One giant one and a handful of others.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12318536/1/Classified

This is a really slow opening.

[Most children leave their homes between the ages of ten and fifteen. They receive their first pokémon in whichever way that their hometown handles pokémon distribution and go off on their merry way.]

I don’t think it makes sense to assume it’s standardized on a town level, especially if you’re going the route of not even the age being standard. It seems it’d largely be done on a family-by-family level, Even if some towns have unique options (like a local professor or the Safari Zone) at least some of the kids would probably get theirs by other methods.

[Those that choose to stay in the profession either end up as revered stars or on the streets, struggling to make ends meet. Some simply go back to their family’s business as though their dreams of stardom had never existed in the first place, while others transition into related fields, such as fashion and grooming.]

This too seems like too much of an absolute. Consider acting. Some people who head to Hollywood to be actors end up on the street, some people switch careers to something more reasonable, and some give up and head home…but lots of people do a different job to pay the bills while still pursuing acting. If people have a family business to fall back on, why can’t they work part of the time there and leave for the occasional contest?

[Every trainer is put on a national registry the moment they begin their journey. The law requires it, after all. All of their achievements up until the end of their travels are compiled onto their files in this registry and it is with this registry that the government decides who is worth keeping track of.]

But what determines the end of the journey? Is there some sort of requirement that you can’t be a part-time trainer, that as soon as you run out of money and have to go home, you’re not allowed into a gym or contest again? Or are you still able to participate, but you’re no longer tracked for some reason?

[If a trainer manages to stay on the list for four years then an agent is sent after them. If the agent is impressed, then the trainer will receive an offer.]

See, you could do the same thing by just saying they distinguish between full and part time trainers…but there’s still the issue there that the biggest factor in how long a trainer can keep going isn’t how often they win but how much money their family has for them. A poor kid with no cushion will be forced out as soon as they lose once or twice, while someone rich enough could do it for the rest of their life even if they never win once.

Obviously, the latter case would lead to the agent rejecting the candidate, but in the former case, someone who was impressive just never even gets considered. The people they give that first look to are going to be heavily weighted toward the wealthier kids. And given you then go on to point out that it’s incredibly hard work plus presumably you don’t get a ton of fame for subtle, undercover work, an awful lot of the wealthier kids who don’t need to worry about getting a decent job will probably turn them down.

And then you go on to say that plenty of the jobs don’t even need super trainer skills!

See, this is why you need a strong social safety net. The most effective way of finding what trainers are best/giving trainers a chance to develop their skills in the first place is to say the government will let kids run around being trainers for free for several years. Let’s say four. At the end of those four years, the poorest of the very good trainers will probably be unable to continue despite their talents, making them perfect choices for recruitment, and many other decent but not great trainers of a wider range of social classes will also be dropping out, some of which will have the other skills they want. By making sure everyone who has any interest in battling pokemon gets a chance to practice and let them gather data on that practice, you have a wider pool of talented trainers to start with, and far more of them are people who’d actually be interested in doing hard work in return for money.

[Each year there would always be left over eggs in the daycare that trainers would abandon, refusing to take in the offspring of their precious companions.

Now, there are many things that can be done with pokémon eggs. For instance, some of the world’s greatest delicacies were made from the eggs of pokémon. Common ones, that is. Magikarp, bidoof, pidgey, rattata…pokémon that the world already has more than enough of.

Or perhaps they could be used as food for greater, more powerful pokémon- such as the magnificent birds pidgeot and mandibuzz, or even the beautifully attack-diversified furret.

Eggs also fetched a hefty price on the market. Selling pokémon eggs probably could have caused Solaceon’s economy to soar to the levels of places like Hearthome City or the metropolises of Veilstone and Sunyshore.

However, they ignored all of these luxurious possibilities. Instead, they instilled the ‘destined-partner’ system.]

Why can’t they do both? If there’s enough money to transform a small town into an enormous city, there’s probably more eggs than there are kids.

[First of all, no take backs. This is the pokémon that Arceus himself deigned to give to you- you must be grateful. Even if it is a pathetic bidoof.]

It seems really unlikely this would be a concern. The eggs should in fact be way more likely to provide a desireable pokemon than normal, since they’re all coming from existing trainer pokemon and not only that, but ones the trainer valued enough to spend money for the daycare on.

[Second, you may not know what the egg holds beforehand. For that reason pokémon egg guides are forbidden in Solaceon. It must always be a surprise.]

This seems unenforceable. It’s easy to say that, since this is the culture, the parents and school system doesn’t teach kids about eggs. It’s a lot harder to say that no one is allowed to know about eggs to the point they ban books from the entire area and presumably block all communication (I mean, what if a kid called up the library in the next town over?). Given the whole destiny business, it seems like the simpler option is to hand the eggs out randomly. That way you don’t need to worry about if one family decides to teach their kid what a shiny eevee egg looks like.

[As a child, Tracker had always believed that she would get stuck with a magikarp or something equally undesirable.]

Why wouldn’t a future gyarados be desirable? The reason magikarp is a bad starter is because the typical system is to hand the kids a L5 pokemon and punt them into the nearest patch of tall grass. If they’re getting their pokemon earlier than that and have plenty of time to think about what they’ll do before leaving, a pokemon that has a slow start period but enormous reward would be pretty much ideal.

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

[It was that despair that had brought Tracker to the outskirts of Hearthome and into the arms of her second pokémon.

Ralts were well known for being the ’emotion pokémon’. They could sense thoughts and feelings and it was this that had brought him to the depressed duo.]

Ralts’ pokedex entries explicitly say they only appear to “cheerful” people or those with “a positive disposition”. Yes, it’s the “emotion” pokemon, as in, empathy, not sympathy. “If its Trainer is in a cheerful mood, this Pokémon grows cheerful and joyous in the same way.”

The only way a ralts would be attracted to misery is if it’s a mutant who has some weird inversion going on where it feels happier the sadder those around it get, and such a pokemon would absolutely not want to comfort them because that’d make it miserable.

[It hadn’t taken her long to discover the preevolution of milotic, feebas. ]

It’s really weird that this is something she’d have to “discover” as opposed to common knowledge, especially when she’s a teen by this point. It’s like her needing to do research to figure out butterflies start off as caterpillars.

[The attacker knocked her out, sick of her struggles and unheard screams. When she woke up her pokéballs were gone as was all of her money, leaving only Luxio untouched on the concrete.]

Why? It’d be one thing if she’d screwed up by having out a weak pokemon for protection who was pretty much worthless for resale, but you make it clear he’s no weaker than the rest, and even if he wasn’t that impressive, they already went through the trouble of mugging them so why not get all of them?

If this was a sudden attack – if the attacker just grabbed her belt and kept running, say – then this could make sense, just as someone stealing your wallet probably won’t stop to get off a bracelet. But someone taking extra time to knock her out can take another few seconds to recall the last pokemon.

Plus, knocking humans out is really dangerous and usually has nasty side-effects even when it only lasts a couple seconds.

[Luxio was a perfectionist, a creature with deadly accuracy of whom had only ever lost a match against a gym leader. There was a fire within Luxio- one that could never be extinguished.]

That seems really hard to believe unless she almost never battles, or else makes sure to only battle newbies.

Unless all her battles are one-on-one, there’s not just one loser, there’s several. More, pokemon has all sorts of matchups. Even a talented pokemon with a talented trainer won’t be able to win every time it faces someone with a huge advantage over it. Pokemon isn’t about just being the singular best, and it’s designed so the weak can beat the strong with the right strategy and the luck to be able to get a chance at it.

[“Take me with you.”

The words slipped out before she could even think about it. They were clear and concise, the very opposite of what she felt.

The man looked very taken aback, as though he had never considered such a possibility. It was true. Tracker was still a young girl, trainer or not. How could she help him in such a situation?]

More to the point, you said she was knocked out, therefore she’s concussed and needs a medical professional at this point. Moving rapidly, let alone getting knocked about again, is now really dangerous, and even if he protects her perfectly, there’s the possibility she just collapses without warning.

While he didn’t see this happen, if knocking people out during a mugging is something that happens, he should know to check the eyes of any stunned, barely able to speak victim of a mugging.

[It would cause mass hysteria amongst the criminals, disguising himself as one of them and acting as a distraction. Letting them know that a rare pokémon, a togepi perhaps, was sighted just a few blocks away. Oh, but its trainer looks so strong! They would need to go all together to take them down.]

This is a terrible plan. Since when is a togepi worth enough split across everyone while at risk of getting taken out? Since when do criminal groups even think that it’s a good idea to send out everyone against a highly defended person for what’s apparently a single very distinctive and thus hard to resell item instead of picking marks based on what’s the easiest way of getting money? If it were at least a powerful pokemon, there’d be the argument that they could put it to work stealing more pokemon, but a togepi is pretty much worthless as a battler.

If he wants everyone to rush out, spreading a rumor there’s some rare, valuable, and easily stolen pokemon around but he doesn’t know where seems a lot more likely to work.

[A few guards would be left behind, of course, but that was where Tracker came in. She would use her small size and natural way of seeming so meek and unnoticeable without her pokémon to her advantage, sneaking around and releasing the captives. Luxio was more than powerful enough to keep any resistance at bay, especially when he was prepared and oh so very starved for revenge- for the blood of those that dared steal his pack.]

The same pokemon who got taken out in a second – but they just know none of the people left to guard against whatever’s thrown at them could be as strong as someone traveling around able to pick their targets. Blending into a crowd and sneaking into an empty building aren’t the same thing.

[She had known what she wanted to do very early on, so it was easy to get the proper classes over with (criminal justice and psychology, just to name a few) but the true trial was meeting and exceeding the standards of combat capability. She was expected to be able to take on an Elite Four member and win by graduation.]

If they’re weaker than the police members, then they’re hardly the best of the best trainers. If they’re not the best of the best trainers, then it doesn’t mean so much to say your character is better than them.

[After all, no matter how strong a pokémon is, no matter how much damage they can make or take… a well aimed bullet can take it down in mere seconds.]

In what way is that different from the fact pokemon can shoot beams of destruction out of their mouths?

If you want to introduce guns, you need more than just “guns can kill”. You need to explain why they’re different than the regular way of killing stuff with pokemon. Are pokemon really weak and only the high level ones are more deadly than guns? Is it really hard to convince a pokemon to murder for you so a gun is easier?

Four.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12318554/1/Closure

This would appear to be a bunch about canon characters I don’t know.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12318730/1/No-Need-to-Worry

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 – or used in place of one, like “mom” can be. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.

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.

Two.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12318940/1/Connections

Hm. This seems like it’s more like a second chapter to the previous fic – you say it doesn’t stand on its own, but then why post it on its own?

I’m not sure what to make of this beyond a general sense of weirdness. Part of it is that Ghetsis has clearly gone even more round the bend than in canon by this point, while Colress seems rather manic. In the previous fic there were things to ground them – Colress was wandering around doing things, Ghetsis was bored as hell in the asylum. It’s not impossible they’d be hanging out in relative hateful peace, but it feels wrong that neither of them appears to be driven by other goals at this point. Ghetsis presumably still wants to wreck N’s life or maybe just kill the kid so he’ll never be creepy again and maybe get revenge on other people and Colress…well, god knows, maybe whine about how come Ghetsis hates N more than him when he’s trying so hard or try to figure out if he can get Ghetsis into a pokeball.

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12319007/1/Evening-Meals

spoilerz

I am terribly behind but sadly was terribly busy.