Although the Lucki reviews were never completed, I’d already written up my side of the reviews and finally got tired of waiting, so I posted them to the fic.

For those of you here who object to the standard model of reviews, these are in-depth, copypasta-free reviews that I went very far out of my way to tailor to the author.

Ch1

1/4
Alright. You didn’t complete the review set we agreed on, but it’s been three months and I’d already wrote it all, so let’s get this done.

As I said, I’m not going to be talking about the grammar, but it really is distracting and often outright confusing. Somebody who loves the rest might be fine putting up with it, but someone on the fence could easily get pushed over.

Also, a lot of what I say will be in the format of “the details of this plot element have a problem, and an alternative that fixes that would be…” That’s to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, not a demand that it definitely be that specific suggestion. When thinking about how you want to fix your story, if my suggestion won’t work either, you don’t need to explain to me why you don’t want to do the specific thing. Instead, use that as a jumping off point to think of your own alternative that would fix the problem better. And some of these things may have no solution that would’ve require rewriting too much of the fic to be worth it. In that case, it’s okay to say that the problem can’t be fixed and just keep the alternatives in mind for the next time it comes up.

Finally, this is going to run over the limit badly, so the other pieces will be submitted anon to the same chapter and hopefully that won’t be too hard to keep track of.

[the perfect day for a young boy’s dream to finally begin.]
[a seventeen year old boy]

Then he’s not really that young a boy, is he? More, the basic setup assumes a degree of youth. Pokemon journeys are the first step toward to adulthood, not the last.

Given this is a special destiny sort of fic plus sex scenes, it makes sense a seventeen year old is a more appropriate age for what he’ll personally be facing. However, it does not make sense for what he and everyone else thinks he’ll be facing, or what they expect all the other trainers in the world to be facing. Also, the mundane/low stakes nature of a pokemon journey contrasts badly both with saving the world. Spreading this out over a longer timeperiod would help with that. Say he started off as a kid like trainers do in all of canon, mastered the standard trainer affair, got to know his true-love-pokemon for a longer period, and only then, as an experienced seventeen year old trainer, found out about the superpowers and destiny and villains who need to be punched for the sake of the world. Alternatively, he could be a standard pokemon trainer, win a championship or something, and retire while having the pokemon go off to continue battling with other trainers, then start to collect his new team with his extra-special partner pokemon now right before/right after the destiny thing kicks in. Or don’t even make him a standard trainer – maybe he can get a pokemon for any other reason, and end up having to be a trainer as part of the destiny stuff. Generally, think about what your plot is (for example, is it the special destiny and special pokemon partner?) and the best way to put that at the forefront. People often try to hammer every plot idea into the same “get up, get a starter, collect badges” frame, and it’s a big reason why so many stories feel the same and end up ignored by most readers.

[peacefully slept in his bed]

Also starting off with a character waking up is not a good idea. It’s been done a million times before and worse, it tells us nothing at all about your actual fic. It completely lacks a hook for readers.

I know that you’ve made a big point about wanting to start stories from the beginning, not the middle, but think about what a beginning is. We’re not starting with his birth, or his parent’s births, or the founding of the country, or the formation of the universe. So why does it have to start at the beginning of the day? What about this is the beginning of the story?

There can be reasons. Maybe there’s a bunch of details that are important for later, maybe you want to establish the normal and mundane to contrast what’s going to happen, maybe you just really love starting here for reasons you can’t quite explain. In that case, you need to think a lot about how you can make the same opening every new writer uses unique and interesting to your particular story. If you want a lot of small details about what he does when he wakes up in the morning, make sure those details are content and not filler. Filler is for when you’re getting paid by the word. Filler is for when there isn’t a budget for more than three fight scenes in a season. Filler is for when the comic book to be precisely twenty-four pages to ship. It should never show up in fanfics.

First, we see Aura doesn’t want to wake up and his mom gets him up. This doesn’t tell us much about either one. Seventeen year olds not wanting to wake up and moms trying to get them up can be thought of as default. If his mom threw a bucket of water on him, that would be a mild surprise and suggest you were going for a slapstick story. If his mom hit him, that’d be upsetting and suggest she was abusive. If his mom didn’t care he was late, it might be that she’s neglectful, or cruel, or just kind of an airhead herself who didn’t realize he has somewhere to be. And there’s also the option of telling us something about the world around him more generally. If his mom isn’t there at all and he was living alone at seventeen, that’d be something worthy of telling people about.

Next you tell us Aura wears glasses. That does tell us a detail about Aura, but it’s something would come up the first time you introduced him regardless.

Then there’s a lot of detail about Aura having a shower, but nothing he does is unique. He likes a warm shower. Everybody likes warm shower. If someone’s character hopped into a shower without caring that the water will come out cold at first, or not even bothering to make it warm, you’d know something unusual about them. If someone makes sure the water’s rightish and gets out of the way of it if it’s too chilly, they’re just a regular human being. It’s another default detail. Given Aura’s not the sort of weirdo to like cold showers, you could instead use this to give us some setting – you get into this a tiny bit by saying it’s [well-kept] but that’s very broad and generic. Are they on the wealthier side with a large bathroom, good pipes, and a huge water heater? Are they on the poorer side with finicky pipes and there’s only a narrow band of comfortable between ICE and SCALD? Maybe he has to yell downstairs first that he’s going to take a shower so don’t run the faucet or else he’ll boil. Can he luxuriate in there for an hour if he had time or does he need to hop in and out before it gets chilly? Or, if you want his living situation to be solidly everymanish and have nothing about it stand out, then given he’s about to go do a lot of hiking, he could use this time to think about his feelings on warm water and indoor toilets – is he enjoying them because they’re there but okay without them, or is he really, really going to miss them and do his best to spend as many nights as possible at a pokecenter?

[his somewhat toned body]
[a while back, Aura had started working hard on building up his physical strength and endurance, giving him the toned build he has today, all to prepare himself for the tough challenges a trainer must face while traveling.]

That’s silly. I assume it’ll become relevant to the extremely tough challenges he’ll personally face, but much like him being seventeen to even get a first pokemon, it doesn’t make sense to present it as just how things are, and also, even more importantly, it’d tell me more about Aura the actual person if you just said he did this because he wanted to. He’s pleased with his looks, can’t he work out because he wants to be toned? Or maybe he likes human sports and not just pokemon battles?

The part where he talks to Kibbs is the strongest part of the opening so far. The idea of the standard family dog actually being a second mom to him is a part where his living situation diverges from the default. This is something that would work to fix the wakeup sequence. If you wrote it like it’s his mom coming to wake him up, then “Mom” grabs the covers in her teeth to yank them off instead of bundling them up in her arms. We’d see the pokemon’s treated like an equal member of the family and that he talks to pokemon like they’re any other person, which would make for a good opening hook to this chapter encouraging readers to keep going into the rest of the chapter. (Plus seeing is important – it doesn’t mean as much to have him say he thinks of her like a second mother as it would to show her acting as one and being treated as one, and if anything it undermines it to make it a grand gesture right now rather than established.)

[an orange and black striped canine sitting on the floor, happily eating a bowl of Pokemon Food at her feet]

It also means he’s okay with one of his parents eating kibble.

You clearly mean this to be great! She’s happy with her kibble. But consider why your parents didn’t feed you Child Food, even if Child Food had NUTRITIONALLY BALANCED and KIDS LOVE IT stamped on the bag. Consider how Aura himself gets a fresh-cooked breakfast. We feed dogs kibble because kibble is easier for the owner and because since dumb animals can’t talk about how they’re feeling, they just keep going until a minor nutritional deficiency becomes a major one and their hair falls out or something and it’s better to go with some balanced formula to make sure that doesn’t happen. (And even then, a lot of people who really love their dogs commit to making their own food for them, even though it’s way more work, because they value their dogs that much.)

What you have here is a dissonance between what you’re trying to communicate (this pokemon is happy and respected as an individual) and the baseline minimal treatment for a person (getting more than one kind of meal, often involving cooking of some sort). Not even prisons feed inmates bowls of Human Food.

2/4[“Yeah, I’d have had to wait ’til I was eighteen back in Johto, but here, the minimum age is sixteen, so I can compete for badges earlier than before]
[but I might go back to Johto sometime after the Kalos League, then I’ll compete for badges there too.]

I have no idea why it was important to you to set it up so he’s starting at seventeen when everybody else starts at sixteen, so I can’t discuss that particularly, but this is a godawful headache for the regions to actually pull. What happens if trainers move between regions? Didn’t you say this itself is planned to be a several-region saga? If someone starts at sixteen and has a year and eleven months worth of well-trained pokemon, do the Johto police really want to get into a throwdown with them not being allowed to take their pokemon with them? Do they really want to hunt down that person if they fly in and are wandering around the wilderness? If each region honors the license of another region, then everyone would rent an apartment in the lowest age region, get the license, and then head back home. The only way you can have big differences between how regions treat trainers if is travel between them is minimal or they flat-out ban trainers from leaving their home region until they hit the age cutoff – either way, it’d be assumed there’s bad enough relations between the regions that preventing anyone from wandering in is a top priority in and of itself, making the necessary manhunts to keep out wrong-aged trainers just part of what they were doing anyway.

It’s really important that your world make sense in its own right, not just that it provides what your main character needs out of it.

Also, I find it notable that Kibbs didn’t simply make friends with the mom and move in, but is here because something happened to her birth family – at least, I’m assuming [since that day you brought me home from Ilex Forest.” The Growlithe’s smirk shrunk as she looked down in sorrow, though still sounding thankful as she spoke, “I may have lost my family back then, but I was lucky to be given a new one] is not her recounting losing her family because she was physically stolen from her birth family by Darlene, because that’d be horrifyingly Stockholmy. Anyway, the thing to keep in mind is what you’re saying with this. It’s the first pokemon/human relationship we’ve seen, so it should set the tone for how humans and pokemon interact with each other. Is it unusual for non-trainers to have pokemon, and adopting an orphan is the main way it happens?/Is it unusual for pokemon to join human families, and it’s only one with no ties left to their own kind that are willing to go to humans? Is it unusual in the sense that Darlene is unusually respectful of pokemon and so the only pokemon in her household is one she took in? How is this meant to reinforce/contrast the average relationship we’ll be seeing in this story?

In everything you tell the reader, you should know why you’re saying it. The same goes for narrating him placidly walking from one town to the next to get a bus to take him to a third location. He sees nothing interesting along the way. If it’s important he do this and important you not skip over it, you need to put things in there: neighbors he says hi to, stores he passes that he has opinions on, his feelings on the landscaping of the area, anything. Same for detailing precisely how he gets on the bus. It’s also kind of creepy how you give very mundane details but don’t mention other people at all, since it feels like you’re putting greater weight on what things he can directly use than on anybody else around. There must be other people since he walks through two towns. There must be people he’s looking past when he’s searching for an empty seat. The driver is presumably a person, but they don’t say hello, he doesn’t look at them or tell us anything but that some sort of driver exists. No one’s there until someone shows up to say hi to him, and it’s weird.

[My name’s Aura by the way, Aura Borealis.”]

Also I assume this is a lost cause but god this is just such a bad name. You could at least throw in “Yeah…My mom was a hippy…” or something to explain why and show Aura having normal human shame over it. Even if his mom gave it to him knowing he’d have a special destiny, even if she knew precisely what that special destiny involved and wanted it to be painfully on the nose, she could’ve at least stopped short of piling a pun on top of all that.

[“Well, I guess I want to become a Pokemon Doctor, I like being around pokemon, and I love taking care of them. So, if I can become a Pokemon Doctor, I can do just that, and I feel like traveling with pokemon would help me learn more about them.”]

This is odd, and again underlines how much more awkward this whole setup gets the older the characters get. Traveling with pokemon will help you learn more about pokemon, sure…but will it help more than interning at a pokemon center and seeing lots of pokemon who all need medical care which you see taking place right in front of you while talking to actual medical professionals?

If there’s a very strong social push for everyone to be a trainer, you could have a situation very like this where he knows what he wants to do but feels obligated to do the standard trotting about the region first. I think the strong-push element is pretty supported in canon, but the important thing is what fits with the story you’re telling. Does the fact this is a mandatory part of life cause a lot of people who really shouldn’t be trainers to still make the attempt? Is it being mandatory part of a general belief in the tradition of pokemon training, which makes people unwilling to change anything about it?

It could also be a better reason for him leaving in his late teens than just declaring that the date. If someone doesn’t actually want to be a trainer, they put it off until people start muttering there’s something wrong with them.

[“Just like you, I also really care about pokemon, and I’ve always hated seeing how a lot of trainers would treat their pokemon like some kind of tool, or even as slaves, with no other purpose than to compete in battles. I’ve seen pokemon be abused by their trainers, sometimes almost killed, all over something stupid like losing a battle, sometimes even just abandoning them like a piece of garbage.” Aura’s fists tightened as he thought of all the ways pokemon have been mistreated, “Some may call me a hypocrite, seeing as I would be putting pokemon in these same battles to earn badges and enter the Pokemon League, but I don’t care if I win or not, I just want to show that a pokemon’s true strength can be unlocked with the strong bond they share with their trainers; of course, training is essential to getting stronger, but so is trust, and many trainers don’t even care about that, only wanting pokemon that are already strong, and neglecting the ones that could become stronger. If I can at least make it far enough to prove my point, then I’ll be happy. Pokemon are more than just tools or pets, they’re our friends and family, and that’s why I decided to go on this journey.”]

…the problem is, I don’t think he’s a hypocrite for taking part in battles. I think he’s a hypocrite for saying the best way to help pokemon is something that just happens to involve him pursuing the most popular, glamorous career around.

Consider horses. There’s particular types of horse shows that are rife with animal abuse. If you know people are torturing and killing horses, you’ve seen them abandon horses to die, and your step one is to wait until you’re almost an adult, get a bunch of horses you promise to treat kindly, train them up to participate in the horse shows, then try to win to prove being nice works better…are you really motivated first and foremost by the wellbeing of the horses? And is the best you can do really to agree that all that matters is what they can do for you, not that you shouldn’t hurt them regardless?

Did he ever try anything directly to help them? So he’s seen pokemon abandoned…where were those pokemon in his house? Did he try to tell trainers not to behave like this and get ignored, or even attacked himself? Did he try to report them for cruelty only to be told there was nothing anyone could do? Why didn’t he try to take the pokemon from their trainers, even if it was against the law?

There could be good answers to these questions, but he should be giving them and talking like he was actually involved instead of passively listing the stuff he saw. He could say he’s taken half-dead abandoned pokemon to pokecenters. He could say when he tried to speak up he gets threatened and shoved around. He could say he’s reported them but they just get a slap on the wrist and hurt their pokemon even more because now they’re mad. And while “don’t beat your pokemon to death out of your own self-interest” sounds better than what they’ve got now, it’s a really dismal rallying cry for someone who actually cares about them. It’d still be okay to abuse and kill pokemon if you weren’t planning to use them in battles, and you can trust in someone’s physical ability while still thinking of them as a slave. This doesn’t sound like something that should be met with [Dan looked at Aura as if he were some kind of great leader, “Wow, you sound really confident about this.”] but with “oh my god I had no idea that is horrible and depressing and there’s really nothing else we can do but just hope you succeed and hope again that it changes anybody’s mind at all?”

3/4
Which brings up the next issue. So far, we’ve met only one other trainer, and Aura says this guy also cares about pokemon so isn’t abusive, yet he doesn’t sound like he’d been thinking about doing anything about it either. If most people like pokemon, why didn’t they agree to pass laws to not abuse pokemon? If most people abuse pokemon, why’d we meet the one nice person who also seems to have never noticed this was a problem? Also, Aura just moved to a new region that has different laws about trainers. Does this even apply here? Maybe people in Johto are just universally terrible and the rest of the regions lock you up for abusing pokemon.

It’s also kind of a coincidence fate just happens to provide him with a kid who has a useful skillset, a positive-bordering-on-worshipful attitude toward him, and, apparently, no other friends to travel with but a big desire to do so. For that matter, what has Aura been doing up until this point? He’s unsure of the exact month he arrived, so he’s been here a while but he didn’t make any friends he’d say goodbye to today or anyone else interested in traveling with him?

If there were a ton of aspiring trainers on the bus and Dan sat down next to Aura because the rest of the kids were playing kick-the-magikarp and only Aura looked unhappy with this, it’d make sense they’d want to stick together, as well actually seeing this pokemon abuse that Aura’s only been claiming exists. Have the magikarp’s trainer say something about how this was exactly what some celebrity trainer recommended to evolve it and we’d even get evidence Aura winning through the power of friendship could really convince people to try a different way. (It’d also address that sense Aura’s been walking around in a bubble.)

[I’m glad I was able to catch the bus before it left, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have met… and I would’ve had to travel to Lumiose alone on foot.”]

Also, the distances here are hard to make sense of. It’s pretty unlikely that it’d take less time to walk there than to wait for another bus.

[“Finally, I’m gonna get my first pokemon.” Aura started walking in the direction of the professor’s lab]

Why is he doing the starter thing, anyway? Why doesn’t he just walk out and ask pokemon if they want to be part of Plan Win Through Friendship To Change Everything? Or take one of the many pokemon abandoned because it wasn’t strong enough? That’d be much better proof of his beliefs anyway – right now, people could just shrug and say he only won because his pokemon are strong, and how he treats them doesn’t matter. Picking a pokemon explicitly rejected as not good enough under the abuse standard and showing how it flourishes when you’re not a jerk is what he’s trying to do, isn’t it?

If it’s a law that you’re only allowed to start with a designated starter handed to you by a designated professor in a designated lab, I could completely buy that he views this as an acceptable compromise of his ideals, but you don’t mention that there’s no other option, the woman says he can look at starters if he feels like which sounds like it’s not a rule, Dan doesn’t need to come with him to get a starter, etc… and given he brought up the idea it’s hypocritical to battle with pokemon to prove the system is wrong, it seems like he’d really want to find pokemon who do this of their own free will.

[“Well, I hope you give whichever pokemon you choose a good home, they have all been raised with the intentions of one day becoming the first pokemon for a new trainer, but we still care deeply for each and every one of them.”]

If pokemon professors care deeply about the pokemon they give out, and those pokemon often go on to be beaten, abandoned, and/or killed, why don’t the professors try to do something about it? Is Sycamore meant to be a bad person saying shallow platitudes here? Is he stupid? Do professors have no choice so they try to live in denial of what they’re part of? Is Aura wrong about abuse being everywhere?

[that Fennekin has a strong distrust of humans, we have a really hard time feeding her, and trying to make sure she’s healthy, she just runs away when any of us try to get close]
[“They both died from gunshot wounds to the chest, we can probably assume it was poachers, and that might be where her distrust in humans comes from.”]

Then why is she here? If her parents were wild, fennekin can evidently live fine in the wild on their own, and it’s not like they think she’s just generally shy, they know exactly what’s wrong and that the problem is them. Why is she trapped in an enclosure for humans to gawk at all, and what sort of monster would have her on offer as a starter? Is the moral here supposed to be that Sycamore sounds nice but doesn’t actually care? I mean, it is a good way of establishing that Aura is unusual and that the average person might sound decent but actually be doing awful things, but…

Also, a poacher either wants a live creature or its parts. Why would they see that someone shot pokemon in the heart and left the bodies and say “we can probably assume poachers”? If she was found with one body of an adult who seemed to have been injured, run, and then died of its wounds later, it’d be more ambiguous. Or if there’s a type of pokemon hunting going on that involves just shooting them for fun. Also, why would they even use guns and not pokemon? Why even bring guns into it?

[“I can feel something strong between us when I look at her, like we were meant to be together. Besides, I don’t care if she doesn’t want to battle, I know I could just choose another Fennekin, but I can’t leave her like this, I feel like I may be the only one who could actually help her… I can’t really explain it, but I’ve made my decision, and I’m going to stick with it.”]

Why doesn’t he ask her? Why is “help” so vague? I could see him being sympathetic to her being trapped her and figuring he’d take her out and offer to release her, but hearing, “she literally does not want to get near humans” and replying, “I have decided we will be cuddlebuddies forevermore” is more deranged stalker than legitimate love and caring. And yeah, he feels something between them…but again, he didn’t actually ask her, he’s just assuming she mirrors his own feelings. Realizing she must be terrified, taking her just to get her out of there, then offering to let her go would be a much better indication he really did care about her, and in turn make her decision to stay with him seem more earned.

Alternatively, if Sycamore and this whole thing isn’t supposed to be awful…why isn’t she just a wild pokemon he meets? Her backstory is that she was wild, his mystery spark gives reason why she might appear in front of him anyway if their paths crossed (and her making her way to where he is because destiny seems a lot more reasonable than the pure coincidence of her happening to be trapped right where he goes to get his license).

[Aura and the Professor looked at each other, before the new trainer walked up to Fennekin and lowered himself down, she flinched as Aura began to gently pet her back, however, to the Professor’s surprise, she soon calmed down at his gentle touch, allowing Aura to pick her up]

Why is he not talking to her? Why?

And I can understand the desire to touch a scared animal. It’s thinking you’ll hurt it, but if only you could touch it, you could not hurt it and then it’d know you don’t want to hurt it! But it’s selfish. If you didn’t want me to touch you, would you rather I respected that and waited to see if you changed your mind, or touched you anyway because it’s more important to me that you know right now how great and nice I am?

If he held out his hand and she came closer, if she tried to rub up against him, flinched, then tried again and calmed down, it’d show she was choosing to try to overcome her anxiety because she wanted to be with him more than she wanted to run. And it would’ve shown he was willing to be patient and respect her feelings.

Unless the idea here is that, although Aura has lofty ideals, his life surrounded by people who view pokemon as tools has not left him untouched and he can’t shake the mentality that he should make all the decisions in a relationship with pokemon. That actually would work really well and counterbalance how he’s otherwise presented as some noble saint who somehow never actually did anything – he does care, and he’s trying, but he’s not perfect and still has to learn in practice what a healthy relationship is because he’s been surrounded by bad ones all his life.

4/4
[As he walked, Aura looked down at the Fennekin in his arms, “Don’t worry,” he began in a soft voice, “I’ll do what ever I can to help you get through this, no matter how long it takes, I’ll always be there for you.”]

Yeah, like this for example. This is messed up. If someone’s scared of you, the biggest concern isn’t they should know you’re great and you plan to fix them. What she needs is to not be trapped around humans because she’s scared of them. Her fear of them is only a problem if she has some other reason she wants to be around humans, much like it’s completely okay to be afraid of snakes and just not go near snakes.

If she’d chosen to go with him, but was now running into problems because she’s scared of other humans – if, in other words, there was a reason she did want to be around humans – then this could be sweet of him, particularly if her fear was in any way impacting him (like he can’t sleep in a pokecenter tonight because she’ll have a panic attack if they go anywhere with crowds). It’s not so sweet when he’s decided what she needs to get through and how she needs to do it without saying a single thing to her about what she wants yet.

[Fennekin shifted her weight, resting her head in the crook of her new trainer’s arm, “Thank you,” she whispered.]

So yeah, what I kept saying in the PM about how she needs to have feelings of her own. Right now, all she’s done is be afraid of everyone else so he can be the special exception, then completely agree with him when he’s decided what their relationship will be and how she needs to change, and thank him for it. Saying he’s willing to do anything to help her sounds good, but so far she hasn’t asked for anything and he’s only done what he already wanted to do. For that matter, he just walked out of a building into a populated city full of the things she’s terrified of with her being all cute in his arms instead of safe in a pokeball where she wouldn’t have to experience this.

Ch2

1/2
[Hearing her gratitude put a smile on the trainer’s face]

So this is going to be the central issue, I think.

What is she grateful for? The fact he says he’ll be doing things she’d be grateful for, should they in fact happen? Thing she didn’t even get a chance to ask for and he just announced he’ll do them whether or not she wants any of it?

Understand that there can be a huge gap between what is inside your head and what’s on the page. You may know that he cares deeply for her, and will end up doing lots for her, but right now he hasn’t shown either of these things, so having her praise him just makes it sound like she’d praise anyone who wasn’t currently kicking her. And further, as a writer, you have to keep the whole world in mind. This is your first story, and the first step of learning to write characters is getting a grasp of your main character’s mind – what they want, how they feel, what they think. The second step is learning to balance that with the minds of the other characters. You said in the PM you hadn’t thought much about how she felt or why she did things, and that’s really clear in the text already.

She is shocked to discover he can hear her – but why not shocked he didn’t speak to her before now? If I was lost in a foreign land, I’d be furious if a “friendly” stranger turned out to speak my language after this long. She falls cutely asleep in his arms – as he walks through a busy city full of humans? Then he wakes her up when they get to the pokemon center so you can have him explain everything to her, because apparently none of the other pokemon she lived with in the middle of a city knew pokemon centers exist, suggesting the starter section of that building is stocked with infants kept in complete isolation. Overall, she does not exist independently. She’s vulnerable so Aura can feel needed. She’s uneducated so Aura can feel smart. She’s worshipful so Aura can feel good.

And also…When somebody’s kid falls asleep in their arms, they usually don’t wake them up until there’s a reason for it. Here, she’s woken up just so you can have her impressed with how he knows things she doesn’t. Why does he wake her if she’s so tired she passes out so quickly? He’s still carrying her, so it’s not that. He’s not going to ask her anything, because evidently he thinks deciding everything without her input is the way to go, so it’s not that either. All it does is make it so now she’s stressed and scared by the crowds in a way she wouldn’t have been if he let her sleep. (Just like how it appears the only reason she’s outside of the pokeball is to look cute and be scared.)

[Aura could swear he felt Fennekin’s fear, so he hurried to the front counter, where a lady in a white and pink dress stood, “Excuse me?”
“Yes? How can I help you this evening?” Nurse Joy asked.
“I was wondering if I could rent a room for the night?”
“Of course, and what class of room would you like?” Aura looked at her with a blank stare, not underatanding exactly what she meant by ‘class of room’, but he wanted to hurry and get Fennekin out of the crowd.
“Uhm, I guess a cheap room with two beds?”
“Are you expecting someone to show up?” She asked, typing at her computer.
“Yes, a trainer named Daniel Sanlow should be arriving a little later.”]

He could feel she was afraid being there, he knows she’s scared of people…but nothing about his pre-fennekin plans changes. He does nothing to accommodate her despite promising to do anything. You say he’s hurrying but nothing about what he actually does is hurried.

Saying, “I am a good person! I care about others! I will do whatever is in my power to make them feel better!” is not all you need to do. He has taken on the responsibility of a traumatized person. He could realize she can’t handle crowds and he’ll need to sleep away from the city today, even though it means giving up his nice bed. He could realize he has to break his earlier agreement to travel with another trainer, because she’ll be scared of him, even though he already promised and even though he wanted to travel together. Instead, his life proceeds unchanged, except now she’s there to be vulnerable and worshipful of him the whole time.

[Aura didn’t know what a ‘Class-C room’ was exactly, but he just wanted to get Fennekin away from the crowd as soon as possible, “I guess so, so long as it has two beds.”]

Just…really. It’s right here in what you’re writing. He wants to get her away as fast as he can, AS LONG as he can still fulfill his prior and apparently more important promise to Dan. And if it doesn’t have two beds so the person she’ll be terrified of can hang out in their room with her, then it’s more important to clarify that and discuss what room would have two beds and how he needs that than to get her out of the situation.

[“Thank you, Nurse Joy, and can you make sure Dan gets his key?”
“Of course, anything else?”
Aura thought for a moment, “No, I think that’s everything.”]

Making someone your first priority means putting them first, not last. It means dropping the other stuff and rushing off, not calmly doing exactly what you would’ve done regardless.

Can you imagine a parent, knowing their child is terrified of fish, booking a room at an aquarium-themed hotel? Walking in, and their child is so terrified she starts shaking in their arms, and they just keep walking to the counter instead of leaving? Discussing, at that counter, about how why yes, they did want a personal aquarium delivered to their room, and let’s take a minute more to be sure everything’s in order and that yes, there will be an aquarium in that room? Can you imagine that child then telling the parent, “You are wonderful. You are the best person for how you treat me. Thank you.”? Wouldn’t you feel horrible for the child thinking she was worth that little?

This is obviously not your intent, but it’s what’s ended up in the story. You simply can’t have a story where the main character’s biggest trait is consideration for others if you, the author, don’t show them any consideration. You have to consider them before Aura can.

[She tilted her head, “What is it, Master?”
Aura paused for a second, “Please, just call me Aura; you may be my pokemon, but you’re not my slave, I see any pokemon under my care as family, and nothing less.”]

This continues to be about Aura and how Aura wants to feel like a good person. He doesn’t say she shouldn’t have to call people master, that no pokemon at all should talk like this. The way he phrases it is that he, personally, does not prefer this manner of interaction, and then he goes on to state the relationship he’s decided they’ll have instead. The emphasis is all on him even as though you’ve established he’s supposed to care deeply about pokemon. What you mean to do and what’s actually happening in the story do not match up.

You pointed out correctly that in my story Lucki doesn’t really talk to Silver, because she doesn’t actually care about Silver. And yet Lucki, who is an awful, awful person, does talk to Silver as soon as she gets a chance. She asks Silver basic questions right from the start and keeps doing so throughout the story. Aura doesn’t actually talk with Diamond, just at her (when he’s not refusing to talk to her at all for some reason, like all last chapter). Your considerate character should not be acting far worse than a character designed to parody inconsiderate trainers.

Nor should your story contort itself so it works out anyway and she’s thrilled with the idea of someone declaring they’re her new family, having somehow made no pokemon friends during all the time she stayed in the enclosure – presumably, the better to be amazed by Aura now.

[I’ve been alone for so long]

But she wasn’t. Other people exist besides Aura, and most of them aren’t humans either so her fear shouldn’t have gotten in the way of that. This would result in a more muddled reaction, where Aura isn’t the only person who’s ever matted to her…but Aura shouldn’t be the only person who’s ever mattered to her. If she’s not just Aura’s accessory, if you’re offended by me saying your description of her made her sound like she might as well just be a magic necklace, then she shouldn’t be defined entirely by him. Even if the life she had before him was terrible, it needs to at least exist.

[Their touching moment was interrupted by a knock on the door, it startled Fennekin a bit, but Aura calmed her down, “It’s okay, that’s probably just Dan.” Fennekin looked at Aura in confusion, “He’s a trainer we’ll be traveling with for a while,” he clarified. Aura set Fennekin down and stood up, “It’s okay, Dan’s a nice guy, he feels the same way about pokemon as I do.” This calmed her down much more, knowing he was friendly, but it also helped being in the same room as Aura]
…
[Dan stepped inside, and immediately noticed the curled up Fennekin on the bed, “Oh, so you chose a Fennekin as your starter?”
Aura closed the door, and walked towards the fox, “Yeah, she’s a little shy, but she’ll probably warm up to you.”]

And it’s just incredibly horrible to do this.

Let’s say you meet a girl. Something really horrible happened to her and she’s terrified of men, but somehow, you’re different and don’t set her off.

“Cool, without so much as warning her in advance I’m going to let a guy into our room, who I’ve decided will be staying with us for the foreseeable future. Then I’ll explain to him that she’ll be fine once she gets used to him. She needs to get over it anyway. (By the way, she is my legal property and can’t leave or call for help.)”

This would be, at best, astoundingly inconsiderate. It would be making it clear I either completely do not understand her feelings, or I simply don’t care about them. And the problem can’t be fixed by adding, “No, see, she calms down when I say that. No, see, it’s not actually a problem.” That reaction doesn’t make sense for her. It just makes it feel like the narration itself doesn’t care about her either.

2/2
[“Well, that’s good,” Dan headed to the other bed]

Interestingly, Dan does not come off badly at all, because he doesn’t have the same information Aura has. What Aura said was that she’s “shy”, which is at best a gross misrepresentation of what’s going on, and it’s common for a shy person to seem a bit scared and need a little time to adjust. If this was all Aura knew as well, his own behavior would look far better. Dan then respects this shyness – he does not go toward her but heads away to the other bed, leaving her be, letting her decide when (or if) she’s ready to engage with him, instead of, say, trying to pet her like some people thought was appropriate. If the professor had no idea what her exact problems were and said only she was shy and lonely, Aura’s behavior, while still somewhat inconsiderate, is completely in line with someone who just doesn’t realize that the problem is worse than he realized or that it’s a specific trauma and not just her needing some time to get used to new things in general. It’s the kind of mistake someone can make with all the right intentions but just not enough experience putting them into practice.

Conversely, if you, the author, do not want to have the story react to her fears, if this is not a plot you care for, then you shouldn’t have her traumatized in the first place.

[When Spyke looked up at Fennekin, she pulled her head back out of the Grass type’s sight, Spyke turned to Aura and asked, “Why’s she hiding?”
Not expecting an actual answer from the human, it surprised him when he responded to his question, “Don’t worry about her, she’s just a little shy around new faces]

Especially if the story itself ends up forgetting the actual problem of trauma and fear of humans as soon as Aura describes it as general shyness. If you just want him to have a shy pokemon, you should give him that.

[“Can I please stay outside of my ball? I don’t like being in there.”
Aura looked at the frightened fox, then to the red and white sphere he held in his hand. Fennekin watched as he clipped her ball back onto his belt, “Well, I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to, if you wanna travel outside of your ball, then that’s fine with me, I just want you to be happy.”
Fennekin looked at her trainer in bewilderment, “Thank you, Aura, you’re so nice.”]

This is, I think, the first thing where she’s asked for something from Aura. But it continues to be an incredibly low standard to hold Aura to, and a very simplistic way of handling this in general. Why does he want to put her in one for the night anyway?

A good use of a pokeball would’ve been when she was scared in the lobby. Aura could’ve thought that, although he likes having her out, she does not like being out, and asked her if she’d rather go into her pokeball until they get to his room. Similarly, he could offer to put her in her pokeball before Dan enters. This is not as considerate as avoiding crowds and not traveling with Dan. It’d be the sort of absolute bottom of the barrel behavior that someone like Lucki easily manages. But at least it’d be anything at all from him.

Conversely, if he is *nice* to not put her in a pokeball, there needs to be some reason why he otherwise would want her in there. A trainer who has an unruly or troublesome pokemon who still doesn’t confine it all day is a trainer who’s putting the pokemon’s happiness over their own. A trainer who has a perfectly behaved pokemon who keeps it out isn’t.

You shouldn’t need an excuse for why she doesn’t go in her pokeball the rest of the time, either. I wouldn’t put my friends in stasis capsules during our daily life even without them telling me the capsules scared them.

[She looked over at her trainer, her face heating up a little when she saw her trainer’s muscular build]

Also, while handwaving cross-species love as a matter of just caring so much about who the other person is on the inside works, if you want a story where the main character is conventionally attractive and his girlfriend reinforces that, it’s probably a bad idea for an extremely fluffy creature which is not naturally physically strong to find muscles visible beneath exposed skin inherently sexy. It’s like him getting a boner because the fur around her lips is extra short which is a marker of shooting very hot flamethrowers from her mouth and there’s nothing sexier than a girl with a high special attack.

[Meanwhile, Fennekin approached the bowl of pokemon food, sniffing it and quickly recoiling at the destinct scent it held. Spyke had noticed this, having been sitting right next to her, and quickly got the attention of the two trainers.]

Why can’t she just say this to Aura?

[“It’s a bit too spicy for me; I know fire types usually like spicy things, but I just can’t handle it.”
Aura tried to think of a solution, “What kind of food do you prefer?”
“I guess sweet things, like pecha berries.”]

Why does she need prompting to say what she wants to eat instead?

I could see someone being too beaten down to assert themselves at all, but Aura should be picking up that this isn’t healthy. If she can’t say something’s wrong of her own volition and relies on other people to notice it for her and then ask her specific questions to draw her out, he should be trying to reassure her that doing so would be okay, and resolving to keep a close eye on her for any discomfort while helping her get more assertive.

[“Actually, it’s about that question I wanted to ask you last night, I wanted to know if you’d like a proper name?” Fennekin smiled, saying she would love for him to give her a name, although, he just chuckled and shook his head, “Actually, I was thinking that you could come up with your own name.”]

This is the first non-horrible behavior from Aura, but still contains a problem from the story as a whole: why doesn’t she have a name? Why does he assume she has no proper name?

She had a family, and she was clearly old enough to remember them given what happened to them shaped her so much. What name did her family call her? Even cultures that give a name to a child later on in life usually have some name they use in the interim, so if it’s very important to you she pick a name, she could say that she’s outgrown her baby name. (Bear in mind that cultures who don’t name children early usually do it in response to high child mortality, so that’ll suggest things are pretty bad for pokemon if that’s their culture.)

[They continued walking down the street, Fennekin’s mind fixed on coming up with a name she liked.
After spending a good half hour walking around, and buying the essentials like extra food and medicine, they were finally ready to leave Lumiose City.]

I really get the sense you’ve already forgotten she’s supposed to be afraid of humans.

It’s okay if you don’t want to engage with a disruptive element – a pokemon that can’t be around humans is going to be an enormous problem for a trainer, and you’re clearly not interested in writing that. But in that case it shouldn’t be there. You could’ve had her be too young to know what happened to her parents and just a generally timid, standoffish pokemon.

[“It’s a diamond, a very tough, and beautiful gemstone.”]

“Tough” is really the worst word for a diamond – on the actual toughness scales for gemstones, they’re in the middle. The vaguer “strong” is more or less true, and the most accurate would simply be “hard”. A diamond is harder and “stronger” than a hammer, but strike them together and the hammer gets a nick and the diamond turns to a million shards. The toughest gemstone, the one that can withstand the most without breaking, is actually jade.

[Setting her down, Aura walked into the shop, coming back out a few minutes later with a small black box.]

Setting down the pokemon who’s terrified of people and only coming out of her shell because something about him makes her feel calm? Again, this would all just work so much better if you removed the statement she’s traumatized in the first place. And it’d only make their relationship better to say she likes him because of who he is and how he treats her instead of destiny magic that makes her feel this way.

[Aura opened the box to reveal the necklace she had been staring at.]

Now, remember back in the first chapter I was taking about showers and if the pipes are great or bad and how this could tell us what his financial situation is?

This is why that sort of stuff matters. If Aura has infinite money, this means nothing. If Aura is extremely poor, it means everything. The meaning of a gift isn’t just its sticker value, it’s about what the other person is giving up. If all Aura could afford was stainless steel and shiny glass, that’d still be a grand gesture to say that he’d spend the money on her instead of himself. If I give someone a fancy coffee, I might be saying, “I value your enjoyment of this coffee more than I do my ability to buy another coffee for myself or equivalent item.” But if I have a card for infinite coffee, then I’m definitely just saying, “Hey, I noticed you wanted coffee, and I’m not such a jerk I want you to *not* have coffee, so hey, coffee.”

This is the only point in two chapters that he’s distinctly choosing to do something for her at cost of himself, but the way it’s written is more of a fantasy where the character can throw around grand gestures without consequence, in the process making them no longer grand.

Ch3

1/3
[“Well, I’ll be challenging gyms on our journey to enter the league, so I wanted to know if you would be up for battling,” she looked at him with a bit of worry and concern, “I-I won’t push you to battle if you don’t want to, I just wanted to know if you were okay with it.” She relaxed a bit knowing she wouldn’t have to battle if she didn’t want to.]

Okay! This is probably the strongest good-guy thing he’s done. Letting her name herself is just a matter of not being an asshole. Buying her the necklace doesn’t seem to have impacted him. But here, he’s saying outright, “If you don’t do this thing, it will be a problem for me, but it’s more important how you feel.”

[“Aura, I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, you’re so nice to me and you make me feel safe, but I don’t think I’d be any use in battles,” she replied in apology.]

Unfortunately, her answer isn’t about what she wants. “I do not want to do so, even if it would be useful.” and “You wouldn’t want me doing that, I suck.” are very, very different sentiments. This is not Aura’s fault – he asked precisely what he should’ve. Her answer, though, suggests she’s far more messed up than he’s able to handle, especially because he reacts to it as if she’d answered simply that she didn’t want to.

[The campsite was near a small river and a few pecha and sitrus bushes. “So what do you guys think? Pretty good spot if I say so myself.”]

Uh…if you’re okay getting attacked by wild pokemon, sure. Generally not good to sleep next to a food source.

[“Hold on a minute,” Dan paused and looked to Aura in confusion, “I’m making enough food for everyone so you don’t need to get any pokemon food ready.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I know pokemon food is healthy for them, but it doesn’t really seem fair when we get to eat stuff like this,” he gestured to the kababs, “and all they get to eat is the same thing over and over. But I don’t mind giving them pokemon food for a quick meal or a snack.”
Dan put the pokemon food back into his bag, “Wow, I never thought about it that way, you really do care about your pokemon.”]

Yes! This chapter is doing much, much better.

However…

This is your first story, and in that light, that it took you only a few thousand words to think that hey, why can’t pokemon eat something other than kibble? is great. You thought about it and quite quickly noticed this didn’t seem fair.

Looking at just the story, it’s weird. It took Aura a decade and a half to realize this? And another kid a mere year younger than him has never thought of it either, but is immediately converted? This is something where, when you realize, you’re much better served by just going back and retconning it so Aura and his family always believed this. (It also illustrates you really should’ve thought about how pokemon are treated before you started writing a story with that as a focal point.) It didn’t take you long to notice, so it shouldn’t have taken Aura so long. You should then think about how other people think. Dan should have his own opinions too. If he thinks feeding pokemon kibble is fine, would just saying otherwise immediately convince him? Maybe his opinion would be more like, “Well if you want to do the extra cooking, sure.” or “I guess it’s okay for a treat just once but I want my pokemon to be on the scientific diet for optimum battling ability, even if it does taste boring.” And that’d better distinguish Aura from others if even generally okay people, like Dan, still have huge blind spots in how pokemon are treated that Aura doesn’t. Aura’s grown up hearing pokemon mumble about how they’re sick of kibble and why can’t they ever eat anything else? Dan’s never been able to hear that. He’d be illustrating that plenty of okay people are still doing bad things out of ignorance, which is why Aura thinks it’s important he become a prominent trainer and get the chance to spread his ideas to a wider audience.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have bothered to keep reading based on the first chapter if I hadn’t agreed to do six of these – it was very much a standard opening, and even the bits about caring for pokemon were the standard pronouncements with nothing to back them up, like still feeding pokemon bowls of kibble, like seeing nothing to actually back up Aura’s claim of viewing Kibbs as a mother. If the story had started with this attitude, of asking her if she wants to battle and then saying he doesn’t think it’s fair humans get better meals than pokemon and acting on that, I’d have absolutely kept reading, because that sort of thing is incredibly rare in fanfics.

[“What’s wrong with your Sylveon?” He asked with curiosity and concern.
Dan took a little white paper bag from his pack and a bottle of water, “Her name’s Missy, and she has some kind of sickness that keeps making her weaker as the days go by.” He uncapped the pill bottle and shook a single pill into his hand, Missy slowly walked over to Dan and took the pill from his palm, swallowing it and drinking from the water bottle through a straw that had been set inside.]

…so why is she with him at all? What will they do if she gets suddenly worse while they’re away from help? Traveling with sick people is dangerous enough in the best of times. When it’s a “some kind of” situation with a mystery illness and they don’t have any idea what the disease progression might look like? That’s horribly irresponsible unless there’s other things in place.

For example: are pokemon centers too understaffed to be sure there’d be someone keeping an eye on her, so it’s better to have someone with less experience and supplies but more time to dedicate to taking care of her? And is pokeball teleportation an option in this universe, so that if she suddenly falls over and starts having a seizure or something, she can be immediately sent to the nearest pokecenter? If you want to have regular trainers struggling to deal with pokemon on their own, that’s wholly doable, but you need to make it clear they’re doing this because it’s the best option rather than because they don’t care about getting their pokemon proper treatment.

[Aura felt bad for the Sylveon, as did Diamond, both of them wishing there was some way to help her. But putting those thoughts aside for now]

But they could.

They could ask her how she feels.

A huge problem with animal care is you can’t just ask your patient about their symptoms. Does she feel lightheaded or confused? Does she just feel tired? How tired? Does she feel hot or cold? Does anything hurt? Does she feel nauseous? Has she started to feel better since taking the pills? Has she developed new symptoms from the pills that might be side effects, and if so, are they concerning ones? Aura has the chance to catch something going wrong that no one else would be able to.

[“When I was talking to Professor Sycamore, he told me about when they found you, that you lost your parents to poachers; that’s why I chose you as my starter, because I didn’t want you to face that kind of trauma on your own, and I felt like I was the only person who could help you.”]

He’s really done nothing in that respect, though, unless we mean that literally, when forcing her to be around humans those last two chapters, he was physically near her. Instead, you’ve just had him do the same things he was already doing and said to the reader that this is him caring about her. As I said, this chapter has managed a big jump in the general sense of Aura being a good person and willing to walk the walk, but it still hasn’t done anything to engage with her trauma. Mostly it’s just ignoring it, since she’s had no bad reaction to Dan all chapter.

[“Can you promise that we’ll do everything we can to help pokemon?”
Aura placed his hand on her side, “Of course, Diamond, I promise that we’ll help any pokemon in need, no matter how big, nor small, even if it seems impossible, we will never stop, because together I believe we can accomplish anything.”]

Of Aura’s pronouncements, I think this is the best one, for actually being active and concrete, if not too specific. On the other hand, it’s a very tall order. Aura said in the first chapter that trainers abusing pokemon is completely normal, and by implication, not breaking the law either. If he wants to help all pokemon in need, he’s going to find himself in situations where he’ll have to go against his fellow humans, and not just as individuals but the overall legal system.

If I decide to kill my dog, it’s my right. If you decide to steal my dog so I can’t, you’re a thief and I can call the police to hunt you down, bring my dog back so I can kill it, and put you in jail.

Is Aura really ready to give up everything to save any pokemon? Is Aura willing to risk losing Diamond, who also needs him, to do so?

If doing hard things was easy, we wouldn’t say they were hard.

[Diamond had been thinking about how she had been feeling lately, the strange warm sensation she feels within herself whenever she’s around Aura, how he makes her feel happy and calm; she didn’t understand what these feelings meant, she has never felt them before in her life]

Also I would just like to reiterate that him having an actual ability that causes her to feel this way really undermines the love story. It makes it sound more like addiction. If you had chronic pain and being around someone was like morphine, you’d feel better around them, but if you ended up marrying them…how would you know you actually loved them and not just the feeling of not being in pain all the time? Deciding you’re in love with someone because they have a magic power to treat your illness isn’t very romantic. It’s the same for “destiny says!” things in general – does that mean you wouldn’t be together if the stars hadn’t said you have to be?

2/3
[Dan pulled his pokeballs from his belt and held them up, “Could you check up on my pokemon? I want to make sure they’re healthy.”]

He knows they aren’t. Why doesn’t he say, “My sylveon is sick with something. Here’s the medication it’s on and the paperwork from the previous pokemon center regarding what they know.”? If the sylveon’s illness doesn’t matter, why did you put it in earlier?

[Aura looked down at Diamond to see if she would be okay with going with her. “I guess I could go with her, she seems nice enough.”]

So she’s fine with Dan, she’s fine going through a city, and now she’s fine leaving Aura to go with a complete stranger. Much like the sylveon, why say she’s traumatized at all? It’s okay to have a story where the pokemon don’t get in the way of ordinary trainer things, but it’s really bad to introduce something major and then brush it off.

[While pondering the thought on whether or not to try and catch the unaware canine]

Why doesn’t he ever ask? Again, maybe you mean for this to be a flaw that comes from him living in a world where pokemon are seen as nothing but tools, but he’s been talking to his pokemon and thinking about what they want this chapter, and it’s really jarring to see that he still doesn’t think to care if a pokemon wants to go with him.

[As the Mightyena prepared to pounce at the unsuspecting Riolu, he remembered the promise he made to Diamond, and he intended to keep it.]

A) How does he know this is the right thing? Maybe the riolu murdered the mightyena’s entire family. Maybe it’s a serial killer who’s been terrorizing the whole forest for years. If you can understand pokemon and know they’re just as smart as anyone else, wouldn’t you think of them as people with their own motives and reasoning rather than just monsters that attack each other for no reason?

B) Remember how I was talking about the first pokemon we meet being with his mom because she lost her family tells us about the setting, and the first trainer we meet is someone who agrees pokemon should be well-treated, and how the first thing you introduce sets the tone?

Well. You start off with Aura claiming he’s seen all sorts of abuse of pokemon from humans, and the only other thing we’ve heard of is his own pokemon having her family murdered by humans. It’s very odd that the only situation we’ve seen so far is a pokemon attacking another pokemon. No need to go against another human, no fear that other humans would turn against Aura over it either.

Why is this rare, popular pokemon just running around wild to be attacked by a pokemon with a type weakness to it? Most riolu should be in human hands already, much like starter pokemon and eevee. Why did you choose to do it this way and not have a human hurting the riolu instead? How does this help what your story is supposed to say?

[The dark type canine paused, snarling at the human who got in the way of it’s lunch.]

Finally, while I didn’t bring this up with the meaty kababs, you really want to think about what meat means in your setting. This means all carnivorous pokemon are mass murderers. Moreover, given riolu are also canine pokemon, it’s like seeing a wolf jump a coyote, shouting about how killing is wrong, then sending the coyote on its way to go eat a fox.

If the goal here is to highlight how very hard it is to declare you’re going to stop all bad things from ever happening when people are constantly doing bad things to each other and so many are both victims and victimizers…well, it’s a good way to introduce that, but that’s a pretty hefty thing to tackle.

Relatedly, I think you should think about pronouns. If these are meant to be people to Aura, referring to them as “it” all the time undermines that.

[The bypedal canine behind Aura watched as the mysterious human stood to protect it, an overpowering sense of positive emotions emenating from the man that made Riolu feel safe.]

Also, again: it just means so much more for pokemon to respond to Aura as a person, for what he says and does, than because they keep getting mindblasted by HAPPYJOY around him.

[The trainer stared into the dog’s eyes, his own glowing with power and anger. “Leave now, or I will not hesitate to kill you.”]

So under what circumstances is killing okay? Is it right to kill the mightyena if it attacks him? If the mightyena has killed dozens of riolu before, is it right to let it go to keep murdering? Aura’s ethical standard here seems to be just not-in-my-backyard. He’ll attack any pokemon that attacks another, so long as it’s right in front of him, and he’ll stop if it leaves.

[“To be honest, I was hoping to catch you for my gym battle, but when I saw the Mightyena, I remembered a promise I made with my partner, that I would help any pokemon in need, and so I did.”
The trainer spoke with nothing but kindness in his voice]

His tone isn’t so much the issue. If someone spoke with nothing but kindness in their voice, “I was planning to kidnap you, but then I noticed there was a serial killer sneaking up on you and I felt I should help.” what would be the more important part to you.

[Riolu kneeled down to show respect towards the trainer like a knight kneeling before his king. Riolu rested his right forepaw in front of his right knee, leaving his other forepaw to rest on his left knee. “If it would not be too much trouble, I ask you to allow me to join your team, and travel alongside you.”]

Now, you told me over and over in PM that Aura is considerate because all his pokemon agree to join him. As I said repeatedly back, Aura can’t be considerate of others if all they do is throw themselves at his feet.

If Aura had chatted with various pokemon on his walk to see if any of them were interested in going with him and been told a bunch of times already that no, he seems nice but they don’t like battling/have responsibilities here, then this wouldn’t seem so much like the world bending to give him everything he wants as soon as he wanted it. And having the other pokemon assert they didn’t want to leave due to their family and friends would fit well with the riolu announcing his pack’s all dead and therefore yeah sure, let’s go. It would show Aura does respect what pokemon want and that other characters in the story are allowed to have priorities that conflict with Aura’s.

3/3
[“but first, do you have a name?”
Riolu shook his head, “No, I have not chosen a name for myself yet.”
“Well, I want all of my pokemon to have a name, it wouldn’t feel right just calling them their species.]

So, this is really not as considerate as you think it is. It’s like being all “Well, *I* think it’s silly to have to cover your hair all the time, so take the scarf off so I feel better.”

It makes very little sense for social animals to not have names for each other, so there’s already the fact this is transparently only happening so Aura can get a say in the final name. Next, because it makes so little sense, it makes it feel like not having names is really important to the riolu – that name choosing is a huge deal. And then Aura just shrugs and says but what about my feelings on not wanting to call pokemon by their species?

[Riolu thought for a moment, “I recall the pack members calling me ‘The Prince’ because of my father’s role as pack leader.”]

There’s also that weird edge of…like how everyone talks about how their great-grandmother was a “Cherokee princess”. Why does a small pack of people have a concept of princes? It seems like it’s there to make it sound like he’s an unusually great and special riolu, while at the same time providing a name people call their pet dogs. Wouldn’t they just call him the leader’s son? And respecting an odd name like “Leaderson” instead of pushing for a more human-style name would really help make it sound like Aura wasn’t just imposing his own feelings and values here.

[“Then why don’t we call you Prince? I personally find it fitting.” Aura suggested.
The name rolled around in Riolu’s mind for a moment before answering, “Very well, I shall now, and forever more, be known as Prince. Thank you, Master.”]

This is all just deeply, deeply uncomfortable, and even more unfortunately, you happen to be writing the exact same stuff people used to write about actual slaves. They have silly names, and then we give them better ones, and they say, “Thank you, Master! Your English name is so great, and my tiny slave brain could never have thought of it! I will cherish your off-the-cuff whim for the rest of my life!” There is a context to these things that is horrible.

And speaking of what Aura does and doesn’t insist on, it’s even more uncomfortable that he refuses to take no for an answer about what he’ll call the riolu, but decides he does have to respect the riolu’s wishes to call him Master. This doesn’t match up at all with who you said Aura is. It doesn’t seem like something the person who told Diamond he doesn’t want to treat pokemon as slaves or who made a speech to Dan about how he wants to prove pokemon aren’t just slaves and tools would think. If there’s anything where Aura’s feelings should matter, it’s about not wanting to get called Master.

[The trainer finally sighed, “I got into a fight with a Mightyena.”
“Why would you do that?!” She shouted at him in a worry fueled rage.]

…and now the one time she asserts herself, it’s to make a big deal about him. To show off how important he is to her. And, of course…

[Diamond looked at Aura, her anger faded and replaced with guilt for lashing out at him, “I-I’m sorry, Aura, I was just worried.”]

…it end with her apologizing for the one moment she hasn’t been a complete doormat.

This is not healthy. Aura didn’t do anything wrong here – it’s not his fault her own feelings usually don’t exist, or that she immediately beats herself up for raising her voice. But it does suggest he simply doesn’t have the ability to help her the way he wants. It doesn’t matter that she’s wrong to fear Aura is mad at her. Far more important is that Aura’s feelings are the only thing she can think about, and Aura doesn’t know enough to recognize this problem, let alone help her with it.

[Diamond badly wanted to run to him and jump into his arms, but she knew that might upset his wound, so instead, she just sat quietly on the cushion and waited.]

Also, this is a good illustration of consideration. Diamond wants a thing, but first thinks about how that would impact the other person, therefore she doesn’t. You’ve presented her as the weaker partner in this relationship, the one Aura wants to help, but we don’t see this sort of behavior from Aura.

[“Actually, her name is Diamond now,” he corrected.
“Ah, I assume because of the diamond necklace?” She asked, looking closely at the fox in her son’s arms.
Aura nodded, “Yeah]

I think this illustrates a subtler problem, which is that, from the story’s overall point of view, her name is Diamond because of the necklace. The conversation looks very odd when thinking about the characters’ views. Diamond isn’t Diamond because she’s got a necklace on her. Diamond is Diamond because she said, “I want my name to be called Diamond.” His phrasing makes it sound like he decided to put a necklace on her and then decided to name her after it.

Consider the difference between that and, “Actually, she’s decided she wants to be called Diamond.”

[“You caught a new pokemon?! Let me see!” Kibbs exclaimed in excitement.]

Similarly, you the author may already know that his new pokemon is only with him because it chose to join him. Kibbs the individual has no reaosn to think this, and Kibbs the pokemon rather than human should have, at best, mixed feelings about catching pokemon. If she assumes any pokemon with him is there because it wants to be, then she shouldn’t be using that term. “Catching” is not neutral. If I catch a dog, that’s different from a dog following me home. “A new pokemon decided to join me!” and “I caugh a new pokemon!” are not synonymous.

Why can’t Diamond take a bath on her own?

The way he’s treating her is like a helpless child, which makes the sexual elements very very umcomfortable. And on her part, the fact she recognizes this is sexual and continues with it when Aura makes it clear he doesn’t mean that then makes it seem like she’s the one trying to trick him into sexual activity. This scene has no reason to happen if it’s not for one of them to trick the other into doing something sexual, and regardless of which one it is, that makes the relationship seem really bad. If you want a cute thing, you really need to set it up so it sounds like one adult helping another adult. You need a sane reason why Aura needs to be involved with washing her fur.

It doesn’t help that this is happening way too fast. Diamond seems to be acting based entirely on physical things – she feels calm around him because magical destiny aura, she’s inexplicably turned on by hairless skin showing off non-fennekin musculature, and now she’s getting a sexy bath-massage out of him.

[“Diamond, it’s alright, like I said, it looks cute on you, but if you don’t like it, I can brush your fur back,” Aura replied with true sincerety.
“Please do, I don’t like looking like a Furfrou,” she said]

This would’ve been a much better thing to focus on. If she took a bath and explained afterward she hated getting wet because it makes her fur puff up for hours, then brushing her would be less WTF WTF WTF than him plunking her in a tub and soaping her up, but she could find it feels really nice because he’s making sure to go carefully and gently.

(It’d also have made more sense for her to respond to it getting too sexual by stopping – she really doesn’t seem like the sort to be ready to rush into anything.)

[In the original version of this chapter, Aura never got the scar, he just whacked the Mightyena and it fell into the river]

I think that’s an improvement, but it’s pretty minor. No scar vs cool shallow scar, then rewarded with a pokemon you and he like, one he had already decided he wanted to catch. Like I keep saying, you need to show negative consequences that he accepts for him to come off like he’s actually sacrificing anything. Risking himself for the riolu is an okay start, but it turned out to have no consequences and then an immediate reward. It’s been three chapters now and everything he’s done has worked out great for him.

Ch4

1/2[“L-Lady Arceus?!” Aura exclaimed as he quickly dropped to his knees.]

Well, I wasn’t expecting this to come up so soon.

Hm. I’m in favor of plot points happening and not getting endlessly pushed back by filler, but it felt like there were plot points that were happening and needed to be addressed. Aura has the whole “I want to help pokemon but am fumbling around and not really doing much to accomplish it” thing going on. Last chapter showed signs he was starting to think about what he actually needed to do, even if it was dangerous. The voice of God showing up to tell him his actual destiny makes me think all that’s going to get sidelined.

[“I have come to you because a great disaster is destined to befall upon the world,” she answered.
“Wha-what do you mean?” Aura inquired.
“A great evil, one that has been asleep for over a thousand years, will be re-awakened by an army of corrupted followers.”]

Yeah. So the whole “maybe do something about humans beating pokemon to death in front of me” thing looks to no longer matter. The evil he’s fighting is one that isn’t currently in the world, and the people who serve it are just specific cultists and not the common people and their commonplace atrocities.

If the third chapter’s opening made me want to see where you were going, this makes me want to nope right out.

Is there some connection between the corrupted followers/ancient evil and the fact Aura claimed in the first chapter that there are tons of evil trainers? If so, Arceus doesn’t say anything to suggest it.

What do these two plots have to do with each other? If the story is supposed to be about him fighting a secret evil, why did you open with him talking about going up against a completely different, public evil? At best, that’s bait and switch. And if there is a connection and these two things do fit together, you really need to explain when bringing up the new plot, because otherwise it leaves me with the impression that one was just a decoy plot before the real one showed up.

[Thank Arceus, it was just a dream, but what did she mean by all that?” He thought.]

If it’s just a dream, it doesn’t mean anything. Either he knows it was a real godly message, in which case it’s not “just” a dream, or he thinks it’s just a dream and would only wonder about why he had such a weird dream.

[“So, I heard that Aura was planning on challenging the gym soon,”Spyke said. Prince and Diamond nodded.
“Yeah, though I probably won’t be battling,” Diamond said.
“Huh? Why not?”
“I don’t feel like I’d be very useful, but I’m sure Prince can help win the badge on his own,” she said.
“Thank you Diamond, but, I am sure that you would do just fine in a battle,” Prince told her.
“I don’t know, I’m not very strong,” she said, now slightly depressed.]

You made a huge deal to me in PM about how Aura was very nice because he respected Diamond’s wishes not to battle, but what you keep writing, over and over, is that Diamond’s issue is just thinking she’s not good enough for him. That’s not the same thing at all.

[“Thanks, Prince, maybe one day I’ll be ready, but probably not for a while.”]

You also go on to further stomp on the idea this could be an actual preference she has and not just a failure she needs to overcome.

If it’s important to you that Aura is great for not demanding a pokemon fight, your story shouldn’t undermine it at every turn.

[Alright, Prince, since the gym leader here uses bug types, your blaze kick will hopefully be our best bet.”]

The one fire move riolu can only learn by egg inheritance from two pokemon that aren’t found wild indeed would be super helpful here, which appears to be why it’s showing up, logic be damned.

I agree that giving pokemon access to a wider movepool makes for more interesting battles. But if their regular moveset is nothing but normal and fighting moves, that’s generally where they should be starting off rather than able to use whatever move makes it easiest for the main character. If it’s vital Aura enter into a gym battle with a massive advantage, buying a TM for one of the rock moves riolu can learn and/or teaching that through practice would be a much better way of handling this than deciding that Aura just happens to be handed a huge advantage. Better still would be Aura being smart enough to pick a gym based on where he has an advantage, instead of coincidence and fiat doing it for him.

[Aura set down the box he was holding, “We’re going to start off with your evasion and speed,” he opened the box and picked out one of the many pokeball sized, pink rubber balls that were inside, then, he held out the ball for Prince to get a good look.]

I’m torn. Dodgeball is a cute way of trying to get the trainer more involved in training…but it also comes out of nowhere.

Most of the time, fics that put a big emphasis on training do it two ways: their pokemon is a newbie and any sort of practice before getting in a real fight will help, or their pokemon’s been through several battles and they’ve gotten a good idea of its strengths and weaknesses, and can then tailor it to the situation.

Riolu does appear to be a pretty pathetic pokemon given he’s a fighting type that was apparently easy prey to a weak dark type, but Aura just deciding that the problem is dodging without ever seeing him fight or asking him what he thinks his problems are feels abrupt and strange, like the real reason this is happened is because you tried to think of what training could involve, thought of dodgeball, then decided on that route.

It’s similarly unclear why Aura needs to tell Riolu to use his quick attack to dodge better. How young is he supposed to be? That he doesn’t understand the basics of his own moves and needs a human to explain them makes him come off as a very young child, which then raises the question about if it means anything that he agrees to battle for Aura.

[“Does that mean I can learn how to cook after I evolve?” Diamond cut in with her hopefull voice.
“I don’t see why not, I’d actually be happy to teach you what I know.”
Diamond’s smile grew as she began jumping for joy]

You also mentioned this to me as another big deal thing Aura does for Diamond. In context, this just makes me feel very concerned for Diamond again, that her life has been so awful that such a tiny thing as “I will teach you how to do a mundane utility task sometime later” is a jump-for-joy thing for her.

 

2/2[“Wow, this is good, what’d you put in here?” Dan asked, taking another spoonful into his mouth.
“Before we came back here, I asked the nurse if I could have a few leppa berries,” he looked at him in question, “since me and Prince were exhausted from training, I added the leppa berries to give us a bit of a stamina boost, since we gotta get back to training as soon as we’re done eating.”
He swallowed the mouthfull, “Well, it sure worked, you’ve gotta give me the recipe sometime, it would come in handy when treating tired pokemon.”]

I get the impression that a lot of this is being written with you realizing something, then you writing that Aura realized it, then everyone else being amazed. Why wouldn’t this be common knowledge, especially with someone who’s supposed to be learning how to be a pokemon doctor? It’s as simple as taking berries that do this thing when you eat them and putting them in the food you’re going to eat.

[Aura pat her head, “The reason for this training is for Prince to deflect the balls at a moving target, so a tree wouldn’t be the best choice; besides, if I can take a hit from a Mightyena’s claws, then I’m sure I can deal with getting hit by a rubber ball.”]

Wow, way to make it clear that the mightyena thing wasn’t a huge noble sacrifice but some no big deal thing Aura would’ve been fine doing for pretty much any reason. (Also, I’m not clear exactly how you’re picturing these “rubber balls”. If they’re hollow soft plastic, they’d have been destroyed immediately. If they’re solid rubber, well, rubber bullets maim and kill people all the time. A solid rubber ball flung at you could break your arm or crack your skull easily.)

I mean, I guess I don’t know anything about Aura so far that’d contradict him being an idiot adrenaline jockey, but it really doesn’t make me like him more and contrasts really, really badly with positioning him as being all about morality. Hell, he’s not even respecting his promise to Diamond not to worry her! She’s worried and upset and he’s just ignoring it because who cares? Apparently not him!

[Aura paused as he walked up to Dan, whispering into his ear, “please tell me you have an idea. I don’t want Diamond to worry about me, but I can’t think of any other ways to do this kind of training.”]

Like I keep saying – if he says he cares about her feeling except that, then the “except” part is clearly the thing he values more. He won’t do the thing that upsets her ONLY IF he’s handed another way to accomplish the exact same thing. No actual compromise is possible – he won’t even try a different way if not convinced it’ll work precisely as well – let alone completely saying she’s right and stopping. Every time his desires conflict with Diamond’s, he makes a big deal of how very much he cares “except” the other thing is more important.

[Aura picked up Diamond, she looked up at the trainer, “Could you please promise that you won’t make yourself a target again? I don’t want you getting hurt any more.”
He stroked her back as they walked back inside the Pokemon Center, “Alright, Diamond, I promise to be more careful.”]

Does he really? He switched to letting another pokemon play dodgeball instead only because he was convinced he didn’t need to be the target. Nothing she said was able to convince him to stop and nothing about that’s changed, so I’m left with the impression he’s saying it largely because he doesn’t actually take promises seriously – he’s only saying it because he doesn’t currently want to do it, so it costs him nothing to promise and get her to stop badgering him. If he and Dan split up and he hadn’t found a replacement pokemon, he’d just tell her the promise didn’t count because now he actually needed to be the target, wouldn’t he? That he really does want to honor the promise, but this other thing matters more.

Ch5

1/2[After a message I recieved saying how Dan hasn’t really been shown much, I decided to give him a little more story time in this one, I hope it’s okay.]

The better thing to do is think about why he’s in the story at all. Right now, he seems to just be there to help Aura out with minor things and be impressed by Aura’s statements. He doesn’t appear to have a purpose, is actively detrimental to the idea that the world needs Aura to show them how to treat pokemon kindly, and is an ongoing plot hole with how Aura supposedly cares about Diamond’s feelings but sees no issue with still traveling with someone he knew she’d be scared of/an ongoing characterization black hole with how that aspect of Diamond’s character is largely dropped as a result. It’s not even like you need him in the way a standard pokemon fic would to let the main character chat with somebody, since Aura can do that with his pokemon. (And if you don’t feel Aura can handle camping on his own, having his pokemon help him with that would’ve helped flesh them out as independent people better.)

[“Now, Prince, use blaze kick!” Aura called out to Prince, as they were currently in a battle with a bug catcher, whom was using a Beedrill.
“Dodge and use twineedle!” The bug catcher called]

So his pokemon gets a super effective, extremely unlikely move, while the beedrill can’t even use poison jab instead of a move that fighting types resist? Why not acrobatics or aerial ace?

Victories aren’t impressive if the main character’s pokemon gets the best moves and everyone else gets the very worst.

[“That was a good battle, we should do it again sometime,” the bug catcher said, holding out his hand.
“Indeed it was, Izzy, I look forward to that rematch,” Aura responded]

Shouldn’t he be concerned that Izzy might go beat the beedrill to death for losing? You can’t open a story saying everyone else is horrible and expect it not to matter. If it doesn’t, you shouldn’t have brought it up. And if you changed your mind, you really should’ve gone back and edited it immediately, because that’s an enormous change you’re making to your setting.

[-POV Dan, 1st Person-]

I realize I said I wouldn’t get into mechanical things but switching between first and third is awful.

[(“Help me!”) The voice said, I realized it was the Ralts that was screaming.]

There really isn’t much reason to make a big deal about how Aura can understand any pokemon when apparently you can’t go two feet without tripping over pokemon with telepathy. First a riolu, now a ralts?

Also, we’ve now seen two pokemon on pokemon incidents to zero human on pokemon ones. It sure seems like Aura’s time would be better spent patrolling the wilderness than worrying about convincing trainers to act differently.

[I turned to the Ralts, as Spyke had already laid down on one of the pillows and fallen asleep. “So, do you have a name?” I asked her.
(“Yes, my name is Nessa.”)]

Well, it’s nice to finally have someone answer yes to that, but then why does nobody else have a name?

[I just sighed, “Wish she would have liked to join the team,” I thought.]

And yet, of course she ends up doing so.

This is far better than anything we’ve seen from Aura, since he’s letting her leave without a peep, but that consideration has to be reflected in the story too. Nice people who help others should meet many other people, and not all of them join up and stay forever.

[(“No! I am not leaving you!”) She said, (“You protected me, and now it’s my turn to protect you!”) A white light enveloped the Ralts, her small body grew a bit taller, and a skirt formed around her waist, when the light dissapated, a Kirlia stood where Nessa was.]

He didn’t, though. It’s his pokemon that fought to defend her, and then did so again and got beaten into a pulp doing so. It’s very weird when even pokemon disregard their fellow pokemon to act like the only person there is the human.

[She nodded, “Yes, Daniel, I would like to be one of your pokemon, I’m not very good with combat, but I could help you become a great doctor.”]

Like with the romance, this is just too rushed. He’s made no particular effort to help pokemon before this, and now he’s just handed a rare, popular pokemon who just so happens to have exactly the skills and interests that match his dream.

If he’d met a whole bunch of pokemon, then it’d be quite reasonable he’d run into one like this. If he’d actively looked for a pokemon interested in working together for his dream, that’d have been even better, suggesting he really did care about what the pokemon wanted. This just seems like the world warping to reward him.

[“I believe that is my doing,” Nessa interjected, walking out from behind me.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“I can use my psychic abilities to act as a translator]

When we were introduced to Aura as someone who understood pokemon by birth, it made sense that other humans could be far crueler to pokemon. Now you’re saying that not only can plenty of pokemon communicate just fine, but they’re capable of letting humans around them understand any pokemon.

It isn’t impossible to abuse someone when you understand what they’re saying, but it requires a very particular sort of culture to justify it, and a great deal of pressure for everyone to support that culture, yet so far every last person we’ve met claims they care about pokemon and want them treated decently.

As I’ve said, you have to think about what the purpose of this element is. If there’s lots of ways to understand pokemon and you’re just going to introduce a permanent translator, then why say Aura’s unique instead of just saying everyone can understand pokemon and avoiding this whole mess? And if pokemon are easily able to communicate, why doesn’t this seem to be a factor in how they’re being treated?

At this point, it really looks like your first chapters about Aura the one kind trainer have nothing to do with the story you actually want to tell. If this is supposed to just be about Aura’s destiny, if you’re only interested in having characters rescue wild pokemon from other wild pokemon, if every trainer we meet is perfectly fine, then you should take out his rant about how he’s doing all this to prove the importance of love and trust to the abusive trainer masses and say that yeah, actually the world is pretty great and Aura just wants to be a pokemon trainer because they’re cool. Then adding “secret evil is about to pop out of a hole and wreck all this greatness!” would work just fine as a plot.

…speaking of things and purpose, why is there a long, involved conversation about precisely how the trainer/gym bureaucracy works? It’s not a matter of feeling you have to include it because canon, because what you’re saying isn’t true in any version of canon, it doesn’t seem to have any relevant implications to the story, and the only thing it clearly does do is remove a potential complication of stolen badges – and it’s really rare in a story you need to bring up something no one’s concerned about to mention it won’t ever happen or matter.

[“I’m Viola, the Santalune gym leader, and who are you, challenger?”
“I am Aura, from Vaniville Town, and I am here to get my first badge!” Aura said.]

Huh, and that’s another bit of conflict between the opening chapter and what the plot’s actually been. If Viola isn’t an evil pokemon-abusing monster, if your story has the standard gym leaders with their standard personalities, then there’s already at least eight well-known powerful trainers in Kalos who got there by not beating pokemon to death. Assuming the local League is the same, that’s another five of the top trainers in the region who don’t abuse pokemon. One more trainer doing the same thing wouldn’t change anybody’s mind.

2/2[“Surskit, use your sticky web!” Surskit leaned forward and began firing globs of a sticky substance from the point on it’s head.
“Dodge with quick attack!” As the globs closed in on the Riolu, he began to quickly dodge them like he had during their training.
“Keep up your sticky web! Tire it out!” Viola’s Surskit continued it’s assault, even speeding up a bit.
“This isn’t good.” Aura knew Prince couldn’t dodge forever, and he could tell the canine pokemon was getting tired.]

…isn’t the bigger factor that there’s only so much space to dodge? I’m pretty sure a bunch of sticky threads doesn’t instantly disappear just because it hit the ground instead of a pokemon.

Moreover, in game terms, sticky web is an autohit move and an entry hazard. That strongly suggests it’s not one ball of goo, as does the name itself. Perhaps you confused it with string shot. Regardless, just because you thought of playing dodgeball to train pokemon doesn’t mean it makes sense to build the gym battle around being exactly what they practiced.

If a random riolu can just happen to know blaze kick, why doesn’t her pokemon know psybeam?

Often the way this works is that the first gym, where the main character’s team only know a few basic moves, doesn’t have the gym leader’s pokemon knowing every move they could use either. When you say that nope, your character’s new pokemon can use whatever’s convenient, those same rules apply to everybody else.

This would’ve been avoided if you’d shown Aura teaching his pokemon a rock move – it’d establish that he’d tailored their training to their upcoming fight and that learning unusual moves takes particular effort and time. Viola has no reason to specifically train her pokemon to focus on countering fighting types, so it wouldn’t feel like you’re cheating to make your character look better if she didn’t have a super-effective move to counter him with.

[“Surskit, switch from sticky web to bubble beam!”]

But even without psybeam, why not aqua jet? And it does know quick attack because you bring it up shortly, and there’s also agility. They can also know mind reader. And they learn sweet scent quite early on. So why would a gym leader see an opponent dodging and keep ordering regular attacks instead of telling her pokemon to match speeds or shut down the opponent’s? Surskit’s thing is speed in a way it isn’t for riolu, so it makes no sense that challenging a gym leader’s pokemon in its area of specialty works out for Aura.

[Suddenly, Diamond heard a voice in her head, that simply said ‘go to him’, and that’s exactly what she did.]
…
[“I’m going to help you win this,” she said, turning to face her trainer with determination.
“But, I thought you didn’t want to battle?”
Diamond shook her head, “I don’t, but I hate seeing you like this, you do everything you can to make me happy, and now it’s my turn to do it for you.”]

Literally just last chapter he refused to stop doing his stupid live target training no matter how much she begged him. He didn’t change any of his plans to accommodate her in the slightest from chapter one to now. What did he do for her? Tell her she wouldn’t have to fight but hey look, his very first battle she will anyway, over something as petty and stupid as a gym badge. He could just go back tomorrow! This doesn’t actually matter! But him being upset right now over not winning his very first time? Apparently way more important than any of her feelings have ever been. And she didn’t even really choose to – she got smacked by destiny-voice and told to do it, and she even frames it as an obligation. She doesn’t want to, but he and mystery head voice have successfully guilted her into going back on the one scrap of personality and choice she’d managed.

And of course, Viola just orders her pokemon to spam gust rather than ordering powder and making it so Diamond can’t use fire moves, because non-Aura trainers continue to be crippled movesetwise.

[“Diamond…” He paused, an energy surged throughout his whole body, “I will not let this happen any longer…” Everyone watched as his body was enveloped in a thin layer of royal blue flames, though this went unnoticed by himself, he looked through the flames, seeing the small form of the fox within them, “I WON’T LET YOU SUFFER!”]

“Therefore I forfeit.”

This isn’t a battle against an evil enemy. It’s a standard gym battle against a regular person. All he has to do is say stop and this stops. He is the only one letting it happen.

But once again, it’s not really about her, is it? “I won’t you suffer…SO LONG AS I can still win.” It’s clear which is actually more important to him, because it’s the one he keeps acting toward even as he says otherwise. It’s his most consistant character trait at this point, really – he cares about her precisely enough to say he’s sorry for the fact he’s going to ignore that to keep going with what he wants.

[“This power, this energy, it’s unimaginable.” Aura felt even more invigorated than ever before, he could also feel the energy flowing through Diamond, “Okay, Diamond, it’s time to finish this!”
Diamond inhaled deeply, holding it for a second before letting loose a roaring inferno from her maw, enveloping the butterfly and sending it to the ground in a charred heap.
The ref stood in shock, though quickly shook it away and called the battle, “Vivillon is unable to battle, Fennekin wins, so the victory goes to Aura from Vaniville Town!”]

A technical victory, perhaps, but that was obviously way more than enough to get disqualified.

That wasn’t mega evolution or anything. That was just a human having a unique, personal power turning the battle from the agreed upon one-on-one into a two-on-one. Would it have been okay for Aura to send out a second pokemon to boost Diamond? Nope, you can’t spam helping hand or heal pulse or any of that from the sidelines, it’s cheating. Would it have been okay for a trainer to chuck rocks at the other pokemon? Nope, being the trainer who did it doesn’t somehow make it not cheating. It sure wouldn’t have been okay for him to have bribed his way to victory, and that’s a far fairer thing given more than one person is rich while Aura is the only human to have his super destiny powers.

Viola should not be gushing that the thing he did that completely invalidates the gym ideal of a fair test of skill is just, like, so cool, wow.

More, unless Aura’s confused and thinks this power is accessible to anybody who really cares about their pokemon, it stomps all over his ideals too. He couldn’t actually win with love and trust. Saying his pokemon are family and not slaves didn’t matter. “You don’t need to beat your pokemon to win, so long as you are the chosen one who can brute-force your way to victory no matter what! Only if you’re anyone other than me is it a good idea to beat them!” Why on earth is he happy to get this badge? Why is there paragraph after paragraph of people going on about why this is great? It’s a disaster for him – the fact he got the badge is even worse than if he’d been disqualified, because then he could at least try again and get another shot at proving what he (supposedly, anyway) believes in, but now he can’t. It’s a permanent reminder of that time “trust and love” weren’t worth anything.

Ch6

1/2[“Aura, I’m hungry, when are we gonna stop and set up camp?” Diamond asked.
I looked at the Fennekin, she was currently resting on my shoulder with her lower half lying on my backpack, “That’s the fourth time you’ve asked that,” I replied, giving her nose a little poke.
She shook my hand away, and looked at me with a small blush from the affection, “I’m sorry, I just feel really drained today.”]

So why can’t she just eat?

Part of why there are so many issues with how Aura treats Diamond is because he has so much power over her. If this was just two humans, then if Diamond really wanted to eat, she’d have food in her backpack and could just start eating it. If she didn’t like how far Aura usually traveled before making camp, she could decide to leave and find some other traveling partners who fit her better. But Diamond is completely trapped with Aura, which means he needs to work extra hard to make sure he’s treating her as an equal and not taking advantage of that. What you have here is her complaining repeatedly but the humans only stopping when they’re ready to set up camp.

[She kept her eyes on the bushes as she answered me in a hushed tone, “I swear I heard something.”
I leaned towards the bushes, though I didn’t hwar anything, “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”
“Would these ears lie?” She asked me, a little irritated that I wouldn’t believe her.
“Hey, I didn’t say that I didn’t belive you,” I said, getting a little defensive, “I just said that I didn’t hear anything.”]

No. He said, “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.” So he didn’t “just” say the second half, and totally did say he didn’t believe her.

Again, in a relationship of equals, this is no big deal. When Diamond is completely dependent on him for decent treatment, that he’s so defensive about something this minor, so ready to dismiss what she says – it’s really, really concerning. If you write a relationship that’s unbalanced on every level, you pretty much have to write the stronger party as a saint or else they come off as taking advantage.

[“I told you I heard something,” Diamond said as we sat next to the puppy pokemon.
“Sorry, Diamond, but now’s not the time for that,” I panicked, “we have to help this Lillipup.”]

It is absolutely the right time for that. Because the next time she hears the sound of some dying pokemon, he should really do something instead of arguing with her about what she heard, and he needs to acknowledge that. Diamond isn’t the one being petty here, he is. And “You’re right!” would’ve taken less time to say, if he’s so worried it’s not the time to be arguing about this.

[“It must have gotten into one hell of a fight to be in this kind of condition,”]

Or it lost a battle and then its trainer decided to beat it to death. Aura should be familiar with this because he says he’s seen it before: [I’ve seen pokemon be abused by their trainers, sometimes almost killed, all over something stupid like losing a battle, sometimes even just abandoning them like a piece of garbage.] Why wouldn’t that kind of thing be everyone’s first assumption here?

[The small Lillipup let out a faint groan as I tried my hardest to gently wash the dry blood from it’s body; while washing it, I had discovered she was a girl. But I kept my focus and finished washing her.]

A) Instead of hurting a possibly dying creature more with a completely unhelpful bath, he could just put her in a pokeball and transport her to a pokemon center. That’d what you’d do if you actually wanted to help, as opposed to making sure everybody gets to see you help, especially given he doesn’t seem to know even the most basic first aid.

B) [ while washing it, I had discovered she was a girl. But I kept my focus ] What. Why would that mean he could lose focus? The only possible thing I can think of here is that he’d be distracted by fucking this dying puppy, which is horrifying.

[I turned my head, slowly looking up at Aura with teary eyes, “She’s lost, I heard her mumbling something about wanting someone named Gwen to find her]

That just means she had a trainer. Given trainers regularly kill or abandon their pokemon, she was either left after losing a battle or left for dead after getting beaten for losing a battle. Given the slavish devotion we’ve seen from every pokemon so far, it’s also completely expected that such a pokemon would want to go back to such a person.

Seriously, you can’t have your first chapter involve a giant speech about how trainers abuse pokemon then have every other trainer be perfect and beyond reproach. Even if this actually was an accident, it makes no sense that’s what they assume. If you find some kid who looks like somebody beat them with a belt, would your very first assumption be they need to go back home because it must’ve been a stranger who did this?

[“Gwen tried to call off the battle, knowing that I was no match for such a powerful pokemon, but he wouldn’t listen, he ordered his pokemon to attack me]

Another person who totally cares but not enough to forfeit! I imagine the scene played out much like all the “so long as” business with Diamond. Gwen arguing that the battle wasn’t fair or shouldn’t count or something, that they should stop so long as it didn’t mean officially acknowledging a loss on her side of things, all over the sound of cracking bones from her lillipup.

The only possible justification for pokeballs when pokemon are just as smart as humans is for their own safety and protection. But just as the lillipup isn’t recalled now so she isn’t lying around in agony, she wasn’t recalled then to prevent her from getting hurt in the first place.

[We began to pack up camp and set back on the road, in hopes of finding Gwen.]

Next issue, it isn’t actually hard to find a trainer. If they just drop her off at a pokecenter, the people there could handle it better than them just walking around hoping they trip over the girl. Much like washing bloody fur vs sticking her in a pokeball, one is the big showy way to say you care while the other is actually concerned with helping.

[“Gwen and I grew up together, her parents each had a Stoutland, who are my parents, so Gwen and I knew each other since we were little]

To continue on the pokemon treatment thing – this is not the cutesy thing you think it sounds like. Sounds like a pokemon doesn’t have much choice in who they befriend or mate with, do they? Their social circle is limited to whatever other pokemon are in the household and that’s it, and their children are just as trapped. This is the kind of setup you’d get talking about a friendship between the master’s kid and the children of the house slaves.

[they’re currently working on a pokemon translator, Gwen and her parents are currently the only people who have the prototypes]

Why is this here? Translation appears to be cheap given kirlia can do it as an area effect (and it’s described as general psychic abilities, meaning it’s probably not even limited to a single pokemon species). Nobody cares Aura can talk to pokemon, Dan doesn’t care he can now understand pokemon, and in neither case has the fact pokemon talk done much to change how they feel about pokemon. Possibly it meant something to Gwen, but if so, not enough to make her choke out a forfeit either.

In a world where pokemon are, supposedly, treated as tools and slaves, giving them a voice should be a pretty big deal. That you stuck it in here as a random note in a chapter you describe as filler suggests your interest in the pokemon begins and ends at telling people Aura’s great for saying he cares.

And now they’re tripping over Gwen just because it’s time to end. Worse, as far as I can tell this chapter, they spent the whole time walking from the place Gwen said she was heading. They were in Santalune, they left Santalune, Gwen is said to be heading to Santalune, and by the time they run into Gwen, they’re right outside their destination of Lumiose. Not only are they making no particular effort to find her, but they’re intentionally walking the wrong way.

So to get back, once again, to the issue of if Aura actually sacrifices anything – he “searches” for Gwen by continuing to walk toward Lumiose instead of even doing the bare minimum of heading back to Santalune’s pokecenter, and he was never even on a time limit in the first place. There’s not even temptation to not want to help reunite them given lillipup aren’t that cool of a pokemon and aren’t rare so he’d have trouble finding a different one if he did want one. He does nothing and gives up nothing, and the narration pretends he’s a hero for it.

[This chapter was intended as a filler]

Now, I brought up filler and how it should never, ever be in a story like this, but there’s a different problem here, which is that you do, in fact, say a lot of important things about your world (and non-Aura characters) here, and the fact you describe it as filler means you don’t care about any of those things.

Like the fact a device that would let pokemon tattle on an abusive trainer doesn’t matter and the whole idea of a translator is just some silly novelty. By implication, pokemon have no rights at all – nothing a pokemon could possibly say would be legally actionable, even if it was just to tell someone where to look for the bodies of the trainer’s other murdered pokemon. Trainers don’t even protect their own pokemon. They might argue with someone planning to hurt or kill their pokemon, but they won’t bother to recall the pokemon and the other trainer doesn’t need to worry about getting in trouble for harming somebody else’s property. (To say nothing of how messed up the pokemon doing the attacking must be.) We can also see that there’s evidently no real healing for pokemon given the most that can be done for the lillipup is a bandage, which makes pokemon battles even more horrifying, and unless Aura is a sadist, pokeballs either do absolutely nothing or hurt pokemon worse, yet they’re still where pokemon go after losing a battle all the time.

2/2
So, in conclusion:

Of the options I talked about in the first chapter, I think just dropping badges and a pokemon journey entirely is the best way to go. The epic destiny makes him wanting to do the same badge quest as everybody else look ridiculous, you seem to want his pokemon to have the best moves right from the start which does not bode well for any sense of progression across a million battles, and going straight into battles that have actual consequence would make Diamond jumping into battle and his own powers triggering be powerful and meaningful as opposed to the farce of doing that over some friendly battle with no consequences. More, if all the pokemon he picks up this time around got a destiny handwave, the fact the very next one to show up is a super rare pokemon – well, it’s still contrived, but it’s a bit better given he’s got aura powers and so getting an aura pokemon feels like it could be more than just because you like it, even if you said that’s the actual reason. (You could also not give him a team – it seems like that’s just part of the same script as the badge quest, and just focusing on Aura and Diamond would make more sense and let you focus properly on just developing their personalities and relationship.)

Absolutely, absolutely drop the pokemon treatment angle, because what should be evidence of your character’s goodness is just making him look like a monster when it keeps not mattering and the story ties itself in knots avoiding going against bad trainers. You’re much better off removing a lot of the standard pokemon setup given you’ve got talking, fully sapient pokemon and no room in the plot to discuss how that works with the setup of capture. Just say capturing never happens, everyone understands each other, and pokemon just choose to hang out with humans sometimes because they like each other. (That’d also skip the ridiculousness of three different ways to understand pokemon happening in a mere six chapters.) This means you can’t say Aura is especially great for saying he cares about pokemon, but it also means Aura doesn’t seem like a lying hypocrite for not doing anything about every other trainer. Your story is about Aura fighting for preserving the status quo, so don’t say Aura is so much better than the rest of the world, say the rest of the world is worth fighting for.

You also said you hadn’t thought much about why Diamond likes Aura, but you actually do have that here, it’s just the answer seems to be that it’s a wholly physical thing, which is not a good answer on many levels. I’m also guessing it’s rushed precisely because you want to get to the sex scenes pretty early, so you wouldn’t want the fix of just slowing things down. In that case, your best bet is to have her already around for some time before the story starts, or, if that seems too much like your complaint of coming into a movie midway through, have the story start with Aura meeting Diamond when he’s much younger, then timeskip to him at seventeen. A large chunk of time we don’t see makes it easier to believe Aura’s been considerate and caring towards her by just saying it totally happened offscreen and showing Diamond feels that he’s been nice, while that doesn’t work when we’re with him the whole time and can see all he does is say he’s considerate a few times while doing what he already wanted.

And you’ve either got to treat Diamond’s issues as valid or not put them in the fic in the first place. It’s utterly disgusting that all Aura can think about when they meet is “fixing” her, even before we get into the fact his way of doing so was to force her to be around humans and just expect her to deal. The same goes for Kibbs – what was the point of her losing her family? What was the point of Prince losing his family? If you want this story to revolve around Aura, then don’t give other people horrible backgrounds just to ignore them.

 

As a result of this effort, I have recieved dead silence. Another score for copypasta covering basic issues being told to as many people as possible instead!