The starting batch has a surprising bunch of unusually detailed, narration-heavy non-new trainer stories with unusually terrible grammar. Also, bonus other review.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015205/1/A-New-Ash (0 reviews.)
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.
[‘Ah yes. In this universe, Ashton Richard Ketchum is not an only child, rather he has a younger sister, Cassandra Leanne Ketchum, or Cassie as Ash lovingly calls her. In this universe Ash waited until his eleventh birthday to start his journey so that Cassie could go with him.’ Arceus’s voice narrated.]
I really don’t see what you’re getting out of Arceus-as-narrator that you couldn’t do with just regular narration.
Also, starting your journey and getting your first pokemon aren’t the same thing. Ash could’ve had and been raising Pikachu while he waited, or he could’ve had Cassie come along with him even though she wasn’t old enough for a first pokemon.
[“Here, I’ll even give you a type advantage. Blastoise come on out!” Gary exclaimed sending out the large water type. “You do know what type Blastoise is right?”
“Of course I do.” Ash said, trying to sneakily look at his Pokédex.]
Ash canonically refers to each of the starters by their type. He’s not great at this because his character was built to ask questions to help the viewer learn about how the world works, but he’s not a total disaster. Why would an Ash who’s a year older be significantly worse at this? And why in a fanfic where everyone’s familiar would you need a character trait that’s only there to explain how things work to an unfamiliar reader?
[Originally Ash got Pikachu because he woke up late and it was all that was left. In this timeline Pikachu was set aside for Ash when he didn’t start his journey immediately, making the electric type more willing to work with the new trainer.]
Right, but what does the accomplish in terms of telling an interesting story? We know younger Ash manages to make friends with Pikachu by the end of the first episode, so it’s not like it changes anything besides removing interesting scenes of them together, unless you’re going for some sort of subversion where because they get along okay at the start Ash never actually proves himself to Pikachu and they don’t become real friends, which I really doubt. Your Ash is older, has a sister along for help, and has no problems with Pikachu. Where’s the tension supposed to be? That Gary’s pokemon are higher level at the moment?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015186/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-The-Shadow-and-Light (0)
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/14015046/1/Reflections (1)
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.
[ sporting 13 eyes]
Write out numbers with letters.
[They entered the sealed room. Here, the mage could behold the artifact in its full glory. An orb sized prism, glowing in all colours of the spectrum. It basked in the glow. The power it exuded. The danger it posed. They frowned, something wasn’t right. Contrary to what he’d learned, the Eternal Blackness that sought the prism was nowhere to be seen.]
You’re switching between pronouns a lot.
Also, you never said how large a orb is, so defining another object as being the same size as one doesn’t tell a reader much.
[“Aw… but mother!”]
Here, you are using “mother” like a name, so it should be capitalized the same as one.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015037/1/Xota-Region-Pokedex (2)
[It is a semi-small baby elephant]
Okay, semi-small really doesn’t actually give any idea what the size is. Small compared to what?
[They are smaller than a 10-year old, only reaching waist level in terms of height.]
Do you mean an adult’s waist rather than a ten year old’s? And if so that’s regular to on the large size for most pokemon – they’re usually not very big.
[it’s legs]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is possessive.
While I like that you have developed this enough for a clear progression of each pokemon and didn’t just do two lines because that’s how short a pokedex could be, it’s still really barebones for a chapter all by itself. I think it’d be a good idea to either go a lot further into writing the sort of thing you’d get as an encyclopedia entry for an animal in our world or pair it with an actual story showing one in action.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015037/2/Xota-Region-Pokedex
[These Pokemon are normally found in cities, where they form groups known as “mischiefs”. The leader of the group tells the others where to find Jewelweed Plants, their main source of food. Many Pokemon Centers and hospitals give Ratezumi Mischiefs spare Jewelweed, mainly due to the fact that they are too adorable to refuse. That, and they play a large role in the Xota Region’s ecosystem. Their breeding is entirely dependent on how much Jewelweed is present, so if there is none left for them, their numbers could plummet.]
So, this has elements of an ecosystem but it doesn’t seem like you’re really thinking through how this works to the end.
Cities are generally not the main place to find an animal dependent on a specific plant. Does jewelweed take its name from the fact it’s unusually well-adapted to city life, while in the wild it’s rarer because of competition with other plants? Or does it grow outside the city in the same or greater amounts, but the city ratezumi’s population is exploding because people are feeding them on purpose with farmed jewelweed, not unlike feeding pigeons with imported corn? Regardless, any time a major part of the natural ecosystem has a present habitat of “human-made city”something’s gone screwy. If a good chunk of their population is supposed by handouts, and they’re a major player in the ecosystem, either something has gone catastrophically wrong that this keystone species can only keep its numbers up if humans feed them and has lost their historic habitat, or they’re severely overpopulated from their historic amount and are likely having far too much of an effect on the rest of the ecosystem as a result.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015035/1/Authority-of-alto-mare (0)
Title should be capitalized as “Authority of Alto Mare”
[A large group of people gather on the deck of a large passenger ship holding their luggage,]
It’s weird to put emphasis on luggage like that. It’s like you’re saying they went to this ship because it was the one holding their luggage, rather than that they’re passengers and of course they’re traveling with luggage. A lot of your sentences are like this, with details that aren’t wrong but are just weirdly placed.
[as there ship]
“Their” is the possessive.
[There were several other passenger ships unload more tourists from all over the world, as well as small mercantile ships unloading exotic spices and materials. ]
Also, exotic spices as the kind of thing getting moved seems really old-fashioned for what seems like a modern city.
[Island city]
[from goldenrod City]
[his Passport and Trainer I.D]
[a Ninetales ]
[the Receptionist]
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 just as you would capitalize all parts of someone’s name, like John Doe Smith, you would capitalize all parts of a place’s name, like Goldenrod City.
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.
[John worked for a short bit before noticing a small gathering in front of the museum, it seemed most of them were holding signs and were in protest of something that was not yet clear. As he grew closer their chants became clearer and he heard many words like independence and freedom from Johto, many of the signs had the international flag of Johto Crossed off and others read no more unfair taxation. several police officers were trying to usher away the small crowd Which didn’t seem to work at all, John stayed there for a bit taking photos of the whole ordeal confused on why there were protests going on in Alto mare. He decided to leave the photography done for the day as he reached into his back pocket pulling out a small slip of paper which read Aldos followed by a small address. He figured it was a good idea to go to the lodge he was staying at for the night]
Okay, I know he’s here for something else, but it seems really weird for a reporter of all people to see a bunch of protesters pretty clearly articulating a grievance and go “wow, sure wonder what on earth that could be about!” and then leave without speaking to a single one. It’s not even that he hates politics because he then asks the guy ferrying him to his lodgings to explain, and it’s far more awkward to trap an employee who probably relies on tips in a conversation like this (and a reporter should also know a person like that is going to softball it so he doesn’t upset his passenger and so isn’t a great source) than to ask people who are currently shouting about how much they want to talk about this issue.
[“I’m not much of a trainer anymore I caught these Pokémon when I was younger and on a gym campaign, However I moved on and got a job in goldenrod city as a journalist” John unclips one if the pokeballs from his belt and looks at it and begins to Reminisce about his old journey “It must be six years now that I’ve retired my journey”
“well, you know there are several trainers who offer up a pot if you can beat them if you still think you have it in you, Real entertaining stuff that.” Vito grunted as he pushes the gondola to make a hard sharp turn “You can usually find them in the plazas around town, welp here we are” ]
And this feels very videogame NPC info-text. Like, the main plot for the character is the reporting thing, but if you want to do some sidequests in our open-world setting, trainers can be found on plazas. And it’s also not contextualized at all – is this not how trainers work anywhere else? If it is, he probably shouldn’t need to be told. Or is this tied in to the fact it’s a touristy area so there’s more of a trainer industry catering to people on vacation who want some battles?
Overall, I think you should look into getting a beta reader. You have a lot of mistakes and while you’re much better at providing detail than a lot of fics I see, it’s getting tripped up by the odd way you organize your sentences and often using the wrong word for what you mean to say, like “walked” and “worked”.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015346/1/terrifying-not-really (0)
Capitalize your title properly.
[Nate isn’t having a good time. The sun is hot, hot enough to make Nate thinks his sweat will be evaporated the moment it touches the ground.]
The way sweat works is it’s supposed to be evaporating right off your skin. For it to even get to the ground is more likely if it’s colder. Stuff like the ground being hot enough to fry an egg works better.
[ and Nate was this close to taking off his black t-shirt too]
Nate sounds like he’s really bad at dressing himself to handle the weather.
[holy Arceus is there an army of Pokemon using Sunny days right now?! ]
Even in its home region Arecus is pretty unknown, and also has no particular tie to a hot day or even that hypothetical pokemon army causing a hot day. Reshiram’s fire/dragon and able to use it for region-destroying purposes, why not invoke them?
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.
[Nate’s useless hand fanning himself with zero effectiveness and his overheating mind start contemplating where everything went wrong.]
You keep jumping between present and past tense, but this should be either “Nate’s useless hand fans himself with zero effectiveness and his overheating mind starts contemplating where everything went wrong.” or “Nate’s useless hand fanned himself with zero effectiveness and his overheating mind started contemplating where everything went wrong.”, and in both cases I’m pretty sure the “and” should be “as”.
Really, a lot of your sentences here are really wonky. I’d suggest proofreading as well as finding a beta reader.
[Why never in Nate’s head that he didn’t catch water or ice Pokemon yet was beyond him other than he is seriously regretting it.]
I mean just having a white shirt to wear instead of his black one would probably do fine and maybe a hat. That seems a lot easier than catching a pokemon just in case you forget clothing has a practical component when picking your look.
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.
[“Your welcome.”]
“Your” is possessive, “you’re” means “you are”.
Plotwise, this is really underwhelming. The heatstroke doesn’t particular lead anywhere – he’s no more vulnerable waking up from that with the espeon looming over him than he would be if he just met them on the road given the actual problem you have him recover but it doesn’t matter because the core problem is that he’s all alone with them in the middle of nowhere. And he’s not even forced into the fight but actually insists on it. Then they have a fight where he’s badly outmatched…but nobody forces him to keep going instead of recalling his pokemon, nobody dies, and he’s not even made to use the rest of his pokemon team and it’s just over once his pignite’s knocked out, and the guy even gives him a revive on the spot so he knows his pokemon’s fine. You have some atmosphere going on that the guy seems to be bad news, but nothing bad actually happens and then your character leaves and goes on with his life.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015445/1/File-not-Found (2)
[“This isn’t adding up. No reports on his sighting, but his men are on the move again? Unless…” A man in a brown coat muttered.]
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.
[The folded device vibrated violently in the man’s palm as he stared at it. Contemplating and finding a reason to not answer.]
Your sentences are really choppy and a lot of them read better combined.
[Raquaza]
Rayquaza.
[like your past my seniority]
“Your” is possessive, “you’re” means “you are”.
[baited breathe]
Bated breath.
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.
I’d really suggest finding someone to beta read this.
And previous comments elsewhere, for completeness’ sake and for anyone looking for something they might like:
They stood just a few inches shorter than Undyne, with the same bipedal body type that she had. They wore a quilted, bubblegum pink-and-blue striped jacket over a black leotard, a short but outrageously poofy pink skirt, and some hole-riddled leggings that had maybe once been white. They didn’t have scales anywhere that Undyne could see, and their fur was so sparse it was almost nonexistent aside from a thick, dark mane pulled up into a bun on the back of their head.
I like how this is both “wow, humans look weird if you’ve never seen one” and “wow, humans are but a blip in the diversity of possible shapes”, with how she sees them as close to her in form despite the differences and the only thing Undyne really finds unusual being the outfit. (And how she not only makes no assumptions from the form, or the outfit, or the name, until Leela says at the end, but also it’s just not a priority to ask compared to everything else to talk about.)
“Hiking through nature, huh? Honestly, I’ve never been much of a fan of that kind of thing.”
How curious that a non-hiker would happen to fall down a hole at the top of a mountain totally by accident! But of course Undyne doesn’t even know that.
Leela looked off to the other side, which was probably a good idea. How would they ever learn to cherish these beautiful surroundings if they were too busy staring at Undyne’s face?
And Undyne’s perspective is really neat throughout. It’s not self-centered but still very much within her own experiences/outlook, so although she’s paying attention the interpretation is off.
This was starting to sound like something a whole lot heavier than one bad day.
Hm, but also, it could mean that whatever they’d consider a bad day is significantly worse. They’re not combative to Undyne, but then, being combative isn’t how the game works, mechanically. Everyone attacks you first.
“Someone actually did get me new clothes not too long ago, but I left most of them behind. It just didn’t feel right to take them if I was leaving. I only compromised with the jacket because I know she’d be so much more upset about me dying of cold. And that was someone who had a reason to care, while you… don’t even really know me.” They sighed way more wearily than a kid their age had any business doing. “It’s hard to know what’s right sometimes. I have important things to do, but I don’t want to take advantage of anyone.”
“Oh my god! When someone offers you something without any prompting at all, obviously you’re not taking advantage of them!” Did everyone who grew up in the Ruins turn out like this? It must have been a hell of a place. “If anything, they might feel insulted by you making it weird!”
And also hm. So, Leela certainly feels like they’ve got issues trying to navigate around not wanting to take things from Toriel even knowing Toriel would prefer it. But it certainly would be taking advantage of someone inviting you into their home and giving you clothes so you’re better able to kill their sort-of replacement dad, and yet, once you start down the path of respecting Toriel doesn’t want you to suffer or die, well, Toriel would probably prefer taking advantage over her latest kid dying.
and I always used to feel a bit better about myself after standing out in the… uh, shower.”
Because there’s no rain underground! They’re pretty good at watching their words.
“I’m…” Leela looked down at their feet. “I’m a legendary warrior. Magical Girl Angel Leela, or something like that.”
So – the wall info/prophesy. Could be that alone was making for a bad day, but the intensity sounds like it’s more likely there was a monster either better at identifying humans or just more dangerous that showed up as well, and while it’s possible for fights to end with the monster alive, identifying with “warrior” now does imply that the self-loathing went beyond just the shock of finding out someone hates you enough to try to kill you… And Undyne doesn’t forgive it if you kill someone else. And And then I spent a few days around Snowdin, but you’re right, I did not not hold up well there.” is ominous, because it clearly wasn’t just the climate when there’s other places that aren’t covered in snow, so that was foot-dragging while maybe considering that while the Ruins was too small maybe the whole Underground might be big enough but something’s happened that leaves them committed about heading for Asgore as their only option.