Part 2: However, I'm going to sound like I'm doing a turnaround here, but I can't recall if you've changed IDs or saved your game occasionally, like after every 200 SRs or so. I know that it's all pretty much superstitious mumbo jumbo, but when I hunted for my shiny Treecko years and years ago, I was saving my game every hour or so, as I heard that it helped to reshuffle the seed or something like that (it can all be so confusing!) and THREE SRs after I saved, I saw a shiny Treecko appear. It was really late at night and I was in bed, and I still remember looking down and seeing it pop out of the Pokeball. There was this pause before the sparkles, and I thought, "What is different here? OMG, my game froze?! What, sparkles?! OMG!111 etc etc Shiny Treecko!!!1" I still laugh about it. While it was clearly shiny, my poor brain didn't register it was shiny at first and I thought something looked off and I also thought my game had frozen due to the slight delay. It still feels amazing after all this time. He was my second SR hunt after Charmander on FR.
Well, as for my hunts, I've been doing a BQ again on a Pokémon X game. I don't know if you remember, but I got my shiny Fenn after around two weeks ... and yes, the SRs in that game for starters are just totally ridiculous. I want to hit the person who designed them to be like that!
Since then, I've just found my sixth shiny member, and I'm currently hunting for my seventh. I've been so lazy about posting them.
As for Froakie ... I hear ya! But rest assured that you'll be so used to seeing a normal coloured Froakie that the shiny will definitely stand out. It did for me, at least. I had the same fear and the Froakie was taking a long time to shine, so I was paranoid that I missed one. But when one did shine, I could tell immediately.
Anyway, good luck, C! Torchic, shine, you hear me?! (Not that my threatening text will help!)