Jun 16That’s all I have from my master copy. I don’t think there’s much more to be said about them. Do you have any specific questions?I’m not going to hunt you down if you write them a little OOC. In fact, that’s the fun of these things, isn’t it? If you need a guideline, they’re sort of a tongue-in-cheek reference to the behavior of RPG players — obsessed with power through killing to the exclusion of all else.

Jun 16[though RPG games are not really my style]

…Says the person writing Pokemon fanfic? o_O

[I do want give her a bit of a sad backstory.]

Would you like me to provide you with something, or do you want to come up with that on your own?

[How do you want Kara to interact with the team at first?]

I don’t know what the rest of the team is like, so I can’t answer that question. That seems like something you’ll have to determine yourself. All I can say is that they’re generally pretty cold and standoffish, as stated in their bio. They are probably using the team for some ulterior motive, and their behavior towards them will probably reflect that.

Jun 16[As for backstory, I feel like since it is your character you should come up with it.]

I mean they don’t have a tragic backstory. You could spin their misanthropy as stemming from some kind of abuse or other trauma, but I don’t have anything specific planned. They’re mainly just a horrible person — and I consider it very important not to try to excuse that by saying “well they may be a mass murderer, but their parents beat them so it’s totally okay!”

I don’t see anything in the team that would make them behave differently than default. Humans are, for the most part, interchangeable to them: they are all but lambs to the slaughter.

Jun 18[Kind of like capitalizing Cheetah.]

You… don’t do that, though, as outlined at the start of the paragraph. Species names aren’t capitalized. Other orders of classification are, but not species.

Jun 19[The main reason why I capitalize the word “Pokemon” is because – if I don’t – the red lines underneath will bother the hell out of me endlessly]

You can add it to the dictionary, if that’s the issue.

[I’ve been taught the formatting of it in so many different ways]

That’s surprising, actually. It’s not taught often. Did you learn it in school?

Jun 12[In most of the stories I’ve read, at least one Pokemon was never named before the trainer named them.]

Yes, and in those cases it also doesn’t make sense. Think about it. You’re portraying this zorua as having human-level intelligence and the capacity for language. Why wouldn’t it already have a name?

Choosing someone else’s name for them also just carries… disturbing implications. This post explains it in better detail: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/3/Capitalization-Thread#151597458

[I always put commas after quotes that have a descriptor.]

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. Do you mean the sentence I pointed out? You don’t have to put a comma at the end of dialogue if you already have punctuation, for the same reason you wouldn’t end a normal sentence in !.

Jun 12[In the story, although not explained very clearly, tells you that Leo has a necklace that enabled Leo to talk to Pokemon.]

So… the necklace is a translator, yes? It’s not giving the zorua the capacity for language, the zorua was always intelligent and always had a language, she just needed a translator to be understood by humans. Why wouldn’t an intelligent language-having creature have its own name?

[I don’t get what point you were trying to get across with the link you sent me.]

Argh, it referred to the wrong post. FFN is really annoying. Okay, just read from the top of this: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/3/Capitalization-Thread

The relevant section is:

[Here’s a minor example. Over NaRe this January, I ran into a couple fics of talking pokemon, where, as usual, there was this scene:

“I pick Starter!”

“Yay!”

“I’ll nickname you Firsty.”

“Okay!”/”No, I want a different name.” “How about Secondy?” “Okay!”

And I said to the author, why doesn’t the trainer just ask this talking pokemon what their name is?

And I got back these incredibly long justifications for why pokemon just don’t have names, okay, but at the same time are totally 110% in favor of going by a name as soon as a human decides on one. They didn’t make sense, they were convoluted and impossible to explain in the fic, they relied on the idea talking cooperative pokemon not only act nothing like humans but also nothing like all the other social animals we’ve found who use language to give their kids name…

This isn’t even getting into the major issue of them pointing at another person and saying that’s going to be their partner without the pokemon having any say. Just the idea of a trainer saying, “So what’s your name?” as opposed to “I hereby name you…”, when the author could still have the pokemon just give whatever name the author had wanted, was unacceptable. They weren’t willing to give even that up.

And it’s all the worse if you’re familiar with, well, how that’s kind of exactly what we did to people the last time we owned them. It’s not how we treat our respected equals. It’s Robinson Crusoe, three centuries back:

In a little time I began to speak to him; and teach him to speak to me: and first, I let him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life: I called him so for the memory of the time. I likewise taught him to say Master; and then let him know that was to be my name]

Your character is literally doing the exact same thing SLAVEMASTERS did to their SLAVES. Do you see how that’s more than a little disturbing, especially since you reinforce it by having her call him “master”? Why is it okay for him to have this much power over a thinking, feeling person?