Catching a pokemon doesn't mean it will obey you, see: Snorlax.

Although Ash does have his pokemon trust-y powers, so who knows.

 

Dude! I forgot about the master balls!

There's two legendaries right there!

 

Yea but unless Haunter is pretending to give birth to it at the time he will never catch Mewtwo

 

I don't know, something about Ash's super-trainer powers might make Mewtwo trust him enough to not expect it, nor read his mind about it.

 

Just read through this fic and I have to say moar please. I enjoyed it a lot and hope it continues for quite some time.

 

I've never played Pokemon, nor watched the cartoon, so I'm not getting my Pokemon fanboy geek on here. I've finished reading chapter 10, and I really can't be bothered to read the next chapter. Ash and co. are in the middle of fighting against ghosts to reach a Pokemon tower in some used-to-be-magnificent-but-is-now-haunted city and I can't be bothered to see how the fight turns out.

That is a problem with this fic. The characters are pretty forgettable and I don't care about them at all. Ash and Misty have a cute attraction to each other but it hasn't been enough for me - not by a long shot.

The author's re-imagining of Pokemon and the Poke-verse in general is well done, though the world doesn't always seem internally consistent to me. I was looking at the economics of the food shortage scheme, the ability for people to travel and transport between locations, and the use of long distance communications in their society and found large holes in the universe and plot that took some effort to over look.

I wouldn't mind knowing what the hell Team Rocket are up to, because the overall plot seems like something I might enjoy, but I don't want to have to read the next twelve chapters to find out.

This is a fairly competent offering, but doesn't shine for me in any way. The writing is okay, but not great. The characters are okay, but not great. The fight scenes are competent, but don't leap off the page, grab me by my ballsack and never let go. Even the casual violence and murder didn't retain my interest. The plot is developing nicely, but I haven't seen enough to say one way or another.

The take away from this, is that this fic is an okay way to pass the time if there's nothing better to do. It doesn't have glaring flaws, but it's only a little above mediocre. I think I might enjoy this more if it was darker, grittier, and faster paced. Oh, and the hand-holding is cute and all, but come on.

 

And there's your problem right there. Because while you did offer good points, the fact that you have no emotional investment in the story or the fandom means you'd be less ... enjoying of it than any of us.

 

That's true, which is why I mentioned it upfront. I missed Pokemon because I was ten years too old for it when it came out. If I'd been there for it, I'm sure I'd experience this fic differently.

I read a few comments in this thread from other folks with little to no Pokemon background and figured it was a worth a shot to read this on its own merits.

 

No such thing, dude.

 

It's a generational thing. I was a child of the 80s, and thus missed Pokemon, DBZ, and its ilk.

 

I'm sure you mean early eighties because I'm late 80's myself and I was very into it.

 

Yeah, 1980.

 

Pshht. I know people who claimed they didn't play as a kid pick up a copy of Heart Gold and get just as hooked into the series as when it first came out.

The latest version sold millions - in a single country - in the first three days of being out. Pokemon hasn't gone anywhere.

 

Yea the games are still possibly the best handheld games of all time. You dont have to be a child to enjoy such a great formula.

Of course that wouldnt help with Yak's inability to connect to the characters. Simple fact of fanfiction; if you are not already a fan you are going to have a very difficult time connecting with the characters.

 

That kind of defeatist attitude is why so much fanfiction sucks. Many of the great works of fanfiction are able to stand on their own merits; to tell tales with characters that the reader can believe in; to realise new worlds that I couldn't have imagined without them.

To say that my inability to like The Sun Soul's characters is a failing on my part, is absolutely wrong. It's a failing of the fic.

I've read great fics in fandoms that I otherwise had little to no contact with, and have then been drawn into those fandoms by the great writing and characters to be found within. The Sun Soul is not one of those fics. It can't raise my interest in Pokemon the way that good fics have dragged me into Dresden, Fate/Stay Night, X-Men, Anita Blake, and others.

When reviewers describe a work of fiction as being "for the fans", it's generally not a compliment. I don't just stick to the fandoms that I'm already a part of, I read outside of them regularly, and have done for over a decade. To describe it as a fact that fanfiction authors have difficulty writing good characters isn't exactly wrong, but it's certainly not an attitude which should be condoned in a fic that you venerate.

 

It's pure nonsense to think that no one in their 30s who didn't get into pokemon didn't because of their advanced age. You didn't get into it because you weren't interested, that's all lol. The creator of the series was 31 when he made it, and the most famous series writer died at age 61 - meaning he was at least 47 when he started writing for the 'verse. It's all about personal interest.

I don't know how much of a failing it is when you're admittedly not familiar with the verse; it's certainly laudable to those fics that are able to draw you in without prior knowledge of the series required, but hardly a failing when familiarity is expected. That's like criticizing book three in a series for not drawing you in, when you haven't read books one and two.

 

I don't see it that way. To me, Pokemon is a cultural phenomenon for the generation that came after me - at least so far as the cartoon is concerned. As for the games, I've never owned a console that had Pokemon on it, and by the time I was old enough to earn money and buy my own... well, getting a Gameboy was never a top priority. If I was a gen younger, then the cartoon would've had a bigger effect on me and I'd have been more inclined to make sure that I gave the game a thorough play.

I don't see the relevance. Barbar the Elephant was made by adults. It doesn't mean that adults who never experienced Barbar in their childhood will find it interesting and engaging.

I agree with you, at least in regards to fics where familiarity with the characters is expected. Plenty of short fics and fics that fork from canon are like that. The Sun Soul isn't one of those fics; it's a complete rewrite and redesign of the characters and universe from the very beginning.

The author did introduce his characters well and he's got a decent handle on them. I just don't feel much attachment to them or their development.

That's not really the same thing, and I probably would criticize that. It should at least be a good enough book to make me go back to vol 1 and read from the beginning. Hell, even mid-series, b-grade novels from the bargain bin were often enough to make me hunt down more.

The other problem with your comparison is that in such cases you'd be jumping into the middle of the narrative. That isn't the case here. 50Cal wiped the Pokemon slate clean and started from the beginning.

I'm not in any way saying that this is a bad Pokemon fic. It's not. But it could've been better, and it's part of our mandate as DLP to point that out.

 

So yak... quick question. Do you enjoy shitting on every fic that gets a lot of reviews and is generally well liked in the Other Fandom section?

 

Surprisingly, no. Considering he hasn't even touched the Glee story that's currently sitting with an unanimous 5.00 rating after 14 votes.

Lulzy.

EDIT: and I was hoping to use my 900th post for something good...