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The Final Frontier
Hey everyone, I'm kind of new to the forum and thought I'd post a fic here and see if I get any critiques. I've already gotten five chapters done on a different forum, but I'll just post one here for now to see if anyone's interested. Let's see, the rules say I should mention a rating so nobody is scarred for life after reading. lol
PG-13 Basically there will be more realistic violence than there is depicted in the games, as well as some minor language that you might see in a PG-13 movie. Don't worry, no F-bombs are completely spelled out. :D The style will be closest to generation one of the games I think, back when the games weren't censored as much and back when the games still had that creepy vibe sometimes. Anyway, the fic's based partially off the events of Heart Gold and Soul Silver's events, with a few minor differences to the story and one major difference that'll be spelled out in the first chapter. Let me know how it is! Pokemon: The Final Frontier *Can't enter the pic yet because I'm new. :( Chapter 01: Prologue Pokemon, or “Pocket Monsters” are a type of animal that branch off into many different species. So far, a total of 493 species of Pokemon have been discovered in the world, and there’s certainly room for more to be found. The fact is Pokemon are a part of everyday life. They’re found all over the place in the wild. Some dangerous carnivores, some being friendly herbivores, but they all have one thing in common: Their use in battle. Nobody recorded when it all began, but humans developed a technology they called “Pocket balls” and later on “Pokeballs” to catch these powerful monsters to do their bidding. Eventually, it all became a game; a quest for critical acclaim. The more people successfully caught Pokemon, the more they lusted to test their might against other “Trainers” who had also the skill to catch a Pokemon. And so, an entire system was set up all around the world to satisfy the trainer’s passion. Pokemon Gyms were set up in each major city of the four major regions of the world: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. Each region would possess eight Pokemon gyms, where the trainers would test their might against the most powerful trainers of their city, known as Gym Leaders. Each region also has what is called, “The Elite Four”, the greatest trainers of their region who fought their way to the top of Pokemon League, the committee that runs all that is Pokemon. And then, of course, there are the champions. Only three currently exist in the world, one for each region including Johto and Kanto’s combined Pokemon league. Each Pokemon champion had to be good enough to defeat all of their region’s elite four in a row. And finally, there is the Pokemon Master, the greatest Pokemon trainer in the entire world. Many people have their own interpretation of what a Pokemon Master is. Some believe it is simply the trainer who possesses the most skill, others believe it is the trainer who has collected all 493 Pokemon, and some think it’s the one who collects every single gym badge, and becomes the champion of all four regions of the Pokemon League. Whatever the case, it is the dream of many to someday be a Pokemon master. And that brings us to a young man by the name of Ethan… Ethan was a punk kid from New bark Town in the Johto region. He had been obsessed with Pokemon for most of his life, which to his mother seemed odd, because he never had anyone to influence this desire. His father passed away at a very early age, and he hadn’t made too many friends as a child either, only two. Never the less, Ethan’s burning desire was to become a Pokemon master since as early as when he was eight. At the age of ten, Ethan asked his mother if he could go out on a Pokemon adventure. “What?! What kind of horrible parent would leave their kid out on their own with those monsters when they’re only ten?!” She responded angrily. He got a similar response when he asked again at age 15. He knew he’d have to wait until he was 18 years old when he’d finally be considered an adult. By the time Ethan reached the age of 18, the great interest of Pokemon in the world had piqued; No longer were people just battling with Pokemon. People found jobs in breeding, studying, fashion shows, and even caring for them. Many people were anxious by this point to find out who it was, the true Pokemon master. So the higher ups of Pokemon League proposed a grand tournament that welcomed all trainers to come and battle and see who the best was, once and for all. This fueled the fire for Ethan’s ambition to become a Pokemon trainer, and now that he was old enough, he decided it was time to begin climbing his way to the top and enter the great tournament, which he found out wouldn’t take place for another three years, plenty of time for him get as good as he needed to be. Out of his room stepped Ethan, a short young man wearing a backwards gold and black cap, which his jet black hair stuck out the front of. He wore a red sweatshirt and black shorts to go along with it. He had an excited, wild look on his face, knowing that today was the day after his 18th birthday. He knew what that meant. He could now go to professor Elm’s lab to get his first Pokemon. The adventure was about to begin. He jolted down the stairs to see his mother sitting on the couch next to the stairs, waiting for him. “Going somewhere?” She asked. “Oh, nowhere special. JUST GETTING MY FIRST EVER POKEMON!” He shouted in uncontrollable excitement. His mom simply smiled indifferently. She was wearing her usual blue dress, and she had the same jet black hair as her son, except it was of course very long, down to her shoulders. Ethan knew his mom didn’t want him to leave, but, being 18 now, it was his own decision. And speaking of decisions, what Pokemon is the best to pick? He thought to himself. He could pick Cyndaquil, as they were said to be powerful assets and very ambitious when fully evolved. Then there was Totodile, which he heard were extremely playful and fun to be around. Finally, there’s Chikorita, which he also heard was playful, but could get very moody at times. One thing he knew was that this decision was very- “So are you going to get a Pokemon, or what?” His mom asked, now puzzled. Ethan had been standing there staring blankly into space for some time now. He finally snapped out of it and ran out the door. “Don’t worry mom, I’m not leaving town yet. I’ll be back soon!” He said with even more unusual excitement as he slammed the door behind him. As he exited, he bolted to his right and ran around the house. Professor Elm’s lab was dead ahead, only 20 yards away. Man, this is the moment every Pokemon trainer remembers, he thought. He continued sprinting ahead in what felt like forever, and just when he was about to reach the lab, about 5 yards away now, Ethan noticed something strange. To his left there was a guy who looked about his age climbing the fence to the left of Elm’s lab. He knew that the fence led to the side entrance of Elm’s lab, but why go that way? He looked very shady, but Ethan only caught a glimpse of him. “What’s this all about?” He asked himself aloud as he diverted from the lab door and instead walked over towards the fence to see who it was. He peered through the fence to see a shady guy looking through a window in Elm’s lab. “Hey!” Ethan called out to him. |
First off, I'm going to ask if you realise that what you're doing here is an OT fic and that you're really going to need an obscene amount of determination to follow it all through the end –mostly due to the length of most OT fics? I notice you mentioning that you've basically followed the plot of HGSS so I'm worried about you following it all the way to the end. Heck, even I'm not sure you can pull it off as of yet because many OT fics I've seen are either seen as cliché or the author drops it because it's too long. I'm not being discouraging; I'm being realistic.
Anyway, review time. Quote:
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"Some are dangerous carnivores, and some are friendly herbivores, but they all have one thing in common: their use in battle." I added the 'are' portion because you're referring to the subject(Pokemon) here. The 'and' was added because of not you have a comma-splice which basically means that you're using a comma to join together two independent sentences. To test it, you can replace the comma with a period and see if it still makes sense. It does. That last sentence is a bit iffy in my book. Personally, I follow the rule that words should only be capitalised after a colon if it's an independent sentence so I changed yours to lower-case because it's not an independent clause. This is English English. American English dictates that you do capitalise after the colon in certain situations. The Chicago Manual of Style however(also known for the Oxford comma thing.) says that it should only be capitalised if it introduces two or more complete sentences. Quote:
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1) “Out of his room stepped Ethan.” -Now, out of whose room did Ethan step out of? Here, you have the pronoun preceding the proper noun, which is odd. Usually, we'd name the subject first before switching to pronouns. 2) “a short young man wearing...” - Here, you're insinuating that the subject in question can be described with the adjective short-young, which isn't an adjective, or that the adjective short is describing the adjective young. This, of course, isn't what you wanted. Whenever you have two adjectives in a row, you put a comma in between them. Hence, you could have, “Short, young man.” Quote:
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Finally, apart from the whole cliched plot thing, work on your tensing. I noticed a few mistakes like this one: Quote:
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...to name a few. Anyway, I can't say that I'm not all that excited since the plot's really generic except for the part where you made him eighteen –yet neglected to insert maturity. So yeah, make up for it with good writing at least. I'm not saying your writing is bad though. You use of commas is much better than people who've just started so keep at it. What you need now is creativity. Disclaimer: This is not flaming nor is it nitpicking. It's reviewing. |
Alright, I'll be sure to keep those grammar problems in mind. On to the other issues though:
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Anyway, yeah I see what you mean. I was pretty stiff with the story in the first chapter, mostly because back then my memory of the G/S/C storyline was a little fuzzy. Well yeah, it's been done... by the games. lol What I'm going to attempt here is explain why gym leaders, who are supposed to be masters in their Pokemon type of choice are so weak, whereas later on down the line, you'll see a bug catcher, for instance, who have much stronger Pokemon than someone like Bugsy. I'm also going to explain why the entire balance of things was completely thrown off in generation one when two kids pretty much took everyone to school in Pokemon after training only a short time, so we'll see how it goes. Quote:
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I don't see what's wrong with him being so excited. He's about to go out and fulfill his dream, who wouldn't be excited? Also, his personality is why he doesn't have many friends. It's kind of a joke, but since the main character is silent in the games, I guess I kind of wanted to make him the opposite in this fic. He's not going to be like this all the time though, don't worry. Quote:
Also, the next few chapters have already been written out. I'll try to edit the text if I found anything similar wrong that you pointed out in the first chapter, but don't think I'm ignoring your critiques if you see some mistakes still. :P Chapter 02: First Pokemon The dark figure turned around, revealing himself out of the shadows to Ethan. He appeared to be about his age, had long red hair, and had an angry, almost evil expression on his face. He wore a black jacket with dark blue pants as well. “… What are you staring at?” The mysterious stranger asked. Ethan was now leaning over the fence, almost intrigued as he had never seen this guy before, yet there he was, about to go through professor Elm’s side door to his lab. “You, of course. I’ve never seen you around before. You a friend of Elm’s or something?” Ethan asked curiously. Instead of answering, the unknown stranger ran over and pushed Ethan away off the fence harshly, and returned back to his spot silently. Ethan landed on the ground with a loud thud. “Yeah, nice to meet you too, jackass.” Ethan said, annoyed, as he got up and walked away from the fence and towards the lab entrance. This was not the time to be angry just because of some punk, he thought to himself. Today was going to be one of the best days of his life. He burst open the doors, to which all of Professor Elm’s assistants turned around in surprise to see Ethan, but only for a moment. They were used to this sort of behavior from him, considering he visited often. Professor Elm was up at his desk in the left corner buried in his paper work as usual. He appeared to be talking with someone next to him, but Ethan couldn’t tell who it was, as they were blocked by the computer screens. The lab itself was very cluttered and messy. There were always five assistants busy at work, and they never had time to clean up. Luckily, the lab was mostly just a large space and had no other rooms, so it was easy to keep track of things. At the other side of the entrance sat, in their Pokeballs, the three standard starter Pokemon Elm told Ethan about. He stood there and began to think about which one he wanted. He immediately thought of Totodile, because the description made it sound like a lot of fun to have, but he also wanted to be ready for anything. Could Totodile live up to that expectation? He wanted to also use a Pokemon that looked cool, and he didn’t even know what it looked like, or the type for that matter. For all he knew, all three choices could have su- “Ethan!” He heard a woman’s voice come over from where professor Elm had been sitting. It was Lyra, a long-time friend of Ethan’s who lived across the street from him. She was in fact only a few days younger than him, so she couldn’t pick up a starter Pokemon just yet because similar to his mom, hers wouldn’t let her leave until she was 18. She was a short girl with brown haired pig tails that stuck upwards, which she wore a large white hat over. She wore a red long sleeved shirt under overall jeans converted to shorts, and in addition had very high white stockings which came up to her knees. She had a cheerful expression on her face as she walked over toward Ethan, who wasn’t so surprised to see her. Both frequented Professor Elm’s lab ever since their friend Kris had left town about a year ago. “What’s up Lyra? Come here to see who my starter Pokemon is? Tell me which one you want to pick so I can pick the advantage against it.” He lamely joked. “Ya know, I could just lie about which one I’d pick, then get the advantage on you.” She said, unwavering. Ethan sighed. Even though she was almost 18, Lyra’s common sense was lacking. He worried that she’d even survive out there in the wild if she couldn’t even tell what a joke was and what wasn’t. “So what’s Elm up to?” Ethan asked to change the subject. “Oh, he’s actually programming your Pokedex as we speak. I think he’ll be finished any minute now. He’s giving us a brand new model, ya know.” She responded. “As a matter of fact, I am done now!” Professor Elm remarked all the way over from his desk. Both Ethan and Lyra made their way over to Elm hastily to see his final work. Professor Elm was just what you’d expect a professor to look like; lab coat, black pants, and big glasses on his face. He also had very short brown hair, and a welcoming facial expression at all times. He was a very passive man, and preferred non-violence among all things. Elm stood up from his desk and handed him the Pokedex. It was red, and looked like a large, hi-tech cell phone. Ethan was speechless in these moments. What could he say? Maybe thank you? He couldn’t thank him enough for this opportunity of a life time. “Thank you so much Professor Elm!” Ethan exclaimed like a kid who got what he wanted for Christmas. “Not a problem Ethan. Now… let’s get to the starter Pokemon, and your journey will begin soon after.” They walked over towards the three starters. Along the way, Ethan began thinking to himself about which he should pick again. Definitely not Chikorita, he thought. He didn’t like the idea of a moody Pokemon. So, Cyndaquil or Totodile; it’d have to be one of them. Totodile would be a good prospect and seemed to have a lot of potential, but he heard Cyndaquil was formidable as well. He really liked the idea of having a Cyndaquil, it just sounded like it could be- “So what’ll it be?” Elm asked as he looked over at the three Pokeballs. Each had a name tag on them to identify which was which. Ethan grabbed his Pokeball of choice without hesitation, the one to his right. “Ah, so you’ve chosen Cyndaquil, the fire Pokemon. Interesting, I think you’ll find your personalities to be very similar.” Elm said with a smile. Glaring through the window of the lab to Ethan’s left, the mysterious red haired man took note that it was a Cyndaquil he chose. “Totodile it is, then.” He said to himself. |
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Remember Jurrasic Park? That first part where they were getting the raptor into the cage and where someone got killed can be considered a prologue. It didn't have a voiceover narration explaining John's park, it insinuated that the movie had something to do with dinosaurs. Quote:
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Anyway, I'll try to find time to review the rest of your fic later. I may or may not do it due to time constraints so don't get your hopes up. If you're wondering, I'm not being snobby, I'm being brutally honest. |
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