“…Though I suspect that you will abhor the story regardless, merely because of your preference for naive and innately kind-hearted characters with absolutely no moral dilemma presented in between their personalities and their prescribed roles.”
re: Your review to Ash’s Adventure with lots of Women
Septentrion EuchoreutesA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/10606755/
I don’t see how you are saying overpowered eeveelotion is interesting in any way. Do you mean as a replacement for overpowered pikachu?
I see that Ash should have tried to be fair about his battles, and failed as BS naturally shifts everything in his favor. That would be a definite improvement. He’s supposed to be the sanest person, but he isn’t active in his decisions. The result would be the same since only Latias and Arceus are the agents in the story.
It sounds like you would have preferred suddenly a gay-at-the-end-of-the punchline. I could see how it may be a good harem parody if he was gay from the beginning and the powers that be are still hooking him up with girls. Doing it it the end just seems like too much of a random asspull. Also, it “stupid sexy Flanders” moment not a “no homo” moment.
[and other people were just as confused by this instead of cutting out the personality of most of the female characters so they can focus on hitting on him.]
I can definitely see how this would make a better story, but I deciding on them pointed out their own ridiculous reasons for joining. I wanted to keep the story short though. It does sort of pay off in chapter.
Cannon Misty’s sisters: Gives out free badges
Story Misty’s sisters: portrayed as bad gym leaders
Cannon Erika: Rejects challengers for stupid reasons
Story Erika: Rejects challengers for stupid reasons
Wow, I learned two things: 1)Erika and Misty’s sisters represent all women. 2)I own Pokemon!
re: Your review to The Saga of Kings, Book I: Hero
Thank you for your review.
I appreciate the feedback.
The profanity is an element of Zane’s character.
He’s deliberately designed to come across as aggressive and unlikable.
TSoK is less of a Pokemon world and more of an alternate design that utilizes elements of the Pokemon world.
It is intended to be an exploration of the possible ramifications caused by monsters, who are ruled by an instinctive will to dominate, invading the real world.
Past-tense of course, if it wasn’t already apparent.
This story highlights humanity’s ability to adapt to their new world, which is now ruled by creatures that have defied mankind’s original dominance.
Why does Zane mention the change in name, and his previous name lacking value?
I’ll just assume that you never had family issues, or experienced the desire to separate yourself from that traumatizing experience by throwing all the foul history away. And sequentially attempted to invent a new identity to cope with your sudden lack of family.
Yes, I am aware of your statement regarding the capitalization of “Pokemon.”
While I understand the logic behind your reason, I merely capitalize both “Pokemon” and the species names primarily for the sake of my audience.
As well as my extensive use of line spacing, the capitalization just makes everything easier to read; simply because the audience is accustom to seeing these names capitalized in the games. It breeds familiarity. Otherwise, I’d just generate a feeling of displacement and look like a facetious grammar Nazi spouting propaganda in an unconventional setting.
The Nidoking comment is quite accurate in the world of TSoK. Mon are not inherently timid and friendly in this world. Anything weaker than a Pokemon, whether it be human or a another mon, is a potential food-source/threat. The best way to handle a Nidoking encounter in the world of TSoK, is to murder the shit out of it before the Nidoking kills and eats you.
It’s just a basic natural trait taken to the extreme, due to a scientific interpretation of Pokemon and an effort to explain their ability to evolve when exposed to violence.
The canon generally displays mon evolving after a traumatic battle, so if a mon from TSoK’s interpretation desires a position as the dominant force in its environment…
The mon has to expose itself to a constant cycle of traumatic violence in order to evolve.
The age difference?
Zane is a Ranger trained for violent encounters with Pokemon.
Tony, the Trainer that Zane is belittling, is just a Trainer; with no real experience, preparation, or even an accurate concept of what a feral Pokemon is.
Trainers and Rangers are two different things altogether.
Rangers have a tendency to die fighting feral mon.
Trainers have a tendency to die trying to pet feral mon.
Ergo, age isn’t relevant in the comparison.
Vauban’s Character Bio. Just a little background reinforced by a nerdgasm of details. I’m guilty of the crime, but I’m not guilty in conscious.
But “Shooting downhill?”
We must discuss.
That almost sounds like a compliment, given that when “shooting,” one always attempts to secure the high ground.
Which generally means that your cross hairs will be aligned on a target at a downwards angle.
I.E. “Shooting downhill” is a good thing. You might want to try another negative idiom. That one just sucks.
As for raising a Venasaur for the sole purpose of blowing it up?
Do you have any idea how much it costs to make a bomb?
A metric fuck-tonne of resources go into making the smallest of sophisticated explosive devices.
I do not consider “growing bombs” far-fetched in the least. Especially given the potential range of a Bio-bomb Venasaur.
If we could turn cows into Hellfire rockets, we would.
Just because it would be cheaper to raise a cow than it would be to build a Hellfire rocket.
As for the final comment?
Yes, I’m aware that Grimdark has been done before.
As a matter of fact, it’s been done so many times before, that Grimdark has become a “genre”.
…Which would make this story an extension in said genre.
Meaning that… Your final statement is supposed to mean something insinuating?
At least; that’s what I thought you intended, given your phrasing, but-
-I just can’t feel offended for writing in a “genre”.
Thank you again.
I enjoyed our exchange.
Here’s to more in the future.
[He’s deliberately designed]I don’t care if you made something bad by accident or on purpose. It was bad, I didn’t like it, and I don’t want to read it. It is possible to have a character be aggressive and unlikeable to other people while still being enjoyable to read about. You either need to do that or you need to find another character who isn’t terrible.
Along those lines, IDGAF about his tragic backstory that makes him use a different name, because you wrecked any chance of me caring about it by having him go on the ridiculous tangent the moment it came up. I care about people, not a bad actor on a soap posing dramatically for the camera so he could make the biggest deal about it.
[The best way to handle a Nidoking encounter in the world of TSoK, is to murder the shit out of it before the Nidoking kills and eats you.]
Aside from your bad misunderstanding of science, which we’ll get to in a second, this continues that the core issue is this is interesting to read about. You spend your first chapter saying nothing interesting will happen because conflict is resolved by finding out if you have a big enough gun or not. I would much rather read about that kid with the rattata trying to use actual wits to handle it.
A nidoking acting like an actual violent animal would be set off by existing things – say, territory or threats to offspring. Now there’s tension. The kid is currently running. Will he run fast enough to get beyond the edge of its territory or far enough from the offspring that it’ll turn back? Can he use his pokemon and environment to slow it down or distract it? Do nidoking hunt based on smell or sight or hearing? Many real animals primarily see based on movement, and most large animals can’t get up a tree. Maybe the solution to something like a nidoking is to get out of its line of sight and then climb a tree. Fail to do that fast enough and it’ll see you doing this and then just topple the tree, killing you. Fail to get high enough (or try something else like just hiding in a bush or cave) and there’s a good chance of it following the smell even as you hold still. And given pokemon are all different, there may be other pokemon where this is the wrong choice, just like how some big cats will attack you if you make eye contact and others will attack the moment you break eye contact, and a kid who tries the tree thing on a primeape will be ripped limb from limb but hiding in a bush or cave would work.
Do you see how that’s an actual story there in a way declaring his pokemon is stronger than the other pokemon and this is the only possible factor is not?
On to the science and also why grimdark tends to be terrible, you’re trying to write an alternate version and what you’ve created is something less plausible than a children’s TV show. If pokemon do nothing but murder whatever’s in front of them, they will kill each other off until there’s one left. The fact there’s a leveling mechanic doesn’t change this basic fact. If you want a crude simulation of how creatures who can increase in power behave in an environment, look at PvP MMOs. Blindly charging into every single fight without considerations for where you are or who you’re fighting is means game over. And that’s a game that usually doesn’t model things like food or exhaustion, plus one that lets you come back from the dead so that dying can be a valid tactic. Unless your grimdark pokefuture has virtually no pokemon in it, they need to be breeding and not immediately killing their own offspring. They need to retreat from fights they can’t win. They need to prioritize food over rampaging. They need to be smart enough not to keep chasing something faster than they are, or that they just can’t reach.
If you want untiring killbots, then they need to be flat out magic given form who appear spontaneously out of the ground and therefore have no concern for selection or evolution. And that would certainly make a nicely grimdark setting, it’s not what you have.
(Even that, I should point out, would still not justify your character’s self-important rant, because if this is true in your setting, people already know. Trying to make your character look smart by lobotomizing everyone else and making them act like this is still the original setting just shows your character is not, in fact, smart.)
Similarly you seem to be under the impression “bomb” means “high-tech missile and expensive planes” and not “explosive”. Suicide bombers work because the materials are so cheap that even needing a person as the delivery system is worth it. The whole reason we invented mines is because it was easier than staffing the place with actual people and guns.
Those bombs, incidentally, are not also super gun knife cars. You don’t design something to be a bomb and somehow end up with a pokemon superman who just happens to be able to explode too. The times in history you see a miliary behaving anything like this is when they’re losing so badly that piling explosives into their existing stuff and just blowing it up is their only option. Japan didn’t build factories to churn out top of the line fighter jets just so they could use them for suicide assaults. No, they blew up their existing stuff then made crappy things that could just get the bombs there. What you wrote is like bragging your great airplane was designed originally to be flown into a ship a short distance away and that’s why it’s so great in a dogfight and has such awesome guns and fuel efficiency and pilot safety measures and top of the line armor plating.
In conclusion,
[As a matter of fact, it’s been done so many times before, that Grimdark has become a “genre”.
…Which would make this story an extension in said genre.]
It’s not an extension if it adds absolutely nothing new. The fact you don’t understand how the military works or that your dangerous animals function like zombies with lasers or that your main character is awful isn’t even new.
Do you want massive grimdark unstoppable monster pokemon? You do not want science. Figure out how they need to act, ditch any idea of them being realistic, and then make an explanation that actually fits the situation. Corrupted nature spirits, maybe. Define that they only attack humans and the spirits humans have subverted and you can have the resulting setting bear a superficial relationship to Pokemon, where they can exist in proximity to each other enough to be a regular feature of travel and vary widely in power.
For uber grimdark, instead of a setting where people are getting a handle on this and finally beating things back, the pokemon are getting stronger by the year. Either it’s currently a desperate battle as humans manage to just barely keep pace, or humans have improved much faster than pokemon so it’s under control for now but there’s a looming apocalypse in the distance.
Then take away the pile of sue bullshit you’ve handed your character, because “grimdark” and “military felatio” don’t go together nearly as well as people think. There’s a reason W40K is an extended joke. Work out how dangerous pokemon are handled in a way other than your character having a super gun. Show he’s actually intelligent and resourceful and knows what he’s doing, rather than just bragging he is in the same breath as bragging that his bulbasaur is just superior by birth. If his pokemon are killing machines, that should be his accomplishment, not someone else’s breeding program or diet formula, and it should involve actual strategy and not BIGGEST GUN WINS. And show that even still, it’s actually dangerous and charging headlong into things is still dumb. You want actual decent grimdark? Have him chew the kid out for thinking the solution is to just kill the nidoking lol because pokemon are actually dangerous and he doesn’t get to just sue his way out of that fact by declaring he wins.
Thank you for your timely response.But I must critique your critical assertion of TSoK based off of your limited exposure to my devices.
Try reading up through chapter II. This was only the prologue, and every comment that you have made thus far reflects your ignorance of TSoK’s vision, effectively rendering your commentary irrelevant.
Chiefly because, the prologue serves as an introduction to both the primary protagonist and the world he lives in. It does not explore the defined avenues of TSoK’s elaboration.
…Though I suspect that you will abhor the story regardless, merely because of your preference for naive and innately kind-hearted characters with absolutely no moral dilemma presented in between their personalities and their prescribed roles.
-I’m quite accustom to your response regarding Zane’s character.
I’ll tell you the same thing that I’ve told all his other critics.
I’m not sucking your dick by making a likable character. There’s plenty of likable characters out there. I’d rather entertain a different perspective, instead of exploring one that has been done so many times before that it equates to copy and paste pasta.
Of course, if oral pleasure is your prerogative, you can abstain from your viewing of TSoK and I can recommend a plethora of literary complacency better suited for your tastes.
Good day to you, Miss Farla.
I do hope that more valued criticism of yours is forthcoming.
Dang, I think I cut myself on Violent Slanders’ edge.
“I’m not sucking your dick by making a
likable character. There’s plenty of likable characters out there. I’d
rather entertain a different perspective, instead of exploring one that
has been done so many times before that it equates to copy and paste
pasta.”
Ah yes, because every likable character is exactly the same. Also, there are plenty of stories with conflict, so obviously this story avoids it. It’s breaking the boundaries of fiction!
And of course “likable” means “goody-two-shoes incapable of doing anything remotely morally questionable” because everyone knows the only alternative to this is grimderp where there is no one readers can care about, because that’s a sign of good story.
Why do men talk about dicks all the time, like ???
They don’t. This specific one is just trying to follow that famous author advice.
Of course, if oral pleasure is your prerogative[…]
I do not think that word means what he thinks it means.