. “Ratty isn’t actually my pokémon!” she stammered, surprised to have hit upon a solution.]

As bad as her solution is, I like the metatextual solution to how a nuzlocke could even be possible. Of the few other fics that engage with nuzlockes on a decent level, they’re generally about creating a grimdark enough world that people are forced into this, but what a nuzlocke really is is a self-imposed challenge for bragging rights.

(And this gives me the idea that someone could actually do relatively straight nuzlocke if it was a matter of pokemon abandoning their trainer in response to a loss rather than an endless murderfest, but I suspect that kind of thing would wreck the power fantasy.)

I think you did a good job of balance and a really good job of not making this solely about her – she made a mistake but not the pile of mistakes it’d have been to blame Ratty for what happened, and Brock’s [“That was foolish, but it isn’t an all defining moment. You didn’t leave Ratty somewhere he couldn’t survive and he was a wild pokémon.” ] is similarly well-measured. Even as she seems so immature for wanting to stick to a foolish boast, it’s obvious she takes her responsibility as a trainer seriously and cares deeply for her pokemon.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13169999/1/The-Rose

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.

Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.

[She was weak, hungry and homeless, wandering the countryside for the food and warmth she needed to keep on going. She was alone in this world, nobody to rely on, nobody to help.]

It’s a bit odd she’s an umbreon, in that case. It’s not particularly solid what the evolution requires, but it sounds like she’s lacking anything in the vicinity of either friendship or happiness, so it’d be good to have some explanation – just something like, she used to have a family but they’re all dead now. Her being an umbreon also kinda undermines the whole creeping around at night trying to find food bit given she’s nocturnal and that’s when she’d be up regardless. For her, it’s searching during the day that’d be an act of miserable desperation. Given this is porn I assume switching to a pokemon species that better fits desperately searching during the night isn’t an option, but you could have her running around in the early morning where it’s bright enough to be uncomfortable to her but early enough that no one’s around.

[While she knew she would eat any piece of food off the floor immediately, not caring for how long it’s been there for, she did not have the privilege to be choosy about food right now, she needed any sustenance she could find.]

If you start with “while…” there’s supposed to be a contradicting point in there. Like [While she was hungry enough to swallow even rotten food, she knew she couldn’t afford to be sick so she sniffed it cautiously.] If your sentence lacks that, you should delete the “while”.

[She knew how long she had been without food, and even longer without sleep as she remained awake for over a day and a half]

You can go pretty long without food. If she’s only been awake for a day and a half, and she’s eaten more recently, then it’s been what, a day, half a day since she ate? And she’s being this dramatic about it?

If the problem is that she’s been barely eating for much longer than that, you should be clear about it. If you say, for example, that all she’s eaten in the past two days is an apple core, then her situation is more obviously a problem. If you say all she’s eaten in the past week was an apple core yesterday, that establishes this has been going on for some time and if she doesn’t find food really soon she’ll be in trouble.

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/13170545/1/Lost

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.

[Then team Rocket showed up]

Similarly, if a name contains two words, you have to capitalize both parts – Team Rocket.

[Suddenly Meowth, in a panick,]

Panic. Spellcheck.

You also shouldn’t start two paragraphs in a row with “suddenly”.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13170577/1/Party-Dancecapades

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 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/13170688/1/On-The-Shore

[Her mind wakes, up to consider silence.

From it she then learns to distinct small noise that she hears.]

Phrases like “wakes up” can’t be split by a comma, while something like “from it” should be followed by a comma. A lot of your sentences read oddly from being split where they shouldn’t be or missing a break where it should be. [she then learns to distinct small noise] would, I think, be put as “she learns to distinguish small noises” or perhaps “she begins to distinguish small noises”.

Like last time, I’m afraid it’s still difficult to make out what you’re saying and I’d recommend finding a beta reader. English is particularly troublesome with descriptive writing like this.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13170959/1/With-Fire-and-Lightning

[A few things to keep in mind: one, the age of Ash – and other trainers – isn’t 10 in this fic, largely because I can’t imagine 10 y/o children running around a world plagued by what are essentially terrorists or large-scale criminal organisations. They’re somewhere within the realms of 15-16, though, meaning that they’re still young.]

The ten year olds aren’t supposed to be fighting terrorists, and honestly, it’s not like it makes more sense to say that people are intentionally sending off fifteen year old newbies against terrorists instead.

If you want relatively experienced teens handling the evil plots of one team or another, the far smoother solution is to have kids get their pokemon at ten and then have five years of raising pokemon under their belt, rather than one L5 starter.

(And if you’re going for training being basically meaningless and the human wins solely from their own skill, that’s actually kind of covered by “ranger” and the difference between how the two function would easily let you say that rangers have to be older than regular trainers.)

Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.

[It was a far cry from the rural tranquility of Kanto’s rolling plains. Between its lush greenery and open expanses, his home region had ensured that its people had, for the most part, blended seamlessly into nature; very few large cities had dared to disturb the rugged beauty of the land.]

Uh, Kanto is the one with people talking about how there’s grimer all over the cities because of pollution problems, and the issue of how badly they’re handling things comes up repeatedly in the manga.

You go on to say that he’s never been out of Pallet Town, so why not have him just compare it to Pallet alone? The difference between a tiny backwater with no industry to speak of and a major seaport is going to outweigh any regional differences anyway.

[it’s huge, professor.]

So you’ve got the capitalization pretty much down, but this is the exception. If Ash is using “professor” in place of Oak’s personal name instead of like “the professor” or “a professor”, it does get capitalized.

[“Professor,” he began, feeling very small, “is the Unova League really as tough as everyone says it is? What… what if I can’t do it? What if I fail?”

“Ash, my boy, I know you won’t. You can’t. You’ve been destined for greatness since the minute you were born.” Instinctively, Ash pressed his hand over his heart, feeling the warm, tingling thrum of the feather nestled in the pocket there. It was as much a reminder of the expectations he had of himself as it was a reassurance that he was meant for this.]

Yeesh.

Assuming this is of the betterversion!Ash subgenre, I guess things will work out of him despite that, but god that sounds like he’s getting set up to completely crash and burn. No experience, getting flung into what’s apparently the most hardcore league that’s so unwinnable the Unovans all go to other regions to start out (and when he’s so inexperienced he didn’t even know any of that!), and instead of being told anything to deal with failure, like that everyone fails sometimes and it’s not the end of the world, Oak just further reinforces that failure is unthinkable, unacceptable, and a betrayal of his entire destiny.

[Though the strange pokémon was far from friendly, a part of him wanted to see it again — and he hated to leave someone that was so desperately in need of care. Hurt and jaded, it had clearly been damaged by people in the past, and Ash hated to leave it hating humanity.

“Will you still be here tomorrow?” he asked before he could stop himself. “I’ll- if you don’t mind… can I come back? I’ll bring more food. Better food.” Having recovered some of its strength, the pokémon staggered to its feet and limped back into the shadows in the back of the cave, ignoring him entirely.]

So while I understand why you want it to be just Ash showing up again, there’s the problem that the obvious thing to do here is to either catch it or go back to the pokecenter and say he found a badly injured pokemon, so you need some further explanation why he decides to be so hands-off in the face of a pokemon that obviously needs major help.

They’re both pretty obvious solutions and Ash is already talking to the pokemon, so one option would just be for him to try offering to do those things and then backpeddle when the pokemon gets incredibly upset at the idea.

[Unsurprisingly, the pokémon was far too recalcitrant to give in easily. It had to be aware of humanity’s comparable fragility, but if it was, it clearly didn’t care enough to pity him and eat]

I’ve now seen this several times and I really don’t get why it’s seen as a good idea. It’s just a really transparent guilt trip that isn’t even enforced because Ash could say, “Oh, forget it!” and start eating any time he feels like. Ash spending the time and effort to bring the pokemon food is a sign he cares, Ash being so incredibly manipulative just casts the previous bit into doubt. And given the pokemon’s main problem seems to be trust issues, eating the food instead would probably be more reassuring.

If he wants to be pushy and disregard what the pokemon is saying for its own good, he could chuck a pokeball at it in the hopes of getting the chains off when it rematerialized instead of playing weird mind games.

[ Ash studied the data mirthlessly, hatred rising in his gut. Status: Wild. The zeraora was as free and untamed as any of the other pokémon living in the Desert Resort. It didn’t belong to Ghetsis, but that was clearly the man’s end goal. To break the zeraora, chain and muzzle it and rob it of all autonomy. The shackles binding its ankles were proof of that intention.]

…but if Ghetsis had already caught it, this would matter? Does the fact a pokemon hates someone, is being abused by someone, and ran away from that someone only matters so long as it hasn’t been officially caught?

[“But… if you’re in a poké ball, you’ll be undetectable. We stand a better chance of getting you out of here that way. I promise we want the same thing.” He held the poké ball out, eyes wide and earnest. “It’s up to you. You could always chance it, if you really wanted. I’d still try and help, if you’d let me. But I think we’d be better off together, as a team.”]

…

[“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Right now, I want to get those shackles off it. That’s the most important thing.”

“So you manipulated it into staying with you?”

“I’m not manipulating anyone into doing anything,” he snapped. “I’m just trying to make sure it’s okay.”]

This is an interesting bit of selfishness from Ash, actually. He made sure not to promise to release the zeraora afterward and instead put it in a binary of going in the pokeball with him or almost certainly being caught by someone worse. It’s obvious how he was hoping it would work out, but it’s not the overt selfishness of saying that the zeraora has to pick between being owned by him or getting abused by Ghetsis, and it’s unclear if Ash would even admit to himself that he’s doing anything but trying to help.

And with everything that’s happened, Ash has a good argument the zeraora being better off with him than wild, and another good argument for taking anything the zeraora says to the contrary with a grain of salt given it just nearly died because it didn’t want to eat.

It’s disappointing, though, that the argument with N has Ash say more standard things. The argument runs fine, mind you, it’s just that this specific situation is so applicable to the whole thing that I’d expect it to be the focus.

[Ash flinched under N’s scathing glare. “Wild pokémon look for people to join—”

“— and get hurt by them—”

“— not all of the time! Most pokémon are happy with their trainers.]

This wild pokemon didn’t look for someone to join and Ash is totally aware of that. I’d expect him to be arguing that wild pokemon aren’t always right and might fight back against capture because they don’t understand that they’ll be happy with a trainer but they are once they give it a chance.

[I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think travelling with you would be super cool. I’d get to start with a pokémon that picked me, rather than with one that didn’t really have a choice]

Also, it sounds like Ash’s perspective is more of a #notalltrainers defense than that he thinks all of it is completely fine. Coupled with the fact he did just go through a lot to try to help out a pokemon, it’d make sense for him to be responding to N with as a personal thing – that he’s a trainer, and he’s done nothing wrong, and in fact he’s the one who got beat up a bunch by the pokemon instead of the other way around, so it’s not far to make huge generalizations about “trainers” doing one thing or another.

As a whole…between this and Ash’s lack of effort in catching the various other pokemon he met, I wonder if it’d work best to have Ash wanting to be a trainer but holding out for the right pokemon instead of that this was the first year he could be a trainer. He sounds like he’s really bought into the most idealized version of what pokemon training involves, so I could see him hearing star trainers talk about how they knew at first sight that their starter was their best friend forever and thinking that if he didn’t feel that something was wrong.

(…mind you, I’d also far more easily believe he was a relatively mature ten year old than that any fifteen year old would be saying:

[“Pokémon are my friends too! I want to meet as many as I can and make friends with them all. It’s part of my goal to become the world’s greatest pokémon master!”

N regarded him dubiously, eyes cold and hard. “Pokémon… master…?”

“Yup. I don’t know exactly what that means yet, but…” he shrugged sheepishly. “I wanna be one. I’ve always wanted to be one. And that means being friends with lots and lots of pokémon, so…”]

so…)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171309/1/To-Be-A-Master

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.

[one abnormal thing in Red’s life was his sister’s magic. Her spells rarely turned out like they were supposed to, but there were moments when it seemed that Leaf could direct outcomes with her thoughts, making things happen just because she decided they would.

Red’s mother said that it wasn’t magic at all. According to her, the girl noticed details and put them together subconsciously, predicting immediate events instead of causing them. Which, to a ten-year-old and her barely-older brother, was much less impressive than magic.]

They do live in a world where even humans can use psychic powers to turn people into dolls somehow, so you can’t exactly rule out the option of magic spells. Whether or not this is actually outright supernatural or just super good intuition, I’d think their mom would want to get it checked out, just in case. And that only goes double when apparently Leaf is already somewhat of a hellion.

[“Worse than that, dude. Picture it: toddler, female, Kabutops costume she never takes off.”

“So…a little girl that’s into fossils?” Red wasn’t impressed. “Sounds pretty normal to me.”

“Not normal,” Blue hissed, grabbing Red by the shoulders and shaking him, the horror in his eyes all too clear. “She stalks you down the hallway like a horror movie villain. Daisy gave her a Clefairy doll, she just throws it in the air and chants ‘Moon.’]

This is somewhat entertaining but could stand to be taken up several notches, like that if you sit down to relax she scales the back of the chair to attack your head or she flops down in the hallway and if you edge past she bites your ankle because kabutops are predators!!! Rar!!! Merely lurking barely scratches the surface of how awful little kids can be.

[ “I think I’ll let Red choose first,” he decided. Seeing the looks he was given by both Red and the professor, he quickly became defensive. “What? We’re friends, right?”

Red made a ‘kind of, not really’ hand gesture. Professor Oak cleared his throat. Blue glared at both of them.]

Also, I really like the dynamic you’ve got with all of them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171552/1/PMD-Warped-Skies

A human falling into the world of Mystery Dungeon’s is not a new phenomenon. A human who played the games is a little stranger. With the chance to alter the canon events; his interference may not be for the better. ]

That’s definitely a more interesting hook than the standard novelizing-a-playthrough route these usually take, but the problem is you don’t really show it off. The first chapter is still running through the game opening and discovery of a amnesiac protagonist and tutorial dialogue explaining how things work. Even though he soon remembers this is a game he played, you still have him confused and getting walked through stuff everyone already knows by his partner.

I’d say there’s two directions this could go.

If your goal is to work off the fact the reader is also familiar with events, then he should have his memory coming back more obviously – he shouldn’t need to be told how the dungeons work and should be able to interact with them a bit more rather than just following after Shinx.

If you want to have a less active character, on the other hand, something that works well but I’ve never seen tried in pokefic in particular would be to be to make the game your character’s familiar with a fictional one, so the reader is finding out how the original story goes at the same time as your fic reveals it. There’s been a number of PMD plots – if this was an original one that just shared the same general beats, it wouldn’t be so repetitive.

[ The pokémon creeped Sean out, the emptiness of their eyes, viewing but not seeing, and their complete lack of sound besides angry, or pained, screeching made him all the more uncomfortable.

An anorith dropped something after Shinx blasted it and Sean felt the overwhelming urge to grab it, pick it up, keep it tucked to his chest and purr on it forever. He shook the feeling off after only twelve seconds, did his best to ignore the small snort of amusement from Shinx, and they continued on.]

Stuff like this, the way it’s so different between playing a game and actually being there, is nice, but there’s so little of it compared to the parts that are the same recap as every other fanfic.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171661/1/The-Chronicles-of-Zachary-Winters

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.

Of reasons someone can’t have a kid, bad eggs is pretty much the least sympathetic. It’s not just that she could adopt, she has a functioning womb and is apparently in good enough health to be pregnant without a problem so she can still have the full experience without a problem, but if it doesn’t have her exact genes it’s unacceptable?

[Ho-Oh, it’s said that you grant people eternal happiness. Please, I need you to help me.”

The voice returned. WHY?

“Because of my wife. She can’t have kids, but she and I want children more than anything in the world! I just want to help her be happy, I always have.” He looked down. “She means the world to me, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help her achieve her dream! Even my own life! Please Ho-Oh, help me to let her be happy!”]

Like, if she literally couldn’t this would still be a bit weird due to adoption being a thing, but it would be way more sympathetic if the issue was she couldn’t have kids at all and not that she couldn’t have kids made from her exact malfunctioning eggs.

Also, if this was a gay couple and the pokeworld was as homophobic as ours you’d actually have a perfectly good reason why adoption wasn’t an issue – a bad womb and not being heterosexual actually can completely prevent people from being parents and that’d be way more sympathetic.

Alternatively, you could remove the idea this is super selfless and have Ho-oh grant the wish as more of a bargain, since there’s a whole poem about the resulting kid’s special destiny. And making this kind of deal where it’s the kid who has to shoulder the problems is pretty self-centered as well, so it’d make complete sense as something they’d be willing to do following a conversation where a doctor has to refuse them on ethical grounds.

If I may digress for a moment, I think this one is a good example of how there’s usually a way to make whatever an author wants happen but that you have to be clear on what elements you want and what’s just there to justify it.

Just plain “oh husband if I cannot have a child I shall die” does not work in a halfway modern setting. If the idea of having the main character’s parents be gay makes your skin crawl, then I guess they’re assholes! If the idea of having the main character’s parents be assholes makes your skin crawl, then I guess they’re gay!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171687/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Contrasted

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.

Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.

[Finally, Spencer looked at Nora. “So you’re this cousin of Thea’s I’ve been hearing so much about? I’m Spencer, nice to meet you.” He held out a hand to Nora, who shook it. “I’m Nora. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said.]

You’re mostly paragraphing right but you keep having more than one person talk in a paragraph. The only time that should be happening is if there’s absolutely no way to separate the two. That’s really not the case here as

[Finally, Spencer looked at Nora. “So you’re this cousin of Thea’s I’ve been hearing so much about? I’m Spencer, nice to meet you.”

He held out a hand to Nora, who shook it. “I’m Nora. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said.]

works fine.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171742/1/Pokemon-Kanto

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.

Also, you need punctuation at the end of all of your sentences.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13171882/1/Cole-and-Ruby

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.

[His Gardevoir was sinfully, exceptionally horny.

He reflected upon his luck at the current moment- she was looking at him with that gleam in her eye, the one that said, “I know you’re loving this,” and indeed, he was. She kept the eye contact as she went down, and still as she came back up. Slowly, methodically, she bobbed her head on his cock, soft moans of satisfaction and pleasure coming from her as she did so. (She was pleasuring herself, he knew.)]

I understand that porn is pretty much just running on whatever the underlying kink is, but it’s just so ridiculous when people go on about how horny women love giving guys blowjobs instead of getting sex themselves.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13172184/1/Game-of-Gardevoirs

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/13172268/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Brawl

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.

If the fighting is otherwise pointless you really have to work to make it entertaining in its own right. A bunch of moves happening isn’t good enough just because you added swearing.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13172325/1/Melemele-The-Untold-Stories

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.

[The cavity teemed with dozens of miniature Spinaraks that burst out and threatened to crawl all over her. Lillie ripped off the bag and wailed in disgust, shaking off the few arachni-forms that made it onto her arm.]

Lillie seems to generally like pokemon and I don’t recall her indicating that spiders are an exception to that, let alone a way for this haunter to know about it. Given it’s all an illusion, it’s not like what she finds needs to be possible – it could be a severed head, or she could open it and a sharpedo somehow jumps out at her.

[“Eevee, do you know how to use ember or thundershock or something?”]

Hau may not be the best trainer, but this seems too much. Eevee can have moves that’d work against a ghost type: bite, mud-slap, and shadow ball. It already reflects badly on him that he has no idea if his pokemon knows certain moves and that it is, in fact, so inexperienced it doesn’t, without going so far as to say he thinks it’s possible for an eevee to use ember or thundershock.

[Mimikyu spoke backwards in a raspy requiem. The lamplight seemed to dim around his small, saggy form. The two holes in his costume brightened and shone, then blackened into unfathomable pits that drained the color from the neon orange surfboard they used as a table. Noibat covered her mouth with her wings, trying not to throw up from the foul cacophony.

“Yeah, I get it, buddy. That’s rough.” Haunter tried to console the lonely devil.

A poorly groomed Yungoos sat next to Mimikyu, but didn’t appear to notice that time-space was tearing under the rippling disguise.

“The only way to keep a human is to bite them and never let go. Then they can’t get away.” Yungoos folded his short arms together as if it was the final word on the subject.]

I like the pokemon’s rambling conversation, general weirdness, and confused, terrible advice. Honestly, I don’t think actually showing him terrifying Lillie adds much – just starting off with him talking about it to his buddies recaps everything that actually mattered about the first section, and sometimes stuff is funnier for happening off-camera.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13172423/1/When-We-Dream-of-Autumn

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.

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

Write out numbers with letters.

[The girl looked down at herself with disappointment. “Man, now my clothes are completely soaked, so that means I’ve got to go home and change.” She said, almost as if she didn’t expect that to happen when she had just jumped into a river. The girl let out a sigh. “But I don’t have enough time to make it home and…” the girl trailed off as her gaze went past Heike and towards the bridge. “Hey, is that your bike?” she pointed.

Surprised, Heike looked back at it himself. “Y-yes, it is. Why?”

“Do you mind if I borrow it for a bit? You’d be a life saver!” the girl said.]

I like the tiny reversals of this, the mother who’s a trainer, the girl running off with the boy’s bike…

…but it’s really, really slow.

I think this is generally a slice-of-life thing, so it’s hard to point to a specific section that could’ve been cut, but maybe try to condense things a little.