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farlaHad soft-serve coffee ice cream today. I always wondered why places only had two flavors...and I still don't know, but at least there's one place that offers more.
Zanna Taru just submitted a new chapter of The Shiny Assassin, and because she also seems to be slowly cracking under the strain(Don't believe me? Look at the newest chapter's Author note: Sorry again. I had SAT stuff all this time. I am getting tired of all this so I probably won't keep this up much longer.
Joe- If you are going to cuss about it I will not answer you. If you want me to answer a civilized question then clean up the language.
Level- Alexis is the name of my brand new baby cousin, and I wanted to give her a role(no offense to anyone of course) that is fine about your brother, I don't mind.
Katana- glad you like the change. You know everyone was nagging me about it so there you go.
Keleri- yes I am eighteen........No comment to anything else.
Vulpix- thanks for the support.
She's like a chibi Anne Rice) I've done more musing on her story.
We're now up to chapter four out of twenty-six current chapters.
At the start, the author thanks one of her reviewers for putting her on a favorite's list in what seems to be very sincere humility. This is important only in that we'll be watching to see for changes in this attitude as we progress through the chapters.
The opening is: Zara stood outside the Pokemon center, facing the boy and his Flareon. She hesitated, deciding which one of her Pokemon to use. This Flareon was indeed powerful, but it was reckless also. She remembered what the boy had done to the Skiploom before, and her anger flared even hotter.
Last chapter, the boy said he'd fight after dealing with the Skiploom. Zanna Taru is again managing not to tell the story in a pure linear format, something I wish more people would do. She has skipped over the skiploom's battle and instead implies what happened: the boy's flareon beat it badly. Although this scene could be slightly clearer, I applaud this.
Note also that Zara again shows her sueness. Her opponent is now 'evil'. Let's recap. Opponent one fights her with a stronger pokemon. Opponent two hurts her own pokemon. Opponent three brutalizes enemy pokemon. Anyway, Zara is so unbelievably nice and cares about pokemon so much that she's made angrier by what the boy did (what he did to make her mad to start has still not been established, sadly). And also her opponent has a powerful but reckless pokemon. This is a very common feature of enemies in OT stories. I'm not sure why. It could just be because powerful and reckless is a very simple battling style so it's the first thing that occurs to people, and perhaps also that it's very easy to think up ways for the trainer to defeat them. I'll ponder this.
Now, remember how in Chapter Two Zara recalls her gyarados when faced with a ponyta because of the type advantage? Guess who she sends out?
“Rubino, go!” she shouted, throwing the Pokeball.
Inconsistency. A very common trait in fanfiction, especially OT stories just because of the length and the tendency to get into the same situations. Authors need to make a greater effort to keep their characters consistent. You either use a type advantage or you don't. You either fight as hard as you can or you try to do the least damage to the other pokemon.
The boy laughs and says: “You think that just having a Shiny will win you this battle? Hah!”
Now, firstly, having your opponent be such a clear-cut 'bad guy' is generally not the brightest idea. And secondly, the fact it's a gyarados is a lot more significant than that it's a shiny. If he was making some sort of mocking response, 'You think having a type advantage…' would be a bit more appropriate. Thirdly, just three chapters ago we were told people are amazed by the sight of a shiny pokemon and wonder aloud that they didn't even think shinies existed. So there's further inconsistency. The crowd barely knew shinies existed, and this boy knows enough about them to know they're considered strong and that they're not actually so strong as to be unbeatable.
Zara replies with a pretty lame comeback about how she'll win with talent, unlike the boy, and in true sue fashion, the boy takes this as a real insult. I would really love to see more realistic responses to insults in OT stories. ("We'll win with our INNER STRENGTH, unlike you!!!" "Like the last five people I beat, you mean?")
Also note how the dynamic is different. If the boy is winning based on his pokemon's power, this is considered bad, while winning based on the trainer's tactics is considered good. This is a very standard for OT stories where the author is trying to put the glory of winning very firmly on the trainer. Reasonably, the trainer should be credited for raising a strong pokemon. But reasonably you'd also expect that someone would recognize that if you spend out-of-battle time talking about strong pokemon, and in-battle time talking about smart trainers, you're deluding yourself. Strong pokemon matter. I want OT stories to start recognizing that.
The battle begins. Zanna Taru seems to have confused the moves smog and smokescreen, since she's using the poison-inflicting move smog to cloud the battlefield (as well as suffering under the misconception smog is "a black smoke". Smog comes from the words 'smoke' and 'fog'. It's not just another word for smoke.). Although the attack could be used this way, she writes it out in technical format (The Flareon emitted a black smoke, which clouded the battlefield and lowered visibility dramatically.) without any indication it's an unorthodox use. There's also no mention of Rubino being poisoned or having to avoid the cloud because of the danger of poisoning.
So, what's Zara's great strategy? Well, she orders Rubino to attack the flareon with twister (not, say, hydro pump or surf or waterfall or earthquake). When it uses smog to hide itself, she orders another twister to clear it away, and then hyper beam, which knocks out the flareon. (Note that both surf and earthquake affect such a wide area that hiding behind smog shouldn't matter).
Also, the flareon tries to use zap cannon. Zara says that if the attack hit, "Rubino would take six times the damage". Um, what? I'm all for 'double damage' and such, but there's a point where it gets too technical. Also, I can't figure out where the six comes in. Rubino has a double weakness, and that comes to four. If this was a jolteon or it was carrying something to boost the power, it would come to six. Even then, pokemon's individual attack power would vary and that changes things a lot. (Or, a gyarados would rather take a L20 hitmonchan's thunderpunch than a L100 scyther's slash, weakness or no) It's basically overdramatized to try to show off how big of a disadvantage she's in. (And again, if type mattered, she does have a water type who can use ground moves out against a fire type, who, incidentally, has pretty poor defense).
For those wondering, the flareon doesn't land a single hit. It's knocked out by the hyper beam. This upsets the boy and he sends out his tyranitar, even though they agreed to a one-on-one battle. I've already talked enough about how Zanna Taru is trying too hard to make him a bad guy, so I'll just remind people, again, not to do this.
Zara recalls Rubino, who has a type advantage against the tyranitar and hasn't taken any damage. I hope you're impressed by her strategic ability, because I'm certainly not. Then she sends out her charizard (Who has a double weakness to rock moves). She orders Sunflash to fly up out of range of attacks, then to use fire blast. The boy counters with hyper beam and if you don't see any problem with these moves I don't see why you're reading this.
Sunflash, being Zara's pokemon, is stronger, and his move overpowers the other, despite A)tyranitar's physical attack being greater than charizard's special attack and B)hyperbeam being stronger than fire blast. The tyranitar is knocked out in a single hit. Sunflash takes no damage at all.
The boy is angry he lost, which is stupid, as he's a pokemon trainer and pokemon trainers lose sometimes. Zara is demonstrates her amazing kindness by telling him to go heal his pokemon before they get permanent damage by being left injured. (Please pause a moment to realize Zanna Taru just made that up out of the blue and it will never relevantly affect the story. It may even be contradicted shortly. Its sole purpose is to give Zara something to say that sounds nice.)
There's a short and meaningless burst of conversation when Zara praises Sunflash and he responds by saying he was happy to fight. Sage shows up to praise them but says she'll have to leave.
“She was a great friend, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah...” replied Flash.
They've known her for an hour or so. This is one of the problems that often goes hand-in-hand with suefics. The author is forgetting the information put down in the story in favor of information that exists solely in her own head.
Next it switches to Azul. Now, interestingly, when Zara's around there's a lot of dialogue and not much description, but when Azul is the focus, there's more description. This is another thing I see a lot, and I'm not sure why it is, but oftentimes when authors have the main human character they fail to describe settings or thoughts.
I will say that during the shift, she does do a good job of description. Nothing to write home about, but certainly adequate.
Azul is 'stumbling through the thick underbrush'. Credit for trying, Zanna Taru, but that's not very likely. This phrase is often used for humans in stories when the author is trying to show how the character doesn't know what they're doing. Azul has four legs. The reason the person 'stumbles' is because they're pushing and leaning with only two legs, so their weight is distributed oddly. I suggest everyone try this themselves because it really gives you a good understanding.
Four-legged creatures don't 'stumble'. They might get tangled, but it's not that likely. You see, when you move your leg forward with brambles, you push it forward through the tangle. But when you have four legs, you lift your leg up and set it back down in this situation. In fact, a horse or giraffe's front legs cannot even bend properly to swing the leg forward as would be needed, and if they did, it still wouldn't produce the teeter-totter motion of a human standing on one leg, throwing their other leg forward, landing, and then repeating the process.
Also, running animals (like, one presumes, girafarig) avoid undergrowth because it prevents them from moving around easily and makes them easy prey.
Pokemon =/= people.
"It was a lot harder without his parents around, but he knew he would have to adjust."
Not 'herd', but just parents. This is Zanna Taru forgetting her own statements about them being in a herd previously and trying to retcon girafarigs into neat family units.
Next we learn that it's actually quite late. No sane diurnal animal would wait until twilight to find a place to sleep, and honestly, Azul's failure to do so (as well as looking for it in thick undergrowth, ie, a place for predators to sneak up on you) indicates that nature is telling us he completely and utterly deserves to die.
And those lovely enforcers of natural selection show up.
"[Azul] had heard about Houndour killing lone Girafarig, but had never believed the stories until now."
Firstly, if there are pokemon out there that kill girafarig, you'd think he'd know. This is another of those 'the author is a city kid who has never been in any real danger' situations. If you live in the wilderness and there are predators, you will know who they are.
Also, what else would houndour eat? They're hunters, he's a herbivore with a psychic type. I find the implication that the herd was never attacked very suspect, but I suppose Zanna Taru was thinking too much about it being like a human family.
"The Girafarig leapt away…" No. No he did not. He is in underbrush. You cannot 'leap' in the middle of underbrush, let alone thick underbrush. You might be able to jump over it, but once you're there, you're there. And if it was possible to jump out, why was he stumbling through it a minute ago? Does he just like the scratches and stumbling and getting the smell of blood everywhere?
Azul is attacked by the houndour only to be rescued at the last minute by Zara, who mentioned her gyarados "will make short work" of the houndour. Kill them? Injure them badly (so they end up unable to hunt and starve)? I don't know, but it's the typical human-centric view where the ones attacking are bad. Exactly why she's having the houndour injured instead of just scaring them off, catching the girafarig and leaving isn't explained.
Of course, what Zara is doing in the middle of a forest (in underbrush, no less) at twilight isn't explained either.
Zara gives Azul a miracle berry (which heals status effects) to help with the pain. I have no idea why, and can only assume the author saw the word 'miracle' and went from there.
And the chapter ends with the gyarados beating up the houndour and being recalled.
So what in this chapter, we see several very important lessons. Firstly, the faceless trainer is actually quite preferable to the randomly-made-jerk trainer. Don't make an opposing trainer mean for no reason. And 'to make my character look nice' not only isn't a reason, it counts as a negative. Secondly, god-character-pokemon? Bad. If a pokemon wins without so much as a scratch, there's something wrong. In the case of battles that are pretty much decided, just say that the pokemon won, and maybe give a brief description. Don't try to have a tense, dramatic battle when the reader knows the trainer is not only going to win, they're going to win with disgusting ease. Thirdly, pokemon aren't people. I will continue to repeat this until I start seeing stories where it seems the writers understand this. And fourthly, the wilderness is not a place of happy fluffy bunnies prancing about in the flowers. Pokemon would know at least the basics needed for survival, and wouldn't be unaware of the whole 'predator/prey' thing. Some things have to eat and some things have to be eaten. Without that natural selection goes awry and we get people like her.
Now on to Chapter Five of the Shiny Assassin.
This chapter opens with "Zara looked worriedly at the Blue Girafarig". Firstly, although Zanna enjoys using 'blue' as the girafarig's main descriptive word, it still shouldn't be capitalized. I mentioned earlier how the girafarig is also not blue, it just has a blue nose and markings. Go here to see a normal and shiny girafarig. They're almost identical.
Oh, and why were they there to rescue him? "…if they hadn’t come along and heard his screams…" So Zara was walking around at twilight through a forest. The sad thing is that if Zanna Taru had put more effort into keeping this plausible, it could have worked. It would be possible Zara had set up camp nearby and heard the noise afterward. But because Zanna Taru doesn't care and is just focused on getting the shiny no matter how contrived the events, Zara is instead walking along, in the dark, through a forest with thick underbrush.
Although Zara could just catch the girafarig in a pokeball, we instead find ourselves staring at the inescapable 'injured pokemon' cliché. She has Sunflash trying to fly the girafarig to the nearest pokemon center.
Despite the fact Sunflash could fly faster if he was only carrying the girafarig (a fact the text even alludes to:"Flash was flying as fast as he could with two passengers"), Zara is also riding on the charizard. This, again, shows a lack of thought and a fundamental lack of caring for the girafarig as a character. It exists for Zara to show how nice she is and then possess it. She hopes Azul will join their group.
In the first sentence of the second paragraph, Zara "suddenly" realizes that he's a shiny and thinks about how lucky she is to see two shiny pokemon in her life. This despite the fact the narration from Zara's perspective earlier referred to him as 'blue'. It's not exactly a mistake (as it could be argued that the text doesn't explicitly say Zara's the one calling him blue) but it's quite sloppy. And although it's good Zanna tries to acknowledge the fact that what's happening isn't very likely and to allow her character to think that (which is quite good, too many stories have characters just accept strange things the author throws at them), in some ways this will only serve to highlight the problem in the reader's mind when Zara runs into more and more shinies.
"She knew that it was still his choice if he wanted to join them, and she would go along with whatever he chose."
Because Zara Cares™ yet again. Sure, she had no problem beating up the gyarados to catch it, but now she's only going to catch pokemon if they want to go with her.
You know what I'd like to see more often? Trainers selflessly offering to let the pokemon go and the pokemon actually accepting. The offer is empty if it's never taken. Oooh, another Unoriginality chapter.
"[The girafarig] was very young, not much older than two, she supposed. He had a powerful build, and she could tell that he would be a good fighter someday."
First, he can't be *that* young or else he wouldn't have left. Leaving should occur by adolescence, at which point he's an adult, not a 'very young' anything. Zanna Taru is thinking about him as a human again. Also there's the 'he's going to be a great fighter' part. I understand the allure: you're offered the chance to decide if a character will be great or less than great, and just as in real life you'd like everything to be to the fullest potential, you write the story so that everyone will succeed spectacularly. Although this is a great sign of sueness, it's a very understandable thing.
Another thing I'd like to see in fanfiction: trainers occasionally getting pokemon that are unsuited for battle, or are slightly frail or sickly.
Anyway, upon hearing what happened, Nurse Joy remarks: "If the Houndour are going so hungry that they have to attack a Girafarig...they’re getting too numerous up in that route!" Although Zanna Taru is making a good effort to try to give the sense of an active, dynamic ecosystem and a world that exists independent of just her trainer, one wonders what else the houndour would go after. This is a psychic-type herbivore, they're dark-type pack hunters. What else would they hunt? To paraphrase Gary Larson poorly, look at those teeth! Look at those flames! You really think they're supposed to eat berries?
The chapter ends with Sunflash and Zara going to sleep. Zara thinks about how good Nurse Joy was to get them a room big enough for a charizard. I wonder how it is the author routinely forgets about the gyarados. This is a chronic mistake in OT stories, where certain pokemon will be left out constantly and others forgotten in their pokeballs for chapters. This is something hard, because the trainers often collect a full team and having to balance all seven characters, and also keep in mind differences in transportability (or, you can't just have the trainer keep a different pokemon out each chapter if one's a goldeen and another is an onix), but authors really need to at least make some effort in the matter.
And now for the final chapter I'm doing tonight, Chapter Six.
The story opens with Azul waking up. He wonders where Zara is. A chancey quickly comes over to answer his question. "…the girl who brought you here is sleeping in the guest quarters. She was really worried about you, but she finally gave in to exhaustion, the poor thing." Let's check back to Chapter Five:
Zara nodded as Nurse Joy, the Chansey, and the stretcher with the Girafarig disappeared through the emergency room door. She turned too Flash, who was waiting expectantly.
“We get a room for the night. Nurse Joy will come in the morning and tell us how he’s doing.”
Flash nodded and they headed off to the back of the building. Zara found their room, and she opened the door to find a huge, Charizard sized space waiting for them. Flash settled himself on a gigantic pillow in the corner, careful to keep his flaming tail well away from any cloth, and Zara jumped in the bed.
“Good old Nurse Joy,” she said “she must have been able to think about getting a big room for us, even when there was an emergency. We can thank her in the morning.”
Flash nodded sleepily and dropped his head on his front legs. Soon he was snoring. Zara smiled and settled down under the blankets, and despite how awake she was feeling, was asleep and snoring like Flash in a matter of minutes.
Doesn't sound like she 'finally gave in to exhaustion' to me. Zanna Taru is again absent-mindedly retconning previous events to make Zara better and better. In the narrative, we see that Zara doesn't seem that anxious or upset. She figures the Nurse Joy will tell her in the morning how Azul is doing, and indeed, smiles at Sunflash and otherwise acts calm and unaffected. In the dialogue, there's the statement she was worried and the implication she tried to (nobly) stay up. Retconned Zara! Now more self-sacrificing!
Anyway, Azul shortly learns that the person who brought him there was a human, and promptly panics. Now, one really has to wonder about the quality of his education if his parents never gave any description of humans (as he got a good look at the time and apparently remembers enough of what happened to remember her name) or the fact they talk in a different language (as she spoke to him) or the fact they run pokemon centers (which he was just told he was in). Especially considering his parents warned him about them so strongly. (Although if he was trying to avoid humans, it does beg the question of what he was doing at the Lake of Rage. That's pretty close to people)
The chancey (who, it turns out, used to belong to Zara but was allowed to leave because she wanted to) babbles on for a bit about how some humans are bad but Zara is great and her pokemon love her so much they would die for her. She says: "Zara, she genuinely loves her Pokemon and would do anything for their well-being". Except, of course:
1)Not battle so her pokemon won't be hurt
2)Use type advantages so her pokemon are less likely to be hurt
3)Catch an injured pokemon so it can be transported faster and with less additional damage
4)Get off her charizard so he could carry the girafarig more easily
And then the chapter ends (yes, the chapters are very short) with foreshadowing of what's to come:
"Azul watched her hop away, and lay his head down to muse about what she had just told him. He tried to remember all the evil things his parents had told him about humans, but his mind kept wandering back to the gentle stroke of Zara’s calming hand against his flank during the Houndour attack, and he sighed. "
A show of hands please. How many believe that he'll go with Zara?
Exactly, dear readers, exactly.
Zanna Taru just submitted a new chapter of The Shiny Assassin, and because she also seems to be slowly cracking under the strain(Don't believe me? Look at the newest chapter's Author note: Sorry again. I had SAT stuff all this time. I am getting tired of all this so I probably won't keep this up much longer.
Joe- If you are going to cuss about it I will not answer you. If you want me to answer a civilized question then clean up the language.
Level- Alexis is the name of my brand new baby cousin, and I wanted to give her a role(no offense to anyone of course) that is fine about your brother, I don't mind.
Katana- glad you like the change. You know everyone was nagging me about it so there you go.
Keleri- yes I am eighteen........No comment to anything else.
Vulpix- thanks for the support.
She's like a chibi Anne Rice) I've done more musing on her story.
We're now up to chapter four out of twenty-six current chapters.
At the start, the author thanks one of her reviewers for putting her on a favorite's list in what seems to be very sincere humility. This is important only in that we'll be watching to see for changes in this attitude as we progress through the chapters.
The opening is: Zara stood outside the Pokemon center, facing the boy and his Flareon. She hesitated, deciding which one of her Pokemon to use. This Flareon was indeed powerful, but it was reckless also. She remembered what the boy had done to the Skiploom before, and her anger flared even hotter.
Last chapter, the boy said he'd fight after dealing with the Skiploom. Zanna Taru is again managing not to tell the story in a pure linear format, something I wish more people would do. She has skipped over the skiploom's battle and instead implies what happened: the boy's flareon beat it badly. Although this scene could be slightly clearer, I applaud this.
Note also that Zara again shows her sueness. Her opponent is now 'evil'. Let's recap. Opponent one fights her with a stronger pokemon. Opponent two hurts her own pokemon. Opponent three brutalizes enemy pokemon. Anyway, Zara is so unbelievably nice and cares about pokemon so much that she's made angrier by what the boy did (what he did to make her mad to start has still not been established, sadly). And also her opponent has a powerful but reckless pokemon. This is a very common feature of enemies in OT stories. I'm not sure why. It could just be because powerful and reckless is a very simple battling style so it's the first thing that occurs to people, and perhaps also that it's very easy to think up ways for the trainer to defeat them. I'll ponder this.
Now, remember how in Chapter Two Zara recalls her gyarados when faced with a ponyta because of the type advantage? Guess who she sends out?
“Rubino, go!” she shouted, throwing the Pokeball.
Inconsistency. A very common trait in fanfiction, especially OT stories just because of the length and the tendency to get into the same situations. Authors need to make a greater effort to keep their characters consistent. You either use a type advantage or you don't. You either fight as hard as you can or you try to do the least damage to the other pokemon.
The boy laughs and says: “You think that just having a Shiny will win you this battle? Hah!”
Now, firstly, having your opponent be such a clear-cut 'bad guy' is generally not the brightest idea. And secondly, the fact it's a gyarados is a lot more significant than that it's a shiny. If he was making some sort of mocking response, 'You think having a type advantage…' would be a bit more appropriate. Thirdly, just three chapters ago we were told people are amazed by the sight of a shiny pokemon and wonder aloud that they didn't even think shinies existed. So there's further inconsistency. The crowd barely knew shinies existed, and this boy knows enough about them to know they're considered strong and that they're not actually so strong as to be unbeatable.
Zara replies with a pretty lame comeback about how she'll win with talent, unlike the boy, and in true sue fashion, the boy takes this as a real insult. I would really love to see more realistic responses to insults in OT stories. ("We'll win with our INNER STRENGTH, unlike you!!!" "Like the last five people I beat, you mean?")
Also note how the dynamic is different. If the boy is winning based on his pokemon's power, this is considered bad, while winning based on the trainer's tactics is considered good. This is a very standard for OT stories where the author is trying to put the glory of winning very firmly on the trainer. Reasonably, the trainer should be credited for raising a strong pokemon. But reasonably you'd also expect that someone would recognize that if you spend out-of-battle time talking about strong pokemon, and in-battle time talking about smart trainers, you're deluding yourself. Strong pokemon matter. I want OT stories to start recognizing that.
The battle begins. Zanna Taru seems to have confused the moves smog and smokescreen, since she's using the poison-inflicting move smog to cloud the battlefield (as well as suffering under the misconception smog is "a black smoke". Smog comes from the words 'smoke' and 'fog'. It's not just another word for smoke.). Although the attack could be used this way, she writes it out in technical format (The Flareon emitted a black smoke, which clouded the battlefield and lowered visibility dramatically.) without any indication it's an unorthodox use. There's also no mention of Rubino being poisoned or having to avoid the cloud because of the danger of poisoning.
So, what's Zara's great strategy? Well, she orders Rubino to attack the flareon with twister (not, say, hydro pump or surf or waterfall or earthquake). When it uses smog to hide itself, she orders another twister to clear it away, and then hyper beam, which knocks out the flareon. (Note that both surf and earthquake affect such a wide area that hiding behind smog shouldn't matter).
Also, the flareon tries to use zap cannon. Zara says that if the attack hit, "Rubino would take six times the damage". Um, what? I'm all for 'double damage' and such, but there's a point where it gets too technical. Also, I can't figure out where the six comes in. Rubino has a double weakness, and that comes to four. If this was a jolteon or it was carrying something to boost the power, it would come to six. Even then, pokemon's individual attack power would vary and that changes things a lot. (Or, a gyarados would rather take a L20 hitmonchan's thunderpunch than a L100 scyther's slash, weakness or no) It's basically overdramatized to try to show off how big of a disadvantage she's in. (And again, if type mattered, she does have a water type who can use ground moves out against a fire type, who, incidentally, has pretty poor defense).
For those wondering, the flareon doesn't land a single hit. It's knocked out by the hyper beam. This upsets the boy and he sends out his tyranitar, even though they agreed to a one-on-one battle. I've already talked enough about how Zanna Taru is trying too hard to make him a bad guy, so I'll just remind people, again, not to do this.
Zara recalls Rubino, who has a type advantage against the tyranitar and hasn't taken any damage. I hope you're impressed by her strategic ability, because I'm certainly not. Then she sends out her charizard (Who has a double weakness to rock moves). She orders Sunflash to fly up out of range of attacks, then to use fire blast. The boy counters with hyper beam and if you don't see any problem with these moves I don't see why you're reading this.
Sunflash, being Zara's pokemon, is stronger, and his move overpowers the other, despite A)tyranitar's physical attack being greater than charizard's special attack and B)hyperbeam being stronger than fire blast. The tyranitar is knocked out in a single hit. Sunflash takes no damage at all.
The boy is angry he lost, which is stupid, as he's a pokemon trainer and pokemon trainers lose sometimes. Zara is demonstrates her amazing kindness by telling him to go heal his pokemon before they get permanent damage by being left injured. (Please pause a moment to realize Zanna Taru just made that up out of the blue and it will never relevantly affect the story. It may even be contradicted shortly. Its sole purpose is to give Zara something to say that sounds nice.)
There's a short and meaningless burst of conversation when Zara praises Sunflash and he responds by saying he was happy to fight. Sage shows up to praise them but says she'll have to leave.
“She was a great friend, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah...” replied Flash.
They've known her for an hour or so. This is one of the problems that often goes hand-in-hand with suefics. The author is forgetting the information put down in the story in favor of information that exists solely in her own head.
Next it switches to Azul. Now, interestingly, when Zara's around there's a lot of dialogue and not much description, but when Azul is the focus, there's more description. This is another thing I see a lot, and I'm not sure why it is, but oftentimes when authors have the main human character they fail to describe settings or thoughts.
I will say that during the shift, she does do a good job of description. Nothing to write home about, but certainly adequate.
Azul is 'stumbling through the thick underbrush'. Credit for trying, Zanna Taru, but that's not very likely. This phrase is often used for humans in stories when the author is trying to show how the character doesn't know what they're doing. Azul has four legs. The reason the person 'stumbles' is because they're pushing and leaning with only two legs, so their weight is distributed oddly. I suggest everyone try this themselves because it really gives you a good understanding.
Four-legged creatures don't 'stumble'. They might get tangled, but it's not that likely. You see, when you move your leg forward with brambles, you push it forward through the tangle. But when you have four legs, you lift your leg up and set it back down in this situation. In fact, a horse or giraffe's front legs cannot even bend properly to swing the leg forward as would be needed, and if they did, it still wouldn't produce the teeter-totter motion of a human standing on one leg, throwing their other leg forward, landing, and then repeating the process.
Also, running animals (like, one presumes, girafarig) avoid undergrowth because it prevents them from moving around easily and makes them easy prey.
Pokemon =/= people.
"It was a lot harder without his parents around, but he knew he would have to adjust."
Not 'herd', but just parents. This is Zanna Taru forgetting her own statements about them being in a herd previously and trying to retcon girafarigs into neat family units.
Next we learn that it's actually quite late. No sane diurnal animal would wait until twilight to find a place to sleep, and honestly, Azul's failure to do so (as well as looking for it in thick undergrowth, ie, a place for predators to sneak up on you) indicates that nature is telling us he completely and utterly deserves to die.
And those lovely enforcers of natural selection show up.
"[Azul] had heard about Houndour killing lone Girafarig, but had never believed the stories until now."
Firstly, if there are pokemon out there that kill girafarig, you'd think he'd know. This is another of those 'the author is a city kid who has never been in any real danger' situations. If you live in the wilderness and there are predators, you will know who they are.
Also, what else would houndour eat? They're hunters, he's a herbivore with a psychic type. I find the implication that the herd was never attacked very suspect, but I suppose Zanna Taru was thinking too much about it being like a human family.
"The Girafarig leapt away…" No. No he did not. He is in underbrush. You cannot 'leap' in the middle of underbrush, let alone thick underbrush. You might be able to jump over it, but once you're there, you're there. And if it was possible to jump out, why was he stumbling through it a minute ago? Does he just like the scratches and stumbling and getting the smell of blood everywhere?
Azul is attacked by the houndour only to be rescued at the last minute by Zara, who mentioned her gyarados "will make short work" of the houndour. Kill them? Injure them badly (so they end up unable to hunt and starve)? I don't know, but it's the typical human-centric view where the ones attacking are bad. Exactly why she's having the houndour injured instead of just scaring them off, catching the girafarig and leaving isn't explained.
Of course, what Zara is doing in the middle of a forest (in underbrush, no less) at twilight isn't explained either.
Zara gives Azul a miracle berry (which heals status effects) to help with the pain. I have no idea why, and can only assume the author saw the word 'miracle' and went from there.
And the chapter ends with the gyarados beating up the houndour and being recalled.
So what in this chapter, we see several very important lessons. Firstly, the faceless trainer is actually quite preferable to the randomly-made-jerk trainer. Don't make an opposing trainer mean for no reason. And 'to make my character look nice' not only isn't a reason, it counts as a negative. Secondly, god-character-pokemon? Bad. If a pokemon wins without so much as a scratch, there's something wrong. In the case of battles that are pretty much decided, just say that the pokemon won, and maybe give a brief description. Don't try to have a tense, dramatic battle when the reader knows the trainer is not only going to win, they're going to win with disgusting ease. Thirdly, pokemon aren't people. I will continue to repeat this until I start seeing stories where it seems the writers understand this. And fourthly, the wilderness is not a place of happy fluffy bunnies prancing about in the flowers. Pokemon would know at least the basics needed for survival, and wouldn't be unaware of the whole 'predator/prey' thing. Some things have to eat and some things have to be eaten. Without that natural selection goes awry and we get people like her.
Now on to Chapter Five of the Shiny Assassin.
This chapter opens with "Zara looked worriedly at the Blue Girafarig". Firstly, although Zanna enjoys using 'blue' as the girafarig's main descriptive word, it still shouldn't be capitalized. I mentioned earlier how the girafarig is also not blue, it just has a blue nose and markings. Go here to see a normal and shiny girafarig. They're almost identical.
Oh, and why were they there to rescue him? "…if they hadn’t come along and heard his screams…" So Zara was walking around at twilight through a forest. The sad thing is that if Zanna Taru had put more effort into keeping this plausible, it could have worked. It would be possible Zara had set up camp nearby and heard the noise afterward. But because Zanna Taru doesn't care and is just focused on getting the shiny no matter how contrived the events, Zara is instead walking along, in the dark, through a forest with thick underbrush.
Although Zara could just catch the girafarig in a pokeball, we instead find ourselves staring at the inescapable 'injured pokemon' cliché. She has Sunflash trying to fly the girafarig to the nearest pokemon center.
Despite the fact Sunflash could fly faster if he was only carrying the girafarig (a fact the text even alludes to:"Flash was flying as fast as he could with two passengers"), Zara is also riding on the charizard. This, again, shows a lack of thought and a fundamental lack of caring for the girafarig as a character. It exists for Zara to show how nice she is and then possess it. She hopes Azul will join their group.
In the first sentence of the second paragraph, Zara "suddenly" realizes that he's a shiny and thinks about how lucky she is to see two shiny pokemon in her life. This despite the fact the narration from Zara's perspective earlier referred to him as 'blue'. It's not exactly a mistake (as it could be argued that the text doesn't explicitly say Zara's the one calling him blue) but it's quite sloppy. And although it's good Zanna tries to acknowledge the fact that what's happening isn't very likely and to allow her character to think that (which is quite good, too many stories have characters just accept strange things the author throws at them), in some ways this will only serve to highlight the problem in the reader's mind when Zara runs into more and more shinies.
"She knew that it was still his choice if he wanted to join them, and she would go along with whatever he chose."
Because Zara Cares™ yet again. Sure, she had no problem beating up the gyarados to catch it, but now she's only going to catch pokemon if they want to go with her.
You know what I'd like to see more often? Trainers selflessly offering to let the pokemon go and the pokemon actually accepting. The offer is empty if it's never taken. Oooh, another Unoriginality chapter.
"[The girafarig] was very young, not much older than two, she supposed. He had a powerful build, and she could tell that he would be a good fighter someday."
First, he can't be *that* young or else he wouldn't have left. Leaving should occur by adolescence, at which point he's an adult, not a 'very young' anything. Zanna Taru is thinking about him as a human again. Also there's the 'he's going to be a great fighter' part. I understand the allure: you're offered the chance to decide if a character will be great or less than great, and just as in real life you'd like everything to be to the fullest potential, you write the story so that everyone will succeed spectacularly. Although this is a great sign of sueness, it's a very understandable thing.
Another thing I'd like to see in fanfiction: trainers occasionally getting pokemon that are unsuited for battle, or are slightly frail or sickly.
Anyway, upon hearing what happened, Nurse Joy remarks: "If the Houndour are going so hungry that they have to attack a Girafarig...they’re getting too numerous up in that route!" Although Zanna Taru is making a good effort to try to give the sense of an active, dynamic ecosystem and a world that exists independent of just her trainer, one wonders what else the houndour would go after. This is a psychic-type herbivore, they're dark-type pack hunters. What else would they hunt? To paraphrase Gary Larson poorly, look at those teeth! Look at those flames! You really think they're supposed to eat berries?
The chapter ends with Sunflash and Zara going to sleep. Zara thinks about how good Nurse Joy was to get them a room big enough for a charizard. I wonder how it is the author routinely forgets about the gyarados. This is a chronic mistake in OT stories, where certain pokemon will be left out constantly and others forgotten in their pokeballs for chapters. This is something hard, because the trainers often collect a full team and having to balance all seven characters, and also keep in mind differences in transportability (or, you can't just have the trainer keep a different pokemon out each chapter if one's a goldeen and another is an onix), but authors really need to at least make some effort in the matter.
And now for the final chapter I'm doing tonight, Chapter Six.
The story opens with Azul waking up. He wonders where Zara is. A chancey quickly comes over to answer his question. "…the girl who brought you here is sleeping in the guest quarters. She was really worried about you, but she finally gave in to exhaustion, the poor thing." Let's check back to Chapter Five:
Zara nodded as Nurse Joy, the Chansey, and the stretcher with the Girafarig disappeared through the emergency room door. She turned too Flash, who was waiting expectantly.
“We get a room for the night. Nurse Joy will come in the morning and tell us how he’s doing.”
Flash nodded and they headed off to the back of the building. Zara found their room, and she opened the door to find a huge, Charizard sized space waiting for them. Flash settled himself on a gigantic pillow in the corner, careful to keep his flaming tail well away from any cloth, and Zara jumped in the bed.
“Good old Nurse Joy,” she said “she must have been able to think about getting a big room for us, even when there was an emergency. We can thank her in the morning.”
Flash nodded sleepily and dropped his head on his front legs. Soon he was snoring. Zara smiled and settled down under the blankets, and despite how awake she was feeling, was asleep and snoring like Flash in a matter of minutes.
Doesn't sound like she 'finally gave in to exhaustion' to me. Zanna Taru is again absent-mindedly retconning previous events to make Zara better and better. In the narrative, we see that Zara doesn't seem that anxious or upset. She figures the Nurse Joy will tell her in the morning how Azul is doing, and indeed, smiles at Sunflash and otherwise acts calm and unaffected. In the dialogue, there's the statement she was worried and the implication she tried to (nobly) stay up. Retconned Zara! Now more self-sacrificing!
Anyway, Azul shortly learns that the person who brought him there was a human, and promptly panics. Now, one really has to wonder about the quality of his education if his parents never gave any description of humans (as he got a good look at the time and apparently remembers enough of what happened to remember her name) or the fact they talk in a different language (as she spoke to him) or the fact they run pokemon centers (which he was just told he was in). Especially considering his parents warned him about them so strongly. (Although if he was trying to avoid humans, it does beg the question of what he was doing at the Lake of Rage. That's pretty close to people)
The chancey (who, it turns out, used to belong to Zara but was allowed to leave because she wanted to) babbles on for a bit about how some humans are bad but Zara is great and her pokemon love her so much they would die for her. She says: "Zara, she genuinely loves her Pokemon and would do anything for their well-being". Except, of course:
1)Not battle so her pokemon won't be hurt
2)Use type advantages so her pokemon are less likely to be hurt
3)Catch an injured pokemon so it can be transported faster and with less additional damage
4)Get off her charizard so he could carry the girafarig more easily
And then the chapter ends (yes, the chapters are very short) with foreshadowing of what's to come:
"Azul watched her hop away, and lay his head down to muse about what she had just told him. He tried to remember all the evil things his parents had told him about humans, but his mind kept wandering back to the gentle stroke of Zara’s calming hand against his flank during the Houndour attack, and he sighed. "
A show of hands please. How many believe that he'll go with Zara?
Exactly, dear readers, exactly.
