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Neo Groudon [WARNING PG13 RATING, MILD VIOLENCE AND LANGUAGE]

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JX Valentine

Your aquatic overlord
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  • I'm going to go back over your first chapter the same way I do with my beta clients: red font everywhere. If I have to make a comment, I'll do so in parentheses (like so). The only reason why I'm doing this is because I'm not entirely sure I got across what I was trying to say the first time around, so your edits actually introduced more errors. Like I said, you really should be getting an actual beta to do this for you before you post.

    I will also be going over chapter two in essentially the same way.

    Also, I'm not sure why you have two Times New Roman tags per line throughout your first post or why you've put so many font tags in all of your posts, period. If it's the result of copy-pasting, try switching off WYSIWYG mode by clicking on the button in the top right corner of the post reply box that looks like A/A. If you hover over it, it's called "switch editor mode." By switching off WYSIWYG, you're forcing the forums to strip the coding from your work.

    If you're doing it by hand, you just need font tags at the beginning and end of your post, not at the beginning and end of every line. It saves time, and the forum recognizes it either way.

    Although to really save time and to guarantee that your reader can read what you're posting, a great thing to do would be to use no font tags at all. Same with color. That way, no matter what style they're on, you know they don't have to highlight or squint to understand what you're trying to say.

    "Cold… so cold…"

    I do not remember how long I've been here (No comma. Note that if you replace the comma and the "or" with a period, you end up with one complete sentence and one incomplete. This means that this isn't a compound sentence.) or why I am here. My mind is a jumbled mix of memories. Flashes of my life and of someone I don't know.

    I remember being born in (Unless you mean he literally sprang from a volcano, fully formed.) the depths of the volcano and when I first saw light. I remember Eve and me (I only goes in any situation where you would normally say I by itself. As in, if you can say "I remember I being taken in the dark of night," then you can leave it as-is.) being taken in the dark of night.

    "These memories are so...conflicted." It's as if I've been living two lives but just realised it.

    I feel unfamiliar with this body, and yet, I recognise it at the same time.

    "It's so, confusing."

    I slip in and out of consciousness for the next few days. Each time I awaken, (Semicolons are very rarely used, and they're usually for compound sentences, not dependent clauses.) I discover something new about my body. I notice my nails are sharper than usual. I feel like I could smash through anything with these nails.

    As a note, the repetition of the same word over and over again at the beginning of every sentence causes your narration to slow down and become a bit dry. It's good if you want a jerking feel – such as if you're trying to create suspense – but for ordinary description, try to come up with different ways to begin a sentence.

    They have a greyish tinge to them and feel inhuman. My teeth are no more. Instead, I have razor sharp fangs. Oddly enough, I can't bite through my cheeks –not that I want to- because they've become insanely hard.

    Basically, you're saying he can't bite through his cheeks because his teeth are hard. As in, the fact that his teeth are hard has something to do with the fact that he can't bite through his cheeks. I would suggest finding a way to rephrase that because I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.

    Also, fangs are teeth. (Specifically, they're the canine teeth, the same kind we humans have, only sharper.)

    My eyesight has improved a great deal than the way it was in my memories. (Otherwise, it sounds rather awkward.) In contrast with the rest of my body, (You offset the word "however" when it appears in the middle of a sentence by commas because it's a parenthetical. Simply put, it doesn't need to be there, but you put it in there for clarification.) however, my hands, feet, mouth and gut feel abnormally warmer.

    I start to explore my surroundings rather than my own body. I realise I am in a cylindrical container of about the length of two of my arms stretched out wide. My surroundings are white in colour. Everywhere I look, I see the same bright white light. I realise that every thirty (Again, write out numbers from zero to ninety-nine unless it's the date, an address, an ordinal, or a time like 7:35 PM.) seconds, I am sprayed by a white substance coming from somewhere in the container. It irritates me, but I feel weak and powerless afterwards.

    My body feels slightly irritated. I can feel something. It feels like something is poking into my skin. I open my eyes and see strange long sharp thorns (No dashes here. Dashes are only used whenever you would use parentheses, and you really should only use parentheses very rarely in narration.) that I recognize as needles

    If he recognizes them as needles, you don't need to say they're thorns.

    affixed to long shiny small tubes -which I think are called wires-

    Same here. If he thinks they're wires, just call them wires. Otherwise, your writing becomes overly wordy, and your descriptions become redundant.

    jabbed into most parts of my body. I slowly become aware of a small beeping sound every few seconds. Outside, I hear whispered conversations being held. If I focus intently with my eyes, I can break through the white mist and see outside. Men with white coats dart to one corner of a giant cavern. I slowly lose interest and drift back to sleep, partly because of the white spray.

    Suddenly, I'm jerked awake. The surroundings are no longer white but are now a dull metallic colour except for the front, which is covered by a thick glass pane.

    I made this correction because the repetition of the word "front" in such a short space causes this sentence to become awkward. You can play around with the phrasing (and, in fact, are encouraged to do so – please don't copy and paste my corrections without looking at them first and trying to understand what I'm trying to tell you), but the point is, the repetition of the word "front" makes your writing feel a little redundant. Not to mention such a short sentence to describe one thing feels a little unnecessary.

    I walk forward slowly on the cold, hard floor. The wires and needles are jerked out of my body as I walk forward.

    Again, because you already establish that he's walking forward, it seems redundant and awkward to say that he's doing so again. It would be a good idea to combine these two sentences into one or at least to remove the part about walking forward in the second sentence (possibly replacing it with something else, considering ripping IVs out of one's own body improperly tends to hurt like a ***** – and, yes, I know this from experience).

    Also, isn't he in a smaller tube? Or did you change that as well? Because a moment ago, you were saying it's only about the size of two of his arms stretched out (although you don't really specify if they're human or groudon), which means he doesn't have that far to go to rip these things out.)

    I stare through the glass and into the room outside, I see dozens of men in white coats running around frantically. A red light illuminates the room. I can hear them talk.

    "You blithering idiot! Why are the backup generators taking so long to switch to the mains?!" says one of them while shaking the body of another one vigorously.

    Again, if the power went out:

    1. The subject would notice.
    2. I don't believe there would be flashing red lights (if it was completely out).
    3. This doesn't explain why the liquid in the tube has randomly drained, considering power =/= drain system.

    "I...I... I don't know!" he splutters. "It's (Its = possessive form of it. It's = contraction of "it is." The apostrophe replaces the second I in the latter.) not my job, sir. The boys down in tech are supposed to deal with these eventualities."

    Because you already have a dialogue tag, it's not necessary to have another one in the same paragraph. You already establish who's speaking and how.

    I realise that the situation is critical. I understand their words from my memories. It is as if I'm re-learning everything I've ever learnt from my memories.

    Also, repeating the end of a sentence tends to feel redundant. I would suggest replacing the second "from my memories" with something along the lines of "in my past life." Play around with it, but don't just settle for "in my memories" again.

    Encountering something new seems to jolt something in my memory. Instinctively, I pull back my hand, and it glows red-hot. I ball it up into a fist and smash it into the glass with surprising speed.

    The glass shatters into a million pieces. I step out into the room, my feet melting the floor beneath me. Between me and the rest of the room, large metal bars protrude from the ground to the ceiling. It feels just like a jail-cell. The men are yelling at one another, and a few that I didn't notice a moment ago

    "Realize" means "to understand just now." Notice would be more along the lines of you just spotted it.

    Also, note the lack of a comma at the end of this piece as well as the change from "before" to "a moment ago." Before is a preposition, so something needs to go after it. Also, a comma just doesn't have a function here.

    run to the bars all the way from the back of the room. They are wearing different clothes: a brown shirt and black trousers with a sideways eight insignia pinned onto their collars. They take from their pockets small black and white balls (Unless the group has only one ball, this should be plural.), which soon expand. They press buttons in the middle, and red lights shoot from the balls. Four-legged creatures stand where the red lights were. (Again, just agreement problems, really. The men most likely have multiple balls between them, so there's multiple lights and multiple four-legged – hyphenated because it's one adjective – creatures.)

    Realising

    Okay, you keep using this word over and over again. It's okay to use your thesaurus so long as you know what the replacement words you want to use actually mean. As in, if you want to find a synonym for "realize," by all means, go right ahead. (However, yes, as a warning, you'll want to be familiar with what those synonyms actually mean before using them.)

    the perilous situation, I grip the steel bars tightly. Electrical energy surges from my body into the bars. The bars melt away leaving molten stumps.

    …Wait, what? O_o

    First off, okay, so Groudon can learn Thunder Wave and Thunderbolt. Still, it seems rather convenient that this character, who can barely think straight as it is, suddenly knows exactly how to do it. Granted, Groudon's probably interfering, but your writing just doesn't imply that that's what's going on. Right now, we read this and think that it's the human (the one who's narrating this story) who's executing the maneuver, which makes one wonder how he could pull this kind of stunt off.

    Second, electricity does not cause metal to melt completely – especially in the Pokémon universe. If anything, metal can either conduct electricity and channel it into the ground/other point or serve as an insulator and resist electricity in the first place. Basically speaking, if you cut open a wire, what you'll find is, yes, metal. 'Course, it depends on what the bars are made out of, but if the answer is steel or iron, no, it's not going to melt just by a few seconds of electricity. If the answer is aluminum or tin… no. And if it's copper, then the result's probably going to hurt the character more than the bars.

    Point is, you're writing science fiction, so you'll really want to pay close attention to science and all those little details. Look things up on Google before adding them into your fic. Even small things like "will this melt at X temperature, and what voltage of electricity for how much time would generate X temperature?" should be double-checked.

    Before the men in brown react, I'm gripping one of them by the neck tightly and throttling him. The other creatures are spewing flames from their mouths onto my body to no effect.

    Ground-types (such as Groudon) have a 1x weakness to fire, and the kid's currently flesh and blood. I'm not sure if he would logically shrug off multiple Flamethrowers. (If we're going by game logic, this should make even less sense because fire attacks would double in power in the vicinity of Groudon. However, this depends on whether or not you consider Drought – and, therefore, Sunny Day – to only have an effect outside.)

    I ignore them. I throttle the man some more, but suddenly, a deep voice, low and sadistic, growls inside of me.

    "Kill him... They imprisoned us. It's time for revenge...."

    A part of me stops, shocked at this new voice, but my body reacts sooner. My fingernails grow into inch long claws, metallic in colour, and for a brief second my hand, the one I'm using to throttle the man, grows bright red-hot. The man's throat is incinerated, and his head rolls away, leaving his body to slump to the ground. The voice takes over and simply growls, "Wimp."

    I brush away the creatures that I recognize as Pokémon and turn my attention to the humans. The man in brown speaks into a black box attached on his shoulder. There is a note of urgency in his voice. I ignore the man and chase after the escaping people in white coats. They look like easy pickings.

    My body is reacting on its own. I'm running down the corridor with a malicious glint in my eye. My fangs (I'm not sure why this is italicized. You've already established that he has fangs and not teeth earlier in the story.) glint as I give a wicked smile and tear down the corridor at superhuman speeds, incinerating the humans behind me or ripping out their throats.

    Side note, but I never really thought of Groudon as being particularly fast. In fact, if we consider its in-game speed (90) as an indicator for how fast it should be, it's most likely average. It can probably sprint, but run at blinding speeds? Probably not.

    In fact, if you want a comparison, Groudon's speed is the same as Furret's, and it's outsped by Grovyle.

    A few in brown try to oppose me with their Pokémon but I mow through them ripping out their throats as they progress. After a while, I notice a group of men running down one corridor. One of them stumbles, and I race forward eager for blood.

    It's a bit strange that this former human has no qualms with killing. Granted, Groudon wants him to kill because they were taken captive, but it's clear they're two different mindsets. He doesn't think about it and doesn't argue or contemplate whether or not he should. He just does it. Why? Up until now, he seems to be human or at least one disoriented creature. He doesn't seem angry, and revenge or hatred towards his targets doesn't seem to cross his mind before the voice in his head tells him to kill everyone. I suppose you could be trying to go for the psychopath killer a la River Tam, but even then, you don't really convey that this person is really flipping unstable. He just goes from vaguely disoriented and somewhat indifferent about his surroundings (considering he never really details how he feels about them except to describe them briefly as a prison) to "YAY KILL KILL KILL." Again, there's no real transition, so it's difficult to really grasp his character or to see him as a believable person.

    The person turns to face me, and I stop.

    It is a girl. I feel like I know her, but (No need for "yet" here. It's redundant.) her name eludes me. Her hair is shoulder length, brown, and streaked with silver. Her eyes are a shade of green, and she's wearing the same white coat with a black shirt and skirt underneath. (The same as what, though? You don't entirely complete that thought.) A sideways eight insignia is stitched onto her collar. (I separated these last sentences because otherwise, you're getting a bit wordy here, and you inadvertently imply that the skirt has a collar. Also, note the paragraph break here. I'll explain in a moment.)

    The voice growls, "Well, what are you waiting for? Kill her!"

    Okay, so, I think you misunderstood what I meant about dialogue. In order to fully explain, let me first identify the parts of a quote:

    Dialogue tag: A dialogue tag is the part that defines who's speaking and how. In this example, the who is "the voice," and the how is "growls." In any other example, you might have things like, "Bob said" or "Diane yelled" or "Stacy asked." It's nothing else. Not a character and the action they're taking at the same time, not what someone else is doing, nothing else.

    The quote: Also, dialogue. Basically, it's everything inside the quotation marks.

    Now, to form dialogue, you need to have both parts unless it's a conversation between two characters that's gone on for so long your reader can pretty much figure out for themselves who's saying what. Chances are, for the most part, you'll need the dialogue tag and the quote together.

    Okay, second rule. The dialogue tag and the quote by the tag's character need to be in the same paragraph. This is why it's essential that you know when to begin a new paragraph. It's because if you put someone else's quote in the same paragraph as a dialogue tag, the dialogue tag automatically says that every quote in that paragraph is being said by that single character. For example, if you have this:

    "Hi," Diane said. "How've you been?" Rob asked.

    It doesn't matter if you have that other dialogue tag because the reader automatically thinks that Diane's the one saying the second quote. Likewise, if you orphan a quote like this:

    The voice growls

    "Well, what are you waiting for?"

    The reader automatically thinks that someone else is saying that last line.

    Third rule. Depending on where the quote happens, you'll have to punctuate accordingly. It's easier to show you examples:

    If the quote happens before the dialogue tag:
    "Hi," Diane asked.

    "How have you been?" Rob asked.
    (Note that the first quote would normally use a period if it wasn't a quote. This is because the sentence doesn't technically end with the closing quotation mark, so you need that comma to tell the reader to keep going. A question or an exclamation can only use a question mark and an exclamation point, however.)

    If the quote happens around the dialogue tag:
    (Note the commas.)
    "How," Rob asked, "have you been?"

    If the quote happens after the dialogue tag:
    (Note the commas.)
    Diane said, "Hi."

    Rob asked, "How have you been?"

    It's a bit confusing, but the short of it is that if you're writing dialogue, don't separate who's saying the quote from what they're saying.

    Yet, I cannot bring myself to murder her. I roar in anger and jump over her. I catch one word before I jump.

    "Phaiel?"she whispers.

    I smash through the steel double doors as if they were made of paper. There are men in brown guarding the area outside. I slaughter them straight away. They are only trained for outside attacks, but I feel no mercy. I slump to the ground to catch my breath. The voice seems to have deserted me.

    On a signboard near the side of the road, I read 'Neo Groudon Research and Development: a subdivision of the Infinity Conglomerate'. The voice appears at the back of my head again.

    It
    says, "Now you know."


    Also, fresh comments for chapter two. Note again the paragraph spacing for dialogue, which is all pretty much corrected below.

    I trundle

    Trundle means to (literally) roll. As in, you're not really going through a leisurely walk. You're rolling as if you're on a wheel.

    Maybe you were thinking of "tramping"?

    through the dense forest. (Semicolons are mostly for compounds, yes, but the parts before and after the semicolon need to be closely related to one another.) I seem to recognize this place from a (Because "far off" would mean the same as "distant," it's redundant here.) distant memory. With every step I take, my bare feet burn the grass, leaving a black scorch mark in the shape of a foot. After a while, it dawns on me that I'm not wearing any clothes apart from a pair of black boxers.

    Wait. Why weren't those burned off, considering he seems to be burning everything else? Note that flame-retardant clothing would probably be rather uncomfortable against one's own nether regions.

    I don't feel shame. Why would a pokemon need clothes anyway? I'm tempted to take it off there and then, but then it hits me.

    "But I'm a human!!" (No period here. The exclamation points serve as the ending mark of punctuation. Also, "human" is never capitalized, even in the world of Pokémon.)

    "Correction: you used (He was but isn't anymore, so therefore, past tense.) to be human," a voice growls.

    I turn around expecting to see an assailant, but it's just more forest.

    "He must be hidden," I mutter aloud.

    "Are you really that thick? I'm inside of you, moron!" the voice growls.

    It's perfectly all right to use synonyms in dialogue instead of the same thing over and over again. For example, it's great that he's growling, but it's okay to have him snarl, snap, or something else as well.

    "But how, how, who, what are you?" I say in desperation.

    "You really don't know, do you, how you could have killed all those guards? How you could have run that fast? How you broke through that door like it was nothing? Cast your memory back, before that glass prison. Try to remember," it growls in that same low, throaty voice.

    "I… I (No comma here.) remember being kidnapped (Again, no comma.) by men… men in white uniforms. They took Eve also."

    "Interesting. Do you know who this Eve person is?"

    "Not really. It's more of a blank to be honest, but what I do know (No comma.) is that she was someone close to me. What about you?"

    "I'll show you..."

    The forest scene in front of me blurs to be replaced by the scene of a massive volcano. An extremely bright pokemon appears to be staring at the lava apparently using psychic powers. Slowly a glob of lava rises from the volcano. The pokemon is molding the glob into a shape. It looks like a could it be a groudon!

    Basically, you've got to be consistent with capitalization. If you're not going to capitalize the word "pokémon" when it's being used as a common noun, you can't capitalize "groudon" when it's being used as a common noun, either. As in, if you say "a pokémon," you can only really say "a groudon" because otherwise, you're violating your own capitalization rules.

    Groudon roars, and the volcano shatters into pieces. It begins to spit flames and magma from its mouth into the space around it. Moments after leaving the mouth, the magma hardens and turns to stone and rock.

    Stone and rock are the same thing, so this sounds a bit redundant. Try choosing one or the other but not both.

    I finally realize that I'm witnessing: the creation of the earth's landmass.

    Which is strange, considering there's a volcano before this point – unless it was an underwater volcano (at which point, it'd be helpful to point that part out). In other words, what you're saying is that the character is witnessing the creation of land when there was already land before then.

    The immensely bright creature is leaving. On the way, it shoots out a sphere of red light which heads towards the foot of the shattered volcano. It cools into what looks like the red orb. Groudon, in the meantime, unfazed by this sudden occurrence, continues spewing magma and creating more land. The scene dissolves, and now I'm looking upon a man dressed in a red coat holding the red orb high above his head. Groudon, agitated at being awoken, lashes out and causes a drought high above the ground. Once again, the scene dissolves. Men in white with the sideways eight symbol are attacking Groudon with their pokemon. I notice Groudon putting up a good fight, yet the pokemon belonging to the men in white- blastoise and feraligatrs

    The plural of every pokémon name is the same as the singular form. For example, it's not two pikachus. It's two pikachu.

    Also, a quick flip through an online pokédex or a glance over by a beta is, again, a good idea to avoid misspelling a pokémon's name (like feraligatr).

    wear it down by spewing water at it. Finally, Groudon succumbs and slumps down, defeated. The scene dissolves again, and I'm back in the forest.

    "So y…you're G…g…Groudon?" I stammer nervously.

    "Took you long enough.

    Would an ancient pokémon that is essentially a god as old as the earth itself (literally) really be speaking this informally to someone? O_o That's like meeting Jesus and expecting him to say, "'Sup, dawg. Heard you were hangin' with the homeys down there."

    After they stunned me, I was transported back to their headquarters. When I awoke, I was in your shrimpy body. Well, I guess that's fate."

    "But if you're inside me that means..."

    "Yes, they genetically fused my body to yours, and I have a hunch that they also added an electric pokemon –though I don't know what- which would account for your lightning fast speed and reaction time.

    Wait… huh? O_o

    If you genetically fuse one organism to another, you're just working with DNA. You're not working on a psychological level. As in, if you fuse someone's DNA with another creature's, unless both brains are present, their minds really shouldn't be separate entities like this. At least, that's how science fiction usually treats it.

    To give you an example (also from sci-fi), you've got The Fly, where a human scientist is fused on a genetic level to – you guessed it – a housefly. Throughout the movie, he's mentally human. There's no trace whatsoever to a fly mind also buzzing around inside him and demanding him to do things. It's only when his brain changes that his brain patterns begin to change, and even then, it's only described as an adaptation. As in, rather than have two separate minds communicating with each other, it's still his single mind. It's just that it's slowly converting itself into a fly's to adapt to his changing body.

    In other words, genetic fusion =/= psychological transference. By all logic, if the kid got groudon DNA in his body, he probably will still be thinking on his own – without Groudon's presence inside him – because Groudon's brain wouldn't be there. However, if they were actually fused to each other, then chances are, the kid would be assimilated into Groudon because of a mass difference. (Also an example that occurred in The Fly. When the scientist stepped out of his handy machine, the fly was gone because his body, which had more mass, absorbed it. Otherwise, you're going to end up having to account for the missing mass, which is just too entirely complicated.)

    As you might have noticed I'm free to take over this body any moment I see fit, but I'm interested to see how this is going to play out. So, I'll give you free reign."

    With that, the voice of Groudon disappears into the recesses of my mind, leaving me alone again. I reach my palm in front of me and stare at it intently. A moment later, flames spring out of my hand, flickering madly and insanely hot, yet they don't scorch me or burn me to a crisp.

    "This could be fun."

    I grin.


    Overall, again, you should really get a beta reader. Have that beta proofread your work thoroughly before you post it. While it seems rather anal to do, part of whether or not your fic really succeeds (and may I remind you that for awhile, your fic was a two-star fic) is in the delivery. A ton of errors mean that your reader is likely to stumble over them. It's like having a rug in the middle of the floor, but the rug has bumps here and there. Anyone who walks in could trip over those bumps, and it just ends up painful. You want that rug smooth so your reader can focus completely and entirely on only your story. That's what a beta does: makes sure your work is perfect before you post it so you don't end up with odd errors.

    Also, a beta can help you with odd details in logic. For example, you've got little things like the bars just melting from exposure to electricity. Even in the world of Pokémon with its Disney science, this doesn't happen. On a larger scale, you've got oddities with your characters.

    Now, I just need to stop and talk about your characters for a bit. So far, we've got two actual main ones: the human and the groudon. Groudon is a bit interesting because he's a bit more sarcastic and informal than what one would expect from an ancient god. For that reason, it can stay or go, but my personal concern is that it's a bit odd for an ancient god to talk like that. (As I've said before, try to imagine Jesus calling you a homey, and you've got pretty much the same thing going on here.)

    However, the human is a bit more of a cause for concern. Basically, although he's the narrator, you don't really let him react to things until it's convenient. So, there's no build-up to the sudden burst of hatred and the bloodthirsty rampage he experiences at the end of chapter one. Like I said before, he goes from his confused state observing the world with an almost detached manner to homicidal maniac. Likewise, in the second chapter, you seem to downplay his reaction to being fused to a legendary. He stammers at times, but he's not struck in awe or terror over the potentially destructive power his body now contains. All he does is talk to Groudon for a bit, light his hand on fire, and say the equivalent of, "Ooh. Fire pretty." There's no sense of wonder here, nothing to indicate that he's had some serious news dumped on him (considering, you know, he was first told he's not entirely human and then told he was fused to a legendary pokémon). Just, "Oh, hey, this is cool." So, he feels a bit one-dimensional – as in, a flat character. To be blunt, he could potentially be an interesting character to watch, but the problem is there's nothing to watch. He doesn't act. He just does what he's told, and he doesn't have any sort of emotion beyond that.

    Moreover, again, things are seemingly made easy for him. He automatically knows how to use his powers. (The first chapter, I'm willing to believe that was Groudon attacking people, even though you heavily imply that the human was the one experiencing bloodlust and such. At the end of the second chapter, however, that's just got to be him playing with fire there.) Even when confronted with a problem, he smashes through it as if it's nothing. He's not affected by fire, and he conveniently has electrical powers to melt down metal bars. On top of everything else, he has super speed bestowed by a vague electric-type to allow him to race past everyone else and massacre the crap out of the lab. In other words, he still seems a bit Stuish because there's no adjustment period. You imply that it's still him (as in, he's the one who's using these powers, despite never having had to learn how), he defies logic and science, and at the end of it all, you really don't have him react emotionally to anything around him except for brief lines of dialogue.

    As I've said originally, the concept has potential if done well. You've got potential psychological conflict all over the place, and everyone loves a superhero fic, particularly if it's full of violence and dysfunctional heroes. You just really need to clean it up, take your time, get a beta, and work things out a bit more carefully in order to iron out all the problems you're encountering. Otherwise, your story will just be lost due to delivery.
     
    Last edited:

    Miz en Scène

    Everybody's connected
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    Years
  • Okay, thx for the review. By the way thanks again for the tip. Now, I have a few things that I want to ask and share.

    1.Correctio
    This isn't strictly a correction but I had to say it nonetheless.
    Also, I'm not sure why you have two Times New Roman tags per line throughout your first post or why you've put so many font tags in all of your posts, period. If it's the result of copy-pasting, try switching off WYSIWYG mode by clicking on the button in the top right corner of the post reply box that looks like A/A. If you hover over it, it's called "switch editor mode." By switching off WYSIWYG, you're forcing the forums to strip the coding from your work.
    I never noticed this was happening. Sorry...

    2.Question
    (possibly replacing it with something else, considering ripping IVs out of one's own body improperly tends to hurt like a ***** – and, yes, I know this from experience).
    Is it allowed to use swear words in a fic? Just a question...

    3.Correction
    Also, isn't he in a smaller tube? Or did you change that as well? Because a moment ago, you were saying it's only about the size of two of his arms stretched out (although you don't really specify if they're human or groudon), which means he doesn't have that far to go to rip these things out.)
    Okay wait I'll put it into the fic about him being human form. Once I've done that, try to imagine, that he was being subdued with the spray and the wires, aside from collecting information, helped to keep him upright. I could have put it into the fic but I wasn't sure how to fit it in. So, if it kept him upright, it would be tight wouldn't it. He need only walk two steps forward to rip them out of his skin. I actually tested the arm length and number of steps.

    4.Correction
    Again, if the power went out:

    1. The subject would notice.
    2. I don't believe there would be flashing red lights (if it was completely out).
    3. This doesn't explain why the liquid in the tube has randomly drained, considering power =/= drain system.
    I never said the lights were flashing. They were more like emergency lights, the luminescent ones you see in some movies where the power goes out. I don't know if this really happens in real life though so correct me if I'm wrong.

    Another thing, I never mentioned any water in the cylinder. That was in version 1 but you're commenting version 2. In this one I merely stated that he was in a containment cylinder, no gel or water or anything. Don't stress me with the security again, I don't know how to make the security better without detracting from the main storyline.

    5.Correction
    Granted, Groudon's probably interfering, but your writing just doesn't imply that that's what's going on. Right now, we read this and think that it's the human (the one who's narrating this story) who's executing the maneuver, which makes one wonder how he could pull this kind of stunt off.
    Well yes actually, Groudon is controlling him actively from that point. I just don't know how to state it properly. About him being able to do all that stuff, that was Groudon.

    6.Correction
    Side note, but I never really thought of Groudon as being particularly fast. In fact, if we consider its in-game speed (90) as an indicator for how fast it should be, it's most likely average. It can probably sprint, but run at blinding speeds? Probably not.
    We're talking about someone with human form, if it were Groudon [the hands were human sized ( I never said they grew large into Groudon size, only the claws grew larger)] the man would be crushed not throttled. His speed would be of a human who could run abnormally fast. It's kind of illogical to think that a regular human would be lumbering along like a Groudon. And I did mention that he was fused to an electric Pokémon which are generally fast with a few exceptions.
    7.Correction
    I suppose you could be trying to go for the psychopath killer a la River Tam, but even then, you don't really convey that this person is really flipping unstable. He just goes from vaguely disoriented and somewhat indifferent about his surroundings (considering he never really details how he feels about them except to describe them briefly as a prison) to "YAY KILL KILL KILL." Again, there's no real transition, so it's difficult to really grasp his character or to see him as a believable person.

    Have you heard of the COG project from MIT. Look it up on google. That's what is happening to our main character the vague human. His intelligence level is that of a rapidly developing baby. He is relearning everything from scratch from his memory. To compensate for this lack of knowledge Groudon takes over and commandeers the body.
    8.Correction
    Quote:
    through the dense forest. (Semicolons are mostly for compounds, yes, but the parts before and after the semicolon need to be closely related to one another.) I seem to recognize this place from a (Because "far off" would mean the same as "distant," it's redundant here.) distant memory. With every step I take, my bare feet burn the grass, leaving a black scorch mark in the shape of a foot. After a while, it dawns on me that I'm not wearing any clothes apart from a pair of black boxers.

    Wait. Why weren't those burned off, considering he seems to be burning everything else? Note that flame-retardant clothing would probably be rather uncomfortable against one's own nether regions
    .
    Chapter 1 his hands feet and mouth were hot not his nether regions
    9.Correction
    Quote:
    I finally realize that I'm witnessing: the creation of the earth's landmass.
    Which is strange, considering there's a volcano before this point – unless it was an underwater volcano (at which point, it'd be helpful to point that part out). In other words, what you're saying is that the character is witnessing the creation of land when there was already land before then.


    Are you religious? Just a question... Because Groudon created the land and Kyogre created the sea so I like to think that before that there was nonexistence, Ether, chaos, ect. This is only true for the Pokémon universe however.
    10.Correction
    If you genetically fuse one organism to another, you're just working with DNA. You're not working on a psychological level. As in, if you fuse someone's DNA with another creature's, unless both brains are present, their minds really shouldn't be separate entities like this. At least, that's how science fiction usually treats it.

    To give you an example (also from sci-fi), you've got The Fly, where a human scientist is fused on a genetic level to – you guessed it – a housefly. Throughout the movie, he's mentally human. There's no trace whatsoever to a fly mind also buzzing around inside him and demanding him to do things. It's only when his brain changes that his brain patterns begin to change, and even then, it's only described as an adaptation. As in, rather than have two separate minds communicating with each other, it's still his single mind. It's just that it's slowly converting itself into a fly's to adapt to his changing body.

    In other words, genetic fusion =/= psychological transference. By all logic, if the kid got groudon DNA in his body, he probably will still be thinking on his own – without Groudon's presence inside him – because Groudon's brain wouldn't be there. However, if they were actually fused to each other, then chances are, the kid would be assimilated into Groudon because of a mass difference. (Also an example that occurred in The Fly. When the scientist stepped out of his handy machine, the fly was gone because his body, which had more mass, absorbed it. Otherwise, you're going to end up having to account for the missing mass, which is just too entirely complicated.)


    I'd rather not say how they accomplished this, suffice to say it will make sense –to most people- but its a spoiler and I'd rather not say. By the way, the missing mass, I have already accounted for but its a spoiler and will be revealed in due course.
    11.Affirmation
    Now, I just need to stop and talk about your characters for a bit. So far, we've got two actual main ones: the human and the groudon. Groudon is a bit interesting because he's a bit more sarcastic and informal than what one would expect from an ancient god. For that reason, it can stay or go, but my personal concern is that it's a bit odd for an ancient god to talk like that. (As I've said before, try to imagine Jesus calling you a homey, and you've got pretty much the same thing going on here.)
    Yes, I'm actually going for this angle as it's more humourous.
    12.Correction
    However, the human is a bit more of a cause for concern. Basically, although he's the narrator, you don't really let him react to things until it's convenient. So, there's no build-up to the sudden burst of hatred and the bloodthirsty rampage he experiences at the end of chapter one. Like I said before, he goes from his confused state observing the world with an almost detached manner to homicidal maniac. Likewise, in the second chapter, you seem to downplay his reaction to being fused to a legendary. He stammers at times, but he's not struck in awe or terror over the potentially destructive power his body now contains. All he does is talk to Groudon for a bit, light his hand on fire, and say the equivalent of, "Ooh. Fire pretty." There's no sense of wonder here, nothing to indicate that he's had some serious news dumped on him (considering, you know, he was first told he's not entirely human and then told he was fused to a legendary pokémon). Just, "Oh, hey, this is cool." So, he feels a bit one-dimensional – as in, a flat character. To be blunt, he could potentially be an interesting character to watch, but the problem is there's nothing to watch. He doesn't act. He just does what he's told, and he doesn't have any sort of emotion beyond that.

    Moreover, again, things are seemingly made easy for him. He automatically knows how to use his powers. (The first chapter, I'm willing to believe that was Groudon attacking people, even though you heavily imply that the human was the one experiencing bloodlust and such. At the end of the second chapter, however, that's just got to be him playing with fire there.) Even when confronted with a problem, he smashes through it as if it's nothing. He's not affected by fire, and he conveniently has electrical powers to melt down metal bars. On top of everything else, he has super speed bestowed by a vague electric-type to allow him to race past everyone else and massacre the crap out of the lab. In other words, he still seems a bit Stuish because there's no adjustment period. You imply that it's still him (as in, he's the one who's using these powers, despite never having had to learn how), he defies logic and science, and at the end of it all, you really don't have him react emotionally to anything around him except for brief lines of dialogue.

    The kid is still developing so Groudon takes the rein momentarily. I just said that.
    11.End
    As I've said originally, the concept has potential if done well. You've got potential psychological conflict all over the place, and everyone loves a superhero fic, particularly if it's full of violence and dysfunctional heroes. You just really need to clean it up, take your time, get a beta, and work things out a bit better in order to iron out all the problems you're encountering. Otherwise, your story will just be lost due to delivery
    Thanks I'll try to get a beta.




     

    JX Valentine

    Your aquatic overlord
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  • Is it allowed to use swear words in a fic? Just a question...

    Yes, that's perfectly fine. You'll want a warning about this, however.

    So, if it kept him upright, it would be tight wouldn't it.

    Not necessarily. If you recall images of Mewtwo, the wires tended to be looser than "marionette puppet taut." Besides, if they were tight, most likely, they'd be uncomfortable and rather painful due to straining. As in, in order to support him, they'd have to be strained against gravity and his weight to keep him up. Think of tying a weight onto a string and hanging it just enough so that the bottom of the weight just touches the floor while the weight itself is still at least partially supported by the string. Notice how it tends to be a bit tight? Now, imagine that the weight is your arm, and the needle is the only thing that's attaching the string to you. Most likely, this will partly pull the needle out as it is, which will not be particularly comfortable or painless. Not exactly something you want helping to subdue someone.

    He need only walk two steps forward to rip them out of his skin.

    The question is whether or not he has enough room to do this. You said the width of the tube was about two of his arms spread out wide ("a cylindrical container of about the length of two of my arms stretched out wide"). This tends to depend on the length of one's legs, but if he's standing in the center of the tube, this probably means he can only go one arm length away from his starting point, which really isn't about two steps.

    I never said the lights were flashing.

    Technicality, but I mean this:

    A red light illuminates the room.

    Which, if they are emergency lights, are powered by batteries, so I stand corrected here.

    Another thing, I never mentioned any water in the cylinder. That was in version 1 but you're commenting version 2. In this one I merely stated that he was in a containment cylinder, no gel or water or anything.

    Fair enough.

    Don't stress me with the security again, I don't know how to make the security better without detracting from the main storyline.

    You could actually lengthen the chapter and give him a conflict. While it's possible that he could escape, it's also possible to simply have him struggle against the security in the process of doing so. Alternatively, you could add a chapter to give yourself enough room to do this.

    Basically, you're thinking of the storyline as, "I have these set points, and I have to get from Point A to Point B in X amount of time." That's really not a good way to write a story because then you end up rushing to the point where it shows (like how it is right now). Instead, slow down and think things through. If you can't figure out how something would logically happen, don't have it happen (especially in science fiction, which relies on a scientific thought process). It's perfectly okay to add in minor conflicts and detailed subplots. These points don't actually detract from the storyline. They add to it by making the storyline a bit more believable.

    Well yes actually, Groudon is controlling him actively from that point.

    If you'd like an example, feel free to read chapter five of Anima Ex Machina because I do pretty much the same thing in my own fanfiction.

    If you'd like an example that's less plug-worthy, Groudon is a completely separate mental entity. There's no way that the human should be able to think of his actions as his own. He most likely should be thinking something along the lines of, "Wait. This isn't me doing this. WTF?"

    In other words, it goes back to the bit I said about how the human character doesn't really react to what's going on around him.

    About him being able to do all that stuff, that was Groudon.

    Again, it's an issue of ambiguity that you should be resolving within the fanfiction. My comment was explaining to you why ambiguity isn't a good thing.

    We're talking about someone with human form,

    And a human can run at super speeds too?

    if it were Groudon [the hands were human sized ( I never said they grew large into Groudon size, only the claws grew larger)]

    Did I ever argue otherwise? =/

    His speed would be of a human who could run abnormally fast. It's kind of illogical to think that a regular human would be lumbering along like a Groudon.

    No, what I mean is that it's strange that being fused to Groudon suddenly gave him super speed. The average human cannot run at Superman speeds, so to the reader who has only read up to that point, the super speed came from out of absolute nowhere.

    And I did mention that he was fused to an electric Pokémon which are generally fast with a few exceptions.

    Which also seems rather random and convenient, actually. While I can understand if this is another "lulz let's make a supersoldier" kind of evil plot they're trying to pull off, the electric-type is never named and only seems to be there to add more powers to the duo's form. You'd think that if the electric-type had been genetically merged the same way Groudon had (as in, by the logic explained in chapter two), its mind would also be present in this body. Not to mention it doesn't seem particularly significant (except to add powers to their form) thereafter unless I'm missing something.

    Have you heard of the COG project from MIT. Look it up on google. That's what is happening to our main character the vague human.

    Yes, but I'm not sure it is what you think it is. Basically, the Cog project is a hypothesis that states that if you plop an outside entity into a group, the entity will begin to act the same way as the people around him. For example, if you plop a robot with self-teaching software into a group of humans for a long period of time, the robot will start to behave like a human. In other words, the kid's plopped into a group of human beings. There's no reason why he should suddenly take on the persona of a sociopathic killer.

    On top of that, the Cog project assumes that there's a transition period, and it deals mostly with artificial lifeforms that are designed to learn at a rapid pace. The human brain doesn't quite function the same way with the same speed -- as in, it doesn't go from confused to "YAY KILL" in about two minutes the way your character seems to have done. Likewise, there's usually some sort of stimuli that the artificial mind emulates in order to develop behavior. In other words, unless everyone around him is being a sociopathic killer, the Cog project is actually rather irrelevant here.

    And to get back to the point, my comment was concerning the fact that he just randomly went from "oh, this is strange" to "GOTTA KILL 'EM ALL" with no transition in between. Cog project or not, it seems like his own personality is going from one end of the sanity spectrum to the complete opposite abruptly, which really just doesn't happen. (In other words, that particular comment you were responding to wasn't saying that I had a problem with the rapid learning -- although I do, and it's another story -- but was instead saying I had a problem with the sudden shift in personality and logical reactions.)

    To compensate for this lack of knowledge Groudon takes over and commandeers the body.

    Also never actually developed, but we've gone over that.

    Chapter 1 his hands feet and mouth were hot not his nether regions

    Considering the length of time he's spending burning everything in his path, one is left to imagine that his body would get hot over that period.

    Are you religious? Just a question...

    No. Not even Christian. However, I've read the Bible.

    Because Groudon created the land and Kyogre created the sea so I like to think that before that there was nonexistence,

    ...Except you state there was a volcano from which Groudon was formed.

    I'd rather not say how they accomplished this, suffice to say it will make sense –to most people- but its a spoiler and I'd rather not say. By the way, the missing mass, I have already accounted for but its a spoiler and will be revealed in due course.

    The problem lies in the fact that to a reader, it ends up being rather strange that the lab team, in their genetic experiments, would try to channel two minds into one body. This tends to be unstable. In fact, there's psychological disorders that describe this phenomenon.

    The kid is still developing so Groudon takes the rein momentarily. I just said that.

    At the end of chapter two, he lights his hand on fire, and it's fairly clear that it's him, not Groudon. This is mostly what I'm talking about. He's had no training in controlling his powers, yet he can still use them anyway.

    Thanks I'll try to get a beta.

    Good idea. A beta will also help you read over the odd and awkward parts from a reader's perspective and help you iron them out. As you can probably tell from our discussion above, there's a flaw with most authors, something that happens to really the best of us as well. We tend to see our work from our point of view but not the readers'. So, what we think makes perfect sense might not make as much sense or might not be as clear. As a result, you end up with a confused reader. Hence, betas can also pick out things that aren't entirely clear and suggest ways to work them out so your public reader doesn't end up a bit lost.

    Good luck.
     

    Miz en Scène

    Everybody's connected
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  • Can this be closed?

    Hi its me QWERTY-My-Keyboard. Neo Groudon currently has an exam -it was mentioned in the beta place. Last night he told me (not forced) to use his account and close this thread. He says he wants to rewrite the whole thing because there's too many plotholes, grammar mistakes, physics mistakes, ect, and its too short perchapter. Do a revised version If that's O.k. As proof that he allowed me to use his account...

    I'm using it aren't I? Oh and if you want confirmation you can PM him next week I guess.
    I am not his secreterary!

    So bottomline, Astinus can you close the thread. Please...

    Ps. To any of you who were looking forward to more NG the fanfic do not despair... He will rewrite it. He says... Oh and to any Beta reader who might be reading this right now, sorry...

    Pss. I'm not doing this to sabotage Neo Groudon i like the fic personally. It's me by the way QWERTY-My-Keyboard *such a long name*.
     
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