A PokeGreek Story [PG-13]

A PokeGreek Story [PG-13]​

Snow-covered mountaintops and tattered green pine trees scattered across the scenery. The clouds hung low against the highest cliff on the tallest mountain. There stood a distraught Sneasel wearing her ripped and musky dress; a sign of a once-upper-class citizen turned barbaric. She looked at the grumbling sky as soft voices argued with each other. She threw her blood-stained claws up in the cold air as she spoke from solemn thought,
“O, Zeus, forgive me for my actions, but the rage that boils my blood possessed me to do my deeds! I have done so much while accomplishing so little, but it feels like an eternity will head my warning that women are mighty and great! I have asked for help, and gotten none. I have wished for blood-thirsting vengeance to be given to me, and been forced to claim it myself. Now I, Medea, am asking for redemption and freedom from the firey pits to which I am bound. Indeed hell hath no fury like a woman Sneasel’s scorned!” Thunder roared as she finished ranting. Clouds parted as sun beams haloed around Medea. A booming, low voice bellowed from from the formerly-overcast sky,
“Medea, we have NOT forgiven you; you are bound to walk the desert for all eternity carrying the bodies of your three sons, your husband, Princess Glauce, and King Creon as the sand tears away at your flesh. Suffer forever, just as their souls will suffer in the underworld through your lust for revenge.”

Medea’s eyes widened as she fell to her knees and sunk in the freshly fallen snow. She screamed ‘Nooooo!’ as she clenched her eyes and reached for a bloody, golden dagger. She grasped it with both her claws and stabbed herself in pathetic rage. She screamed like the Harpies as it echoed threw the mountains. Then, silence. The clouds covered the sky again, betraying the apathy of the gods. The wind started to blow soft crystallized snowflakes on the warm, satisfied body of Medea the Sneasel.

One Week Earlier​

Quiet footsteps dashed across marble floor of the great mansion owned by Jason the Weavile. Glorious purple and golden curtains hung from the tall ceiling. Statues of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes stood valiantly in the halls. The footsteps got louder as a yellow hat like Pokemon rushed through the enormous corridors. The Snorunt wearing a violet apron opened two large double doors to a grand bedroom. A Sneasel, wearing a slim, amethyst dress that glittered in the light, sat on the king-sized bed looking in the mirror on the far end of the wall brushing her feather. She calmly stroked and counted as she reached triple digits. The Snorunt bowed with one hand to her stomach and the other in the air as she spoke,
“My lady Medea, Jason the Weavile shall return from his trip to Crete tonight, we hope to hear from him soon.” Medea smiled as she counted one hundred, put down the brush and said,
“Thank you Nurse. I hope Jason comes with glad tidings. I’m sure Crete was glad to have him visit, and saddened to watch him leave.” The Nurse scoffed under her breath as she stayed down. “Thank you Nurse, that is all.” The Snorunt stood up, turned, and close the door. Medea stood up with a hopeful gleam in her eye. She smiled and moved over to an open window.

There she waited for hours, watching, wishing, wanting Jason to return home with haste. Medea sat there remembering when their three children were very young, how they raised them, all the good memories they had as a family, and every time Jason returned home from battle, recruiting, or peace making. Finally something broke her concentration. It was Jason, riding a Ponyta down the path toward the mansion. Medea stood in excitement and ran down stairs. She ran to an unenthused husband. He looked at her in the main hallway with a serious face, the kind of serious that is always fallowed with bad news. Medea’s heart went from overjoyed love, to worried fear. They both opened their mouths, but Medea was first to speak as she said,
“What is it, my love? Was Crete not able to comply with our appreciative agreement?” Jason sighed as he looked down. His eyes glazed with no emotion as he faked his depression. He looked back up at her as she said,
“Medea, my love, my wife… while I was in Crete I had met King Creon and the beautiful Princess Glauce. We agreed to a peace agreement if I would marry the princess. Now honey, I know what you’re thinking, how could I, a happily married man, leave my wonderful wife for some princess?” Jason paused to look at the body language Medea was giving him. Medea stood, apathetically as she listened intensely. Jason continued as he looked away from Medea, trying to avert his clouded eyes from her pupils a blaze. “It’s just, she’s of royalty, and how could I give that up? I mean, you’re great, but, you’re far from next in line in royalty, you’re just… a royal barbarian… so with that I’ll be leaving. I'm putting the children in a private school so they can grow up in Zues's limelight so I don't have to worry about them, besides, I’ll just be making new ones on my own anyway.”

Jason turned around and hopped up on his Ponyta as he whipped it and rode away through the front door and out in the distance. The Nurse stood there amazed as she watched Medea stand helplessly. Then Medea’s blankness changed into a rage that had been building inside of her. She screamed out,
“A BARBARIAN? How dare he call me a barbarian. Who’s the one that’s wondering about horseback? Who’s the one going from place to place probably living in a shit-stained tent, eating raw meat, talking to strangers, and living like a savage? While I sit like a proper lady brushing my feather, wearing beautiful clothes, raising three of his children...," she paused to catch a breath before starting up again, "where does he get off to leave me for a ‘princess’? She’s probably a snobby, money-grubbing, selfish ***** that only wants him to become Queen! Well she doesn’t know what’s coming, she has no idea what I’m capable of, she has no idea who I am. I am Medea, woman of might, woman of power, woman of wrath and vengeance. Nurse! Fetch me mine and your Ponyta, we shall leave tonight for Athens to visit my brother King Aegeus! He will help us get rid of this Princess Grace, King Creon, and my poor, ignorant husband, Jason the Weavile."

The Next Day​

Medea rode on her Ponyta as her Nurse fallowed on hers. Medea rode with concentrating vigilance. She kept murmuring to herself as she rode on. The light snow lightly patted Medea’s hood on her jacket. Every once in a while Medea would flinch with anger, but calm herself quickly as to not give away that she’s borderline losing her sanity. She grew demented with every minute of self revolving hatred for Jason. Her Nurse stayed a few feet behind her, fearing for Medea’s safety, but mainly, her own.

They both finally reached Athens and trotted up to the gates. Two Weavile guards halted them and asked their purpose of being there. Medea answered,
“My name is, Medea, a sister of King Aegeus. I’ve come to ask him of an important task that only he can carry out. Please stand aside.” The guards acknowledged this and opened the gates to her. She strolled in with her Nurse behind her, riding through the wondrous city of stone. They rode up to the castle, dismounted, and had the guards open the castle doors.

They were lead to a large waiting room with tall windows and lavish curtains. Decorative furniture complemented the soft pink carpet where they stood. The doors behind them closed as the doors to the left of them opened and in walked a handsome Weavile with a golden sash and crown.
“Medea, my beautiful little sister! You’ve matured I see,” Medea blushed and scoffed. “You are most appealing. Now what may I do for you this fine afternoon.” His voice fluttered with the masculinity that ran through his blood. The raspy voice matched with sneering proud smile. Medea giggled and replied,
“O, Aegeus- King Aegeus, you wooed me when I was younger, and still today wooed me with the same old flattery. It's no wonder you became King with that charm of yours." She sighed as she said nostalgically, "That charm can get you anywhere, and everywhere. But today it is I who needs a favor of you. You see, my husband, Jason the Weavile, left me for another woman, Princess Glauce. He stole my heart, and my children. I want, no need help in avenging my broken love. Help me destroy my husband and his newly found wife.” King Aegeus huffed and he thought. He sat in a grand chair and crossed his legs. He scratched in thought and pondered. He finally stood and with a hopeful smile said,
“Nope.” Medea’s jaw dropped and before she could ask the ever so important ‘why?’ he explained himself. “I won’t because simply you are my sister, and it wouldn’t be very right if I use my powers as a king to do such horrible deeds only because my little, unimportant sister wants me to. I’m terribly sorry for you, and about your problems, but I can’t, and won’t help you. Please, have a nice day and be on your way. I hope to see in you in the future with no problems so we may have a nice visit and have lunch; sound good? Good. But for now, I must leave; I have kingly things to attend to, like sleeping.” He smiled sarcastically, stood and then started walking away. Medea stuttered, but then leaped toward him and shouted,
“Please! Help me brother, I’ll do anything you wish of me, please!” She got on her knees and begged as Aegeus turned around. He rolled with eyes and sighed in disgrace as he thought again. Then, with a rise of one eyebrow he said,
“…Anything?” Medea gulped and nodded.

The next morning Medea awoke in the bed of King Aegeus. She felt uncertain, but satisfied. She turned around expecting to see and happy king, but no one was there. She sat up with the covers around her and looked around. King Aegeus was no where in the room. Then a click and turn of the doorknob; Medea took in an exited breath only to see it was a servant. She exhaled in distress as the servant greeted her.
“Lady Medea, the King has informed me that you need to leave the premises with haste. He’s terribly ill and feels disgusted with himself and you for his actions last night. He had been drinking, and was a little… uh tipsy.” Medea looked insulted as she questioned,
“Will he be true to his word?” The servant shook their head as they replied with a common, ‘no’. Medea stood and yelled,
“What kind of world is this when I get cheated out of everything!” the servant was startled. Other servants down the hall stopped what they were doing and listened as Medea screamed. “So I slept with my brother, your high and mighty King Aegeus, the all nice, ever caring King, who won’t help his own flesh and blood and even after a horrible stunt like this, for... for nothing?! Well you would be sadly mistaken if you believe for one second that I will let him get away with this act! He, my husband, Glauce, and all who had done me wrong will pay; they will pay with their tears, their love, their blood, and their souls. I will not let them live with what they have done to me! I may have been born unlucky, and a woman, but I will have my vengeance, I will have righteousness, I will have them trembling with fear when they hear the name Medea, Medea the powerful, Medea the strong, Medea the widow; O Medea, O Medea mastery of trickery, mastery of wit, mastery of…” she took a moment as evil gave birth in her thoughts. She curled a wicked smiled and said slowly and menacingly, “…poison.”

 

claim... wait is this finished? if not can you put some notification that its not finished

 

Later That Evening​

The Nurse walked steadily to Medea’s room with folded towels, warmly wrapped in her hands. She Opened the door handle with he small, round elbows and opened the door with her backside. She put on a façade of happiness and spoke,
“Lady Medea, I have warmed you bath, poured the salts in, and lit the candles, is there anything else I can-… Lady Medea?” The Nurse scanned the room for the up-tight, crazed Sneasel, but saw nothing. The only thing out of the ordinary was the window was left open. The curtains curled in the chilling breeze; the Nurse walked over to shut them. Silence. There was the sound of the wind pressing up against the glass, and the sound of water splashing in the warm pool down the hallway, but everything else seamed to be stunned. Nothing moved, nothing sounded, just silence. At first, for the Nurse, it was calming, but after a few seconds it became eerie. The Nurse looked around the room, trying to be as quiet as she could. She tip-toed on her black stubs and moved around with ease; Lady Sneasel had seamed to be missing.

The Nurse finally reached the glorious bed in the middle of the room. She pulled over the silky covers and found a letter. It was an open letter addressed to her. “Huh…?” she proclaimed with a puzzled face. She opened the Letter and read allowed.

“Dear my beloved Nurse,

You have cared for me for as long as I could remember. I can only start to dream of what kind of thanks I could give you, but lately I only dream of blood. You have been through disease, marriages, and hardships, and yet folded my clothes, made my meals, and cleaned my messes. You give me advice when asked for, you give me strength when I am weakened, and you lift my chin so I can keep my head high and press on. Life would not be what it is now without you. Other servants and maids are only petty help in the line of work you do. I am saddened to say your services are no longer necessary, please pack up your things and leave with the Ponyta you had ridden on to get to this city. That is my gift of thanks to you. I will be forever gracious to you for the rest of my life. I ask of you not to follow me. I am going to the school to see my three wonderful children, and send a gift to Princes Glauce and Jason. I already said my thanks to, the infatuated buffoon he may be, King Aegeus.​

Love Dearly and Forever
~ Lady Medea”​

The Nurse finished as stared blankly at the wall. She sat down, rubbed her head, and gave out an enormous sigh of relief. She smiled as she said, “This is the best day of my life.” She closed her eyes and soaked in the silence. Water splashing, wind blowing, trees rustling- shrieking. The Nurse’s eyes shot open and she jumped.

A maid ran from down the hallway and passed the room hysterically crying. The Nurse stood and walked to the doorway. Servants rushed around King Aegeus' room as other maids tried to comfort the distraught maid. The Nurse worriedly walked to the scene and peered into the Kings room. There was the body of King Aegeus laying face up in his blood stained bed. His brain had been cut out, pierced by a dagger, and stabbed into his crotch. The Nurse covered her mouth with her hands as she gasped and turned away. She calmed herself down as she started thinking. Who would do this- she looked up in turmoil, “Medea….” She said frighteningly. ‘Earlier today Medea said she would get her revenge… and now King Aegeus is dead.’ The Nurse thought to herself, as more and more servants came by, some calming others down, some to see what goes on, and some to cover up the body and dispose of it properly. The Nurse continued thinking; ]‘Medea also said she would get revenge on Jason, King Creon, and Princess Glauce… and in the letter she said she was sending them a gift-’ The Nurse gasped and stood sharply. “Medea’s going to kill them!”

Three Days Later​

The Nurse rode quickly on her tiring Ponyta. She didn’t have enough money to buy a boat ride to the island of Crete a few days before, but after some errands and a few quick jobs she had enough money. She had just arrived at Crete, a small, but wealthy island capable of becoming its own separate nation instead of sharing one with neighboring islands. The island was hot, the sun hung low skewing the Nurses vision, but she knew exactly where she was going. The hooves clattered on the ground as she made an abrupt stop in front of a tall stone building. Above the grand double doors hung a sign in Greek that read, “Olympus Education Center: Home of Heros and Emperors”. The Nurse leaped off of her Ponyta and dashed inside. She ran to the dorms section of the college and halted at the names chart. She searched quickly for the children’s names, and then off she was again. She hobbled back and forth in her cone shaped body. She slammed the door open and looked with her eyes wide open as her vision focused.

There were the three corpses of Medea’s children. One had bet cut at the neck with a dagger, the second had been slit at the wrists, and the third was had his tongue cut off. The Nurse turned away hysterical at the scene. She started sobbing as she fell to the ground in the middle of the hallway. Students passing by glanced at her with no thought soon huddled around her. The Nurse held her violet apron up to her face and let loose. Her wails echoed throughout the stone hallway of the college.

A Few Hours Later​

In a grand home on the island of Crete, Jason the Weavile carried his new wife, Princess Glauce into a majestic room. One wall was almost completely window with thin curtains flowing in the wind; shadows of trees and branches lightly darkened the curtains. King Creon, another Weavile, stood firmly in the doorway. He smiled with bliss as he watched his daughter laugh and flirt with Jason. Jason swung her around in playful fun as a servant interrupted their joy. They came in with a small package laced with a golden bow. The servant stood tall as they said, “A gift to Princess Glauce, from Lady Medea.”

Jason and Glauce looked at each other as Jason put her down. He walked over and opened the packaged box’s top carefully; paranoid that it would be a trick. He peered inside, and then happily threw the top off. He turned and showed it to his new wife and said, “Look, Glauce, a golden dress!”
“Oh my,” Princess Grace wooed. “Did she really send that?” The servant responded with a quick, “Yes, your ladyship.” Grace gave a sneered look at the servant for replying to a rhetorical question. She walked over and picked it up. “It’s so beautiful.” She said, stunned.
“Go ahead, go try it on.” Jason said. She frolicked away to a changing room as Jason and King Creon smiled at each other. They waited for a few minutes as Princess Glauce walked out of the changing room in the glorious golden dress. She posed, and then walked over to Jason. “Aren’t I awe-striking?” Jason scoffed as he replied,
“Aren’t you always?” Glauce started to fan herself as she chuckled. She kept fanning herself harder and harder as she started sweating. “My… it is really hot in here.” Jason’s eyebrow rose as he said, “It’s just fine in here, maybe it’s the dress?”

Glauce started picking and pulling at the dress as she said, “No this dress is hot… it’s starting to burn- ouch! It’s hurting me! Jason help, get it off!” She started panicking as she kept fanning, picking, and pulling. Jason hurriedly went over and tried to find a way to get it off of her, but was only getting in the way for Glauce trying to get it off herself. She started to yell louder as the dress started sizzling. King Creon watched in horror as patches of skin started falling from beneath the dress. Princess Glauce screamed as Jason’s hands became scabbed. Glauce fell on the ground and Jason started scratching and biting at the dress. What looked like steam smoked out from their skin. Jason rubbed his face on the dress gnawing at it. He yelled as he lifted his face; holes and flesh wounds protruded from his cheeks. More skin started falling off of his shoulders and chest as Glauce started look more like an image of those muscle systems in health classes. Her eyelids were gone, he nose had fallen off, her ears had melted away, and she screamed in sheer pain.

Laughter broke the shrills coming from Jason and Princess Glauce. From the darkest shadow in the curtains stood a figure of a Sneasel; holding its claws up I the air its’ shoulders shook with every laugh. A claw tore a hole through the curtain and there stood Medea. Jason looked at her, still holding his dying new wife as he said, “Why…?” Medea broke out in another, maniacal laugh as she whipped her claws even though there was nothing on them. Jason glared at her as more skin fell off. King Creon was now at their side trying to think of what he could do without touching the dress. Princess Glauce stopped screaming and moving as tears broke through Jason’s eyes. With his final breath and said, with sincere honesty and hatred, “Hell hath no fury like a woman Sneasel’s scorned.” Then he fell over lifeless, hands still over his dead wife. Medea leaped off out from the window and onto the ground below. He hopped up on her Ponyta and left the scene with a few tears, but with the greatest feeling of accomplishment. King Creon was left with two disturbing images of his once lovely and beautiful daughter, Princess Glauce, and his new a loveable son, Jason the Weavile. The images scarred his brain as he cried out. He took his own claws and gouged out his eyes so he would never have to look at anything again. He stood up and spoke aloud, “I vow, as King, father, and as any sensible human being, to destroy Lady Medea, and have righteousness to this grim hour. I will never rest, never sleep, I will pursue my wrath to its fullest extent. I have gouged out my eyes so I will forever be tormented with having my last sight being the sight of my wondrous daughter and her great husband.”

The Next Morning​

Medea rode swiftly to mount Olympus as she realized what exactly she had done in the past few days. Her sanity started coming back, but only in small chunks and it would never return completely. After a night of remorse she decided the only thing to do no was to ask the Gods for redemption, forgiveness, and ask for her salvation back, and she would rather die, than be forsaken.

A few hours afterwards Medea had finally calmed down. She started feeling grief over lost love for her husband and felt horrible pain for killing her three sons. She climbed a snow-peaked mountain and left her Ponyta behind. He only took with her a golden dagger and the ripped clothes on her back. She hiked up the treacherous mountain with only a couple things in mind; redemption, or death.

 

(almost forgot this :x )


Ready to Grade
Pokemon: Sneasel
Characters: 22,185

 

Claimed for grading.
Watch this space! Shouldn't be more than a day.

(edit)
Whoops. Didn't see Sorocoroto's previous claim. Er, you still want it? Sorry.

 

Well he said he'd get it done Wednesday... (which for me right now is today) so if one of either of you want to do it go ahead. I'd talk to him if I were you and make sure if you're going to do it he hasn't started grading it already.

 

Sorry, if you see my sig, i'm in finals week at my college so i had to take a little break, tara you can take this if you want

 

Okay, grade.

INTRO
My initial thoughts as I start to read this story: Okay, we've got a summary of the setting and an introduction of the protagonist- a Pokemon in a dress. A Greek Pokemon in a dress. A Greek Pokemon in a dress who is apparently a crossover with the myth of Medea. And now she's dead. This is going to be interesting.

This intro could go from just interesting to fascinating if you fix a few errors:

WARNING: NITPICKING AHEAD.

=Inappropriate or jarring word usage. This is the beginning of the story, so you should be on your very best behavior grammatically and idiomatically. First impressions, you know.
---"Scout" isn't used for inanimate objects, and isn't entirely a movement verb.
---"Musky" does technically mean "smelly" in the context of animals, but it'll take most readers a while to remember that. It might break suspension of disbelief.
---"Burn pits" doesn't sound as properly mythical as e.g. "fiery pits." Also, "burn" isn't an adjective.
---"Overcast" is an adjective. You'd need to add an noun to it: "bellowed from the formerly-overcast sky."

=Grammar: the Internet writer's bane.
---"Snow covered" should be "Snow-covered," with a hyphen.
---"once upper class" should be "once-upper-class" or "formerly upper-class." "Once" requires a hyphen, but so does "upper-class," so you should swap out "once" to avoid awkwardness. Too many hyphens makes it look weird.
---"argued in debate" is redundant. Also, what is the sky arguing with? Itself? This would need to be noted: "She looked at the grumbling sky as it argued with itself."
---"blood stained" -> "blood-stained."
---"spoke in solemn thought." I'd personally think this combination is awkward, but I suspect that's just me. You can go with it or address the discrepancy between speaking and thinking somehow.
---"Oh, Zeus..." This is the world of myth and legend! You want myth-ey language: "O Zeus..."
---"it feels like an eternity will hear my calling!" I'm not sure what this phrase means.
---"got not of." Searching this phrase brings up this very story as the seventh result on Google at the time of writing. ...that's not a good sign. I think you were going for the really old-fashioned English. Could've sworn I heard this phrase somewhere too. Still, it's best to change it. You're going for parallel structure in this sentence, but it's getting a little awkward so I suggest breaking it up: "I have asked for help, and gotten none. I have wished for vengeance to be given to me, and been forced to claim it myself. Now I, Medea..."
---"bounded to" should be "bonded to." Spelling typo. You shouldn't end a sentence with "to," though. Try: "...freedom from the burn(ing) pits to which I am bound."
---"And to summarize my apologetic wrath." Stylistic note here: when you're angry, you don't talk like this- it's too meta. It's certainly not mythical. Medea wouldn't announce that she's going to quote something. She's just going to quote it straight off: "(...to be bounded to.) Indeed, hell hath no fury like a she-Sneasel scorned!" If you want to mention Jason, then do so with an indirect quote: "Jason spoke the truth."
---"NOT forgiving you" should be "NOT forgiven you." If you like, you can also swap out the Caps Lock for bold or italics tags.
---"NOT forgiving you, you are bound to walk..." This is a comma splice, where you straight-up connect two sentences with only a comma. Possible corrections: semicolon, period, or semicolon plus word like "indeed."
---"Princes" is a misspelled "Princess."
---"Suffer forever, just like their souls..." It might sound cooler to have Zeus say "just as their souls."
---"their souls will suffer as they've been murdered..." This is bordering on a run-on sentence. I'd rewrite thus: "Suffer forever, just as their souls now suffer in the underworld through your lust for revenge." Note also: "greedy lust" is pretty much redundant.
---"clinched." You probably meant "clenched."
---"screamed like Harpies." There's a conflict here between single Medea and plural Harpies. You need to do either: "screamed like a harpy" (singular, lowercase) or "screamed like the Harpies." (collective, uppercase)
---"The clouds covered back up showing the Gods could've cared less anymore now that it was over." Multiple problems. Clouds don't cover back up; gods are lowercase; the slangy terms don't fit. Try: "The clouds covered the sky again, betraying the apathy of the gods."
---"warm, satisfied body of, Medea the Sneasel." Here, you're trying to be dramatic about the introduction of your character and just who (and what) she is. However, though you'd pause if you were reading this aloud, there shouldn't be a comma: "warm, satisfied body of Medea the Sneasel." You might also want to find some way to emphasize the irony of the fact that she's warm and satisfied even though she's dead. Still, why would she be warm and satisfied? She was denied forgiveness from the gods and decided to go straight to her punishment.

=Allusions. You're calling on the rich heritage of Western culture to make your story awesome. It's a time-honored technique, so it's important to get your allusions right.
---"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is a paraphrase of a line from a play written in 1697 by William Congreve. I guess it's okay to have it attributed to Jason, since lots of people say it.
---Medea only had two sons.
---It's Princess Glauce, not Princess Grace.

=When did it start snowing? It certainly wasn't snowing in the first sentence.

=Parts I really liked about the intro on first reading:
---The Greek thing. Fun times.
---Colorful description.
---Colorful text! Nice! One suggestion: maybe you could slightly change Medea's dialogue to something not so close to the blue narration. That way, it will pop out more. For instance, in "red-letter" Bibles all words spoken by Jesus Christ are printed in red to stand out against the regular black text.

That's it for the intro. I won't be doing such in-depth grammar dissection in the rest of the story- it's most important in the beginning, after all.
Now I actually have to read the rest of the story. Okay, here goes!
...right, I finished reading. Let's see, now...

PLOT

Looks to me like you decided to go for a retelling of Medea's myth, but with all the characters swapped out for Pokemon. This is a good thing, sure, but... I'd been hoping (somewhat unrealistically, I'll admit) for a story that examined how Pokemon would actually function in a mythical setting. What do I mean? Well, aside from occasional mentions to claws and feathers, this story wouldn't have lost anything if all the characters had been human anyway. I wanted to see how, for instance, a Sneasel with its particular characteristics and personality (like as mentioned in Pokedex entries, etc.) would behave in Medea's situation. For a story posted to a Pokemon forum, I was, you know, hoping for a little more Pokemon flavor. These were my expectations, not yours. You did what you expected to do: retell Medea's story with all the gore and antiheroic actions we see in Greek myth. I think may have gone a little overboard in your description of the violence and that thing with Aegeus, but hey, it's Greek myth after all. It works. I do have some issues with how it was told, though:

Oh, um, before that, there was one thing about the format of your story. You open with Medea's suicide, and then do a flashback for the rest of the story. This is fine. You need a ending with a little more punch, though. Maybe you could end the story with Medea picking up that very knife with which she kills herself. Be all ominous and foreshadow-ey. It's part of the fun.

DIALOGUE

Right, the issues I had. One thing was the dialogue. Two things about it caught my eye.

=Style. This story isn't as mythical as I'd assumed from the intro. You've modernized it. However, your dialogue kind of wavers between modern style and literary style:
(Quotes corrected for grammar and spelling)

This is old-style talk.

Not so old.

We can make it sound old-style. Here's an example:

Most of your characters talk fancy. They're royalty, so that's the right thing to do. Sometimes they lapse, like I just mentioned in the two quotes above. That's easily fixed, as I've mentioned too. If you've written like that for three-quarters of the story, fixing the other quarter is easy as pie.

I'm concerned about King Aegeus's dialogue, though. He talks like a standard twenty-first-century "smug jerk" character. If you do this, you're going to have to run with it. Make him seem a little different from the other characters. I don't mean, um, sleeping with his sister; that's a perfectly Greek-myth thing to do. There has to be something "other" about him for him to talk like he's several centuries ahead of everyone else. I think it'd be much more fun simply to translate that "smug jerk" dialogue into the slightly flowery and old-fashioned language you're using, though. Jason has similar problems.

One other thing: when these guys talk like fancy-pants literary characters, they need the grammar and punctuation to go with it. This kind of dialogue sounds significantly less refined when you've got comma splices, misplaced punctuation, and spelling errors. It's not hard to fix. Here's an example, taken from Medea's first hissy-fit. The grammar's not entirely standard because she's going insane, after all, but it's still more "correct":

=Meaning is the other thing about the dialogue.
Some words aren't the best choice for what these characters are saying. Here's an example:

We can imply from what Medea's saying that Aegeus was apparently attracted to his sister for years, and flirted with her all the time. If Medea says that that charm can get him anywhere, then surely this means he got somewhere with her as well. However, she behaves the morning after as if that night was the first (and only) time. This is a matter of word choice and ambiguity. It can be rewritten to be a little tighter and remove the implication that Medea and Aegeus did anything in the past. Perhaps they did anyway, but for the sake of Medea feeling used the next morning it shouldn't be mentioned. Here's one way:

You could also stand to adjust the font colors a little. Maybe it's because I'm using the default forum style (green background) but I'm having some difficulty reading some of the lines. Still, your color-scheme idea is really good. You got away with not paragraph-breaking like most people do and still having it look understandable. Still, next time, remember: One line of dialogue per paragraph, and double-line break after each paragraph.

GRAMMAR

As I've already mentioned, there's examples all over the place. It's not enough to totally derail my attempt to read the story smoothly, but you should probably make another run-through of this story with a spelling and grammar checker. Also watch for homophones- "read allowed" is marked as correct by spell-check but really should be "read aloud."

Here are the most jarring problems, by which I mean the ones that interrupted the flow of the story:

This sentence begins an entire section of your story. It has to be perfect. We have here: redundancy (quiet and tip-toed) word choice (footsteps can't tip-toe, though they can echo) and general errors (no "the" before marble; comma before Jason). Also, a few sentences later you have this Snorunt "rushing." You can't tip-toe and rush at the same time. You'd need to mention for consistency reasons that the Snorunt broke into a run or something. I probably wouldn't have noticed (or cared) about this otherwise, but since these sentences are setting the scene for this section of the story, they're more important.

Broiling (or, rather, boiling) blood usually means anger. However, Aegeus isn't angry. Try another word.

I don't know if letters can be ended this way. Pick one of "dearly" or "forever," and drop the other one.

The word "tiresome" means "annoying" and "boring." The word you want is "tiring." The thought of a tiresome Ponyta, possibly slinging lame puns at her rider, made me smile. However, it also drew me out of the story.

Grocer's apostrophe! (KILL IT WITH FIRE!) The Grocer's apostrophe is an apostrophe placed to make a plural when it shouldn't be. For instance, "Fresh Apple's only $0.99." The plural of "hero" is "heroes."

Final paragraph! Your tense error (should've been "what exactly she had done") sticks out more than it would have.

DETAIL

Your descriptions are pretty good:
=The beginning was good. Evocative desolate landscape.
=The characters were pretty clearly defined in appearance.
=Gruesome death scenes.

There are a few little things that could be improved.
=Children. We don't even know their names or what species they are!
=More Greek-ness. You could describe togas or other things to give it more atmosphere. Even if it's a modernized myth, you could still make an allusion or two.

CHARACTERIZATION

These characters and their stereotypes were already established centuries ago. You do a decent job of invoking them. Vengeful, mad Medea. Jason the uncaring. The faithful nurse (don't know if Medea had one). Creon and Glauce were bit characters, so there's no need to look at them too closely.

The nurse was a good supporting character. She cares for her boss. However, why is she happy to receive the letter? It could be because she doesn't want to work for Medea anymore. However, it could also be because she's happy to finally be appreciated. This needs to be made clear.

Interesting thing: King Aegeus is a new character who didn't exist in the myth (see next section). You have him as a smarmy jerk who backstabs people. He's fun!

Also: the gods. Are they Pokemon too?

LENGTH

21592- I think our character counters work differently. Perhaps you counted your text-color tags. Not too big a difference, though.
Single capture.
Sneasel-HARD: 20-30K
Your story is long enough. No worries!

PLAUSIBILITY

There are some consistency problems, and a few more allusion difficulties that weren't in the intro.

=Consistency
---Is Medea a barbarian or not? You suggest in the intro that she turned into a barbarian after the murders, but Jason already refers to her as a barbarian. In the original myth, she's the daughter of a king.
---Medea thinks that riding a Ponyta makes her husband a bit of a barbarian himself. Why, then, would she ride one? I kind of addressed this in the edit of that paragraph earlier in this grade.
---I think you confused Kings Creon and Aegeus, where Aegeus is mistakenly referred to as Creon during the "Later That Evening" scene. This confused me a lot because I thought Creon died twice and wondered how you'd managed that. The guy who was impaled with his own brain should be Aegeus.
---Why does nobody care that the nurse is wailing in the halls of a school?
---What happened to the nurse in the end? Did she follow the letter's instructions?
---Why aren't Ponyta wandering around ancient Greece, killing each other, sleeping with random women, and angsting? Or maybe... they're sentient too, but enslaved to carry their masters around? That would be interesting. Maybe you could give a Ponyta a line or two just to establish that they're people too.
---Would Medea rest after that first crazy rant? I thought she'd go straight for Athens. Also, there's no need to fetch the Ponyta if you're not leaving until the next day.

=Allusions
---Again, the quote is "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." In other words, the subject isn't the woman's scorn, but the woman that has been scorned. "Scorned" is an adjective. Keep that in mind when adding the Sneasel part.
---Aegeus is actually Medea's second husband, not her brother. Changing this is a use of your artistic license. Perfectly fine.
---I believe the original sabotaged dress set its wearer on fire. It wasn't poison, but magic, since Medea was a sorceress. Jason didn't die from the dress, either. Again, this is artistic license. Your adaptation of the myth doesn't have to be exactly the same. For Medea to kill everyone makes the vengeance more powerful.

OVERALL

I wanted to love this story. It turned out that it wasn't what I was looking for, and so I was disappointed. My fault. Reading through it carefully for the detailed grading, though, got me to lighten up a little. It's something else than what I'd thought it would be, and this something else... not bad!

Also: I'm somewhat familiar with Iason and Medea and went straight to the Wikipedia entry after reading the intro to refresh my memory. This severely influenced my first impressions of the story, and, as I've said, that's my problem and not yours. As a stand-alone story outside the context of Greek mythology, I would say it's pretty good.

FINAL DECISION

On the thread about grading, it says that URPG stories have to be about catching a Pokemon. Most stories end with a Poke Ball sitting there, shaking. Mine do.

You bucked this trend. If I can put it into a useful metaphor...

Unfortunately, I felt that this story isn't quite there when it comes to sheer awesome. The biggest thing is the Aegeus-Creon mixup. You also need to polish the intro and do a story-wide spelling and grammar check. Make it a little more awesome, and you're golden.

Conclusion:

Spoiler

Capture failed. Sorry...

 

Regrade!

Compiling...

The question here is: is it better?
Some new grammatical errors were introduced in your corrections. That's par for the course on the Internets, but it also shows that you didn't just carbon-copy my suggested corrections and put them in. I'm only human, and I'm a very inexperienced Grader, so it's good that you're not treating my reviews as holy writ or something.

So... is it better?

Spoiler

It's better. The story flows a bit more smoothly, and the consistency problems are largely gone.

...

You get a Sneasel! Next time, if you're going to do a story without a capture, maybe you should do one or more rounds of proofreading (or even getting someone to beta-read for you) to make sure it's properly excellent.

 

Grades are holy, duh! Also I should get someone to read through next time. I've asked people before in the past, but the best things I got back were 'yea, looks cool...' so next time I'll ask... oh I don't know, YOU! (maybe, I might ask another person first if she ever gets online and has time anymore [hinthint FFK]) thanks again for the regrade :]

 

No problem!