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

[Dr. Cakey]

I just realized no ones answered this question yet.

 

... Commentators, not a fan. Since everyone on YCM likes to suck your jaggon it'll just be a hundred and one "I agree with Crab Helmet!" citations.

 

I've tried reading other serialized Mystery Science Theater ripoffs. Phantom Divinations was about 20 percent jabroniing about style, 50 percent minor nitpicking (with some overlap between the two), and 30 percent actually discussing what's fundamentally wrong with the story.

 

Growing Praise was 60 percent minor nitpicking and 30 percent jabroniing about style, with the rest as an actual review.

 

(Don't ask me where I got the numbers from)

 

So yeah, since those are the only commentors I can immediately think up off the top of my head and I'm already feeling like I'm scrapping the bottom of the barrel I can't really imagine them adding much to the MST-ing.

Those statistics? Going right into my topic.

[CrabHelmet]

Sorry for the ambiguity; I meant guests as in The Professor Young Boy &c, not as in other actual people (which I agree would be rather redundant, since in all honesty these stories pretty much mock themselves and I just need to come up with different words to say so each time).

[Phantom Roxas]

I think that as long as you limit yourself to two guests per review, that would be best.

[Grunt Issun]

I think she/he meant people like Prof. Youngboy and that one guy from the digimon fan-fic who only care about his friends and that one girl from the Ben 10 fanfic that was extremely perfect.

 

EDIT: I guess I missed Crabs post.

[DL]

Man, your reviews even bring me from sad to happy

 

YAAAY :'D

 

idk why

 

I ENJOY YOUR MISERY

 

IS THAT SO WRONG? DX

 

Before I forget:

 

Insolate IS a word, apparently (in the review before the season finale, when the man told the boy to wake up or whatnot)

 

http://dictionary.re...browse/insolate

 

 

though I doubt it's what the author was going for.

[CrabHelmet]

I wrote a review, and it was quite cathartic. Thought I'd make a series.

 

[spoiler=The Wrath of Khan - {Yu-Gi-Oh! DFR: Book One, the Neo Duel Force}]You may know that five thousand years ago, mystical games were played in Egypt. But you may not know that those games actually originated ninety-five billion years ago in what is now Burma, where a tribe called the Peoples Ancientos lived. They were a peaceful state built upon art and culture, inventing all manner of artistic and entertaining media - including card games. Their ruler, the kind and benevolent Queen Whiny von Nitpick, ensured the quality of their culture by criticizing those works that did not measure up to standard, and by having any dissenters executed or brainwashed to ensure that the golden age of peace and prosperity would last for all eternity.

 

Unfortunately, even such a glorious reign could not last forever, as a villain known as Darkemperor Sinisterdoom unleashed dark magical monsters upon the world that destroyed the entire civilization, burying the Peoples Ancientos too deep in history to ever be discovered.

 

BZZZRT BZZZRT BZZZRT

 

I awoke with a start and looked at my clock. 9:00 AM. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed out loud. "The Duel Academy entrance exams start at 8:30 AM! I'm going to be late for the most important first day of the rest of my life!" I jumped out of bed, grabbed my deck, got into my regular clothes, ate a healthy balanced breakfast, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, updated my blog, mowed the lawn, did the laundry, and ran out the door as fast as I could. "Bye, mom!"

 

"Where are you going, Crab?"

 

"I need to make it to the Duel Academy entrance exams! They started at 8:30 AM on the 28th!"

 

"Er, Crab? It's the 29th."

 

"Blast, I must have really overslept!" I shouted. I ran to hail a taxi, and when one pulled over, hopped inside. "Quick, take me to Kaiba Corp. They might have extended the July 28th Duel Academy acceptance exams to a second day, and I really need to get in!"

 

The taxi started moving, but as we arrived, the driver said, "I'm afraid you're probably out of luck; it's August 29th."

 

"Blast, I must have seriously really overslept!" I cried. I jumped out of the taxi and ran up to the entrance to the building, where two KC guards in suits barred the entrance. "Look, I know I'm way too late for the 2010 entrance exams, but I really need to qualify for Duel Academy, so please let me-"

 

"It's 2011, kid. What did you oversl-"

 

"Please, just give me a chance! I'll duel you. I'll duel you both! Just-"

 

He scowled. "Admissions closed a month ago, kid. Go away."

 

Anyhow, to make a long story short, I was sent home, but because that guard was such a jerk, I have decided to make him my enemy, and I must punish this foe of mine. Anyhow, I did a little non-stalkerish research and found that he had written some fiction online under the name "legendhiro", so I thought I'd review one of my foe's works of fiction. All I need is a name for this review of the fictions of my foe. How about... Atop the Fourth Wall? Oh, that's already taken. Fine, let's just go with Foe Fiction.

 

 

Naturally, "Yu-Gi-Oh! DFR", despite being in text format, needs to have a logo drawn in MSPaint designed to look like a hybrid of the Offiical Duel Monsters Network chanel Yu-Gi-Oh! and some sort of zero-budget anime series. Apparently, our author fancies himself a screenwriter. It's almost cute.

 

Now, apparently this story is set in the same universe as some other stories this person has written, but this uses different characters and the others are only recommended, not required, and it's not a direct continuation, so I'm going to come in with no knowledge of the previous volumes, as would most new readers who haven't spent years following this person.

 

Turn One

 

Kira, the Laid-Back Duelist

 

Oh, joy, we're already characterizing what I assume to be our protagonist by stating traits.

 

I stared intently at the table in front of me, at the placement of mine and my opponent’s cards. I was playing the Duel Monsters TCG against a tall, spindly Goth kid named Mark. We were in school, so we weren’t using our Duel Disks (obviously). Also, because we were at lunch and we were short on time, we were playing a short game with only four thousand starting Life Points. Most other parts of the world only play with four thousand starting Life Points. That’s how we are in the U.S. We’re stubborn. It’s the same thing with the Standard System vs. the Metric System.

 

I know this isn't about the story itself, but I just want to interject here to say that the U.S. are really a bunch of cheaters this way. I swear they only chose 8000 as the standard so that they would have a massive advantage at Worlds. I was so happy when Yugi beat their champion despite the massive LP disparity.

 

Anyway, I was staring at the impromptu board (which was just a lunch table).

 

We've established that already. Parenthetical inserts (which are awkward enough at the best of times) should only be used to say things that we don't already know (since they're awkward enough even at the best of times). In fact, repeating trivial details like that should be avoided in general (but especially by awkward parenthetical inserts).

 

I was completely overwhelmed. My ‘Amazoness Paladin’ (ATK: 1800) was facing off against my opponent’s two ‘Red-Eyes Black Dragon’ cards (ATK: 2400 (each)) with only a single face-down card to aid her (Me: 2100/Mark: 3000).

 

Oh, no, Our hero is completely overwhelmed, with only one monster and any card the author decides to declare at a later time at her disposal! How will she ever survive?

 

Even if we had any investment in this duel (we don't), it's hard to build suspense when your opponent has unknown - and thus, as far as we're concerned, limitless - resources.

 

“I place a card face-down and pass,” I said casually. Anyone watching would think I was being a cocky b**** (which I am ;) ),

 

There's an emoticon in this story? Seriously?

 

but truth is I wasn’t really paying much attention to the game.

 

See, if even the hero doesn't care about this game, why should we? Oh, and now she has two face-down cards, so she has twice as many resources that could turn out to be anything the author finds convenient. There really isn't any tension here.

 

“You’re still doing fine, Kira,” said my tall, white-haired, gray-eyed best friend Jack from his place at my right. Out of the two dozen or so spectators, he was the only one (openly) routing for me. Everyone else was tired of seeing me win.

 

Wow. Most stories take a while to establish the protagonist as being completely invincible and effortlessly winning every duel, but this one just plain throws the fact that we're dealing with a Boring Invincible Hero at us in the very second paragraph.

 

“I had a feeling that you couldn’t stand up to my rare dragons,” said Mark. “I didn’t want to take my title as school’s best back from you, but I got tired of everyone bugging me to. Of course now, once I beat you, I’ll have people challenging me every day.”

 

He's just saying this now? This dialogue really doesn't flow naturally.

 

He sighed heavily, “Oh well. I play the Field card ‘Zombie World’, turning every monster in play and in each Grave into a Zombie. I tribute one of the two black dragons to summon ‘Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon’ with twenty-four hundred Attack points, equipped with the Spell card 'Violet Crystal' (ATK: 2400+300=2700). I also play ‘Book of Life’ to remove the ‘Twilight Rose Knight’ in your Graveyard from play and revive the tributed ‘Red-Eyes Black Dragon’.”

 

Wait, does he mean rare DRAGONS or rare ZOMBIES? And no matter how many Red-Eyes this guy has (because apparently in the world of fiction everyone has ridiculous numbers of rare cards), I'm still not worried because, first, we've been told that Kira wins all the time, and second, Kira still has a face-down card that the author can declare to be anything at any time to save Kira. We can't be intimidated by Mark's superior resources when Kira's hidden resources prevent us from being sure that Mark's resources are actually superior.

 

I'm also confused about exactly how rich Mark is supposed to be. On the one hand, he has two Red-Eyes and a zombie Red-Eyes; on the other hand, he uses Violet Crystal, which is pretty much only used by people too poor to afford anything more than a starter deck.

 

“Damn,” I said unconvincingly.

 

See, the author's flat-out telling us that Kira's faking and knows she's fine. There is no attempt at all to make us care.

 

“My ‘Zombie Dragon’ attacks first,” Mark announced.

 

“Then I reveal ‘Amazoness Archers’,” I countered, flipping over the Trap card bearing an illustration of a group bow-and-arrow-wielding warrior women. “This Trap lowers the Attack of all of your monsters by five hundred (ATK: 2400-500=1900/ATK: 2700-500=2200).

 

“It also forces all of my monsters to attack you one after another,” my opponent remarked. “If I had wanted to show you mercy, I can’t now.”

 

I couldn’t help a confident smile, though it disappeared quickly and became the half-smirk that I’m known for, “But I also reveal ‘Mirror Wall’, halving the Attack of those attacking monsters (ATK: 1900/2=950/ATK: 2200/2=1050).

 

“Oh come on!” I heard grumbled among members of the crowd (along with various similar useless remarks).

 

That wasn't the crowd talking; that was your readers. They were dismayed that you took the easy way out by giving Kira a useful combo in her hidden resources that totally wipes out her opponent's field full of rares, subverting absolutely nobody's expectations and leading to the conclusion everbody knew was coming. Behold the predictable excitement!

 

“Yes, Kira!” remarked Jack, always my biggest fan.

 

This story has a rather interesting on the Show, Don't Tell rule; it seems like it enjoys showing, but then also telling repeatedly in case we were thick and didn't get the message the first time.

 

It's nice that, unlike most protagonist with consistent win backstories, we actually get to see a standard schoolyard victory instead of just being told that they always happen (though the feeble attempts to build tension during it seem misguided), but then we also need to be told repeatedly that Kira always wins anyhow. We can see that Jack is the only one supporting Kira here, so do we need to be told multiple times that he's her biggest fan?

 

Kira's epithet from the chapter title - the "Laid-Back Duelist" - is particularly odd in that it actually contradicts what we're seeing here. When I think of a laid-back duelist, I think of someone treating the sport in a casual, nonchalant manner, but all we see of Kira here is her deliberately disguising her expression, putting on a poker face to trick the opponent. Certainly, that's what a competent duelist ought to do, but it does make her title rather inaccurate.

 

“Your monsters run into mine and get destroyed,” I explained, “and you lose all but five fifty of your Life.”

 

Mark sighed again, “at least I won’t have kids buggin’ me all the time now.”

 

I drew a card and declared, “‘Cuz I can, I play ‘Dimension Fusion’ (2100-2000=100) to re-summon the ‘Twilight Rose Knight’ that you removed from play.”

 

Wow. You get your hands on a card rare and powerful enough that even the great Seto Kaiba uses it, and you're only able to use it at all because of something your opponent did rather than anything you set up yourself? Without that Book of Life, you wouldn't have anything removed from play, and that would have been a dead draw. "Kira, the Contrived Duelist" seems like a better title for our hero.

 

I heard the disappointed whispers of the crowd cease, and I felt all eyes, even Jack’s, back on the game. Even Mark (who had moments before been in even less interested in the duel than I was) showed renewed interest.

 

Um, why? Even though you've forgotten to post Twilight Rose Knight's ATK, we know you have more than enough points to win the duel in one attack. The game's over; there's nothing to be interested in. Yes, we'll get an explanation in a few paragraphs, but even then you'll see that it still doesn't make sense.

 

See, unlike many Duelists nowadays, I don’t ever summon Synchro monsters. There are a couple reasons for this, but only one matters. Everyone knows that my mom is a production manager for Industrial Illusion (I2), the company that makes Duel Monsters. When I was younger I used to buy booster packs all the time, and I’d get gifts of rare cards from my mom. Now, naturally, people didn’t think this was fair.

 

The three greatest duelists in the world are Pegasus, who owns I2 and created the game and all its cards; Kaiba, who owns KaibaCorp (inventor of all the Duel Monsters peripherals like the Duel Disks and a major distributor, and with billions of dollars at his personal disposal); and Yugi, whose grandfather owns a game shop. Despite this, they are universally loved and hailed as heroes without objection to their obvious advantages. Why is this much more mild nepotism suddenly considered a problem?

 

And besides, who's complaining about it, the guy with at least 3 Red-Eyes? He doesn't have much grounds to object to the opponent's cards being too rare; I'd kill to get my hands on a set of those.

 

So to shut them up and to prove my abilities, I threw out all of my old cards

 

...instead of selling them, because apparently simply having money is also cheating now.

 

and started over with cards given to me by, or won from, people I know. I eventually built myself a respectable deck once again, but no one with one of the illusive and illustrious Synchro monsters wanted to part with them (they’ve only been around a few years after all). Everyone knew my situation, and they just assumed that I didn’t have any Synchro monsters.

 

Then three years back, in the sixth grade, some douche bag started forcing kids to ante their cards against his after school.

 

How?

 

No, seriously, how do you force people to ante cards? And if you can do that by brute force, why not just skip the duel entirely and just take their cards without dueling for them?

 

He was stacking his deck, but I couldn’t prove it, so being the upstanding human being that I am,

 

Great, our protagonist is invincible, wins all the time despite massive self-imposed handicaps, literally throws money away, is a champion defender of the weak and downtrodden, and is incredibly full of herself. As far as we've seen, her only flaw is that she's so awesome that her inferiors get annoyed by how much more awesome she is than they are.

 

I made him promise in front of a whole crowd of people that he’d give back all the cards he won, if I could beat him in a duel. To win I’d had to use my secret weapon, a Synchro monster given to me by my mom. It was one of the last two cards I still had that she’d given me. Its supposed to be one of the last copies of one of the earlier Synchros, a second prototype copy of a card that was supposed to be one of a kind.

 

Because apparently production managers have those and are free to give them to their kids?

 

But even then, Pegasus has actually printed cards explicitly for the purpose of only being used by himself, and nobody seems to hold that against him.

 

Also, that mention of it being one of the last "two" cards Kira received? Really, really obvious Chekhov's Gun; the second card will doubtlessly show up out of nowhere to be a Deus Ex Machina in some future duel. Come on, make your setups a little bit more subtle.

 

I’d summoned it in the duel with that kid, while everyone watched me, using these same two monsters in fact.

 

How convenient that, even though our hero doesn't usually run Synchros, her regular deck still runs Tuners.

 

But even before the hologram of my monster had fully appeared, it disappeared again, taking a field full of my opponent’s powerful monsters with it. No one had seen it. All they knew was that it was a Level Seven monster, and it was very powerful.

 

Every one of the school’s Duelist’s were curious. They wanted to see card that was powerful enough to so completely devastate the forces of a strong Duelist who was also cheating. I thought about summoning it, just to settle things once and for all and get everyone off my back, but I didn’t. I’d made a promise to myself. I couldn’t use that monster in such a simple match, or that would be the first step to becoming the spoiled gamer that I used to be. No, that card was for emergency use only.

 

And, you know, it would be impossible to just show them the card without summoning it, or to summon it in a duel where you've already won and so it isn't actually helping you at all.

 

Also, keeping it around in duels against non-cheaters seems like it ought to break your code of ethics. Sure, you're saving it "for emergencies", but the fact that's available means that you would use it in a fair duel if things were going badly. In other words, you feel free to use it whenever you need it, and have only avoided using it thus far by being Suetiful enough to prevent that being necessary. You're still going to win just as much as if you used it all the time; you're only avoiding using it for PR reasons, not to be "fair" or to avoid being "spoiled".

 

It's as if you started each game with twice as many Life Points as your opponent, but said it was okay because they didn't have any real effect except in those emergency situations where you lost the first half of your Life Points.

 

So instead of tuning my monsters, I simply announced, “I attack for the win and retain my title.”

 

The disappointed crowd scattered,

 

"Awwww, she didn't out of nowhere for no reason summon the monster she never summons." Yeah, I can really feel the disappointment.

 

If she's even capable of considering summoning it, she must have it in her Extra Deck, right? Why doesn't one of you just play a card that lets you peek at her Extra Deck and take a look?

 

and Mark and I went to work cleaning up our cards. Mark finished first and headed off without a word.

 

“Awesome match once again, Kira the Great,” said Jack, plopping down in the seat beside me.

 

“Don’t call me that, Jack,” I said, but I was far from serious. No matter how many times I told Jack to abandon his little pet name for me, he never would, so I lived with it.

 

As with her choice of only using cards she considers unfair when she would lose otherwise (i.e. every time they would actually be useful), Kira knows she's great and enjoys being great, but puts up some token protest to look better to her peers.

 

I mean, I appreciate that our protagonist is flawed, but the fact that she's portrayed as perfect in many other ways and the fact that it's unclear whether the author is aware of some of these inconsistencies detracts from things.

 

“It was a stupid match. I thought someone like Goth Mark would come up with a better deck than that. No Synchros and the strategy was really straightforward. It was too standard to be a real challenge. And everyone wonders why I’m so laid-back about this game.”

 

See? She said she was laid-back, so that must be the case! Because there's nothing more laid-back than swearing in order to create a facade.

 

“Mark beat you once, last time he got the title.”

 

“That was a fluke,” I insisted. “Every gamer gets a bad hand from time to time.”

 

A good point. Which really makes one wonder how she has only ever lost once, especially since they don't seem to be playing best-of-three matches.

 

“Hey,” said Jack, raising his hands defensively, “whatever you say.” But he wasn’t done prodding me, “There’s also He Who Must Not Be Named.”

 

I growled, “Damien Johnson. That emo prick. He treated me like crap. I’ve never been happier than the day he moved away, as sucky as the circumstances were.”

 

“He always beat you,” said Jack in jest.

 

EXPOSITION

 

I mean, I've seen worse, but does this dialogue look at all natural to you? People at my school never went around recapping their circumstances for the benefit of any readers who might have just started hearing them. It's the same thing as with Mark's comments during the duel: it's nice that you tried to work it into the story, but the implementation is just awkward.

 

I pushed him out of his chair just as the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. I got up from my seat and started toward my first afternoon class. Jack hastily picked himself up from the floor and followed. “Oh come on,” he said, “I was only kidding.”

 

“Kid about something else,” I fumed.

 

Kira becomes furious whenever anyone mentions that she might have lost ever in the past, but she thinks she is successfully avoiding being a "spoiled duelist" (and I see no indication that the author disagrees).

 

Also, note how quick to anger she is when loss is even mentioned. Yeah, it's easy to be laid-back when you win effortlessly every time, but put Kira under the slightest stress, and this happens.

 

We walked quietly after that, and it wasn’t long before Jack had to break off and head to his class upstairs. I was on my way to the basement floor, where science classes were held. But first I ducked into the first floor restroom, as I usually did, to steal a few seconds with my friends Samantha and Jenny.

 

Jenny was leaning against the counter. Sam was perched on the counter on the opposite end, facing her. There was a game going on between them.

 

“Bell, ladies,” I said.

 

“Five more minutes, Mom,” Sam mocked, running a hand through her messy, short blond hair.

 

“Nuh uh,” I said, picking up their respective cards and handing them to their owners.

 

Of course! I totally remember going to the bathroom to play Duel Monsters with my friends. Don't you?

 

Yeah, it should not surprise anyone that this story was written by a guy. Is this really what boys think the girls' bathroom is used for?

 

“Awww!” Sam whined.

 

“Kira!” Jenny sang cheerfully, putting her long, curly, light brown hair up into a ponytail. “Did you win today’s game?”

 

Yeah, the physical description of every character in this story boils down to hair color.

 

“Do you need to ask?” Sam asked, jumping down from the counter with a showy flourish of her hands. “Who was it this time?” she asked.

 

Wow, there is really no attempt made to create the slightest tension here. We're told that Kira maybe loses offscreen to someone we've never seen, but all the evidence we see firsthand shows that Kira is basically the second coming of Duel Monster Jesus.

 

“Mark,” I answered.

 

“Goth Mark?” Sam asked, turning toward the exit, Jenny and I following.

 

“Yeah,” I answered. “He used another Zombie variation. This one was almost less creative than the Zombie Swarm deck he usually uses.”

 

I dunno, putting a bunch of rare Dragons into a Zombie deck seems like an unusual combination to me. A stupid one, sure, but an unusual one.

 

“Sounds like the idea of fighting you really got to him,” said Jenny. “You know, Mark is kinda cute.”

 

“Ugh!”

 

“Oh, come on,” said Jenny, dancing up ahead of me and beginning to walk backwards so she could look right at me, “you gotta start dating. You gotta learn the ways of life and love before your youth passes you by!”

 

Yeah, because they had such great chemistry. I would have guessed that Jack was the cardboard love interest - not because he had any better chemistry with Kira but because his entire personality is "worships Kira".

 

“Thank you Love Guru,” I replied, “but I’m perfectly fine with my current relationship status.”

 

“Leave her alone,” said Sam, coming to my defense. “Just ‘cuz you’ve gotten real into reading fortune cookies lately doesn’t mean we wanna hear what you read.”

 

Jenny began to mock-pout, “How rude!”

 

I branched off from my only two female friends,

 

Kira only has two female friends? I can't imagine why. I mean, she has such an agreeable and humble and laid-back personality!

 

a smile on my face, and slipped into my biology class just ahead of the bell. My teacher, the erratic Mr. Winton, was busy scribbling the period’s notes onto the white board. Based on his level of completion we had a good ten minutes before the lecture would actually start.

 

I looked casually around the windowless room cluttered with diagrams and models of the human body and basic anatomy, and so on, before finally making my way to the back of the room to sit in my usual spot next to a bored-looking boy with long red hair.

 

“Hey, Thay,”

 

IT RHYMES

 

*APPLAUSE*

 

As for the setting description, I'm in two minds. One one hand, it's good to see some actual effort made to describe the setting as something other than a featureless blank white room. On the other hand, the description here is so vague that we're just going to picture it as a generic science classroom, and nothing has really been done to spark our interest so far.

 

I said to the boy, Thaylaan. Of course Thaylaan isn’t his real name (and if you thought it was then I have some bad news; you might be an idiot).

 

How appropriate! You fight like a cow!

 

Also, that's rich coming from you; maybe that's a more common name over in America, but when I think Kira, I think Light Yagami.

 

This overly-serious member of my little group was the weirdest of all. He was a genius who refused to be moved up to classes at the college level. Don’t ask me why.

 

I think I know why: Plot convenience.

 

All his refusal did was serve to alienate Thay from his classmates, far more than changing classes would, and more than his typical behavior tended to do anyway.

 

Thay is a game master, a puzzle master, he has an eidetic memory, and he’s a self-taught expert at dead languages. In fact he made national headlines a couple years back when he discovered a unique, underlying syntax that was similar between the written languages of various ancient civilizations, including Egypt and the Mayans, that he claimed proved the existence of Atlantis. He even worked out a basic word bank of words from what could be the Atlantean language. His work succeeded in convincing several experts that the ancient super civilization did actually exist.

 

Screw taking college classes; make this guy a professor. And yet, instead of researching historical linguistics with the other most renowned minds of our day like a super-genius like him ought to, he just wastes time sitting in grade school anatomy classes.

 

Plot contrivance is a wonderful thing.

 

According to Thay, the word “thaylaan” is the phonetical translation of the Atlantean word from “spiritual one” or “spiritualist”. Thaylaan claims that he uses a nickname because he believes, like many ancient civilizations, that if people know your real name, it gives them power over you.

 

I'm sure the school has records that anyone could look up. What, did he think this feeblest of all defenses would be enough? Or did he delete all records of his birth name, and everyone was for some reason okay with that?

 

On most days, if you asked me if I considered Thay a good friend, I might say no. After all, he only really started hanging out with me and my friends because of his (not so) secret crush on Sam. But if I actually took the time to think about it, I’d remember how, even though Thay’s a little arrogant,

 

Thay's the arrogant one here? POT. KETTLE.

 

Besides, Thay's arrogant because he's done incredible historical research and is an exaggeratedly brilliant genius, whereas you're arrogant because you can consistently do well at high school Duel Monsters. One of you actually has reasonable justification for his arrogance.

 

and he sometimes doesn’t know when to keep his opinions to himself, I’ve known him since before he started using a nickname.

 

Wow, the "nickname" is even more pointless than it initially seemed. If you grew up in this area and your classmates already know your birth name, what's the point? And how did you get them all to start calling you "Theylordoftheringsfaan", anyhow?

 

Before his parents moved overseas and left him to live alone, living on bi-monthly bank deposits. I’d remember that ever since I’ve known him, Thay’s been nothing but a genuinely good and altogether reliable person, always willing to stand up for people in need.

 

“Did you beat Mark?” Thay asked without even looking up from his notebook.

 

“How do you always know who I fought when you have an earlier lunch period than I do?” I asked, not for the first time, and not for the first time Thay ignored me.

 

You had a crowd of twenty spectators and have shown that there's loads of time to chat between classes. If this is supposed to make Thay look smart, all it's doing is making Kira look dumb.

 

“How are Sam, Jenny, and your fan boy, Jack?” He asked.

 

“Sam and Jenny are fine,” I answered. “I know you don’t actually care how Jack is.”

 

Jack and Thay had a huge rivalry. One that Jack never seemed to be able to get a leg up on. And Thay delighted in reminding him of that fact.

 

How can they be rivals? Thay has the power of being a ridiculous exaggerated random unrealistic super-genius, while Jack's only distinguishing trait is cheering for Kira. It's as if this had said that Mark's rival was Seto Kaiba himself; there's too great a disparity for this to make any sense.

 

His usual questions asked and answered, Thay quieted down and said nothing else. He simply rested his head on his hand and began scribbling symbols in his notebook, like he did every class. Whenever I asked Thay about the symbols he answered that he was close to another breakthrough, like the last one, but I think he was just trying to sound serious about something he does for fun. That’s how serious guys are.

 

Yeah, it's not like DISCOVERING PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN LINGUISTIC SIMILARITIES BETWEEN DISTANT ANCIENT LANGUAGES, CONVINCING THE WORLD'S EXPERTS OF THE EXISTENCE OF ATLANTIS (somehow, since apparently Atlantis is the only possible explanation for such linguistic similarities for some reason) AND DEDUCING SOME OF THE ANCIENT ATLANTEAN VOCABULARY is at all serious or anything, and it couldn't possibly involve any breakthroughs. Thay's just being arrogant again.

 

Of course, this does raise the question in my mind of why Thay considers a high school anatomy classroom to be the ideal location for conducting this research, but I guess that's why I'm not the super-genius. Maybe human anatomy is central to the structure of the Atlantean language.

 

So, anyway, my life was pretty good then. It was simple. I had great friends, and my mom was always around, which almost made up for my dad being off being a pro Duelist and never being home. I was content to drift through school and play games.

 

"My life was pretty good, simple, and generally not really worth reading about. Please do not continue reading this."

 

I never really thought about my future. It just seemed so far off. I wish I’d known then how quickly my future would find me. Maybe if I’d known I had a destiny, I’d have been ready for it.

 

"Oh, but I swear something interesting happens later, so please keep reading despite the mix of Suetiful and flat characters and the total lack of any interesting events or setup."

 

So that's the end of the first chapter, and what do I think of it? Well, the typing is less illiterate than one might expect of the internet, but the story was bland, the characters other than Kira and Thay had no interesting features, Kira and Thay were Suetiful, and nothing happened to make me want to come back - all that happened was the utterly tensionless duel and the introduction of the cardboard cast, without even much foreshadowing to speak of - and what little foreshadowing was present was too vague to be captivating.

 

Maybe people who read your previous stories will press on purely through faith that you won't keep being this dull, but as a new reader looking for something interesting to follow, this isn't going to cut it.

 

Normally, I'd stop there, but since I'm still mad that this jerk turned me away from the Duel Academy entrance exams, I'm going to skim further in the topic and see what else this legendhiro has to say.

 

First, apparently Violet Crystal was in Mark's deck because the author thought Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon had 2700 ATK and, when corrected, decided to toss that lousy card into his deck for no reason instead of, you know, changing the numbers a little bit to fix it. That's really lazy.

 

Second, when asked about who the last of the sixth important characters would be, this is what the author had to say:

 

ah, senron, surely you have better insight than that! I am a lover of mysteries, so you can be sure that there is a clue to the sixth character's identity somewhere. Think. Was anyone mentioned who might create interesting character conflicts?

 

Anything interesting? No. Any real character conflicts? No, nobody has enough characterization for that. But the name Damien got a reaction, so I'm assuming he's the one being referred to, and if Damien's importance is really considered a "mystery" or in any way subtle, we're in real trouble here. I can't be interested in Damien now because we've been given no reason to be interested in him; he's just a name that we're told belongs to a strong duelist. That's all. Wow, a strong duelist? What innovation! What suspense! (And yes, the author confirmed that Damien is the one he was referring to. It says something about the few readers of this pathetic excuse for a story that someone had to actually ask about that.)

 

In a poll asking for opinions about the story, eight people voted that it was awesome and they would totally read it, while mine was the only vote saying that it sucked. Maybe people's standards are really low here and they'll read anything with half-decent spelling and grammar, but I don't personally consider "It didn't make my brain bleed quite as much as it could have" to be high praise.

 

Now, here's something else interesting: this first chapter was posted almost a year ago, and the second chapter still hasn't shown up. The author hasn't abandoned the story, either (though I would forgive him for doing so, since I would be much too bored to continue this nonsense myself); it's been periodically bumped with promises that it will continue eventually, and the author has even spent the last couple of weeks promising each day that the second chapter will totally be posted the next day. It's not so much a dead fic as an undead fic; it gives the appearance of activity, but its lifespan expired long ago, along with all real signs of actual life.

 

Hah. That'll teach you to keep me out of Duel Academy. You jerk.

 

Bah.

 

 

Shortly, the other guard met with a Shadowy Cloaked Figure to report:

 

"Yes, sir, that's right. It's definitely her. She posted it on the internet. No. Yes. Yes, a false alarm is still possible. No. That's right. We'll bring her in for observation immediately. Melody will be most pleased."

 

Oh, and since nobody seems to object to me continuing the storyline (responses range from "I like it" to "I don't care and can just skip it", but nobody seems to think it actively hurts), I'll be continuing it. And I'll try to make it interrupt the actual reviews less (instead of interjecting one-two-four-four-two into every fifth line) to make it easier to skip for those who don't care for it.

[.Rai]

You seem to manage to find every single plot device there. I have a habit of missing the Chekhov's Guns in fictions.

 

ah, senron, surely you have better insight than that! I am a lover of mysteries, so you can be sure that there is a clue to the sixth character's identity somewhere. Think. Was anyone mentioned who might create interesting character conflicts?

 

To be honest, I think he shouldn't have posted the reply at all. Giving major hints on stuff when it's only the first chapter is quite unnecessary.

[CrabHelmet]

To be honest, I think he shouldn't have posted the reply at all. Giving major hints on stuff when it's only the first chapter is quite unnecessary.

Yeah, that reply really wasn't necessary, but at the same time, Damien was such an obvious plot hook that the only way to not know he would be important would be to have completely forgotten about him amidst the sea of boringness surrounding him (in all honesty, I'd forgotten his existence by the end of the review until I came to that comment, even though I recognized the original mention of Damien as a blatant awkward plot hook; when your story is boring enough that we can't even be bothered to remember the clearly important parts, you're doing something wrong).

[Dr. Cakey]

Oh good god, what sick, twisted alternate universe have we entered now?

 

But...is Kira...a girl's name? I don't think we ever got any indication as to The Laid-Back Duelist's gender in any other way, so every line of this review was vaguely unsettling.

[DL]

Well Kira was in the girl's bathroom, so I'd HOPE she was a girl >>;;

 

Latest review had me rofling

 

 

Kira might beat Anten at being a Sue

 

How will Izzy react to this?

 

Dun dun duuun

 

On that topic, my favorite guests were always Anten, Izzy, and Professor Young Boy.

[Phantom Roxas]

Kira is most definitely not an American name, but apparently is indeed a male name. The only characters I recall being named Kira are Light, and from I remember, that was simply meant to be Engrish for "Killer", Kira Yamato, the protagonist of Gundam SEED, who is typically accused of being a Gary Stu anyway, Izuru Kira from Bleach, who's most defining trait is that he was once second-in-command to the Starscream. I don't know legendhiro never noticed how poorly written his main character is.

 

When you mentioned Damien, I had to look back at the review to find where he was mentioned, because, in spite of your entertaining comments, the story was just so dull that I couldn't be bothered to understand what was happening.

 

Great start to the new season. I don't quite understand the naming convention for this season's chapters, if there is even supposed to be one. I like how the set up revolves around every cliché in the stories you've reviewed.

 

Izzy, Anten, and Professor Young Boy were the only consistent guest stars. Captain R is Salty, but the time-space continuum has been screwed with twice at this point. LASERHANDSMAN is nothing more than an awesome joke character.

[DL]

Good point. But they DID make the story oh-so-more enjoyable =D

 

I miss IzzyxAnten D:

 

 

And actually, apparently, Kira is for both genders

 

http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Kira.html

 

o.o

[Catterjune]

Kira's epithet from the chapter title - the "Laid-Back Duelist" - is particularly odd in that it actually contradicts what we're seeing here. When I think of a laid-back duelist, I think of someone treating the sport in a casual, nonchalant manner, but all we see of Kira here is her deliberately disguising her expression, putting on a poker face to trick the opponent. Certainly, that's what a competent duelist ought to do, but it does make her title rather inaccurate.

I assumed the "laid back" trait was in regards to herself as a whole, not the way she duels. Even Yugi, the most competent duelist ever to whatever into the game is still shocked when he's taking a beating and smirking smugly when he's about to win. Just about anyone who's considered a "good" duelist in the show has a broad spectrum of emotions when they're winning or losing a duel - except Yusei, which is the main reason I disliked him.

 

Kira's all just "whatever", which is exactly what I would expect from someone who was described as laid back.

 

How convenient that, even though our hero doesn't usually run Synchros, her regular deck still runs Tuners.

Plenty of tuners are still pretty good cards even if you ignore the fact that Synchros exist. You can run the entire Mind Master/Caam/Exodia FTK without remembering for a second that Mind Master is a tuner.

 

Kira is most definitely not an American name, but apparently is indeed a male name.

It's a female name (or at best, a unisex name like Jaime or Alexis or Magnus Ver Magnusson or something).

 

Source(s):

http://www.babynames.com/name/Kira

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_%28given_name%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_%28Gelfling%29#Kira

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gathering_Blue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_%28Mortal_Kombat%29#Kira

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_%28German_singer%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_%28Belgian_singer%29

[.Rai]

I assumed the "laid back" trait was in regards to herself as a whole, not the way she duels. Even Yugi, the most competent duelist ever to whatever into the game is still shocked when he's taking a beating and smirking smugly when he's about to win. Just about anyone who's considered a "good" duelist in the show has a broad spectrum of emotions when they're winning or losing a duel - except Yusei, which is the main reason I disliked him.

 

Kira's all just "whatever", which is exactly what I would expect from someone who was described as laid back.

 

Still, it's strange character design to make someone who's somewhat stubborn and big-headed yet laid-back at the same time.

[CrabHelmet]

But...is Kira...a girl's name? I don't think we ever got any indication as to The Laid-Back Duelist's gender in any other way, so every line of this review was vaguely unsettling.

There was a blurb before the story referring to Kira with feminine pronouns. Also, I assumed she was a girl because the only Kira I know in real life is female.

 

I assumed the "laid back" trait was in regards to herself as a whole, not the way she duels. Even Yugi, the most competent duelist ever to whatever into the game is still shocked when he's taking a beating and smirking smugly when he's about to win. Just about anyone who's considered a "good" duelist in the show has a broad spectrum of emotions when they're winning or losing a duel - except Yusei, which is the main reason I disliked him.

 

Kira's all just "whatever", which is exactly what I would expect from someone who was described as laid back.

Ah, that makes sense. I assumed that "laid-back duelist" meant she was at least laid-back while she dueled, but apparently it just meant she was someone who was laid-back and who was also a duelist.

 

Even so, though, it's worth noting that most of the anime characters have such a range of emotions because their lives or the fates of the world tend to be at stake in their games. In casual duels, like Yugi playing with Joey at school or Jaden in any duel that doesn't matter, they don't take it nearly so seriously and act much more casually about the whole thing.

 

Also, it's a shame that Kira's personality is so non-existent that I wouldn't even know she was supposed to be laid-back were it not for her title. In fact, her tendency to get annoyed instantly whenever Jack says anything other than "EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU IS PERFECT PLEASE MARRY ME" suggests that she's quick to anger even in ordinary interactions - hardly what I'd call "laid-back".

 

Plenty of tuners are still pretty good cards even if you ignore the fact that Synchros exist. You can run the entire Mind Master/Caam/Exodia FTK without remembering for a second that Mind Master is a tuner.

That's true, but this specific example is Twilight Rose Knight, whose only effects are Plant support, in what appears to be an Amazoness deck. The author certainly could have justified Kira running a Tuner by giving her a decent one with a useful effect, but instead he gave her something that is, to her, a 1000 ATK vanilla beatstick.

[Phantom Roxas]

@Pika: Seems unisex to me, but I have never heard of a male named "Kira" except in anime, hence the "apparently".

 

I think Kira's "unknown" Synchro is supposed to be Black Rose Dragon. It would explain the inclusion of Twilight Rose Knight, and the Synchro is a Level 7 that blows up the field.

[CrabHelmet]

Kira might beat Anten at being a Sue

Kira's not even close to the biggest Sue I've reviewed. The worst was probably the circle of six dueling prodigies whose parents also personally owned a large corporation and etc etc etc.

 

How will Izzy react to this?

By not existing due to universal implosion, I suspect.

 

On that topic, my favorite guests were always Anten, Izzy, and Professor Young Boy.

That's probably because those were the only real guests. That's like saying "My favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist were always Yugi, Jaden, Yusei, and uh whoever the the ZEXAL hero is."

 

I think Kira's "unknown" Synchro is supposed to be Black Rose Dragon. It would explain the inclusion of Twilight Rose Knight, and the Synchro is a Level 7 that blows up the field.

That seems plausible except for the one major drawback that I couldn't possibly care less. >_>

 

Also, i suppose it's possible that her deck has Plants in it somewhere, but that would mean that her deck is part Amazoness, part Plant, and part RFG based on the four cards we saw, which would imply that the whole thing is just a pile of random cards.

[DL]

Kira's not even close to the biggest Sue I've reviewed. The worst was probably the circle of six dueling prodigies whose parents also personally owned a large corporation and etc etc etc.

 

Oh my, I think I remember that. o . o

 

Point taken

 

 

By not existing due to universal implosion, I suspect.

 

...touche.

 

 

That's probably because those were the only real guests. That's like saying "My favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! protagonist were always Yugi, Jaden, Yusei, and uh whoever the the ZEXAL hero is."

 

I meant in that order, but yeah, I suppose LASERHANDSMAN and the others were just fun extras that really weren't guest stars. Tho Captain R came up often.

[Dr. Cakey]

There was a blurb before the story referring to Kira with feminine pronouns. Also, I assumed she was a girl because the only Kira I know in real life is female.

The mental gymnastics I did were quite entertaining. First I was like "k genius (in quotations) + lazy must look liek lelouch but not drawn by CLAMP" and then "wait crab just said she" and I started wondering if you assumed Kira was a girl because you were a girl, or that I assumed Kira was a guy because I'm a guy, and then I started meditating on the differences between genders. I kept hunting for clues and wondering if some random thing was supposed to be a hint, like "o kira said ladies does that mean something????????"

 

Also, isn't there a rule somewhere that the rival to a female character must also be a female character? I think it was Socrates that said that.

[Grunt Issun]

She went into the girls bathroom and her friends said she should date mark, so unless she's actually a homosexual guy that doesn't care about school rules in the slightest, I think she's a girl.

[DL]

She went into the girls bathroom and her friends said she should date mark, so unless she's actually a homosexual guy that doesn't care about school rules in the slightest, I think she's a girl.

Precisely

 

XDD

 

Though if she IS a guy...

 

O - o

[Dr. Cakey]

She went into the girls bathroom and her friends said she should date mark, so unless she's actually a homosexual guy that doesn't care about school rules in the slightest, I think she's a girl.

My mind discarded that because it resolved the issue, which would have been much less entertaining.

[CrabHelmet]

Two updates in less than 24 hours? I'm on a roll.

 

[spoiler=Green With Envy - {B00k 1. Rise of the Dragon Kings}]I may have forgotten to mention this before, but my mother is the regional vice president of distribution for Industrial Illusions, and is also a multi-billionaire who was able to build an awesome deck of rare and even unreleased cards, so there's really no way I could possibly have failed to get into Duel Academy.

 

Anyhow, apparently Mom was able to pull some strings to get me another chance to get into Duel Academy this year. The problem is that the plane is only built to hold twelve, and there are twelve students flying in, so it's a dead-man's-boots setup - I need to boot another student out to get in. To do this, I need to beat them in a duel. But before that, I need to review something they wrote - apparently one of the strings being pulled noticed my review of that idiot guard's piece and included this as a condition.

 

So, Der Quizzler, it's really nothing personal, but you have a ticket to Duel Academy and I don't, and I'm not going to stand for that. So let's dive into...

 

Rise of the Dragon Kings

 

Excuse me, I mean "B00k 1. Rise of the Dragon Kings". Yes, with zeroes, presumably symbolizing this story's quality.

 

Looking at the source reveals that this was posed with each line beginning with a tabbed indent, but the author apparently didn't even glance at it when it was posted, or they would have known that these indents don't show up on this forum. Except, wait a minute, apparently the author didn't even find the tab button, because these aren't actually tabbed indents - they're just a string of ten spaces. So the indents not only don't show up, producing a wall of text, but they would have been shoddily done even if they had shown up. Wonderful.

 

“Do you what to make a mockery of this family?”

“No. I just don’t get it. Do we really have to do this now?”

“Do we have to do this now? Do we have to do this now? Yes. Yes, we have to do this now. The next time this happens, it could be the next century.”

 

Having only read these first three lines, I can guarantee that one of two things is true: either the first speaker is an idiot and that last statement makes no sense, or that last statement is so obvious in-universe that the second speaker is an idiot for not already knowing it.

 

Already, suspense is built as we hang on the edge of our seats to find out which of these two is the moron.

 

There was a table in front of both son and father. The table was loaded with roots, leaves, flowers, anything that grows from the ground. It was training. Training for the most important event in a child’s life. Of coarse

 

Of "coarse"? It's like some awful hybrid of M. Bison and sandpaper.

 

The moral of the story is that an automated spellchecker is no substitute for actual proofreading.

 

Sage Greenbranch didn’t know what it was. All he knew was that it involved lots of training and knowledge.

 

So, why doesn't he know? Is it because he's an idiot? Or is it because he's not supposed to know - which makes his father acting like it's obvious and giving a partial explanation bad form, making his father an idiot?

 

This isn't just a minor nitpick here. When the scene is focusing on the son's training and his reluctance to train, what he does and doesn't (or should and shouldn't) know about the training is central to what controls all his actions and is thus the center of the entire scene. If that doesn't make sense, then the whole scene doesn't make sense either and just falls apart.

 

“Let’s review. What is this plant called?”

“It’s a… a… White Sageroot?”

“Precisely. Do you remember why it is so important?”

“I remember I’m named after it. Something about air?”

 

I would think "Sage" would be named for more than just the "White Sageroot". There must be other types of Sageroot if the word "White" needs to be there, and I'm guessing that there are still other plants containing the word "Sage" that aren't any sort of "Sageroot".

 

But let's assume for argument's sake that the White Sageroot is indeed the plant for which Sage is named. You'd think that would have made it extremely prominent in Sage's mind, yet he still can't remember what it does. If his memory fails him for even what should be the most important of plants in his mind, this kid really sucks. And this kid is our hero.

 

“Yes. Bring it up to your mouth and you can breath underwater. It saved my life in the Championship.”

“Wow. When is lunch?”

“After you can tell me which of these plants you can eat.”

Training was like this a lot. Harsh, demanding,

 

Yeah, it looks really harsh. Your dad asks you a simple question and you sit there looking like an idiot not knowing what your own namesake does. Sounds really grueling. I can't imagine how this poor abused son can survive.

 

and it seemed like it took forever, at least to Sage. To his father, it was important and life saving. And if it didn’t happen everyday all day, he might as well kiss Sage goodbye.

 

Look, there's only a tableful of plants here. Any decent student, even if they hadn't grown up in this world of magical life-saving plants, would be able to memorize all of their effects in under a day. In a week, it would be permanently committed to memory. In a month, it would be as second-nature as breathing. In the son's entire lifetime? There is no excuse for being at all incompetent here, let alone as pathetic as this kid has turned out to be.

 

Maybe the father should just get a new son. This one is clearly hopelessly retarded.

 

Life was like this a lot in the city of Etchis. Harsh, demanding,

 

Look, you've shown the father ask the son two questions, and the son has spent the entire time whining without giving a single correct answer. Stop trying to act like this is the most harsh and unfair setup ever.

 

and it seemed like it was to short. Mainly because it was for many people. At the age of thirteen, all children where forced to participate in the Rider Championship. The Championship is an opportunity for all children to prove their worth. If a child was killed or mortally wounded, they where out. The winner got to become a great Dragon Rider, starting training all over again. this time in magic, weaponry, and politics.

 

So, only one child survives each year's Championship? This will not produce a sustainable population. The population will dwindle until there are so few left that there are only one or two children even competing in each Championship, and at that point it will die out because it's too small and has insufficient genetic diversity. Oh, and as for magic, weaponry, and politics? You might get better results on those fronts if your "city" could support more than a hundred people.

 

At least we can now confirm that this Championship is something everyone should know about, confirming that the son is the idiot for not caring about the imminent life-or-death battle. Of course, the original which-is-the-moron question is still open on the "century" comment; they could both be idiots on different topics.

 

“That’s easy,” replied Sage. “The answer is most of them. Any plant with red on it is a “no”. Any unknown berry, and, unless you have to, anything that doesn’t have flowers or doesn’t bloom.”

“And why don’t we eat things that don’t bloom?”

“Because it means it was abandoned by living creatures long ago. Evolution made if loose it’s bloom.”

 

Nonsense. Something can be toxic to humans while still blooming because it needs to attract non-human life, to which it is non-toxic.

 

And what about the "unknown berry" condition? That's certainly good advice, but if you need to eat, it would be best to actually learn your berries to know which ones are safe. The answer just begs the question. "Which ones do you know are safe to eat?" "Well, not the ones that I don't know are safe to eat."

 

“Perfect. Let’s go in for lunch.”

 

Wow, the father's standards seem to be really low. Oh, and look at how he agreed to go to lunch after that fifteen-second exchange that even the idiot son thought was easy. Truly, this is the harshest and most grueling of all training sessions.

 

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Why aren’t you flying on some dragon, fighting enemy towns?”

“Let’s eat.”

 

Ah, an evasive answer that creates mystery and leaves the reader in suspense-

 

The truth was, Mr.Greenbranch didn’t ride dragons because when he won, it was very controversial.

 

-for one single line before immediately giving a flashback answer.

 

That year, the Championship took play on a volcano.

 

Okay, I've been ignoring a lot of proofreading errors in this story because we'd be here all day if I pointed them all out, but "took play"? Ye Gods, this is awful. I know this isn't a perfect draft and was in part posted to get comments and suggestions for improvement, but do your beta readers a service and proofread it yourself before asking others to help you proofread, you illiterate hack.

 

All others where dead, except 2 boys. One was trained mainly in offence and hunting, the other was an Intellectual. He knew everything about most things. He also knew that this particular volcano was famous. Famous for having an underground oasis.

 

Indeed, he's such a capital-I Intellectual that he... knows things that apparently everybody knows, since that's what the word "famous" means.

 

The smarter boy took roots from his precious personal pack, a bag everyone got to put items in. If it can fit in a 8 inch, by 3 inch, by 4 inch bag, you can use it. That particular boy filled his up with edible and useful plants. He took the most distasteful ones for the job and made a trail to the oasis.

The other one fell for it, hook line, and sinker. Thinking he had the upper hand, the more aggressive boy walked closer and closer to the water until he was in reach. In reach of the other boy that is. From the depths of pond and algae came a dangerous force known as . He grabbed his opponent and dragged him down into the water.

 

A dangerous force known as... the other boy's period? o_O Fantasy biology is weird.

 

So, if he was planning on using these plants to set a trap, why did the "Intellectual" pack distasteful ones at all? Wouldn't the trap be better with yummy ones? And why did the aggressive boy think he had the "upper hand"? He didn't seem to think Menstruating Boy was there, so did he just think having food would make him win? Or did he know our Tactical Genius was there and just walk into this vague trap because he's a moron?

 

Using White Sageroot, the smarter boy was able to breathe under the surface while to other drowned. Or at least, he thought the other had drowned.

 

He can't tell whether the other drowned properly, and didn't bother making absolutely sure he was dead? Yeah, this kid is a real genius.

 

He pulled the body to the surface and turned his back to him as he examined the short knife the boy had brought. Just as _ desided he would keep the blade, the other got up and charged at him. Hearing the previously life-less body get up, _ turned around and stabbed him.

 

I inserted an underscore where the author just left a blank for a name that he never bothered to fill in, since those blanks don't actually show up. This is true creative genius here; simply naming characters, or even inserting placeholders to make the story readable, apparently takes too much effort.

 

This was a mistake. Contestants are only aloud to use the environment and what they brought.

 

That's a stupid rule. So if A attacks B with a knife, they struggle, and B manages to make A stab himself, B is disqualified? If someone uses some sort of use-the-opponent's-own-strength-against-him judo stuff, is that cheating too? Why isn't the knife considered part of the environment? Since the only things present are the environment, what they brought, and what others bought, this rule seems to exist exclusively to prevent the use of things others brought, but what's the point of making such a rule? If the aggressive boy went after the roots to eat them, shouldn't he be disqualified first for using something he didn't bring, leaving the intellectual the only remaining contestant long before his own violation of the rules? But what if the aggressive boy hadn't known those plants were brought by another contestant? And if this really was a rule, wouldn't the "Intellectual" have known about it and thus not decided to bring the knife with him?

 

Any level of reading deeper than whatever-you-say-smile-and-nod will bring the story to an abrupt halt at this completely nonsensical line.

 

In the end, the council decided to allow the boy to live

 

Aw, you didn't want to just kill two percent of your over-thirteen population for no good reason?

 

and be claimed victor, but not to be a rider.

 

So, apparently they don't have exactly one dragon to be given a rider each year, since this year they're not producing any new rider. So, int hat case, what's the point of the one-per-year rule?

 

This Dragonless Champion became a father to Sage.

 

Well, we're at the end of the chapter now, and... I have no incentive to keep reading. The son, who seems to be our protagonist, is a lazy moron who just whines about simple tasks, the worldbuilding here is terrible, and there has been no interesting setup that I want to see resolved.

 

Chapter 2

 

It wasn’t until that night, after another rigorous training seccion, did Sage wonder what exactly he was training for. He always knew it was important and everyone went through it, but wht WAS it? If he could die, he had a right to know.

Why wasn’t his dad a Rider?

Who or what was this mysterious Council?

What happened to the victor and why didn’t he see any around?

Tomorrow, Sage thought to himself, tomorrow I will ask these things. And tomorrow will be the day I learn the answers.

 

That's the entire second chapter. Chapters in this story are evidently shorter than paragraphs in decent books.

 

So, uh, why doesn't the son know about the Championship when it's central to his entire life thus far? Why doesn't he know whether his life will be endangered even though his father has explicitly told him that his life will be at stake? Wouldn't knowing what the Championship is about make it much easier to prepare for it and win it, or at least increase his motivation? And wouldn't knowing about the Championship and its rules prevent him from breaking another of their stupid rules that got his father disqualified? What does Sage know about the Council, anyhow? He's asking what it is here, so he's obviously heard of it, but it wasn't mentioned in the scene between Sage and his father, so we've no idea how he heard of it or what he does know about it.

 

And if simply asking would be enough to let him learn all of this, why hasn't he done it already? He must be the least curious boy in the world. Except, wait, he already asked his dad why he wasn't a Rider in the first chapter, and got no answer; why does he think the next time he asks will be any different?

 

Most importantly, why should I care about this little idiot enough to keep reading?

 

Chapter 3

 

“Wake up, young one, “ was the first thing Sage’s father said to him in the morning. ”Today is special. Today, you get to go outside the house.”

 

Waitwaitwait, he's training by studying plants for an outdoor survival tournament, and he's never set foot outside his house? Worst. Training. Ever.

 

“But why today? Why not earlier?” asked Sage. Maybe this will help in his quest for answers.

His father made a deep sigh “You have a right to know why. You have a right to know why I waited until today, when you turned 10, to know. The world is very dangerous. I kept you in for long enough. Your final years of training will all be done outside.

 

I guess mysteries are technically being raised, but they're not the good kind of mysteries where we're interested in finding out what's going on. Instead, they're the bad kind of mysteries where we're wondering what was wrong with the idiot who wrote this illogical mess.

 

Its time you learned combat. Its time you learned how to become a Dragon Champion.”

Long ago the White Wizard, the most powerful of all wizards, wanted to create a new creature. A nnew creature that could enhance

 

Im not done with chapter 3 yet. Its actually stopped mid-sentence as of now.

 

Oh, no. You were too stupid and lazy to merely finish a sentence, so now I'll never find out about this nnew creature.

 

Your fantasy setting is full of holes and fundamentally makes no sense, your characters are bland and unlikeable, there's no incentive to keep reading, you've done no proofreading, your chapters can be as short as paragraphs, and one of your boys is having his period. It would be easier to list what's right with this story than what's wrong with it. Nothing personal, Der Quizzler, but this story is terrible, and I really want your spot at Duel Academy. So let's duel.

 

Crab Helmet: 4000

Der Quizzler: 4000

 

I'll go first. I summon UItimate Necromantic Dragon! By paying 3800 Life Points, I can Special Summon it! It removes your whole field and Graveyard from play, and them removes everything that's already removed from play even further from play, and then discards your entire hand. It has 12442 ATK and DEF, can't be removed from the field or destroyed in any way, and can attack on the very first turn of the duel. Go, attack for-

 

Der Quizzler: "Necro Gardna".

 

You're... blocking my attack? Well, that's no fair. Fine, your turn.

 

Der Quizzler: "I draw. Sparks. I win."

 

Nooooooooo! My life points! AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! IT HURTS SO MUCH HOW CAN THIS BE? I HAVE NEVER LOST A DUEL IN MY ENTIRE LIFE EVER! THIS PAIN IS UNIMAGINEABLE! And yet, it still doesn't feel quite as bad as reading B00k 1. Rise of the Dragon Kings.

 

This should also make the naming theme for this season more clear.

[Yankee]

...Right...this "Championship" thing...

This is a copy and paste of the Hunger Games.

[CrabHelmet]

...Right...this "Championship" thing...

This is a copy and paste of the Hunger Games.

I haven't read the Hunger Games, so I don't know how closely it matches that exact setup, but there are a lot of stories that use that setup, from the extremely similar Battle Royale to something as simple as the Mad Max "Two men enter, one man leaves" battles. And this structure gets rehashed a lot; can't we all get... beyond Thunderdome?