Pokémon Pokemon Sword: Reflections of the past(oneshot)

[Alira]

(Warning for mild spoilers for the semi-finals of the Galar Gym challenge! I'll make a thread for my ocs in fanfic discussion shortly that I'll link so you know what my trainer looks like, but I wanted to quickly post this! This is connected to my multichapter story that you can find right here!)

Alira watched Hop pace back and forth across the hotel floor, waiting for his brother to get there for dinner as the girl thought silently to herself, her pokemon mingling with Hop’s as they waited while out of their pokeballs.

She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight, it had hardly been easy but she somehow beat Hop despite everything she was thinking. In the last show of the true capabilities of their pokemon partners dynamaxing, the ground shaking under Nova the Cinderace’s paws and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.

But, there was also something else on her mind, after their two pokemon had dynamaxed and she was staring at Hop, an infectious gleam in her eyes as she gave Nova commands, for a few brief moments she wasn’t in the Wyndon stadium.

For a few moments, she flashed to being in a courtyard, attire more fitting of medieval royalty and hair in a loose and low ponytail, staring down Hop who wore attire like her own, but it somehow wasn’t quite him, and…

The two pokemon they were issuing commands to were the two strange dog ones they saw in the Slumbering Weald, but smaller and around the size of their boltunds. She had the one with the braids on each side of the head and he had the other one with the ponytail.

But the vision didn’t last long and soon she was back in the stadium, leaving her bewildered but not enough to throw off her game and, with a final max flare at the end of the time limit for Nova’s dynamax, Rillaboom was knocked out and she won.

Now, as she watched Hop pace, she wondered if he saw the same thing she did.

“Hey, Hops.” Her voice was soft like always, and she noted with fond amusement she briefly startled the boy as he jumped and turned to her. “Just, wondering, but, did you see...” Her face scrunched as she tried to figure out how to word it. “Anything weird for a moment during our battle in the stadium?”

“Weird? Well.” He paused, stopping pacing as he thought, and nodded. “Yeah, actually, how did you know?”

“Was it a weird flash of us in someplace different? Like, like a courtyard?” Her stammer became apparent with her nerves, hoping that he saw what she did.

“Yes! You were wearing some fancy royal battle dress and I was wearing something like a royal battle robe or something, and our pokemon were those weird ones we saw in Slumbering Weald!” He all but jumped up to her, excitement apparent as he realized she saw it too. “I thought it was just the dynamax energy messing with my head or something.”

Clearly not if we both saw it. Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought. “...Why would we have those pokemon as our battle partners?”

“Don’t know, it’s certainly weird for us to just suddenly see this sort of thing in the middle of a battle, especially one as energized as it was, I still remember that grin you had.” He petted his Boltund, Sparky he called it, as he thought aloud, eventually sending a grin at Alira which she readily returned.

“And I still remember that look you had. Sent shivers down my back out of sheer anticipation of the battle,” she retorted playfully as she crossed her arms. “It was only a few hours ago but I still feel the tingling of the dynamax energy.”

“You as well?” Hop’s eyebrows shot up, and he rubbed his arms. “Same.”

“...We, we need to go back to the weald, I,” her stutter became even more of an issue as Hop looked at her in surprise. “Yes I know I still need to battle Leon, but, I, I think if we went back we might be able to figure out what’s going on, and why we saw what he saw. There’s, there is NO way we just happened to see the exact same thing at the exact same time.”

“You’ve got a good point.” He hmm’d, like Leon did on occasion from what she knew of him, and she wondered if he knew he was doing that. “It most definitely would be a good idea to head back there when we can, see what’s going on and if our thoughts are correct.”

“Then it’s a plan my friend? After the match, let’s go back.” Alira held out a hand and Hop didn’t hesitate in taking it in his own.

“It’s a plan.” He grinned, and this scene felt extremely familiar to both of them, which with their eyes they acknowledged to each other.

The feelings in their hearts was that of anticipation and overwhelming, heartwarming familiarity.

 

[kyeugh]

hey there! welcome to thousand roads. it’s always great to see new faces and writing around. i haven’t seen much in the way of sword/shield fanfic yet, so it’s great to see some here. to start with, i’ll say that i was left scratching my head at some points with regard to the identities of the characters—specifically, what kind of pokémon is nova?—but it seems like this one-shot ties into an established universe you’ve got, so i’ll set that aside for now.

this one-shot is not badly written, but there are enough minor mechanical/grammatical lapses that it becomes a bit distracting. i’d suggest trying to pick up a beta reader for this kind of thing. there might even be someone willing to beta read for you in the discord server! again, it seems like you’ve got a pretty good intuition for flow and whatnot, and the writing felt good to read overall... it’s just little things that sort of pile up and ultimately distract from the writing itself. i’ll point some of these errors out here, although there are others.

She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight, it had hardly been easy but she somehow beat Hop despite everything she was thinking, in the last show of the true capabilities of their pokemon partners dynamaxing, the ground shaking under Nova’s and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.

this line is a pretty major run-on. there are a few others like it, but i’m just going to quote this one for illustrative purposes. there are a couple distinct ideas going on here, so the sentence could very easily be broken down into several, more easily digestible sentences. this is just one way to do it, but consider: “She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight. It had hardly been easy, but somehow she‘d beat Hop despite everything she’d been thinking. In the last show of the true capabilities of their Pokémon partner’s dynamaxing, the ground shook under Nova and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.” (the last sentence is a bit hard for me to make out, but i wasn’t sure how to restructure it without losing some of your meaning.) at any rate, it’s a bit easier to take in when you break it down like that, and again i think that advice can be applied to a number of other sentences in the fic as well.

“Just, wondering, but, did you see,” Her face scrunched as she tried to figure out how to word it. “Anything weird for a moment during our battle in the stadium?”

in this case, since the first bit of dialogue here isn’t continuous with the second one, the comma after “see” after behaves as a period. the following clause (“Her face scrunched...”) isn’t really linked directly to the dialogue, so the comma really ought to be a period there.
the first dialogue tag gives us this sentence when taken alone: “Just wondering, but, did you see.” that doesn’t really make much sense as a sentence when you look at it that way, so i’d suggest changing it up somehow in order to clear it up a bit. since it seems like Alira is trailing off, it could be sufficient just to insert an ellipsis before the comma there, i.e.:

“Just wondering, but did you see...” Her face scrunched as she tried to figure out how to word it. “Did you see anything weird for a moment during our battle in the stadium?”

that’s just one way to refactor it, but i think it’s a bit clearer that way and the continuity is a bit clearer.

“Was it a weird flash of, us in someplace different?

there doesn’t really need to be a comma here. it seems like you might be using commas where you might pause in speech, but that’s not quite what they’re for. they’re more for separating clauses, ideas, or listed words, so there’s no need for one here where the idea in the sentence is continuous.

Clearly not if they both saw it, Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought. “...why would we have those pokemon as our battle partners?”

”Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought” isn’t really related to the thought immediately preceding it, so they should probably be separated by a period rather than a comma. additionally, the w in “why” should be capitalized since it’s the beginning of a new sentence.

“And I still remember that look you had, sent shivers down my back out of sheer anticipation of the battle.” She retorted playfully as she crossed her arms. “It was only a few hours ago and I still feel the tingling of the dynamax energy.”

opposite problem here as in the previous quote: “she retorted playfully” is actually modifying the dialogue, so it should be separated by a comma rather than a period and left in lower case, i.e.:

”And I still remember that look you had. Sent shivers down my back out of sheer anticipation of the battle,” she retorted playfully as she crossed her arms.

on a different note, this is a pretty evocative line, both with regard to the past as she describes her own emotions as well as in the present as the narrator describes her tone. i like it!

“You as well?” Hop’s eyebrows shot up out of surprise, and he rubbed his arms. “Same.”

little things here, but i think you could leave “out of surprise“ out—the surprise seems implicit to me in the action of eyebrow-raising. additionally, ”You as well?” and “Same” seem to be saying the same thing here, so you could probably leave on of them out.

The feelings in their hearts was that of anticipation and overwhelming, heartwarming familiarity.

and that’s a wrap! this is a pretty cool line to end on, honestly, and makes me curious about where the rest of the fic goes.

sorry if i seem a bit overcritical here; as i said, the fic isn’t badly written, it’s just a lot of little things that stack up, so my intent is to point a few of them out for your benefit. overall it was a decent read, and the flashback it describes is pretty intriguing, not to mention relevant to my interests. :p it’s a cool premise, and you do a great job at characterizing alira and hop. hop feels very much like his canon self too, which can be pretty hard to achieve. you’ve got a strong base here, and with a bit of polish and practice i think you’ve got a lot of good stuff to work with. i’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff, and i hope you enjoy your time at thousand roads!

 

[Alira]

hey there! welcome to thousand roads. it’s always great to see new faces and writing around. i haven’t seen much in the way of sword/shield fanfic yet, so it’s great to see some here. to start with, i’ll say that i was left scratching my head at some points with regard to the identities of the characters—specifically, what kind of pokémon is nova?—but it seems like this one-shot ties into an established universe you’ve got, so i’ll set that aside for now.

this one-shot is not badly written, but there are enough minor mechanical/grammatical lapses that it becomes a bit distracting. i’d suggest trying to pick up a beta reader for this kind of thing. there might even be someone willing to beta read for you in the discord server! again, it seems like you’ve got a pretty good intuition for flow and whatnot, and the writing felt good to read overall... it’s just little things that sort of pile up and ultimately distract from the writing itself. i’ll point some of these errors out here, although there are others.

First off, thank you so so much for giving me some advice on my writing and the warm welcome! I'm very much completely self-taught and have been actively writing since I was around thirteen, so I know my writing needs some work, cuz I honestly have no idea how to use these ; : for the most part, plus I heard some bad rumors about someone I followed around when I was starting out writing who had a bad beta, changing the story points majorly and stuff, so I've never had or really thought about getting a Beta, but I'll look into maybe asking someone from the server! ^^

this line is a pretty major run-on. there are a few others like it, but i’m just going to quote this one for illustrative purposes. there are a couple distinct ideas going on here, so the sentence could very easily be broken down into several, more easily digestible sentences. this is just one way to do it, but consider: “She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight. It had hardly been easy, but somehow she‘d beat Hop despite everything she’d been thinking. In the last show of the true capabilities of their Pokémon partner’s dynamaxing, the ground shook under Nova and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.” (the last sentence is a bit hard for me to make out, but i wasn’t sure how to restructure it without losing some of your meaning.) at any rate, it’s a bit easier to take in when you break it down like that, and again i think that advice can be applied to a number of other sentences in the fic as well.

Thank you for pointing out that line, it was sort of bugging me but it didn't occur to me, cuz I honestly tend to make a fair few of my lines run-on, until you pointed it out. I think I'll go and edit that in the morning(it's two am rn and I'm sick with a bug so I'm not very sharp rn) so it flows better, and add in what Nova is cuz I actually forgot to mention she's a Cinderace and I'm still working on getting Alira's bio done which will have her team, so I need to keep that in mind till I do XD

in this case, since the first bit of dialogue here isn’t continuous with the second one, the comma after “see” after behaves as a period. the following clause (“Her face scrunched...”) isn’t really linked directly to the dialogue, so the comma really ought to be a period there.
the first dialogue tag gives us this sentence when taken alone: “Just wondering, but, did you see.” that doesn’t really make much sense as a sentence when you look at it that way, so i’d suggest changing it up somehow in order to clear it up a bit. since it seems like Alira is trailing off, it could be sufficient just to insert an ellipsis before the comma there, i.e.:

Gotcha! That's another line I'll edit asap.

there doesn’t really need to be a comma here. it seems like you might be using commas where you might pause in speech, but that’s not quite what they’re for. they’re more for separating clauses, ideas, or listed words, so there’s no need for one here where the idea in the sentence is continuous.

Gotcha! Tbh, I do actually use them where one pauses in speech, I have a habit of doing that(pausing in the middle of talking) irl so I tend to try to do that in my writing.

”Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought” isn’t really related to the thought immediately preceding it, so they should probably be separated by a period rather than a comma. additionally, the w in “why” should be capitalized since it’s the beginning of a new sentence.

Okie dokie! And aaah shoot, I thought I caught that capitalization error, oops. I really should edit my stuff during the day cuz I edited this at night XD

opposite problem here as in the previous quote: “she retorted playfully” is actually modifying the dialogue, so it should be separated by a comma rather than a period and left in lower case, i.e.:
on a different note, this is a pretty evocative line, both with regard to the past as she describes her own emotions as well as in the present as the narrator describes her tone. i like it!

Oooh, gotcha, I'll remember that and edit it in the morning, and thank you! :D

little things here, but i think you could leave “out of surprise“ out—the surprise seems implicit to me in the action of eyebrow-raising. additionally, ”You as well?” and “Same” seem to be saying the same thing here, so you could probably leave on of them out.

Ahh, gotcha!

and that’s a wrap! this is a pretty cool line to end on, honestly, and makes me curious about where the rest of the fic goes.

sorry if i seem a bit overcritical here; as i said, the fic isn’t badly written, it’s just a lot of little things that stack up, so my intent is to point a few of them out for your benefit. overall it was a decent read, and the flashback it describes is pretty intriguing, not to mention relevant to my interests. :p it’s a cool premise, and you do a great job at characterizing alira and hop. hop feels very much like his canon self too, which can be pretty hard to achieve. you’ve got a strong base here, and with a bit of polish and practice i think you’ve got a lot of good stuff to work with. i’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff, and i hope you enjoy your time at thousand roads!

Yay! I'm glad you liked it!

Nah, you're fine! I don't mind getting advice and help on how to improve my writing, cuz I know I still have stuff to learn and I really appreciate it! ^W^ And yay! Oh my gosh, really? :O I'm so happy you think so! I was a bit unsure of how Hop was written, so I'm really happy he feels like his canon self! And that's really good to hear, gosh I'm grinning my head off rn I'm so happy and I hope so too! :D

 

[Dragonfree]

Hey there and welcome to Thousand Roads!

She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight, it had hardly been easy but she somehow beat Hop despite everything she was thinking, in the last show of the true capabilities of their pokemon partners dynamaxing, the ground shaking under Nova’s and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.

This is a pretty long sentence, and it's a comma splice - "She would be lying if she said her skin wasn't still tingling from that fight" and "It had hardly been easy..." are both complete, sensible sentences on their own, and then using only a comma to separate them is formally incorrect. It's a thing that often makes sense in speech, and can thus often be gotten away with when writing narration from a close perspective too, but here the sentence is already unwieldy and I don't think that really applies. I'd suggest replacing at least that first comma with a period.

In general, you have a fair few sentences like this in here - it's always a good trick to try reading what's on either side of each comma to yourself and see if it feels like a complete sentence, and if so, it should probably be a period. (If the two chunks are closely related, you could also use a semicolon.)

an infectious beam in her eyes

An infectious beam in her eyes? That sounds kind of odd. Do you mean a gleam?

Her voice was soft like always, and she noted with fond amusement she briefly started the boy as he jumped and turned to her.

I think you mean "startled" there, rather than started - but also, this sentence is a bit confusing as written, and I had to read it a few times to parse it correctly. You could clarify it with "...and she noted with fond amusement that she briefly startled the boy..."

“Just, wondering, but, did you see,” Her face scrunched as she tried to figure out how to word it. “Anything weird for a moment during our battle in the stadium?”

These situations where a sentence is interrupted by a complete sentence of narration are always a bit confusing to punctuate, but having a comma after the first quote and then a capital letter afterwards definitely isn't right. For this situation I'd probably go with an ellipsis (and probably another ellipsis before "...anything weird").

Clearly not if they both saw it, Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought.

Since "Alira put a finger to her cheek in thought" is just a separate sentence unrelated to the thought there, the comma's not appropriate here; just use a period.

But also - are you directly quoting what she's thinking, or paraphrasing it in third person? If it's a direct quote of her thoughts, then it should be "Clearly not if we both saw it" - but if it's not, then it probably shouldn't be in italics, because then it's just regular narration.

“It was only a few hours ago and I still feel the tingling of the dynamax energy.”

By saying it was only a few hours ago, you suggest that it feels like way longer than a few hours - but then the rest of the sentence says "I still feel the tingling of dynamax energy", which suggests the opposite, that she's still feeling it as if it's still happening. It'd make more sense if this was "It's been hours but I can still feel the tingling of the dynamax energy."

he hmm’d, like Leon did on occasion from what she knew of him, and she wondered if he knew he was doing that.

This is a really nice, cute detail (but the first letter should be capitalized).

“It’s a plan.” He grinned, and this scene felt extremely familiar to both of them, which with their eyes they acknowledged to each other.

The feelings in their hearts was that of anticipation and overwhelming, heartwarming familiarity.

I like the closing line a lot, but it's a little undermined by the fact it's kind of a repetition - the paragraph above already said the scene felt familiar. Since the closing line is stronger, I'd suggest removing the previous mention of familiarity instead.

"which with their eyes they acknowledged to each other" also seems a bit strangely/clunkily phrased. (Tell me if you're not sure how, by the way; sometimes these sorts of things are something you immediately see when it's pointed out and other times it seems fine to you and you're not sure what they're talking about. I'll try to explain better if necessary, but right now I'm having trouble getting words around it and you may not need it.)

I was a bit confused when they started talking about how they still remember the battle, and how it was a few hours ago, because I had actually completely forgotten by that stage that the battle had been a flashback. After stating that Alira won, you go straight to “Hey, Hops.” Her voice was soft like always, and she noted with fond amusement she briefly started the boy as he jumped and turned to her. “Just, wondering, but, did you see,” Her face scrunched as she tried to figure out how to word it. “Anything weird for a moment during our battle in the stadium?” And because there is no indicator to say this is now, back at the hotel, I just took it to be her literally just approaching him to say this just after they've recalled their Pokémon after the battle. There are a few ways to mitigate this, but the simplest is probably to insert some description or something to clue the reader in that this is at the hotel: "Now, as she looked at Hop pacing across the floor..." or something in that direction.

Even with the battle actually being a few hours ago, though - it still feels a little odd to be talking about still remembering it! After all, most of the time, for healthy people without serious memory problems, it's a given that you remember what you were doing a few hours ago - those seem more like words you'd say when talking about something that happened years ago than a few hours earlier. I think it'd be a lot more natural if they just remarked on the same things without the qualifier about still remembering.

So all in all, you've got a bit of grammatical and phrasing strangeness going on here - but the actual flow of the writing is mostly pretty good otherwise, and I'm intrigued by the actual story. Alira and Hop seem to be reincarnations of the ancient heroes, of sorts, and heading out to find out what that's all about. I like how nervous she is about it next to Hop's more outwardly confident excitement - they have distinct characterizations, in line with what Hop tends to act like in the games (the player character, of course, is a blank slate). Again, I really like the bit about him hmmming in the particular way Leon does - Hop sharing Leon's mannerisms is definitely something I noticed during the game and it's both a cute and interesting part of his character, so I was delighted to see it referenced here.

I can't help but think this feels more like a prologue to a longer story than a one-shot, though! This is all about raising questions, not answering them. While it doesn't require previous knowledge of this universe, it doesn't quite stand on its own as an independent story - it's mostly creating mystery and intrigue that then (I presume) will be answered in the main chapterfic. So it's pretty successful at making me curious about the chapterfic, but as a one-shot I do think it lacks resolution a bit. I'm curious if there's a particular reason you chose to publish this as a one-shot, rather than as something like a prologue.

 

[kintsugi]

Hey! Welcome aboard!

I really like this as a concept -- slice-of-life moments between world-ending action is a venue that I think absolutely needs exploring and yet never does, and this is a great way to introduce yourself to the forums! Here are a few misc thoughts:

Your dialogue feels really natural. Hop and the S/SH protag are naturally a bit of a blank slate, and you do a great job of keeping them in character while fleshing out a bit of depth to them.

Prose-wise, you're pretty good. Sometimes your sentences aren't as clear as they need to be -- in a short fic like this, I think every word counts more than they tell you it does already. Here's a few examples:

Alira watched Hop pace back and forth across the hotel floor, waiting for his brother to get there for dinner as the girl thought silently to herself, her pokemon mingling with Hop’s as they waited while out of their pokeballs.

Your first sentence in particular has a lot of weight hanging on it, and this one feels a little muddled. We go from Alira (watching Hop), to Hop (watching his brother), to Alira (her pokemon), to pokemon (mingling). The focal point of this sentence changes four times, and we don't even know what the sentence is about yet!

But, there was also something else on her mind, after their two pokemon had dynamaxed and she was staring at Hop, an infectious beam in her eyes as she gave Nova commands, for a few brief moments she wasn’t in the Wyndon stadium.

Similar thing here, and in the sentence before it (that qva already pointed out). This one is a bit different from the previous one because you're moving focuses through time rather than space/people -- first we start with what we think is one event (something else), and then we learn that it's after something else, and then we get a quick detail about Alira's determination, and then we realize that the event that's being described isn't related to any of this information at all. There's definitely good times to obscure information, but I think in this type of story you want to keep things a bit more direct on the micro-level -- sentences should point to what they're describing pretty directly in this case.

And this is definitely a thing I struggle a lot with as well -- I have all these details that I want to impart to the audience, so I just sort of blargh them onto the page. I think a good editing run would help tighten sentences like these up. Think of sentences more as bites of the story. Sure, you can mix it all together and eat it as one big lump, but 1) some flavors just don't mix, and 2) a lot of the same flavors that do mix don't all mix together because it becomes too messy to taste. Don't be afraid to parse things out and linger on stuff a little longer!

Overall your pacing is good too. A lot of oneshots struggle with trying to put waaaay too much into a shorter word count, or stretching a single insignificant moment into three thousand words; you've got a really good middle ground here where your event is interesting and the story feels just long enough to cover it. I do feel that there's a bit too much focus on how "familiar" things feel here at the end -- with a fic of this size, you don't really have the room to drive in all the important points more than once, and I think you already establish how familiar things are with the repetition of familiar/same/exactly.

There were a few grammar oopsies, but those got covered already, so I won't rehash them again. I thought this was a really fun, digestible story! Narrative and tone are always really hard to nail, so I spent a bit more time going into those, but overall I think this was a really fun start to what I hope is an epic story. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Namohysip]

Wow you're just being bombarded withreviews. I'm not really sure how much of what I have to say will be anything new or novel, so I'll just toss this in and if there are any repeats, then I guess you can call it a reinforced opinion. Peer review!

So, first off, a few quick quotes before I get into the overall:

Alira watched Hop pace back and forth across the hotel floor, waiting for his brother to get there for dinner as the girl thought silently to herself, her pokemon mingling with Hop’s as they waited while out of their pokeballs.

Definitely a long opening sentence. I think everything after 'there for dinner' could have been made into another sentence; I also think that, in a way, opening so passively (Alira watched Hop . . . ) doesn't make for the strongest opening. When you have a one-shot as short as this, every sentence needs to pop, and that goes double for the opener.

She would be lying if she said her skin wasn’t still tingling from that fight, it had hardly been easy but she somehow beat Hop despite everything she was thinking

While there are a few sentences like this, I think this was the first one where a comma was used instead of a semicolon, since it separates two independent, but related, sentences.

In the last show of the true capabilities of their pokemon partners dynamaxing, the ground shaking under Nova the Cinderace’s paws and Rillaboom’s feet as they fought.

I'm not sure what's being conveyed here, but either it should be "the ground had trembled" or something, rather than shaking, because of the tenses... or 'the ground shaking' is used to describe how it had been with the comma introducing it. But if that's the case, the first clause needs to be more independent, such as, "She remembered the true capabilities of their pokemon partners dynamaxing, how the ground shook under . . . " and so on, something like that might make this sentence easier to parse.

--

Anyway, this was incredibly short, and from what I understand, this is one of those one-shots you said would be related to your main work. Interesting to have this as a flashback, since your main work deals with postgame, but this definitely makes me wonder if it could have been used as a flashback within that work instead. I suppose that's more of a stylistic or supplemental choice, though. I think the curious thing about this oneshot is it's more a simple scene meant to talk about something greater... Something like this is what I'd usually call a flashback and place it in the actual story or, if it had been lengthened more thoroughly, even a "special episode" as folks in the PMD side of the fandom like to call it.

Still, short and sweet. I only wonder if these sorts of things, especially if they're pertinent to the main story, would be included there, rather than as a standalone.