In which various people don’t deal with the ideas they raise very well.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327400/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-XYZ-Brianna-and-the-Order-of-Kalos-Part-1-X

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.

[We humans live alongside Pokémon, at times playing together as friends, and at times helping one another out. And sometimes, we just like to have fun battling others like us! But as close as we are, we don’t know everything about Pokémon. In fact, there are still many, many mysteries surrounding Pokémon.]

Also, people choosing to read fanfic about a topic probably don’t need the word defined for them. The games do this because new people do in fact pick up the games at times.

[mostly because I’m a poor actor. I can fake a character for so long in a school auditorium, but not on camera or on public stage.]

Being a poor actor and having stage fright aren’t exactly the same, even if both are problems for someone who wants the career, plus a school auditorium is a public stage. Also “for so long” doesn’t make sense.

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.

[ I was so mad when I saw her. “I thought I told you not to wake me up with Dream Eater!”

“Gardevoir…” it replied.]

Try to be consistent about pronouns.

[ “Looks like Buneary has taken a liking to you,” he stated. “This is a little unusual. She’s actually a bit timid, especially around humans.”

“Well, I’ve kinda become her hero while you were away…” Then I told him what had happened outside.

When my story was finished, the professor grinned. An idea I wasn’t expecting came to him. “Would you like to keep her?”]

If your character gets a pokemon by running into it and then making friends, why do you even need to get a professor involved? It just makes what was a perfectly reasonable sequence of events seem contrived – that it just so happens to occur right on the way to getting a first pokemon, just so happens to be one of his pokemon, and just so happens to be one he has no issue giving away.

Three.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327614/1/Genesis

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.

[No, I found a Pokemon. It was the fabled ‘Regigigas’. I had awoken it and it had begun to rampage.]

Regigigas is awoken by the presence of the other three. If you want archaeologists murdered by surprise legendaries when they don’t have legendaries of their own, you want the regular regis – they’re the ones that are awakened just by solving mysterious puzzles.

[ I was a Human! I could remember my past life so vividly! I could remember my Mother, my Father, my sister and brother!]

See, this sort of nonsense capitalization is exactly why I’m so adamant people get the pokemon part right, it never stops at just being wrong there but keeps spreading.

Write out numbers with letters.

[I found it odd how I could tell them apart, even though physically, they all looked the same. I wrote it off as a Pokemon thing.]

If you show a human baby pictures of monkeys, it can recognize their faces just like it can human faces, and they only lose the ability if they only see human faces for several months. You don’t recognize humans because it’s “a human thing”, you recognize them because they look different. Sheep can tell each other apart but not different humans – not because it’s “a sheep thing” that somehow overcomes sheep being a mass of identical fuzzy white things, but because the sheep care about and remember sheep faces that vary just like human faces do. We usually don’t care enough to learn sheep faces and they usually don’t care enough to learn human faces, but no one can tell things that all look the same apart. That’s what looking the same means.

Your narrator might be surprised to find that suddenly, his brain registers eevee as having individual faces. He might be surprised to find that he notices a whole bunch of other differences in a species human-him saw as identical as well. And you should write in a way that describes this change so that the readers can understand what he’s seeing and understand how he’s changed, rather just a lazy shrug.

[With all of us up, our mother started to name us. My new name is ‘Jiga’. Doesn’t sound like an actual name to me, but I guess Pokemon and Humans have different naming conventions as well. I guess a wild Eevee named ‘Tom’ or ‘Jerry’ wouldn’t sound quite right. I had also learned my mother’s name was ‘Maki’.]

And what happens if he says his name is Will?

This is playing out like he’s an ordinary eevee who happens to be really human-centric in how he’s explaining things to the reader. He refers to the flareon as his mother, and he says she takes care of them – but does he care at all about her? Does he care at all for his siblings? Why doesn’t he have any interest in how he came to be an eevee? Or asking about his flareon, since he thinks his pokemon survived and maybe he’s in the same area.

[I guess Eevees don’t usually cook their food, so I decided against asking my Flareon mother to roast it.]

WHY. Why, without even thinking about it, does he decide he should spend his life pretending to be a completely ordinary eevee and avoid having a single interesting conversation?

[‘Blighter’.

Just what was that suppose to mean?! ]

Worse, he’s a complete idiot. So not only have you cut off most of the interesting topics by making him refuse to talk, but he can’t even figure stuff out on his own, even obvious, obvious things.

Again: what’s even the point of him being a reincarnated human if he acts exactly like a regular stupid baby eevee?

[I could see a Fearow flying right over their heads. As a Trainer, a Fearow wasn’t too intimidating as long as you had a strong Pokemon.

But as Eevees, they looked like nightmares with wings.]

…but as a trainer, if you don’t have a strong pokemon, they’re just as terrifying, and as an eevee living in a group, there are strong pokemon around. Jolteon not only have the advantage, but they’re fast enough to easily streak out and attack while the eevee run back into the burrow.

[Day 21 of my life was when I learned a hard lesson. That as a Pokemon, I wouldn’t battle for sport.

I’d battle for survival.]

How the hell did he miss this in his supposed thirty years of human life?

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.

I think what happened here is they had an idea they thought would be interesting, but they weren’t really sure how to write it, so they keep dodging the idea when it would actually come up.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12327842/1/Day-Off

spoilerz

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328502/1/Pokemon-Requiem-of-Shadows

[The pokemon are still acting fairly common.”]

If you mean “ordinary”, say that, not a different word that’s only in the same neighborhood as the one you actually want.

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

[“Yes, but I need a pokemon. Preferrably one that is psychic or knows the move Psychic. Because the crystal appears to affect the mental state of a pokemon, it appears to need psychic abilities in order to be fully active. If I’m correct that is.”]

Your characters should reason like people, not read the script so they can say whatever nonsense moves the plot forward.

Here’s what he knows:

1) He has a psychic crystal.

2) Psychic crystal appears to have some temporary hypnosis effect – or something, you’re astoundingly unclear on what the item your plot hinges on actually is.

3) He doesn’t know why it’s temporary or how to make it permanent.

What about this “appears” to need psychic power to activate? Why would knowing one particular psychic typed move be enough, but the host of other psychic typed moves aren’t just because those aren’t named “psychic”? Why would anyone look at what seems like pokemon throwing off a psychic effect and think that obviously using a pokemon that resists psychic attacks will be more susceptible?

If you want the crystal to behave differently when it’s used with a psychic type, well – basic research should be trying it out with different types of pokemon! What sort of idiot is he that he has to fail at every attempt before he thinks to try a different type? What sort of godawful scientist is he that he only does things based on making a bunch of random assumptions and deciding that must be exactly the solution, instead of actually testing variables?

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328624/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-The-Delta-Squadron

[This does have guns in it, seeing as the International Police need something other than just Pokémon to protect themselves and to stop criminals.]

That’s rather like saying, “This does have pocketknives in it, seeing as the police need something other than guns, mace, and tasers to protect themselves.” The fact that in our world guns are the top weapon does not apply to a world where flamethrower dogs are commonplace.

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 of the women was tall, had wavy, medium length red hair, and green eyes, her code name is Holiday (for pretty obvious reasons).]

You realize the point of a code name is generally not to make it obvious to everyone else exactly who the person is.

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.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328752/1/VERLISIFY-VERSUS-SMOGON

lrn2troll

Five, one a long earnest review because some people are that dumb.

Also, this completes January 18^th.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328860/1/The-tale-of-Darkrai-and-The-Child

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.

It’s three periods, not four.

[The Darkrai felt guilt as it never meant for this to happen…]

Then why exactly did it attack a village full of people.

Your grammar is awful and this is full of basic errors. Try harder.

[you ended the story and close book. The little children that surrounded you look amazed as their mouths wide open. You sworn you saw an adult about to burst into tears.]

No.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328913/1/Pokemon-Adventures-Season-1-Kanto-League

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.

[Speaking of which, you’re probably wondering why—at 17—he hasn’t gotten his first Pokémon yet. Well, to be honest, he wanted to wait until he finished school before he went on this journey.]

You mean, he wanted to miss school, because everyone else who graduates high school and cares about not delaying their education can go on to college while he’ll be wandering around doing what they finished back before they hit puberty.

[He was also nervous about travelling on my own at 10 years old, but let’s just leave the real reason at education.]

Yeah I’m sure this has so much to do with being a character and nothing to do with being a self-insert.

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.

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.

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12328946/1/Another-World-Another-Time

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.

[He winched as he placed his arm on a freshly mark bruised, he was covered in them, no thanks to town people.]

You know, it’s entirely possible for someone to be sad and isolated because they can’t do things others take for granted without it adding in the standard “and also they get the shit beaten out of them daily because all people hate everyone different and express this in exactly the same way”.

[His body now beaning carried away ]

[He knew if he could talk the voice would have been childless]

[“Was he swinging?” He hummed.

“Good Arceus, he was downing. Red!” he yells running beside the river.]

You desperately need a beta reader. This is a disaster.

Three – people really want to read about Red still, maybe?

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329338/1/PSMD-What-Lies-in-the-Heart

[This story is based off of the PSMD game, and it’s mostly a novelization with a few changes here and there that I made, including a major plot twist later on.]

Then your story should be focused on the changes and not repeating what people already know. For example, no one needs you to waste an entire chapter on such basics as “a character needs to wake up” and “legendary pokemon exist in this”.

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.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329447/1/Pokehuman-Pokemon-Ascent

[ then I realised, other than my scarf, I was wearing human clothes…

A dark grey hoodie that had two yellow stripes around the sleeves,]

Yeah, the idea of gijinkas wearing clothes like that is to reinforce what pokemon it’s supposed to be, not that transformation literally has a fashion sense mixed with intense prudishness and so makes sure everyone’s garbed appropriately.

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.

[“Yeah! He’s a Pokemon researcher here in Sinis, he’s offered to give us our own Pokemon to defend ourselves with!”]

So they appear to be exactly the same as they were mentally, but getting opposable thumbs means they’re instantly fine owning other people who don’t have them.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329480/1/Best-Wishes

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.

[This could be a one-shot]

Given those have to contain something at least resembling a storyline, so, it really couldn’t be.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329504/1/Exploration-of-the-Main-Six

A summary should not be posted as a chapter.

Blocked! Also, zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329535/1/Pmd-Riencarnated

[Note this is a role play log this isn’t all me don’t praise me for this]

Yeah I don’t see much point in praising you for doing that.

Roleplay logs have to be heavily edited to turn them into coherent stories that read properly, and that’s assuming they work as one in the first place and not just something that was fun because you were taking part of it while being boring to anyone outside of it.

[. NOTE:Candleliight dropped out of the rp she was the pumkaboo but I don’t wana EDIT IT OUT!.]

And it is obvious you did not do anything like that.

Try harder next time.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329552/1/Gold-Destiny

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.

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.

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.

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329621/1/The-Boy-Who-Changed-the-World

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.

[“I can’t believe we haven’t found any pokémon!” He turned back to glare at the honey slathered on the tree bark. Its sweet sent had failed to attract any pokémon whatsoever. In retaliation for this perceived slight, Tobari kicked the tree trunk. A shower of wet, golden leaves fell on top of his head. “This is hopeless!” He cried, frantically attempting to pick the leaves from his hair.

Exhausted and dispirited, Tobari’s search party gritted their teeth and continued to scour the ground and trees for pokémon. It had been one year since all the pokémon had mysteriously disappeared.]

So then why is he flipping out about the fact the honey didn’t work? If I hadn’t seen birds in a year, I’m not going to be enraged that they don’t come to my new birdfeeder.

[Homes were left unbuilt and defenceless.]

Humans do seem capable of doing construction on their own, and if there are no wild pokemon, what are they defenseless against?

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

[Tobari didn’t respond. He had never been especially sentimental towards these creatures. To him, pokémon were merely tools to be used and discarded. Not to mention delicious.]

Then why is he so upset here?

Most of what trained pokemon were used for was dealing with other pokemon. That means even people who don’t like taking care of pokemon pretty much had to if they wanted to walk around overgrown lawns safely.

Sure, a total lack of pokemon would have more side-effects than just that – they rely on them to do other work, and the ecosystem presumably relies on them…but you say there appear to be signs the pokemon are just all hiding, which means the ecosystem is chugging along just fine.

So why spend a year looking for pokemon when he could’ve spent the year trying to patch the holes pokemon left in the hopes of being able to continue in a human-only world?

For your plot to work, humans must be relying a great deal on pokemon…but canon really isn’t too detailed on that and stalls around “pokemon are useful sometimes”. All you say is [It had been one year since all the pokémon had mysteriously disappeared. Larders grew bare. Homes were left unbuilt and defenceless. ] Does their agriculture completely depend on pokemon and people will starve soon, or is he just complaining he’s sick of being vegetarian and wants some pikachu bacon? Do they have no way of moving heavy objects because they used pokemon so much they barely grasp how pulleys and other simple machines work? This is both your setting and the motivation of your character. You have to actually get into the details.

[“Do you even know where those tracks lead to?” Maya glared at Tobari, who shook his head. “It leads to a cave. A dangerous cave where the veil between life and death is thin.”

“We have to at least try,” Tobari began, but Maya cut him off.

“Then you are welcome to try on your own. Now, let’s go.” Maya turned her back on him and the rest of the villagers followed.]

Look – if she thinks this is super ultra doom cave, then she thinks he’s going to die if he goes there. If she thinks he’s going to die if he goes there, she should try slightly harder than “it’s dangerous because I say it’s dangerous” followed by being totally fine with him dying for the affront of not immediately agreeing with her.

Tobari isn’t even being dismissive here! He was less than impressed with her theory that absols are hiding all the pokemon, but there’s a lot of logistical problems with that. All he’s saying here is that he thinks they should take the risk because this is important, and apparently self-sacrificing bravery makes her decide fuck it he should die. This is really, really weird behavior for her and everyone else.

[ Maya’s warning echoed in his head. A dangerous cave where the veil between life and death is thin…perhaps she meant ghost type pokémon, Tobari reasoned.]

He should have just asked and she should have just answered. It’s established by his response the idea absol are bad luck and they should just give up that he isn’t going to be swayed by superstition and would presumably still do this even if he was told more.

One.

This one is a lot stronger than usual, but unfortunately short of what’s recommendable due to the whole failure to explain anything.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329670/1/When-You-Gotta-Go-la-in-Alola

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/12329743/1/Camp-Littleroot

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.

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.

It’s “okay”, four letters.

[Lucy feigned a grin and nervously said, “Well, Professor, I…uh…I don’t think being a trainer is really my cup of tea…”

“Which is exactly why you should go!” Birch exclaimed, “You’re the head counselor of Camp Littleroot, are you not? That means it’s your job to get out there and find those Pokémon!”

Lucy stood and contemplated the options, though there really weren’t many. She would suggest that everyone split up and find the Pokémon, but that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. The Professor was right—Camp Littleroot was her responsibility. She had to go find those Pokémon, even if she’d never commanded a battle in her life.]

This really does not follow.

The pokemon are apparently lost. She may need a pokemon for defense while traveling…although even that’s unclear, given this is apparently a world where pokemon have an entire camp set up to hang out peacefully at and otherwise seem intelligent and unaggressive. Perhaps she’ll need it in case she runs into Aqua? Regardless, she doesn’t need to be an official trainer starting with a brand-new starter, she needs an experienced pokemon who can handle whatever the specific challenges you haven’t explained are, or she doesn’t need one at all because wild pokemon are friends rather than aggressive in this. Going out to find lost pokemon is not going to be exactly like deciding to raise pokemon to become a great trainer.

[“What?! No! Let me come with you!” Ponyta cheered, “I’m the best fighter at the Day Care anyway, I kick everyone’s butts! I’ll help you find my friends.”

Lucy gasped and put her hands to her mouth, “You can tell me who they are?”

“Yeah, duh!” Ponyta galloped, “So what do you say, can I go with you?”

It took some contemplating, but after some much acknowledged thought, Lucy knew what the right thing to do was. She could see in the Ponyta’s eyes that it had a fire for battle, but more than anything, a concern for her friends. Lucy could feel how much she wanted to see them all again.

“Okay,” Lucy nodded, “Well…you’ll need to travel in one of these Pokéballs…is that okay with you?”

“WAIT—” Ponyta said excitedly, “So you get to be my TRAINER?! Seriously? I’ve always wanted a trainer!”]

What.

So because this pokemon can help her find the others, it has to go in a pokeball where it can’t see or hear anything – as you just had it explicitly say happened the last time it went into a pokeball, no less.

What’s the point of doing a story about something other than a standard trainer-with-pokemon setup if you’re going to ignore everything about it and just shove your story into the same mold as always?

[“What’s your name?” Lucy asked, “Besides Ponyta, of course.”]

Well, at least you didn’t have her immediately name the talking pokemon. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen it happen.

This one actually seems like it’s trying to avoid the usual problems, but by a lot of insisting that no everything’s fine which, in story building terms, is a mess. I suppose this is one of the weak points of fanfic – when designing a world, you can only put in what problems you’re interesting in engaging with, but when working with an existing world while not wanting to have problems dragging you down, there’s a lot of “here’s a bad thing, but it’s not really, also this problem, which is also okay for reasons, and then also…” that doesn’t flow well narratively.

Also, zero. Author should’ve said the main character is genderswapped AU Ash with a name change.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329860/1/Ash-Ketchum-s-Tickle-Harem

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/12329925/1/Hairstyles-and-Glitter

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.

[It wasn’t anything showy about how Gold entered- slamming open the closet door, holding something behind his back, telling him to sit down and-Holy crap, was that a blindfold?! Silver sat down on the floor, blindfolded and just about ready to exit right out of the room right now. But a part of him told him to stay and sit.]

You really need better characterization than “a part of him said to do what the plot said”.

Without a mirror, he can’t see what’s being done to his hair either way. All you had to do was have Gold talk Silver into letting him mess with his hair for a few minutes and have Silver not realize it’s going to be hard to get out. Conversely, if this is meant to be a badly explained d/s relationship and that’s why Silver’s sitting quietly letting Gold do what he wants to his hair, he shouldn’t be getting upset to find out Gold did exactly what he thought Gold did.

This should not have been difficult.

Two, because ship.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12329939/1/It-can-only-end-in-Bloodshed

[Ok Second off, I’m open to OC’s]

You shouldn’t be. It doesn’t work out well in practice.

Also, it’s “okay”, four 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.

Write out numbers with letters.

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.

[Rayquaza,Zygarde,and both the trio’s died during the war. ]

Always have a space after punctuation and [trio’s died] means [the trio owned a “died”]. If you meant [more than one trio] it’s [trios]. Apostrophe-s is for possessive, never plural.

Zero.

On that note, I’m done with January 19^th! Or in other terms, I have a page and a half to get through.