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Pokemon Fanfiction Academy, Chapter Four!
Nov. 7th, 2004 05:23 pmThe fourth chapter of Pokemon Fanfiction Academy is up.
It may just be my imagination, but this chapter seems far worse than usual. Previously the author was at least capable of capitalizing reliably, but this chapter only seemed to have a 50% chance of getting any word right. I counted thirty-seven proper nouns, nineteen of which were uncapitalized (And several of which were at the start of a sentence yet still not capitalized -_-;). The first word of sentences was usually capitalized, but by the end, about half of those were lower case as well. There's also some pretty abysmal punctuation (come on, doesn't everyone know all sentences have to have a period at the end?) and the sentences are so convoluted and painful it makes earlier chapters look like prize-winning prose. And this is in addition to all the errors she's made in previous chapters.
We meet the author Mystic Wolf (or Mystic, or mystic, or mystic wolf, as she is alternately called), who's looking over books on canon. I checked but the only mystic wolf I could find on FFN has only one story posted, and it's Escaflowne. (The next closest is a Mystical Moon Wolf who's written one pokemon story, and I doubt it's them, unless LadyUmbra really screwed up the name.) I have the time but not inclination to check other sites to try to find if the person exists.
Anyway, Sabrina shows up while Mystic Wolf is thinking about how hard school is. "a small smile crept onto Sabrina face " relax mystic wolf I wasn't upset. Yes this school will be hard but that is the point. If you work hard here to learn the laws and facts the figure out what can and can't be done then you can write new stories filled with the pride at the knowledge that you know what your writing is true . that if someone disagreed with something you could back your story up with solid facts ." the smiled widened as Sabrina watched the girl thinking.
The school may punish the authors for having been bad enough to have to attend in the first place and for any trouble they caused while they were here but the entire staff knew the only way to make true progress with the authors was to plant the seeds of proper self-esteem and desire to do well."
Uh, that's Sabrina? It can't be manga-Sabrina, because it says earlier her expression was "inscrutable" and manga-Sabrina was pretty open, but I also don't see show-Sabrina acting like that. Possibly game-Sabrina might, but as far as I can tell, the author doesn't seem aware the games exist and there are only two sets of characters, the show and the one manga the author knows of, mentioned in the first chapter.
I'm very amused by the thought that the author in question is supposed to be learning about the way characters are supposed to act and their personalities. Ah, the irony of LadyUmbra assigning others to take courses she needs to take herself.
Anyway, I show up again. If we can all agree LadyUmbra's job is to teach by showing what not to do, her characterization of me is perfect, because it would be hard for me to be more OOC even if I were writing this.
Being in the Academy seems to be lowering my IQ. As shown in my dialogue, I no longer know the difference between your/you're. When Kayla asks me if Ho-oh can mate with a rapidash to create her special pokemon, I say no, and explain it in possibly the most stupid fashion possible. "farla blew at her bangs while struggling to find the right words for this " bird and mammals can't mate"" Yes, that was the complete sentence (And cool, I have bangs! I wonder when I got them?). This despite the fact I'm pretty sure I used to know that, for example, ekans and houndour can breed even though mammals and reptiles don't breed (for that matter, mammals can't generally can't breed with other mammal species) and that pretty much anything can mate with anything else, it's the 'having kids' part that's usually the problem. Also, if birds and mammals can't mate and this is reflected in the game, how come delibird can breed with seel? God, I'm an idiot. I don't even think to point out that gamewise, Ho-oh won't mate with anything, even though usually I rely on game-canon first. Then Kayla stumps me with her response.
"" then where did the platypus come from?' Kayla retorted she knew it was possible after all shed had her rapidoh in almost all her fics if it was so bad more people on would have said bad things,
farla shrugged and looked thuoghtfull " .... ... .um.... good point go for it""
I apparently know nothing about platypus, despite being born in Australia (I've even got some platypus stuffed animals) and previously knowing enough about them (and their evolution, ie, where platypus come from) to argue down a creationist. (As well as having taken care of a duck once so I know that a platypus doesn't actually have a duck's bill any more than a duckbill dinosaur did.) I'm full of 'thuoght', so maybe that's what's causing the problem.
The story ends with Kayla happily writing up her essay on her created pokemon, and then this beauty of an ending author's note.
"Am I evil? And where the bleep did the platypus come from anyway?."
Well, LadyUmbra, you shouldn't research it to find out, that's for sure. Instead, just assume that you're the smartest person in the world and that if you don't know anything, no one does.
Oh, yes. The story currently has twenty-five reviews, and the closest anyone's gotten to criticism is Seatbelts (who doesn't even write pokemon stories) pointing out that the author has forgotten game canon, which is the original canon.
(And readers of this, please don't go bother the author with reviews. I want to see if anyone will complain on their own).
It may just be my imagination, but this chapter seems far worse than usual. Previously the author was at least capable of capitalizing reliably, but this chapter only seemed to have a 50% chance of getting any word right. I counted thirty-seven proper nouns, nineteen of which were uncapitalized (And several of which were at the start of a sentence yet still not capitalized -_-;). The first word of sentences was usually capitalized, but by the end, about half of those were lower case as well. There's also some pretty abysmal punctuation (come on, doesn't everyone know all sentences have to have a period at the end?) and the sentences are so convoluted and painful it makes earlier chapters look like prize-winning prose. And this is in addition to all the errors she's made in previous chapters.
We meet the author Mystic Wolf (or Mystic, or mystic, or mystic wolf, as she is alternately called), who's looking over books on canon. I checked but the only mystic wolf I could find on FFN has only one story posted, and it's Escaflowne. (The next closest is a Mystical Moon Wolf who's written one pokemon story, and I doubt it's them, unless LadyUmbra really screwed up the name.) I have the time but not inclination to check other sites to try to find if the person exists.
Anyway, Sabrina shows up while Mystic Wolf is thinking about how hard school is. "a small smile crept onto Sabrina face " relax mystic wolf I wasn't upset. Yes this school will be hard but that is the point. If you work hard here to learn the laws and facts the figure out what can and can't be done then you can write new stories filled with the pride at the knowledge that you know what your writing is true . that if someone disagreed with something you could back your story up with solid facts ." the smiled widened as Sabrina watched the girl thinking.
The school may punish the authors for having been bad enough to have to attend in the first place and for any trouble they caused while they were here but the entire staff knew the only way to make true progress with the authors was to plant the seeds of proper self-esteem and desire to do well."
Uh, that's Sabrina? It can't be manga-Sabrina, because it says earlier her expression was "inscrutable" and manga-Sabrina was pretty open, but I also don't see show-Sabrina acting like that. Possibly game-Sabrina might, but as far as I can tell, the author doesn't seem aware the games exist and there are only two sets of characters, the show and the one manga the author knows of, mentioned in the first chapter.
I'm very amused by the thought that the author in question is supposed to be learning about the way characters are supposed to act and their personalities. Ah, the irony of LadyUmbra assigning others to take courses she needs to take herself.
Anyway, I show up again. If we can all agree LadyUmbra's job is to teach by showing what not to do, her characterization of me is perfect, because it would be hard for me to be more OOC even if I were writing this.
Being in the Academy seems to be lowering my IQ. As shown in my dialogue, I no longer know the difference between your/you're. When Kayla asks me if Ho-oh can mate with a rapidash to create her special pokemon, I say no, and explain it in possibly the most stupid fashion possible. "farla blew at her bangs while struggling to find the right words for this " bird and mammals can't mate"" Yes, that was the complete sentence (And cool, I have bangs! I wonder when I got them?). This despite the fact I'm pretty sure I used to know that, for example, ekans and houndour can breed even though mammals and reptiles don't breed (for that matter, mammals can't generally can't breed with other mammal species) and that pretty much anything can mate with anything else, it's the 'having kids' part that's usually the problem. Also, if birds and mammals can't mate and this is reflected in the game, how come delibird can breed with seel? God, I'm an idiot. I don't even think to point out that gamewise, Ho-oh won't mate with anything, even though usually I rely on game-canon first. Then Kayla stumps me with her response.
"" then where did the platypus come from?' Kayla retorted she knew it was possible after all shed had her rapidoh in almost all her fics if it was so bad more people on would have said bad things,
farla shrugged and looked thuoghtfull " .... ... .um.... good point go for it""
I apparently know nothing about platypus, despite being born in Australia (I've even got some platypus stuffed animals) and previously knowing enough about them (and their evolution, ie, where platypus come from) to argue down a creationist. (As well as having taken care of a duck once so I know that a platypus doesn't actually have a duck's bill any more than a duckbill dinosaur did.) I'm full of 'thuoght', so maybe that's what's causing the problem.
The story ends with Kayla happily writing up her essay on her created pokemon, and then this beauty of an ending author's note.
"Am I evil? And where the bleep did the platypus come from anyway?."
Well, LadyUmbra, you shouldn't research it to find out, that's for sure. Instead, just assume that you're the smartest person in the world and that if you don't know anything, no one does.
Oh, yes. The story currently has twenty-five reviews, and the closest anyone's gotten to criticism is Seatbelts (who doesn't even write pokemon stories) pointing out that the author has forgotten game canon, which is the original canon.
(And readers of this, please don't go bother the author with reviews. I want to see if anyone will complain on their own).
