A very decent OT fic that sadly does not show any indication of being in it for the long haul, a moemon fic that appears to not be porn, a fic about how hard it is to be persecuted for wanting to screw your property, a fic that just describes a game battle, and finishing off with a cool what-if where Mewtwo wasn’t abused.

Anime count: 13

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13056672/1/Second-Chances

Fire4Heaven is a sockpuppet and a pathological liar with a grudge against me, as explained in my profile. Now, then…

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

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.

[Fist Pokémon story]

Typo.

[Sure, city life was great and all but it was nice to finally have a change in setting.]

Should there be a comma after “all” here?

[Professor Elm was the only person in Johto licensed to give out Pokémon Trainer’s licenses so we had to venture all the way to New Bark in order to get one.]

There’s nothing in canon to suggest this is actually true – we see tons of trainers who mention starting from other towns, and almost no one has Elm’s official starters. I mean, as you’ve already pointed out, it just doesn’t make sense to force every kid in the country to fly to one small town before they can start their journey. The player character’s experience isn’t necessarily universal. (And more than that, it makes for a more interesting story if the protagonist doesn’t start in the exact same place as usual – a story about a kid starting in Blackthorn and working backwards actually sounds pretty interesting.)

[I was hoped that getting his first Pokémon would help him]

Tense trouble.

[“Like you would know!” He snapped.]

Dialogue formatting rules remain constant regardless of punctuation, so this should be [“Like you would know!” he snapped.]

[This seemed to make him fell a little better.]

Typo.

[“That’s Ok,”]

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

[That was one of the many things that mad Jeff great.]

Typo.

I’ll stop pointing these out, but there are a lot of them. You should proofread more thoroughly, or get a beta reader to help you.

[Ava smiled for the first time and patted it on his head. So she does have feelings, I thought.]

This seems a little cruel for Kira to be thinking. It would be pretty obvious to me that any kid doing that stone-cold act wasn’t really emotionless. If she’s 16 or 17 as implied by the opening it’s a little more reasonable, but as the big kid it seems like she should have a little more perspective.

[Instead of bright green, it’s body was a yellowish color and the leaf on its head was a rusty color. I had never seen one like it before.]

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

And, ehh… it’s okay to give your main character something special, but it should be for a reason. Is having a shiny starter going to meaningfully impact the story in some way, or is it there just because? I would recommend some moderation if it’s the latter. Giving your character pointlessly special things, especially this early on, sends the message that there’s going to be little tension because they’re going to just be handed the things they want.

[I abandoned my Pokémon and ran because I was too afraid to try. And I regret that decision so much.]

I don’t see why she can’t start up again if she wants to? There are plenty of older trainers who are clearly just starting out.

[I decided to name my Cyndiquil Helios, like the sun god. I figured it fits because Cyndiquil is a fire Pokémon.]

This is cute, and a very tween thing to do. I remember I had an OC who named ALL his pokemon after gods and mythic figures, because he was very extra.

This is very well-written. The pacing is engaging and the characters are all distinct and interesting. You say this is your first Pokemon story, though, so I am a little concerned about this in the long term. A lot of authors immediately want to write a trainer journey because that’s the plot of the games, but then they promptly fizzle out. This is because writing a trainer journey is actually really hard. It’s very long, but a lot of that space is hard to fill, because the structure the games give us has a lot of empty space and repetition. A lot of the games’ plot is just a vehicle for getting you into battles; and battles are inherently interesting when we play them ourselves, or in a visual medium where we can see the cool flashy moves, but in prose they’re not as interesting to read about.

You are ahead of the curve by having interesting characters with hints of long character arcs, but you’re still going to need to work hard to fill the plot itself. The anime may be instructive here – it added a ton of original content that wasn’t in the games, both large plot arcs and little episodic mishaps that caused more conflict for the characters to overcome. You’ll have to think hard about exactly what you want this journey to look like and how you’re going to keep it engaging.

If you’re interested in the subject, these threads might be instructive (you’ll have to put in the right symbols to make them work in the URL bar):

fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/143106745/1/Things-to-Consider-in-OT-Fic

fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/143219856/1/Actually-Writing-an-OT-Fic-Part-1

fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/143363660/1/Actually-Writing-an-OT-Fic-Part-2

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13056960/1/Real-Life-Poke-Trainer

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13056999/1/Half-Aura-Prince

Reposted story, blocked, previously reviewed, anime. I don’t know why this guy keeps reposting this.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057155/1/Fall-for-you

Fire4Heaven is a sockpuppet and a pathological liar with a grudge against me, as explained in my profile. Now, then…

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

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

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

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/13057231/1/Pokemon-the-Journey-RB

Covered by Talarc. I’m not blocked.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057280/1/Pok%C3%A9mon-Destiny-Episode-2-The-Reunion

Blocked, don’t recognize them.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057324/1/Goodbye

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.

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.

[“How’s Pikachu? Everything’s alright right?” Ash questioned fearfully.]

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057398/1/PLEASE-READ

Non-story content is banned on this site. Post this elsewhere.

This is that Windiken plagiarizer person. It looks like a new account, so possibly their old one did get wiped for plagiarism.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057637/1/My-Story-Adventures-in-Kanto

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 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.

[Join Luke and his friends as they discover a whole new view of the Kanto Region a year after the original Pokémon game.]

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

[The Pokémon universe, a vast remorse of adventure, dreams, and friendships. It is inhabited by countless creatures known as Pokémon. Pokémon and humans coexist with each other in friendship, peace, and harmony. Although we still have a lot to learn from them, we still have attained the peace we desperately sought throughout the millenia.]

Everyone reading this is already familiar with the game opening, so you don’t need to repeat it.

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.

Script format is banned on this site, and as such this story is at risk for deletion. You should switch to prose format.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057775/1/Forever-yours

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.

Your title needs to be fully capitalized.

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/13057697/1/The-Trials-of-Marena

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

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

[For what she hoped, even she was unsure. ]

This phrasing is a little awkward. “What she hoped for, even she…” is how it’s normally phrased.

[Her shoes were blue boots with black soles. They went almost to her knees, but had a good deal of distance between them. She wore her greyish blue stockings that had pencil thin black stripes running up the sides. They even had little yellow bows on them. Her shorts were short, but they connected to her stockings, so it was okay. They were blue and black, striped vertically and stylish. Though she had slight trouble getting her tail into them, she quite liked them. The tail in question was about a foot and a half long, including the end. It was ringed with yellow and black stripes. On the end was an orange bulb that she always thought looked like a Dragon Ball. It was about the size she would expect one to be as well and it was once said to her by someone she thought very wise that it was a sign of something powerful to come from her. Her top consisted of a yellow section around her stomach and breast area that was adorned with white borders. The sleeves were yellow and draped over her arms. They had blue and black stripes on the end and looked like a large robe sleeve. Around her neck, she’d put on a collar that matched the material of her top and was white with a dark, dark blue bow to fasten it. Her hair was blonde and went down past her breasts. It was divided into several beautiful locks today. She had taken great pains to get it that way. Her sky blue eyes were releasing their liquid onto the ground.]

I understand the urge to explain basic information to the reader to set the stage, but opening the story with description or exposition is actually not a good idea. Readers don’t actually need to know this stuff just yet to enjoy the story; things like how the character acts and what they’re doing matter much more in the long run. Show don’t tell, etc. This early on, you should stick to information that is immediately relevant. More minor details can come after readers have gotten invested.

“Releasing their liquid” also just sounds melodramatic. Sometimes it’s actually stronger if you don’t try to find a fancy synonym.

[She wanted to have a good day… but, so many things had gone wrong, that was a sheer impossibility.]

This is a comma splice. You need to split this sentence in two or use a different transition. “So many things had gone wrong that that was a sheer impossibility” would work.

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.

[Later]

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13057863/1/Courtship-of-the-Mermaid

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.

[(AN: Compare how excited Ash is to see Brock whenever he returns to every other character. Just do it.)]

Including author’s notes in the middle of a story is not a good idea. Stories run on immersion and suspension of disbelief; interrupting the story and pointing to the wires shatters that, much like an actor breaking character in a theater production.

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/13057911/1/ABCs-of-XYZ

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.

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

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.

[Sorry the chapter is so long. Hopefully the rest won’t be as bad.]

Actually, this is a pretty good length for a chapter.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058001/1/crystals-magical-poke-mon-journey

lol

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058088/1/gay-fanfic-the-unwanted-sequel

You’ve got coding errors. Preview your story before posting it.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058111/1/The-Hidden-Colony

Fire4Heaven and KingPyle are both sockpuppets of the same person. She is a pathological liar with a grudge against me, as explained in my profile. Now, then…

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

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

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

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

[The first thing I felt when I had woken up from my nice dreams was the tight coiling that was enveloping me from all over and I already knew who the guilty one was.That would be Fern, my serperior, she was around with my parents a couple years before I was born and was effectively my big sister she had gotten a bit overly attached towards me.]

You have a missing space at the end of the first sentence here. There should be a commas after “all over” and “before I was born”, but the comma after “my serperior” is a comma splice; you should split that sentence in two or use a different transition. “She had gotten a bit overly attached towards me” should also be a separate sentence.

Errors like these make the story very hard to follow. You should read up on proper comma usage, and maybe get a beta reader to help you. There are grammar guides on the internet that can help you with this.

[and I seen that Fern turned her head to look over at me while not loosening her coils at all, “Can you let me go so that I can get dressed, Fern?”]

When narration doesn’t describe how something is said, it’s its own sentence and is punctuated accordingly. So this should be [and I seen that Fern turned her head to look over at me while not loosening her coils at all. “Can you let me go so that I can get dressed, Fern?”]

[There was a simple reason why I chose to have my ‘home’ here-it reminded me]

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.

[My other pokemon friends that helped me beat the Pokemon League Champion were all released at the locations that I had caught them, so that they could find mates and have kids. My dream was achieved and after that, it didn’t seem fair for them to be far away from their kind.]

This is very nice of him. It’s rare to see trainers treat their pokemon as people with their own lives and desires.

…Which is precisely why the idea of pokephiliacs being unfairly oppressed gets pretty muddled. By default, trainers have a lot of power over pokemon. They have complete control over their movements through the ability to stuff them in stasis capsules at will, pokemon are reliant on their trainers for food and physiological needs, and if they were raised from an egg or otherwise extremely young, they may not be capable of living on their own or even understanding that’s a possibility. Pokemon are also literally treated as property. You can homebrew solutions to these issues, but you have to make it clear how you’re changing things from the default setup or you’ll run straight into a whole reef of consent issues.

[I’ve lived in Orre since I was fourteen, and pokephilia was illegal there, and the human would get ten years in jail and lose their license indefinitely, while the pokemon would be released into the wild, far away from their ‘abusive’ trainer. Despite this being the case, I still seen those types of couples nearly two times a week normally. So, does it seem so unnatural now?]

Like, his refutation here doesn’t actually give an explanation for why that law is wrong. How does he know the trainer wasn’t actually trying to rape the creature classified as their property and unable to escape them? Any relationship can turn sour or toxic, and that can end very, very badly even when the abused party isn’t classified as literal property of the abuser. How does Sam plan to deal with that when he sees it?

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. You’ve given a very basic overview of the character, but not much else, and the final scene cuts off rather abruptly.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058213/1/The-Adventure-of-Serenity

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.

[“Also, you have to let me choose first since I’m the oldest.” She snapped]

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 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/13058284/1/Roses-Are-Red

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.

[The boy was very tall, contrasting the petite girl sitting next to him. He had soft ivory skin and messy hair the color of caramel, and he had black framed glasses in front of his bright purple eyes. The girl on the other hand, had dark brown skin and even darker curly brown hair pulled into space buns, her lips shiny and cherry red.]

I understand the urge to explain basic information to the reader to set the stage, but opening the story with description or exposition is actually not a good idea. Readers don’t actually need to know this stuff just yet to enjoy the story; things like how the character acts and what they’re doing matter much more in the long run. Show don’t tell, etc. This early on, you should stick to information that is immediately relevant. More minor details can come after readers have gotten invested.

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.

If you use horizontal lines to separate your author’s notes, it might be a good idea to use a different marker for scene transitions; otherwise, your notes can look like part of the story.

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. I can’t tell what the plot of this story is going to be from this chapter – what’s this story going to be about, beyond characters taking general courses in things we already know?

And look, you really, really shouldn’t ask for characters. It might seem like it’s harder to think up characters than have someone else do it for you, but it’s actually far more work to try to figure out how to write a random batch of personalities and backstories, then figure out how you can make them fit into your story and get along with each other. If you make up characters based on what you need for your story, it’s not only a much better story for it, it’s easier to do. Almost all SYOC stories end up never updating, those that do often die after a chapter or two, and even the ones that continue a bit longer are plagued by meandering non-plots and characters who don’t seem to have any point to their scenes. If you just want general inspiration, it’s better to check out lists of public OCs and find ones that you know will work well with the story. Here’s one: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/128021680/1/Character-Bio-Thread

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058286/1/Ice-Cream

Blocked, don’t recognize them. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058404/1/Aloft

Fire4Heaven is a sockpuppet and a pathological liar with a grudge against me, as explained in my profile. Now, then…

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.

[To be a Pokemon Master?]

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon in the story itself, but it shouldn’t be capitalized here either.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058664/1/The-Life-of-Charonus-Book-2-Johto

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

A new speaker requires a new paragraph. Not doing this makes following your dialogue too difficult to continue reading.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058693/1/Agent-Lancerow

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 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.

While I normally favor “it” pronouns for legendaries, I do wonder if Mewtwo might prefer more specific ones – its behavior is very human-like, and it presumably chose a male voice and presentation in the movie. Thematically, using people pronouns would also help emphasize that Mewtwo is being treated like a person.

[agent Lancerow here]

“Agent” should be capitalized here, as it’s used as part of a name.

[Not them,” the fman told him.]

Typo.

[“What in Ho-oh’s name…”]

I am pleased you used the superior god pokemon here. Blessings to the Phoenix!

[“So how was it?” Fuji asked]

Missing period.

[You told me that created me]

Missing word.

I really like this! This is a really neat idea, and I love the idea of science working out instead of turning into a parable about hubris. The concept of created life is really fascinating in general, and it’s disappointing that it almost always goes down the well-trod “use and abuse” route.

As it is, though, I feel this story is a little lackluster – the focus is mostly on Mewtwo dealing with the problem, which of course lacks tension because, well, Mewtwo. I’d love to see more introspection and backstory – what are Mewtwo’s feelings on being a clone and an artificial lifeform, what motivated it to choose this path, and what led Dr Fuji to treat Mewtwo differently in this timeline? Still, this is an excellent proof-of-concept, and I hope it inspires more stories like it.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13058838/1/Velleity-or-not

Blocked, previously encountered. Anime.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059268/1/Married-to-a-hybrid

Blocked, previously reviewed.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059350/1/The-Mirage-of-Hell

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.

[Five years after the disaster that almost destroyed the world Shaun is trying to get over those he’s lost while protecting those he still has.]

This needs a comma after “world”, and the phrasing here is a little confusing. What is “the disaster”? If you’re referring to a disaster from canon, there are an awful lot of those, so it would be helpful to your readers if you could clarify which one this is about. If this is part of a series and referencing an event in another fanfic, you should make that clear so readers know where to start.

[He has a choice, he can help start a new society or he can watch the world burn.]

That comma should be a colon here.

You have a lot of errors like this throughout the story, and while they aren’t story-breaking, they are quite distracting and make some sentences hard to follow. I recommend reading up on proper comma usage and getting a beta reader to help you.

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 could honestly care less about whether I live or die]

This means he does care at least a little. You want “couldn’t care less”.

How is a nine-year-old capable of acting as a caretaker? Does he have parents?

[We pay taxes on time and swear allegiance to Team Aqua, the grunts like Randy and have offered me a position in the gang many times but I politely decline.]

This really sounds like you’re writing Randy as a teenager. A nine-year-old should not be capable of managing taxes or joining a criminal gang.

So, I understand the urge to explain basic information to the reader to set the stage, but opening the story with a long backstory exposition is actually not a good idea. Readers don’t actually need to know this stuff just yet to enjoy the story, and it’s not as interesting to read a summary of events as it is to read the actual events. You’ll tantalize readers more if you only give them a bit to start with and parcel the information out as it becomes relevant. Make them ask the questions before you give the answers; that’s how you hook them.

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.

If he’s going to accept the salazzle’s offer anyway, there’s really no point in dragging it out. Saying “and then a week of nothing happened” really kills the pacing of the story. I also honestly feel bad for the salazzle; Shaun has done nothing but savagely brutalize her when she has been unable to hurt him at all.

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. It’s not yet clear what the plot and story will be about, so I can’t tell if this story is worth reading further. Try to reach your inciting event within the first chapter.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059367/1/Electrifying-Fashion

Blocked, don’t recognize them. They say they want constructive criticism despite this.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059488/1/Cutthroat-Pokemon-Season-2-Fanfic

If this is part of a series, you should really link to the first story somewhere so people can follow what’s going on.

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.

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

I don’t understand what’s going on or what the point of this is.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059561/1/Celestial-Town

Blocked, previously reviewed. Crossover.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059685/1/Pikachu-x-Eevee

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

[‘I doubt she’ll be back anytime soon,’ he grumbles to himself]

You should be consistent about whether you use single or double quotes for dialogue.

[“Alright then fellas, your owner’ll come back to pick you up later, but ’till then,” he points towards the surrounding fence, “don’t go outside that there fence.”]

When interrupting dialogue with a non-speaking verb, the punctuation rules are different. For a quick action directly relevant to the dialogue like this, dashes outside the quotes are standard, like this: [“Alright then fellas, your owner’ll come back to pick you up later, but ’till then”–he points towards the surrounding fence–”don’t go outside that there fence.”]

[Having already turned around to explore a on her way over]

Dropped a word, I think.

Eugh, this reads like two children molesting each other. Please tag for that if that’s your fetish. And if I’m correct in reading the implication that the daycare is altering their behavior to cause this, that makes this dubcon, which is also a subject that’s disturbing to some people and should be tagged for.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059802/1/They-Keep-Walking

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

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

This is really good. I love the implications threaded into all the little details, and the flowing description is lovely. It’s really nice to see stories about the rough edges that most stories prefer to gloss over.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059977/1/Pokemon-FanDex-Completion

Non-story chapters are banned on this site, and as such this is at risk for deletion. A table of contents isn’t really necessary anyway – that’s the purpose of the dropdown menu.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13059977/2/Pokemon-FanDex-Completion

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

When a title (such as “mother” or “father”) is used in place of a name, it’s capitalized like one.

[Me and mother always argued about the craziest problems.]

That is really not good word choice. Lusamine was really abusive. Calling those problems “crazy” is really dismissive and disrespectful of that issue.

[But worse, I saw him.]

I don’t understand who this is supposed to be referring to. Is this based on the anime? If so, you should label the story as such. The characters and events of the different media are very different, so especially if you’re writing by vague implication, people are going to be very confused if you don’t specify where you’re coming from.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060008/1/Gladion

Don’t duplicate stories. You can post these as separate stories or compile them in one collection, but doing both floods the category and drowns out other peoples’ stories, which is very inconsiderate.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060066/1/Without-the-Sight

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

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 chapter will be a little shorter than the rest, but my goal for this chapter is just to explain the premise of the story a little bit before we really get into the action.]

I understand why you think you need to do this, but I would actually recommend getting straight to the action, because that’s what will get readers invested. This story is going to be about the characters and their struggles (I presume), so it’s helpful if you start with that, the heart and center. Show don’t tell, etc. Details like this can be worked into the story as they become relevant.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060143/1/Scattered-Light-UltraMoon-Wonderlocke

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

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym. Or kahuna, which isn’t even capitalized in the games.

[However due to crimes she committed in Kanto, she is unable to catch Pokemon.]

This needs a comm after “however”. You have similar errors throughout this, and while they’re not story-breaking, they are distracting. I recommend reading up on comma usage and getting a beta reader to help you.

You don’t need to title the story in the story body itself; that’s a bit redundant.

[“Bing…bing…bing”]

This isn’t a comic book. Sound effects should be described in prose.

[Finally a video of a well-tanned man wearing a lab coat came up on the screen. Oiled, bulking biceps could be seen underneath. Karma would have blushed if this had been the first time. She had blushed the first time she saw Professor Kukui on video.]

Ha. Oh, Kukui, learn how to wear a shirt.

[He waved, there was glint of silver around his ring finger.]

An interesting detail to notice. Is Karma disappointed?

[“Yeah.” She said.]

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.

[out here in Aloha]

Typo.

[It’s eyes]

Typo.

[It cuddled up next to the professor and Karma couldn’t help but notice that the brown patches in its fluff dug into the professor rather than bending to his strokes.]

This is a nice detail. It’s interesting to contemplate how fur is supposed to be compatible with rock.

[She must’ve flinched or something because Professor Kukui added,

“It’ll be fine. Only me and Kahuna Hala know about your past. It’ll be a fresh start! You’ll like Alola.”]

Dialogue should generally be grouped with the speaker – so this would be clearer if it was all one line.

The meowth bit is cute.

[I’m not letting you claw my faceagain.]

Missing space.

[A jigglypuff shaped carpet]

Compound adjectives, such as “jigglypuff-shaped” here, should be linked with hyphens.

[You ok?]

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

[She was so distracted she almost missed the pricking brush of grass against her ankle. “Crap!” She jumped back.

“Yaaaaaaahhh!” A thin brown Pokémon shot out of the grass. It launched at her leg with razor sharp teeth. Karma pulled back reflexively. She reached to her belt.

And felt nothing.

The Pokémon lunged again with the fury of a spearow. It narrowly missed her legs with its teeth.]

It doesn’t make sense to me for pokemon to be this aggressive. If people can get killed by wild animals just wandering five feet off the beaten path, that’s not a stable equilibrium. There’s no way they can leave these areas accessible to everyone and not lose half their kids constantly. If you’re going to make pokemon more dangerous, you need to have the rest of the setting adapt to that change – perhaps by walling sections off, making a clear boundary between “this is where humans live” and “this is where pokemon live”.

[“I’ll take this one! I already decided I wanted a Rowlet!” Hau lifted up the owl.]

Hau already has a starter when you begin, and that fact is pretty important to his character. This is also disregarding a very important component of the starter ceremony in SuMo, which is that the pokemon has to pick you too.

[welcome to Iki town]

All parts of a name are capitalized, so this should be “Iki Town”.

[her blond hair]

You want “blonde”. “Blond” is the masculine form.

[“Hey, everything alright?”

Karma shook her head. “No, the bridge-”

“Come on and meet the Kahuna!” Professor Kukui said grabbing her hand and pulling her along.]

You just said her hand was covered in splinters. Kukui looks awful if he just ignores how badly injured she is.

[It feels kind of weird to be going home before the sunrises though]

You want “sun rises”, two words, a sunrise is a noun.

[the guardian who’s shrine]

You want “whose”. “Who’s” means “who is”.

[Just a small battle. It’s not to the death. Even if it is, we have type advantage. Kitkat will be fine.]

So… her only concern about a battle to the death is that her own pokemon will be fine, not how grotesque it is that someone has to die for their amusement at all?

Your battles are very simplistic, and feel like they’re just adapted straight from the games – the pokemon just mechanically exchange attacks, and so far the battles have been over so fast they may as well not be there. You should think about how you can make battles more dynamic – could a pokemon press an advantage to get off multiple attacks at once, could pokemon use the environment to the advantage, might there be tradeoffs to their choices, such as giving up a favorable position? And more than that, you should think about what purpose the battles serve. If something doesn’t matter to the story, it’s a good idea to simply skip over it, and that applies to battles too. Conservation of detail; you should only focus on things that matter.

[Its, its not what it]

Typos here.

[Rotom zipped after her.

“Karma! Are you sleeping?” The teacher snapped, snapping Karma awake.]

You should add something here to show there’s a scene break.

This was pretty good, and has a solid ending. I like how much you’re adding to the story, and the callousness with which Karma trades away her starter shows she’ll be a dark and complex protagonist. I also like the way you’ve justified the catch restriction in-universe; as with so many nuzlocke rules, it make much more sense as the protagonist’s unique circumstance than a rule of reality. I’m rather unclear how old Karma is, though – her general world-savvy makes her sound fairly old, but other dialogue seems to imply she’s the normal starting age.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13060186/1/A-Breath-of-Fresh-Air

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.

[Hi there, and welcome, to A Breath of Fresh Air! More details are in the Authors’ Notes in the Prologue.]

That’s not really a good idea. This summary is going to determine if people click on your story at all. It’s a good idea to give your story pitch here, even if you have to compress it.

…Aaand similarly, you should have noted that it was Mystery Dungeon fic, because I’m unfamiliar with the franchise and therefore can’t give much in the way of meaningful feedback here.

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 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.

[Oh, Arceus no!]

Using Arceus in place of God sounds ridiculous and has no basis in canon. There are so many other, more appropriate god pokemon to use.

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/13060523/1/Extinction

Just a heads-up that this isn’t showing up as anime fic, which means people searching for anime fic won’t see it. You should label this as anime to get more readers.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061099/1/The-Adventures-of-Cardgage-and-His-Friends

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061101/1/Hand-of-Arceus

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

I’m not clear what’s going on here. Is this part of a series? Regardless, it’s not very interesting to read about a perfect Gary Stu going on about how awesome he is.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061192/1/Vivid-Resolve

Reupload, blocked. I’m pretty sure I reviewed this before, but I’m not certain.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061209/1/Are-You-Experiencing-Cyber-Intimidation-Forum-Announcement

The story archives are not your advertising board. Post this to a forum.

[Confidentiality]

You do realize that’s impossible, right? Forums are public. If you want to ensure confidentiality, your only solution is for people to tell you their troubles through PM.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061240/1/Fu-s-Johto-Journal

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

I appreciate that you’re not capitalizing pokemon.

This is decently written, but there’s not much point to novelizing a fun game, since the fun is in playing it, not in hearing about it. You might have more success with a Let’s Play.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061276/1/Travelogue

Just a heads-up that second-person fic sometimes gets classified as interactive and deleted, so you should make sure you have a backup of this.

[crunching footsteps and rustling leaving]

Did you mean “rustling leaves”?

This is really nice. I really get the sense that this is a cross-section of a greater journey, and you convey perfectly the sense of wonder at the natural world. “This is why you do it.” – Yes, that’s pokemon in a nutshell, isn’t it? I think there’s a lot of overlap between Pokemon fans and people who love animals and the natural world.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061469/1/Makhmud

Just a heads-up that this isn’t showing up as anime fic, which means people searching for anime fic won’t see it. You should label this as anime to get more readers.

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/13061549/1/Road-To-Become-A-Master-Of-Pok%C3%A9mon-Kanto-Arc

You appear to have forgotten to post your story.

And just a heads-up that this isn’t showing up as anime fic, which means people searching for anime fic won’t see it. You should label this as anime to get more readers.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061589/1/pls-stop-st-elmo-s-fire

LOL. I’m pretty sure this person is a troll. Everyone but Blaze is pushing back in the reviews, which is appreciated.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061636/1/Half-Aura-Prince

This story was reuploaded AGAIN. I have no idea what’s going on here.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061683/1/gay-fanfic-the-unwanted-sequel

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

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061873/1/Going-Home-On-A-Fire-Engine

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 don’t need to post your story title in the story body; it’s redundant.

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.

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

This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Pokemon.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061971/1/Vs-Archie-An-Explosive-Battle

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.

[Seafloor Cavern]

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

[Archie turns to me and says,”Well]

Missing space.

You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.

[The super-ancient Pokémon Kyogre. With him and the blue orb]

Kyogre is genderless. Calling it “he” reinforced the harmful and sexist idea that male is the default.

[But hey, at least I don’t have to literally fight death. Like some other protagonist]

Missing space, and this is way too meta to take seriously.

[‘I didn’t want to reveal this technique so soon, but I think it’s time for it’s battle debut.’]

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. Thoughts also follow the “new speaker means new paragraph” rule, so this should be on a new line.

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

The battle description is decent, but there isn’t anything else here. I mean, you literally cut the story off as soon as Archie is defeated. Where’s the payoff? Keep in mind that what’s exciting in a game or movie isn’t necessarily exciting in a story, as they’re very different formats. You should think about what you can do in prose that you can’t do anywhere else. What are the emotional states of the characters? How do they feel about what’s going on? Are the battles metaphorical for their own psychological or thematic struggles?

And more than that, you should try to think about more dynamic battles. This battle reads like the pokemon are fighting in a void, like, well, in the games. There’s more to a battle than just describing an attack, how it hit/how the enemy reacted, and then advancing to the next move. Your trainer is clever for using special moves, but they don’t meaningfully change the pace of battle, they’re just harder hits. Think about how the anime and manga frame their battles – the pokemon use their environment and situational resources to their advantage, they may exploit a weakness to overwhelm the opponent with lots of attacks, or conversely, they may hunker down to exhaust the opponent before striking back. Especially as this is a high-level battle, you should be thinking about the environment – do these powerful energy blasts just dissipate completely as soon as they’re finished, or might they ricochet and rebound to damage the structure around them, placing the trainers themselves in danger and creating new environmental changes that could be useful in battle? These are good things to think about.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13062065/1/An-Amour-Insectivore-Swap

Just a heads-up that this isn’t showing up as anime fic, which means people searching for anime fic won’t see it. You should label this as anime to get more readers.

You also really need to use paragraphs.