I need sleep and was busy with other things. Here’s a pokereview. Enjoy as I fall yet further behind on carapaces.

www.fanfiction.net/s/9346367/1/A-Spirit-s-Journey

[“Ooh, look at those angry red eyes and scary black face!” she said, like she was calling me cute. “So, what’s your real name?” I didn’t reply, merely focused all my negative feelings into an evil glare that would have incinerated her if looks could kill. “Everyone call you ‘Rurouni’ or ‘Wanderer’, but that’s not your real name, is it?” she asked in a voice dripping with honey.]

Well, let’s just…go through this.

Pokemon are not going to be throwing around gratuitous Japanese. They are especially not going to be throwing in a gratuitous Japanese neologism as a synonym when they speak a single language and Kenshin DVDs are thin on the ground. They are definitely not going to do it just so you can show how totally awesome your main character is and how he is just like a wandering samurai and so cool he gets two nicknames that are the same word in different languages.

The whole thing where you have a female character as an evil queen demanding sex? A bad trope. A really, really bad trope. You have him hating her before she does anything but flirt at him, which makes it seem like you’re directly saying she’s evil because she shows interest in the opposite sex. You also give no reason why he finds it so disgusting that she’d want him as a mate when he was quite fine at the offer of being her lieutenant, and the sudden [Did she think I was so easily bought? That I did not have a sense of dignity?] gives no explanation for why it’s undignified, leaving me to wonder if it’s that he feels his “dignity” is offended by the idea of being the mate of someone who outranks him, or what else about her is so inherently disgusting that the very idea is insulting, which brings up back to the whole sex = evil business here where her only real trait is sexuality, and you’re saying something about her is disgusting… Especially when you make it clear it’s certainly not her appearance.

And of course there’s whatever’s up with the fact you labeled this chapter “Tyrant Queen Glacier”.

[“Like, ugh, h_ll you do!” I snapped, taking another hit.]

If you aren’t old enough to write the actual swear out, you’re not old enough to be swearing. And while we’re at it, if you can’t write an actual swear out you’re certainly not old enough to write plotlines where one character is planning to rape another character – as you prove by the fact you don’t seem to get that’s what you wrote.

Which brings us to another issue – she’s “Lady” and in charge of the mountain, but there’s little sense she has actual power in this exchange. His response isn’t fear at what she’s suggesting, it’s rage. Even outmatched and beaten, there’s no sense this is an actual threat to him as opposed to an embarrassment and an affront to his dignity that it’s gone on even this long. Hell, she isn’t even able to get called by the title of Queen despite apparently being one.

Ultimately, this all seems to be happening to make your character look better – he’s so great the girls go through absurd lengths to get him, and he’s so great on top of that that he doesn’t even want them because they’re not good enough for him even though they’re totally sexy.

Did I mention this entire thing is a bad trope? It’s a really bad trope. I don’t know how much of this you deliberately meant, but the whole thing is toxic.

[Then, the Ninetales spotted me lying in the snow. I glared at her and shook my head, trying to communicate that she was to be quiet and under no circumstances was she to reveal my position. Being a typical, trained moron, she didn’t.]

I don’t see how she’s being stupid by not caring he doesn’t want to be found.

[A trainer]
[the Trainer]
[Her trainer]
[the Trainer]

Hey, it’s the inevitable wonky capitalization that I keep saying happens if you pretend capitalizing Pokemon and stuff because it’s in the games even though it means completely ignoring the rules of how English works is somehow a good idea. And that’s why you really should have listened to the mouse/pikachu bit instead of spending half your review of my story explaining I shouldn’t even mention it to you when I reviewed you because you’re sure your way is good. While we’re at it, you could stand to take another look at my dialogue paragraph.

Finally, the bit with the ninetales is handled poorly – if you’re going to be writing stuff from the pokemon’s POV and have chatty, chatty pokemon while you do so, you really need to think about how that would work. She knows they don’t want to be attacked. They are able to say to her they don’t want to be attacked in case she missed it, demonstrating they’re intelligent creatures like her who don’t want to be attacked. She should have more feelings on that than :D TRAINER SAID BURN THINGS I BURN THE THINGS :D – if she believes this is okay, you have to show how rather than just writing her as if it isn’t an issue. Telling him to stop yelling, he’ll be happy with a trainer would be her actually reacting to what’s going on in an understandable way. [“Righty-O!” she said cheerfully, “No hard feelings, right Absol!”] is not that. There’s no sign here she even understands pokemon speech. She might as well be a second human carrying a flamethrower.

to which he responds

PkmnMaster Rolf | Thank you for your review

You’re right on all accounts. Sorry for bothering you. And thank you for taking the time to read it. And thank you for being HONEST with me. If I can’t take a little (or a substantial amount) of criticism, I shouldn’t be a writer. The ‘c_rsing’ is more personal prefence. I’m plenty old to use it if I wanted to. You’re right there, though. It is not proper English. My apologies once more. I shall keep your criticisms in mind for the future. I am grateful for your time and the obvious thought you put into the review. I shall recommend you to anyone else who wants a brutally honest opinion. In fact, due to your review I will now go through the first chapter (and all the others) with a new eye and hopefull fix all the problems. You have been VERY helpful and once again I thank you. I doubt you get many ‘thanks’ from the other authors on the site due to the way you review. On behalf of all of them, I apologize.

so kudos, author, for being reasonable even when I myself was irritable.