Some new stuff! Mostly, same old same old.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337440/1/Ember-the-clone
spoilerz
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337493/1/Pokemon-The-Milky-Way-Series-Book-1
I think this is reposted, in part because I’m blocked.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337513/1/Pokemon-The-Calm-Before
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.
Questioned does not mean asked.
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.
Spellcheck.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
One.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337648/1/Journey-Beyond-the-Kingdom-Chapter-1
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.
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.
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.
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.
If nothing happens in your chapter but eating breakfast and thinking about what pokemon to get, it shouldn’t be a chapter. Start your story where your story actually starts, not thousands of words before it gets interesting.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337826/1/Pokemon-Academy
There’s almost a hundred fics with this title already.
“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.
Don’t jump between third and first person POV.
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.
One day, maybe people will figure out there was a reason Pokemon made a point of the kids not having to go to school.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12337925/1/Pokemon-Learning-League-Nutrition
Script format is banned.
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/12337997/1/Warrior-of-Light-The-Chronicles-of-Safehaven
[You all know about the world of Pokémon: ]
I can’t believe you wrote that and yet still thought it was a good idea to keep writing the rest of the paragraph. Yes. We know. Why are you wasting your time and ours by typing out the standard script from the games?
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.
Next you move on to a world we’re not familiar with, except you didn’t need to tell us that either! A giant infodump isn’t a story. Instead of telling everyone exactly how things work, you should show elements when they come up.
Write out numbers with letters.
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.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338000/1/spectra
Hm. This is done well, but it doesn’t feel like the pokemon aspect is helping. The world mysteriously warping, animals turning into new monstrous deadly things, etc, is terrifying…but as pokemon, they’re still recognizable to me, even if the characters are flailing around with no idea what’s happening, and so much of the horror of these kinds of apocalypses is not knowing what’s going on. There’s little suspense in mystery chimera friend either, since of course you can rely on a pokemon defending you from other wild pokemon rather than turning on you as soon as your guard is down, while if these are unknown man-eating monsters, well, who knows if the lab got it right or is just clutching at straws?
Two! Actually doing better than the awful ones around it, for once.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338083/1/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Rise-To-The-Top
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.
“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.
One. And this completes January 25th!
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338246/1/Expert-in-the-Field
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.
[And, well, maybe the snag machine that you swore you wore only for the aesthetic anymore, or maybe to be ready if Miror B. ever showed up again- maybe it had a little more use than you claimed.]
I like the tone of this – the understatement, the almost drawling beat to it all.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338246/3/Expert-in-the-Field
[The male grunt approached. “Uh… Thanks, I think.”
The female grunt punched him in the shoulder. “Dude, don’t say that, you sound like a wuss. And anyway, I think this shithead is playing some kinda fucked up game here, just ignore him.”
The smile you gave her was a lot more sincere than the one in the station, but not particularly warm. You shot her finger guns and said, “If you’re gonna steal Pokémon, you really need to try harder than that.”]
This is hilarious. I really like what you’ve got going on with Michael, and the Skull kids are perfect.
One review:
catspats31 chapter 1 . 6h ago
The writing quality is fine and dandy in terms of your spelling and grammar, but the following part of the Content Guidelines is broken for being a second person or you-based story:
Entries not allowed:
5. Any form of interactive entry: choose your adventure, second person/you based, Q&As, and etc.
Please remove all elements related to the reader and replace them all with a canon character or original character. Switch to the first person or third person point of view. Alternatively, you can move it to a site where it’s allowed like Archive Of Our Own. Outside of that, you know how to keep the characters in character.
About a goddamn canon character. Are they in a dogpiling “crit” community? Of fucking course. Way to be a worse site cancer than any of the bad writers ever managed, guys.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338255/1/Ash-s-Advanced-Journey
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.
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 know, I know, it isn’t an uncommon story, but every retelling is made unique by the person writing it.]
You seem to have confused cause and effect here. It’s that a retelling had better be made unique for the person to bother writing and posting it.
[ Fair warning, I am not terribly great at writing the beginning of stories. It has always been hard for me to get a story started]
If the beginning is boring and tedious, it’s the wrong point. You’re supposed to start at the point it gets interesting, not force yourself to slog along in the hopes of reaching something worth it.
And that’s all that’s here. You painstakingly explain that Ash is thinking about doing something, then he starts to very slowly prepare to do something, then there’s still more preparation, and all it boils down to is “fuck it, Ash needs to be more of a sue, quick, make him smarter and have Pikachu evolve”, so just stick that in your author’s note and get to the actual story.
Two.
Also, sick, so I’m going to have to stop here. At least I’m still on the first page.
[One day, maybe people will figure out there was a reason Pokemon made a point of the kids not having to go to school.]
Well, the plot of the new Alola anime is basically Ash goes to pokemon school, so . . .
But the one thing everyone agrees with is they hate the current anime and that’s why they’re doing their own with blackjack and hookers!
Well, do they hate the anime because school or because Ash is not sufficiently edgy?
From what I’ve seen in youtube comments, people are upset about the lack of Serena and Ash-Greninja in the current anime. And that Ash has been demoted to actual ten-year-old who acts like a ten-year-old.
And that it’s a kid show that’s supposed to last for as long as possible, and somehow it’s been 20 years and people still don’t understand this.
In other words, Ash is never going to win the league, he’s never going to proper make-out with a girl, and he’s never going to become mature and badass.
I’m not saying the anime is as good as it can be (although I did enjoy what I saw of sun and moon). I’m just saying that people have a tendency to get over-excited and raise their expectations waaaay above what’s going to actually happen.
TBH I think this is just more of Nintendo not knowing what to do with/not liking a maturing fanbase. People wouldn’t be so irritated by the head-beating sameness of the anime year after year if Nintendo threw longtime fans a bone in other ways, but they don’t want to be seen as an “adult” company so that won’t happen.
The complaints are dumb, but at the same time I get where they’re coming from.
I am still so tickled by the fact a small child decided he wanted to tell me about the anime and I was all, “I don’t need to know it’s always the same,” but he was all “NO BUT HE WINS THE LEAGUE THIS TIME” to which I said he was a liar and that, without bothering to check, I was completely sure Ash had not, and then he made the most adorably innocent argument that it hadn’t yet but it was totally certain so it might as well because perhaps the many seasons he had never watched involved Ash going to the place and then losing, but THIS TIME IT WOULD BE DIFFERENT! Also this time Ash wouldn’t be ditching his current companions. Definitely.
Okay, this comment REALLY doesn’t want to go through for some reason, so I’m going to try breaking it in half.
Oooooh, an Orre fanfic? Written in second person? I’m so there for that.
Also, the person who reported the ‘fic under the “interactive” rule has a paragraph on their profile explaining why they consider it an important rule to enforce: Sometimes, the reader would feel traumatized when the story puts them in it. I feel that stories like that show a sign of laziness when authors put things like “(name)” or “(h/c)”. Can’t you use another character from the fandom or an original character instead of putting the reader in the story?
This is definitely the first I’ve heard that people can be traumatized by the POV someone chooses to write their fanfic in.
To be fair, I’ve read a number of horror stories written in the second person that were viscerally terrifying. A particularly memorable one was about mind-controlling villain reducing you to nothing more than a tiny voice in the back of your own head screaming in horror as the villain reshaped you into his obedient minion.
I actually consider it one of the strengths of the second person narration: an ability to pull your readers into the fic and then fuck them up.
Why somebody would see it as a problem is baffling, though.
Now, (name) stuff is bad. If you write in second person and don’t want to give the reader a specific name, you really should come up with a way to write around it. It’s an issue of execution rather than a method, however.
Oh, totally! There are some second-person stories that are absolutely traumatic to read. What I’m objecting to is the idea that that’s somehow unique or inherent to stories written in the second person. Like, there are some VISCERALLY TERRIFYING horror stories written in first and all flavors of third person, too.
So, yeah, definitely an question of execution versus method. If your reason for going after second person stories (regardless of their actual content) is that some second person stories might traumatize somebody, perhaps you should instead be going after… all of literature? There are some stories about Pikachu that are super scary or gross or otherwise traumatic, quick, no one should ever write about Pikachu again because think of the children.
The rest of the reasoning is basically the same. Like, yeah, character x reader stories and their associated tropes are generally pretty bad and have some cringey conventions. I don’t have an issue with someone saying, “You really shouldn’t use (y/n) as a stand-in for a reader’s name in your story, it’s lazy and silly-looking;” but suggesting that the fact that some people do that in second person stories means that the second person in general is bad strikes me as silly.
(Although I also think there’s no problem with writing stories of the kind that might traumatize somebody anyway, but that’s an entire other argument…)
Yeah, that’s true. My point is that the second person narration can achieve greater immersion than other perspectives when done right*, but, of course, it’s not inherently a bad thing and can, in fact, be used to a great literary effect.
Basically, second person is just a type of narration with its own strengths and flaws. It’s just harder to do right than others.
*Which is tricky. The immersion vanishes if you the character is sufficiently different from you the reader and can work against the story instead. That’s the reason I came to dislike second person fics in Undertale, especially fics with multiple POVs. They really don’t use the format well.
I really don’t think that’s a wise direction to go down. Arguing second person should be allowed because immersion is like arguing first person should exist because it facilitates diary-style writing, and in this case, doing it to people who think it’s a crime because it’s normalizing reading actual people’s diaries which makes it RPF which means it’s banned.
Yes, well, their position is kinda batshit, so I’m not sure it’s wise to argue with them either way. I was going more for general musings.
When it comes to arguments against blanket ban on second person fics, I’d go with execution over format reasoning. Second person is more tricky than other forms of narration, but it’s still merely a form of narration that does not define anything about content. How it’s used differs from fic to fic, and so you need to analyze what’s actually there in order to pass judgement one way or another.
From what I understand, the fic in question does not contain anything remotely questionable, so what format it’s written in is irrelevant.
It’s not about bad writing, it’s about what rules can be stretched to let them report the maximum number of stories. They’re insisting second person is “interactive” and so falls under the ban on interactive fic, even though it’s clear it’s supposed to be a ban on stories soliciting reviews by writing “You see three pokemon! Review to say what you picked!”
Yeah, that’s probably a lost cause unless a mod outright says that second person is fine, and I don’t believe that FFN mods exist.
I don’t generally associate second-person with greater immersion. In fact, I think second-person is most useful when you want to set up some distance between the reader and the character of the “you”, since which each “you” the reader is quietly contrasting that action or thought with what they would do. The Orre fic is quite clearly using second-person to establish “you” as a free-standing character, it’s not trying to be interactive in the least. I think it works well as a narrative choice in that fic because heightens the sense of the main character as an unexpected outsider who is interrupting a game we know well.
(Just checked the fic and the author has changed it all to third-person.)
I’ve heard arguments to this effect. I guess my experience colors my view of such things. I mostly see second person in interactive fiction (where it does contribute to the immersion by virtue of you actually having a measure of control over what you the character does) and horror stories (where you the character is generally pretty reactive and easy to project into, so immersion is still enforced).
So, when I encounter it in other contexts, like Undertale fics, it doesn’t work for me and tends to pull me out of the story precisely because you the character is so different from me that I can’t project into them. It does feel that third or first person would suit such stories better.
I actually tend to have this experience with second-person as well, though I’m not sure why.
They are not forthcoming with their reasoning. I PMd them questioning their application of the “no interactive fanfiction” rule and they pointed me towards that post in the FAQ thread for their group, but when I pointed out that neither of those reasons applied to a T-rated fic about a canon character, they just pointed me towards a questions forum where I could ask questions of their group about the site rules.
I don’t have questions so much as a conflicting interpretation of what that rule means/how it should be applied, but I’ll test my luck with the forum. Sadly the page reloaded and ate my first draft of a post, so I’m demoralized, but soon I will see if I can’t make an impact on their viewpoint.
Oh God, good luck I guess? Critics United aren’t known for their… reasonableness.
If it can’t be used as a cudgel to get rid of icky girl writing, I don’t think they care.
I feel sorry for the author who got harassed, but that’s also insanely hilarious.
But it gets better! Their profile also links to a post on the Critics United forum (post #13) explaining why second person is bad:
The first, and most important reason is because it can be considered a form of child porn.
oh dear sweet Jesus why
I know EVERYTHING is child porn these days, but really? Really??? And then it turns out that post wasn’t even made in 2016 or something, it was from 2012. 2012. I thought that was still well before the everything-is-child-porn nonsense started, ugh.
The full post is glorious, though:
The first, and most important reason is because it can be considered a form of child porn. Say, for example, you’re reading a “You based fic” that goes along just fine for a few chapters, but then comes to a part with a lemon (sex scene), that story is having someone run their hands down your buddy, exploring your more intimate attributes, removing your clothes, laying you down, you get the idea, yes? Now lets say that you’re 13 years old reading this story. The person responsible for writing said story is now guilty of child porn, and if an angry parent found out they could not only sue the site itself but also prosecute the writer and have them labeled as a sex offender for the rest of their life.
Yes, that’s right: if you write a ‘fic in second person and it includes porny bits, you open yourself up to the possibility that a child might read it. And if a child reads it, it automatically becomes child porn because now there is a child in the story (?) whom the porn is about. And now of course you are forever a sex offender.
Hope you feel better soon! Nice job catching up.
Oh crud, I been female for years because of the scarcity of Male!ReaderxCharacter stories. I don’t even get to be a lesbain or bi. Well, that’s the consquences of reading you have to live with.
Well…long before everything became child porn, I did see a couple posts linked of idiot children that sounded just like the idiot children of these communities.
So, horrifyingly, I think it’s not that it’s tumblr. This is how the new generation functions, and tumblr was actually slowing it down by having older people on.
this is incredible
I love the “Pokemon School” concept, especially when it’s tweens trying to write “Pokemon College” or similar. They have no idea.
The fics/RPs always start with everyone milling around in the quad instead of waking up at 3 AM to choose classes and swearing while the site crashes, and they have so much time to chat between classes (what classes?) instead of having to literally run out of your 9 AM class because the 10 AM one is a quarter-mile away. The pokemon never appear because it’s all with the goal of running a “dating” RP, but LBR they would abandon you because the school gives them homework too, that’s what “pokemon” academy means
I’m so disappointed no one actually seems to have any idea about what to do with the classes. I think I’ve seen one story ever actually do magic college where we actually get to see the fucking lessons and they’re awesome but it’s Tales of Mu where the rest of the audience is there for the porn so it’s 90% about people fucking between the lessons.
It’s also funny because the SYOCs keep being all “okay I need non-students submissions too!” and like, what, so they can never appear while the student characters chat with each other? It’s really clear that even if people want to write school settings, they’re mostly drawing on the template they’ve seen in other places, and that template is three chapters of students talking to each other and then never updating again.