One of those worldbuilding primers with “realistic” pokemon that I used as a jumping-off point to explore various possibilities. It was fun! Not much of note otherwise, though.

Anime: 13

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13110898/1/Oliver-The-Legionnaire-s-Son

I reviewed this a while back! At your request, I’ll give my thoughts on the updated version.

[Lysandre has always thought that the world’s beauty had rotted away with time… His son will soon be thrust into the world Lysandre had sacrificed so much to ultimately fail at obtaining. Alola has to be better, as the saying goes, “Tomorrow is a better day.]

This sounds a bit awkward, like you’re trying to compress too much into the small space. This may be unavoidable given the small summary space allotted, but… hm. “Sacrificed so much to ultimately fail at obtaining” is a rather ungainly construction. “Had tried and failed to obtain”, maybe? The second sentence also feels like a bit of a jump, as you only mention that he will be entering the world in general, while Alola is a pretty specific place that will bring its own themes and aesthetics to this story. Maybe a short mention of why he’s going to that region specifically?

The last sentence is also a comma splice. “Alola has to be better – as the saying goes,” would work.

[He wanted an Oshawott, but his father discouraged it and tried to convince him to get a Grimer or Murkrow.]

Ah, so you fixed the absurdity of recommending a magikarp starter, good. However, I’d still like to know Lysandre’s reasoning. Why exactly wouldn’t he want him to get an oshawott? Are they too rare to get, and he doesn’t want to give Oliver false hope? But then, isn’t hopeless striving for impossible perfection Lysandre’s whole thing? Especially as this is the start of the story, you could use this to build intrigue about Lysandre and whether or not he’s changed by giving us a few more details.

[The wait was over as soon as he saw that Eevee, it was thin]

Comma splice. I’d turn it into a period. You still have a lot of comma splices throughout; I’d recommend reading up on that.

[“Hey, it’s okay, I won’t hurt you.” Oliver calmly murmured]

You’re sometimes formatting dialogue correctly, but not always. An external article such as Grammar Girl will be more comprehensive, but here’s the rundown: 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.

Note also that these rules stay the same even if you’re ending the dialogue with an exclamation or question mark.

While an eevee isn’t nearly as sueish as a zorua, it’s still a pretty overused and desirable pokemon, which undercuts the idea of Lysandre discouraging him from pursuing a fancy pokemon in favor of a practical one. Especially as he proceeds to have no objections to eevee (which is actually a pretty bad starter pokemon, as its evolution is based on external factors and its movepool is very limited), I’m not sure what the purpose of that detail is meant to be.

Good job picking a pokemon that’s actually native to the area, though – since eevee can be found in the park, it’s not unreasonable for one to appear in the city.

[The Eevee growled at him.

“Hey, it’s okay, I won’t hurt you.” Oliver calmly murmured, reaching out his hand.

The Eevee nudged his hand, sniffing it carefully, he was not distrustful of this human, he nuzzled his hand.

“Alright, you wanna be my partner little buddy?” Oliver laughed, his flame-orange hair getting licked by the Eevee.

Eevee yipped happily.]

On a similar note, while this isn’t overtly sueish, it is rather bland. You establish a possible challenge and conflict in the eevee being aggressive towards him, but all he has to do is one small thing and everything goes perfectly for him. He doesn’t have to put any effort into getting what he wants.

My memory of the anime is extremely hazy, but Ash had trouble with Pikachu at the beginning, right? It kept shocking him and wouldn’t go in the pokeball or obey his orders. That drove the plot of several episodes, because that kind of conflict makes for good story content. Pikachu added a dynamic to their character interactions, and Ash had to work hard to get Pikachu to behave. While that level of antagonism isn’t necessary, it’s a good idea to incorporate similar principles of having the pokemon be actors in their own right with their own needs and wants that require effort on the part of the trainer to fulfill. That’ll help make them feel like actual characters and give you more scenarios and plot ideas to work with.

[it’s blades were shiny]

“Its” typo here.

[Lysandre was reminded of his first partner, a shiny Pawniard.

He pushed the memory away, feigning a smile.

It was a dark day when he lost it, a very, very, dark day. He was young and blind, too obsessed with his brand of beauty to see that his precious partner was suffering. He retreated into his mind…]

This is a bit sudden, as we’ve been focusing on Oliver’s perspective up to this point. It’s generally not a good idea to switch POVs a lot, because we need time to get invested in the characters. If you do need to switch perspectives, you should use a scene break to denote that something has changed. The same reasoning applies to flashbacks.

[He was also very good friends with one of the most innovative leaders in the world, Lusamine.]

Uhhh. I really don’t think Lysandre and Lusamine would get along. There’s nothing egomaniacs hate more than people with ever-so-slightly different worldviews than them. They’d tear each other apart over their similar but subtly different perspectives on beauty.

[the two Pokemon seemed accustomed to their trainer’s condition, and well, would compensate.]

I think a word was dropped here?

So it’s sounding like Oliver’s mother is Cynthia? That also seems like an odd pairing – the down-to-earth humanities scholar doesn’t seem like she’d have much in common with a mad scientist.

This is definitely a stronger opening than you had before, and I like that we’re getting more on Lysandre and his motivations. This is still rather insubstantial, though – Oliver hasn’t even started his journey. It might be better to start with them already on Alola; you could simply mention where Oliver got his pokemon as an aside, as the details aren’t terribly important.

This also seems very scattered – as I mentioned, you’re jumping perspectives a lot, making it unclear who the real protagonist is and who we’re meant to focus on. Showing pokemons’ perspectives also makes things… awkward, as if you establish these things have human-level intelligence it raises uncomfortable questions about why it’s okay for humans to own them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13118738/1/Pokemaid

Not blocked, but it’s just PWP with no obvious grammar errors, so nothing to really say.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13119144/1/Chromaverse-Worldbuilding-Guide

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

While I appreciate that you aren’t capitalizing pokemon species, the word “pokemon” itself shouldn’t be captialized either, just as you wouldn’t capitalize “animal”.

[Average Lifespan: 13 – 1,000 years

Average Height: 1’00” – 200’00”

Average Weight: 32 kg – 150,000 kg

Average Length: 0’50” – 512’00”]

I don’t understand how such huge ranges could be termed “average”. This sounds more like a range of the smallest recorded statistics to the largest. That’s great for showing the huge diversity of pokemon, but not for showing a representative sample as the word “average” implies. Maybe change that to “range” or something?

[Pokémon are incredibly intelligent and metaphysically-talented creatures belonging to the biological kingdom of Poketto Monsutaa, a Kantonian phrase meaning “Master of the elements”.]

Uh…? That’s very obviously “Pocket Monster”, not “Master of the elements”. Some play on “Youkai” seems more appropriate, since that’s what they’re a stand-in for, or you could find an appropriate Latin word. Kingdom names also can’t be multiple words, to avoid confusion with kingdom + phylum form.

[They form the dominant species of Earth, owing to their tremendous strength and monstrous power, carried out through their channelling of kara, the energy flowing through all living things, to manipulate the elements of the world.]

While not technically a run-on, this sentence is unwieldy with many subjects. I’d recommend rephrasing it into more compact sentences.

[Pokémon come in a variety of shapes and sizes, with skins that are naturally resistant to specific environments, such as those living in the cold northern territories adapting to have hides that keep out the cold, while those living in rivers, lakes, seas or oceans have impermeable skins which insulate the body and maintain their body temperature.]

Okay, so, a lot of fanworks in this vein talk about pokemon like this, and it never makes sense to me that people would actually describe them like this. Even if this were talking about animals, this kind of description would be astoundingly oversimplified, and pokemon make even the weirdest animals look like portraits of consistency and mundanity. “A variety of shapes and sizes”? I mean, that’s technically correct, but it’s simultaneously so general as to be meaningless and also hilariously inadequate for a group that can range from a tick to a blue whale to a sapient ice cream cone. “Skins naturally resistant to specific environments”? Not all of them have skin. There are pokemon made of rock, armor plating, pure ice, to say nothing of the ones that are just pure energy like ghosts.

I think you should think about exactly what information is going to be important to your story and exactly what you want to convey. Understand that everyone reading this is already familiar with both animals and pokemon, so generalities are unnecessary. What’s unique about your interpretation of pokemon? Where can we assume they’re the same as animals and where can’t we?

[while those living in rivers, lakes, seas or oceans]

Also, missing Oxford comma here. You may have been told to avoid the Oxford comma, but that is actually untrue; the Oxford comma was only dropped to save ink in newspapers, and should be used everywhere else. They are vital to avoid ambiguities, such as when dedicating a book to your parents, Ayn Rand and God.

[Pokémon are separated into “types” based on shared physical characteristics and abilities, such as aquatic locomotion or fire-breathing.]

That’s not how types work. Pokemon can demonstrate abilities outside their native types just fine. Types are a classification of how they interact with the world; the definition of the types is how they react to other types.

[These types are further divided into groups denoting their rarity in the wild, in the order of Common, Rare and Legendary]

Those are really obviously game terms that make no sense in a realistic setting. Like real animals, their commonality varies wildly depending on location. Eevee are dirt common in Kalos and are found almost nowhere else, for instance. The only objective classification you could give is based on total population numbers – and that could be interesting, to see if some pokemon are endangered and what humans do about that.

[and further still into the classes of Mammal, Reptile, Bird, Amphibian and Invertebrate]

As you wouldn’t capitalize those words normally, they shouldn’t be capitalized here. You only capitalize if you’re referring to the official scientific name, e.g. Mammalia, Reptilia, Aves.

Also, how does the sapient ice cream cone and sapient pokeball fit into this classification?

[Legendary are Pokémon species who have only ever been glimpsed at from a distance by professors and their assistants and whose name is only ever spoken of in tales by the fire]

I think the word you want here is “mythic”, which is also an official media classification. However, I don’t think the scientific community would like such a fanciful term. It would make more sense for them to not acknowledge mythic pokemon at all until they’re confirmed – evolutionary biologists don’t class Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster as official animals, at least not as anything other than a joke. That seems more the domain of historical scholars like Cynthia than the clinical profession implied by the tone of this piece.

[Pokémon can be either warm- or cold-blooded, depending on which typing they belong to, such as Fire- and Dragon-types having warm blood in order to maintain their body temperature and to be able to produce the necessary internal heat to form their unique fire breath]

Uhhh. That sure is one way to put it, but I think being able to literally light yourself on fire at a whim is a categorically different situation than just being able to maintain your own body temperature.

[while Ice- and Water-types are cold-blooded in order to reduce the expensive consumption of energy when swimming in the heat sink that is water as warm-blooded Pokémon would have to do.]

Uh, that’s not why fish are cold-blooded in real life. Ectothermy is adequate in aquatic environments precisely *because* water is such a good heat sink that the kinds of extreme temperature variances that would necessitate endothermy don’t happen. This is a really bizarre way of looking at it – you seem to be coming from the perspective that endothermy is the default, but that’s forgetting that ectothermy was the original model used by most animals for hundreds of millions of years. Endothermy is a very recent adaptation that happened in response to very specific stressors.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that pokemon should be operating by different rules entirely – you really think a sapient ice crystal wouldn’t need to maintain its body temperature? Cryogonal would melt if it didn’t have some form of endothermy. It wouldn’t look anything like what we think of as endothermy, because its operating temperature is so much lower and it doesn’t appear to have any kind of blood, but it would need some form of temperature regulation.

[Depending on their environment and their typing, Pokémon tend to either have low defensive capabilities, but are incredibly agile, or are excessively slow, but have an immensely powerful stamina. There are many, however, that are able to have astonishing endurance and physical strength, as well as an astounding speed, although this is usually only found in Legendary or Rare Pokémon, especially Dragon-types.]

…No? Defense tends to inversely correlate with Speed, but it’s not really a hard rule. You mention exceptions, but the exceptions are more numerous than just legendaries and dragons. (This also makes no mention of special vs. physical stats, which is bizarre because the inverse relationship there actually *is* a relatively consistent trend.)

To say nothing of the fact that this is a very unscientific overview, focused entirely on their battle stats. It would make sense for a trainer manual to focus on these trends, but why would a researcher get into this before even mentioning battles at all? If you want to make a more “realistic” world, you should try to show how people would interact with them differently than we as game players would.

[capable of changing the surrounding area to their preferred biome in the situation of where they would need to leave their native land to live somewhere else.]

This is an incredibly awkward way of phrasing it. “…capable of changing the surrounding area to their preferred biome even in climates normally unsuited to it,” maybe.

[This quickly drains the kara from the body and, although Pokémon have a lot of this energy, cannot be sustained for too long.]

Looks like a word was dropped here.

[Pokémon have an incredibly high pain threshold, utilizing their kara to better withstand any and all attacks to prevent as much damage as they normally would.]

This is a good bit, though, and explains the fainting mechanic and actually justifies the “not affected by injuries” mechanism of RPGs.

[Normal

Recognized by their dull brown, white, pink or grey colour schemes]

No. Normal-types have no specific color scheme. Theirs is the *absence* of such a thing. They’re the closest things to mundane animals, relatively untouched by the supernatural and its psychedelic color schemes.

[Normal-types have extremely sensitive hearing, smell, sight and touch to compensate for their lack of musculature, as their exceptional speed necessitates that they be light on their feet, hard to attack and able to flee at any time.]

Uh… snorlax? Miltank? Normal is the most diverse type. The only reliable trend is that they tend to have high HP, and even that’s not absolute. Where are you getting this fragile speedster classification from?

[They constantly store heat in their bodies, causing them to have high body temperatures and forcing them to periodically release steam from their nostrils or mouth.]

Good explanation for fire-types’ frequent flaring, but what do you mean by “storing heat”? Are they absorbing fire kara from the environment like a sponge, or merely very good at preserving the heat they generate naturally?

[This has been perceived as a sign of an imminent attack, although this is not the case, as Fire-types are extremely territorial and will kill anything that enters it within seconds.]

Pronoun disagreement here – you want “…anything that enters their territory…” or similar.

[Species belonging to this class are the most common to be used, simply because of their sheer power.]

Huh? What sheer power? Like fire itself, fire-types burn bright and then burn out. They’re glass cannons, making them less than viable in the long term. It’s good to have a few, but they’re hardly the most common trainer pokemon we see. And especially in a more “realistic” setting with permadeath, I somehow don’t see raging infernos being easy to tame, especially as you’ve just described them as violent and hyperaggressive on top of having one of the most dangerous and uncontrollable elemental powers.

(And once again, this text is evaluating them purely based on how a trainer would use them, not on how a researcher would look at them. You should establish at the beginning that this is a trainer’s guide or something if that’s the tone you want to strike.)

[Masters of the oceans, lakes, rivers and ponds, Water-types can control water in all of its forms, be it steam, ice or vapour.]

Uh, no, not ice. Many water-types can use ice moves, which you can take to say they’re related karas, but ice is pretty explicitly a separate class of thing in the Pokeverse.

[Their bodies are streamlined and normally webbed]

Uh… the amphibians, sure, but what about all the fish?

[Camouflaged against their forested environment with a floral pigmentation, Grass-types form a symbiotic relationship with parasitic plants in order to gain their secondary control over light through chlorophyll.]

Ah, that’s a nice explanation for Solar Beam. It’d have to be a modified form of chlorophyll that can release the stored energy as light, though.

[There are some, such as parasect, who are unable to maintain command of their own body and mind, and lose their will to the parasite. Grass-type Pokémon make up a majority of the tallest species, as their height is their evolutionary method of gaining the sunlight that they need in order for their parasitic plants to survive and to be able to utilize their light manipulation.]

This is a bit unclear – are you saying that grass-types are actually animals, and their plant appearance is actually due to a symbiosis with mundane plants? If so, that’s unclear, as you only mention light powers in relation to the parasitic plants. Due to their weakness to things that kill plants specifically, it would make more sense if the plants were their actual bodies and not just optional add-ons.

[They say that an Electric-type is born every time lightning strikes the ground, birthing these hellish beasts]

Pikachu is a hellish beast? This is a shockingly opinionated statement on what has been a clinical analysis so far.

[Living across tundra, frozen deserts and snow-capped mountain ranges, holding power over ice and cold, Ice-types bear the same weaknesses as all agility-focused typings, meaning that they lack the physical strength to withstand most attacks.]

Where are you getting the idea that ice-types are “agility-focused”? Most have slow to average Speed.

[They are more than likely to simply avoid confrontation]

Actually no, according to the Pokedex ice-types are actually one of the most malicious types.

[glossy, cold-resistant coats of shimmering pale blues and whites]

Uh, cryogonal? Glailie? Regice? Lapras, for that matter? Not all ice-types are mammalian or even any kind of animal at all. Pokemon are too diverse to make sweeping statements about, even within individual types.

[Their bodies are kept at a constant temperature below freezing]

That’s warm-bloodedness. Warm-bloodedness is defined by the ability to regulate your own body temperature; it has nothing to do with what that temperature actually is. We only call it warm-bloodedness because the animals that use it all require high body temperatures, but in a world where that’s not consistent it would make more sense to call it something else or just discard the classification entirely.

[by their innate ability to manipulate the temperature of any and all organic and inorganic matter]

Careful, you just said they can light stuff on fire. Temperature manipulation can go both ways. It would make more sense to describe this in terms of kara, and say that their energy is specifically some kind of heat void.

[[Fighting-types] channel their kara to enhance their muscles to the point where this typing is strictly carnivorous, feeding on Pokémon larger than themselves just so that they can gain the nutrients necessary to sustain their physique.]

That does not sound remotely sustainable. If a creature is using magic to give itself an impossible body, it can only be sustained by magic. Especially given that not all fighting-types are actually hypermuscular, it would make more sense to say that they have magical super-strength out of proportion with their physical capabilities.

[shattering their opponents bodies]

Missing apostrophe here.

[Their toxicity defines them, as their bodies are normally coated or secreting a poison capable of either melting a human into liquid within minutes or causing a complete and rapid shutdown of organ functions.]

Poison doesn’t melt people. That’s their Acid attack. It’s kind of silly to toot your horn about knowing the difference between poisonous and venomous and then make such a simple mistake. The word you want for this is “caustic”; that wouldn’t be a reasonable extension of poisonous chemicals scientifically, but if you take a more magical-realism, youkai-esque approach, it’s quite reasonable to say they have power over all types of corruption and decay, thus covering both toxins and caustics. You could also split the difference and say they’re really more of a “chemical” type, with poison kara conveying the ability to manipulate complex compounds. (That’s actually consistent with newer pokemon like salazzle, come to think.) As a cool bonus, that would actually mean they don’t have to literally throw poison at you – poison magic could also involve directly manipulating the target’s body chemistry to make them sick, which would give the impression that poison-types simply radiate some kind of toxicity field, that they corrupt the world by their very presence. That would be really cool, and serve to make them incredibly terrifying.

[This presents an unfortunate hazard when it comes to human civilization, as Pokémon such as muk and weezing have been known to invade human settlements in search of recently deceased bodies]

That’s… rather random, thematically. Muk and weezing represent pollution, rather explicitly. They feed on toxic waste and are possibly born from it. Toxic waste is also just a better source if they need to feed on toxic chemicals – carrion is gross to us, but it’s made gross by decomposers, not poison. It’s possible poison-types could use the bacteria as factories to create more poison for themselves, but they’d likely have their own microbiome already that would just be endangered by new additions – unless, again, you want to take a magical realism approach and say they are metaphorically linked with the concept of disease itself.

(Fun fact: Poisoned corpses actually tend to stay intact the longest, because the poison kills the bacteria too. That’s why we preserve cadavers in formaldehyde: it’s incredibly toxic and kills any bacteria trying to get in. It’s the mortuary people’d have to defend, not the graveyards.)

[They can create gusts of wings]

Typo.

[Psychic-types are adept at manipulating the kara within the body, light and the mind]

One of those things is not like the others. It would be reasonable to say their telekinesis extends to the ability to bend light (that seems to be how the latis’ illusions, work, certainly), but that’s not obvious just from this description.

In general, I actually find psychics to be something of a contradiction, thematically – they have both “internal” power over the mind and “external” power over the world through telekinesis, and those things don’t really have any connection to one another. If I had to guess, I’d say that it seems to be the power of *will*, that they can make things happen just by wanting them. This also ties into the repeated saying that psychic powers require immense discipline and can easily go awry.

[Sound is [Bug-type]’s specialty]

No, sound attacks are normal-type. While it’s never been clear exactly how bug attacks work, I don’t think Bug Buzz has to do with the literal force of sound, because Boomburst already does that and it’s not bug-type.

Bug-type has always been one of the weirdest and least clear typings in Pokemon. The rest of the types all have some sort of clear magical flavor to them, but bugs are just… bugs. There’s some speculation they’re supposed to represent “superheroes” based on Japanese popular culture, but that’s not based in anything deep, just that rhinocerous beetles look like they’re wearing samurai helmets.

I’d say the biggest mythological trait of bugs is that they’re alien. They think differently than us, they look differently than us, they act differently than us. It’s widely speculated this is why they beat psychics: psychics have no idea how to defend against their alien minds. If you want to take it further, you could maybe say they represent the power of “madness” – their strange sounds and movements drive people to irritation and distraction, their very presence attacking our minds due to the nature of their “otherness”, like Lovecraftian monsters. This makes things like Bug Buzz and Signal Beam mental attacks rather than physical ones – and given pokemon are highly magical, you could say that damages their kara just like a physical attack would, explaining why it does the same kind of damage.

[[Ghost-types] can control the very kara within the body without the need for human interaction, in the same way as Psychic-types can]

I don’t recall you mentioning this before. This sounds like a very intriguing detail, so I’d appreciate a section on it.

[Many of their murders have been caused by their hedonistic impulses and desire for a quick laugh, not in the least bit helping their almost universal reputation as the most malicious type of Pokémon.]

That’s how gengar behave, not so much the others. Like with many of these, you seem to be taking a single pokemon and using it as representative of the whole type when that’s really not true.

[[Dark-types’] naturally weak frames prevent them from fighting directly with their prey]

Dark-types don’t have naturally weak frames, else they’d be weak to all physical attacks. They’re weak to Fighting because paladins beat demons.

[Dark-types are pragmatic, taking any opening they can to hurt or kill their opponents, and are known for their ruthlessness when given such a chance, tearing throats out, pulling bodies apart with tendrils of shadow, or suffocating humans in thick blankets of darkness.]

What attacks are you referencing here, exactly? As you identified earlier, shadow and darkness attacks are ghost-type, not dark-type. Dark-types don’t have power over literal darkness; their power is over savagery and ruthlessness, metaphorical darkness. Even Dark Pulse is a mental attack, not a literal wave of darkness.

[[Dragon-types] are capable of flight through the development of membranous wings]

Not always. While most dragon-types seem based on Western dragons, there are several Eastern ones with no visible wings. Altaria’s wings aren’t membranous, either.

[all are capable of breathing a purple and yellow-tinted stream of electricity, which many have confused for fire.]

No. Electricity doesn’t “stream” the same way fire does. TV shows do it that way because it looks cool, but actual electricity a) moves too fast for us to visibly see and b) requires a circuit, it can’t just stream out into nothing. An electrical blast would look like an instantaneous flash of lightning, not anything that could be mistaken for fire. This would normally fall under artistic license, but the moment you say this is supposed to be “realistic” you lose that.

[Their talent lies within their ability to, as with Normal-types, control kara for a myriad of elemental affects, such as controlling electricity or fire.]

That’s just not true. Dragon-types have some of the most limited movepools of all pokemon. Dragon-type attacks clearly aren’t just electricity or fire because those are already types. Dragon-type energy is something categorically different.

[Armoured in steel shells to protect their soft, grey skin, Steel-types hold mastery over metals.]

So here, you run into the issue that you already said rock-types have power over minerals. Minerals contain metal, so there shouldn’t be a meaningful distinction here. Metals do have distinct physical properties from nonmetallic crystals, but they’re still so similar it’s hard to say why pokemon would have power over one but not the other.

The real reason steel is a different type is because in Chinese myth, Metal is a different element from Earth. I think it’s most helpful to look at this from a human perspective rather than a physical one: why do *we* think metal is a categorically different thing? In the context of Pokemon, I think it makes sense to see Steel as representative of technology. Supposedly steel-types only appeared recently – obviously a cover for their sudden appearance in Gen 2, but if taken at face value, their existence must be tied to recent developments. And certainly, *worked* metal, of the kind you see on steel-types, isn’t something that exists in nature. And I just realized you could even symbolically tie that to their weakness to Ground! They’re a product of our control over nature, so they exist apart from the earth.

[The most intelligent species of Pokémon are Psychic-type Pokémon, particularly humans and alakazam.]

Oh, so humans are classed as pokemon in this? That’s a very cool detail. Typing them as psychic also explains why we occasionally see human psychics.

So… Like most works of this type, I don’t quite see what is gained by adding “realism” here. Pokemon are magic. That’s what’s cool about them. Taking the magic away just reduces them, to me. It’s great to think about ecology and how these things would really behave, but you can do that with high magic too, and I personally think that’s a much more interesting exercise. The ecology of things that obey logical scientific rules is already a well-trodden subject, since that’s how things actually work. I don’t think that really needs a whole supplemental primer to explain; it’s pretty obvious for us to posit that yeah, fire-types live in hot areas, different types have favored diets, etc. That doesn’t add much to a story; many of these passages are just stating the obvious. The only really unique ideas I’ve seen here are the idea that humans are classed as pokemon and that mammalian pokemon are viviparous; the latter of which is trite and the former of which is highly interesting but clearly won’t be the subject of this piece.

Recall that pokemon are actually based on youkai, which are incredibly bizarre and diverse creatures operating on very different rules than animals. I think there’s more potential in a story that leans into that interpretation and takes a more magical-realism approach. Muk don’t just feed on toxic waste, they *are* toxic waste. Poison-types don’t just make toxins through mundane means, they *are* corruption itself. Steel-types aren’t just animals who happen to have armor plating, they *are* metallurgy itself. And so on. I’d recommend the story “Gods and Demons: ad terminos terrae” as a good example of this kind of approach.

It all comes down to what kind of story you want to tell of course, but you don’t need to feel obligated to make this “realistic” or think that that makes the story objectively better. There are things you can do with the fantastic you can’t do with the realistic, and vice versa.

Hybrid tapped out almost immediately instead of actually responding. I am disappoint :(

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13119164/1/The-New-Kids

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13119309/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-the-Series-The-Beginning-Redone

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13119514/1/Chemistry

Blocked, don’t recognize them. “Criticism is welcome, but please refrain from being rude, as I will block you immediately.”

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120095/1/New-Clothes

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

[‘Well, well, well – maybe there’s another solution,’ she pondered.]

You shouldn’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.

[Caroline watched Brendan with sharp could make out flickers of his clearly unnerved face]

Something was dropped here.

[And Arceus’ only knows]

Unnecessary apostrophe, and using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. Why would a Hoennite be swearing by a Sinnohan deity? It’s fine to just use “God”.

[“Were you getting my daughter a special something, hmm?” she leaned in with a smirk.]

When narration doesn’t describe how something is said, it’s its own sentence and is punctuated accordingly. So this should be [“Were you getting my daughter a special something, hmm?” She leaned in with a smirk.]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120097/1/How-to-Catch-a-Legendary-Become-Champion-and-Rule-the-World

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

[Man, I can just imagine my conversation with Grandpa tonight:

Grandpa: So, Madeline. How was your day? Have you found somewhere to work yet?

Me: Oh, let’s see… got rejected by the Game Corner yet again, tried to steal someone’s pidgeotto and failed, lost all my money, and got thrashed by some nine-year-old. With just a caterpie. Yeah, my day was great, thanks for asking. So, how was yours?]

Script format isn’t allowed on this site, even in asides like this. It’s best to format this as dialogue.

[“We’re battling,” I say, pointing at Ratty and the youngster.

Hondew’s grin vanishes from his face.]

So, this makes it seem like Hondew doesn’t like battling – and as we go on to see, he’s pretty miserable during the battle. It’s rather cruel of Madeline to force him to fight in this scenario, especially when she knows he’s going to lose. Even if trainers won’t accept a refusal, she can forfeit. Not doing so is cruel to Hondew.

I do like the battle, though – you’re describing the pokemon’s movements a lot and having them interact with the environment, which is cool.

This is a pretty good opening and concept. I like that you’re starting with an established trainer with a nonstandard backstory. However, your writing feels a bit simplistic and dry. Most of them just describe immediate events one at a time. You should try experimenting with longer and more complex sentences.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120616/1/A-Journey-of-Short-Stories

Author doesn’t allow PMs, so can’t tell if I’m blocked. The story is about the Unova Strange House which I just cannot bring myself to care about, so no review.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120628/1/Reality-Shift-Pokemon

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120700/1/Waking-Up-in-Unova

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.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120793/1/Arrival-to-Alola

Seems you’ve been visited by one of Hybrid of Fate’s sockpuppets. I’m just going to say that they have repeatedly said they will stop posting those warnings if I stop reviewing, yet mysteriously, they don’t make them when I’m actually reviewing and start up again whenever I take any time off. This despite authors unilaterally telling them they hate those warning reviews more than anything else. And, yes, they’re going to keep spamming the story in response to this review too. A list of their sockpuppets and some explanation is on my profile, for the curious.

Anyway, 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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

[A year after being Hoenn, it is time to go to Alola!]

Summaries should tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot? Who’s the main character? Is there something important about Hoenn and Alola? What is this story about, basically?

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

[The trainer nodded and smiled to her pokemon at her side who smiled too]

Missing punctuation here.

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.

[“Ser..ena..”]

Ellipses are always three dots, never more or less.

[Well then, Serena – san]

The dash looks odd here, since that’s usually used to denote a pause. You want a regular hyphen for honorifics.

[Chapter 2]

Posting multiple chapters in the same document is against the site rules, because it’s incredibly confusing. Please just use the chaptering feature.

[A while later…]

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

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.

This is rather hard to follow. I recommend getting a beta reader to help you with some of these errors.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120963/1/Advanceshipping-Week-2018

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.

[“There it is!” he grinned]

When narration doesn’t describe how dialogue is said, it’s its own sentence and is punctuated accordingly.

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.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120273/1/BLACKOUT

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

[orange hudes lighting up the panels in the front of the car.]

Should that be “hues”?

[Along the motorway and the car sped along with a steady thrum which had rapidly become repetitive, making all of them feel sleepy.]

This sentence doesn’t make sense. It looks like the product of multiple changes?

[After what seemed like hours, the man turned to the women.]

Typo here.

[So how far to go now Jenny?]

This needs a comma before “Jenny”, as it’s a direct address.

[After a moment, she dimmed her lights for a passing car, before speaking,

‘About another hour and a half, maybe two.’]

The new speaker – new paragraph rule is actually an extension of a new paragraph starting with a new subject, of which a speaker is one. That means it’s actually best to pair a speaker’s actions with their dialogue even when the actions don’t relate to it.

“Speak” is also, ironically, not a speech verb, so the narration would have to end with a period here.

[‘What they did in that lab was terrible…’ Jenny stated]

“Stated” isn’t a synonym for “said”, and it’s not appropriate here.

[The world of BLACKOUT is set in a future in which humans have been forced to leave Earth due to climate change. Taking pokemon with them, mankind had the ingenuity to genetically manipulate themselves to be better suited to the tough environments beyond our planet. In doing so, a slave race known only as spectre were also created to do the dirty work in creating and running a society.]

Uh… that seems rather redundant with pokemon, which are already a slave race for humans. This sounds like something more suited to an original science fiction setting.

This is really hard to follow. You have numerous grammatical errors and unclear phrasings that make me unable to understand what’s going on in several passages. I strongly recommend getting a beta reader to help you with this.

I also don’t understand the purpose of the framing device, as you’re narrating the contents like a regular story anyway.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13120409/1/Splintered-Bonds

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

[*pitter patter pitter patter*]

This isn’t a comic book. In prose, this kind of wake-up sequence is generally done without sound effects, and with the dialogue in italics to show an altered state of consciousness.

[Only twenty more minutes before school got out.

*shhhhhhrrrrrrr*

Blake groaned in despair and dropped his head onto his forearm. The sprinkling of rain only an hour earlier had picked up into a downpour, and his mom wasn’t able to pick him up from school today. He would have to walk home. At least school was less than five minutes away from his house.]

It looks like there’s a timeskip here. You need to make a scene break to notify the reader time has passed.

[it’s owners left it outside]

You want “its”. “It’s” always means “it is”.

[He carefully handed the bundle to his Mom]

When “mom” isn’t used in place of a name (so, when it has an article in front), it’s not capitalized.

[“Seen what Mom?” Blake inquired.]

“Inquired” is way too formal for this scene. “Asked” is fine.

This is an okay opening, but it’s very slow. I mean, it must be several thousand words, and you’ve only just gotten to the inciting event. A lot of the in-between details like Blake’s time at school and what he’s eating for supper aren’t really necessary, and just distract from the main plot. It’s perfectly fine to skip over chronological details that aren’t important; that’ll help the story flow better and make it more engaging.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121259/1/A-Little-Pocket-Change

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

You correctly don’t capitalize “pokemon” in your summary, but you do so at a few other points. It’s best to be consistent.

[Tick…tock…tick…tock]

Sound effects are hard to do in prose. If absolutely necessary, they are generally italicized to keep them separate from normal narration.

[It was late in the afternoon during the last class of the day, everyone was on the edge of their seats as nearly everyone watched the clock.]

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

[Bryan got up as I threw some stuff into my backpack, “So, Elena, what are you planning on doing the rest of today?”]

When narration doesn’t describe how something is said, it’s its own sentence and is punctuated accordingly. So this should be [Bryan got up as I threw some stuff into my backpack. “So, Elena, what are you planning on doing the rest of today?”]

[“I’m glad to have someone understand me for once, besides other pokemon.” Galla smiled at me.]

Uh. So, how exactly does pokemon training work in this story? Because if pokemon are treated like trainers’ property like they are in the games, it should be pretty horrifying to discover they’re just as smart as people, and the pokemon should have a lot more feelings about finally being able to prove this.

[Meanwhile, Galla the Girafarig and Lumb the Timburr stayed behind as their trainers usually brought them pokemon food. Boy, I wonder if I’ll have to start eating pokemon food too?]

Seriously. She’s horrified at the concept of being treated like a pokemon, but it doesn’t occur to her at all that it’s wrong to treat pokemon this way?

[“Wait, is that Dylan?” Bryan observed]

Missing punctuation.

This seems oddly written, and quite slow. The characters are incredibly chill and just calmly taking things as they go. The transformed humans can still be understood, so this isn’t a significant impediment. I don’t see much tension here.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121299/1/Abandoned

Blocked, previously encountered.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121447/1/Jack-s-Jumpchain-Journal-Pocket-Monster-Dimension

I’m not very familiar with jumpchain stories, so I’m probably going to be confused on several genre conventions. If this is intended to be a series, you should really post it on Archive of Our Own, or at least provide a link to previous entries.

[the Cash Flow exercises]

“Cash flow” shouldn’t be capitalized, as it’s not a proper noun.

[I couldn’t figure out what gender they were, their facial features, sharp and elegant, were framed in long and fair white hair.]

The first comma here is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition. You make this error several times throughout the story; I’d recommend reading up on comma usage and sentence structure.

You’re formatting dialogue inconsistently. 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.

So as I said, this story seems very weird to me. This whole opening bit seems completely unnecessary; even if it’s important that the protagonist come from our world, you don’t need to explain how he gets there. Tediously explaining all the rules before we even begin just robs the story of mystery, and I’m not terribly interested in the answers since I’m not yet invested in the plot or characters. 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; and here, you haven’t even gotten to the inciting event. Start where your plot starts; you’re not obligated to cover every mundane detail leading up to the inciting event.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121555/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Ash-Dead-Vs-Evil

Previously reviewed, not blocked.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121689/1/Stories-of-the-Wilderness

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

[to travel the world and start a blog- but giving up on high-stakes adventure doesn’t mean it’s given up on her]

Using hyphens without spaces in place of dashes is confusing. To avoid people thinking you’re hyphenating words, you should put spaces around the hyphen, or use a double dash.

It’s probably clearer if you format the FAQ questions differently from the answers. Most sites make the questions bold.

[using a translater]

You want “translator”.

[Druddigon, use Night Slash!”

Aurelia yelped and vaulted over the back of the wall just as the move hit the other side. “This is a historical site, you jackass!” The Night Slash scored a deep trench in the dirt and sliced off the sole of Aurelia’s left hiking boot.]

If he ordered his pokemon to attack a human, isn’t that attempted murder? Aurelia is oddly nonplussed by this.

This is quite good! I like that you’re starting with an established trainer, and the battle was cool, with a lot of movement and dynamism. I do feel like you may be playing up the cockiness on Aurelia a bit too much, though – too much snark and aloofness can make a person feel like an unrealistic caricature, if not an outright sociopath. It’d be good to get a sense of stuff she does genuinely care about, to round her out.

It’s hard to tell where you’re going with the pokemon – though it’s nice that you’ve given them all personalities, Percy seems more like an extension of Aurelia than his own character at this point. It is a common fanfic pitfall to ostensibly make pokemon their own characters but just make those personalities cheerleaders for their trainers, which is rather shallow. There is also, of course, the question of why it’s okay for human trainers to own intelligent, talking creatures, but there is still room to elaborate on that. I do like the details about unown conservationism – even the simple idea of them being invasive in other regions is something I hadn’t thought of, but is a cool idea. (The punctuation symbols being native to Hoenn does imply they’re a legitimate sub-population, though.)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121706/1/NEW-Awesome-Pokemon-Sitcom-Season-4

Previously reviewed, not blocked.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121857/1/Pokemon-XD-Gale-of-Darkness-Rewritten

Blocked, don’t recognize them. “Please critique, both good and bad.”

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13121901/1/The-Champion-s-Birth

Previously reviewed, not blocked.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122136/1/Diodeshipping-One-Shots

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122143/1/Thorne-vs-Pokemon-Let-s-Go

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

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.

Anthros don’t make much sense for a prose story. If the appearance is important to you, you’re better off with a visual medium such as comics.

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.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124406/1/Prank-Too-Far

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124477/1/Born-Dragon-Raised-Human

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.

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.

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.

[YOU WONT TAKE]

Missing apostrophe.

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.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124115/1/Hoenn-Adventures-Revamped

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

[No, it isn’t a dream, I am indeed alive, whether that be good or bad news]

Uh, why wouldn’t it be good news? Are you okay?

Non-story chapters are banned on this site. This kind of announcement belongs on a blog or forum post.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124050/1/History-AmourShipping-BurningleafShipping

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

…However, I’m not familiar with the anime, so I doubt I’ll be able to review any content here. I really don’t understand the point of mixing anime and game characters, honestly, since the game characters are such blank slates you could easily just make up OCs instead.

You don’t need to label POVs when they’re obvious from context.

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.

Additionally, a new speaker means a new paragraph. Not doing this makes your dialogue too hard to follow to keep reading.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124010/1/Lillie-s-Journey

Previously reviewed, PMs disabled so blocked status unknown.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123958/1/Gary-s-Got-No-Allocades

Blocked, previously encountered. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123950/1/Pokemon-love

I should not have to tell you that “I” is capitalized. It is incredibly insulting to your readers you thought this was acceptable to post. Put a bare minimum of effort into this.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123818/1/We-ve-Got-Young-Blood-Can-t-Destroy-Us

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124537/1/The-return-the-friend-the-promise

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.

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

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. Or jeans.

You don’t need to list everyone’s teams; if that information is relevant, it’ll come up in the story.

You don’t need to label POVs when they’re obvious from context. Multiple first-person perspectives are also generally not recommended.

You’re formatting dialogue inconsistently. 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.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123503/1/The-Aura-Is-With-Me-Volume-1

Blocked, SnowLucario. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123443/1/Pokemon-The-Discovery-of-Soul-Sync-Evolution

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.

You’re capitalizing a lot of random words, which is rather jarring. Are you not a native speaker? I’d recommend getting a beta reader to help if you have trouble.

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.

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.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123409/1/What-a-Clich%C3%A9

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Reviewed by Talarc. Gamer fic.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123098/1/Tales-of-Anthro-Pokemon-and-humans-MxM

I see you’ve been visited by one of Hybrid of Fate’s sockpuppets. I’d just like to say authors have repeatedly told her they hate that warning spam more than anything I’ve done, yet she continues to do it, and do it on signed reviews that can’t be deleted at that. She’s a bully.

Anyway, 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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

I don’t really see the point of anthro pokemon in prose. If it’s the appearance that matters to you, you’d be better off with a visual medium such as comics.

[He was about to confess his love to the soccer star of the university, Lucas the Handsome Lycanroc.]

And indeed, you’re making the anthros behave like humans anyway, so there’s literally no connection to Pokemon aside from the names and appearance.

[Truth to be said]

This is an odd construction – “truth be told” is how it’s normally phrased.

You have a lot of verb disagreements throughout this, and jump between past and present tense, which is very jarring. I’d recommend reading up on these topics or getting a beta reader to help if you have trouble.

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7175780/Pokemon406

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122802/1/The-One-Left-Behind

Blocked, new user.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122698/1/Pokemon-VS-Zombies

Blocked, previously encountered.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122523/1/The-Soul-that-Sees-Beauty-May-Sometimes-Walk-Alone

Blocked, previously encountered.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13122514/1/From-Kalos-to-Kanto

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124645/1/Why-We-Die

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123241/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Kanto-Adventures

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

You might want to pick a more original title. There are quite literally thousands of titles in this category that are variations on, if not identical to, this one.

[Alvin and his two friend Exton and Matthias travel through the Kanto region, aiming to be the best that ever was, or more like the best in Kanto.]

Similarly, this could describe literally hundreds if not thousands of stories in this category. Summaries should tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot?

[Everyone was chattering excitedly, even the moody underpaid teachers were in a good mood.]

This 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.

[Mrs. Achino set my License on the table, as well as a Pokéball. I looked on curiously onto the Pokéball. I had never heard of starters being distributed like this. Usually starting trainers got a choice between a Water, Fire and Grass type.]

No, they don’t. Possibly that’s the case in Alola, but in every other region, it’s only a local event for the professor’s hometown or a unique favor because you’re personal friends. Most trainers get their first pokemon by lucky captures, as established by many of the early-route trainers’ dialogue (and the manga).

[“I’m sure you all have questions about the Pokéball currently in front of you,” Mrs. Achino stated]

“Stated” doesn’t really fit here, in a situation where she’s formally addressing a large group. “Announced” or “started”, maybe.

[to create withthe Pokémon]

Missing space. You have a lot of these errors throughout, possibly from a formatting glitch.

…And it’s an eevee. Look, I like eevee too, they’re very cool and all, but they’re also incredibly overused in this genre. In a story you should think about what your pokemon choices will mean for the plot; how will this inform the trainer’s character, what pros and cons will it provide on the journey, what story ideas can come from this? That means you should think about more than just what’s the coolest pokemon.

Eevee, for instance, are actually pretty bad starters – three of their evolutions require a significant purchase at a major city, two may not even be available in the region, and the other three are based on finnicky factors that are tricky for an inexperienced trainer to get right. On top of that, they have a poor movepool that makes them less than viable for the long term. Compare that to the traditional starters, which evolve at consistent benchmarks, start with useful elemental moves without needing to evolve first, and remain viable up to the end. So, there are actually interesting things you could do there – could this be a parable about pursuing flash over substance, where a kid gets a popular pokemon he thinks he wants only to find it can’t actually carry his team? But if not, if this is just going to be a standard journey where the eevee is inexplicably just as good as a regular starter… maybe consider trying out a less common pokemon, and giving him an eevee later? Even just a trainer story with a nonstandard starter, such as a rattata, can get you a lot of positive attention.

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.

The battle was decent – you have a good amount of description. However, I have to ask if you have a plot for this? The standard badge quest is not a plot. If you’re just trying to novelize the game, you’re going to peter out. That’s not an indictment of your skill, that’s simple fact backed up by years of data on these sorts of stories. The games don’t really have a plot, if we’re being honest. You should think about what kind of unique spin you want to take on this, and advertise it early on so people can get hooked.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123209/1/Pokemon-Adventure-Book-5-White

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

If this is part of a series, you should include a link to previous entries so people aren’t confused. Archive of Our Own has inbuilt functionality for this, if you’d like to crosspost.

[There lived a group of people known to be able to hear Pokémon’s voices]

While you are correctly not capitalizing “pokemon” in the story, you do so here.

[Cheren,my childhood friend]

Missing space.

[I look over to my table]

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

You’re formatting dialogue inconsistently. 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.

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. This is just a recap of a scene we’re already familiar with. Your summary implies there are going to be new additions to the main plot, so would probably be a good idea to lead with that. You’ll gain more readers if you advertise your story’s best strengths.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123155/1/Mild-Rocket-Gamer

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

[I didn’t know any of the Rocket Officers and such when I wrote this. PM me any information on the Rocket upper echelon.]

Bulbapedia is your friend there.

You can make a horizontal line in the in-site editor, or with an [hr] tag.

[I fidget at the cool crisp voice before giving a quick nod, “Yes.”]

When narration doesn’t describe how something is said, it’s its own sentence and is punctuated accordingly. So this should be [I fidget at the cool crisp voice before giving a quick nod. “Yes.”]

[My name is Calidus, an I am]

Typo here.

[please ask any questions as I guide you around base.” He looks coldly down at me with ice blue eyes, “You will not be able to later as asking questions is likely to get you….’Fired.'”]

So, real-life crime gangs do not actually kill people at the slightest excuse, because that’s just not practical. No one’s going to work for you if they know you’re just going to kill them, and covering up all those murders takes a lot of time and resources. This makes them sound more incompetent than intimidating. Especially when they’re apparently killing people just for asking how to do their job? Is this meant to be a justification for why Rocket grunts never seem to know what they’re doing?

[I gulp a little]

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

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.

[“Calidus, I assume this is the lad who will be going our little organization, hum?” Calidus simply nodded, “Affirmative Dr. Jene.”]

There should be a paragraph break here for the new speaker.

Okay, so, the nice thing about fanfic is that it’s a less rigid form of the games, not more. Video games aren’t nearly as fun to read about as they are to play. If what you really want is to design a video game, you ought to make an actual video game. Even if you’re not skilled with graphics, Twine could serve your purposes.

Furthermore, if this is a gamer fic, this is a crossover and should be labeled as such.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13123065/1/Pokemon-XY-Sparks-Ignite

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

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.

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

[The vast world of Pokémon, an ever expanding world filled with people and Pokémon alike. Pokémon, also known as Pocket Monsters, have lived alongside humans for as long as time can remember. They vary in shape, size, personality, and appearance. Today, we will follow the path of a soldier who crosses fate with a Pokémon that is undiscovered during his younger years. Let us jump back in time and see what awaits with this slowly unraveling fate.]

This isn’t necessary. Everyone reading is already familiar with the setting, and you already have a summary. It’s best to just get to the meat.

[Our Story begins]

Errant capital here.

[Location: Fuchsia City Morning, Kanto. 15 years ago]

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

Opening your story with a character waking up for the day is generic and horribly, horribly overdone, and to be honest, it’s so incredibly dull and boring a start that even if I hadn’t seen it, very literally here, thousands upon thousands of times before, I would still tell you you should have started at some other, interesting point.

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.

The style of this is bizarrely childish, like you’re narrating a story to a kid. It makes it very hard to take anything seriously. You might want to use a limited POV instead of an omniscient one.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124748/1/Light-that-burns-our-world

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

[1 month later, and a tired and aching Moon]

In prose, numbers less than 13 or so are written out with letters, and numbers must always be written out when they begin a sentence.

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. Or “gods”.

[It had easily cast aside the Ultra Recon team’s Pokémon like they were made of tissue paper, what chance did she, a complete novice have?]

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

[the beasts stray attacks]

Missing apostrophe.

[Though it was still in Alola, such was its power if she was found it was all over.]

It sounds like a word may have been dropped here.

[It wasn’t long now until her final destination well in this world anyway.]

You need a transition here.

[I just never imagined I’d be finding out whether the stories were true or not like this.]

This is awkwardly worded – “whether X were true or not” is already a very waffling, unwieldy construction, and only becomes moreso when appended to another clause. Something like “…never imagined I’d find out like this,” would be crisper.

[It was thought to have been destroyed when Giratina had broken through to their world but Moon was willing to believe that.]

It looks like you dropped a negative here. You’re saying Moon DOES believe the Red Chain was destroyed.

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.

I’ll stop pointing out these errors, but know that they’re very distracting. If you have trouble, you should get a beta reader to help you.

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.

This… does not seem to have much going for it, honestly. This is a pretty generic grimdark opening, and you’ve shown us absolutely nothing of what the real story will look like. There have been too many stories that start like this and then proceed to go on a completely ordinary journey where nothing actually happens for me to trust that this will be any different. In a story that requires a lot of setup, you need to have a long first chapter or at least post multiple chapters at once – remember that your first chapter is your biggest chance to hook your reader, and you have no guarantee they’ll continue to the next.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13124761/1/Daryon-s-Pokemon-Journey

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 are free to verify everything I say on Grammarly or other open-access grammatical resources if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong.

You might want to pick a more original title. There are quite literally thousands of titles in this category that are variations on, if not identical to, this one.

[This is a fanfic I am writing, where me and some friends travel the world of Pokemon. I will do my best to update regulary. Enjoy!]

You may also want to make a more descriptive summary. Summaries should tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot?

[Daryon, our main hero]

I strongly recommend using limited perspective over omniscient, as that helps us get into the characters and the narrative better. Omniscient perspective can be jarring if it takes a very detached, aloof tone like this.

[his best friend Cameron are watching]

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

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.

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.

[The next day]

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

The writing here is very simplistic and dry – you describe things in simple sentences, with little to no imagery or embellishment. You should push yourself to experiment with more complex sentences, as that will make your story more engaging.

And if this is your first story, I cannot stress enough how strongly I recommend pulling back a little and practicing with a shorter, easier story first. Writing a whole journey story is a huge undertaking that even experienced authors have trouble with. You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. These threads explain more:

fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/216173/174006281/1/Actually-Writing-an-OT-Fic-Part-1

fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/216173/174006152/1/Things-to-Consider-in-OT-Fic