Reviews for A Cat and Fox's Tale
Fan 4/4/12 . chapter 21
Nice Story. You can't find any other Yin Yang Yo fanfiction about just Ella Mental and the fox was a nice touch. I got your back and can't wait for your next chapter.
Daedalus370 3/26/12 . chapter 21
Well, hello again, PenGator; the magniloquent Daedalus is here to leave another review for your story. I am sorry for the wait, but I was attempting to finish a few things on my to-do list and they have blocked out all kinds of premeditated things. I shall try to make it up to you with a longer review than what I had planned. Wait, I planned something? Incredible. Anyway, on with the review, but please don't hate me if it seems "negative". I honestly mean the best.

I have found several residual traits that have continued within these two chapters, some for good and others ill. In terms of the former, your innate setting and character description remain, yet, for the latter, the clunkiness and the tortuous windings some call overlong sentences continue to exist. I shall accentuate both.

Let us start with the aforementioned best quality of your story. You have an austere yet beautiful way of putting enriching words with a setting. At times I wish I could be as fluent with language as yourself, but it gets excessive in some moments. The first and second paragraph for Chapter 20 and the first paragraph for Chappie 21 lie as proof of that.

Secondly, may I remind you that an omniscient audience does not need to be truly omniscient to understand a story. Half of these recent chapters is reader-fill, as I call it, which is unnecessary for the story and "turns off" an audience.

The rhyming in Ch. 20 is a good example: "down clown crown found town drown (Paragraph 2)" and "floated bloated voted coating-loaded (also in Paragraph 2). Ugh, I know she was trying to rhyme, but Thanny's eyes were trying to hang themselves in this context, and Thanny -really- needs her eyes. I don't recall whether you used italics in earlier chapters or not for her inner thoughts, but these types of things should be italicised.

An additional example is the droves of people returning to their lives. Every city is like that, and one does not need to show where they all are going.

URGENT: Blocky paragraphs are hard to read. If you can trim them into smaller pieces between two through eight small sentences or two through four long sentences or something like that, half of your readers would probably rejoice. Also, dialogue should be separated into paragraphs of their own.

That reminds me, what are these parentheses and square brackets for? Whether or not they were removed, I still would understand the goings-on.

Now that the residual traits are completed, I shall move on to the characters. The reinvolvement of old cast members such as Eradicus, Smoke, and Saranoia often made me lean in with interest, sometimes even with a smile. It is nice stepping away from the solitary duo, and while there were a few OOC areas they did not matter much.

Plot is not moving too much between Ella and, uh-h-h . . . *pores through story*, Yasmine, so maybe that should move a little faster. I mean, I don't think I have seen or heard anything from the vixen since Chapter 14, and I want to see how their friendship would blossom without an excess of daily routine. Now that I think of it, however, she may be with Ell and Smoke and Sar. I pray that is the case.

Spelling, punctuation, and grammar remain far above par, which is excellent, though I can see a few errors in these two recent chapters. Remember to capitalise the beginnings of quotes, even if they are tagging along with a comma (for example, "He gave a befuddled glance in her direction before questioning, 'We are having a baby?' "), and be careful about missing it's.

In total, there are still a small number of areas to better, but don't lose hope; they all can be easily remedied through self-editing or perhaps through the aid of a betareader. My opinion is that the positive traits of these chapters cancels out the negative, so please keep polishing your work. You are improving in leaps and bounds, yet, and I am trying to be honest here, you still have a fair way to go.

Forgive me for my harsh words from earlier, but please understand I mean only the best; I look forward to your next chapter and our next conversation. Happy reading and writing, and ciao!
Daedalus370 2/29/12 . chapter 19
Well, things have finally come full circle with my extensive reading list, so it is again time for a staggering block of a review! This may be a bit, er, painfully different in regards to my other review, but I hope that it will be a helpful review all the same. Also, if my opinion offends you, please be sure to send a reply and we can have a pleasant chat over some tea and biscuits over it. Now, onto the critique:

Where shall I start with this . . . I know, let's start with the pluses. Your aptitude for description and character explanation has only bettered since my last review (Chapters 1 jusqu'à 10), and so has your impressive vocabulary. In continuance, your use of commas has bettered, which is a great plus in itself.

Unfortunately, those are the only areas where I can find betterment. The rest has either stagnated, remained the same, or worsened over the length of time between the tenth and nineteenth chapter, and I shall try my best to reveal what I mean:

Let us return to your description. As amazingly detailed as your work is, much of what it talks about (or all, in regards to that chapter with Ella reading a book) can be completely omitted. For one instance, a step-by-step analysis of something as indecent as doffing or donning one's clothes or scrubba-dub-dubbing in a bathtub is uncalled for. Another, recent example is the daily goings-on inside Eradicafe or Eradicorp or Eradisomething in "So Much to Kill for a Good Afternoon." If the story is just going to be between a cat and a fox's friendly relations with each other, skip to those moments where they chat, have phone calls, or even think of each other. One doesn't need to know everything under the sun to get to the main purpose of the story.

Speaking of scrubba-dub-dubbing, good Lord, man, why did you incorporate that scene in Unlucky Chapter 13? For your own safety, please erase that before someone comes along and blows the whistle. I do not think allows such descriptive content.

Moving on to a much more comfortable topic, there is this parenthesis and bracket thing to observe. I do not understand the significance of their inclusion unless you are confused about the words you are using. Many are used correctly, with the exception of hyphens and the "to kill" phrase which confused the heck out of me, and, if you are feeling unsure, consult a beta or a dictionary to ascertain that it is correct.

Next up is the length and dialogue. I am sure that I have mentioned this to you earlier, but these blocks of information are so thick they can break down a diamond-laced jackhammer (I tried this and ended up breaking both my screen and my jackhammer). If you can separate one of those whales of information into a more moderate paragraph containing two through six sentences of intertwining information, I am positive that you will get more readers and more reviews. Conversations are an excellent place for this; separate each character's spoken words in neat paragraphs like many stories out there on this site and it would not only be easier on the eyes but also more understandable.

Characters are the last thing I wish to mention. With the exception of Eradicus, they still appear like cardboard puppets, communicating with each other without any real difference in their personalities. The dialogue is more-or-less flat and unimpressive, requiring something to spice it up a notch instead of these strange encounters with ballistic moose and orange penguins who don't go by the name of Freped ("You know what these flippers are for? They're uh, you know, meant for splashing. WHEE!"). A good plot requires original thought, so instead of formulating random events invent something that would help you rather than take up space. You have excellent descriptive qualities, so I am sure that you will be able to think outside the box.

I hope that I didn't offend, but rather that I helped reveal some areas you were not able to see before. Your story is going slow, yes, and it has faults, but I am interested to see where you are going in terms of it. For that reason, I will happily subscribe to this story and wish you the best in terms of chapters both new and old. Happy reading and writing, and ciao!

P.S.: I noticed your duo-cameo in terms of Shonen and Dominique; I got a bit of a good laugh out of that.
Daedalus370 2/2/12 . chapter 10
Yo, PenGator; as promised, I'm here to read and review one of your stories, and since this was the one with the smallest review/chapter ratio (and I'm a little masochistic), I'm here to review this lengthy story of yours. This will be the first of two installments, one spanning from Chappies 1 through 10 and the other from 11 to 19. Now, let's see what I can come up with:

First of all, this is quite the interesting theme so far. You are focusing on a villain instead of a hero or an aside character like an canon (or original) addition to the cast. With the exception of Yuck, I've never seen anything quite like that in the YYY category, so kudos are in order.

The second one you might not like too much, but I for one find it so hard to pierce through your writing. While it is funny and chockful of lovely vocabulary, the flow is so thick I find it like swimming through an ocean of congealed pudding. I understand that this is your old style I'm talking about, but maybe it would be best to rewrite the chapters so that they don't strangle the reader with torrents of minutiae.

I'll explain myself with an excerpt from the tenth chapter:

\\ At last, she came across a ground zero house that was surrounded by a high timber fence a few steps later. The abode was covered in a colorful coating of clear crystal cerulean. The hip roof sloped down slightly on all four corners. Many of the wholesome bay windows were either closed or obscured by blinds while the sunshades hovered over them without even obscuring the viewing of the great outdoors from the inside point of view. The black driveway had a dark jade hatchback sitting on the fertile foundation even though it had no carport. Only the wine door added the finishing touch to this picturesque residence where the cat was about to set foot in as she unlocked and opened the door where Ella went inside the quarters where her feet stepped off the mat and in the door. /

Where shall I start with this . . . *shrugs*, yeah, maybe that. In the second sentence, you appear to use a huge amount of consonance. While it is not as long as the famous V speech, six words starting with "c" is three too many for this case. While the poetic tool is really useful at times, mixing the sentence into something like "The abode was garbed in a lustrous cerulean sheen" or "The building was a beautiful azure hue" would perhaps be more satisfactory. By changing things up and bettering words, you're saving yourself some writing and preventing the audience from banging their head on a wall.

I'll skip another nit-pick and go with the main reason for choosing this paragraph: everything is so dense that it makes the house seem overly important. We the readers don't want to view everything, but rather read on about Ella Mental. While setting description is lovely, too much makes an audience bored and skip ahead. I know this because I too fell for this trap. Still do, actually.

Next up are the characters. While some scenes regarding them make me chuckle, they felt rather lack-lustre and empty. Neither Dave the Ever-punted Tree Stump nor Commander HOO HAA HOO nor Ella herself show that much emotion, which is slightly saddening. Next to settings, characters are what I enjoy reading about the most, and getting a feel of them is always a joy, even from a villain.

The spelling is spot-on, and the syntax of this story is lovely, but the dialogue is so condensed that I tore 5782 individual hairs from my head in frustration. Dialogue should be easy to read and have their separate paragraphs per person, which may have been corrected later on, but I thought it should be mentioned.

While most of the things I have mentioned are more "negative" than positive, I still have not read your current work which, given the 2.5 years that passed, must be much better than what I have read. I look forward to seeing whatever improvements were made on this fic in the next installment, and don't let my criticism get you down. Happy reading and writing, and ciao!
Zepla 11/22/09 . chapter 10
Ja, ich danke Ihnen Zepla. Es gab keinen besten Teil in dieser Geschichte, wirklich kurz und bündig (Uh, nur knapp), aber wie ich schon sagte, NO Semikolon.
Overandout13 11/17/09 . chapter 1
Good to see an update, I'll review every chapter now. Wish I had writers block every now and then but my minds the other way around. To many stories to actually write.
GriffinsMustFly 11/17/09 . chapter 2
You are so funny, you make me laugh...you should make up and write your own story one day, I would read it with your witty wordplay, it's hilariously wonderful. For some advice, don't use so many caps, indent a new line almost everytime you've got dialouge and watch your run ons. But other than that...

Hand basket...recession...lol
Zepla 8/29/09 . chapter 2
Well, I wouldn't say this has too much detail or less detail. It's somewhere in the middle. As they say: "Something can be always better." In my opinion I think you should fix all the minor error's before continuing. Moving on to the good side, The story is great the plot is great everything is great except for the minor error's.
GriffinsMustFly 8/28/09 . chapter 3
I'm really happy that you write so much. My only suggestion is that you use more commas and less run-ons. I liked the first chapter description in the first paragraph, good job! If you don't have your own story with your own characters going I suggest you should.
Overandout13 6/26/09 . chapter 7
Nice. Sorry haven't reviewed awhile. been busy with plot for friday the 13th story Emerl vs Jason.
negatimmyslove99 6/8/09 . chapter 3
nice story u should put yuck in it
Overandout13 6/4/09 . chapter 2
Nice plot begining so far, also very descriptive. Can't wait to read more