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[Short Story]Illumise's City.

It was too difficult for an Illumise to remember the exact time,Of how many years ago she led him through that dark and empty field with her flashing tail-light.
She only knew that she had been with him since then.
He would always hold her with his pale long fingers.His hands were always cold,she knew but she didn't mind.
They spent those early days in an old,deserted cabin.Life was hard there:no electricities,no fresh water,no message from the other side of the world.
She was the only source of brightness he could get in the moonless cloudy nights.
"So glad to have you here,my Illumise."With these words he would put his hand on her forehead and smile.He was a silent guy,formed from years' lacking of communication.He would rather sit there minding his work,she understood.
However there were somethings he repeated from time to time,especially in those gloomy nights."Every night will soon come to its end."She didn't know whether he said it to comfort her or to encourage himself.

But she would always nod as he say that."Surely it will."She would answer him if she could speak.
Fluorescence is a kind of cold light,she sometimes thought about it sadly.And sometimes she wished she was a candle,so that she would be able to give him warmth as well as light.
Then she could lit up his little cabin,lit up his gray gray time.

She knew he was planning something about his future.It was natural since no one could bear ruining his life in such a hopeless place,putting all his time in to a piece of exhausted land.
She saw him looking in to distance when the dusk was falling.Far away in the edge of the sight was the city of Lavender,a city without difference between nights and days.Shinning forever,shadeless forever.
Such a dizzy brightness at the horizon,seemed like a mirage.

"Soon or later I will find a job there."He said hopefully."We will end up everything here and start a new life in that brighter city,my Illumise."
He loved reading.He spent a lot of time sitting in front of his old-fashioned wooden table reading something.He read all sorts of books,he read his own future reflecting in them.
And she would read everything through a simple smile on his face.
"Dear Illumise,we will move to Lavender.There the nights are as bright as day,you can see the fantastic neon lights shinning even in the midnight.Lamps light up every room;songs and prayers are heard in the remotest street;there's no place for darkness or loneliness."
"We will never suffer from any night again."

"As every night will soon come to its end."She thought.
Slowly she began her dance of an Illumise,in the dawn light,in the rhythm of his breathe.
"Be brave,we'll soon overcome the hard times.As Every night will come to its end."She sang her little prayer to weeds and flowers,they nodded to her gently.
"The dream won't be so far from us."

And finally in a summer,he sold his Field and cabin at the lowest price you can imagine.They moved to the city in his desire.
Lavender City.
Everything was going on as he had planned.He found a job in bicycle shop,rented an apartment which was facing the street.They're new home was small,only one-third as the size of the old cabin.But it was modernized,at least.
The streets in Lavender are lined up with street lights.They gave out their lights from dusk to dawn,never made a single mistake.
She looked out of the window,then hid her head under her wings as if felt ashame about her dim tail-light.
It has became his hobby that he would turn on the light at the very moment he entered the room.A flood of rays left her nowhere to escape.

He spent his first sum of wage on a high-tech eyesight protecting lamp."It's wonderful indeed."He remarked.
"Surely it is."She nodded docilely instead of speaking,waved her wings to flew to the corner of the room.
She knew there would no longer be a place for her on this small desk.

The new job was not that easy.He was growing more and more tired each passing day.
It was too inconsiderate to require him to spend any precious time with her.So she just held herself in the corner,filled her mind with happy memories of the old days.
Their cabin,their field,their simple happiness.
That was the night they had already passed.

Great Lavender City was too bright to see an Illumise's tail-light,too bright to care about an Illumise's tearful eyes.
She even began to doubt that if she had ever been able to shine.
Or maybe she was only a oblivious bug from the beginning.
A small drop of tear fell from the high apartment building,then vanished in to thin air before touch the ground.

However in one evening,all of sudden there came an electric short.

Lamps,musics,everything seemed to be stopped.
The journey to home became a nightmare,several times he had merely avoided crashing into wire poles.
It's natural for a city-resident to have a bad night-sight.
He took plenty of trouble to found the right key to the lock.When he finally came in he stretched his finger to turn on the switch as usual,but the room remained in a chaos of darkness.
"Oh yes,electric short."He said to himself.
Things were piled up at this eventful night.He remembered there was a report to be finished by tomorrow,however without a light he could only sit there wasting his time.

Then suddenly he recalled something:he had an Illumise.
"Illumise.Dear Illumise."He called,there were no response.
"That's strange.She's not at home."He thought:"Where an Illumise could have gone in such a crowded city?"
"Ii--Lu."Just then the lovely voice came through the door.He rushed to open it joyfully,paying no attention on how many things were lying up-side-down along his way.
"Where have you been to?You've almost driven me crazy,dear Illumise."He gave her a big embrace.Then swept away the useless lamp and gently placed her in his desk.
"See?I could not even do a thing if you're not here."

His face looked pale and tired in her chilly light.She stared at him for some minutes,then couldn't help broke in to tears.
He seemed noticed something,as he stopped writing to smile at the Illumise who accompanied him through all these years.

At that moment,all the stories about Lavender and city faded into a mirage in haze.Though tearful eyes she saw a little child who lost his way in that dark and empty field.
He raised his finger to touch her forehead,and promised they would be together ever after.
Their field,their cabin...the silly happinesses she had ever imagined.
Are all lit up,in her dim,shinning,illumise.

Fin.

Say sorry in advance for making grammar/spelling mistakes...I'm not an English speaker- -
Only write it for fun...
 
Last edited:

Yami Ryu

Well-Known Member
Say sorry in advance for making grammar/spelling mistakes...I'm not an English speaker- -
Only write it for fun...

Sorry but fun or not, you should have the basics down and be ready to be burned if you don't want to be well. Better :x Sure you can write for fun. I write for fun. But I follow the rules.

And here's some advice. Quoted cause you know, lately people seem unable to click a link or search for it.

THE BASICS

-----------------------------------------------------------------

As I have read the various works posted on this board, I have noticed many of the same problems over and over. Here are some general guidelines to follow when writing your fics:

1) Proper Use of the Keyboard.
There are several useful keys on the keyboard:

Enter/Return: This is one of the most useful keys. Use it whenever you have finished with one idea and are ready to move on to the next paragraph. Use it when one person has finished speaking, and another is about to start. When doing so, hit it twice, to produce a blank line between paragraphs. This makes it a lot easier for your readers to tell where your paragraphs start and end. Large blocks of uninterrupted text are hard to read.

Shift: Another important key. Hold it down when typing the first letter of a sentence, the first letter of a name, or the letter 'I' when using it as the first person singular subject pronoun.

Caps Lock: Often used as a substitute for the 'Shift' key. Don't do it. Text should not be in all capital letters unless someone is SHOUTING!

The Spacebar: Hit it once after every word or comma, twice after a period.

Tab: Unfortunately, this does not work to indent paragraphs on these boards. This is why a blank line between paragraphs is essential.

Other Keys: Your keyboard, unless it is defective, comes with a full complement of letters. Don't be afraid to use them. There is no reason to type 'u' instead of 'you', or indeed to use any abbreviation you learned in a chat room. There is no penalty for taking a few seconds longer to type complete words.

--------------------------------

2) Tips on Composition.

Paragraphs: Use these as your basic unit of composition. Each paragraph should be used to set forth a single idea. If a paragraph seems to long, it probably contains multiple ideas, and should be split up for clarity. If it seems too short, expand on the idea.

Sentences: A sentence should contain exactly one action or statement of existence. If it contains more than one, split it into two or more. If it contains less than one, finish the sentence. Run-on sentences are often confusing, while fragments make the reader feel that something is missing.

Description: Make sure that your reader can visualize what is happening. Don't just say something like "Joe walked along enjoying the scenery". This gives no indication of whether the scenery he is enjoying is a redwood forest, a beach at sunset, or the Grand Canyon.

A description is not just a list of attributes. When describing a character, don't just list their name, age, height, weight, hair colour, and current pokemon team. Bring this information out gradually when the person appears in a story.

Don't have Joe meet a trainer named Fred who is 12 years old, has green eyes and red hair, is three and a half feet tall, and whose pokemon are squirtle, pikachu, butterfree, grimer, tauros, and krabby. Have Joe see a short, red-haired kid with startlingly green eyes, and talk to him. Have names mentioned early in the conversation. The pokemon may be either revealed in a battle, or introduced individually during the conversation.

-------------------------------

3) Other General Advice

Plot: Try to be original. "Joe is 10 (or 11 or 12) years old and about to start his pokemon journey. He goes to Professor (insert tree here) and gets a (insert pokemon here)" has been done too many times already. "Joe is a 10-year-old from Pallet Town and about to start his pokemon journey. He accidentally sleeps in, and by the time he gets to Professor Oak's lab, all the starters have been taken, so he gets a Pikachu" is so old everyone is sick of it.

Try to be reasonable. A new trainer is not going to start with a legendary, or even rare, pokemon. The standard starter pokemon were selected for a reason: They are easy for professors to obtain whenever new trainers are about to start, they can be controlled by beginners, and with proper training, they can become quite powerful.

Likewise, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to catch any of the legendary pokemon. They are simply too powerful. If you have seen either of the movies, think about it. Mew or Mewtwo can deflect any attack you try with minimal effort.

Consider the scene in The Power of One where Ash's Pikachu (which has been known to defeat rock and ground types) meets Zapdos. Compare their relative power levels. Now think about how hard it would be to defeat Zapdos. This can be applied to any of the legendary pokemon. No trainer will have one unless it has a good reason to want to accompany that trainer.

Characters: Make your characters real. Give them strengths and weaknesses. Inherently superior trainers who win each battle effortlessly are boring. So are incompetent members of Team Rocket. So is the gym-leader-who-can't-stand-being-defeated. The stock "Rival" character is also getting old.

Whatever you do, don't just refer to people by labels from the GameBoy games (Rocket, Cooltrainer, Lass, Bug Catcher, etc). Remember that these are real people you are working with.

Spelling/Grammar: Write your story in a word-processing program. Use the spellchecker, but don't depend on it completely. It can tell whether your word matches the spelling of a real word, but it cannot tell whether it is the word you wanted to use.

Use grammar checkers with extreme care. They cannot actually understand what you are saying, and often make mistakes.

--------------------------------

4) My Personal Advice:

Note that the contents of this section reflect my personal preferences. Other good writers may disagree with me.

Battles: I generally dislike sentences of the form "(pokemon species) used (name of attack)". You are describing what the pokemon does. In a real-world battle, the pokemon would not "use Bite on" its opponent; it would "bite" its opponent. There are, however, exceptions to this. If there is no verb for the action, go ahead and say "Bulbasaur used Leech Seed". Still, try to avoid "used (name of attack)". Better options would be "fired a hyperbeam at (enemy)", "hit (enemy) with (attack)", etc.

Additionally; the GameBoy battle format makes no sense in the context of a real battle. A pokemon in a real battle would not just attack, then stand there waiting for its opponent to attack. In a real battle, you would have no time to go in and administer a potion or antidote to your pokemon. Watch the TV show for a reasonable depiction of what battles would be like.

GameBoy Terminology in general: Try to avoid it. In the real world, referring to something as "Level 17" is meaningless. Pokemon have varying levels of power and experience, but don't just summarize all of this with a single number. In the world of your fanfic, pokemon are real, living creatures. They are individuals. They have their own strengths, weaknesses, and skills.

The only thing worse than referring to "levels" is referring to "hit points", "power points", or any of the "statistics" (attack, defence, "special defence", etc). Avoid use of these terms at all costs.

-Original text by Murgatroyd

ANYWAYS. Poor english or not does NOT excuse poor grammar skills :/
 

Chales

what?
Coincidentally,

Poor english or not does NOT excuse poor grammar skills

That sentence would be considered a fragment.


An advices to the author: try getting a program that spots out errors for you. Even if you write it for fun, readers enjoy reading stories with relatively unnoticeable grammar mistakes. A consistent error you've displayed was the lack of spaces after punctuation marks -- commas, periods, quotation marks, etc. The writing itself is impressive for someone who doesn't speak English fluently...it's fluid, descriptive, but your main enemy was the grammar.

Hmm. Good luck in the future?
 
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