Lot of pacing issues with a dash of why are you saying this is a canon character when you’ve removed the thing about the character that’d make them interesting in the AU.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015695/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Mystery-Dungeon-Stalwart-Souls (3 reviews.)
[Warm tears slipped down his cheeks, which prompted him to set the tablet on the nightstand before any drops hit the screen. ‘And with that another great story comes to an end. What I wouldn’t give to have an adventure and get an ending like that of my own,’ he thought. ‘I guess that’s why I get so invested into these, even though they always make me cry. It isn’t healthy.’]
It doesn’t sound that healthy, no. Crying by itself could just be that he’s easily moved to tears, but with the rest of what he’s saying it really does sound like there’s something else wrong here that he’s not aware of/admitting to, which wouldn’t be solved by it really happening. Not sure if you’re going for that or going for a setup of why he’s suited to get thrown into another world.
Also, using ‘ for thoughts isn’t a good idea. It’s too close to ” (plus it’s sometimes used for speech) so it tends to read like these internal private thoughts are being spoken aloud. Italics, like you start using further in, works much better, and if you already have stuff like [he thought] tagged onto the thoughts, you generally don’t actually need any other markers.
[“Have you been crying?” he questioned.]
Questioned is generally the speech tag for like, someone doing an interview, not just anyone asking any sort of question, and especially not for a really emotional one – and given you’ve even got italics in the actual dialogue and go on so say his next line softened a bit, I’m pretty sure you were otherwise aiming for the dad to not be saying this perfectly calmly.
[“What are you even crying for anyway?”
“The story I just finished. It was… pretty damn good.”
“I thought we agreed you would try your best not to let your emotions control you.”
“And I keep telling you I can’t help it. You’d probably get teary eyed too if you read it. But this is ‘insignificant’ according to you, right?”
“Because it’s true. There are more important things to worry about.”
“I still don’t see what’s wrong expressing myself this way. It’s not harming anyone.”
His dad scoffed. “Right now it’s not. But what happens when something occurs at work and you start crying? People will see you as weak. They’ll take advantage of you.”]
This exchange seems kind of wonky. “letting your emotions control you” seems kind of abstract when it seems the dad’s point is closer to either “don’t show your emotions” or “stop having these emotions”. Same for talking about if this was important enough to cry over or inconsequential, rather than just the more general idea that he shouldn’t be crying at all.
[“Jeez, you make it sound like everyone has evil intentions. I like to think people are better than that. And for the record, I know I’m strong myself.” Although, Ezera’s quivering voice made him doubt that statement already.]
And has it really never happened at work or any time in public before? The conversation’s playing out like neither of them have actual experience and are both just guessing at how people will act.
[“Listen to me, son,” his dad urged. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I don’t want to see people walk over you. It’s a tough world out there.”
Ezera’s eyes welled up again. ‘He always says it’s tough out there. Why can’t I just be whisked away so I never have to experience it?’]
Given he’s almost eighteen and it sounds like he’s already got a part-time job (unless that bit about work was also a hypothetical) I think it’d have been smoother for him to have actually found out that yeah, it is tough out there and yeah, people can be assholes if they see you cry over a videogame ending, and that’s part of why he wishes to be somewhere else, rather than over the possibility his dad might be right that possibly he’ll experience some form of difficulty someday.
[“Look, I’ve told you before I can handle it. Up to you if you believe me.”]
And then that makes this such a weird bit to end on when it’s right after he’s wishing to check out of his entire life just from the stress of thinking it’s a possibility.
Since that’s his main character trait, I’m assuming it’s meant to be the hook for how his PMD experience is going to run differently, but if so, I think you should develop it further. Most isekai stuff has the protagonist unhappy in his life and then going to another world and it’s all fixed, and if that’s where you’re going with this he seems to have issues that go beyond not being a pokemon in another universe and maybe that should be patched up. But if this is setting up real issues he’s supposed to overcome over the course of the story, it’s not clear enough that’s the direction you’re going either, especially when characters having issues that last past the second chapter is so rare in this subgenre. (And your summary is instead about him believing the best of people, which isn’t at all the issue here – he just has one line saying he assumes people are nice, but given he apparently never experienced the opposite that doesn’t exactly sound like a firm belief and it’s hard to understand why someone who thinks everyone around him is nice is also so scared of living his life.) Does he have problems in his life besides hypothetically people being assholes to him about crying over things? It sure seems like he must, given we’re introduced to him crying about he wishes he was living another life, but the only problem actually centered here is just being emotionally open and being anxious about his dad claiming that’s going to lead to trouble someday.
(Along the same lines, you’d also probably be better served with a title that’s less about saying it’s a PMD fic and more about saying what in particular is unusual about this story in particular.)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015842/1/Displaced-Destiny (1)
[“I’m surprised you managed to receive such a positive reply, Professor Hastings. Considering how many regions already have some form of ranger corps, I would’ve thought there’d be a bit more pushback.”
“Well, I won’t pretend it’s been easy. Finding the resources to spare has been rather problematic. Were the Unova and Hoenn Leagues less receptive, I fear the idea may never have come into existence in the first place. A better relationship with wild Pokémon, though, is a hard concept to argue against.”
“And I suppose the fact they could save money by not wasting Pokéballs capturing and immediately releasing problematic Pokémon didn’t play a part in that?”]
I wish you’d gone further into this – the main regions are really invested in the standard pokemon trainer with pokeballs and battling methods of solving all their problems, and Unova in particular doubled and tripled down on pokemon training their way being so vital to everything good about their way of life that even talking to the contrary was morally questionable. And maybe the capture-stylus method is cheaper, but pokeballs are canonically dirt cheap and it’s pretty unlikely that one part of running teams of rangers is breaking the bank. So why would the Leagues of all people be supporting something that flies in the face of that? Is it that their own rangers haven’t been able to handle things well by traditional methods? Is it that they’re struggling to get enough people to be rangers? Is it that they want battling to focus on trainer vs trainer modern competitions and are fine with practical problems being handled by non-trainers? Or conversely, they like the idea of a big chunk of their potential competition going down a career path that’ll never lead to them even challenging a gym leader?
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.
Also, professors get tree surnames.
[“Will do… Seems like it did. I haven’t seen them so satisfied in a while.” Ash eventually replied]
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.
[“Seriously? These are the partners we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with, hopefully. Why wouldn’t we take care of them?” his face was so steeped with astonishment, it was a miracle that Ash’s eyes remained in his head.]
Okay, so this is certainly within the realm of plausible divergences that someone could end up with if they had totally different childhood experiences, but it really begs the question of why say this is about Ash in the first place. This Ash doesn’t have to learn about how to deal with friction between him and his pokemon, because he already gets it, and you also say he has no interest whatsoever in battling. It’s not even like you’re particularly wedded to the rest of canon setup because you’ve got Ash growing up with Mr. Mime already living with them rather than the pokemon showing up well after Ash left. Start-of-canon Ash with his canon self-centeredness and canon liking of battles and canon not being the most knowledgable about pokemon being a ranger instead has some obvious points of conflict and tension, so it would make sense to describe a story as Ash-but-a-ranger as a hook. But if you’ve removed all that, then it really would make more sense to build an OC actually for the concept and develop them into someone interesting with their own potential conflicts getting highlighted here. Right now I’m left with no idea what your actual hook here is, because all you said as a summary was it was Ash-but-ranger and now we’re out the Ash part, so it’s just will a rather generic ranger succeed at being a ranger while facing whatever trials a ranger has to face.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015847/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Mystery-Dungeon-Wardens (1)
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 memory-dream going creepy is nice, but past that it’s incredibly slow paced. It’s PMD so it’s not like there’s much mystery to an amnesiac main character who feels there’s something weird about having a body that walks on four legs. I get that you want to establish his daily life, but you could get that across in far fewer words – the dialogue especially just goes on forever. Or, if you’re really wedded to having tons of words before the plot properly kicks in, you need to pack in a lot more stuff as well – slice of life stories are still looking at interesting slices of the character’s lives.
Same thing goes for the gabite’s side of things. It desperately needs to be tightened up. You spend what, a thousand words of preamble to get her to the entrance of a mystery dungeon. Even assuming that tedious digression of her chatting at her reflection was vitally important to her character, she could’ve been doing that in the dungeon! A character taking a breather is better, pacing-wise, than everyone taking forever to even get started.
[The snowy violet dungeon was like an antithesis of its former forest self, instead of a calming natural retreat, it resembled a nightmarish maze of mangled trees that wouldn’t look out of place in a swamp, save for their strange coloration]
Also, a lot of your sentences just go on way too long. This one should really be two: [The snowy violet dungeon was like an antithesis of its former forest self. Instead of a calming natural retreat, it resembled a nightmarish maze of mangled trees that wouldn’t look out of place in a swamp, save for their strange coloration]
[Once the flames died down, she saw what seemed to be the vaguely familiar shape of a nidoqueen, but their rotting flesh was impaled by various glowy purple crystals that stabbed almost every inch of their body, not sparing her eyes and mouth.
The dragon breath that had hit the monster burnt her already dead flesh even more, but it was reflected by the crystals all over her body. Even as pieces of its rotting body crumbled and fell into the snowy floor, the monster still kept making her way to the gabite.
“Leeeeaaaaa… veeee…”The twisted nidoqueen croaked, in a mix of a moan and a hiss.
The dragon-type was stunned at what was in front of her, but quickly recomposed herself and dodged out of the way when the creature charged headfirst at her, making the foe hit one of the trees instead.]
Continuing the pacing issue, despite taking forever to get to this point, the discovery that this mystery dungeon is full of undead horrors is sped right through. She sees it, she’s stunned, she’s over it, she starts dismembering them like that’s normal battling she has experience with even though regular mystery dungeoneering is only fought to the point of retreating. Your monsters are objectively horrifying, especially once the decay effect gets rolling, but it’s so undercut by the fact things keep plodding along at a steady pace. This is where things should’ve slowed down and really dug into what’s happening or else been a sudden reveal and gone immediately to her saving the other pokemon and then being overcome in order to keep up the momentum you got when you dropped surprise crystal zombies into this.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14015927/1/Ash-and-Serena-s-Atomic-Odyssey (3)
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.
[Too many lives depended on the outcome of this battle. Then again, even if his Pokemon were protected against the intense levels of radiation, Ash, Serena and Clemont’s protection depended on the hazard suits they were wearing, and the moment they run out of power, it would be the end.]
So first, it doesn’t seem like Serena or Clemont are doing anything, so they can just leave. Second, Ash can send out his pokemon, who you go on to say really wants to battle, and then leave himself. Even assuming his greninja will do way better with Ash shouting orders, it’s not actually a choice between giving up completely and getting fried by radiation.
[The dark vault was briefly illuminated by a blue flash as Greninja materialized, prepared to fight as he always had been, while he and his faithful Pokémon from Kalos steeled themselves for the upcoming fight. And as he gave his first order, Ash couldn’t help but think of how it all started, so many months ago…]
oh no
Look, whenever you do the starting at a climactic fight then cut back to the beginning, you really should be asking if there’s actually anything interesting happening back there.
[The mood was quiet. And for somebody who had been part of this traveling group of four, it was something unusual.
However, it was also expected, since the silent mood heralded the end of what it had been an epic journey across the region of Kalos. And the end of the journey signaled the end of their little group as well.
The Kalos League was over, so there was no more reason for Ash to stay at Kalos. The Master Class Showcase was over as well, so there was no more reason for Serena to be on Kalos either. It was time for them to leave the region in order to pursuit their goals, while Clemont and Bonnie would stay in Kalos, given that Clemont was planning to resume his job as Lumiose City’s Gym Leader.
For the last couple days, Ash and Serena had been bunking at the Prism Tower, since it was better than staying at a Pokemon Center, and Clemont and specially Bonnie had enjoyed their company greatly, but their time together would soon come to an end. Goodbyes were always hard, but for Bonnie especially; she already had to say goodbye to Squishy, as well as Ash’s Goodra, who was taken back to his home on the wetlands, and soon it would be Ash and Serena’s turn.
Or it would be the case, if it wasn’t for a certain videocall.
“The rest of you should come to Pallet Town as well. After all that awful stuff with Team Flare, I’m sure all of you could use a little vacation.”
Ash had made a videocall to his mother, Delia Ketchum, to tell her about his journey through Kalos, and that he was going to head home soon, when Delia invited the rest of the group to come with Ash as well, if only temporarily. Ash looked at his friends with an expectant smile.
“So, what do you say, guys?” Ash asked. “It’d be great if you guys got to see my home town. Oh! And maybe you can meet all the Pokemon that I caught on my journeys through other regions.”
“Pika-pi!” Pikachu added, nodding.
“Really? That sounds great!” Bonnie cheered, jumping up and down.]
No. The answer is no, this is not interesting. You have cut away from an actual thing happening into not just a more boring scene, but a summary building to people talking about going to another location that is not interesting either. If you want the rest of the group in Pallet, you could start with them in Pallet and people are totally able to fill in that probably, they got invited to Pallet, instead of explaining in tedious detail where they were before that, and having each and every one of them decide they’re going to go and tell the rest of the group they agree to go, and then tell us about how they flew there and nothing interesting happened, and then write about them walking toward Pallet where Ash talks about how a long time ago something interesting happened here that people who watch the anime already know about.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016009/1/Pokemon-Origins-The-Rise-of-Cynthia (0)
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.
[ jumped into it’s trainers arms]
“It’s” is short for “it is”. “Its” is possessive.
[“Cynthia, dinner’s ready,” yelled Professor Caroline]
It’s weird that you include her professional title but not her surname when introducing her.
[“I choose you, Rayquaza, use dragon pulse,” said Cynthia to herself, holding up a rayquaza plushie next to a Deoxys.]
Rayquaza is a barely remembered myth and by all appearances Deoxys really does come from out of space and couldn’t be known of until it first arrives several decades from now. This is particularly notable when a major part of Cynthia’s characterization is that as an adult she’s extremely interested in the subject of forgotten ancient pokemon, and also, given she’s a dragon user she’s possibly part of the rather culty dragon clans which might actually know about one of those. So, maybe her mother did teach her about Rayquaza, but she’s not going to be able to buy a mass-produced toy of one and that’d have to be hand-made, and given the few who know about Rayquaza know because they revere Rayquaza for saving the world from a meteor strike, it’d mean a lot about her relationship with her family’s beliefs that Cynthia’s not only thinking about it in terms of using it for personal battle, but the “I choose you” format implies this is just one of many and not even a particularly respected partner. A possible view for a kid to have, but it’d be one that’d lead to friction with her family.
If you want to write a story about Cynthia’s backstory, you should really think about who Cynthia is and what’s unusual about her, as well as how no one in the setting is going to act exactly like a kid in our world who can google a list of all officially released pokemon.
[“Ahem, interrupting an important match am I,” her grandmother asked?
“No grandma, I just became the champion thanks to Rayquaza here,” she said, holding up her ‘partner.’
The professor smiled at her granddaughter, “well then, can the new champion join me for dinner after cleaning up?”]
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.
[Despite Cynthia’s 13th birthday being right around the corner, there was still no sign of her receiving her first pokemon. Celestic Town was by no means a prosperious town.]
Write out numbers with letters, and use spellcheck.
Also, a first pokemon is not a huge thing. Almost no trainer you see has one of the official game starters and we know kids catching a really weak pokemon themselves to get started or having someone else catch them one or getting a pokemon loaned to them so they can catch one is much more common than buying one.
If it’s that you’re trying to set up how her first pokemon can be something as rare as gible, making a huge deal of the impossibility of getting any pokemon just makes her tripping over a wild one sound even more implausible.
[“Cynthia, as you know, we are understaffed and underfunded at my lab, there’s no pokemon that we can provide for you.”
“Then I’ll go to another lab and get one there,” she said determinedly.
“The nearest lab is in Twinleaf Town, basically the other side of Sinnoh.”
“Then what about a gift from one of the villagers here, maybe they can give me a Starly or something,” Cynthia said, beginning to notice what her grandma was hinting at.
“There are no more trainers in our village, dear.”]
Like, seriously, she can’t spare a dollar to buy a pokeball and five minutes to find a starly to throw it at for the kid? Exactly how underfunded is this lab? If it’s this bad she shouldn’t be able to keep the gible either, they probably need it to sell it to buy pencils or something. Also, you can digitize pokemon and pull them out of a computer anywhere, so it’s not like distance actually matters.
Having her just get one hatched from someone else’s or saying they had one because the lab was studying it would’ve been far more plausible.
[The Next Morning]
[Somewhere along Route 211]
Don’t label your scene changes. Just work it into the narration.
[“I think that’s a Bidoof, and that must be a Geodude, ooh and that is a Meditite,” Cynthia gleefully exclaimed! “Which one of you want to be my partner,” she kept on asking? Much to her dismay, none of the Pokemon seemed to want to join her on her quest. Normally, you’d have to battle wild Pokemon to catch them, but without one of her own, the task seemed daunting.]
Okay that was nice for a second and then you kept writing and said that apparently she’s only asking because without an existing pokemon she can’t kidnap them against their will. As soon you say you can ask pokemon if they want to be around you, you’re also establishing that everyone who doesn’t ask is forcing people to go against their will.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016224/1/A-Ralts-for-Relief (0)
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 should’ve committed to if your character’s a rapist or not. When you write stuff like:
[He smirked as he remembered he traded for a Ralts a couple days ago, more out of curiosity than anything else. Darkly, he considered the tiny pokemon as nothing more than an onahole for him to enjoy later.]
[It always took a bit of effort to break them in, so to speak, but eventually all his pokemon fell in line, and came to understand their place among his harem]
[Haru, despite being only sixteen, towered above the little Ralts, who was looking up at him now, almost nervously. But her brand new trainer wouldn’t just hurt her… would he?
Haru smiled sneakily, and he grabbed a hold of his own shaft. It was a good size for the boy’s age – a healthy six inches long, half the size of his new pint-sized pokemon. And despite Ralts only being twelve inches tall herself, she was going to take every last inch of Haru’s dick. He would make sure of it.]
You can’t follow up claiming [the horns on Ralts’ head helped them read the emotions and intentions of others. Fortunately, Haru had nothing but good intentions here. Horny intentions, sure, but good ones nonetheless. He only wanted to pleasure and be pleasured by Ralts]
Seriously. Kinking on forcing someone and using them like an object, sure, kinking on it just working out fine because it’s pornverse and everyone likes fucking and everything fits, sure, but writing a bunch of rape kink and then saying that’s totally not what you wrote is where it gets actually fucked up.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016217/1/The-Captain-Needs-a-Rub (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.
While Leaf’s brutal and devil-may-care attitude here is pretty entertaining…
[Her hand began slowly moving back and forth. It was actually a bit uncomfortable, and he was hard, hot and dry, and it felt like rubbing something rough, so… she removed her hands, brought them to her face, and gathered all the saliva she could, pouring it on her hands, and then bringing it back to his crotch, whereupon she spread the sticky, slick saliva all over his cock, making it feel much better to stroke him, now that her hands were gliding over his penis.]
This is so, so stupid. Your dick isn’t covered in sharkskin. It isn’t going to be one-hundredth as rough for her as it is for him. Do you regularly drool all over basically everything you touch because that feels better on your hand? Similarly, if she’s comparing playing with his balls to a water balloon, why would she be so much more gentle than anyone actually playing with one? Not like her fingers are going to bruise even if she squeezes as hard as she can.
If you don’t want to write a demure, gentle, eager to please kind of naive character but someone who barely cares and is mostly just curiously poking this new thing, then the guy needs to be way more involved at keeping her from doing stuff like idly yanking his dick or crushing his balls.
This pops up in porn a lot and I’m not sure if that means it makes sense to class as a kink itself or just the writers being so self-centered and bad at seeing the other person as a person that they just fill in that they feel the same things on their end, but it particularly stands out when the intended kink is the girl not giving half a fuck about the sex.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016205/1/Pokemon-Eternal-Hoenn (0)
[(“”) Talking
(”) Thought
(B) Attacks/
(I) Pokemon Talking]
Don’t mark thoughts with ‘, it’s way too close to dialogue and you generally don’t need a marker for thoughts anyway. Pokemon speech should only need a separate marker if what they’re saying can’t be understood (despite, in this universe, them just being girls) and unless you have a point to that, it’s a bad idea.
[A transport truck made its way down a lane where some cars and other vehicle were seen as it cruised peacefully to it’s new destination the Town Little Root.]
The first line of your story should not be packed with errors. Proofread and get a beta reader.
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.
[Machamp a short petite girl with short curled hair ]
Making machamp tiny and thin is just cowardly. Have him make out with a machamp or don’t.
[Reji noticed the four armed Poke girl stopped her current action as she knelt then stood up and turned to face the young boy.
Turning around Leslie saw a young boy with white hair with light brown eyes looking at her with amazement as his eyes were shinny stars.
“It seem I have gotten a fan oh dear, that is very rare but it doesn’t seem to be much a bother cutie I’m Leslie nice to meet you!” The Poke girl Machoke introduced as she fidgeted with her black maid outfit.
” Reji it’s a pleasure to meet you!” The white haired boy replied as he went and shook hands with the tall girl.]
You also seem to have mixed up machoke and machamp. Machamp is the final stage with four arms, and so a machoke-girl should not be the bigger one with the extra set of arms.
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 story is so hard to follow I can’t even tell if pokemon speech can only be understood by other pokemon, other pokemon plus the main character, or everyone.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016190/1/Losing-a-Champion (1)
[Everything seemed fine for Steven. Living with a girlfriend, the Hoenn Champion’s success in life soared exponentially. With a sigh of relief, the steel-type specialist exited his office in his father’s building. Warmly, Steven Stone waved his father a goodbye before leaving the building.
The rain pitter-pattered against the pavement and clean streets of Rustboro City. Luckily though, the rock collector came prepared. ]
Okay, so, epithets are best avoided in favor of just the actual name and pronoun and this is a pretty good example of why.
You start off with his name. That works! Then you refer to him by his title, which works as well because it’s reminding the reader of something important about him and that’s directly relevant to the whole success in life thing. Then you say he’s a steel-type specialist, which isn’t relevant to that or the fact he’s exiting an office, but at least happens to have something to do with the previous sentence. Then you say he’s a rock collector which is completely irrelevant to everything you’ve said so far as well as the fact he brought an umbrella. Just say his name again.
Also, it’s awkward to start off with Steven and then say Steven Stone, rather than giving his full name at the start followed by just Steven, and it’s also odd to say that living with a girlfriend appears to be exponential success compared to being a famous regional champion – I could honestly see a person saying that, but if you’re going for Steven being just that in love with Cynthia, you need to have the narration be much more in Steven’s head rather than the current more objective one. It’s also not phrased correctly – what you’ve currently written is wonky and seems to be saying that the guy’s success at everything is happening while/because he’s living with a girlfriend.
[While her boyfriend was working in Rustboro City, Cynthia spent her time doing arbitrary tasks such as training her pokémon or straightening up her office. The Sinnoh Champion’s work was never done though. Too much pile up of being a historian and a champion would usually keep Cynthia busy.]
Okay, so “arbitrary” tasks mean they’re pointless and she’s just doing them to have something to do, which training her pokemon shouldn’t be unless getting a boyfriend means women are forced to retire, and it doesn’t make much sense to start off saying that her boyfriend does actual work while she putters around aimlessly followed by saying she’s got a tons of work.
And [Too much pile up of being a historian and a champion would usually keep Cynthia busy.] just doesn’t work as a sentence, to the point I’m not even clear where it went wrong. “So much work piled up between being a historian and a champion that it kept Cynthia always busy”? Her having actual work and always being busy matches the next paragraph about how unlike Cynthia her pokemon have lots of free time.
[Quenching the revived fossil, Milotic enjoyed the company of Steven’s Cradily. ]
This just flat out doesn’t make sense. I think you’re visualizing something specific here but it’s just not coming across to me. I’d really, really suggest a beta reader.
[ On the floor, unconscious, lay Cynthia. Adrenaline rushed through the geologist’s veins. Rushing to her side, Steven felt the beating in her heart. Well, the beating of heart that would be there because all he heard was silence. It took him a while to process it, but it soon came to him. When it did, it hit him with tears in his eyes.]
Similarly – since she’s got no heartbeat, she’s not unconscious and the narration shouldn’t claim she is, but you could say “seemingly unconscious”. Him being a geologist has nothing to do with anything. You shouldn’t say he did something then that actually he didn’t next line, just say “felt for the beating of her heart” and then that he doesn’t find anything (and you can’t say “in her heart”, heartbeats aren’t a thing that happens in a particular place within the heart). It can’t be both “a while” and “soon”, and the tears thing makes it sound like the tears are what he was hit with, rather than that he realized and was upset and therefore got tears in his eyes from the emotional impact of his girlfriend dying.
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/14016122/1/Takin-A-Break (0)
[Both of them had been running through their pokemon journey for a few days, and they had completely forgotten about taking any time to relax. ]
So they have to poop in the woods because it’s not like there’s bathrooms around, yet there’s always been an accessible bathroom for the past few days of travel. I don’t know why that turns out to be exactly where my suspension of disbelief on your scat fetish fic breaks, but there it is. It seems so much more plausible to say this is happening on the first day of the journey.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14016119/1/Human-Heartstone (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.
[Her father’s pokemon, a Sylveon]
Why is she any different?
Like, you have this whole thing where the other girl keeps doing microaggressions referencing how she’s a pokemon, but my ability to feel sympathy about it is really hampered by the fact she’s completely fine with the idea pokemon are just property This is someone she’s known since she was an infant and she identifies them as “her father’s”. She’s going out to get handed a first pokemon of her own.
[But, like… here, do you want one? I have four others, and that way I’m not the only one with them. Fair’s fair, right?”
Arie gives Toma a surprisingly sincere looking smile, though it’s not like her other ones look particularly insincere.
“Uh…” Toma rubs the back of her head. “I mean, contests aren’t exactly my biggest priority, but… sure?”
She holds her hand out. Arie looks at it and quirks her lips before pulling Toma to a stop and reaching up for her head. Toma is so confused by this course of action that Arie gets the ribbon clipped onto her hat before she can react.
“There~” She smiles and steps back as Toma realizes what’s just happened. Her cheeks flush.
“HEY! T-Those don’t go on PEOPLE!”]
Now, this does read really well through the lens of self-loathing and not-like-the-other-girls, where she’s fully aware of how bad being a pokemon is and hates the idea of being seen in that same light, but you don’t seem to be seeing anything wonky in how at the same time she’s thinking that sure she might make her pokemon do contests or her continued assertion that pokemon aren’t people.
[As Toma’s dad starts on the explanation she’s heard a hundred times before, she completely zones out.. It’s not really important to her own journey, anyway. Mudkip, Torchic, Treecko… They’re Hoenn’s special starter pokemon, all pretty rare to find out in the wild.
But none of them appeal to Toma in the way her very special pick does. She might not have Arie’s monetary benefits, but she does have a dad who comes in contact with a lot of really cool Pokemon.]
Seriously. This is so fucked up. She’s all upset by someone else suggesting she could be like, a pokemon, or how “her kind” are supposed to be elegant, but blithely thinking about these other people as if all that matters is their species and specifically what physical traits she wants from them.
[Oh Arceus]
Also, not only not a thing in canon, but you picked a pokemon that’s not even known about even by history nerds, and if you’re going to do legendary-as-god in a fic about someone dealing with the tension between her feelings that she’s a person and her fear of being seen as just a pokemon, you would need to really unpack what living in a society that supposedly venerates another pokemon would mean. This is like if Jesus was a girl and society was even more misogynistic and the main character was trying to do something only boys were allowed. Invoking that shouldn’t just be a filler phrase with no meaning behind it.
(Setting this in Arceus’ region instead of Hoenn might be a good idea, though – the Lake trio actually do seem venerated and are tied to mental traits that humans often claim only they possess, so it’s already got a lot of that same tension to start.)
[“—Toma.”
Toma snaps out of her daze as she hears her name called, by Arie. She glances at her, then her dad. His face is shocked pale, as if he’s unsure he heard her right. Toma is getting more confused with the second.
“Huh? What, Arie?” She shoves her hands back into her pockets, and frowns a bit. “Did you pick your Pokemon or whatever?”
Arie closes her eyes and smiles sweetly. Toma gets a sick feeling in her stomach, for some reason.
“Oh, you must have not heard me.”
She claps her hands together, and chills run up Toma’s spine as she begins to repeat herself.
“I choose you, Toma!”
…oh no.]
Really not sure why you’re ending on this like it’s a big wham. Arie’s been being a dick to her about how she’s a pokemon for the entire time they walked together and you didn’t establish Arie having the slightest bit of power over Toma that makes this anything more than one last parting shot. In fact, you did rather the opposite by having it be Toma’s father giving out the pokemon.
If Arie and Toma were siblings or something, and also if Toma wasn’t already going to be a trainer, it’d sound plausible that her dad might betray her like this for his human kid – after all, she’s fine dismissing another pokemon in the household as property, and her internalized hatred probably comes from somebody. If Arie’s dad was the professor instead, it’d be slightly plausible he might see Toma as not technically her own dad’s property and be willing to let his kid capture her if she insists on it after your set up about how spoiled Arie is and how she gets what she wants. But a spoiled kid always getting what she wants in general doesn’t mean someone else’s spoiled kid always gets what she wants from your own dad, and as you laid out, her dad obviously has plenty of social power himself to get her this far and you add he was one of the champions and this is very much a might makes right verse. And that leaves that there’s some sort of reason her dad can’t do anything to stop this, and that could be with how weird canon’s been about pokemon and ownership, it needs more setup than you gave here to feel like it’s a possibility.
This has left me wanting a version of this where Arie really does “like” Toma and is being totally genuine about cooing over her or thinking she’d look cute with a pokemon ribbon. Not sure what’s be better – a narrow focus on the way being treated like this is terrible actually, or a trainwreck of terribleness where it’s combined with how Toma looks down on other pokemon so she’s trying to assert this is wrong on one side while doing the exact same thing on the other and maybe give Arie someone else doing the same to her (overbearing parents, boyfriend? There’s “spoiled” girls who aren’t really getting treated as loved so much as something pretty you throw treats to to make it do tricks for you.)
…anyway given the title I have a sinking feeling the answer is “no, she really is human and that’s why it’s wrong to treat her like she’s no better than a pokemon just because she looks like one and can talk to them and they’re clearly exactly as intelligent as she is”.
Continuing to dole out the reviews from elsewhere:
“That’s because you’re super ancient, and your rickety old bones lock up even worse in the cold!” Undyne declared affectionately. “I’m young and strong! It takes more than a little snow to slow me down!”
I love how bombastic Undyne is!
The climate was obviously hell on him, for one thing. Hotland might have suited him better in terms of temperature, but unfortunately it was way too dry. Gerson belonged somewhere no monster had been in over two thousand years: out near open water, on sand or stone warmed by the sun.
Also this is great and was on my mind when I was wondering about what everyone moving toward New Home meant and if there’s some monsters that just can’t survive in what’s left of their living area.
I like the way you have Undyne sort of know Mo and Flo, but not really, and the dynamic overall. It gives a good feel of everyone living on top of each other where they know each other because it’s inescapable rather because they’re a big happy family who wants to be this close.
(And the whole tea thing was a good detail.)
I like how differently things look based on what side you’re on! What they did is so reasonable from their side, but just as to monsters it feels like she’s tricking them, to her it probably didn’t just look like her new friends betrayed her for no reason but like they’d pretended to be her friends so they could betray and kill her.
“That’s probably what Mo’s brother thought too,” Gerson said, kicking off another round of sobbing from the floor behind the counter.
“What the hell, Gramps?! They’re sitting right there!” Undyne had no idea what had gotten into him. He was usually so good with kids.Also, the way Undyne’s pretty accepting that she’s not doing a very good job interacting with the two, but it’s different when it’s someone who does know what they’re doing.