Necro Pheonix Posted May 1, 2010 Report Share Posted May 1, 2010 Well, let's give this a shot... [spoiler=Plot]The time for the legendary shaman fight has come again. But, this time, the Great Spirit has had different plans than just shamans participating. The Great Spirit has opened the doors from several dimensions; Bleach, Shaman King, Naruto, Yugioh 5D's, and One Piece. Competitors from all 5 dimensions have gathered to compete for the ultimate prize, the ability to change the world how you want it. [spoiler=Prologue:Shaman King]As he lay staring at the stary sky, Yoh Asakura realized that 'Wooden Sword' Ryu and Tao Ren were approaching behind him. Yoh sat up and looked at the two with dazed eyes. "Hey guys...what's up?" Yoh said distantly when Manta Oyamada came running to them. "Oh...Hey Manta..." Yoh said and smiled. "Y-Yoh! Your dad! Your dad wants to talk to you!" Manta said with exasperation. "My dad?" Yoh said with disbelief. "It's true Chief! He sent us to find you." Ryu said, both him and Ren calm. Ren said nothing, but had his usual hard stare set on Yoh. "It's about the Great Spirit." Ren said and started to walk away. "The Great Spirit? What's this all about?" Yoh said, starting to get intersted. "I wish I knew, Chief, but he wanted all of us to be there." Ryo said, and after that, no one said anything until they reached a small hut. As they walked inside it, Micky Asakura sat in the center of a small room with Shamanic drawings and a wood fire in front of him. "Ah, great to see you, son." Micky said, sounding pleased. "What is this all about dad?" Yoh interrogated. "Yoh, dont sound so angry, he's your dad, remember?" Manta said, worried about Yoh and how distant he has been since the shaman fight ended. "It's ok Manta. I needed you all here to inform you that the Great Spirit is starting the largest shaman fight in the history of any dimension." Everyone let out a gasp at the same moment and everyone was too shocked to say anything. "The Great Spirit has informed me that there shall be a battle across 5 dimensions. Ours, and 4 others. The winner shall be the new King." Micky informed everyone about the details, the kinds of dimensions, fights, and so forth. At the end Ren asked the question everyone was thinking. "The Shaman Fight is only supposed to exist every 500 years, why is the Great Spirit creating another one so soon?!" Micky sighed, "I dont know, but it must have it's reasons. It will alert you all when it starts. Best of luck. And Yoh, son, be carefull." Yoh glared at Micky and walked out of the tent, the others following close behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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CrabHelmet Posted May 9, 2010 Report Share Posted May 9, 2010 The world of Fan Fiction is a wide and varied realm. You have your adventure fanfics that flesh out an amazing and colourful world. You have your character study fanfics that explore the protagonist in ways the original author never imagined. You have your tender romantic shipping fanfics that depict a warm and fuzzy relationship between two characters that make an excellent pairing. And you have your comedy fanfics that can make the reader laugh out loud. Unfortunately, that's not all you have. You also have your fanfics that grasp the English language so badly that you begin to wonder what language they are actually written in. You have your fanfics in which a new Mary Sue appears and destroys the entire actual cast. You have your fanfics in which characters' actual personalities and histories are completely mangled to the point where they may as well be someone totally different with a similar name. You have your fanfics with totally nonsensical relationships, where the author suddenly reveals that McCoy and Snape are secretly lovers. You have your fanfics where so little follows logically that it can barely be called a story; where flat and bland characters perform mundane activities that nobody cares about; where the canon story is rehashed so directly that one wonders what the fan actually contributed; and where mediocrity is so omnipresent that one cannot find the interest to continue reading. If you are a fan of quality fanfics but you are a foe of mediocre-to-bad fanfics, then you've come to the wrong place - because today is a day for Foe Fiction. Before we begin, I would just like to note something that won't be obvious during my commentary: this story does not contain paragraph breaks. None. The author doesn't seem to have found the "enter" key on his keyboard, so bear in mind that the whole story I'm quoting below is clumped into a single wall of text with no formatting. And that's terrible. Let's begin. Plot I will never understand why people insist on having a separate "Plot" section before the first chapter, especially when that "Plot" section invariably consists of information that one would learn simply by reading the first chapter. The time for the legendary shaman fight has come again. But, this time, the Great Spirit has had different plans than just shamans participating. Then it's not much of a shaman fight, is it? The Great Spirit has opened the doors from several dimensions; Bleach, Shaman King, Naruto, Yugioh 5D's, and One Piece. Competitors from all 5 dimensions have gathered to compete for the ultimate prize, the ability to change the world how you want it. I thought in shonen series you always had the ability to change the world in whatever way you wanted as long as you were hot-blooded and determined enough about it and were able to shout the names of your attacks loudly enough. Anyhow, this Great Spirit chap is reminding me of Deus Ex Machina from Mirai Nikki. Mercifully, this was the end of Chapter Plot, but so little was said that I cannot fathom the point of its existence. All it said was "This is Shaman King but crossover'd", which Chapter Prologue makes evident enough. And it's not like it's such an original and complex plot that readers will get confused without having it explained to them several times. Prologue:Shaman King We have a prologue as well as Chapter Plot? I wonder if we'll ever reach Chapter 1. As he lay staring at the stary We're sorry, no results for "stary" were found in our dictionary. Did you mean this? Or this? sky, Yoh Asakura realized that 'Wooden Sword' Ryu and Tao Ren were approaching behind him. Yoh sat up and looked at the two with dazed eyes. "Hey guys...what's up?" Yoh said distantly when Manta Oyamada came running to them. "Oh...Hey Manta..." Yoh said and smiled. I'm already getting bored of this awkward writing where people just come up to each other for no reason and say nothing and nothing happens and it's not clear why we needed to see this and the writing style is mildly painful to read. To relieve the tedium, I've decided to picture this scene as if Manta were Yuno Gasai, in keeping with my thoughts on the Great Spirit. "Y-Yoh! Manta: "What are you doing talking to other people, Yoh-kun?" *produces knife*Yoh: "No, it's all a misunderstanding! It's not like that! I'm not-"Manta: *stabs Ryu and Ren* "Yoh-kun is mine!" Your dad! Your dad wants to talk to you!" Manta said with exasperation. "Exasperation" seems out of place here. Manta just ran over in what appeared to be mild panic and shouted this summons at Yoh without even saying hello. That seems like a situation where urgency is appropriate, not exasperation. "My dad?" Yoh said with disbelief. Yoh: "I find it impossible that my father could actually want to talk to me! You must be lying!" Since that makes no sense at all, I'm going to assume that Yoh is skeptical because he thinks that there's no way that such an obsessive yandere like Manta could possibly have wanted to talk to people other than himself. "It's true Chief! He sent us to find you." Ryu said, Shut up, you're dead, Manta stabbed you. both him and Ren calm. Ren said nothing, but had his usual hard stare set on Yoh. "It's about the Great Spirit." Ren said How can he say nothing and also say something and have nothing happen between these two actions? I don't think I need to ask at this point whether anyone actually proofread this; it wasn't even run through Microsoft Word's spellchecker. and started to walk away. "The Great Spirit? What's this all about?" Yoh said, starting to get intersted. Yoh's interest only just barely begins to be captured when he hears that something urgent is happening involving a powerful god, and yet when this scene started he was content to lie on his back staring at the Staryu in the sky. I would have said that this sort of complete failure of prioritization made no sense, but considering that Manta has a similar problem, placing Yoh leagues above all else in terms of interest and stabbing anyone who gets between them, I suppose some of Manta's insanity could have rubbed off on Yoh by this point. "I wish I knew, Chief, but he wanted all of us to be there." Ryo said, and after that, no one said anything until they reached a small hut. Having finished Scene 1, I really have to ask: What was the point of that whole scene? We had some guy on his own, then some people come up to him, then some other person comes up to him too and stabs those other people, then everyone says they need to go talk to the first guy's father, then they go off and now they're here to talk to that guy's father. Why was this scene considered necessary? There was no character development. There was no plot development beyond "We need to talk to dad", which could have been conveyed by opening with the scene where they're already, you know, talking to dad. And this utterly pointless scene took up about half the chapter. When half a chapter is utterly pointless, something is horribly, horribly wrong. Get to the point and don't bore the reader with this awkward, irrelevant nonsense. As they walked inside it, Micky Asakura sat in the center of a small room with Shamanic drawings and a wood fire in front of him. "Ah, great to see you, son." Micky said, sounding pleased. "What is this all about dad?" Yoh interrogated. I'm in two minds about what to say here. On the one hand, the word "interrogated" is so horribly awkward and out of place here that even assuming there was no proofreading I'm still amazed it was ever written on the first place. On the other hand, this is the first time our author has been daring enough to use a verb other than "said" to indicate that someone is talking, and I don't want to discourage him from venturing away from the endless wall of Saids to which the rest if this story has subjected us. Basically, the only advice I can give is to actually become fluent in English and learn what does and doesn't sound right. "Yoh, dont sound so angry, he's your dad, remember?" Manta said, worried about Yoh and how distant he has been since the shaman fight ended. Manta: "And remember, if he gets in our way, I can always stab him too~" Micky: "You wish. Mi- Mi- Mickyru Beam!" Manta: *dies* "It's ok Manta. I needed you all here to inform you that the Great Spirit is starting the largest shaman fight in the history of any dimension." I still don't understand how a fight in which 80% of the competitors are not shamans can be reasonably called a shaman fight, but who am I to interrogate our author's word choice? Everyone let out a gasp at the same moment and everyone was too shocked to say anything. That never happened. Like the dramatic-random-hood-removal, this is one of those things that is acceptable on a television screen because it looks dramatic but is just plain silly when written in text form. And it's still cheesy even on television. "The Great Spirit has informed me that there shall be a battle across 5 dimensions. Ours, and 4 others. Micky's wisdom allowed him to discern that one plus four equals five. The winner shall be the new King." Micky informed everyone about the details, the kinds of dimensions, fights, and so forth. Everyone except the readers, unfortunately. It seems like every Foe Fiction includes some place where a character is stated to reveal information or remember information or something, but the author doesn't feel like actually telling the audience what that information is. Because of this, we don't actually find out what dimensions are involved in the actual story; we need to carry that information down from Chapter Plot. And that's terrible. But that's not the only problem: At the end Ren asked the question everyone was thinking. Ren: "If the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's dimension fights battles solely through card games and the other dimensions fight battles purely through actual fighting, then how on earth are the 5D's contestants supposed to fight anyone else!?" Well, I don't know about "everyone", but that's the question I was thinking. It looks like a serious problem to me, and one that I have no confidence that the author has actually thought about. Of course, Micky has supposedly explained on-camera the types of fights and such, so by all rights we should have information about how this is supposed to work, but the author didn't actually care to share Micky's explanation with us, and in doing so he has created two problems: the overt one that the reader doesn't know what's going on when he should, and the more subtle one that the author doesn't need to actually figure out what's going on because he's not telling the reader anything anyhow and thus overlooks this major problem. "The Shaman Fight is only supposed to exist every 500 years, why is the Great Spirit creating another one so soon?!" Micky sighed, "I dont know, The one time we get an actual quote from Micky, it's him not actually giving any information? It's like this prologue is actively trying to be as uninformative an exposition chapter as it possibly can be. but it must have it's reasons. It will alert you all when it starts. Best of luck. And Yoh, son, be carefull." Yoh glared at Micky and walked out of the tent, the others following close behind. And thus we finally end this chapter on a spelling mistake. Seriously, spellcheckers exist. Use them. The story is poorly-thought-out, spends the whole chapter going nowhere, is riddled with the most awkward wording imaginable, consists primarily of filler that serves no actual purpose, cannot possibly have been proofread, is a single hideous wall of text with no paragraph breaks, and is generally lacking in redeeming qualities. Crab Helmet glared at Necro Phoenix and walked out of the topic, the others following close behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Necro Pheonix Posted May 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2010 Well, I must thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed report, and read the whole thing despite the fact that you most likely puked afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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