The main reason I'm so adamant about being a writer is my vivid imagination. Maybe I'm not rare in this and most people do something similar but I have impromptu imagination session were I get lost in my own head, watching scenes I make up on the fly. However, usually these scenes are not the ones that I write down because of some reason I can't put my finger on. They, imo, are better than what I usually write but I never write them. While I'm not saying that if I did, I blow everybody out the waters, I do want to remedy this.
This is an attempt of writing down the key points of such a session that I had today.
So not sure what I will go through first with my idea and so I'll just tell it in a random order.
There are two main characters Lynn and Ween. Lynn is from a low-income family while Ween's dad is the CEO of an industry in Johto that makes the majority of the pokéballs in that region but also in Kanto. Yeah, this is set in pokémon, its highly inspired by another fanfic on fanfiction dot net called, "Clear Skies Ahead," I think. (No, it was called, "Clear Skies Above,"
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12594149/1/Clear-Skies-Above ).
I like the basis of the story but felt that one, the interesting conflict between Lyn and Blaze or whatever his name was, it was sometime ago I read it, wasn't as nuanced as it need to be. I feel like, if you want one side to be the hero, don't set up the other as a main character option. This is not a hard rule mind you, just if you do, you probably want to be careful with the implementation.
Lyn, while capable, actually comes off as a aloof and arrogant, imo. Almost Mary sue-ish in that, while a bit earned cause she, unlike other Mary sues, wins her battles by actually using her wits.
The story focuses a lot on bringing in rich characters and presenting them as pompous and arrogant but also incompetent. I'm sure you can imagine, as this is not new in fiction.
While I don't know if this was the writer setting up some interesting twist where he addresses the fact that Lyn herself is, in fact not perfect and also make our rich boy Raze or Blaze or whatever, heh heh, I was close. His name is Faze. But anyway, make our rich boy one show that, he is not an ass despite being rich, crazy stuff, and/or that money can actually buy you stuff like education which probably will make you not incompetent.
That last part is a bit addressed in the story though since there is like different ways of becoming an official trainer and some rich folks sign up for one that basically is worse than the more public version because these ones just tricks them off their money, apparently.
And I feel like here we come to my main problem that I have with this story that I otherwise enjoy, Lyn is the one who explains this to us when she is talking to one of these rich boys. She basically states that; while having no reason to know any of this outside of having been told by someone else that this is how it is, that this rich boy, not Faze this time though; that he is being tricked off his money because he can't hack it in the public sector.
This makes me not like her character because the story essentially then proves her right. Why? How does she know this? I mean, I know there are charlatans out there, so I wouldn't be against this being the reality in the story but that fact that she knows this pisses me off to the point that I wish that the rich snobs would enslave all of these fucks who think chicken nuggies classify as dinner.
And so, why even make your rival/villain-kinda sympathetic if he is just gonna be a punching bag? To be fair, there were some nuance here and there, considering the scene with Whitney and the story was discontinued so there is a very real possibility that, Lyn's worldview would be challenged and that Faze would get some love, but it is what it is.
The second problem is that there are too many subplots in the story. To some degree this makes the world feel lived in, on the other hand, they seem somewhat disconnected from everything else. Like Lyn hates her dad and there is some family drama there but it's not clear how that effects her. Is this why she's such a sauerkraut all the time? I don't know. Despite this she has a lot of people that seem to like her. And there is this subplot with her sister and her being an e-celeb streamer. Is this a shout out? Maybe I'll catch her bathtub steam later but otherwise, who cares? It has no real impact, imo, on the rest of the story. I guess the last chapter has her beating a guy in battle on stream so maybe that would go somewhere.
So I feel like these things would be cut since they don't tie into the core of what this story is about.
And to me the story is about two things. The pokémon setting has always been torn in two direction, it's both competitive with all its battles but there is also the pet aspect as you take care and love your pet, in this case pokémon. I felt if it would be interesting if Lyn was still an exceptional trainer, for battling, but didn't lacked the skills needed to show others, humans or pokémon the love and care they needed. While not abusive, she sees her pokémon more as a means to and end, in her case, fame and fortune. She dislikes rich people more due to jealousy than anything else. She copes with the idea that she's better than them because she will get it through hard work not just be gifted it.
In all of this, she still has a family and friends that love her, maybe I'll keep the conflict with her dad but even in the original she was liked by most of the characters she knew but she doesn't really doesn't really realize or value that as much as she should.
Ween should be the opposite. As trainer she gives her pokémon love and attention but she sucks at battling. She is rich but her family is distant and she has no friends.