In which we begin and end on the same story.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710395/1/Pokemon-Magnorm-Region
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. 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.
Zero reviews. But today I’m starting only ten hours back.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710504/1/Pearlshipping-Behind-the-scenes
Capitalize your title properly.
[her Buneary ]
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Don’t label flashbacks, you’re supposed to make it clear from context.
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/11710568/1/The-Past-is-the-Past
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. 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.
[There is war. There is famine. There is disease. There is devastating weather.
What was once a peaceful era, where human and Pokemon coexisted together in harmony, is now gone.
What was once a bustling and industrializing world was now replaced by a ravaged and destroyed one. Where there were billions of people, there was now less than fifty thousand. Where there were billions upon billions of Pokemon, there were lesser Pokemon than anyone could ever imagine.
There is no law and order. The world is in chaos.
It’s every man for themselves.]
Nope!
See, bad things don’t just happen. War often can cause famine and disease, but famine and disease are what determine the end of a war, once they get bad enough people can’t keep fighting. Possibly you just mean “fighting” because going from billions to fifty thousand mean there really can’t be any remaining countries or even coordinated groups left interested in warring with each other, but why would they fight? For what?
Massive population crashes mean more available resources. If there used to be a ton of people and now there’s a handful, all the resources those other people used to take up are now there for the few survivors. Your big problem is not having enough people to use the resources effectively, so the last thing you want to do is kill other people, you need them to help you farm.
Disease also doesn’t work after a population crash. Disease hits high population areas where it can travel easily and where people are already stressed and weak. It’ll ravage an area until the population is too low to keep transmitting it. Your hosts going from billions to fifty thousand? That’s the kind of thing that makes diseases extinct. They don’t like their environment completely changing any more than other forms of life. And even if you meant disease already happened, the aftermath is that people become hugely valuable – the death of the European feudal system came right after the Black Death itself, when the surviving peasantry found they could demand high wages by virtue of being the only person left to do work. Disease doesn’t create a situation where everyone’s killing each other for scraps.
If you want specifically a situation where resources are just gone, which is the only one where people have incentive to keep fighting rather than work together, you can’t just handwave that general badness is happening, you need to lay out exactly what happened and what the situation is – what’s the limiting resource/resources and why are other people useless when it comes to helping you get it?
Now let’s consider generically extreme weather. How do people handle that? Massive building projects. Dig ditches to channel floodwaters away, dig levees to block floodwaters from reaching you, build storm walls to keep from getting wiped out by the ocean waves. Build greenhouses for the surprise cold snaps. Build irrigation and water storage for the surprise heat waves. Build new houses to handle the extremes in both directions. There’s really nothing here motivating people to kill some woman and her kid for the lulz. In almost every situation where there’s upheaval, there’s demand for human labor.
All disasters are not interchangeable and most do not lead to Mad Max insanity. And a general rule is that if you want life to be cheap, you don’t start off saying that life is well on its way to being extinct.
[there were lesser Pokemon than anyone could ever imagine.]
Also “lesser pokemon” should be “fewer pokemon”.
Don’t ask for OCs. Make up what OCs your story actually needs to fit whatever purpose you need them for. Especially don’t ask for OCs when people don’t even know how the world they’re supposed to come from works.
Three, because prostituting your fic still works.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710616/1/Be-Your-Love
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.
[,” she spoke boldly. ]
[,” she spoke softly, ]
[,” Leaf spoke again, ]
[just scared,” she spoke softly. ]
[more time,” Gary spoke ]
[me,” she spoke ]
[ Let’s get out there!” she spoke ]
[ on Hannah…” she spoke ]
[ away,” she spoke ]
[ Leaf,” he spoke, ]
[Paul spoke ]
[Thanks…” he spoke ]
[ tonight,” Misty spoke. ]
For god’s sake stop using spoke. It’s not supposed to be used as a speech verb. SAID. And just said by itself, you don’t need to stick adverbs or a random action next to your dialogue every time.
[“Maybe I should write her a song! And you could help me!” he stated with a wide grin on his features.]
Don’t use stated either.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710700/1/Brendan-s-Pokemon-Journey
There are four thousand fics titled “Pokemon Journey”. Your title should tell people something about what your particular story is about, not just it’s genre.
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. 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.
[My name is Brendan. I’m now eighteen, living in Celadon City, and I’ve spent the past eight years watching others my age living the dream of being a Pokemon trainer. ]
No. Watching an eighteen year old fumble around at something eleven year olds have down isn’t a great idea for a fic, it’s an exercise in frustration. If you want to do something like this, he has to have pokemon already.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710797/1/Pokemon-Not-Afraid-of-Myself
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. 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.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11710868/1/Journeyman
[The jagged leeward hills slowly rolled by in the distance, an angular antithesis to the lavender and fascia clouds hanging high above. ]
Fascia means either a flat board or the sheet of tissue around muscles or organs. You probably meant fuchsia, but then, you probably meant for the rest of pile of words you’re throwing around to sound smart too. They don’t. Focus less on jamming every pretentious word you can into a sentence and more on actually communicating something.
[Machiavellian practicality ]
Incidentally, if you want to sound smart, maybe actually read what Machiavelli wrote before pulling his name out.
And next time, use spellcheck.
One. Since they’re still down, I can’t tell if it’s someone praising this and that’s really frustrating.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711010/1/Dragon-King-s-Conquest
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[ It was a world filled with different types of Pokemon that have different types of abilities. Some have the power to breathe fire, while some could summon snow storms. Some can fly and travel through the air, while some prefer to spend time in water bodies, such as rivers and seas. Generally, Pokemon are categorized into seventeen types. Each type having their own powers and abilities. ]
You also don’t need to tell us what pokemon are. In general, people who have no clue what the word means don’t go looking for fanfic about it.
As to your actual chapter, it’s not a story, it’s a summary. If you absolutely feel it’s necessary, you could put it directly above your actual first chapter but it shouldn’t be getting posted as a first chapter.
Two.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711070/1/The-Moment-His-Misty-Died
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.
[His heart flitted, and fluttered, dropping beats like a band drummer suffering from Tennis Elbow. ]
So is this like a parody or something?
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. 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/11711098/1/The-Azure-Flute
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
[ That was an accomplishment that Professor Rowan had once asked how he could do that before he, too, had fallen asleep. ]
You seem to have lost track of your sentence here.
[a Pichu ]
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
[“Pokedex and those are pokeballs used to catch pokemon,” she finished with a grin and caused him to smile. “I know what they are, professor, but why give them to me?”
“You’re going to need them, aren’t you? If you need to battle, you need to know what moves your pokemon can do. This pokedex will tell you which moves your pokemon know, what level they are at, so on and so forth. Speaking of battling, I say you should try out the gym challenge. You might as well and you never know, you could always see if your opponent’s pokemon have rare or hidden abilities as well.”
Grace looked at the pokedex, unsure of the idea of battling. She’d never battled before in her life even though she’d watched it many, many times on the television thanks to her father constantly playing it. “I… I guess I could try it.”]
See, this was so much more interesting when it was about her not being the standard pokemon trainer.
It doesn’t make any sense she’d have no idea how battling works when the real reason everyone has a pokemon is because you can’t travel around safely without one. Even if she had no interest in trainer battles and even if she wasn’t interested in exploring, she’d still have to be able to deal with a few wild pokemon to just be minimally competent.
But then, it also doesn’t make sense that despite the setup she’s about to head off on the bog-standard badge quest either, so I’m assuming this is all because you think trainer fics have to start with the trainer completely inexperienced and what looked like an interesting opening was just an unusually involved attempt at an excuse for her to be starting really late.
And now a random annoyance is about to graft himself onto her side because of course the more terrible the cliché is the more vital it is you include it. God, this is disappointing.
Zero. Also ARG, stupid lying opening.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711252/1/PMD-The-Special-One
[In a land where Pokemon lives in a world where their are no Humans is really cool. Their Speak and learn new Moves on their own. But One Pokemon name Chris who is a Charmander Always being called a chicken, But with friends like Troy the Treeko and Marcus the Mudkip. They help him on their journey’s ]
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Also, spellcheck.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711314/1/The-Pokemon-Academy
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
[(Note: These are the actual games that I own and that I have completed gameplay of. All of these are based on the games I actually own.) ]
That doesn’t matter and so shouldn’t be interrupting the actual story.
But speaking of that, there’s really not much actual story here. This comes off as just wish-fulfillment – you’re listing off how they’re going to a school where pokemon are real OMGWOW, and sure, that’d be pretty cool to actually get to do, but it’s not that interesting to read about. Stories need actual plots. If you’ve got an actual story you want set in this, you really don’t need a chapter explaining this because it’s not particularly hard to understand and you should’ve started when the actual plot starts. If you don’t, you need to spend more time figuring that out rather than posting.
Four.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711320/1/Galea
[The Gym Leaders were traitors.
That much was certain, though what exactly had compelled them to rebel against the Elite Four, and how they had succeeded, was a mystery that few knew the answer to. After all, it had been around thirty-two years since the incident in Galean Time, though with the barrier separating Galea from the outside world, temporally and spatially, no one could know how much time had passed outside.
That said, the ordinary, everyday citizen of Galea had little to do or say in the matter. There had been a rebellion of course, when the eight Gym Leaders had suddenly declared that they, and not the Elite Four, would be carrying the ultimate executive power over the region, but that was quashed with relative ease.]
Okay, I’m really not seeing how there’s any difference between the two groups here. They’re both non-elected officials who got the position by virtue of a combination of power and alliances with other people of power. I mean, when literally the only reason you’re in charge is because you can beat everyone else, what exactly do you have to complain about when you’re beaten by someone else? How can someone be a traitor when your entire system is just about who’s strongest? Why would any regular person have any opinion on this?
[Ash Ketchum, we have called on you as an instrument in order to fulfill our will. You are currently in the land of Galea, which we believe, is unknown to you. Put quite simply, thirty-two years ago, a great calamity threatened to destroy our land. The Elite Four and the Gym Leaders were divided on how to settle the issue, with the Gym Leaders overthrowing the Elite Four, and sending Galea into a sort of limbo away from the rest of the world…
There is little honor among thieves, but enough that the eight Gym Leaders agreed to share power, to a certain extent, and said that they would not interfere with each other’s territory. Unfortunately, the people of Galea have suffered, due to increased taxes and the like, and all contact with the rest of the world has been broken. As you may have guessed, the Gym Leaders need to be overthrown and the Elite Four restored.]
You seriously need to rethink this.
Previously, there were thirteen bigwigs – a champion, four elites, and below them, the eight gym leaders. How exactly does removing five of thirteen aristocrats result in your nobility sucking up more money than before?
Also, given that the great calamity didn’t destroy the land, evidence points to the gym leaders picking correctly and raises the possibility that if they hadn’t done this, everybody would be dead.
Also this is all nonsense because you’re obviously trying to treat this like nobles overthrowing the king despite the fact that this is all just a ranking thing and gym leaders not only can but have been promoted and also the fact that kings don’t actually have divine right or anything and there’s no reason to want them back on the throne.
Look, maybe “but noble!!!!!!!” sounded really convincing back a thousand years ago, but these days it’s expected you have to give actual justification for why someone should be in power. If the gym leaders are also evil, the solution is to remove them as well, not replace one coalition of aristocrats with a smaller coalition of differently named aristocrats.
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Zero. Also, apparently it’s based off The Keys to the Kingdom series and god, I hope they’ve just screwed up in adapting it and that doesn’t just straight up say, “The lords overthrew the king so they’re evil and you need to beat them up so the king can get to be the one bleed the peasantry dry like God wants!” because NO FUCKING KINGS.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711362/1/Whiten-My-Mind
[This story is based tightly on the gameplay of ]
Let me just stop you right there.
We’re all already seen the opening – both by playing the game and then by the million people who decided it would be a great idea to do exactly this. You don’t need to repeat the same thing yet again. If you’re changing stuff, just show the changes. If you’re not, then there’s really no point to this at all.
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. 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.
It’s “okay”, four letters.
Zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711412/1/Rise-from-the-ashes
Capitalize your title properly.
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 also need to be using way more commas.
Oh god it’s the third gen opening but he’s seventeen.
Everyone has already seen the opening a million times, you don’t need to go through it again, and everyone has already seen that ten year old kids can handle a pokemon journey, it’s not interesting to see a seventeen year old do the same.
Zero. Also, “Also like most nuzlockes Pokémon can speak, the reason for this is because I believe it helps trainers bond with their Pokémon better plus it would make for some interesting dialog. ” is that seriously a thing now? Are nuzlocke fics just going to make less and less sense until they reach the Ash-betrayal rock bottom level of quality?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11711424/1/Pokemon-Magnorm-Adventures
Script format’s banned.
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. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.
Nice conclusion. Also, zero.
Why are people so keen on having their trainers start out at eighteen? It is possible to make it work (not that many people ever try), but I simply don’t see the appeal.
The thing about the gym leaders usurping the elite four could have been decent if it were just shown that the region functioned differently to others. That would solve a lot of the problems present in Pokémon fanfiction.
Why 18? Because sex. And they’re convinced a ten year old would die three days into the wild, or be raped by a pedo or something.
To be fair, school is probably very heavy on boy scout training, and crime (except for poachers à la Team Rocket) probably low, but just like making backpacks bigger on the inside, working with canon just takes a bit of imagination.
It’s hard to write a credible 10 year old, and a credible plot without making all the adults incompetents, but people could try a bit harder.
You get oppression points for having bad parents. It could be simple to raise a single pokémon for eight years and thus be a competent adult trainer on a new journey, but then you don’t get the tragic backstory.
Also, it a habit to always start the same way. Context never is thought up by the first chapter.
You’d expect more people to have learnt that sticking to habit isn’t very interesting. Maybe they’ve just recognised that the games do it and don’t want to take any risks.
“Also, “Also like most nuzlockes Pokémon can speak, the reason for
this is because I believe it helps trainers bond with their Pokémon
better plus it would make for some interesting dialog. ” is that
seriously a thing now? Are nuzlocke fics just going to make less and
less sense until they reach the Ash-betrayal rock bottom level of
quality?”
What the fucking fuck. Why. WHY.
RELATED: I just looked up In Black and White for the first time in ages. Were you aware the creator had posted a summary of the ending?
Hurrah!
Sad ending though, I was hoping it’d be everybody dies and not just everybody good.
Yeah. :( At least Lauren lives and Alder dies and everything is destabilized, but it’s still very much a downer.
My theory had been that White’s increasingly erratic behavior would have culminated in her unleashing the genocide bomb on the League, winning the war but killing countless innocent Pokémon (and also her childhood friend) in the process and ensuring that N was thoroughly disillusioned with her and everything else forever.
Also the “victory” is so disconnected – okay, people are questioning the League, but only because they’re upset at the bad job they did of protecting them from terrorists who they still totally hate. I was thinking stuff like that Plasma kid jumping in front of his pokemon to save it would ultimately get across to people how horrific the fights to the death are now that there’s humans getting torn up too. Instead Plasma murders people so the League looks weak so people do less to the death fights (with their still brainwashed slave pokemon) for purely practical reasons and this is a partial victory somehow? White’s willingness to jump into the fray and the fact she was scarred up already seemed like it’d lead to her being more active, and indeed she’s willing to murder another human, but then it doesn’t matter and apparently people have always about as okay with human death as pokemon death. Also the fact N can free pokemon turns out to not really matter – they don’t release the League’s pokemon to turn on them.
I’m pretty surprised by the Bad End, myself. I don’t really see the point of it — the basic outcome is exactly the same as the original, just with more murder. If the intent was to show that the original games’ ending was actually awful then they succeeded, but that feels so…empty. It’s sadly realistic that the rebellion is crushed by the institution, but aren’t fantasy stories supposed to be about escapism? :(
Well, this one was supposed to be pretty dismal, but yeah, the ending doesn’t really address the core issue and the “also N just dies” finisher is just like…what?
Friendship is Murder.
I’d watch that show.
Incidentally, this is a really good post about the creepy implications of some common Nuzlocke tropes:
http://mewitti.deviantart.com/journal/The-Givens-of-Nuzlocke-Storytelling-365061675
Okay so talking nuzlockes are a huge thing after all.
That essay is weird. “As we all know there’s absolutely nothing ethically wrong about attacking, capturing, and killing pokemon as long as they can’t talk but if they can suddenly this is a huge issue.”
And I can’t tell if they actually think this is easily solved and really not that big of a deal or if it’s just that they’re trying to tiptoe around anything that could be taken as actual criticism of people’s writing.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Aside from In Black and White, I can’t actually think of any Nuzlocke where they can’t talk.
I think the implication that it’s okay to force pokémon to fight for you as long as they can’t talk (or simply aren’t sapient) was accidental, and mostly she was trying to avoid drama by not throwing down the gauntlet against the majority of the fandom, but I do love her Nuzlocke, so I’m biased. :P (Highly recommended, though you do have to wait until page ~9 or so for it to evolve beyond basic gags.)
Well, it’s got great, expressive art and good character moments, but…it’s really so much less than the sum of its parts. It’s hard to take the geodude’s death seriously when Dante-Talon just watched his trainer get three other pokemon killed in short order without doing much of anything to stop him. The pokemon can talk and be understood just fine, except also rule of funny means no one listens to them most of the time, but also I have to take it seriously that they’re second-class citizens who no one listens to despite being precisely as intelligent as humans – the comic seems to have this weird ossolation between “the treatment of pokemon as nonpeople is wrong” and “it’s a bit sad but the way the world works given they are in fact nonpeople”. And there’s the usual issues where they just aren’t acting right – if wurmple have those stingers then curl up helplessly can’t possibly be their fear response, and if wild pokemon can die from getting open wounds then why are they risking a fight with a torchic just to steal random crap from a human for fun?
If there hadn’t been those joke deaths in the opening, and if we hadn’t been expected to take the poochyena’s death seriously solely because it was cute so suddenly that’s a big deal in a world where pokemon seem to be made of tissue paper and treated with about as much respect, then the geodude’s death would actually have been a shock. Dante-Talon could’ve spent the previous bit constantly yelling at Robin that they need to shape up, pokemon battles are serious business, what a total noob this is dangerous you idiot – then the screwup would be a shock, rather than just “hm, wonder who gets the mandatory death this section of the comic?” And it’d have hurt then to learn that Dante-Talon, despite talking big, had spent his life previously doing his best not to hurt anybody badly and this is a horrible trauma. And it’d also be believable that Robin gave a solitary fuck about it.
The comic is absolutely the work of someone talented, the individual scenes of it are beautiful, but it seems the nuzlocke thing is bogging them down every step and every success they have is in spite of that.
Yeah, the jokey nature of the opening and the early deaths makes the tone shift later rather awkward; it really does work better if you kind of forget everything that went on before Petalburg, but since the zigzagoon keep getting brought up later it’s not all that easy.
I’m not sure what kind of fear response you think wurmple ought to have? Curling up and exposing the stingers seems pretty reasonable to me.
The more I think about it, the more I think it’d work if only Robin could understand pokemon.
Robin’s grown up in a world where this is acceptable because to everybody else these are just dumb animals and so even though they should know better, they’ve adopted the same attitude. Dante-Talon doesn’t try too hard to convince his new trainer because he’s used to a world where Brendan’s non-reaction to his complaints is the only only way it works.
Curling up and exposing the stingers seems pretty reasonable to me.
The curling up doesn’t seem particularly good at aiming the stingers in the art, it’s just cringing on the ground leaving most of the body open to attack. When we first see it, the stingers are even getting pulled in for maximum exposed body. Wurmple refusing to move but swinging their tails at anything that comes near would make them dangerous to predators but still be poor for actual trainer battles.
If I understand it correctly, “Nuzlocke” fics are fics where pokemon are an intelligent species, instead of animals?
No, they’re adaptations of the Nuzlocke gameplay challenge: you can only catch the first pokemon you see on every route, and when pokemon fall in battle, they are considered dead and you have to release them. The second rule is the main attraction for ficcing, because OMG SO EDGY. This just makes it all the more creepy that authors make sure we know it’s fully sapient beings who are getting thrown into a meat grinder for their owner’s petty desires.
Ah, I see. Thanks!
To be fair, I think in some cases it’s less OMG SO EDGY and more OMG ACTUAL STAKES. A big problem in journey fics is that, well, there is very little conflict or consequences. Losing to random trainers at worst means backtracking to heal your pokemon, losing a gym battle means training more and trying again and losing to your rival means hurt feelings that are going to be forgotten soon enough. Losing to wild pokemon is potentially more interesting as they may attack the trainer, but who ever loses to wild pokemon?
Nuzlocke somewhat rectifies it by introducing the possibility of pokemon death (which not only carries an emotional impact, but, combined with the “one pokemon per route” rule, carries lasting consequences in the form of the team being weaker due to missing a member for some time) and trainer losing for good.
By itself, it’s actually a good thing, it’s just that the actual execution of the concept in the context of a regular journey happened to be incredibly fucked up.
While I think this is definitely a big part of the appeal, it still seems weird to me. I mean, yes, pokémon can die in these stories, but… it’s also a possibility in any story? Almost nobody took advantage of the option, but it’s kind of funny that you could have scads of stories about kids going up against criminal organizations, and yet the genre “stuff actually dies sometimes” is a paradigm shift.
For me, weirdly enough, I do read a lot of Nuzlocke stories rather hoping for deaths because, surprise, when the player’s good/lucky enough to avoid that happening, it ends up feeling too easy. A lot of these stories just wouldn’t work at all if nobody bought it, which is pretty telling, as is the fact that in a lot of stories the deaths just end up just being speed bumps in a plot that ends up with the protagonist ultimately getting all the badges/becoming champion, just as they would if they hadn’t lost anybody. Needing to turn a large portion of your cast into walking plot devices in order to generate some conflict really isn’t a good thing…
Well, yes, that’s why I was talking about the regular journey setup which takes twenty chapters to actually get to Team Whatever. If you start there and actively push for serious conflict with them, Nuzlocke is really unnecessary and detrimental to the whole thing.
The problem, I feel, is that the trainer journey itself is a shitty foundation for a story. It’s a fine frame device that takes your characters into different places where conflict can happen, but by itself it just doesn’t work all that well without serious modifications and/or expansions due to the low stakes and repetitive nature.
Yet people still attempt to do it, some realize it isn’t working and try to fix it, which results in stuff like Nuzlocke, which doesn’t really work either, but is at least a bit of a step up on some issues.
I’d say the real problem is confusing OMG ACTUAL STAKES in the game with something important in fanfic. Yes, it’s impossible to lose the game without adding new rules, but it’s always been possible for a fanfic character to fail at it. A lot of them seem like they’re brand-new to actual fanfic writing and it shows.
Yeah, it’s a misguided attempt to add stakes without providing a foundation for them.
Also, apparently it’s based off The Keys to the Kingdom series and god, I hope they’ve just screwed up in adapting it and that doesn’t just straight up say, “The lords overthrew the king so they’re evil and you need to beat them up so the king can get to be the one bleed the peasantry dry like God wants!” because NO FUCKING KINGS.
It’s been a while since I read it, but as I recall, the king was evil too in that one.
See, that I could get behind. It’s totally fine to be transitioning from kingdom to republic to democracy.
Well uh… that’s not exactly what happens. You should probably read it yourself, it’s by Garth Nix so if you liked Abhorsen you’ll probably like it. Lots of filler though.
Well yeah, I didn’t think a book would actually do that, but if you don’t start off saying the point is to give power back to another person you can assume that democracy is going to be the end state anyway.
“Previously, there were thirteen bigwigs – a champion, four elites, and
below them, the eight gym leaders. How exactly does removing five of
thirteen aristocrats result in your nobility sucking up more money than
before?”
Well, to be fair, suddenly cutting ties with the outside world (or whatever “limbo away from the rest” means) can lead to economical troubles because suddenly there is no more export or import, meaning shortages of some products and cut money flows (which could be plugged with more taxes). Though, of course, that’s something in need of more explanation than what’s given.
And I do agree with the general sentiment, comrade. Down with the kings, especially the ones who openly rule by virtue of having the biggest stick around.
Yeah, but if the raised taxes are just a consequence of the isolation, then murdering the government isn’t actually going to help.
True. The premise could still theoretically work (first the government tightens the bolts out of necessary, but even when things stabilize they keep by now unfair laws and taxes in place out of greed and such), but that would require much more world-building than, what? Two sentences?
The review breakage is seriously messing me up. Why now, FFN? Why now????
I’m wondering if I should open my reviews with “If you can’t see the whole thing, go to my profile for a link.” How long did it take to fix this last time?
I can’t remember the last time this happened, and I can’t really remember the last time it took more than a couple days to fix an issue this serious, either. It’s not heartening that the front page news doesn’t mention it.
Or the twitter account or the blog… But the one good thing about FFN’s usual lack of communication is that a lack of communication isn’t as ominous here as it would usually be.
On the other hand, I checked Fictionpress and their reviews are still working. Not sure what that means.
Reviews are back.
And so is the screaming!
“Also, apparently it’s based off The Keys to the Kingdom series and god, I hope they’ve just screwed up in adapting it and that doesn’t just straight up say, “The lords overthrew the king so they’re evil and you need to beat them up so the king can get to be the one bleed the peasantry dry like God wants!” because NO FUCKING KINGS.”
From what I remember of The Keys to the Kingdom at the start that’s technically right except the stakes are much higher, the “lords” being basically wayward angels and the “king” being God.
It makes a lot more sense you could tell someone “angels deposed God” and that person would be willing to believe that putting God back in charge would be a good idea and agree with your general characterization of them as evil traitors.