So while, as usual, I got sick of doing the romance side of things pretty quick, this year I pawned it off on somebody else! And because now somebody else was going to see them, and because I knew that genre labeling on FFN is rather inconsistent, I said to send back any fics that might be interesting so I could review them in the end.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12317173/1/Team-Element-s-Joy
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.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
[The boy says to the Nurse Joy to be,” C’mon Emily, it’s this way come on.”
The girl says following the boy,” What is it Jake?”]
This is badly formatted. For one thing, it’s awkward to have a gap between the “say” verb and the actual speech, and for another, quotation marks should be against what they’re quoting. For example:
[The girl following the boy says, “What is it Jake?”]
It’s also annoying that all your dialogue is narration followed by dialogue. A mix is best and if you’re going to be repetitive, dialogue followed by narration is more common and so less noticeable.
[Jake then noticed that Emily was crying. “Hey, it’s okay; I’ll know who you are when we get older.”
Emily said,” But what if you don’t, I’ll look like everyone else in my family when I grow up. You won’t be able to tell who I am.”]
[With this, I’ll always be able to tell who you are. So do you like it, Mom says girls like jewelry.”]
The only thing they love more are generalizations, ESPECIALLY when they’ve already got a complex about being seen as exactly the same as others.
This makes absolutely no sense as a response. If Emily is simply upset her friend won’t be able to find her, she can just speak up and say she’s Emily his old friend, so she has no reason to be thrilled with this solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. The only reason for her to be upset by the idea is if she’s attached to the idea that people who care about her will actually be able to see her as a person and not just another iteration of the same face, but in that case being given this means her friend already believes there’s no difference and she should be even more hurt by this rather than happy because girls like shiny rocks.
Published Jan 10th, updated Jan 12th. Three reviews total.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12319304/1/Prince-and-Princess
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.
[“Well I have to give these flowers to our master, I’m sure she’ll love it.” Sylveon said.]
It’s really creepy to have pokemon talking like this – they sure sound just as smart as humans, so why this slavish inability to use her actual name rather than “master”? Why are they so far from equals with her?
[He turned around and saw a Blaziken, Absol, and Blastoise were the ones chuckling. “Oh yeah laugh! You guys would never get dates!” He yelled walking away. ]
Also, given the only ones who are dating both belong to the same person it sounds like they don’t get to have relationships with anyone else, so it’s really weird that they’re talking like they’re high schoolers with the freedom to get dates based on who they are and not just who owns them.
Zero! Published Jan 12th, updated Feb 1st.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12319803/1/It-s-Not-Always-Black-And-White
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.
[Having arrived in the Unova region two days ago, after an extremely long haul flight from Hoenn, a brief layover in Sinnoh saw the plane refuelled and back in the sky, once he had arrived saw the difference in time zones hit him hard.]
You seem to have lost track of this sentence midway through. And then you keep doing that, sentence after run-on sentence.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
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.
[to professor Juniper.”]
Speaking of capitalization, “Professor” is part of Juniper’s name here, so it’s capitalized under the same rule.
“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.
[As soon as Steven heard the word ‘Team’ he was standing taller with alarm. No good had come from anything with that word attached to it]
…except, you know, stuff like “pokemon team”. Team is used all over the place in canon, not just for the enemy groups.
[“I’m sure most of you believe that we humans and Pokémon are partners that have come to live together because we want and need each other. However… is that really the truth? Have you ever considered that perhaps we humans… only assume that is the truth?”
Steven had to scoff at that as he heard more of his rallying speech. What did he know? It was true because for thousands of years Pokémon and Humans have worked together and lived in harmony. ]
I’d really like to see just one of these fics that has a reasonable response here rather than the second half always changing half the words. “but working together” isn’t actually responding to “but inequality”. If he thinks he’s really partners with his pokemon, that should be what makes him sure Ghetsis is wrong, not something tangental.
[The unknown woman’s appearance, or what he could see, was different to her companion’s, her hair was a strikingly brilliant blonde—almost white gold as it shone in the afternoon sun and was easily the most vibrant thing in the entire square.]
Also there’s something very unpleasantly “ew no homo” about making an N clone but a girl for shipping purposes.
For god’s sake do not call eyes orbs.
[“He talked about liberation. The freedom for Pokémon from trainers who are too stupid… too immature… too selfish, fixated on nothing but their own glory and prowess to see the damage they are doing to the Pokémon they profess to be their friends… their partners,”]
Actually he talked about humans needing to all stop being around pokemon already, not that pokemon should just get the option. Someone who’s in favor of pokemon choice should have their own issues with Plasma’s gameplan.
I mean, this is doing a pretty good job of replicating the way the conversations played out in BW, but let’s be real, the way they played out in BW was awful and everyone kept making massive leaps in logic rather than ever responding to what the other person said.
[“As you can see Garchomp here doesn’t have a Pokéball, because I, unlike every other trainer who claims to trust their Pokémon, refuse to subject my equal, to a life crammed into one of those things. If anything pokéballs…”]
You know what I liked about N? How he’d just have whatever random pokemon were around when you fought him. Somebody who really loves pokemon and views them as equals rather than tools probably won’t have just so happened to have made friends with one super rare overused pokemon.
[Surely she couldn’t be right… he knew his Pokémon, they were happy, they enjoyed being with him, he knew that he couldn’t see a life without them and even with them being inside Pokéballs most of the time they were well cared for.
But just looking at that Garchomp. He may have been the Champion, his Pokémon trained to high levels and were at the peak of their physical fitness, but he wouldn’t be forgetting just how daunting that Dragon type looked for a long time, he also had a feeling that if it were to go up against any of his own, it just might have been able to wipe all— if not most of them out.]
It’d also have made this part mean a hell of a lot more if it was a pokemon that was usually viewed as ordinary rather than one that’s expected to be a powerhouse.
Zero. Published Jan 12th, updated Jan 27th.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12321960/1/Chosen-One
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.
Bible stories really don’t belong here – people already know how it goes, so it adds nothing, and it doesn’t fit to make Arceus the same as the biblical God when they function so differently.
Twelve, as it promises smart Ash and possible harem. One is crit, though. Published Jan 14th, updated Jan 20th.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12334365/1/Forgotten-Shadows
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.
You keep switching between “she” and “it”. If you’re writing from the pokemon’s viewpoints, don’t forget their genders every other line.
[For no reason, these men showed up and attacked her and her sister, trying to capture them in a way she’d never seen. They weren’t trainers and she could tell that much from how they dressed.]
So if they were trainers and using pokeballs, getting attacked by strangers would be fine?
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.
[Nova wasn’t the most knowledgeable when it came to medical emergencies, but he knew that with how much blood it was already losing, and with how quickly, it was only a matter of time until it would bleed out.
“Rey.. go get the first-aid kit.. Now!” he said in a hurried voice.]
So he’s not even particularly good at this, and he still handles it himself instead of going to a pokecenter which exists to handle this exact situation? Or even just calling one so he can talk to someone experienced?
[She truly had no name, nor did her sister, but she always wanted one. She wanted something to.. differentiate herself.]
Why. If they’re smart enough to talk to each other, they’re going to want ways to talk about other people. And if she always wanted a name, why didn’t she just pick a name? It’s not like humans have some magical power forcing everyone else to go nameless until they wander over and bestow syllables on others.
[A vehicle was parked in front of their yard. This struck him as odd because neither of them owned a vehicle since they lived so close to Rustboro City. Now what struck him as even more odd was the vehicle in question was a pale, chipped, white van. “Uhh.. Rey? You need to get in here..” he said. “Now..”]
Do they not own a phone. Is this why they absolutely refuse to call anyone about anything that happens.
And now in the world full of magic flamethrower animals it’s going to be a gunfight, because hey, why be interesting when we could just have guns again.
[Dialing 9-1-1 on it, a female voice soon picked up, and Nova was glad it was someone he knew would be there on his side.
“911, what is your emergency?”]
The fact that apparently phones suddenly materialized, I guess, because there’s no other possible reason to think it’s a good idea to finish your firefight before dialing.
Four! I wonder if it was the guns.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12334873/1/Flipped
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.
“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.
[There was so much of it. The blood. It clung to the air, her skin. The smell of it was thick in his nose and it wouldn’t leave. As a pokemon who reveled in the blood and gore of tearing his enemies apart, his horror was ridiculous. Pitiful.
He finally forced himself to look. Her broken body and the path of cracked ice told the story. She had slipped- her foot was twisted the wrong way- hit her head, and rolled down the incline which had been too unforgiving. Her flashlight was little ways from her body, it’s light flickering on and off dimly.
The years before his capture told the Mightyena that left alone, his trainer would die.]
It really sounds like she’s already dead or seconds from it regardless. For blunt trauma to be causing gushing blood, she must be pretty much soup on the inside by now.
[How many times had he wished for this? Had wanted to taste the metallic tang of her blood on his tongue, to feel her pulse flutter and go dead.]
So…why didn’t he?
I mean, the impression I get overall is there’s a sort of love/hate thing going on, except it’s more informed hate matched with total devoted love. Given this is what your character’s personality and the events of the story all hinge on, more time explaining the situation would be good.
He seems to have objected to not being free, but he also seems like he was just into maiming and it’s not clear which is the bigger part of him fantasizing about murder. I can’t tell if he always held himself back from acting on it or if he was never in the position to act on it before – did she keep her pokemon in pokeballs and only let them out for battles? Did she let her pokemon just hang out sometimes but always together so the other would’ve stopped him, or only in populated areas where someone would’ve stopped him? Meanwhile, you don’t tell us anything about where his positive attachment to his trainer comes from – just that he flips back and forth between being horrified by his trainer dying and telling about how much he wanted to murder her and how many reasons he had to want to do that. If he had reasons to care for her as well as hate her, that would really help to bridge the gap.
Two. Posted January 23rd.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12336640/1/Pokemon-Azul
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.
Your grammar is awful and you seem to have copied and pasted the fic twice.
[“Dragonite would you please” Whispered Azul under his warm breath.
“With pleasure Master,” said the Dragonite who made the eyes of the women widen by this.]
[The man’s smile returned as he looks at his partner casually.
“Of course it’s easy! I train you guys since you were just eggs eight years ago, I think we are the strongest in any Region so far” Azul said while putting his arms to the back of his head.]
You’ve making a big deal about how Azul respects pokemon and is so much better than other people – and yet, he’s got a big enough ego to want his pokemon to refer to him as “master” rather than his name, and instead of finding pokemon who wanted to work together with him he took unborn pokemon from their parents and raised them to be whatever he wanted. He didn’t just not give them a choice, he never let them even know they had one. And not just once but apparently with all of his supposed “partners”.
One. Posted January 24th.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338444/1/Tale-of-Her
[Every time I breathe, my ribs fail to stretch as much as my lungs, sinking painfully to the soft muscle and stealing away what little air is stubbornly binding me to this unjust world.]
Your writing is generally more purple than it needs to be, and often to the point of not making sense or being completely wrong – in this case, lungs work by negative pressure. That means that they can’t inflate independently of the rest of the chest cavity. When something is wrapped around the rib cage tight enough to hurt, the pain is in the ribs straining against the pressure and is unrelated to the immobile sacs that are the lungs.
[Am I at the back of a Arceus-damned truck or something?!]
Arceus isn’t a straight synonym for “God”, given it’s the name of a specific individual. Even ignoring the issue that nobody much in canon talks about Arceus and there are lots of other legendaries people care way more about, this is like saying “Jesus-damned”.
It’s “okay”, four letters.
While this is a good twist on the standard trunk opening, there’s the problem that it really doesn’t do much to establish what your story will be like. Most of the chapter is spent on the problem of being in the truck, and that’s then resolved at the end, which works well for a self-contained story but is a lot less successful at being the first part of a larger work. This is a particularly big problem when you’re doing an AU – there’s been many, many variants of nuzlockes and just saying this is one doesn’t say much about if you’ve got great worldbuilding and a plot that takes full advantage of it or if it’s going to be edgy nonsense that adds up to nothing.
Jan 26th, and zero.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12338827/1/The-Abyss-Village
[ While I was running, I tripped on something and felt a lot of pain in my left leg. Great, I thought sadly, now I can’t just be a runaway from abusive parents. Now I had to find a place to recover, too!
Quickly, I went as fast as I could to the only friend I had in this city.]
…so their leg was hurt enough that they desperately need a safe place to heal this horrible injury, but not enough they can’t trot off to their friend’s house with no problem.
[“Remember when you said that you heard of a place where pokephiles live without judgement?” I asked her, my eyes full of hopefulness. She blushed and looked to think for a moment.
“Y-yeah,” she said with a noticable blush on her tanned cheeks. “Why you ask?” Krookodile wrapped his tail around her-a possessive gesture.
“I need a fresh start honestly,” I said as a dark red blush on my pale cheeks appeared. “I want to find love-not caring if its my species or not. With my parents, I never found anyone to love me..” Tears streamed down my cheeks slowly.]
You’re really not doing a good job of selling this as legitimate relationships rather than the result of people being fucked up in the head. If you want the guy to go there and then end up falling for a pokemon who’s also there, why not just have it be a sanctuary that’s open anybody fleeing a bad situation rather than specifically just for humans interested in fucking pokemon?
“Its” is the possessive form. “It’s” means “it is” only.
Write out numbers with letters.
One. Published Jan 26, updated Jan 28 – and there’s four chapters total, so more than one a day.
Also I did not draw the comparison in the review but the bit about not caring, which is probably supposed to highlight how pure his intentions are, just makes me think of guys who strike out with women their age going after children not out of pedophilia but just because they’re easier targets. This one actually looks way less rapey than usual but if they’re into the genre, they’re probably used to all sorts of horrible stuff passing without comment or examination and repeating the same tropes.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12339024/1/Malik-Mawile-Pokegirl-Adventure
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.
A parody isn’t supposed to look identical to regular stories of the genre.
Zero, published Jan 26th.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12343952/1/The-Life-of-a-Basic-God
[And so a sharp pain begins in my head, as if my amygdala is about to explode.]
I’m going to guess your knowledge of the brain begins and ends at the fact “amygdala” refers to a part of it, because that’s ridiculous on several levels.
[It seems that I fell asleep whilst surfing ]
Why are you doing this.
Write out numbers with letters.
Semicolons should only ever be used when connecting two complete sentences and even then almost never.
[. As I stand at just around 1.68 meters]
If you have two decimal points, it’s not “around” it’s “exactly”.
[a nose seeming to have just been given a nose job]
So swollen, cut up, and probably covered in gaze?
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.
[School goes by quite easily. I hang out with my friends and I essentially ace every test. All my grades are impeccable, which leaves many confused as to why I’m not planning on going to any prestigious university. Truthfully, I don’t know what I want to do. I lack ambition and would rather just live simply.]
If it doesn’t matter so much, then why is it in this story? What’s the point of showing him going to school if nothing happens and why does it matter how he does on tests if it’s irrelevant to his life?
[“H-how is it so large,” the gardevoir begins in complete awe, “are you this wealthy?”
I chuckle, “far from it. No, the reason my house is essentially a mansion is because, when I was found, I had Krain with me. Therefore, they thought it appropriate to give me a home with enough room, though it seems they went a bit overboard”.]
Your character’s life really shouldn’t be a series of getting everything you can hand out.
Two, mysteriously. Published Jan 30th.
Okay NOW we’re actually done with fics for January.