Today is more dull than awful.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307024/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Snow

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.

Write out numbers with letters.

Trainers start at ten.

[“Oh, apparently is not first come, first serve anymore,” contemplated Gatto.]

If all that’s happening is someone saying it, just say they say it. Words like “contemplated” belong next to actually contemplative dialogue only.

Your first chapter should have some glimmer of a plot, not standing outside a lab chatting about how, shockingly, their goal is to become a great trainer.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307234/1/Spectrum

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.

[Each day, at least one Magikarp would attempt to climb a waterfall somewhere in the world, but ultimately fail.]

…

[But each day, at least one Magikarp would attempt to climb a waterfall somewhere in the world, and ultimately succeed.]

This is ridiculously trite and I’d think someone who’d been around for “hundreds of millions of years” would’ve gotten to the point of figuring out statistics. How many magikarp succeed vs fail? How many people are met with cruelty and how many kindness? Unless the argument is that if a single person has a single instance of happiness the fact everyone else in the world lives in unending suffering is enough, “at least one” isn’t much of a standard. And the two paragraphs are still a black and white viewpoint – if you’re trying to present a spectrum, you should’ve listed a multiple versions of one thing and not just paired opposites.

[So this was sort of a drabble, even though it exceeds one hundred words.]

How can something be “sort of” not the one thing a drabble is? In what other way is it a drabble, the fact both contain letters?

One.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307277/1/Alola-Life

spoilerz

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307280/1/Ash-Ketchum-Heir-to-Team-Rocket

[ Everything is pretty much the same except that everyone starts off their journey when they’re thirteen instead of ten.]

So everything is the same, except they now all seem like idiots because they should be three more years mature? Or is everything the same, except now it’s thirteen year olds breezing through problems we know ten year olds could handle?

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.

[Ash had barely reached Viridian City in one piece, and had then almost had his Pikachu stolen by a group of thugs calling themselves Team Rocket]

So that’s a yes on everything being the same. I really didn’t think anyone was clamoring for fic where Ash was stupider than he is in canon.

[The name clicked with Ash. “The same guys who tried to steal my Pikachu? And who steal Pokemon? Those guys are criminals,” Ash said with a clear hint of disgust.

Giovanni sighed. “I knew this would not be easy… but you cannot judge Team Rocket based merely on rumors, my son.]

…what? He’s complaining that he personally got attacked by them. If the idea is Giovanni is a manipulative liar, he should still be able to do better than “uh…your experiences are mere unfair rumors you shouldn’t listen to!!!”

[Why didn’t mom]

Much like you shouldn’t be capitalizing words like “pokemon” when they’re not names, when something is used as a name, it’s “Mom”, like any other name.

[But you have turned thirteen and have begun your Pokemon journey, and I felt it was the right time to tell you, and to indict you into the ah, family business, so to speak.”]

This too would work better if he were ten.

The younger Ash is, the more likely he’d take the word of an adult and be swayed by the idea of a family relationship. The older Ash is, the worse of a pitch this is, and the more implausible it is Giovanni thinks this is his best course of action. And the younger Ash is, the less of a stupid asshole he comes off for going along with it.

[ If anyone’s wondering, no, I will not spell Pikachu or Fraokie with a lowercase letter. That’s not how Pokemon grammar works.]

There’s no such thing. There’s only English grammar, the grammar of the language you’re writing in. If you don’t like it, go write in German and you’ll get to capitalize lots more.

Five. I guess people are really desperate for badass Ash fic that isn’t betrayal and oh god this is the next thing isn’t it.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307361/1/A-True-Bond

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor.

[“Tori, I’m afraid the Froakie set aside for you had escaped the lab and got hit by a truck, but luckily I had this Pokemon to take Froakie’s place as your starter Pokemon.” He pulls out a Pokeball I’ve never seen before and says, “This is a Luxury Ball your partner is in because with new trainers it can be a little… difficult.” Professor Sycamore says with a forced smile. He hands it to me and I let my Pokemon out.]

Look, if you just want your kid to get a skitty, why something this convoluted? Just have her parents give her a skitty.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307620/1/A-Simple-Life

This really seems far too drawn out (both in plausibility terms that they’d be incapacitated but alive for so long, and in the sense the pacing is off), and the inevitability and depression he feels from it makes the ending lack punch. If he were working himself to the bone for his family only to get caught by a trainer and now they’re all doomed without him, there’d be a lot more of a sense of loss, while having that happen after he’s lost two of his three family members and is already emotionally dead is barely any worse than the situation he was in.

[It was also done without the aid of a thesaurus, so apologies if it isn’t particularly illustrious in the language department.]

It’s already too “illustrious” – it reads like you were trying to find the most flowery word over one that actually fit. At best, your words are a poor fit and contribute to the problem that everything feels samey throughout. At worst, you’re straight up mangling them and producing nonsense. Maybe spend more time with a dictionary instead.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307685/1/Alola-to-a-new-adventure

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.

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.

“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.

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.

Names are capitalized.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307692/1/A-Cheaper-Deconstruction

I can’t tell if this is a string of in-jokes that shouldn’t have been posted in a broader venue or just a pile of nonsense you thought was clever.

[The next chapter will be closer related to the Pokemon world.]

Well it’d be pretty hard to have less to do with it, wouldn’t it. If this is meant to lead into something actually relevant to the category you posted it in, you should’ve included that part in your first chapter instead of just this babble.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307723/1/Promise-of-Power-1

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.

[Its ‘dress’ was actually an illusion created by its psychic powers, as well as the white sleeves. Underneath it was covered in a coat of dark purple fur, with the yellow mane continuing down its back, in reality, each Jynx held a bit of an ego about their appearance, and began working to look more appealing to trainers as they moved in. This caused them to learn that they like beautiful Pokemon, and women wearing dresses were typically seen as beautiful. It didn’t work for quite a bit of the population, but quite a lot liked them, so it was a bit of a mixed message.

The species began to like the illusion dresses and began wearing them permanently. The only time a Jynx was seen without its dress was when a trainer accidentally stumbled upon theirs cleaning itself]

That really doesn’t make sense. Jynx are a weird, uncanny valley pokemon, but if it’s an illusion, they should have no issue tweaking the illusion until it looks more like real dresses (for that matter, no issue changing the rest of their appearance) and they wouldn’t all look alike. And it’s especially ridiculous to say that the fake illusion dress that is not, in fact, there needs to be removed to take a bath.

[She made her way up the rock, and began singing. It must have learned the move from its prior evolution, Smoochum.]

Also you really have to stop flipflopping on genders.

[A trainer wouldn’t really want to release a Pokemon such as that, it would be what is called an idiotic move, as they could only be attained by trading with another trainer and managing to get it back from them without fighting over it.]

…or by just trading for one. You’re making this a lot more complicated than it has to be, and you’re assuming trading is extremely hard for some reason, and the reasoning gengar can’t be caught wild is circular – if anyone abandons gengar, then they can be caught in the wild, at which point the reason you give for it being a dumb idea to abandon them doesn’t apply and more people would abandon them. And besides, if a trainer doesn’t want a pokemon the only other thing they can do is trade but a gengar isn’t worth any more than a haunter as far as trading goes.

[ The Pokemon was easily able to navigate this, adding to the fact that its feet had rough hairs that gripped into the ice and allowed them to walk across, unperturbed. Most ice types had this distinction, besides the ones heavy enough to keep steady as they walked. It was an adaptation that they all grew to help survive in their habitats over the years.]

Really, the many and varied ice types all use the same method? A sneasel has built-in ice picks on its feet, why not use those?

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.

[Pokemon above a certain power level didn’t obey trainers without all of the badges]

You’re writing fanfic, you really shouldn’t be sticking precisely to game mechanics. Would this gengar obey if, before he traded for it, the kid had stolen a full set of badges? Would the gengar not obey a far more competent trainer if they didn’t show a set of badges first? Would every other pokemon, regardless of personality, behave the same toward the trainer if they were the same level as this particular gengar?

[She just wanted away from where she could be hit with an attack from one. She wasn’t very strong or durable, due to her lack of proper training in a good environment. ]

…as opposed to most sneasel, which are such durable tanks?

[Level 100 was a rare and vastly powerful Pokemon that could compete with legendaries, but unless the trainer had raised them legitimately to that power level.]

Seriously, trying to stick to game mechanics is not a good idea, and doing to inconsistently is even worse – most legendaries in the area aren’t even that high of a level, so a maxed pokemon is more likely to curbstomp them than “compete”.

[A Gligar sat on a fence watching the Sneasel pass. She had seen him multiple times, and it was often met with with a stare-off. This time was no different, they stared at eachother until the purple bat-like Pokemon jumped off the fence and went away. The first time this had happened, she had attempted to walk away, but he had just jumped at her face and held onto it for 20 minutes. The weight had resulted in her lying down for the duration. ]

[It was quite a relief to her, as she would rather not be poisoned and possibly eaten by the Ground and Flying type.]

Gligar have a double weakness. Why doesn’t the sneasel fight back?

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12307762/1/Paradise-Defenders-Power-of-the-Shadows

[I need to call on the help of my readers, this story will need some ocs and I don’t have enough ideas to fit the bill. If you could review or pm me characters, I need six things.]

Yeah, that will really not end well. If your story is this half-baked, that’s a sign it isn’t ready to post, and trying to cram in random characters is not going to help. You’d have better luck with a random generator for inspiration.

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.

Zero.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12308093/1/Gabe-s-Alola-Pokemon-Adventures-S1-E1-Hello-Alola

Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. (“Speak” is not a speech verb.) In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks or any other ones with thoughts.

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

One, which is criticism with attempts to link to my forum.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12308314/1/Sides

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.

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 not the best work out there but at least i tried,right?]

You could’ve definitely tried harder.

Zero. And on that note, I probably should’ve tried harder myself but it’s late.