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[Pokémon] Like Night and Day

Seventh Sea

Plesiosaur Fanatic
  • 14
    Posts
    12
    Years
    Salutations, dear pokemon fans and friends! I am quite new to this business of fan-fiction (this, in fact, would be my very first fan-fiction if you do not count one-shots). A while ago I saw somewhere on the internet a challenge; write a crossover fan-fiction that isn't a crossover. Now, such a feat seems impossible and was most certainly a joke, but I had an idea. My plan was to re-tell an ordinary story with inspiration and enhancement derived from the plot of another story- like singing the words of one song to the tune of another. Such is the origin of this fan-fiction. The basic plot is that of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky epilogue, and I will choose not to reveal the second tale which is woven in to my story. You may figure that out on your own.

    I can assure you that I will make many mistakes and have need for many improvements, but please bear with me.

    Now, I must point out that for my writing purposes I have chosen to represent the characters as gijinka: in this case, pokemon in human form. This is to avoid the awkwardness of fitting varied body shapes and sizes into a tangible world and is also done so that I may have ordinary pokemon fill the niche of animals in the story. If you would not like to read a fan-fiction based around gijinkas, then you may quietly step out and continue no further.

    And finally, without any further ado, I present to you Like Night and Day.



    -I: A Hero Recalled-

    In the pleasant village known as Treasure town an era was dawning that would prove to be one of both greatness and horror. In the previous months towers had fallen and been restored, time had flown and time had stopped, pokemon had been proven villains who were once thought heroes, and pokemon had been proven heroes who were once thought villains. In short, an eventful few days had taken place which shook the land to its core. However, there is still more life to be shaken out.

    Our tale begins with a middle-aged man, a seller of wines and juices, who owned a small though popular shop for exploration teams. His hair was of a creamy shade and as was his shirt, but he wore a coat and tie of an off pink. Atop his head were two long ears splattered with the pink of his coat, and the man's eyes were constantly darting this way and that in such a way that the two appeared to be moving independently of one another. This man was known as Larry Spinda.

    On this fine spring morning Mr. Spinda had a most important errand to attend to. The wine-shop sponsored explorations had turned up an unexpected surprise: a long lost adventurer whose claim to fame was his long severed ties with his daughter who just so happened to be the partner of the strange boy who had saved the world. After having been found by Mr. Spinda's recruits, the adventurer called Dr. Manevo had been placed under the care of the son of his oldest and dearest friend known to all as the bank-keeper Mr. Duskull. Today, however, Mr. Spinda would take the heroine Lucille Manevo to recover her father and bring him to live in the awe-inspiring Wigglytuff's guild which sat upon the hill above the quiet town. Just as Mr. Spinda stepped up above the opening to his subterranean shop the famed girl was approaching with her ever present partner.

    The girl called Lucille was a beautiful sight to behold. Her big brown eyes captured the hearts of anyone who dared stare into their depths and her silky brown hair was so long it nearly reached her perfectly carved waist. Her affiliation with the vulpine pokemon known as eevee accounted for the presence of a thick brown tail and tall ears which were always perked in kind attentiveness.

    Her partner, the Hero of All the Land, the famous Charlie Riolu, was not far behind her in exquisite appearance. His hair was black as night with thin curls around his face, and his features were perfectly enhanced with the presence of rippling muscles beneath his skin. Charlie bore strange ears and loops across his head, and a tail of the most stunning blue fur that one has ever seen. The pair of heroes standing side-by-side was surely an awe-inspiring sight.

    "Good day Heroes Lucille and Charlie! Are you prepared to head into town?"

    "Prepared, yes, and incredibly excited. It has been more years then I can count since I last saw my father!" Lucille's excitement was evidenced by the shine in her eyes and the spring in her step as she approached Mr. Spinda who was already turning to head onward to Duskull's bank.

    "In that case off we shall go, to return a fallen hero to his former glory!"

    * * *

    The troop of three engaged in small chatter about the beauty of the day and the discoveries of their previous exploits and adventures and the momentous occasion which was being enacted at present. It was not long when the group found themselves standing inside the old dark and dusty Duskull's bank.

    Inside there was an old wormy desk and old wormy wooden floors and old dusty chairs which collected to form the old and worn atmosphere of the room. At the desk stood the young Mr. Duskull speaking with another young man whose eyes and hair and skin were pale as those of a corpse. At the very moment in which Mr. Spinda and the heroes entered the conversation ceased and Mr. Duskull immediately attended to the new arrivals.

    "Ah, Mr. Spinda! And of course dear Lucille and Charlie, it has been a long time since you last stopped in. But this is no ordinary occasion now is it. A reunion with your long lost father." Mr. Duskull smiled and turned back to his spectral companion. "Jack, would you please excuse us for a moment? These friends have come to recall a lost soul in need."

    The cadaverous man eyed the trio inquiringly. "Of course."

    Mr. Duskull smiled again and happily lead the way into another room of the bank and then a hallway followed by another room and a downward staircase into the basement where he made his home and where rested the long lost parent of the celebrated heroine.

    "Dr. Manevo! As promised your lovely daughter has come to spirit you away to Wigglytuffs Guild! Come and greet her!"

    Out of the din stepped a scrawny older man whose once black hair was faded to grey and whose once bright golden rings had dulled to a point at which the hardly glowed at all. For a moment he appeared lost and confused but when he saw Lucille's face his countenance lit up with a vivacity the likes of which Mr. Duskull had not seen since Dr. Manevo's arrival.

    "M- my dear Lucille! Oh goodness it has been so long! So long and horrible! Lucille, Lucille, I can't believe it is really you!" Dr. Manevo hurried forward and embraced his daughter passionately with tears beginning to form in his eyes.

    "It's good to see you too dad," whispered Lucille, who was visibly crying in her happiness at seeing the parent who had gone away when she was only a little girl. Lucille had long believed her father to be dead, and this moment was like a wondrous dream from which she wished she would never awaken.

    "My... my daughter. At last. And I have heard that you are a famous explorer now, like I once was. Now you are a heroine, the savior of the whole world... and this must be your partner, Charlie, correct?"

    Charlie nodded his head in response, acknowledging his position as fellow hero and companion of Lucille.

    "But father," started Lucille, concerned. "Why were you gone so long? What happened to make you stay away all those years?"

    Dr. Manevo froze at the memory of his previous years and his joyous expression gave way to one of sadness and suffering. "That... those... those are stories for another time."

    Lucille appeared concerned but she knew not to pry further into events which affected her father so. With a nod she signaled to the others in the room that it was time that they be moving on. Duskull appeared relieved to be free of this business of a returning adventurer and eagerly led the way out of the room and up the stairs and down the hallway and back to the bank lobby where the corpse man was still waiting. Smiling cheerfully he showed the quartet of contented companions to the door and seemed ever so slightly hurried as he sent them off and waved goodbye.

    But that didn't matter. Lucille felt as though she was still dreaming as she bounced through the streets of Treasure Town at her father's side. After all those years it was a relief to finally be reunited with her parent once again. This, Lucille thought with a pleasant smile, is the beginning of better times.




    So, there's chapter one. Seems a little rushed to me... but oh well. It is my first real attempt at a fan-fiction and so you can't really expect much. Besides, I don't want to dawdle too much and lose the attention of my audience. Stay tuned for the next installment sometime within the next week!
     
    Hiya, welcome to the world of fanfiction! And also FF&W! Writing is tough for new authors, but I think you have a solid foundation to begin with.

    However, the chapter was a bit rushed. The actual reunion between Lucille and Dr. Manevo was less emotional than I would have expected. You did write in their reactions and such, but I just didn't think it was enough. For significant scenes, such as this one, you want to have more words. When readers see a massive collection of words forming a giant paragraph, they'd know that this part is important and they should really snap to attention. More words would also help with the pacing, since I thought the scene itself was rushed. They hug, cry a bit, and walk out of the bank. You might want to write in more of their thoughts, especially Lucille's and her father's. Simply put, thoughts would help give the characters more personalities as well as building up the scene to make it seem more significant to readers. I kind of believe the whole chapter should have hinged on this meeting, and there could have been more done to build up to that moment. Maybe some dialogue between the three as they walked to the bank, like asking Lucille how excited she is to meet her father for the first time in years. Or--like I said before--characterize Lucille more as well as building up the scene with her thoughts.

    Okay, that out of the way, I want to point out a few nitpicks:

    However, there is still more life to be shaken out.
    The 'is' in this sentence should be 'was' because the story is in the past-tense, and you should be consistent with it.

    Our tale begins . . .
    I don't really like these words when starting out a story. It does feel like the narrator is literally talking to you, but it stops the flow of the story in a sense. A flow of the story would basically be when people read and don't even realize they're reading something because of how well the words are written and such. It's almost like a dream, if that makes sense, because in a dream, you don't even realize you're dreaming until you wake up. Writers want to do the same thing, conceptually, anyway. But using these words is like waking readers up. A substitute would be jumping straight into the story, like immediately starting with Larry Spinda walking with Lucille Manevo. After that, you could begin to describe him and Lucille.

    The next part begins to describe the characters, physically. I don't usually like reading those descriptions because they're not really important, except by identifying characters as a specific Pokemon. But they don't support much else, which is why I don't particularly like them. Personal descriptions should be kept to a minimum, because you remember characters through their personalities, not through their sexy lips or whatever. You want readers to remember your characters, but by dumping every little detail of what they're wearing and what color their fur is is a bit excessive. This is like the same thing as the dream metaphor. Readers should have the freedom to imagine what characters look like, but you want to give some descriptions so that they have a general idea on where they should start imagining. And besides, even physical descriptions should attribute to each characters' personalities as well. Take this for example:

    A. John was tall with long blonde hair.
    B. John turned away, hiding his third ear in the depths of his hood.

    For the first sentence, it's simply a bland description about what John looks like. Nothing else happens with John, because he's not doing anything interesting at all, other than looking pretty of course. The second sentence, however, contrasts by doing three things:

    1. There is an action in the sentence. Putting in actions with descriptions helps the story move on, as you don't have to stop to describe characters. You're making them move and describing how they look.
    2. There is a physical description mixed in, which is his third ear. Describe the stuff that is memorable and important. What's memorable and important you might ask? Anything that is completely different, or at least different from other characters, is what's interesting and outlandish. This makes the characters memorable as well. Obviously, you'd remember John because he's the guy with the third ear, and not another blonde guy.
    3. The most important part about this sentence is that John's character is described as well. By reading this sentence, we know John is self-conscious about his third ear.

    "Dr. Manevo! As promised your lovely daughter has come to spirit you away to Wigglytuffs Guild! Come and greet her!"
    I think you just missed this, but 'Wigglytuffs' needs to be a possessive noun, so it would be 'Wigglytuff's'.

    "It's good to see you too dad," whispered Lucille, who was visibly crying . . .
    I would have thought Lucille would have fumbled her words around as her father did, since she is crying. It sounds a bit too casual as well, like I mentioned before.

    Alright, that aside, I have to say I really like your writing style. I found the narrative to be engaging and it helped me pay attention somehow. It's a good start by introducing Lucille's father, who sounds like an interesting character seeing that he was gone for years for some reason unknown. But you did do a nice job characterizing Mr. Duskull, and I'll give you props for that. You built on a post game and gives out a sense of hope with the final sentence, which is probably not going to be true since all stories have some sort of conflict. Oh their journey doesn't end yet, does it?

    The only kinks are what I've mentioned above. Remember to effectively build up those emotional scenes and keep descriptions down. There wasn't too much characterization on the protagonists so far, but I suppose I'll have to keep reading to find out more about them.
     
    I'm sorry it took me so long to respond! I've been very busy lately.

    Thank you for giving me feedback, you have no idea how greatly appreciated it is. :D

    More importantly though... I am very busy with AP testing, finals, and other stuff so I probably won't be writing for a while. It might actually be a better idea just to close this thread. Maybe I'll start this fan-fiction back up again when I am not quite so busy. Sorry!
     
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