A pokemon-only society that’s not PMD, and a trainerfic that appears to be walking the walk on pokemon treatment and hints at an unusual plot to come.

Anime count: 6

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12927773/1/Pokemon-The-Adventures-of-Ash-and-Serena-Kanto-Arc

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928024/1/Behind-The-Screen

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928026/1/A-Legend-of-Hoenn

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

[A story I’ve had in my head for a while. It takes place in a world I imagined would be like it were only inhabited by Pokemon, which begins in a place named Littleroot.]

Summaries should tell us more than just the genre. This is a potentially interesting setup, but it doesn’t give us much to go on. What’s your plot? What’s the story about?

Titling chapters in the story itself looks kinda weird; the dropdown menu should suffice.

I’m not too fond of using the term “legendaries” in fic. It’s very much a fandom term, as it’s a shorthand for the canon term “legendary pokemon”. It’s also much too general given the actual range of power of legendaries. Legendaries like latios seem to be merely rare beasts, while legendaries like Kyogre are gods. In real life, we typically use “legends” to talk about mortal heroes, not gods.

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 trainer or professor or gym.

[A foolish Pokemon that desired to control the Legends, used a mysterious power to create two stones]

Unnecessary comma here.

[Arceus was not pleased upon seeing such mayhem and created another Legend, a being of light, Rayquaza.]

So, this raises questions that usually occur when using Arceus as a high god: if Arceus is so powerful, why can’t it intervene itself? Why does it solve every problem by making another creature and telling them to deal with it? This does unify the disparate mythologies we get throughout the regions, but it’s in a very awkward and roundabout way. This could make more sense if you went into more detail on Arceus’ power – if it’s not all-powerful and in fact its powers are *limited* to creation, that would be a neater explanation, and actually a pretty cool concept as a powerset. Could also explain the glut of gods in the pokeworld, if Arceus always creates more in response to everything.

[It was then sent to punish the Pokemon who dared toy with such power and destroy such precious life. This, however, led to more chaos as a war broke out between Legends. Groudon and Kyogre fought against Rayquaza endlessly, laying waste to a now barren land.]

This seems like a pretty big departure from the situation in canon. Groudon and Kyogre fight each other, but Rayquaza totally negates their powers and, in Emerald, ends their conflict handily despite both Groudon and Kyogre being controlled. It just seems weird to me that Groudon and Kyogre could be convinced to team up against Rayquaza when they seem to hate each other far more.

I mean, this is possible, but it raises a lot of questions about the power levels involved and the division between gods and non-gods. A mortal besting and controlling a god overturns the whole world order – can there really be said to be a meaningful distinction between mortal and god, now? Do the gods have a right to rule over the mortals, or is it in fact better for the mortals to overthrow them? I get that you’re going for parallels between this and the canon plot, but there are significant thematic differences between a human controlling a pokemon and a pokemon controlling a pokemon. The canon plot touched on themes of environmentalism, man’s subjugation of nature, and coexistence. This evokes more high fantasy-esque ideas of capital-G Good versus capital-E Evil, of sin and punishment. Perhaps that is what you want to go for, but it’s something to keep in mind.

I feel like there should be a scene break marker after this – typically, formatting a piece like this without a scene break implies the italicized portion is something the protagonist is literally reading, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

[bolt of thunder]

That would have to be “bolt of lightning” – thunder refers to the noise.

[stroke the ground]

You want “struck”. “Stroke” means something different.

[“What have I told you about letting your guard down?” A voice boomed]

You’re formatting dialogue incorrectly. Dialogue is written as [“Hello,” she said] or [“Hello!” she said], never [“Hello.” She said] or [“Hello”, she said] or [“Hello” she said]. This is because dialogue and speech tags are considered to be part of the same sentence, so they have to flow together. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb. In that case, the second part IS considered a separate sentence, so it’s written as [“Hello.” She grinned], never [“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. (“Speak” is also not a speech verb.) 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 single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.

[His left eye a faint blue hue as a sign of his blindness in it.]

This is a sentence fragment, and that seems an odd indicator of blindness – is it infected with something? Blind eyes are typically milky white.

[He leapt down, landing on its feet]

Remember to keep your pronouns specific.

[He quickly reacted, however, using his thick, green tail to propel himself into the air, leaving the older Pokemon on the ground. He then returned with a barrage of seeds coming from his mouth, trying to strike him, but the older one was too fast, easily dodging his attack. The Linoone retorted with fluent movement, using the trunk of a tree to bounce off and send in to the smaller Pokemon’s direction. His claws emitted a soft glow, signaling his next attack, and pulled back slashing the smaller Pokemon in mid-air, sending him into the ground hard. The Linoone then landed not too far off on the ground and made his way over to the small form indented now in the forest floor. A smile crossed his face seeing him wince.]

The pronouns here are a bit ambiguous – at times I had to read the sentence over again to understand which “he” it was referring to. You might want to reveal the protagonist’s species earlier so you can refer to him with that.

This is a good opening – I like the passage at the beginning, and it’s neat to see pokemon societies that aren’t Mystery Dungeon. I feel like the chapter ends too abruptly, though. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. You’ve given us a bit of background and characterization, but we haven’t reached the inciting event yet, so we don’t know what the story will really be about. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928161/1/Return-of-the-Human-Legend

Blocked, previously reviewed.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928251/1/Pokemon-Great-Adventure

Not using paragraphs makes me not want to read your story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928666/1/Trials-Skyla-s-Story

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

You should probably pick a different name for your protagonist; the name creates confusion with Skyla the gym leader.

[Skyla’s is just your ordinary eevee in most ways trying to compete in the Trials so she can evolve but a dark plan is brewing for her destruction.]

You don’t need the ‘s there, and this sounds very rushed – what are the trials? What is the dark plan? You should split this into multiple sentences so it can breathe a little.

[For the pyroar, it is when the young male litleo are sent away from the pride to become stronger.]

And the females…? Women have rights of passage too.

This is very confusingly written, like you’re describing a documentary or a video game manual rather than a story. I can understand the desire to start the story by laying out all your setting details, but that’s actually not what you should be focused on right away. The core of the story is going to be about the characters and their lives, and that is what we will become attached to. Once we’re emotionally invested, it’s much easier to interest the reader in these details.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928936/1/Gold-VS-LANCE

Blocked, previous screed-writer. They have added Gritty Giant to their blacklist because everyone is either with them or against them, apparently.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12928976/1/The-Pok%C3%A9Guards

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

[people and Pokémon]

So pokemon aren’t people?

[Taking place in a time where criminal activity has spiked, the PokéGuard has fractured, and multiple organizations are working to various different ends, seven young recruits will have their hands full as they try to unwind the threats around them.]

The second comma here is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.

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 trainer or professor or gym.

[Several weeks ago ~]

This isn’t a video game. You should establish time and place through context or narration. Non-general scene transitions are jarring.

[simply lied there]

You want “lay”. “Lied” means “to tell a lie”.

[Or at least it, it looked like her wardrobe.]

Something odd seems to have happened to this sentence.

[Michaela said taking out the other files]

This needs a comma after “said”. You’re making a lot of errors like these, and they make the story hard to follow. If you have trouble, you should look for a beta reader here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

This is too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. We don’t have any context for what’s going on in this short scene, and we haven’t even reached the inciting event. We don’t know what the story is really going to be about, and that makes it hard to decide whether to follow this story and come back for the next chapter. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929175/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-ZER0

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929387/1/The-Other-Side-of-Mirror

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon. However, species names shouldn’t be capitalized either, for the same reasons.

[the bluenette]

Drawing attention to anime hair colors sounds a little awkward, since they’re clearly meant to be a stylized visual trope, not literal reality. It would be less distracting if you stuck to real hair colors.

[Dawn is her name. Despite she’s born as a beautiful girl]

The rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well. I’m also not entirely sure what you mean in the second sentence – “Despite being born as…” or “Even though she was born as…” might work.

[5 years ago]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters.

[Mr. Backlot who is her grandfather’s brother]

In English, the term for this is “great-uncle”.

[Two of her pokemon, an Empoleon which was given as a Piplup by Mr. Backlot, and a Luxio was which given as a Shinx by her mother (both pokemon were given when she was nine) followed her to the forest.]

This feels rushed; you’re dumping too much information on us at once. It would be more natural to establish the pokemon earlier (mention the relatives giving them to her during the account of her early life, perhaps) instead of explaining this information at the same time as something is happening in the plot.

This is a decent story, but I don’t see it as having much connection to Pokemon – both of these characters are blank slates and thus effectively original characters, and the magic doesn’t seem to have much to do with Pokemon magic.

You are also making a number of grammatical mistakes that make the story hard to follow. If you’d like a beta reader to help you, you can start looking here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929887/1/Saviors-of-Sinnoh-working-title

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

[In a world of people with extraordinary powers, five special individuals must rise to the occasion and defend their home from the evil forces of Team Galactic.]

Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot? This also doesn’t sound very… Pokemon-y, if that makes sense. Pokemon is a setting where the humans are the normies who must partner with other beings to accomplish their goals. Giving the humans powers makes this sound like a standard fantasy setting, and makes me wonder what purpose the pokemon will serve. And like, that’s fine in and of itself, but if I wanted to read about that I’d head over to the original fiction section, you know?

[It was 9:30 PM in the Sinnoh region, and the Battleground café located in the Battle Zone was full of the usual patrons at this time; drinkers, gamblers, homeless people taking shelter from the rain, and a man in a brown trench coat.]

This is improper semicolon usage. As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to replace semicolons with periods and still have the resulting sentences make sense; for instance, what I’m doing here. You want a full colon here.

[“l00k3r” had already began walking]

You want “begun” here.

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 trainer or professor or gym.

[the League has been keeping our eyes on you for quite some time now, Riley,” Cynthia spoke coolly]

“Spoke” is, ironically, not a speech verb; the narration needs to be formatted as a separate sentence if you want to use it like this.

Relatedly, you’re overusing uncommon speech verbs. Don’t be afraid to use said; lovely word, won’t bite, usually more fitting than whatever fancy verb you’re using in its place. You may have heard to avoid said because it’s so bland and boring, but that’s actually its greatest strength. Nonstandard speech verbs stick out; they’re used for emphasis, when how something is said is important to the story and you want the reader to stop and take notice. If you use that emphasis for every single line, the reader will become oversaturated, lessening the impact when you actually do want emphasis on a speech tag.

[For years, Sinnoh had been regarded as one of the Pokémon world’s most friendly and welcoming of all regions.]

That strikes me as an odd characterization – Sinnoh has one of the wildest and most inhospitable climates, and the culture is deeply ossified. I’m sure it’s as friendly and welcoming as the pokeworld generally is, but I have a hard time believing it’d win any contests.

[Naturally, it wouldn’t be long before someone went and ruined things for everyone. This someone in particular was none other than Cyrus, the Supreme Leader of Team Galactic. Once a young boy with a penchant for building and operating machinery, his life was changed forever when his grandparents were killed by one of his robotic creations. Accounts vary on whether or not it was intentional; the one thing everyone can agree on is that, following these events, Cyrus ran away from his home in Sunyshore City and started up a street gang that would one day evolve into the monstrosity that is Team Galactic.

Team Galactic had started out harmless enough; they mostly just committed petty theft and were promptly beaten back into the shadows by young Pokémon trainers. As Team Galactic rose in numbers, however, they resorted to more cruel and deadly means of battling. Many of their “acquired” Pokémon had been horribly experimented on, some having all of their powers stripped from them. It was even rumored that some higher ranking members of Team Galactic had somehow managed to transfer those powers into themselves.]

This… doesn’t have much to do with Cyrus or Team Galactic. Galactic’s thing was studying evolution energy, though as I recall that plot point kind of fizzled, and Cyrus’ thing was wanting to destroy all emotion and also the universe. What you’re describing here – a generic crime gang with access to secret superweapons – sounds much more like Rocket or Cipher than the doomsday cult that was Galactic.

Also, making Cyrus a robot whiz is not only random but also plays into some unfortunate stereotypes about evil autistic scientists.

[My Arceus]

Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. It’s fine to just use “God”. And if you do want to have people swear by pokegods, please at least look up what swears polytheistic cultures actually use, they don’t just take ours and find-and-replace “God”. (In particular, the expression “my god” uses the *lowercase* god, as in you are literally swearing by *your* god, whatever that god may be. To a Christian that god is God, but the expression would not change for a polytheist who favors a specific god.)

[his brow furrowed as he closed his eyes..]

Punctuation mishap here.

[“The few times I’d seen them, I had never taken them even remotely serious by virtue of their haircuts alone…”

“Perhaps Cyrus has been using that to his advantage. Lulling trainers into a false sense of security before snatching them and their partners up for his sick experiments,”]

I have to admit this made me laugh. Trying to come up with a serious reason for what is obviously just a silly cartoon design is just too hard to take seriously. You’d be better off just not acknowledging the silliness of Galactic if you want them to be taken seriously – because let’s be honest, the silliness goes far deeper than their haircuts.

[The grunt in questioned]

Typo.

[“Y-you’ll pay for this!” One grunt cried]

Errant capital here.

[“…”]

This is a visual art convention and doesn’t work in prose.

This is pretty effective as a first chapter – lots of stuff happens, and while the protagonist gets to show off his skills he doesn’t come away unscathed, establishing he’s not going to be a Mary Sue. However, as I suspected at the start, this doesn’t have much to do with Pokemon. Not even a single pokemon appears here, not even during the brawl – the grunts note that they left their guns behind, but why didn’t they take any pokemon with them? The villains, also, don’t seem to have much to do with the Team Galactic I’m familiar with. I’m afraid I’m more interested in pokemon than humans, so this story doesn’t grab my attention. You should consider reskinning this as original fiction, and seeing if that suits the story better.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929990/1/Togepi-and-Tyrouge-Trouble

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing the word “pokemon” itself. However, species names shouldn’t be capitalized either, for the same reasons.

[Now this hut is finished! “]

You have an extra space here.

Your scene breaker looks weird; you can add a horizontal line using the in-site editor, which looks more elegant.

[Later that night…]

This isn’t a video game. You should establish time and place through context or narration. Non-general scene transitions are jarring.

You’re making a lot of grammatical errors that make the story hard to read. You should get a beta reader if you have trouble with this. Start looking here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

This is too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – you don’t need to put all your cards on the table, but you need to have something to show. We have barely been introduced to the main character, and we don’t have any idea what the plot is going to be. This makes it difficult to know if the story is something readers want to follow. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930024/1/The-Crystal-League

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930159/1/The-lost-secret-English-ver

I don’t watch the anime, so I’m not going to be able to review this story on content. Please tag your story as anime fic to avoid this problem. Find your story under “Manage Stories” and select it from the dropdown menu that says “World: Any” in the “Category” section. If you have difficulties, this thread has clearer instructions: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/165132256/1/World-Tags

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

This is not a sufficient translation. The story is riddled with errors that make it a chore to read. If you want to translate your stories but are not confident in your English skills, you should get a professional translator. If you’d like to look for beta readers, there are some here: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/42724996/1/Beta-Signup

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930328/1/Pokemon-Education-College

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Reviewed by Talarc. SYOC.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930370/1/We-won-t-let-go-Megabondshipping

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930761/1/A-Home-Like-No-Other

Blocked even though they say they want constructive criticism; heckler review likely responsible. Don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930829/1/Pokemon-Oronian-Adventures

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12930910/1/Eeveelution-House

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

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 trainer or professor or gym.

Non-story entries are banned on this site. You shouldn’t post until you have a chapter ready.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12929612/1/Aura-Unleashed

[Oh, and never believe what “Saint” Elmo Fire (what an ego to consider himself saint) and his friends Farla and Talarc say – they are mindless haters.]

…Do you seriously not know what Saint Elmo’s fire is? I’m not calling myself a saint. There is a possessive there.

Regardless, you do not get to use your stories as a platform to slander other users. I have already told you that if you have a problem with me, I’d like to work it out with you through PM. You’ve repeatedly refused this in favor of publicly screaming I’m evil without any justification. If “the internet is meant to be used for fun”, why do you care about my opinions?

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12931007/1/PokemonMoemon-challenges

I don’t watch the anime, so I’m not going to be able to review this story on content. Please tag your story as anime fic to avoid this problem. Find your story under “Manage Stories” and select it from the dropdown menu that says “World: Any” in the “Category” section. If you have difficulties, this thread has clearer instructions: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/165132256/1/World-Tags

This is a summary, not a story. Non-story content is banned on this site. If you just want to talk about ideas or outlines, put this in a forum thread.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12931070/1/The-Quest-for-Greatness

Hi! I’m doing a round of reviews around the site, hoping to help give people constructive criticism instead of just vague appreciation or flames. If you do choose to take my advice I will be glad, but you don’t have to feel like I’m making demands of you. I usually try to point out things that could help with future stories, so they can be useful even if you don’t want to edit the current story. Feel free to disagree with my interpretations and don’t be afraid to let me know why. I will be pointing out grammatical errors as well; please understand that I am not trying to be judgmental, but that I honestly believe corrections can improve the story.

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 trainer or professor or gym.

[the brunet walked over to the fire]

Referring to people by something as superficial as hair color sounds awkward. When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the brunette,” “the trainer,” “the older man,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene.

[For nearly six years, Will and his parents—Leanne and Douglas Knight—have lived]

That should be “had lived”, I believe.

[They had to wait an extra four years as the previous trainer age of twelve was changed only months before Will came of age, so Pyro figured that Will must have been excited, even if he wouldn’t show it.]

I don’t really see what this adds. If ten-year-olds can handle the trials of a trainer journey, it’s a given that a sixteen-year-old will do fine, thus removing tension from the story. You even go on to say that he doesn’t want to win the championship anyway, so I’m not sure why the standard journey setup is even necessary. It would be more expedient to start with him having been a trainer for several years and only now running into whatever the plot is going to be.

You go on to give the standard explanation of “but pokemon training is so dangerous!!!” which is just clearly not true in-universe. Yes, it may be silly kid cartoon logic that everyone is one big happy family with the magic monsters in the wilderness, but that really is canon. Even the manga, which is much darker than the other franchises, does not make a big deal of this. This is compounded by the fact you’re emphasizing that pokemon have human-level intelligence, which means it should be possible to negotiate with them and avoid unwanted conflict. If there are naturally enough violent sadists among the pokemon population for that to not be an option, why was the age ever set that low in the first place?

[The older man—Douglas—sighed, but Leanne smiled slightly, apparently glad to have at least a slight reaction. At the same time, Pyro was sitting across from the older man on a booster seat so that he could also reach the table. He had the same meal in front of him, but unlike Will’s plate, the Pokemon’s food was nearly completely gone.

“It really is good, Mom!” he exclaimed, looking at Leanne with a sparkle in his eyes. “Dad was so right!”

Pyro, having been with Will since the teen was seven-years-old, was incredibly close with his family. After a few months of living with the Knight family, he too began to call Will’s parents Mom and Dad. Despite being a Pokemon, Douglas and Leanne Knight considered Pyro to be their second son, and he saw them as parents.]

This is a very good detail, and shows you’re walking the walk on pokemon treatment.

[I can finally get stronger. He thought.]

Thoughts use the same punctuation rules as dialogue, so you should use a comma here.

[It’s against the law to participate in any Pokemon League-sanctioned events without a license, so while it was not strictly illegal for trainers to battle with someone without a license such as Will, few would enter that gray area.]

Contractions imply present tense, so that should be “it was” for consistency. I’m also unclear what you mean here – if something is “against the law”, that typically means it is strictly illegal.

[Pokemon are, in my mind, every bit as intelligent as humans, so that will be reflected here. Pokemon aren’t mindless slaves that fight only for the trainer’s goals (Usually), and that’ll be shown with Will’s team.]

It’s great that you’re thinking in this way, but I have to address the elephant in the room: If this is true, why does the trainer system exist at all? Why does a group of people agree to help and obey another person who, if this is anything like the games, gets all the credit despite doing the least work? What are the pokemon getting out of this?

Your prose sounds a little unwieldy, like you have a lot of thoughts but can’t quite fit them together. You use a lot of complex description and elaborate imagery, but the sentences themselves tend to be short and simple, with lots of transition words like “however” that make the story seem indecisive. This is likely something that will improve with practice, though I also recommend the Discworld series of novels if you’d like some examples of elaborate, conversational storytelling styles.

It also seems just a bit too slow – these scenes are pretty decompressed, and often take a lot longer to describe actions than would be logical for their emotional “space”, if that makes sense. Though this chapter is of a decent length, it doesn’t actually tell us much. It might be more effective if you could condense things a little.

[Any major hopes for the story?]

I’m optimistic about the pokemon treatment angle, but I’ve been let down by too many stories in the past to really get my hopes up. I am interested to see what unique twists you will add to the standard journey formula, although I would have appreciated more on that in this chapter, seeing as it’s pretty important information. Why is Will obsessed about becoming stronger? What does he mean by “defeating all evil”?