[18] The Other Pokereviews, Part 128

Mostly boring, though someone had the same idea as me and named their sylveon Oberon and Titania. We end with what looks like a really good OT fic, except for the fact that battles are gruesome and deadly and no one seems to care.

Anime count: 6

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062195/1/The-Jouney-Continues

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062268/1/A-Not-So-Overpowered-Abomasnow

Fire4Heaven is a sockpuppet of Hybrid of Fate, who was banned on my sister’s forum for using racial slurs and is now spamming the category with these messages as revenge. Be warned that she’ll mob this story with sockpuppets in response to this review, so you should block the sockpuppets listed in my profile if you don’t want that. Now, then…

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.

[Taco wanted to become the best like no one ever was. More like Abomasnow is the best there ever was! (Crappy summary)]

If you know your summary is crappy, you should fix it instead of giving up. Learning to write an effective summary is an important skill that will determine if anyone reads your story at all.

It’s better if you separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story. You can do this through the in-site editor.

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

Website documents don’t let you make indents for paragraphs. Authors generally put double line breaks after paragraphs to accomplish the same thing. You should do this as well, as it makes your story text much neater and easier to follow.

[Taco Burrito was a normal kid in every sense of the word except for the fact that he wasn’t normal.]

I don’t get what you’re trying to do here. Saying contradictory things isn’t automatically funny, and usually just sounds bland or weird.

[For one, his name. His parents could never quite answer why they’d named him what they did, but miraculously no one ever made fun of him for it.]

Likewise, calling attention to plot holes isn’t automatically funny either. This just breaks suspension of disbelief – which, yes, is a thing even in comedy.

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] 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.

[“Finally gettin’ out of here, eh?” People would say to him every year. He would smile and nod, hoping against hope they got hit by a truck.]

Random sociopathy: also not funny. I’m not interested in reading a story that’s just about someone being horrible.

Also, dialogue formatting rules remain constant regardless of punctuation, so this should be [“Finally gettin’ out of here, eh?” people would say to him every year.]

[-3 years later-]

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

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.

And yeah, I see this is just torture porn. I’m out.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062291/1/The-history-of-Magnemite

Fire4Heaven is a sockpuppet of lstwill56, who was banned on my sister’s forum for using racial slurs and is now spamming the category as revenge. Be warned that she’ll mob this story with sockpuppets in response to this review, so you should block the sockpuppets listed in my profile if you don’t want that. Now, then…

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

You should make a summary that tells us what your story is about. People won’t click on this unless the summary looks interesting.

[Unfortunately, Magnemite’s legs had to be amputated to save his life. Everyone felt sad because Magnemite lost his legs.

Everyone begged the doctor to help Magnemite find a method of treating the legs. Eventually, the old doctor who had lived in the forest for a long time came to the hospital and said, “I have two magnets here to help him fly in the air, but this method cannot guarantee that he can get better. The situation depends on his own physical fitness.”

Perhaps because of the kindness of Magnemite, perhaps due to the prayers of all, Magnemite’s body accepted both magnets. Since then, he has been able to fly in the air.]

…Is this a troll fic?

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062358/1/Error-1392

[However it gets corrupted]

You want a comma after “however”.

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

[Then two bright lights appears]

The rest of the story is in past tense, so this should be as well.

[The two stared at eachother in the eyes.]

You want “each other”, two words. And I thought you said they had their backs to each other?

[Immediatly]

Spellcheck.

The battle is quite decent. I like that there is a sense of progression and dynamism; the effects of the previous attack are carried over to the other, giving the impression the pokemon are getting worn down instead of just exchanging blows in a void.

[“Hey, May.” Brendan suddenly spoke. May looked back down at him. “Yeah?” she asked.]

A new speaker requires a new paragraph. Not doing this makes your dialogue extremely hard to follow.

[“Agreed.”

Giratina was sick of the universe it was in.]

This is a sudden jump. Is there supposed to be a scene break here? You should add a symbol or something to show that.

[It spent years watching humans walk about their daily lives like a child watching an antfarm. That’s all they are. Little tiny ants. Yet, they are so self-proclaimed and think they are above the gods. Children would constantly summon the legendaries to pelt them with Ultra Balls. Children. Human children think they can command the gods of the entire universe. Palkia and Dialga don’t mind it. They let them catch and command them. How foolish. They are putting the whole of time and space in the hands of human children. A Muk has better judgement and it’s just a pile of goo! It irritated Giratina so much.]

Giratina does not seem like a good fit for this. It seems incredibly apathetic in canon; the only thing that moves it to action is a threat to its personal safety. Its whole thing is that it’s apart from our reality and seems quite content there. A lot of other pokegods would be better-suited here.

I do appreciate you using gender-neutral pronouns for it, though.

[Giratina wanted to erase this whole universe and create a new one. A universe filled with order.]

This really sounds like Cyrus talking, not Giratina.

Well, that was… something, I guess. It’s not very clear what’s going to happen next, though.

This has a lot of misspellings that make the story hard to follow. I recommend getting a beta reader to help you if you have trouble with this.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062379/1/Peacetimes

Blocked, previously reviewed.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062486/1/Can-We-Rewrite-The-Stars

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062605/1/Wanderer

Blocked, previously encountered. Hybrid hasn’t reviewed because she already got what she wanted.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062628/1/Profile-of-a-Pokemon-Champion-Kalos

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

This is perfectly decent, but… there isn’t much here that we can’t get from just playing the games ourselves. The Pokemon games are not well-suited to novelizations, as their plots are largely just vehicles for making you fight a bunch of battles which, while cool in a game where you’re actually playing through them, are not interesting to read about. If you want to make a story out of it, you’ll need to diverge heavily from canon and introduce a ton of unique elements of your own. Notice how the anime and manga did this, and note also that they were still visual media that could fall back on cool, flashy battles, while you won’t be able to. Do you have some unique spin on the game’s plot, some unusual interpretation of the setting you want to explore? Try focusing on that.

The battle here is similarly not bad, but not great either. It feels like it’s been directly adapted from the games, just pokemon mechanically exchanging attacks. You should think about what details you can add to make battles more exciting, like environmental and situational tactics that can overcome raw power differences.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063134/1/Hearts-Expansions

A drabble is a word for something written and edited to be precisely 100 words. It’s a writing exercise, not a term for any kind of short story.

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063150/1/To-Repair-With-Gold

I see your profile says you don’t want to get involved in drama. I’ll warn you that the accounts mentioned in the link at the top of my profile are weirdly obsessed with me and will mob this story in response to this review, so you should block them if you don’t want that.

Blaze counter-reviewed anyway, because she’s an idiot.

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 so people searching for anime fic can find it. Find your story under “Manage Stories” and select it from the dropdown menu that says “World: Any” in the “Category” section.

[Something changed time, and thus Ashka Ketchum begins a journey like nothing before; except, there wasn’t a before. Was there? The Legendaries know much more than they’re telling Ash, that’s for certain. With Team Rocket involved and a lack of trust of humans in general, Ash must learn to stand on her own two feet. Fem!Ash, Mild Aura!User Ash, will contain elements of Time Travel.]

At a certain point, you really need to ask yourself why you’re so uncomfortable admitting you want to write about an OC that you have to staple Ash’s face over theirs. Just write about your OC. Trying to force this to hit the same beats as canon to justify it being Ash will just cheapen the changes you’ve made and make the entire thing more boring as you take what could be an original plotline and hammer it back into the same shape as always.

[“Alright, alright, you two,” Professor Oak chuckled]

“Chuckled” isn’t a speech verb, so it should be a separate sentence here, like [“Alright, alright, you two.” Professor Oak chuckled] or perhaps [“Alright, alright, you two,” Professor Oak said, chuckling].

[she really wanted an Espeon and Sylveon, so she took the Sun Shard and the professor helped her use a TM for Baby-Doll Eyes on her female Eevee (who she nicknamed Titania, to match her male Eevee Oberon)]

I see what you did there. Clever reference, but again, not the sort of thing Ash should know or care about.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063190/1/rain

You should put double lines between your paragraphs to make them easier to follow.

Otherwise, this is pretty good.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063446/1/Rainbow-Prism

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing the word “pokemon”. However, you shouldn’t capitalize species names or words like “champion” either, for the same reasons.

[The Champion controlled the other Elites, there were five in total.]

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

[They had to be good at fighting of course but that wasn’t all. You had to have a good reputation as well, because in the end the vote was up to the others.]

That sounds like the opposite of monarchy. I’d be more interested in seeing where this breaks down – if champions are strong fighters, what’s to stop them from just taking power by force? You go on to say there were tyrannical champions in the past – were they elected, or no?

[The Elites included Violet, the powerful Champion that probably put all the others into some kind of hypnotizing sleep through her eyes during her election, Sorrel, the tiny Eevee with a sharp tongue, Forrest, the Rayquaza who was surprisingly shy but in battle, he could K-O anybody, Firelight, the giant Charizard who was known for his grumpy temper, and lastly, Darkglow, the mysterious Absol who always had his nose in a book.]

When making long lists of complex clauses, you use semicolons to separate entries, rather than commas.

I’m also curious how a pokemon can “always have his nose in a book”. Pokemon don’t have opposable thumbs, so who’s writing and binding those books? Is this post-apocalyptic, and they are scavenging human technology?

[“Conifer!” a bright orange Charmander called my name.]

The narration here doesn’t describe how the dialogue is said, so it’s its own sentence and should be capitalized accordingly. So this should be [“Conifer!” A bright orange charmander called my name.]

[“Yeah..”]

If that’s an ellipses, one dot is missing.

This is okay, but rather simplistic, both in plot and writing. You use a lot of simple sentences that convey the basic information of what’s going on, but not much more, like any complex thoughts or subtle imagery. You should try pushing yourself to practice those techniques so you’ll get better at them.

This also doesn’t seem to have much to do with Pokemon; humans haven’t been mentioned at all, so this just reads like an original fantasy story about magic creatures.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063547/1/Conspired

[They come across a strong willed trainer named Kellan Kellan soon finds himself thrown into a world of hardship and sacrifices, he is turned into a Pokémon and is forced to do things for Team Rocket. Will Kellan find a way to reverse his transformation or will he be content wit]

The first and final sentences here are missing punctuation. The comm is also a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition.

In general, you have many punctuation errors that make this very hard to follow. I recommend brushing up on grammar knowledge, and getting a beta reader to help if this is something you struggle with.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063694/1/Team-Outcast

[There’s always tales of people who don’t fit in due to something that seems awful and yet become the ultimate hero because it wasn’t. But what if they were truly a outcast? Not one out of fear, but out of simply not meeting standards. Extremely ordinary in every way. What if they had the chance to finally be a hero? Even if they don’t particularly want to be.]

This is an interesting pitch. I, too, am tired of persecution complexes. (You want “an outcast” there, though.)

[there’s rarely a case where its seen that Pokemon are mistreated]

Typo here, and I would say that’s debateable. It’s canon that pokemon possess speech and human-level intelligence. Is it not mistreatment to treat such creatures like mindless animals by stuffing them in stasis capsules and making them fight for our amusement?

This sounds like it’s out-of-universe, like an extended summary or author’s note? That’s not allowed on this site; you need to include story content in a chapter. As a consequence of not doing that, I can’t give this a very meaningful review.

I will say that this is pretty vague and a little hard to follow, and I’m not entirely sure what you mean with some statements.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063781/1/Pokemon-Epilison

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063796/1/Boobs-in-the-Woods

Blocked, previously encountered. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13063980/1/The-World-Below

It’s better if you separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story. You can do this through the in-site editor.

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

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064037/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-R%C3%A9BURST-The-Burst-Heroes

Blocked, don’t recognize them. SYOC.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064040/1/Steeling-Yourself

[starting with the 3 Pokemon in Kanto]

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064141/1/determination-by-XXLD

This is oddly formatted. Did you paste this directly from a word document? You should preview your story before posting it to make sure the formatting is correct.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064317/1/Waste-of-my-time

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

It’s better if you separate your author notes with a horizontal line; otherwise, they look like part of the story. You can do this through the in-site editor.

[Castelia city]

All parts of a name are capitalized, so this should be “Castelia City”.

You tenses shift from present to past, which is really jarring. You need to stay consistent throughout the story.

[Burgh always says he has artists block]

Missing apostrophe.

[“You want to be out for this?” She questions.]

“Questioned” is what police do; it’s a synonym for “interrogated”, not “asked”.

[She compromised]

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.

Story-wise, this is decent. You’re characterizing the protagonist well, and I like that there’s stuff happening in the first chapter already. The battle is also pretty good – there is some dynamism and unusual attack patterns, which isn’t too common to see in fanfic. But you should really fix those grammar errors.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064337/1/Pokemon-Mysteries-of-Anyora-and-Beyond

[Yaoi fluff inbound]

Yaoi is porn. If it’s just fluff, you can just say “fluff”, or “gay fluff” or “M/M fluff” if the genders are important.

[Somethings are best left behind you]

Missing space here.

This is cute.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064345/1/Girls

This isn’t showing up in the anime filter. You should tag your story as anime fic so people searching for anime fic can find it. Find your story under “Manage Stories” and select it from the dropdown menu that says “World: Any” in the “Category” section.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064558/1/Felix-and-Delphox

lrn2troll

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13064281/1/Champion

[ she was looked like]

Something went wrong here.

[That would matter, at least after today. Or so she hoped.]

This sounds odd. Did you mean “that wouldn’t matter”?

Your opening is a really great example of how to give description of the main character and still keep the audience’s interest. I like how each detail tells us something about the character and the present situation, like [Her eyes were bright green, but they flickered too and fro, trying to find the slightest imperfection.]

[“There you are,” she said when she heard her daughter come into the kitchen, “I thought heard your alarm go off an hour ago. Are you alright?”]

If this is meant to be two separate sentences (like “There you are. I thought I heard…”), the narration should end with a period here, since it completes a sentence. Otherwise, this is fine. (You’re also missing an “I” here.)

Oh wow, and you even managed to make the choice of breakfast relevant! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that. This is a very enticing opening in the subtle details you drop that hint at something big to come.

[“You good, Champ?” Her father asked]

Dialogue formatting remains consistent regardless of punctuation so this should be [“You good, Champ?” her father asked].

[I should be OK now…]

It’s written “okay”, four letters. It is not an abbreviation for something else, nor is it pronounced “ock”, therefore it should never be written as OK, Ok, O.K. or ok.

[“Hello, everyone,” He greeted]

Errant capital.

[a problem with the connectomes in the arm]

Is this technospeak, or is that a typo of “connections”?

[a Gods damned machine]

“God” is only capitalized when referred to the Judeo-Christian one. The general word “god” is just a common noun.

[And while the rsik is higher]

Typo.

[Ultimately, it is up to you and your husband whether or not you want to proceed. Speaking of which, I’m sure he’d like to…”

“Marcus will be fine with whatever is best for Veronica,” Madeline replied]

Hm, that’s a little concerning.

[She reached over, which hurt a little, but she managed to snatch the card off the table She held it up with her left hand, opening it with her thumb.]

Missing period. I’ll stop pointing out these errors, but there are a lot of them. I’d recommend proofreading more thoroughly, or getting a beta reader if this is something you have trouble with.

The battle is very well-done, though I really have to question how ethical pokemon battles are if they can get that dangerous, and it’s especially galling that the trusted authority figure doesn’t see letting your pokemon nearly kill the opponent a disqualifying mark. How often do pokemon die in battle, and why would pokemon ever agree to risk their lives for it?

[“Now, you should know, Veronica, before I let you pick, I don’t have a lot of kids coming in here for a Pokémon. Most of them get theirs from the research center downtown, or they catch one out in the wild, and train it up before really heading out. You though, you’ve got the luxury of working for me!”]

Yes, thank you for pointing this out! It’s nice to remember trainers have lots of options for how to get their start.

[It was an older model, not the kind that you could simply press on the side to see all the Pokémon’s stats.]

Ooh, that’s a nice detail! Could even tie it in with how the games give us more information in every generation.

This is really good so far, but… from your summary, it sounds like we haven’t even gotten to the inciting event! This works perfectly well as a first chapter, but it seems a little weird to spoil something that’s more than 5000 words in. I think it would be advantageous to either extend this chapter until it catches up with the summary, or post the first two chapters together.

Dragon Quill

Writing With Scales

[18] The Other Pokereviews, Part 128

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