d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

Tails by TrayC_Child_of_Mine [Pokémon]

Eievui was an orphan without any family. Professor Oak befriended her and gave her the very first Pokédex, but she was unfortunately transformed into an Eevee. To Professor Oak, the only one who noticed her, she seemed to have vanished without a trace. Secretly, though, Eievui is living right there at the Professor's lab. Will he ever find out the truth of what happened?

I think the best thing about this one shot is its cover. It has a very pretty graphic, blended to a nice effect, and the title stands out in a nice font at the bottom. I'm nowhere near to being an expert on graphics, but I can certainly tell when a cover looks nice. That's always a win for a story because it will draw readers right in.

I want to start by talking about the one shot's description, which is also the first paragraph of the story. This is a technique that I personally find to be annoying because I dislike reading the same thing twice, but that could be argued as a matter of personal preference. My real point is that the description gives us a lot of information about our main character, her past, and her present situation. This could be fine except that the rest of the one shot then goes on to cover this exact same information as if it is revealing it for the first time. In the paragraphs following the description/first paragraph, we learn that Eievui was like a daughter to Professor Oak (adding a tiny bit of clarity to what was previously stated), who gave her a Pokédex (which we had already been told), and that no one except for Professor Oak remembers her (another fact we already know). From here, we move on to a scene with our main character as an Eevee, where we witness Tracy caring for her without a clue as to her identity (predictable, given the description).

Now, again, it might be understandable that the beginning of the story has a lot that is known from the description, but the problem extends even beyond this. The description seems to be suggesting that the plot of the story will revolve around Professor Oak possibly finding out the truth of what happened to Eievui. Instead, we see minor happenings around the laboratory, from Tracy running errands to Ash and friends popping in for a visit to a minor misunderstanding among the other Pokémon at the lab, and finally to Professor Oak telling his assistants the story of what happened to our main character as far as he understands it. And then it ends. That's right, I just told you every notable event in the story from beginning to end without giving away any spoilers that the description itself does not give. The plot is never resolved. It just ends.

I don't think there's much more that needs to be said about this, but I'll just make the point that the events of the story are clearly told out of order and in a way that is totally incomplete. Once Professor Oak actually gets around to telling our main character's story in detail, it actually is heart breaking. The problem is that it's told at the end of the story instead of the beginning, making it the third time at least that we've been told that Eievui was an orphan who Professor Oak took in. It's not new information, and it doesn't bring any tension to the story because we already know exactly how it turns out for her. If the story started with this poor orphan girl who we see so badly mistreated, then our hearts would go out to her and we would feel tension until the story shows what happens to her. In the same way, we would feel some tension if we saw her relationship with Professor Oak develop before seeing how she gets turned into an Eevee and is henceforward unable to even let him know that she's alright.

As the story stands, it's just unsatisfying. Its structure is so flawed that little else needs to be said about it. I could talk about commas and awkward phrasing and everything else, but what this story really needs is major reorganization and an ending. I can't really recommend it to readers, but I hope that the author can take something of value from this review.