Green With Envy: Crab Helmet's Foe Fiction! {Rise of the Dragon Lords}

[CrabHelmet]

I think I'm going to have trouble coming up with titles for a lot of Season 2. What's special about 29?

 

[spoiler=Star Wars Episode XXIX: A Noob Hope - {Super Mario Galaxy}]Next up is Super Mario Galaxy by tyler924.

 

YCM forums. You will never find a more wretched hive of hacks and morons. And this is a Mario / Star Wars crossover fanfic that begins with a "proluge" that has no line breaks whatsoever. I have a bad feeling about this.

 

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away,

 

I find your lack of exact quotes disturbing.

 

a war that had been raging for centuries finally came to an end.

 

Mmm. Lost a war, one side has. How embarrassing. How embarrassing.

 

It was a battle of good and evil. A corrupt republic

 

If the republic is corrupt, then how can you say it's "good" without qualification? Only a bad writer speaks in absolutes!

 

was fighting the evel separatists.

 

From your point of view, the separatists are spelled E-V-E-L? Then you are lost!

 

The war raged on for what seemed to be a never ending time.

 

You already said it lasted for centuries. Tyler, I suggest a new strategy: let the Wookie read a less repetitive story.

 

The jedi, masters of the force, aided the republic. However, many turned to the separatists in seek of pure power.

 

Good! Their hate has made them more powerful.

 

During the war, jedi master Anakin Skywalker joined the dark side as well.

 

Is there any real need to recap the canon Star Wars events like Anakin turning evil that everyone already knows? Remember, a writer's strength flows from the words. But beware. Repetition, mediocrity, exposition. The Dark Side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your writing. Tyler... Tyler... do not... do not underestimate the tedium of the repetition or suffer a hack's fate you will.

 

He was thought to be defeated by His teacher, Obi wan Kenobi,

 

The incorrect capitalization is strong with this one!

 

but was saved by the separatists who nurtured him back to health. It was then that he sought his revenge.

 

The revenge came afterward? I always thought that that happened at the end of the revenge of the Sith.

 

He attacked the republic, and destroyed many of the jedi with his army.

 

When it comes to overly-recapping the movies, here's my advice: do, or do not. In fact, just do not.

 

Before joining the dark side, he had fallen in love with padme amidilla, a senator from a distant planet.

 

More unnecessary recapping. Yahoo. Your point isn't all clear, kid. This thing blows; let's go home.

 

Together, they had a child,

 

Just one?

 

Luke: "But I have a sister!"

 

Mm. To protect her from the Author, she was hidden from the writer when you were born. The Author knew, as I did, that if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be put in a bad story. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous, to the point where the person writing this isn't even aware of her existence. She is safe from this bad writing.

 

who one day grew up to become a powerful jedi as well. The child's name was Luke, and he eventually met up with his father. He was brought to anakin's leader, and was going to be killed. Anakin could not watch his son be destroyed, and so he killed his master. Sadly, he too was wounded, and killed.

 

Enough of this! Tyler - and Tyler's unnamed brother - you don't need to recap the original movies!

 

We don't need to recap the original movies.

 

This is not the writing style you're looking for.

 

This is not the writing style we're looking for.

 

Don't force us to read this! Let us go about our business!

 

He can go about his business.

 

Now stop wasting our time with this drivel. Move along! Move along!

 

After this victory, Luke celebrated with his friends. They celebrated their victory

 

Now you're recapping YOURSELF. Maybe I should try recapping the last sentence of my commentary. It might be a good idea for me to try recapping the last sentence of my commentary. Perhaps I should recap my commentary. Recapping myself might be a good idea. Incidentally, 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 endless recapping.

 

over the separatists, and thought that there would finally be some peace.

 

This obvious statement is my kind of scum: not even remotely inventive.

 

Hundreds of years passed, and a new order was established. A king and queen were carefully selected to rule over the universe.

 

Wait, a king and a queen were "carefully selected"? How does that work exactly? I mean, I know Naboo has an elected monarch or something stupid like that, but even so, it doesn't make sens- NOBLESSE OBLIGE. PLEASE CONTINUE TO BE A MESSIAH.

 

They strived to contain the peace of the universe, and did so for a time. But, soon they grew old,

 

That's fair. Sick have they become, old and weak... When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not, hmm? Speaking of which, this introduction feels like it took nine hundred years to get to this actual content, and sick have I become of it. I was starting to think that it might be a good idea to start recapping my commentary.

 

and knew that their daughter Peach would soon have to rule. They knew she would be a fine ruler, and could do more than they could have ever imagined.

 

Either Peach's character is being severely derailed or these rules are unable to imagine a simple kidnapping. Then again, I suppose that's understandable. It's their imagination, kid. Come on. It's fine to keep a little optimism here.

 

But, little did they know that in the deep reaches of space, a dark ruler was thwarting to take over the universe,

 

OF COURSE!

 

..wait a minute. "Thwarting"? You are unwise to raise your defenses. Against proofreading.

 

and seize complete control. Every day, his strength was growing until he would finally be strong enough to destroy the powerful order that had formed. And thus, the story began.

 

No, seriously, that was the prologue. Seventy-five percent of it was a rehash of the actual movies that anyone who might actually want to read a Star Wars fanfic would already know. Let me recap the remaining twenty-five percent for you:

 

1) Peach is a princess.

2) A villain exists.

 

Thanks for that brilliant storytelling, champ. What was the point of all this, Tyler?

 

I've been waiting for you, Crab Helmet. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the reader; now I am the writer.

 

Only a writer of garbage, Tyler. I trust the actual first chapter is better than the "proluge"? Or is it just as bad? Does it need my commentary too? Or is it all right?

 

Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.

 

Then what happened to make the "proluge" so awful?

 

Uh, we had a slight stuff-actually-happening malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. It's fine. It's all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

 

We're sending a reviewer up.

 

Episode 1: Maintaining The Peace

A large ship patrols the galaxy, helping to maintain peace in the galaxy.

 

There are paragraph breaks formatted like a regular document, but the fact that forums don't display indents makes it a hideous wall of text that wraps at random times! Even though this might indicate that this was typed in a word processor like MSWord, a quick skim for those red wavy underlines shows that MSWord's spellchecker still went unused! The present tense is being used for no logical reason - in fact, the setting of this story ("long ago" according to the proluge, and "a long time ago" according to the films) makes this one of the only places where the present tense is not only awkward but also strictly wrong! And the very first sentence even recaps the chapter title!

 

That's it. I can't read any further. We haven't even gotten to the real crossover and it's already too awful to read. But how could they be writing something this terrible... if they don't know we're coming?

 

Everything that has sucked has done so according to my design. Your fellow reviewers, up there on the Post Reply screen, are reading into a trap, as are your readers. It was I who allowed Foe Fiction to know the location of this horrible fanfic. It is quite safe from your pitiful little reviewers. An entire legion of my worst mistakes awaits them. Oh, I'm afraid the blatant spelling errors will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

 

DO NOT WANT!

 

Yes, you really thought you'd be able to make it through this story, didn't you? Your overconfidence is your weakness.

 

Your faith in your writing skills is yours. If you think something of this quality is acceptable, I'm afraid you're gravely mistaken. I don't need to read any further into the first chapter to know that it can't be anything better than horrible unless it got an author transplant. The proluge waffled on in an unreadable wall of text saying nothing new, recapping the prequel trilogy, the original trilogy, and other parts of the proluge (which gave me the idea of recapping my commentary) before going on to state the blatantly obvious.

 

You can't win, Crab. If you strike my proluge down, Episode 1 shall become more terrible than you could possibly imagine.

 

And it did, turning the unreadability up to eleven. Traveling through awful stories ain't like dusting crops, boy! Besides, continuing through that mess ain't my idea of courage. It's more like suicide. Great shot at writing something terrible, kid, that was one in a million! A Mario / Star Wars crossover is a pretty stupid idea from the start, but this piece became impossible before the crossover even really emerged. I give up. I can't go any further. Help me, Phantom Roxas; you're my only hope.

 

 

 

In other news, the maadd1 wants me to take down The 27 Club because he apparently didn't mean he wanted that much criticism and critique when he explicitly stated without prompting that he would accept criticism and critique. Anyhow, since he did give permission and I put way more time, effort, and quality into my review than he did into the story, it's staying.

[legendhiro]

pure genius.

[evilfusion]

Amazing how you managed to slip Star Wars quotes into virtually every sentence of the review, for better or worse.

[Nathanael D. Striker]

That was funny. I couldn't read the whole thing due to your epic review Crab.

[Toffee.]

Crab's use of Starwars quotes is just beautiful

 

Mm. To protect her from the Author' date=' she was hidden from the writer when you were born. The Author knew, as I did, that if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be put in a bad story. That is the reason why your sister remains safely anonymous, to the point where the person writing this isn't even aware of her existence. She is safe from this bad writing.[/quote']

I lol'd@this part

 

You can't win, Crab. If you strike my proluge down, Episode 1 shall become more terrible than you could possibly imagine.

BUT YOU KNOW, THAT IF YOU KILL SAID PROLOGUE, IT WILL CONTINUE TO HAUNT YOU IN THE FORM OF A GHOST THAT TELLS YOU TO GO TO THE DEGOBAH SYSTEM!

 

[/zomg]

[Pichu]

Hey Crab! Im sorry for cussing you out. Forgive me

[Dr. Cakey]

Hey Crab! Im sorry for cussing you out. Forgive me

 

Pssst' date=' -Pichu-...I have a secret: Crab doesn't like you. You know, I'm pretty sure he said "gtfo of my topic" [s']once[/s] twice.

[Grunt Issun]

Holy sheet monkeys pichu the devil is back

[CrabHelmet]

Sorry for A Noob Hope being in a rather unusual style. It seemed like a fun gimmick to try even though it really wasn't that funny in retrospect. At any rate, this one is back to the normal style.

 

[spoiler=Never Trust Anyone Over 30 - {Yu-Gi-Oh GX - The Ace Chronicles}]Enough Star Wars quotes. Let's go to Yu-Gi-Oh GX - The Ace Chronicles by rockethermes169.

 

Having returned from the hospital feeling rather dizzy and in a decent amount of pain, I suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu. I quickly realized the reason - I was feeling much the way I normally do while reading a Foe Fic, only to a lesser degree. So what could possibly go wrong with writing another review under these conditions?

 

Before we begin, let's check the author's note to see what he has to say:

 

I put in a lot of effort in this.

 

That must be a good sign, right? If he put effort into this, it must be good, right? It's impossible for someone to put effort into something but still screw up due to massive incompetence, righ- oh dear. Chapter 1, already preceded by Chapter The Setting And Characters, is a single paragraph with no line breaks. How on earth can you claim to have put a lot of effort into something that's so bad even on the surface when there's no way anyone could possibly look at this and think it's even remotely acceptable?

 

Chapter 1 - Ace Arrives!

 

Oh, yeah, and the main character's name is "Ace" - because what a protagonist acting as the successor to Judai/Jaden obviously needs is to be set up as a boring invincible hero who's completely awesome at everything by his very name.

 

Ace is shown on the outskirts of town.

 

No.

 

Why do all of these terrible writers think the proper way to write a purely verbal story is to transcribe what would have been shown on-screen if it were not a written story? Why is it that none of these people can work within the contentions of the medium they're actually using? Do they think that just because they're writing fanfic for an anime they need to write that fanfic as if it were itself an anime that they were transcribing? Have they just never read a book, so they write based on the only media to which they actually expose themselves, i.e. bad shonen anime? Do they not realize that nobody is going to make television adaptations of their stories? Are they not aware that nobody writes in present tense from the perspective of a disembodied camera?

 

Look, rockethermes169, to learn how actual writers actually write, go to the "library" - it's sort of like your online anime sites in that it's got lots of free fictional works for you to check out, except it's for books and is actually legal. Go there and check one of those books out. Any of them. Read it. Notice that it's not written in this eye-bleedingly awful present-tense viewed-through-a-camera style because those authors don't delude themselves into thinking they're writing for television when they actually aren't and as a result actually produce something half-decent.

 

He sighs, wondering if the people in the town would accept him.

 

No.

 

I always despise Chapter Plot, Chapter Characters, and all the other nonsense that bad writers on YCM throw in alongside their actual chapters. They're fundamentally awful in that they cause writers to put important information for their story outside of their actual story (and a story that doesn't even contain its own story is about as bad as stories get) and in that they force writers to flatly state exposition about characters' qualities instead of revealing them through their actions and blah blah blah show don't tell et cetera. But for once, I actually skimmed Chapter The Setting And Characters, and here's Ace's description:

 

Ace, 16: A teenager that doesn't talk a lot. He prefers to be alone, rather then with "friends". He's not really fit, but not really skinny either, and wears a black shirt and blue pants.

 

Yes, even after devoting an entire non-chapter to describing the setting and characters - and the only character listed besides Ace is Jaden - this is really all the author could come up with. But the reason I bring it up now is the line about how he prefers to be alone rather than with "friends," complete with fingerquotes indicating that he doubts the very existence of friendship. Here, however, in the very second sentence of the actual story, that statement about Ace's character is pretty much directly contradicted, with Ace's sole thought being that he wants to be accepted by the people around him.

 

Neither of these can even be fairly explained away as being unreliable narrators; Ace wanting to be accepted comes from a direct look at his thoughts, and the Chapter The Setting And Characters entry is official direct word of the author. So we can't even fairly assume that this contradiction might have actually been intended by the author.

 

Now, rockethermes169 wants us to believe that Ace doesn't need those puny things like "friends," but Ace's thoughts reveals the opposite. My interpretation of Ace's character is that he's a loser with whom nobody wants to associate themselves, so he tries to convince himself and others - to no avail - that he's only alone because that's how he likes to be. (My interpretation makes Ace a much deeper character than does rockethermes169's, which is pathetic when you consider how cliché mine is.)

 

Some further thoughts for your consideration: Judai/Jaden is a boring invincible hero, designed for the audience to project themselves onto him so that they can feel as perfect as he is. Ace is his successor, and I'm assuming based on his name, the fact that he duels Jaden in Chapter 2, and the fact that all bad fanfic protagonists are Mary Sues that Ace is similar in this respect - rockethermes169 wrote him for people to project themselves on to him. Except, of course, that rockethermes169 wouldn't have written this badly if he cared about the audience, so Ace's function is more simple: he's designed not for the audience to associate themselves with them but rather for rockethermes169 himself to associate with him. Ace is an author-insertion fantasy persona for rockethermes169, and my reading of Ace's character is actually a reading of what rockethermes169 is like in real life.

 

We're two sentences in and this already paints the saddest picture of any Foe Fic yet, with the terrible story's author apparently sitting in his house alone watching anime, trying to convince himself that he's perfectly happy not having "friends".

 

Just then, Jaden was walking around and noticed Ace.

 

No.

 

The video camera method of writing is unspeakably awful, but if you're going to use it, at least be consistent about it. Don't start in the present tense and then switch to the past tense two sentences later and then maybe switch to Spanish after that.

 

He ran over, shouting, "Hey, you! What are you doing out here?"

 

I'm trying to picture Jaden saying that. I can't. I suppose it's supposed to be spoken in the most absurdly friendly tone imaginable, but it still reads like he's saying "OYE YOU WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE".

 

Ace turned his head and looked at the incoming Jaden. He turned around and looked at the setting sun.

 

Things like this can look cool on television screens. Things like this always look stupid in written fanfics.

 

Bear in mind that Ace stands in for rockethermes169; perhaps our author's reaction to people saying hello is to ignore them.

 

Jaden came up to Ace, and was about to say something, but noticed Ace staring off into the sunset. So he remained silent,

 

Jaden remained silent instead of continuing to greet someone just because they weren't looking at him? I question your characterization of Jaden. And Jaden's a pretty straightforward character, so it's hard to screw him up.

 

until he couldn't remain silent anymore, and asked, "Are you new around here? I haven't seen your face around here."

 

Please use the phrase "around here" more times in a row; it doesn't sound quite awkward or poorly-written enough yet. Maybe I should consider recapping my commentary.

 

Ace turned around, nodded his head, and stood up. He started to walk away from the town. Jaden ran up to him again, and said, "It's not safe out there, you know? So, why don't you stay here for a little while?"

 

A full third of Jaden's character profile in Chapter The Setting And Characters is this:

 

When he sees a new person wandering around, he welcomes them, and invites them over to his house.

 

Seriously, this action is considered by our author to be such a critical and fundamental part of Jaden's character that he spent a huge portion of the two-and-a-half-line bio stating this one tendency of his.

 

For further consideration: this chapter features someone who asks everyone new he sees to come and visit seeing Ace and asking him to come and visit. This is the crazy fantasy that Ace was created to live out?

 

Ace stopped for a second, then said, "Alright," then turned around and strolled into the town.

 

Only losers who can actually write half-decently bother to include paragraph breaks between different characters' lines.

 

Jaden frowned; something didn't seem right about this guy, and went back into town as well.

 

And that's the end of Chapter 1. Since it was short, I considered going on to Chapter 2, but a quick skim revealed that Chapter 2 was about 75% a really boring duel that wasn't even finished, so I didn't bother. This first line is interesting, though:

 

Chapter 2 - Ace VS. Jaden!

Jaden was worried. About the new guy, I mean.

 

Well, yes, the omniscient disembodied narrator referring to himself as "I" and correcting himself is certainly interesting in the sense that it's interesting that anyone could do something that absurd, but I was actually referring to this next bit:

 

He didn't want to be with other people, but yet wasn't quite satisfied being alone.

 

Fascinating. Could it be that this contradiction regarding Ace's stance to friends was actually deliberate, and not a representation of what sort of person rockethermes169 is in real life? If so, I feel less guilty about bashing someone that pathetic (or would if I actually ever felt guilt). But if this really is deliberate, then even though I'm sure rockethermes169 thinks that this makes Ace's character really clever and deep and subtle, it leads to a slew of other problems:

 

1) Well-written works have contradictions like this between a character's words and actions to hint at their real personality. This story has this contradiction be between the omniscient disembodied narrator's magic mind-reading and the omniscient narrator's explicit statement of the absolute truth in Chapter The Setting And Characters. You're supposed to have characters speak and act inconsistently to show what they're like, not have directly contradictory outside statements of fact.

 

2) Well-written works have contradictions like this within the story itself. This story's only hint that Ace might actually think he doesn't care about fingerquote-friends-fingerquote is outside of the story itself, in Chapter The Setting And Characters.

 

3) Well-written works gradually develop characters in this manner so that readers can slowly realign their perceptions of them. This story has the contradiction made explicit at the start of the second paragraph before it can even be properly established.

 

4) Well-written works don't have the characters magically reading each others' minds. In this story, all of our ideas about Ace's attitude toward friends are handed down from the narrator; Jaden, who canonically is normally unusually oblivious to other people's thoughts and feelings and who lacks this narrator-inspired wisdom, should be unable to figure this out.

 

And so I'm going to stop here. I don't really care whether this business was deliberate or whether you really are that sad a person, rockethermes169; this is a fundamentally horribly-written piece and the fact that you allegedly put "a lot of effort" into it and still ended up with a one-paragraph chapter full of people staring into space and masquerading as an anime series would be terrible enough without issues like Ace's character. If you're really this bad at writing, don't bother posting it on the internet - nobody could possibly enjoy something this bad, so what's the point? The reason I needed to stop after pretty much every sentence was that every line was really that painful to read. Either actually put decent effort into this or admit your incompetence and stop.

 

I don't care if A Noob Hope is over, because this needs to be said: I felt a great disturbance in my head, as if millions of brain cells suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has been written.

 

 

 

This is the first Foe Fic where I actually felt vaguely sorry for the author.

[Merci]

I can get review?

[Phantom Roxas]

I need to catch up, but I actually liked Star Wars Episode XXIX, especially the Eden of the East and Nostalgia Critic references.

[CrabHelmet]

A Noob Hope wasn't bad, per se, but it was weird and almost certainly hit-or miss. Anyhow, enough of that! Onward!

 

[spoiler=31 Ice Cream Flavours - {Yu-Gi-Oh! Zero Chance}]Let's write a generic introductory line for Yu-Gi-Oh! Zero Chance by willpower_9.

 

Wonderfully, this story's parent topic's very title informs us that this is "A Completely Original YGO Fanfic". That's right: it's somehow both completely original and derived from the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise. Any volunteers to explain to willpower_9 exactly what is fundamentally absurd about that claim?

 

Before absolutely any portion of the story - before Chapter Plot, Chapter Characters, and Chapter Prologue - comes a short, italicized segment (willpower_9's italics will become underlines here). Since it comes before even the absurd bogus non-chapters, I'm not quite sure where it's supposed to fit into this thing, but it's worth including here anyhow:

 

October, 2118. The world has changed. Those cards, those blasted cards, have turned against us...the humans...now we live in filth and squall, while the spirits of those cards rule the world... There is zero chance of taking back whats ours...

 

The incredibly realistic writing style of what I assume is a journal entry may astound some readers with how accurately it reflects the sort of vague, foreboding pseudo-exposition that post-apocalyptic survivors would probably write down, because the complex details and intricate emotions included in this journal entry are clearly the sort of things one should be writing down, since things like your entire world being conquered by trading cards can pretty easily fade from your memory if you don't write them down (though any actual specifics do not need to be recorded) - how, you may ask, could something so well-written have made its way to YCM? Well, the answer is simple. You'll find that it's heavily lifted from a very famous four-line work. Ever read the Diary of Anne Frank? I'll reproduce it here in its entirety for your convenience:

 

October, 1944. The world has changed. Those Nazis, those blasted Nazis, have turned against us...the Jews...now we live in filth and squall and often die, while those other guys rule the country... There is zero chance of taking back whats ours... Sorry for... all the ellipses... it's important for diaries to reflect... severe breathing problems... like this... fortunately... I was able to record... this incredibly detailed account... of everything... that will make me worth remembering...

 

And our flying start gets even better as we leap over Chapter Plot and Chapter Characters to begin Chapter Prologue. Incidentally, Chapter Prologue is less than half as long as Chapter Characters, so willpower_9 presumably put more work into the Encyclopedia Infodumpica than into the story itself. Oh, and Chapter Prologue is also formatted in that stupid way where they press enter once after each line, too stupid to realize that the lack of indents makes the result hideous.

 

Like all good stories, this begins with a pretentious and unnecessary quote:

 

Angels deliver Fate to our doorstep - and anywhere else it is needed. --Jessi Lane Adams

***

 

Ever played a modern JRPG? They frequently begin with disconnected quotes that are totally irrelevant to the actual game, and... well, for some reason they came to mind just now.

 

Jessi Lane Adams seems to have successfully proofread that quote, so I'm sure that he or she is a much better writer than willpower_9, who has proven unable to spellcheck in MSWord. That being said, I haven't a clue who Jessi Lane Adams is. More to the point, however - what's this quote doing here? All the quote says is that Fate exists and shows up where it's needed, which is nigh-tautological given that any Fate that didn't appear where it was Fated to appear would be no Fate at all.

 

What is its relation to the story? What is the importance of including this line? What does it contribute to anything? The only reason it's here is that willpower_9 thought it sounded cool and figured that an empty, tangentially-related quote from someone whose existence is unknown to Wikipedia would make his story sound a lot more deep and symbolic and epic and et cetera et cetera. The only thing this quote accomplished was to convince me that willpower_9 is overly-pretentious.

 

I couldn't move. I was transfixed, mesmerized by the card. It hung in midair, silent, slowly rotating. Unable to stand it any longer, I slowly reached out a hand...just wanting to touch it... and then, my outstreched finger hit the card. In a single instant, everything flashed and went dark. Light was snuffed out instantly and suddenly, my hand felt almost magnetically attached to the card as it soared through the darkness.

 

Ever played that one video game with cutscene where there's this floating, spinning object of importance that the hero then reaches out and touches, causing some flashes of special effects and a flying dream sequence or something like that? Well, for some reason it came to mind just now. I forget the exact name of the video game, though. I believe its initials might have been E.V.G.E., but I can't remember the exact title at the moment. Wait, I've got it. EVERY VIDEO GAME EVER.

 

Fanfic writers really need to learn that scenes full of flashy special effects can be dazzling when seen on a screen but lose their cool impact when merely described in written form. This is just one of the many symptoms of the classic Camera Fallacy - they forget that a written story based on an animated series isn't actually an animated series.

 

This wouldn't even be that bad if it didn't take up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the prologue without contributing anything.

 

This is our world, Damon.

"What the?" I stuttered as the voice echoed around in and around my head.

 

The spinning magical card and the whole flying thing were all in a day's work for Damon, but hearing voices prompts a response of "What the?" from him. Ladies and gentlemen, our protagonist.

 

"Who...who are you?"

I am a peacekeeper, a guide, a herald. I am a Lighte Card.

 

Ever watched a 4Kids dub of an anime? They generally change all the names of everything into unspeakably lame things that are too pathetic to qualify as puns, and... well, for some reason that sort of thing came to mind just now.

 

You did not just name your peacekeeping guiding heralds by sticking the letter "e" on the end of "Light". Next thing you know, the villains will be called "Evile" or "Darke" or something similarly idiotic.

 

And I have come to ask for your help.

 

The Lighte boss said, "We need someone who will believe in the power of our magical pony flowers but will be able to avoid believing in the Villaine's powers, since belief equals power! Find me the guy whose skepticism has the most inconsistency of all!" So this herald found Damon, who was undaunted by light shows and magic flying but was shocked by voices.

 

Suddenly the card tugged at my hand and I found myself soaring through a wartorn land.

 

Presumably, he didn't just fly over a completely generic landscape with a giant neon sign pointing down to it, saying in large letters, "THIS LAND IS WARTORN WAR-TORN". In actuality, he must have seen an interesting landscape below and deduced from its various features - such as, perhaps, buildings reduced to rubble and the presence of many tanks - that the land was probably war-torn. Naturally, willpower_9 gives us only Damon's final conclusion, rather than describing what it was that Damon actually saw. Presumably, he spent his whole description budget on how shiny that spinning card was at the start.

 

This is our land Damon. This is your city. Now, all that remains is ashes...

"What? My city? Whats going on here? Why is my city destroyed?" I asked,

 

Look, I know it's a fairly common practice in stories to not specify the exact location. That way, the story is much harder for future events to render blatantly false; the author doesn't need to bother to match the story's locations to any actual physical setting; and readers can imagine their own locations to be the setting to make the action more involving. And I'm fine with that. It's a well-established technique employed by a variety of respectable and published authors.

 

But it takes some minimum level of competence to pull off using New Unspecifiedia as the setting. It's not that hard: all you need to do is avoid situations where there's no way the characters would refer to the city as "this city" instead of using its name. To do that, all you need to do is not write dialogue in which characters refer to it in exactly the same alternative way four times in a row under emotional circumstances that would make it absurd for the characters not to mention its name at some point, since that would produce something painful to read and impossible to take seriously.

 

frightened, my voice rising in pitch.

 

Thanks for informing us that the guy who is panicking over flying through the air over his own ruined city and whose voice has suddenly gone up an octave might possibly be frightened. I'd never have guessed without your statements of the obvious.

 

Bear in mind that every single thing here, from the "frightened" thing up to the light show, was inserted in place of an actual description of the war-torn destroyed city.

 

Damon, this is the future...the future we need you to prevent.In my time, in the year 2118, all hope has been lost for the humans. The Darke Cards rule everything.

 

Wait, you really did go and call the bad guys "Darke"? Seriously? Is this a second-grade writing project or something?

 

Ever seen that one television series that Fox canceled, that included scenes like this one below?

 

"Oye, oye, oye! You think you're the only one with projectiles, monster!? Take this! Handlaser!" He raised his left hand palm-forward and fired a beam of energy at the demon, knocking it backwards into the pavement. "Maybe nobody informed you that I can shoot laser beams out of my hands!" he cried as he jumped forward, bringing his sword down on the monster with his right hand. "Direct hit- AH!" He jumped away as the Fire Elemental flared up, shooting fire out as it rose into the air again. "My foot!"

 

It came to mind just now because I would much rather be watching that than reading this.

 

For a second, before the card returned me to the darkness, I caught the flash of something red. I saw a terrifying glimpse of a huge monster, striding through the debris of the city.

 

He's been flying over the city and surveying the landscape, but was only able to catch a glimpse of a huge monster when the entire city has already been reduced to debris? What on earth makes it so hard to see? The buildings around it have presumably been reduced to rubble, and huge monsters are kind of easy to see by virtue of being huge.

 

Ever see that Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? It's specifically set up so that characters effectively do not exist and can move about invisibly as long as they aren't on camera, and... well, for some reason it came to mind just now.

 

Damon, we need your help! We must keep this from happening...it is the only hope of survival for the human race...

"But what can I do?" I asked frantically. This was really getting creepy...

 

The imminent destruction of humanity might be a little creepy, Damon? You think so?

 

Ever seen that movie, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen? It's an absolutely horrible movie filled with characters acting like total morons and completely lacking in redeeming qualities, and... well, for some reason it came to mind just now.

 

Even now, in your time period, forces are working to make this future come true. You must stop the Darke cards now, in your time period...to stop the Cards from even happening in the first place...Please, Damon you must help us...stop the Darke Cards...please...

 

Ever read that manga, Psyren? It's about a bunch of people who are brought into a desolate future in which the world has been basically destroyed and filled with monsters and who are then sent back in time to the present day to prevent that future from ever coming to pass, and... well, for some reason it came to mind just now.

 

I question exactly how "Completely Original" this story is.

 

Note the complete lack of an explanation for why Damon was chosen. I'm going to assume that my explanation - he wields the least consistent credulity in all of history - is the real one.

 

Very slowly the voice faded away and as it did, so did the darkness. Light slowly worked through my closed eyelids,

 

i think u mean "lighte"

 

and "eyelidese"

 

and somwhere,

 

i think u mean "somewhere"

 

or "seoemeweheeereee"

 

a air conditioner was turned on. I was lying face-down on something comfortable. I sat up, catching a glimpse of a bland room.

 

I regularly glance around the rooms of my house and insult their appearances.

 

I looked down and found...I had been lying on the couch? Wait a second. I looked around again and saw I was in my living room. So had all this just been a dream?-

Please help us Damon...

My god. It had not been a dream.

 

END OF PROLOGUE

 

Was it really necessary to have that "WAS IT ALL JUST A DREAM?????" tease at the end, only to be squashed half a sentence later? It's horribly overdone, it adds nothing to the story, it's not funny, it's resolved instantly so it builds no suspense, and it's obviously not just a dream or you wouldn't have made it the prologue in the first place. What's the point?

 

We'd normally be done right now, but first we have author's notes.

 

As those of you who have read my prologue before I reworked it know, you'll see I didn't change much.

 

That's right. He actually went back and reworked this thing after posting it, and he still didn't give it the power to pass the MSWord spellchecker test. You, sir, are the worst self-editor in the history of the world.

 

However, I did add the quote to give the introduction more emphasis on how fate has come down upon Damon.

 

That was your big change!? Your revision consisted primarily of adding the pretentious irrelevant quote at the start for the sole purpose of emphasizing that Fate might be somehow connected to a story whose plot revolves around the state of the world in the distant future? No, actually, it's worse than that. Note the exact words - you want to emphasize specifically "how fate as come down upon Damon". In other words, you want to emphasize that Damon was randomly made the main character because destiny says so. Why would you think we needed a reminder that the protagonist was magically made the protagonist!?

 

And I'd love to hear what the point of this gem here was supposed to be:

 

[spoiler=Cards Used In Prologue]

None.

 

Fascinating.

 

Your revision served to make your story worse, and you'd be far better off reverting it. That's how bad your revision was. Of course, that's perfectly consistent with the rest of the writing skills you've put on display here. I could recap everything that went wrong, from the ludicrous names for the factions to the atrocious writing style, but instead I'll just ask this question:

 

Ever read or seen Watchmen? You know that scene where Rorschach breaks some random guy's fingers in a bar to get information? It comes to mind because I'd rather be that guy than read another chapter of this mess.

 

 

 

I actually haven't seen the Nostalgia Critic at all myself; I get my M. Bison from the Spoony Experiment (which, of course, got it from the Nostalgia Critic).

 

I can get review?

 

oh you think you can be all like I WELCOME REPORTS BECAUSE WEATHER REPORTS ARE TEH BEST CUZ DOSE FOE FICTIONS AND PHANTOM DIVINATIONS ARE TEH LAMES and then you can all be like CRAB DO REVIEW PLZ and think its all ok well ill be all like NO U and ull be all like WAAHH and then ill probly review anyhow b/c im silly dat way

[Kenny Bohner]

Hilarious, as always, and I love that you use songs by The Beatles as titles. I'm a huge fan. Keep up the good work

[bury the year]

The Shout Out to Psyren automatically makes this one of your better reviews.

[Vector Nightmare]

Admittedly, I haven't been feeling much of a vibe from Season 2's reviews. I don't know what it is. Maybe the fact that they get kind of repetitive (after all, there are only so many mistakes a bad writer can make, and you've kind of struck down all of them by now, so you seem to be rehashing previous critiques sometimes), or the absence of a supporting reviewer cast, and the - relevant - fact that you don't personalize the stories' characters into said supporting cast, even if they would be temporary.

 

Thankfully #31 was a nudge in the right direction. A lot of the aforementioned lost points have been gained back recently with the increase in pop culture references. I'd like it if we saw some side characters, either the familiar ones from old stories or new additions from the latest ones, even if they only made one-shot appearances.

[Nathanael D. Striker]

Both were funny. I do like a good laugh when I'm not being laughed at.

[Dr. Cakey]

Crab, please explain the secret to your awesomeness.

[GenzoTheHarpist]

Admittedly' date=' I haven't been feeling much of a vibe from Season 2's reviews. I don't know what it is. Maybe the fact that they get kind of repetitive (after all, there are only so many mistakes a bad writer can make, and you've kind of struck down all of them by now, so you seem to be rehashing previous critiques sometimes), or the absence of a supporting reviewer cast, and the - relevant - fact that you don't personalize the stories' characters into said supporting cast, even if they would be temporary.

 

Thankfully #31 was a nudge in the right direction. A lot of the aforementioned lost points have been gained back recently with the increase in pop culture references. I'd like it if we saw some side characters, either the familiar ones from old stories or new additions from the latest ones, even if they only made one-shot appearances.

[/quote']

 

I felt the exact opposite; the lack of side characters is making me enjoy season two much more than the later parts of the first season. I think foe fiction works better when it's just Crab and the story, kind of like how, AVGN uses side characters, but only sparingly and usually it's just him and a really bad game.

[legendhiro]

i actually liked zero chance (or what i read of it) to a point. it showed potential.

[CrabHelmet]

Let's see if our next story actually will be Completely Original.

 

[spoiler=The Chamber Of 32 Doors - {Monochrome Skies}]Next up is Monochrome Skies, an original story by a string of random Greek letters.

 

I'm not sure how to reformat this first line to show that I'm quoting it:

 

Prologue

 

See, normally I'd italicize it, but it was already italicized. So normally I'd underline it, but it was already underlined. So normally I'd bold it, but it was already bolded. What am I supposed to do, fiddle with the font size and typeface? This isn't exactly a real complaint, but how many types of formatting do you need to throw onto the word "Prologue" when announcing that the prologue is beginning when you're not even bothering to give the prologue a name?

 

“Pathetic, isn’t it?

 

Wait a minute, did I stumble into another fanfic review series?

 

These filthy little creatures are just running about, destroying everything as they go!

 

Yup, I'm pretty sure this is talking about bad fanfic writers now.

 

Most of them don’t even have an idea as to what potential life has!

 

Or maybe Tonegawa is interrupting the balance-beam-walking again to talk about how much everyone sucks.

 

They don’t deserve the life they’ve been given; their breath should be taken from them.

 

Nope, this confirms it. It has to be about bad fanfic writers.

 

Hell, they never should have lived in the first place.

 

Indeed, there's no other explanation.

 

In fact, that’s why we’re going to kill them all, right?

 

Now that's the sort of forward-thinking forum-saving innovation we reviewers need! I approve of this!

 

Of course it isn’t! We’re killing them because there won’t be any world left if we don’t stop this!

 

Ah, I see. We're not killing them because they're worthless beings that destroy everything they touch and therefore will be a problem if they are allowed to live. Instead, we're killing them because they're destroying everything they touch and therefore will be a problem if they are allowed to live. Totally different, I assure you.

 

The other nations I care not for, but these pigs must be slaughtered!”

 

“I guess so? I’m not involved in this war; I’m only a house servant…”

 

I don't care if you're just a house servant; you can't be completely neutral and clueless about a major genocidal war being fought by your nation, especially when your master apparently has a penchant for bursting into rants on that topic.

 

“We warned them three times! Three!

 

"Five is right out."

 

The Artemis Incident was bad,

 

Well, of course it was bad. Your nation was up against a preteen rich kid and his ridiculously strong Butler. You basically didn't stand a chance.

 

but we aided in cleaning up the spill.

 

UNLIKE BP

 

ZING

 

In fact, they killed thirty thousand of their own! Of course, President Maria didn’t care. None of their leaders did. Then there was the Grey Goo Incident. That was perhaps what opened the eyes of the other nations. They were hesitant to speak war with Maria, however; their militaries are pathetic in comparison to Taka’s. We couldn’t do anything then, however, other than just evacuate the area and hope it already sank into the planet's mantle before the annual floods. February’s Crater Fields Incident was the last straw. Iriav is a small, weak country; the civil war only ended three years ago! Accidentally sending a massive ball of flaming debris into the Rain Forest Country would NOT be tolerated without retaliation!”

 

Of course, deliberately cutting the rain forest down at absurdly unsustainable rates and causing the extinction of countless species through habitat destruction is considered perfectly acceptable in real life.

 

FOE FICTION: COMMENTING ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES SINCE THE CHAMBER OF 32 DOORS

 

“Erm… Shouldn’t you be telling your military leaders this? I can’t do anything about it.”

 

You, sir, are a lousy servant. A servant shouldn't be going, "WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING, GO TALK TO THOSE OTHER GUYS INSTEAD;" he should be bowing and saying, "Indeed, sir," and perhaps eventually politely suggesting that conferring with military leaders might be a reasonable course of action, not whining about how the master is completely screwing up and should be talking to someone else instead. I know not everyone can be Jeeves, but seriously, this servant sucks. Of course, it's completely impossible for military leaders not to already have this background knowledge, which would make ranting to them pointless, which brings me to my next point: the exposition here is actually fairly decent.

 

All right, the exact level of depth in the things the master is saying feels a little forced and unnatural, and it's obvious that this scene was created for the purpose of providing exposition, but it does fit naturally into the world of the story. While a character talking to herself is unnatural (the master is female; I skimmed ahead a couple of lines), a character talking ostensibly to someone else as an excuse for this sort of self-indulgent ranting that's really for her own benefit rather than her servant's actually seems reasonable, and the servant's status as a servant means it makes sense for him to listen despite neither understanding nor caring, even though he seems to kind of suck at doing that - and his lack of knowledge of the situation (though it's not clear why he lacks this basic knowledge) makes it reasonable the master to rant to him. It's fairly basic, but it works well enough and makes more sense than having the master talk to herself or to some military leader who already understands the situation or something similarly stupid.

 

I know it's not funny to actually like an aspect of a story, and this really would be just mediocre were it not far better by comparison than most Foe Fics, but it's important to point out techniques like this that can be used to avert As You Know.

 

“Aminifu, escort me to Western Meeting Room.

 

Don't expect to defeat me. I know Amini Fu.

 

Call the others; it’s about time we unleashed our first attack on the Takan mainland.”

 

Wait a minute, the master is in a position to order the launching of attacks? I was picturing her as a regular aristocrat with great wealth and social status but without this sort of military power. My impression made her ranting make sense; if she actually commands military power, then she doesn't need to be whining to her servant about what's going on, since she can actually act on her opinions instead of just complaining about the state of things. Don't make me retract my praise for your exposition with this nonsense.

 

“Yes, Lady Balatro.”

 

I know these are fantasy names, so they're expected to be silly, but seriously, Aminifu and Balatro?

 

The young man bowed, stepping forward to the bottom of the staircase that led to Lady Balatro’s throne.

 

She has a throne but can't get a better servant than this chump?

 

The room seemed like something of times long passed, graceful Gothic arches reaching upwards towards the painted heavens that decorated the dome that topped the structure. Above the clouds there stood a metallic dragon with a light, faded blue body and large wings. It seemed to be releasing an orb of energy; it appeared in myth to be capable of such things, and Lady Balatro was interested in the tales of olden times, and the shining orb was on the dome’s center, beams of light streaking down through the painted heavens and onto the peaks of each Gothic arch, other than the arch that towered over Lady Balatro’s throne. As the young woman descended from the cloud to touch mortal ground, the man bowed yet again, escorting her down the pathway of amethyst that ran from the staircase into the main hallway,

 

Wait a minute, where did we return from the architectural description to narrating the characters' actions? The description was great, but I can't even tell where we return from it to the story. This last sentence starts with a young woman "descend[ing] from the cloud to touch mortal ground" - the clouds that we've established were painted on the ceiling, implying that this woman is part of the painting - but then has the servant escorting her, since "she" now suddenly refers to Balatro. Maybe I'm misreading something here, but I've gone over it several times to make sure that I'm reading everything as it's written, so you've either screwed something up or written this description so badly that even upon analysis I can't even follow what's supposed to be going on (and thus have screwed something up).

 

I fear that this may become a theme of this story. The exposition was good until you screwed it up by revealing that Balatro had military power and thus had no need to rant to her servant. the description was good until you screwed it up with this bizarre section here. Do you need to spoil everything you do right by retroactively screwing it up immediately afterward?

 

which, unlike the throne room, did not have a dome for a roof. Instead the ceiling gently slanted to a soft peak, the exterior covered with ruby-red shingles. The two turned to their left, continuing down the main hallway until they came across a large door. Upon it was the Balatro coat of arms: a golden rose with a black serpent coiled inside each petal. On either side of the rose there was a white sword, and above it, inscribed in the stone of the door, was the phrase “Parcere est Stultus.”

 

The Latin motto basically says that it's foolish to be moderate; hence the indulgence in Balatro's palace. For all of this description, though - and don't get me wrong, this description is most welcome - we still don't know anything about what Aminifu and Balatro look like. For myself, I'll be picturing Aminifu as Jeeves, an infinitely superior gentleman's gentleman (not that Aminifu is any sort of gentleman's gentleman, given that Balatro is female and thus not a gentleman, but you get the idea). As for Lady Balatro, the similarity of her name to another Lady has me picturing her as a flock of golden butterflies.

 

The man opened the door, the thin, fragile frame of the small Lady Balatro entering the room. Her dress was a large, golden-yellow thing, designed to resemble the golden rose of her family coat of arms. Her shoes were ballet flats; soft-soled, yellow ones that aided her in her silent gliding to the head of the table and up the stairs to her seat.

 

well i guess i spoke too soon

 

This is nice description of Lady Balatro's attire, but anything above her neck is still a mystery. What does she look like? We don't even know whether her hair is golden to match everything else or not. And since her clothes seem pretty similar to the standard dress of Beato, I'm going to continue picturing her like that. Bear in mind that this description of what the focus character actually looks like was dropped in favour of a description of a room that she walked through. Sure, I'm certain that that room will return later and the description was good, but if some prioritization would be nice. Similarly, the room that Balatro is in right now and in which she will conduct her meeting is not described - it is simply "a room". I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, since this is better than the standard practice of describing nothing in fanfics, but a little prioritization would be nice, and neglecting to describe the main characters or the rooms in which stuff actually happens while instead detailing the background of a room that they walked through at one point seems about as bad as prioritization gets.

 

She would always wait until she was seated before even getting Aminifu to call the others; she liked to seem a bit above the others by always being the first there, completely oblivious to the fact they seemed to think nothing of it; she should always be the first in attendance to a meeting in her own home.

 

I know this is deliberately stupid, but seriously, how dumb do you have to be to think it's impressive to be the first to arrive to a meeting you called that is convened where you live? There's stupid, and then there's absurdly stupid.

 

“Ma’am, it will be an hour before everyone is here. Do you wish to wait?”

 

“I am fine, Aminifu. You can leave now.”

 

An hour passed and noon came by, and the cool breezes of autumn kissed the cheeks of whoever walked outside. People had just begun to enter the Western Meeting Room, and Lady Balatro greeted them with a smile. “Welcome, all! I’ve called you here to discuss whether or not you’ve made the preparations for this war. Well, have you? Ah, don’t worry! I was joking; I know all of you have made preparations! I only trust people the likes of whom exceed expectations, and since my expectations are nearly impossible to meet, I know you are the best of people to trust.”

 

The last bit there sounds really lame to me, especially since it amounts to "I trust you because you must be good because I trust you," but I suppose it is the sort of thing that a stupid aristocrat might say.

 

“Yes, Lady Balatro, we are prepared for our first strike. We have 4 Divinity Class L.A.N.C.E’s ready to depart. We already know your main target is the Dark Bay City, Asubuhi. Interesting story, actually… I was in Asubuhi once before, and I noticed the buildings there are extremely unstable. It’s as if nobody even knows what a foundation is over there! I’m, surprised they haven’t had an earthquake in the last 800 years, or else that city would be devastated.”

 

I'm, surprised this wasn't proofread properly.

 

I do have to wonder how Alexander could have just "noticed" that the buildings' foundations were structurally unstable. That's not the sort of thing that even a professional can tell just by looking, and Alexander, who was there for reasons that I must assume are non-architectural and who works for the military, would hardly have been appraising them. There isn't really much reason for him to have a clue how sound the buildings' foundations are.

 

Lady Balatro sighed, looking to the man with a dull expression. “Excuse me, Alexander, but do you really think your story will in any way help us with this war?

 

Indeed, Alexander. Why on earth would you think that knowledge of how easily the enemies' buildings can be demolished might possibly be somewhat useful to an attack force seeking to demolish the enemies' buildings?

 

Actually, you did! Thanks.

 

There's something very wrong with Balatro. She has major, instantaneous swings between being horribly bored and being cheerful and hyper; combining this with her other stupidities leads me only to conclude that she has ADHD or some other disorder of that sort. Either that, or she's just badly-written.

 

Now, Tolemos, do you have any R.O.S.E bombs ready for use?”

 

Why is everything here named with I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S.?

 

A tall man nodded, emerald eyes meeting Lady Balatro’s glare. His hair was thin and short to his head, though his beard seemed to be of the exact opposite characteristics.

 

Compare this description of Tolemos - how can all of these people with weird names be in the same universe as a guy named Alex anyhow? - with the description of Balatro. Tolemos's is far more extensive, which is to say that it actually exists. Why?

 

He sighed before speaking as if he were burdened to respond. “Yes, Lady Balatro, there is a R.O.S.E bomb ready for use.”

 

“Why look at me that way, Tolemos? I’m not trying to imply that you aren’t up to the task of creating weapons of mass destruction. Let’s go outside for a bit, shall we? All of this planning is going to drive us mad if we don’t relax before getting into things.”

 

Lady Balatro: "THOSE WORTHLESS THINGS DON'T DESERVE TO EXIST. Welcome, everyone! You're all the best because you're all the best! YOUR STORY IS BORING AND IRRELEVANT. Wait, it's brilliant! Huzzah! WE NEED BOMBS AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Let's all go outside for some nice fresh air and relaxation even though we only just started!"

 

Seriously, it's like she has some weird version of bipolar affective disorder that flips between mania and depression every half-minute instead of every half-year. Actual bipolar disorder is considered "rapid-cycling" if there are a mere four major episodes per year, so I'm pretty sure this rate of cycling has to break the bipolar light barrier or something.

 

Outside, the group sat in the courtyard, with the exclusion of Lady Balatro, who stood. They didn’t speak to one another. Instead, they only sighed and sat with their eyes closed, occasionally opening them to glance at one another. It was a very odd silence, but it seemed to work , for Lady Balatro clapped her hands and told the others their break had ended. “Let’s go back to the Meeting room, everyone! People are already showing up to take pictures of the garden.”

 

There's some weird stuff with the typing here, like the space before the comma and the bizarre capitalization of "Meeting room" - considering the lack of such errors early on and their prevalence here as we get further through the story, it almost feels as if the author proofread the first half of this thing and then got bored and stopped before reaching the second half.

 

The Royal Flower Garden was a massive tourist attraction, containing plants bred that appeared nowhere else on the planet. Lady Balatro would occasionally take a walk through the Flower Garden, just for the pictures, but she hadn’t recently, the war being more important to her than the smell of freshly cut grass.

 

But the tourists visiting the garden are apparently more important than the state of mind of the generals conducting the war, since their presence is forcing the generals out of the garden to get back to all the war stuff.

 

The problem with all of this is that Balatro is the one doing everything in this story, so I can't tell whether this is the author screwing everything up or Balatro being completely insane.

 

While walking outside, Lady Balatro spoke with one man as he walked beside her, though he was hesitant to reply to anything. He asked her something and she nodded, though upon doing so he fell onto her. The Lady looked over to him, an irritated look on her face, when saw his head and screamed. Something had completely destroyed the man’s skul

 

It's hammertime, because this story just came to a sudden stop. No, really. It cuts off not just in the middle of a scene, not just in the middle of a paragraph, not just in the middle of a sentence, but actually in the middle of a WORD. You somehow didn't notice that you cut yourself off in the middle of the word "skull"? How terrible does your proofreading have to be to allow your story to end like that? This really shouldn't be that difficult. You can't just let things be cut off like that.

 

This is definitely good by YCM's standards, but it's still plagued by a lot of problems like the ill-prioritized description, and when your story ends like that, I have to wonder whether you ev

 

 

 

I think removing the side characters was a good idea - I wouldn't have killed them all off otherwise - but I did also worry that Season 2 might get a bit stale. We'll see how it goes.

[έκλειψη]

Whoot! Got something in here!

Meep, the sudden stop was an update error. I accidentally highlighted part when I was putting in the first chapter and was in a rush, so I must have accidentally deleted before clicking the update button. I just closed my laptop and was gone for the 8 hours after that. Either way it's an honor to be on Foe Fics!

[CrabHelmet]

it's an honor to be on Foe Fics!

 

okay seriously something is very wrong here

[Ecoboy1324]

it's an honor to be on Foe Fics!

 

okay seriously something is very wrong here

 

Have you decided what fic your going to do next?

If not your more then welcome to tear at my first fic.

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-210657.html

[έκλειψη]

Not really.

 

Being on Foe Fics might mean your story sucks, but at least someone devoted quite a bit of time giving you advice on what you could change to make it a good story. I don't look at it as you want me to go die, rather you think the people you review could do better.

[Toffee.]

“We warned them three times! Three!

 

"Five is right out."

Nice Monty-Python reference.

You should have also referenced a Holy Hand Grenade.

:3