An interesting variant on the Ash-but types of story, with an AU Misty who looks like she’ll end up being an OC but which is still advertised as being pokeshipping.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326084/1/Spirits-in-the-Stars

I assume this is well meant, but making most of this about how your character is basically MLK except he survived an assassination attempt, and also how pokemorph (?) relations are exactly like the historical legacy of slavery and racism in America, while mostly avoiding what MLK actually said and did with his life…it’s not so much a tribute as it is using a real person to prop up your character.

[This second pregnancy had been hard on her so far; he guiltily wondered if it was his mixed genes that were to blame. ] This brings to mind the long and horrible history of interracial marriage, except from the sounds of it in your world miscegenation is actually a real thing and pokemorphs or whatever he is aren’t genetically the same as humans.

Then it just gets worse by the fact that [That his wife and his Companion were still alive; Kitlin still sleeping peacefully by his side, Frost in a nest of pillows and blankets in a corner of the living room with her mate.] is the sort of language the South used when talking about how much they treasured their slave companions but not enough that they got to have real beds.

Finally, all of this is completely impenetrable because it’s a bunch of OCs set in the middle of some different story and setting you mysteriously thought could stand on its own as a one-shot, when it really belongs as another chapter after whatever events you’re vaguely alluding to.

One review, praising this moving tribute to guy-who-doesn’t-even-get-named.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326122/1/The-Combination-Master

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things – 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.

Paragraphing has rules. You start a new paragraph with a new subject. The goal is not to divide your story up into even blocks. Also, a new speaker means you start a new paragraph.

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.

[“However I have a few conditions that must be met first before I allow you to go to any other regions.

number one, catch four more Pokémon from the Kanto region.

number two, raise Charmander to its final evolutionary stage by the time you reach the seventh gym.

number three, acquire all eight gym badges of the Kanto region.

number four, document every combination move that you invent,

and number five, get to at least the semifinals of the Indigo League. The first four conditions are mandatory and must be met before meeting me at the Indigo League to determine if the fifth condition be mandatory or not. I want you to understand that I’m doing this to prepare you for the other regions because each league after this one will be a lot tougher then the last and I don’t want your dreams to be shot down before they even begin because I would like to see a combination master in action.” Professor Oak said]

So if he gets seven gym badges before he has a charizard, he will never be allowed to leave Kanto, ever, because this makes sense.

You need to spend less time on laying out every detail of how you want this whole “combination master” business to work and more on understanding that just because you/your main character care a lot about this doesn’t mean everyone else is precisely as invested. Focus on writing an actual story.

One, saying it “needs work”.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326123/1/Pokemon-Journeys-My-first-trek-through-the-Sinnoh-Region

There are just shy of ten thousand stories just on this site in this category with “pokemon” in their title. “New” features in almost two thousand. There are over six hundred “chronicles”, more if you include misspellings, even more with “begins” and “beginning”, and even more “Character Name”‘s whatever. There are a thousand with “legend”. There are two thousand with “journey”, seventeen hundred with “story”, three hundred fifty with “quest”, and almost three thousand with “adventure”. The different region names appear another thousand or two times. “Saga”, “region” and “champion” come in around a few hundred. In sum, you should try to choose an original title that has to do with your story in particular, not something that indicates it’s yet another story about a pokemon trainer.

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.

Write out numbers with letters.

Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be honest, it’s so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn’t seen it, very literally here, thousands upon thousands of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.

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.

[“Boy, did I give you permission to speak!?”

“No, ma’am, forgive me. ma’am!”

“That’s good. Now you were supposed to go to Sandgem Town. 3 hours ago! Now did I raise a little baby Munchlax or a bonafide soldier!?”

“…”

Smacking her son behind the head, Michael’s mom scolded, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! I asked for an answer, soldier!”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I thought you said I couldn’t answer you until you gave me permission!?” The boy looked like he was about to cry, “Do I talk now, or do you want me to shut up…”

“*SIGHS!* Oh, dear…I overdid it again didn’t I?”

Breaking her drill sergeant persona, Michael’s mother then softened her face as she places her hands on Michael’s shoulders and apologized,

“Forgive me, son. It’s just that I expected you to be ready since this is your first journey. I’m just worried is all, and I just want you to be safe until you get your first pokémon, understand?” Michael’s mother fixed her son’s hair.

“Hm! Of course, Mom, thank you! Just don’t worry that much about me. I’ll be fine.” Michael chuckled.]

Okay but actually this comes off as less over the top ridiculousness and more just regular abuse, complete with the part where the victim ends up comforting and reassuring that the abuse was no big deal, followed naturally by her then redoubling the abuse while he keeps making excuses that it’s no big deal and it’s just proof she loves him. You’ve labeled this humor, so I assume you weren’t intending it to be horrifying.

One, wall of text crit that manages to point out a host of problems that don’t barely overlap with the ones I was talking about.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326282/1/Kanto-Guardian

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 – 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.

Two.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326419/1/Lunaria

Write out numbers with letters.

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 – 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.

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326616/1/Passing-the-Time

If you can’t think of anything for a prompt but generically written friends sharing the names of canon characters playing the most boring game of twenty questions to ever exist, it’s probably not worth writing out.

A drabble is a word for something written and edited to be precisely 100 words. It’s the polar opposite of something short you threw together.

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.

Blocked! Also, dammit Serebiifen stop dragging your dumb thread “challenges” onto another site.

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326704/1/Spirits-of-the-Frontier

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 ghost type trainer of the Hoenn Elite Four shrugged her shoulders and kept walking. Phoebe took a few steps before she heard a wisp sound. The wind. It was only the wind…the fog wasn’t moving. If the sounds she heard were the wind then shouldn’t the fog roll in and out? It was at a standstill. Phoebe noticed it was getting hard to breathe. Almost like she was suffocating. She began to take steps and felt them heavy. She couldn’t run. Out of instinct she looked around again to find nothing, but as she turned she didn’t have time to scream before meeting darkness.]

I’m not really clear on why the top ghost trainer who’s used to ghosts and hangs out with ghosts and otherwise seems pretty familiar with weird spooky stuff was the best pick to be attacked by mysterious spookiness. Wouldn’t almost anyone else be a better victim?

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.

[Battling, one of the arts of the Pokémon world. Trainers raise their Pokémon to compete in battles to decide who is stronger or even to get stronger. The Hoenn Region is a place that often demonstrates the arts of the Pokémon World. Whether it is shown by Pokémon Contest, Gym Battles, or even the Battle Frontier. There is something for everyone’s taste. Some trainers don’t even get the chance to decide and can’t indulge in the arts. Factors of why come from their own personal ideals or choices to force by another. However, factors also decide what one does when finally given the chance.]

This manages to be both an annoying recap of what people reading fanfic already know and nearly impenetrable word salad. Focus less on sounding dramatic and more on communicating clearly.

[ is thru with you]

Through.

[he voiced to his out loud and kind of to his starter.]

Seriously, this is unreadable. Get a beta reader.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326711/1/Blessing

spoilerz

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326873/1/Pokemon-Legends

Proper nouns should be capitalized.

A summary is not the same thing as a story.

Use paragraphs.

“Candelara, the owner of moltres and leader of valor” Why are people only screwing up her name? Okay, Spark may take some real talent to screw up, but surely Blanche has similar room for error.

One, praise.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12326941/1/A-Moment-of-Eternity

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

An intensely vague and terribly short summary of the fact legends are a thing that exist is not a valid prologue or a good choice for the first chapter you’re presenting people to read. This would be maybe justifiable at the top of an actual chapter, although it really doesn’t look like you’ve said anything at all and would probably be better off skipping it entirely. Either way, it’s a terrible idea for it to be posted independently, as there’s no hook here to continue reading – you just end with “maybe later something will actually happen! read on to find out if this is in fact a story!”

Did they have other chapters up by now? Yes. Will I bother reading them?Hell no.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327184/1/Ghost-Story

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

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.

[ An Emolga at a Water Gym was an almost guaranteed loss]

…not really? Regular electric types are only weak to ground. Emolga is exactly as weak to ice moves as water types are to electric, and all the water types at a water gym should be used to ice moves given that’s also the counter for grass types.

[ Misty had been hopeful after Seel had managed to pull off an early Blizzard but the Emolga had withstood that without losing altitude ]

Pokemon can use a move more than once and that’s hardly the only ice move seel can learn. If you want to write about someone struggling to win with a type disadvantage, you should’ve used pretty much any other electric type.

[Seel had scooped Emolga up onto its back and was ferrying the fainted Pokémon over to the challenger’s platform. Misty smiled at that. Good ol’ Seel.]

That is indeed sweet of Seel – but why isn’t the kid just recalling his pokemon? That’s what pokeballs are for.

[But this Pokémon…was still smiling. Its expression hadn’t changed since she had first seen it, save for the occasional blink when they had been above water. It was starting to scare her.

Why wasn’t it helping her? And why was it turning the water purple? Was that why she couldn’t move? The panic was swirling around deep in her stomach as the purple water swirled in her vision.]

This whole sequence was well done – I like how familiar she is with sea pokemon and how her fondness toward them all comes through, and so even when it goes so wrong, it feels like it makes perfect sense she’d have gotten into this.

But, I’m pretty baffled by why it’s AU. If you’re making it so Misty’s life gets a drastic change at age five, then she’s going to end up being a very different character…an original one, one might say, given just how much loving water and water types is important to the canon Misty – unless, I suppose, she doesn’t remember what happens clearly and just wakes up later, but in that case, there isn’t much point in carefully writing out what does happen and how scared she is when you could’ve just said she swam off after mystery not-tentacool frilly jellyfish and then jumped to her getting revived.

Five, because it’s AAML endgame probably, which is likely also the answer to the question of why it’s supposedly Misty and not an OC.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327304/1/The-talking-Gastly

Capitalize your title properly.

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.

Write out numbers with letters.

[ He was a simple man, raising very young kids in the town’s child day care center. His gentle personality made him the perfect man to get along with Agatha’s terrible personality. They got wed after the birth of their firstborn, Tate. ]

Well, kudos for bucking tradition twice over there. It’s nice to see some diversity in how things play out.

Spellcheck.

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.

Zero.

Also, the fic is apparently translated from French. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact there’s a happy marriage that involved an out of wedlock baby and the wife not quitting being a pokemon trainer.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327329/1/Smile

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.

This is really, really generic. Hau sees that someone who just moved is uncomfortable in exactly the ways people who just moved often are, but also she’s happy when around her pokemon the way people often are. I guess you’re doing something with the fact the game character has a permasmile, but the full hilarity of that is that it’s the exact same expression. If you’re changing that enough to say she has expressions for the normal range of human emotion, you might as well just say she has normal expressions.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327380/1/Come-Home

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.

[“You can always count on us! That’s what we’re here for!” Totodile gloated.]

For god’s sake, just use said. This is verging on madlibs territory.

Two.

Thus ends January 17th. Of course, given it’s not January 17th, that’s not much of a success.