The Pokemon Saga

[Phoopes]

@Kutie Pie: Of course I sent the PM... a few hours late. I thought this chapter was a little serious, but apparently I had the right amount of humor. Characterization was the easy part because I have all of the characters mapped out in my head now, unlike before. (You should have seen Arceus in Chapter 1. He had split personalities. lol) Odd way to tell me that you liked a cliff hanger... And you will find out if they're screwed in the next chapter, because I have decided the chapter order now that I mentioned earlier. So... yeah. There ya have it.

[The Imposter]

Hey, nice chapter! You're doing nicely keeping your characters in-character, and you had a decent amount of humor as well. I saw no grammar problems either. Keep the good chapters coming!

[Phoopes]

Thanks! As I said with Kutie Pie, characterization is one of the easiest things for me now because I have every character mapped up in my head now. I try to keep up the humour, and next chapter I already have a scene writen... it's a real doozy. I was surprised that I didn't have any (that anyone noticed) grammar errors since this one wasn't beta-read. Thanks for reading!

EDIT: 1,000 views! (personal milestone)

[catzeye]

Wow just wow.

Chapter 7 was very interesting. I loved the humor with Darkrai. He seems like one of those people who takes every opportunity to mess with someone, not matter who they are.

I'm surprised and very frightened at the prospect of ALL the evil teams in the Pokemon world coming together. I mean that's a whole lot of evil gathered together. However I do wonder if there will be friction within Team Alpha since all those different teams have different goal and beliefs.

But the fact that they are already using shadow Pokemon means things are going to get real serious for the Pokemon. I wonder how the newbies to the Pokemon Conference are going to handle this major event.

Overall great chapter. It's building up to what's going to be an interesting showdown between humans and Pokemon.

[Phoopes]

1. You are correct. Darkrai will mess with anyone, and he has that "dirty mind" thing going on.
2. You will see if there is friction in later chapters.
3. You will see how the newbies (well, only one) will handle it in later chapters.
4. Yep, the showdown in the next chapter will be epic!

[Vali]

Great fic, I'm looking forward to the battle between Rayquaza, Groudon, and Kyogre. Can you add me to the PM list?

[Phoopes]

Great fic, I'm looking forward to the battle between Rayquaza, Groudon, and Kyogre. Can you add me to the PM list?

Thank you. And I'm also looking forward to the battle. And I will add you to the PM list.

[bobandbill]

As requested, a review! Because I was reading and suddenly oh look end of the seventh chapter and a lot of quotes I might as well just do it now. =p Stuff's likely a bit jumbled/raised during said quotes, so.

Anyways, there's a bunch of interesting premises here - I like the idea of there being a leader of every species basically being in charge of their own problems and all, along with them meeting every year - not something I've seen before and on the whole the dynamics around that seems pretty well done. I like the whole thing between Gardevoir and Alakazam as well - their characters and interactions were fairly well set up, and the complication about their mystery egg is a pretty interesting twist too. But dang at your portrayal of Combee and Vespiquen - I quite liked that in particular. And alternate perspectives is something I always like too. Also a sucker for a bit about Shadow Pokemon in it for obvious reasons. =p I liked the use of that for Alakazam though and how it was an explanation for him getting on with dark types.

Humour is decent as well when it comes up, although I do feel bits were a bit forced/seemed a bit 'off' compared to the rest of the fic - out of place, if you will. (Like say the Gigas Punches [funny how I am noticing all these fic references people make the same day someone makes a thread about it, huh - my friend has started a trend it seems in suggesting the idea to me in the first place... *rambles*] - three times was a bit much but more so it seemed somewhat shoehorned in, and made the battle come to a very sudden end after it had begun to build up. But that's my take on it.

Some things that could use addressing would be a couple of the characters, despite it being an otherwise strong point of your story. For instance, Darkrai seems to have been somewhat more prankster-like in the last chapter or two which seems somewhat different to his character beforehand (more naive and sympathetic, which makes sense given his seclusion on the island for the vast majority of the year - so this new devlopment seems off and wastes the potential already built up in the following chapters).

I'm also a bit confused about Arceus himself - I saw another comment on this from before while reading and although those aspects are better now he still seems all over the place - worried about the teams' plans to all-knowing about the egg and all. Plus given his standing as a god and all - why isn't he in knowledge of a lot of other things already if he knows about the egg/etc, and why does he do so little to sort things out if he apparently has done so before (ie mentions of him and the previous Spiritomb). Maybe you already have an explanation coming up in the story but it seems to be a fairly big point, his changing character, so I'd suggest watching out for that.

And then there's the evil teams themselves having seaming joined forces - it seems you already have plans for it but I will note anyway that it would need explanation as there's no need/reason for them to team up for a common goal, especially when most of them have completely different motives to each other.

Description is another point which others have mentioned and I'll have to agree with. It's less though with the content and how you actually portray it - showing rather than telling. I'll mention some more on that with examples though.

Alakazam was bored. Yet another annual conference to travel to. Only 30 minutes to travel over 5,000 miles for the annual meeting between the leaders from every species of Pokemon.

Generally you'd want to use numerals for numbers larger than 100 - so thirty over 30 here.

“Hello! Good to see you old friend!”

You'd want a comma before 'old friend' as one should either be before or after a name/nickname/etc when used to address someone directly in a sentence in dialogue. So for instance:

“Hi Azelf! How has the lake been?”

Should be 'Hi, Azelf!'.

“By the way, Arceus told me to ask you something.” said Azelf.

Comma instead of the full stop after 'something' there. You didn't do this mistake often btw so I'll assume you know why but if you want an explanation I can give one.

Here he saw 4 Pokemon. An Umbreon, a Vigiroth, a Dunsparce, and a Deino.

'four' rather than 4 as mentioned above. I think I'll use this quote as well to touch on description. What you have he is...rather plain. We don't get much of a feel on the situation itself for instance, like how Alakazam is feeling, or how the other Pokemon are too. Are they nervous which can be shown in say how Umbreon pawed at the ground? Or maybe the Deino is bored and hence yawned at Alakazam? Small details like that are enough to spruce up the story, and the first part of the story is somewhat plainer compared to the rest.

“ Welcome to the annual Pokemon conference,” he began.

Unncessary space there at the start.

“Thank you Groudon.

Comma thing with names as well. I'll from now on quote some more instances without saying more on it, but there may be some other instances as well.

“When he calls out your name, shout ‘Here!’ Make sure to be clear and audible when you speak.”

Missing a full stop after 'Here!' there.

"Well, we mights have been willings to tell fors a price.

Missing a quotation mark at the end there.

2 days earlier, at New Moon Island

I'd advise against doing this. With announcing the character, it's all right (although say when you change scenes just to show someone else's perspective for a line ie with the Gallade/Alakazam convo it's a bit much to change the scene so many times) but with time and place, it's best to leave it out altogether and if you need to have it in, put it in the story itself rather than announce it suddenly. It's basically a bad form of breaking the fourth wall as it can bring the reader out of the story for the wrong reasons, and is basically clunky to read as well (messes with the pacing of the story). There's many other instances of this as well, but as they're at the start of scenes I'll assume you be easily able to find them.

After all - say in this instance, what does it matter that it was 2 days before the previous scene? The fact it was two and not one or three is not important, and the fact it was beforehand is obvious enough from following scenes as well - readers would be able to figure that out if you removed that heading as it is. Location name is also not important as it's revealed in conversation later anyway (assuming the reader doesn't know about dppt either), and a bit of mystery is not a bad thing in itself too.

Darkrai hadn't meant to hurt anyone, he couldn't help it.

Bit of a run-on sentence here - I'd suggest having it as two sentences (...hurt anyone. He couldn't...).

“Hoot-Hoot. I think it would be wise if we stopped arguing and just got on with the search. Hoot-Hoot.”

As it is a Xatu saying this and Hoot Hoot is a different Pokemon... I'd actually suggest changing that bit slightly just because it's potentially confusing.

“Let’s check out that clearing for any evidence.” Beheeyem suggested, snapping Gardevoir out of her thoughts.

Change the full stop after evidence to a comma.

The search party walked up the path towards the clearing. Here the silence enveloped them even more so than on the rest of the island. After searching the clearing from top to bottom, the search party had found nothing. Disappointed by this, they teleported back to the conference to give their report.

'The search party' was a bit repetitive here, and I'll suggest watching your sentence lengths too; try not too keep them too similar to each other.

Gallade used to be a contract killer in the Pokemon world, but had recently retired after almost being caught by Arceus. Gallade had been responsible for wiping out several Pokemon species, including Aerodactyl. Gardevoir would have to pay a high price to bring him out of retirement.

Now, this made me raise an eyebrow - why was this Gallade, of all of them, set as the leader by Arceus if he was an assassin? Seems an odd choice to me.

“Are you sure?” Gallade inquired. “You’ve only just met the guy tonight. What, did you spend all of 3 hours with him? Give him a chance before you have me kill him. I don’t really want to come out of retirement, and I couldn’t take even more of your money for yet another senseless kill.”

three rather than 3, and also; why do Pokemon need money, particular Psychics? O_o

40 years ago…

Okay, I'll quote this one too. =p Again, stuff like this isn't necessary and ought to be avoided.

Darkrai was floating in the middle of a forest, but he wasn’t sure where.
Unlike his previous home on New Moon Island, there was noise here.
Starlys were tweeting, Yanmas buzzing around, and there was even the sound of a Pachirisu as it scampered up a tree.
There was also a small pond nearby, where a few Barboach could be seen feeding.
But standing right in front of Darkrai was not the trainer he had seen earlier.
It was an older man, maybe in his 50s, wearing an orange leisure suit and brown loafers.
He also wore a tie monogrammed with an “R.”
There was a Persian standing by his side, grooming itself.

This paragraph I segmented to show how a lot of the sentences were roughly the same length, and how the description could use some work. lOn the first point - it tends to mess up with the pacing and make the story sound more like a detailed point-form list rather than a story, so try changing up the sentence structure some more. (I also wonder if Starlys/Yanmas really work for a plural - going along the lines of say sheep/sheep, having simply Starly and Yanma sounds better; but up to you. Just keep it consistent, as 'a few Barboach' contradicts this naming practise).

As for the latter - rather than listing everything right then and there, try spreading it out though the story and mention it as something happens/link with an action. For instance - the tie could be adjusted by him as he grins at Darkrai and during that you can mention that it has an R on it. Otherwise it also contributes to the list feel - e.g. 'There was ____' 'It was an older man with ____' 'He wore ____', which is basically telling us a lot of information in one go. Linking with actions keeps the story moving and hence fixes the pacing, and is also generally more interesting to read as well (as something is happening during said description in that case).

“Hello there Darkrai!” The strange man said.

Add in a comma before Darkrai, and the rather than The.

“Really, Giovanni? You think you can contain me with chains?” Darkrai said this snidely, and then disappeared, effectively breaking loose from the chains.

Watch for being too repetitive as well - eg with the usage of chains twice in two sentences, or like the following case too:

“Yes, my Queen,” a thousand Combee voices droned simultaneously. All attacked the man in the orange suit simultaneously as well.

Distracted, the Mr. Mime no longer held up the barrier.

Also an instance of being too much on the telling rather than showing side with description, this bit.

“What is it Vespiquen?” he asked gruffly.

“All is forgiven, Alakazam. Now I don’t have to use my backup plan.”

“Backup plan?” Alakzam thought, puzzled.

XD. I do think this joke would have been better if Gardevoir didn't go and explain what she meant afterwards though...

Team Rocket’s hideout loomed into view. It wasn’t much of a hideout, but a well disguised office building. The sign out front said, “Silph Co.” It was an average-looking place. Gray, non-distinguishable, not too big. It was a very forgettable place.

Note that here you're rather wishy-washy on what you're saying about the building - it was an office building, then average-looking, and then forgettable-looking place, with the phrase 'It was a/n ___ place' repeated twice, and the sentence in-between feeling tacked on.

“YES, MY QUEEEEEEEEEENNNNN!!!!” The Combee screamed.

the.

Gallade followed right behind them, and hit the Mr. Mime in the face with a Night Slash. It was knocked out cold.

Description tends to suffer most in battles I noticed - say here, it's very plainly told without anything shown to us on how the move was done, how the Mr Mime reacted besides fainting (screaming? flailing? a look of surprise on its face at it was struck?), and so forth - you don't need to describe every detail obviously but even a small addition will work wonders.

There were about 30 of them, along with a old man with green hair, wearing an elegant robe.

thirty.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were in to fat chicks,” Alakazam retorted.

into as one word.

Gardevoir nodded, and she and Alakazam teleported away to Arceus’ cave yet again. Meanwhile, a very concerned-looking Zweilous was walking down the same path that they had just left…

That last sentence seems tacked on/confusing to me - why did it need to be mentioned/what was a Zweilous doing there/why is it concerned?


Overall... not bad, certainly - good premise and a whole punch of intresting plot developments and characters. It just needs some work on the description and perhaps some consideration on the plot/character stuff mentioned. Hope this was of help to you; good luck with the rest of it!

[Phoopes]

1. Thanks for the review, b&b!
2. Yea, I do have a bit of a problem with forcing humor sometimes. I'm trying to make it more subtle in the next chapter than BAM! right in your face stuff.
3. I thought the prankster-like feel of Darkrai fit his character more. Being Darkrai, he's usually portrayed as something evil, so I thought it would be best to stick with that, but definitely to a lesser extent.
4. You should have seen the ORIGINAL Arceus I had in mind. *chuckles to self* He was like Wigglytuff from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, except even more bipolar. That's the comment you read about. Also, to answer your question about Arceus not doing more, he's God. You don't see God prancing about in the real world fixing problems, so why should he be doing that in the Pokemon world? As for why he doesn't know about other things... *applauds* You have officially found a plot hole. Gotta work on that now...
5. Yep, the reason for the evil teams joining together is coming soon!
6. Concerning all the numerals problems: My teachers in school have always said, "Just use a number if it's higher than ten," so that's what I've been doing. Some numerals that are less than ten were just screw-ups on my part. Will edit so that all numbers less than 100 are spelled out.
7. Concerning all problems with commas: I didn't have a beta-reader for the first four chapters. That's probably why it went unnoticed. Will edit that.
8. With the "2 days earlier, at New Moon Island," I'm not doing that anymore, as evidenced by later chapters. You're completely correct. It's not needed. I just forgot to take it out.
9. For the run on sentence, that was supposed to be a semicolon, not a comma. Still, it probably would be best to make that a period.
10. For repetition problems, I'll try to fix that. Sometimes it's hard for me to come up with similes for certain things. But I'll think of something.
11. Thank you for the pointing out of sentence structure/info list problem. I never realized how badly I needed to work on that. I'll definitely take your advise on making it more subtle. (just like I'll be trying to do with the humor)
12. Showing rather than telling is another big thing that I need to work on. Definitely going to fix things... (*sigh* Lots of editing to do)
13. For the little problem with Xatu. That was another bit of forced humor. It was an Ocarina of Time reference, and a bad one at that.
14. For the problem with Gallade: There's the evidence of that plot hole again, but I actually have an idea to fix this one.
15. Yea, I probably shouldn't have had the backup plan joke explained. Leaving the reader wondering would've probably made it funnier.
16. Showing instead of telling during battles= something that I need to work on. Well, it's good to have room to improve, I guess.
17. The Zweilous thing... That was a scrapped intro to a sub-plot that I forgot to take out. Will edit that (just like everything else, lol.)
18. Thank you again for the review! I'm definitely going to take all of your advice into consideration.

@Everyone: Chapter 8 will be delayed with school starting for me. Also, I will be editing previous chapters. I'll let you know when I'm done editing them so I can continue work on Chapter 8.

[bobandbill]

3. I thought the prankster-like feel of Darkrai fit his character more. Being Darkrai, he's usually portrayed as something evil, so I thought it would be best to stick with that, but definitely to a lesser extent.

I can get that, but my point was more his character was inconsistent - in that the prankster side of him wasn't quite so evident in the first so-and-so chapters, and so it felt off.

Also, to answer your question about Arceus not doing more, he's God. You don't see God prancing about in the real world fixing problems, so why should he be doing that in the Pokemon world? As for why he doesn't know about other things... *applauds* You have officially found a plot hole. Gotta work on that now...

That depends on if God exists which depends on the person you ask but that's a whole different matter. ;p At any rate... I don't really see much reason for him to not fix things in the story itself, and so it still irks at me. I'd suggest establishing more as to why he doesn't investigate things himself (and likely deal with it quicker too, being a god and all) rather than have 'well we don't see god in the real world doing stuff' as an explanation outside of the story itself. After all, many people wonder why god irl doesn't do more to stop violence/suffering/etc, so I don't really think it's a suitable explanation in itself.

6. Concerning all the numerals problems: My teachers in school have always said, "Just use a number if it's higher than ten," so that's what I've been doing. Some numerals that are less than ten were just screw-ups on my part. Will edit so that all numbers less than 100 are spelled out.

As long as you're being consistent.

For the little problem with Xatu. That was another bit of forced humor. It was an Ocarina of Time reference, and a bad one at that.

Ah, I see, although I'll admit I didn't get the reference then. Partly because I think of that owl as more a 'I'm talking now so you are going to listen to me talk about everything now as I stare at you! Now fly!' sort of creature in terms of speech, rather than the Hoot-Hoot aspect.

18. Thank you again for the review! I'm definitely going to take all of your advice into consideration.

Glad it was of help! Don't worry about it all, as we've all got to start from somewhere (I'm long overdue on edits myself x_x). Just be sure to take your time with the editing process.

[katiekitten]

As it seems you haven't had the chance to edit since bobandbill's post, I've kept that in mind in this review, don't worry. x3 No one needs the same things tossed at them.

The first thing I've noticed so far is a lack of variety in sentence structure. Bob mentioned it in description- I'm highlighting this in a general way, with the introduction in particular.

Alakazam was bored. Yet another annual conference to travel to. Only 30 minutes to travel over 5,000 miles for the annual meeting between the leaders from every species of Pokemon. Alakazam shut his eyes and held up his spoons. He twisted them to the right, then back to the left. He vanished.

The most common sentence we have here is the short, simple sentence, using the same tense and only occasionally broken up with a comma - all a list. Even the '30,000 miles' sentence is basically the same as the others, except there are more words in it. If you mixed this up a little more with other punctuation and different sentence structures, it could spruce this bit a little bit more.

The first section seems a little pointless, as well, as there simply isn't much there. It is the first time we see the main character, but he gets no formal introduction, no detail on his past, no particular description; nothing except a look at his thoughts and a knowledge that he has somewhere else to go, a place he goes to immediately. In the next scene you give us similar information on his personality that we got in the first part, through continuing to expose us to his thoughts, which would be the only use of the first scene - and there is actually much more in the second scene that goes to reintroduce and explain more about the meeting, introduce us to other characters and more to the main character himself. The only information we get from this first clip is that he finds it a hassle that he has to go to this meeting because of the distance. We get nothing on why he is such a distance away, or the significance of this (aka that this is both his home and a lake, as you do eventually tell us in the next scene) and therefore the distance seems irrelevant. His displeasure at having to travel to the meeting can be set across upon his arrival at the place.

Therefore what is the point of the first part?

...I don't mean to seem harsh, I just wanted to impress how little there is in the scene. You see, it really has the opportunity to provide more. You can use the scene to introduce his lake, which as his home I'm assuming is important unless he never returns to it, of course, in which case you could use this to introduce him a little more. You can learn a lot more about someone when they are in a setting they find comfortable, such as their home, then you can in an alien place, and I feel you could take advantage of that. You can even introduce how you intend to portray Pokemon in this 'fic, because it's evident that you are diverging from the Canon. x3 I know you intend this to be a comedy, and therefore need to keep this 'fic light, but there are still ways of incorporating detail into a breezy writing style, and besides, this scene is already not comedic, so you won't be dampening any jokes by expanding a little. It'll just give it a little more. :3

Be careful how you expand them though, mm? I would like to stress this now because, as bob mentioned, you've begun to fall into listing throughout your 'fic, not just at the beginning. When I say expand, be careful not to just list the details I've mentioned you missed, but vary it up a little. There is nothing that says you have to provide all of the information in one go. If you feel you have to, however, try and vary the sentence structure, and the techniques you use. For examples, look below.

The room was enormous, although short. It had blue carpet and a low, stone ceiling painted like the night sky. The furret gasped at the sight of it. Against the walls there were two oblong chairs and a round sofa placed randomly.

This can be transformed easily with using a couple different techniques and mixing longer and shorter sentences, with the use of the continuous tense as well as just the past to give a little more spice to your comma usage.

The room was enormous despite being curiously short, its carpet stretching out beyond them like the wash of a tropical ocean, breaking around the pieces of furniture that were left haphazardly against the walls like abandoned pieces of driftwood. It was not that that'd caught the furret's attention, however. Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, her eyes wide as they drank in the carefully painted detail. Someone, an artist of some sort, she swore, had dedicated hours to recreating the image of a fogged night sky on the stone surface..."

Same room, same information. Mine takes longer to say the same things, yes, but which one is more interesting? It is not about how much description, it's about how you phrase it. The paragraph isn't much longer then it was before.

The changes:

Metaphors. I used a metaphor to describe the carpet, through comparing it with the sea. In this way I gave the information on the carpet's colour. I then continued this metaphor to provide the information on the furniture, through having the ocean image I'd just created move and 'break' as a wave does against the furniture. Silly, but effective.

Similies. I continued the sea imagery by using a similie, comparing their placement as 'like [that of] abandoned driftwood'.

Character. I made use of a character I had in the room, one who had presumably just entered it, to finish the description. The nice thing about third person, limited or omniscient, is that you have the ability to use the character's thoughts to reveal something to the reader. In this case, I am using the character's fascination with the ceiling to describe it, pointing out elements that she is noticing. This is a trickier technique to understand and use - at least I'm finding it really hard to describe, haha. It's just another option.

One more option before I zip it on this subject is something I didn't include in the one above, and that is personification of a force such as sunlight or the wind. In this case, you use the 'movement' of such a thing to describe a setting or object- having sunlight cascade down a rocky hilltop towards the sleepy suburbs of a city, for example, and other such things.

Sentence structure: Long sentence, with three different parts. Two short sentences. Another long one.

Basically, there are lots of options - metaphors and similies are some of the easiest when it comes to techniques, and then there is the sentence structure. Play around a little!

I did end up discussing description in the end, my apologies. xD; I'll leave this as it is for now.

On your characters: This, at least, is a much happier story. :3 I join the ranks of those who liked your combees - who can't love the hive mind? - and your main character really has endeared himself to me. x3 He seems like a sweet character. I quite liked the conversation between him and Gardevoir when they figured out the truth of that past event, that was nice conversation, and I like your dear Gallade, although I feel like I haven't seen much of him yet. :3 Poor isolated Darkrai.

The sudden egg scene was classic - it came completely out of the left field, and I'm quite interested in seeing how it all turns out. :3 I wasn't very fond of the fact that Alkazam turned to Gardevoir and ordered her to guard it, however, the minute danger came - the feminist in me was a little perturbed - but I'll let it go this time, haha. x3 She's a strong character - and she and Alakazam seem lovely together, haha. x3 Violence and motherly instincts = <3.

Your introduction of Kyogre and Groudon was very amusing, great job - I'm looking forward to seeing more from them.

Plot wise, I hate to regurgitate, but it is indeed very original, I've enjoyed it. x3 Particularly the egg twist - it caught me unawares, haha. Well done with that. There isn't much I can say, really, except that for a first time 'fic writer, you've done well. :3 I will certainly be keeping an eye on this. There is room for improvement, but everyone has things to work on. Good job. <3

[Phoopes]

Before I say anything else, I am putting this fic on a short-term hiatus. I have much editing to do, plus plotholes to fix. This takes a lot of time. If this lasts more than two months, I will open a new thread for this fic as a revival, with all (hopefully) plotholes and grammatical stuff fixed. In the meantime, I'm going to work on my Drabble thread when I feel like taking a break from fixing this. Thank you for understanding. I will respond to katiekitten's review when I have more time.

[Rediamond]

This is a review exchange review.
Fics: System of Variables (sig). Due to insane length, the first entry or two will suffice for reviewing your fic if it is indeed still roughly 5K words. If you want to review all 20K+ words of my fic, go ahead, but you don't have to.
Review Wanted: Anything really. Fire away.

Alrighty then. Not sure if you're still accepting reviews, but you were still listed as open, and I was going to review it anyways... but my computer deleted my reply after I'd went through all of the effort to type it out. Yeah, sucks. Enough of that, onto the review.

I, like just about every reviewer before me, found the concept very interesting and original. I can also see the use of a conference system to an extent. As for positives: the characterization is pretty good, particulary in the beginning. The backstories proved to be interesting and workable in the vast majority of cases, which added something. I feel like you may have tipped your hand a bit early on some of the backstory information, particularly Gardevoir's, but it still worked. I just think you might be able to keep more suspense going if you leave it open for a chapter or two after Gardevoir's character is introduced if you rewrote it, but to each his own.

Arceus' bipolar state is surprisingly understandable. I mean, he only has to keep a bunch of fueding legendary Pokemon with the power to destroy humanity from doing just that, make sure the random ten year-olds with the ability to combat champions and legendary Pokemon don't do anything too stupid, and then deal with all of the random syndicates. It's hardly a stressful job at all.

The criminal super alliance really made me raise an eyebrow... or both. The fact is: most of the syndicates hate each other more than the game protagonists. Cyrus views them all as worthless for trying to change an imperfect world that is beyond repair. Ghestis wants all of them to release their Pokemon so he can reign supreme. Snagem and Cypher, as well as Aqua and Magma, are out for each other's throats after the events of XD and their foundings respectively. Rocket would be the only team for whom your explanation believably works. You would have to do some serious manipulation for me to even remotely believe that this could happen, but it might be doable.

As for the one thing that got me hard... I have a theory. I call it literary whiplash. The basis is that contrast is good, but too much contrast will just throw reader's off. You got very close to that point during the egg sequence in particular. I could fully deal with that if the entire fic had been some dark tragedy, or at least moderately deep. For the first half of your story, it is never particularly far from a joke or comedy sequence. And then you throw in an extremely adult theme from the middle of nowhere and BAM I get mildly thrown off and disturbed. Hopefully you get my point. The contrast in tones and themes is very, very large in a rather short amount of time, making readers more likely to be put off. I'm just saying that when reading through a PG rated Pseudo-comedy, I absolutely did not expect that. And not in a good way. Just make sure your tone and themes stay fairly consistent, or change with reasonable time for readers to adjust.

Oh, and hive mind is really creepy any way it's put, but yours was possibly creepier than most interpretations I've seen. Props on that. Oh, and can Durant and Combee even have a species leader, as they arguably lack any form of sentience? Does a Vespiqueen and Queen Durant hold those roles instead?

Oh well, long review is long. tl;dr watch out for excessive contrast, characterization and humor was pretty good, nice original fic overall.


-Rediamond

[Phoopes]

Thanks for the review! While this is still technically active it's on long-term hiatus...

Anyway, thanks for the positive stuff about characterization. It always helps to know that I do something right!

About the crime syndicates... I had a plan, but now that the fic is on hiatus it got pushed to the side...

The literary whiplash: I originally wrote this to be a drama, but I felt bored with it, so I changed it to a pseudo-comedy in the middle. Not a good idea, I guess. Also, the fic is rated PG-13, not PG, which is why you may have shocked with some of the themes. I edited the first post a while back, because it was originally PG.

The Hive Mind: That could be the most positively received topic I've ever gotten reviewed on. ^_^ And as for Durant and Combee having species leaders............. GAH! Not another plothole! Grrrr... more stuff I have to fix.

Once again, thanks for the review. I'm a little slow on getting back to reviewing fics as many people will tell you, but I'll get to it... you are 4th on my waiting list, lol.