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

[Womi]

O wait, was the post with the typo my first one in this thread?

I'm sorry, I have to comment on your work of course.

It's awesome, I lol'd throughout the whole thing and I want this to become a book. It'd be a bestseller.

[Guest]

And our ninth installment is up.

 

[spoiler=Revolution Number 9 - {Yu-Gi-Oh! Fallen Leaves}]Let's proceed to Yu-Gi-Oh! Fallen Leaves by Kuroda Naoki.

 

The topic opens with a Youtube link to a song called "Fallen Leaves". Apparently this is a Songfic, which is in and of itself already discouraging. Worse yet, the song sucks.

 

Anyhow, we'll be covering the prologue today.

 

Prologue

 

See? Told you so.

 

Naturally, this will be blind.

 

The hot desert wind blew across the streets of the quiet village. Two men was

 

I cannot stress this enough: you must proofread. That's rule number zero of writing.

 

standing on the middle of a sandy street, both of them wearing ponchos and western hats.

 

If you're trying to establish this as a typical Western-movie town, it's very poor form to explicitly use the phrase "western hats". Especially since those hats do have a real name - they're called "Stetsons", or at least "ten gallons".

 

Other people could be seen among the shadows, watching the two men. They weren't moving, only staring at eachothers. Their shadows grew longer as the sun was decending on the horizon.

 

PROOFREADING

 

Also, apparently these guys are standing here doing nothing for so long that the sun sets enough for the shadows to become appreciably longer. Shouldn't these chaps be getting on with their gunfight or whatever they're up to? And if they're not going to, don't all these spectators have anything better to do than staring at two men doing nothing?

 

"Is father going to be alright?" A boy asked his mother, who quickly made a hushing sound, signaling to the boy to be quiet.

 

As opposed to a quiet hushing sound that signaled the boy to speak louder.

 

Yes, I know that I sound like I'm being petulant and nit-picky and some other mean words here, or at least just throwing this comment in for purely comedic effect rather than serious criticism, but that is by no means the case. This is an important facet of writing. If you've already said something, you shouldn't repeat yourself, and if you've already made something clear, you shouldn't explicitly state it; that's pointless and clumsy and stupid and makes the work worse.

 

One of the men was bearded, but one couldn't see any facial features under the shadow of the hat, but one could see that he was sweating

 

We can see his beard, but we can't see any of his facial features, but we can see his sweat? I expect the next line to reveal that the man was invisible and the line after that to reveal that everyone could see his green eyes.

 

as the other mans shadow came closer.

 

One might think that an apostrophe was dropped here due to a lack of PROOFREADING, but that is not the case; MANSHADOW is the name of a character, the hammiest shadow in existence, played by BRIANSHADOWBLESSED.

 

The bearded man was called Gilbert Falklore, the mayor of the small town called The Sand Pit in the middle of the Nevada Desert.

 

This one may also sound like a minor nitpick and stuff, and this time it's probably because it is: using the word "called" twice in succession here sounds terribly awkward. Reusing prominent words unnecessarily in quick succession makes for poor style, and it's worse when the recycled word is both cases used in an odd-sounding expression; saying that one thing is "called" something is reasonable, but when you start giving names only by what things are "called" and never by what things "are", things start to feel very strange.

 

Why ahd the stranger come all the way here, and why ahd he challanged the mayor to a duel?

 

Why AHD he CHALLANGED the mayor to a duel? Because he's MANSHADOW! Stand back; MANSHADOW takes large steps!

 

"When my shadow touches your feet I will draw!" The stranger suddenly called out.

 

MANSHADOW initiates all combat by counting coup - he doesn't attack until he's slowly poked his foe. Why? Because he's MANSHADOW, and MANSHADOW derives his power from whatever he feels like because MANSHADOW is just that awesome and this joke isn't really funny so I'm going to stop now.

 

Seriously, though, why is this story so obsessed with peoples' shadows? Especially MANSHADOW?

 

The stranger looked up and his facial structure could now be seen. Black hair could be seen under his hat, and his eyes was yellow. His left eye had a small, yellow tattoo under it. A criminal marker used to point out and track criminals.

 

And another thing: I know you're trying to simulate an anime series here or something, but the fact of the matter than you're going to have to accept is that you're not, you're writing a text-only story, and a text-only story does not need to - and should not - read like the transcript of an episode of an audiovisual television series. Case in point: every single bloody time you talk about what can and can't "be seen", I want to stop reading.

 

He's a criminal, but I'm not only the mayor of this town; I am also a honorful duelist, and an honorful duelist never turns a duel down!

 

PROOFREADING

 

Not to mention that that makes no sense at all. If people can always just challenge you to duels to get out of anything, then the only way you're ever going to get any law enforcement done is to sneak up on people and knock them unconscious before they can challenge you to a duel. And that certainly doesn't sound terribly honourable "honorful" to me.

 

"That's fine by me!" Gilbert said and stuck his hand underneath the poncho, ready to draw his Crashtown Duel Disk, a model first used in Crashtown, thereby the name.

 

"Thereby" is not the word you're looking for. "Hence" is probably the word you're looking for, but considering that all you're doing with that last phrase is confirming that the Crashtown Duel Disk, which was first used in Crashtown, first got its name because Crashtown was where it was first used, you'd be better off cutting that awful phrase and not looking for any words.

 

Gilbert knew that the stranger also was carrying one,

 

Duelists who duel with duel disks carry duel disks!? To make a deduction like that, Gilbert must be a genius!

 

so the one who drew the quickest wuld be the one to start the duel.

 

PROOFREADING

 

So "draw" now refers both to producing your Duel Disk and to adding cards from your deck to your hand? It seems like this system for determining turn order would normally just lead to arguments over "Your shadow didn't touch me yet!", "MANSHADOW totally touched you!", and so on, but I suppose it's more interesting than a coin flip.

 

"Do you know why I came to this village to challenge you?" The stranger's question came a like a lightning from a clear sky.

 

Why is it so surprising? It seems like a perfectly straightforward question. What, does Gilbert think the world is composed of random people of Chaotic Hategilbert alignment who just challenge him to duels for no reason?

 

Of course Gilbert didn't know that,

 

That was already established, both through Gilbert's absurd overreaction to the question and through the part a few paragraphs above where you explicitly stated that Gilbert didn't know why he was being challenged.

 

Can this story get more repetitive?

 

the stranger never told him! "Oh right... I never told you.

 

Yes.

 

New drinking game rule: whenever this sort of idiotic repetition occurs, take no sips and slash your wrists. Drinking is far too slow a method to end this sort of pain.

 

I came here because I saw potential in you. Because your duel energy is very high."

"My duel energy?" Gilbert was confused. What was this "duel energy" the stranger was talking about?

 

When Gilbert was confused over that "duel energy" line, I thought it was because he realized he left the oven burning at his house, but now I know it was actually because he was wondering what this "duel energy" was. It's a good thing an extra sentence was added to clear up that ambiguity.

 

*slashwrists*

 

Gilbert looked at the shadow, it was creeping closer for every second. "What is this 'duel energy' you're talking about?"

 

You were going to have that exact line in dialogue two sentences later anyhow?! Are you being paid by the word here?

 

*slashwrists*

 

The stranger smiled, but didn't answer. A moment of silence took place untill

 

PROOFREADING

 

Also, saying that the stranger didn't answer and then saying that a moment of silence took place counts as redundant repetition, so take out your razors and use them to take out your wrists.

 

the stranger finally spoke.

"Gilbert... What if I said I placed a bomb at your house, and that your family is in danger right now?" The stranger smiled again.

 

All this use of the phrase "the stranger" makes me wonder if this is actually a Songfic for a much better song.

 

Gilbert quickly looked towards his family who was standing in the shadows closest to Gilbert. They were perfectly safe there. A sound was heard from the stranger; a clicking sound and the sound of drawing cards. Gilbert looked at the shadow that was now making it's way atop his brown leather boots. Empty threats. Empty threats used to draw Gilbert's attention from the shadow.

 

PROOFREADING

 

Yes, Gilbert, thank you for clearing up exactly how you were conned. Everyone else figured it out as soon as the other guy made a sound, but you thought you had to explain it to us just because it took you ages to figure it out, didn't you? Well, Gilbert, the only explanation I want is an explanation why you seem so dedicated to murdering my poor little wrists.

 

"Looks like I drew faster than you!" The stranger's face was painted with a malicious grin while Gilbert also drew his Duel Disk and cards. "That means that I will have the honor to start, doesn't it?

 

Yes.

 

Yes it does.

 

That was indeed the purpose of your ploy and mirrors the only bloody rule established in this story.

 

Draw!" The stranger drew a card and looked at his hand. Stroking his index finger and thumb across the cards he finally found one suitable for the situation.

 

I'm going to be honest here: fanfiction duels really don't interest me that much, so I'm sure I'll get bored fairly quickly in this section. Or, that is, I would get bored fairly quickly if I weren't already bored from all the repetition repetition repetition.

 

"I activate Soul of Fire!" He placed the card on his Duel Disk. "The card let's

 

PROOFREADING

 

you draw a card!" The stranger eyed Gilbert as the mayor drew a card. "I will then removed from play

 

PROOFREADING

 

a Pyro monsterf rom

 

PROOFREADING

 

my Deck to deal damage to you!" The stranger pulled a card out of his Deck and showed it to his opponent. "Now you will take damage equal to half it's

 

PROOFREADING

 

attack points!"

The mayor immediately caught on fire and moaned when his life points was

 

PROOFREADING

 

reduced by 1200. (2800)

 

That's five critical proofreading failures in a single basic move of the game. Did you blindfold yourself while typing this up to give yourself an extra challenge? Trust me when I say that you really don't need any more challenge at writing. And why don't we get to see what monster was removed? Gilbert saw it, and I'm sure your virtual anime camera saw it, so why doesn't your transcription tell us something that is public information?

 

"A nice move, but it won't be enough to crush me!" Gilbert had a faint smile on his face and the fire faded away.

"Nothing's wrong with your fighting spirit, that's a fact!" The stranger was still smiling. "I will also summon Volcanic Revolver in attack mode!"

An armored monster appeared. It had a face resembling a two-barreled revolver.

"Activating monster effect! As long as I don't attack during this turn, I can discard two monsters from my hand to deal damage to you equal to half the total attack of those monsters!" The stranger picked out two cards from his hands and placed them in the graveyard zone.

"I discard Volcanic Doombarrel and another Volcanic Revolver! Their total attack points equal 4400!"

The monster on the strangers field took aim at Gilbert and fired tow balls of fire at him. Despite the fact that it was only a hologram, Gilbert was knocked back, his hat falling off, by the shock when his life points was decreased to a mere six hundred.

"I set a card and will end my turn!" The stranger chuckled when the old mayor was struggling to get on his legs again.

 

Burn decks are horribly broken when you're playing with anime rules and only start with 4000 Life Points. If you want to create the impression that the in-universe game isn't horribly broken (and that it thus makes the least bit of sense for anyone to every play it), it's probably not a good idea to highlight how broken the game is in the prologue.

 

"My turn! Draw!" Gilbert said and made ready to draw a card but before he could draw it...

Suddenly, a boom echoed across the desert village, and Gilbert dropped to the ground. His life points was reduced to 0. The stranger was now holding his Crashtown Duel Disk like a real revolver and was aiming towards the seemingly dead Gilbert Falklore.

"I activate my Trap. Quickfire!" The face-down card next to the stranger was flipped face-up and revealed the Quickfire card. "I can only activate this card when you're about to draw a card. I make you discard the card, and you take damage equal to the number of cards in your hand times hundred."

 

Whee, we have a completely unstoppable FTK. What a great game that it totally makes sense for adults to play seriously!

 

The stranger spinned the Duel Disk on his finger and then placed it back into it's holster. The sun had now decended completely, and the street was only lit up by a the light coming out of a nearby window and the reflection of the blue moon. The stranger walked up to the mayor and kneeled in front of him.

 

More PROFREADING here, but how is it already night? The duel was one bloody turn long; even with anime-style overly-dramatic moves, it shouldn't have taken more than five minutes.

 

"You didn't even give me chance to see your potential."

 

The stranger has to be the one saying this, since he's the one who wanted to see the mayor's potential, but the stranger was the one who pulled an FTK and thus denied the mayor the chance to show his potential, so this line still doesn't make sense. Unless, of course, the stranger is like an abusive husband who says "Why did you make me have to hit you?" or something like that, but even that explanation seems weak and silly.

 

The stranger smiled and placed his hand on the mayor's head. The stranger's hand was lit up, and he then raised to a standing position again and looked towards the crowd.

"You should probably pray for this dead man while you can!" He shouted and laughed. A strong wind suddenly blew from behind the stranger, bringing a big amount of sand, blinding the crowd. When they finally could see again, the stranger was gone. And moment later, the bomb blew the whole village away.

 

This is the best possible ending this story could have had: BOMB FALLS EVERYONE DIES

 

Besides the perk of being mercifully short, the duel was awful even by the standards of fanfic duels due to demonstrating that the game around which everyone's lives are structured is an unplayably broken mess if you don't open with Hanewata. The writing was awful, not only due to a complete failure of PROOFREADING (and even of a simple Microsoft Word Spellcheck) but also because of an absurd amount of awkward and pointless repetition.

 

And as for the plot - well, not a whole lot actually happened, since they spent two-thirds of the chapter staring at each other admiring their manly shadows. I know it's just the prologue, but the Words to Stuff That Happened ratio was still extremely high. And the overall story that was set up seems to be... some shadow-obsessed guy with a broken deck is dueling people with high energy, doing bad stuff to the people he beats, and then laughing as he wipes out bystanders. Isn't that the plot of, like, every single season of the actual anime? Transporting it to a Western setting is new, but that's all that's new. And a quick skim of Chapter 1 shows that your next plot development is to pull out that old, overused protagonist-with-amnesia trope.

 

This story has a lot of negative aspects but no real positive aspects. That's all there is to it.

 

 

 

The next Foe Fiction will be our Tenth Anniversary Special! (...no, not really.)

[Womi]

Will its title be "Ban 10"?

Doo u c wut i did thar!??!?!?!!?

 

Also, is that this crappy "Fallen Leaves" from Billy Talent?

 

2nd Also, MANSHADOW! ;I

[Guest]

Will its title be "Ban 10"?

Doo u c wut i did thar!??!?!?!!?

 

Also' date=' is that this crappy "Fallen Leaves" from Billy Talent?

[/quote']

 

I'm pretty sure I'm going to use "10 Little Indians" as the title.

 

And yeah, that's the one.

[Womi]

3rd Also, your running gags are incredibly funny. Everytime.

[Aesirson]

Crap! xD

 

Anyway, I think I'll scrap the character's original name and give him the name *something* Manshadow instead, because it's funny ^^

[Brinolovania]

Woo-hoo!!!! I write so crappy that i got in here?! Victory!!!!

[Dr. Cakey]

Everyone knows you have to open with discardable anti-burn monsters. After Crashtown, Yusei's probably used 10 or 20 different cards. It obviously proves that the mayor is an incompetent duelist for not having Hanewata. Or that Psychic...Lifeforce Harmonizer, was it? Or he could have used a made-up monster that he could discard to send a monster from his deck, and send Damage Eater and remove it. There are SO many possibilities.

[Womi]

MORE!

[Guest]

Finally, #10 is up.

 

[spoiler=10 Little Indians - {YuGiOh: Spirit of the Books}]For our Tenth Anniversary Not Actually A Special, we'll insult YuGiOh: Spirit of the Books by Star.

 

Or maybe, as with Hopeless Paradise, we'll actually get something decent here. Apparently I follow a pattern of generally reviewing new, short stories and then switching to long, developed ones for every fifth review, and long, developed stories run the risk of being actually good, since story length has an element of self-selection - the worst writers often throw in the towel after only a chapter. That's the peril of choosing random stories and reviewing them line by line without even reading them beforehand - sometimes you stumble upon that actually isn't that bad, which is a shame when you're looking for stuff to bash.

 

Anyhow, let's begin.

 

Legend speaks of a time where all that we know, all that we are, and all that we will someday be will cease to exist, leaving nothing but cold remnants of faint emptiness.

 

I'm pretty sure actual science speaks of such a time too. Heat death of the universe, anyone?

 

It speaks of people who will be responsible for such things, but it also speaks of people capable of preventing them.

 

It speaks both of beings who programmed the physical laws of the universe and of beings who can defy the second law of thermodynamics? I have to say, the former group's superpower seems a lot cooler.

 

Millions of years ago, it's said that the spirits of five guardians were sealed away, never to be seen again. The force behind these actions is unknown, but it is believed by many that by unlocking these spirits, this forthcoming apocalypse will be stopped.

 

I can believe that. My experience has taught me that unsealing four guardians can stop apocalypse-by-falling-moon, so it seems reasonable that adding a fifth guardian would enable them to overcome entropy as well. I have to say, though, these "guardians" don't seem to be doing a very good job guarding much of anything. That's a problem that has always bothered me with these kinds of stories; if the divine sacred magic autowin beings of awesomeness are so powerful, then why were they captured by the big villain when Our Hero, a skilled but otherwise fairly ordinary guy, is able to prevail?

 

Then of course, there are the vast majority who believe it to be nothing but rumor. But to those people the question is posed; what if it isn't?

 

It's like Pascal's Wager, but with less philosophy and more card games. Also, it obviously isn't just a rumour because otherwise you wouldn't be opening your story with this legend - it's a universal law that the opening legends are always true. Of course, it would be a nice subversion if it were to prove false here, but I don't think that's likely to be the case in thi-

 

Hmm, so we begin with an intense mythological-style passage? Sounds melodramatic! Just like mama made 'em... which isn't bad, if you want it to sound 'how dumb! That'll NEVAR happen'... but then it does! Or you could throw a curveball at us... which you might not...

 

what

 

what

 

WHAT

 

This commentary has been invaded by a passage from another user's riffing! And worse yet, it sounds mildly insane! Unacceptable! This is my review here! We can't allow that! Prepare to delete this nonsense! Burn it! Eat it with ketchup!

 

But no! It's too late! I've played right into his hands! He got here first and has been lying in wait for my arrival for a full three months now, and I've activated his trap card! There's no way to get rid of this invasive commentary now without engaging in direct conflict. Then so be it! I'll take you on too, Mr. Weather Report, just as I am already taking on Star! I'll take on everyone at once if I have to! And don't think you're safe, reader! Yes, I see you behind the computer screen. You're next, I warn you.

 

Let's go!

 

But what did these five guardians do, exactly? What did they guard? When is the apocalypse scheduled? What will they do to prevent it?

 

Pssh, you're not going to find out anything that specific now. The opening passage is supposed to speak only in the vaguest of terms so as to prevent the reader from finding out anything more than "THIS STORY HAS A PLOT K IT INVOLVES WORLDSAVING".

 

I would appreciate some more description of these "guardians", though, since I haven't even the vaguest idea what they're supposed to be like. Are they unusually-strong physical beings, like the Four Giants from Majora's Mask? Are they disembodied, powerful forces like the One True Cylon God? Are they exceptionally-skilled humans, like the crew of the Gurren-Lagann? Or perhaps human in form but with actual godlike powers, like Jacob and whatever-your-preferred-name-for-his-rival-is? (Are they capable of making more off-topic pop culture references than I am?) The current description of them is vaguer than vague, to the point where I'm not even sure what genre they are (Superhero? Cosmic horror? Fantasy wizard?).

 

Ugh, the stuff that people come up with nowadays never fails to amuse me. Let me just place this book on the shelf, give me a second, alright, here we go. Just doing some reading again. Hey there, the name's Leon. Leon Stevens. I live here in Sky City. People here just call it "Sky" generally, as it's a pretty crappy name to begin with.

 

SPOILER ALERT: This whole story is an elaborate setup for a pun involving the word "Sky".

 

Anyhow, it feels rather stupid and gimmicky to me for our narrator-protagonist to be surprised by the readers and caught unprepared to properly introduce himself for a moment. It doesn't even make sense; we don't exist in-universe, so we shouldn't be able to surprise him, and he can start talking whenever he wants, so he shouldn't be able to be surprised. I know it's supposed to be original or clever or something, but it doesn't make sense and is just plain bad.

 

I'm afraid this is nonsensical.

 

I'll spare you the details, but summarize and say it's a pretty small city, mostly crowded with buildings where companies strive to build new cards, new technological advances in dueling.

 

New technological advances in dueling? Does this mean your city is to blame for those stupid motorcycles? And what's this about companies striving to build new cards? Isn't that called counterfeiting?

 

Yeah, I'm a Duelist.

 

The protagonist of this Yu-Gi-Oh! "YuGiOh" fanfic is a duelist? Surprise plot twist!

 

Been playing for fifteen years, since I was five years old. I like to consider myself good, but then I go out there and lose and realize I'm not on such a level.

 

So our hero is an egotistical twenty-year-old manchild who isn't actually good at this card game?

 

...can we get a new hero?

 

One thing about me you're going to need to know is I'm not the most outgoing person. I don't have too many friends, but that's because I've either blown them off for a chance in the spotlight

 

That never happened.

 

No, seriously. That doesn't make the least bit of sense.

 

How does one blow off one's friends to compete in a card game tournament? Did his friends want to hang out one time when he had a tournament that day and then abandon him when he chose to go to the tournament? If so, those people were never his friends. Did he abandon them to, uh, practice playing card games in his room by himself against no opponent? Did some sleazy card game promoter convince him to stay away from his friends for no reason other than that the promoter was sleazy and evil? Does Leon gain power if he avoids friendships, like a Jedi? Did he sacrifice his friends to get stronger cards, like that one guy did in GX? I honestly can't think of any reasonable way this could possibly have happened.

 

I'm afraid this is nonsensical.

 

Here's my theory: nobody is willing to be Leon's friend, so he, as our unreliable narrator, is trying to persuade both his readers and himself that his loneliness stems from his ambition rather than from being a completely unlikeable loner.

 

or just haven't introduced myself to too many people. Dueling nowadays has become much more competitive, so if you're dueling against your friends and you win, people tend to get pretty pissed off.

 

I am trying to think of a single real-life form of competition that has anything resembling that alleged effect. I'm failing. The only thing that comes to mind is Diplomacy, but that's because Diplomacy is a seven-player game in which players form alliances with each other and then proceed to backstab them, whereas Duel Monsters is a two-player game in which two opponents are playing purely against each other and neither alliances nor backstabbing can exist.

 

In general, if friends are competing against each other, this type of hard feelings simply cannot arise from a normal game.

 

Even in-universe, this doesn't make much sense. In the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! mythos, I cannot think of a single instance of two friends dueling against each other and then ceasing their friendship because of it. And if two alleged friends actually did have a falling out over losing one bloody card game, then I doubt they were ever really friends in the first place - again, I suspect Leon has never had a friend and is just speculating here, generalizing from his own misanthropy. And if that's really what happens when friends duel, what happens when people who don't know each other duel, the formation of blood feuds?

 

I'm afraid this is nonsensical.

 

Another possible explanation: Leon has told us that he tends to lose when he duels people. Leon has told us that friendships are broken when friends duel because the loser gets angry. Combine these two statements, and the truth becomes obvious; Leon is just a lunatic who flies into a fit of rage whenever he loses a duel and has lost all his friendships that way.

 

But hey, what can I say, it's what I do, and I'm going to do the best I can.

 

Yay!

 

Get out of my commentary. There is nothing Yay-worthy about this. I had to use the phrase "I'm afraid this is nonsensical" three times while reviewing one measly paragraph.

 

He's talking to us... or himself!

 

I suppose that is a possibility. Maybe "we" were able to interrupt Leon because he's just crazy and is giving an intense description of his own world to himself. I think that just makes things worse, though, and it's worth two sips in the drinking game. At any rate, his qualifications to be our protagonist are questionable enough with him being a friendless misanthrope prone to unjustified fits of rage who sucks at dueling without making him clinically insane as well.

 

It's first-person!

 

Yes. Yes it is. That is correct. Thank you for that wisdom.

 

Leon Stevens is a pretty normal name, but hey! At least it's not Joe Brown.

 

That's what you consider a normal name? I've never even met anyone named "Leon" in real life. How bizarre a name does he have to have before he stops losing points for his name being too generic?

 

I like how he just kinda explains the entire environment to us in a short paragraph. Sadly, I don't have much more to say about this one...

 

I dislike how his explanation of the entire environment makes no bloody sense and cannot be reconciled without me completely reinterpreting his personality.

 

Now, get out of my way. I have a story to insult.

 

I'm twenty years old if you couldn't work out the Math.

 

Attention all readers: This is how little Star thinks of you. He thinks you don't know how to add five and fifteen.

 

I'm not big into fashion, either, so I'll generally just throw on some jeans, a t-shirt, some worn-out sneakers, and my leather jacket if the weather calls for it.

 

This... is actually a good description. I mean, it only tells us what Leon wears, not what he himself looks like, but it's still a good description, so kudos.

 

See? I can be positive about stories when it's called for. It's just pretty much never called for on YCM.

 

Aside from that, I'm not a very interesting person.

 

I'm not going to make a joke here about how I agree with him. It's too easy.

 

I've spent most of my life waiting for something big to happen and as the days go by I get the feeling that I'll never have the chance to experience it.

 

Normally, those people would never wake up from their fantasy worlds. They live meaningless lives. They waste their precious days over nothing. No matter how old they get, they'll continue to say, "My real life hasn't started yet. The real me is still asleep, so that's why my life is such garbage." They continue to tell themselves that. They continue. And they age. Then die. And on their deathbeds, they will finally realize: the life they lived was the real thing. People don't live provisional lives, nor do they die provisional deaths. That's a simple fact! The problem... is whether they realize that simple fact.

 

Occasionally I have these weird feelings, these shocks of pain that I can't explain and thus choose to ignore.

 

My answer as a human being: See a doctor, you moron.

 

My answer as anyone who has ever read a book or seen a movie or seen any media ever: Obvious plot hook is obvious.

 

I don't know about you, but I want to make something exciting out of my life, and when no opportunity presents itself, you're pretty much screwed, right?

 

This story quite rightly teaches children just to sit in their houses and wait for destiny to find them, and if nothing happens then they're screwed and shouldn't even bother trying to make something of their lives.

 

That brings us to this book I was reading. It's called Legends of Time, and it basically chronicles myth after myth, whatever people have collected over the years and thrown together to make a couple of bucks. What amazes me is just how ridiculous, to what lengths people will go to make a couple of bucks.

 

Building a collected anthology of myths seems absurd to Leon.

 

Leon is a moron.

 

Incidentally, combining this with the above lesson, we can infer that the book's authors were just sitting around one day when God appeared and told them to write a book of myths.

 

But then I get the idea that, what would life be like to experience something like that? To have that mindset, to know something big is going to happen and to actually have the chance to do something about it.

 

Leon first learned to daydream about being a hero at the age of twenty.

 

Really?

 

Instead I just spend day after day trying to duel my way to the top. Entering tournament after tournament with the hopes of winning, but knowing that it's not going to happen.

 

In the two paragraphs we've had so far to become acquainted with Leon, every single thing I've seen has convinced me that Leon is pretty much the worst protagonist in the history of the world. Remember Shinji from Evangelion? I liked Shinji. So when I say Leon completely fails to meet my standards, bear in mind how low my standards are.

 

I like how he describes himself without saying 'I have brown hair and blue shoes', it's a refreshing change from increativity.

 

Indeed, that description was nice, but it would have been even more nice if we had actually found out what colour Leon's hair is.

 

And then he brings us back to the book! The plot-relevant book! I bet it'll be important--I should just let that go now.

 

Congratulations, you have read a book before at some point in your life and can thus recognize an obvious plot hook.

 

I'm told people are destined for greatness, whereas others are destined to do other things. Well my question is, if greatness isn't in my future, what the hell is?

 

Leon, you're a friendless loner who took twenty years to even learn to so much as daydream about being great. The only reason you have any significance at all is that Star decided to make you his protagonist for reasons I cannot fathom.

 

And no, Leon, not everyone is going to end up being a great world-saving hero. The world doesn't work that way. For a start, if everyone needed to save the world, someone would have screwed up and we'd all be dead by now. Of course, considering that quality of the stories I read here, it does seem possible that that already happened and I'm in hell.

 

Five guardians? Spirits sealed away? That's all a bunch of crap if you ask me.

 

SPOILER ALERT: Leon's wrong.

 

See--excuse me just one second. [The telephone rings faintly.] I just gotta get this.

 

Somehow, Leon knew the telephone was going to ring before it even rang.

 

And this, this is where my story begins

 

Wait a minute. The framing structure so far has, bar the opening section about the five guardians, been an audio transcript consisting of Leon's words as he speaks them - the whole Leon-gets-interrupted thing and the way the telephone's ring was depicted confirmed that. That means that Leon is now saying, out loud, as he answers the telephone, that his story is going to begin with that phone call. Is Leon a psychic who can see the future or something?

 

I'm afraid this is nonsensical.

 

Here's the plot! Yayz. Not to say I was bored with it or anything...

 

Stop saying "Yayz". Our protagonist has just randomly gained the ability to predict the future (after already having the ability to communicate with us somehow). That's just silly and is definitely not worth a "Yayz".

 

"Hello?" I held the phone to my ear. As I waited in silence, i took a brief glance at the clock; it was 10:30 PM. Who calls that late?

 

I do. >_> Why not? Who's already in bed at 10:30 PM?

 

Still I waited, and still there was no response. Must have been the wrong number. I went to hang up the phone, but then I heard a voice.

 

Creepy callers are contractually required to wait long enough before speaking that the person being called almost hangs up. The risk of not getting the message through is outweighed by how it makes the scene more dramatic.

 

Oops, you said 'i', whoops!

 

Considering everything that has happened so far, a capitalization error is the least of this story's problems.

 

"Come outside." I feel a slight chill as the voice spoke. It sounded like the voice of an older person, maybe even a voice that was not his own, but I couldn't be sure.

 

wait what

 

"Yeah, I heard this voice speak two words on the telephone, and at first I thought it was the voice of an older person, but then I got thinking and thought that maybe the voice speaking was not actually the voice of whoever was speaking, despite not recognizing the voice and having no clue who was calling."

 

I'm sure Leon's delusion here is going to be revealed to be entirely correct and plot-relevant, which will transform this into more evidence for my Leon-is-psychic theory, but until then it just makes him look like a lunatic.

 

Whoever this person was, what kind of call was this? It was probably a prank call. Maybe some kids just in the mood to have some fun and piss people off, so they're dialing random numbers. Idiots.

 

Look, Leon, you just said you thought the caller was an older person using the bone-chilling voice of a different older person, and now you're saying that it was just an ordinary prank call by some kids. You are insane, aren't you?

 

As a side note, you're slipping into the past tense occasionally, like earlier with "sounded", when you're normally using present tense. Of course, it's also unclear how much sense it makes for Leon to be narrating things that just happened to him out loud in present tense, but it's even less clear how much sense it makes for Leon to be narrating things out loud.

 

Oh no! Stalker!

 

What, after all this nonsense Leon's been spewing you can't think of anything more to say than that?

 

"Look, I'm not going to play your--"

 

"Leon, this is not a game." My eyes widened in shock. This guy, person, whoever he was knew my name.

 

Cue dramatic music.

 

Incidentally, Leon's using the past tense consistently now, making the framing device even more confusing. I'm sure it's just Star screwing up his verb tenses, but it compounds the earlier problem of Leon being aware of us and actively speaking to us while events unfolded and being interrupted by those events. I've no idea how this framing device works anymore.

 

How was that possible? I'd never been in any major tournaments, I wasn't really well known at all here in my little apartment. As I stood for a moment, thinking of how to respond, I felt a surge of pain run through my body.

 

Yup, Harry, that's what happens when Voldemort's influence is around.

 

Trying not to cringe at the pain, but eventually giving in, I walked over to the window and peered through the blinds. "You do not know me, nor do you need to. What matters is that you come outside; behind your building in the open field. It's about a three minute walk. And bring a coat, it could be a while." I went to respond, but then I heard a click.

 

It takes three minutes to just walk behind Leon's building?

 

This was just great, just freakin' great. Some weird-ass guy just called my phone, knew my name, and then asked me to go out to the field behind my house?

 

Yes, Leon. That is exactly what just happened. It's good to see you were paying attention.

 

Incidentally, how on earth did you pull that some-guy-with-the-voice-of-some-other-guy thing from two words and then receive no new insights from the caller giving you a paragraph of instructions?

 

A duel was the first thing that came to mind, but at 10:30?

 

Leon is a bit obsessive about dueling. This would make him look like an idiot, especially since the mysterious caller asked him to bring his coat but never even mentioned anything related to Duel Monsters (like a deck, which is kind of necessary for a duel), but this is a Yu-Gi-Oh! YuGiOh fanfic and we all know random duels will happen.

 

I can't go; I mean I know that. It sounds like a set-up of some sort. I sat down on my bed, and put my hands to my forehead. After sitting in silence, I looked up at the clock. It was 10:32. What was I going to do, just sit here? Continue to sit here? We all know I'm going out there eventually. No point in wasting any more time.

 

Yes, as a reader who has read a book before in my life, I know you're going to go out there eventually, but in-universe, if you have any self-preservation instinct then you have valid reason not to meet some creepy stalker at night with nobody else around.

 

I grabbed my duel disk,

 

Did I miss something? Did the caller actually mention dueling at some point that I didn't see?

 

threw on my coat, and walked cautiously out the door. Well, here goes nothing.

 

And this guy's gonna catapult him into a new life? Cool!

 

I agree!

 

And I'm not sarcastic.

 

Wait, nevermind. I am sarcastic.

 

Here's the situation as it stands: A mysterious guy calls an unremarkable loser out to meet him for some mysterious purpose. That was probably cool the first time it happened, but it's such a cliché now that it's just dull and silly.

 

It seems like you think pretty much everything here is good and I think pretty much everything here is awful. It's like I'm your evil counterpart. Or maybe it's like you're my incorrect counterpart. Truly, this is a mystery of the universe.

 

But will this man be good? Evil? Does he kill people through dueling? Naw, that's dumb.

 

Indeed, that sort of thing cannot possibly happen in a Yu-Gi-Oh! YuGiOh fanfic.

 

It was colder than I thought. One of these days I need to invest in a warmer jacket. I walked down the street in front of my building, then took a left turn and walked up to the field. It was pretty quiet, and the cold was really dry. No wind, the grass wasn't moving. The silence outside due to the lack of cars on the road made this a more creepy situation then it normally would have been. There I stood, in the middle of the grassy field, looking around like an idiot for the mystery caller, and there was no one in sight. The moon shone brightly and that calmed me a little, but hell, if you were in this situation you'd probably feel the same way. Right?

 

I wouldn't be in this situation; I'd have called for police protection to keep me safe from the stalker instead of going out alone to meet him.

 

Nice description here, you make it look pretty peaceful.

 

I hate to admit it, but the description here is pretty nice.

 

"Good, you decided to show up." Upon hearing the voice, I literally whipped around, doing a full one-eighty spin, and saw a tall figure standing about twenty feet away from me.

 

And then he was dragged off by Bruce Wayne's lawyers for infringing on Batman's copyrighted entrance.

 

He was intimidating, that much I could tell, but he was surrounded by a veil of shadows,

 

...a what now? You went to all this trouble to describe the moonlight and stuff, but you refuse to say anything about this magical veil of shadows?

 

which made it impossible for me to make out much about him. "This is not the time for questions. From what I understand you're an inquisitive person, and to that I'll tell you not to worry, all questions will be answered in due time. Right now, we must duel." Well that proves my first instinct right. He did want to duel.

 

Yup, Leon's psychic.

 

And it's a good thing he decided to bring his duel disk and deck on a whim, since the caller never told him to bring them, and this would have been rather awkward if Leon didn't have his deck with him.

 

A duel with a shadowy figure near midnight in a field behind my apartment? That sounds normal.

 

Oye, oye, oye! Know your place, Leon. I'm the sarcastic one who makes fun of this story's events here.

 

Well I was here, what else was I going to do.

 

I love how Leon acts like he has no choice and is being forced into this when he took his deck and duel disk out to meet this guy of his own accord.

 

Apparently he wasn't going to wait for my answer as I heard his duel disk activate. I saw a light shine through the shadow veil, but I couldn't actually see the disk. Something told me this guy didn't want me to know who - or what - he was.

 

In this universe, "shadow veils" aren't remarkable enough to be worth describing - or even defining - and anyone creepy is automatically assumed to be nonhuman. I stand by my claim that Leon is a lunatic.

 

"I will make the first move."

 

Shadowman takes the "coin flip" out of "coin flip format". It's a shame he's not as awesome as MANSHADOW.

 

Really, why is it that in fan fiction, 'hello' is replaced by 'duel me'? It's confusing! Not 'I'm here to give you a special life-changing mission', but 'duel meh or else nuttin happens!!'. I'm picky, aren't I?

 

After everything that's happened, this is what you choose to complain about? Sure, it's silly, but the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! series has exactly the same property. You may as well ask why everyone is so obsessed with Duel Monsters.

 

Well he was in a rush. I didn't respond, simply activated my duel disk as I awaited his first action. He said all questions would be answered in due time, which hopefully means once this game is over.

 

You know who else promised us answers once everything was over? Two chaps named Lindelof and Cuse, who were running a show started by J. J. Abrams. I'd just like to remind you that a promise of answers does not guarantee answers.

 

I didn't have much of a choice now; it was game time. "As I said, you're confused, and rightfully so. But before I talk, we must duel. Consider this a test of sorts." A test? Oh, that made things better. I felt completely comfortable now.

 

Leon thought the duel with the Shadowman the Stalker late at night in the deserted field was just a casual duel that wasn't designed to be a serious test of anything. Leon is still a moron.

 

"I will begin by playing the Spell Foolish Burial. A skilled duelist like yourself must know that by playing this, I'm allowed to send any monster from my Deck to the Grave." I knew, and so he did.

 

I was going to order two sips for this characters-explain-stuff-they-already-know nonsense exposition. But then I thought about being lenient about it; after all, the actual series does exactly the same,thing, and lampshades it in a similar way. But then I decided that no, screw you, I'm not forgiving this nonsense. The actual show is targeted at random little kids, not at people on a fandom site, and it doesn't come with hyperlinks to the cards being played as they're being played. Besides, if Shadowman had just said he was sending whoever-he's-sending from his Deck to his Graveyard, I think most people would guess that Foolish Burial lets him send that monster from his Deck to this Graveyard even without the link. So, no, this stupidity cannot be forgiven, even after factoring in the original flavour bonus.

 

He shuffled through his deck once or twice before selecting a card and inserting it into the Grveyard slot. Or at least I assumed. I'm basing this on what I could hear, because it was pretty hard to see anything he did.

 

I'm fairly sure you're allowed to see the card that Foolish dumps. I mean, I know this duel runs on Zany Anime Rules, but still, don't most players like to announce everything they do loudly anyhow?

 

"I shall follow it up with this, the Spell Card Premature Burlal"

 

Wait, he's already reviving the monster. What was the point of keeping it secret?

 

His Life Point meter beeped until stopping at 3200. Yay, advantage me!

 

Leon, don't you start on this "Yay" business too.

 

In seriousness, this wasn't a good start at all. He obviously knew exactly what he was doing as a large white dragon emerged from the ground, joined by a white palading wielding a large lance who took his seat atop the creature. "With it, I shall revive my Paladin of the Cursed Dragon (1900/1200)!"

 

This guy had the capability to Special Summon any monster from his deck and he chose Paladin of the Cursed Dragon, a Level 4 beatstick? Actually, considering how versatile Foolish Burial is for Zombies, Shadowman's opening options were even better than that. But no, he went for this stupid little 1900 ATK guy.

 

I know we shouldn't apply real card game logic to these duels, but really?

 

As a kid who played a Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower mill deck that was only good when playing with it at Middle School, watching a Zombie duel feels nostalgic. But is Dark STEREOTYPICALLY EVIL?! Maybe, maybe not. We don't even know if this man is really evil or not, to all of you who have jumped to conclusions! And if he IS a bad guy... you can rub it in my face.

 

Since when has Dark ever been stereotypically evil in Yu-Gi-Oh! anyhow? In Japan, White is the stereotypical evil color, since it's associated with death, which is why Kaiba uses the LIGHT BEWD against Yugi's Dark Magician - not to mention all that stuff in GX about the heroic darkness versus that evil light stuff.

 

The creature let out a heinous roar as it stood there, the only thing on the field, making it's presence known. "I shall place two-cards face-down." Two face-down cards appeared vertically behind the not-at-all friendly-looking zombie. "It's now your turn, but I will advise you to take this duel very seriously. Many things depend on it."

 

What, not even a Normal Summon?

 

And if Leon isn't taking this duel seriously already after seeing your mysterious "shadow veil," telling him to take it seriously isn't going to help.

 

Like what things? I'm still confuzzled!

 

Presumably, it's a entrance examination, only for a quest to save the five guardians (which Leon was coincidentally just reading about) and save the world instead of for a school of card games.

 

Here we go. No pressure.

 

You've used that joke about seven times now. Reusing jokes just isn't funn- *gets punched by MANSHADOW*

 

To be continued...

 

And we're done, since as usual I'm only doing one chapter. So let's move on to final conclusions.

 

Really, honestly, this story doesn't break the mold of YGO fics, except by having good grammar and a good first-person view.

 

This is entirely correct. The story so far here really is extremely generic. I will add that the bizarre implementation of the first-person view makes that deviation from the norm not necessarily a good thing. (Obviously, good grammar is a good thing.)

 

You kept your secrets well, at the cost of being as random-feeling as many others.

 

I don't see any secrets being kept here. Leon's being tested for an invitation to join a quest to save the five guardians and rescue the world from destruction. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but no other secrets have really been hinted at - there are no floating questions about, say, why there's a polar bear on the island to keep things interesting.

 

Would I read more of this story? Maybe, but it still needs to develop a bit more and become interesting first. It's alright by me, but not da' best ting' eva' yet. I'll check back on it, so don't despair, though I don't think you would.

 

My verdict is less enthusiastic. Even in the current generic setup, there are already several things that don't make sense and don't seem to have been terribly well thought out, and characters keep doing things that are completely illogical and accessing information that they really shouldn't know. Maybe you can develop the plot enough to make up for these shortcomings in the future, but so far all you have going for you is good grammar, and while that's still above-average for a Foe Fiction, it's not enough to make me want to read the second chapter.

 

 

 

A lot of these seem to be Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfics lately. I'm going to need to branch out for more variety.

[Brinolovania]

Well...more insulting. I just realized that someone should make a fic starring all the Foe Fiction main characters...*Brain explodes*

[~/Coolio Prime\~]

Foe Fiction main characters

Which would be?

[Guest]

Foe Fiction main characters

Which would be?

 

Presumably MANSHADOW' date=' LASERHANDSMAN, and maybe my reinterpretations of the stories' characters like amnesiac!Grell. Still, there aren't really a lot of characters here. This isn't MST3K; I don't have bots assisting me in my commentary.

 

In other news, #11 is ready.

 

[spoiler=The 11th Hour - {Yu-Gi-Oh!: Future Visions}']Our next subject will be Yu-Gi-Oh!: Future Visions by LarryCotter.

 

Apparently, this is the sequel to some other fanfic I didn't read, but I am assured that this will not be a problem.

 

Let's start the prologue.

 

In a world that resembled ours in many ways, there was an island isolated from the rest of the parallel universe. On this particular island, called Insopia, there had been a long crisis just a few years ago.

 

And since that time, the following protocol has been observed: Every one hundred and eight minutes, the numbers must be entered into the computer and the button must be pushed.

 

More seriously, this completely unspecified crisis couldn't have been that long if you can pinpoint its time to the year without naming separate start and end dates.

 

And wherever there is a corpse, there are vultures trying to get their part of it.

The vulture that had been slowly circling over Insopia was named Ludwig Tönisteiner.

 

I was going to say that I was going to picture this guy as Charles Widmore, but then I saw his name and stopped dead in my tracks. After all, LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! is just about the most awesome name of any character ever.

 

He had promised work and a better economy; he alone had a plan, only he could help the poor and needy.

 

In this parallel universe, economic genius is directly proportional to name awesomeness.

 

But in order to do this, he would need all the political power.

 

This is the part where I need to stop making silly name jokes and seriously call shenanigans on the story, because I honestly don't believe this. I can't imagine any sort of economic plan this guy could propose that is extremely brilliant and would obviously save the island but that could only work if the government were to yield to him and appoint him dictator-for-life with unlimited power.

 

Even some sort of centrally-planned socialist economy wouldn't require a single person to be granted full authority over everything. Yes, I know that's basically what actually happened over in the U.S.S.R., but my memory of Russian history doesn't include any point where Stalin said, "Hey, guys, I have a smart economic plan, please make me a dictator".

 

Even in theory, it fundamentally doesn't work. If LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! told everyone what his plan was, then why would he and he alone need to be granted power over everyone? And if he kept his plan secret, then why would anyone trust him?

 

Despite how exceptionally strange the circumstances surrounding the ascension of LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! to power must have been, our author has sadly chosen the less-than-satisfying method of hand-waving them away.

 

As you read it right now, you might think that no one would be so stupid to give him that power.

 

The reason we weren't told any specifics was, of course, that Larry Cotter couldn't think of anything believable for the specifics. Despite this, he's now going to try to defend the vague events he failed to actually construct.

 

It wouldn’t be the first time, however, that a charismatic man could formulate his ideas so well that everyone put their confidence in him.

 

This is a reference to either Obama or Hitler. I'm not quite sure which.

 

Either way, the analogy falls rather flat. Remember that time when Obama dissolved the legislative and judicial branches of government and appointed himself Emperor-President of the United Provinces of Obamica on the grounds that that was the only way he would be able to end the recession? I certainly don't. (Fox News probably does, though.) And while Hitler's rise was aided by the depression, his power grab probably didn't consist of "I need to fix the economy! Please let me invade Poland!", mainly because the people he would be speaking to spoke German, not English.

 

But enough about Hitler, because we have [DELETED DUE TO GODWIN'S LAW]

 

Ludwig seized control of the country. He managed to re-establish the order in less than a month, and everyone applauded him in everything he did.

 

And so this island that has not been described in a universe that has not been described recovered from its crisis that was not described that caused damage that was not described by appointing LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! through some process that was not described so that his economic plan that was not described could restore everything to some unspecified order almost instantly in a way that was not described. Eventually, I'm hoping that this story will reach some actual content.

 

But a certain day,

 

This day was so certain that we couldn't even specify that.

 

No, I don't expect the day to be specified. I don't want the day to be specified. But come on, give us something concrete to grab onto here. And don't say things like "a certain day" when that day is uncertain and doesn't matter anyhow.

 

he decided that only the strong-willed could have everything that they wanted.

 

LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! is clearly just like a vulture, in the sense that he... came to the island with the best of intentions and restored it to good health with the best of intentions, not randomly turning evil until later. Either that metaphor wasn't thought out at all or LarryCotter doesn't quite understand how vultures work.

 

Also, LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! is already the undisputed and universally-loved emperor of his own island. He already has everything there is to get. It makes no sense for him to go mad with greed because there's nothing left for him to have greed for; he already has everything there is to have. So, basically, the villain's motivation makes no bloody sense.

 

There was no good nor evil; only might and those who are too feeble to use it.

 

I believe this sentence would read better if you were to replace "might" with "power' and "feeble" with "weak". What's the idea here? Your name is a play on Harry Potter and therefore your story needs to randomly plagiarize Harry Potter?

 

He believed that a card game we all know in today’s world as Duel Monsters could seperate strong and weak people from each other.

 

Actually, I'm fairly certain it's known in today's world as Yu-Gi-Oh!, but is known in the fictional universe as Duel Monsters. Or is this being written in the canon Yu-Gi-Oh! universe but set in a universe parallel to the canon Yu-Gi-Oh! universe and being posted in our universe? If that's the case, there must be an unnecessary step in there somewhere.

 

More seriously, let me get this straight: LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! has decided that the world runs on power, so he's randomly using a card game to determine how strong people are... just for the sake of classifying people and being evil? I mean, LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! is obviously evil, since he even oppresses that ö in his name by refusing to capitalize it, but this is still a really lousy motivation for some really random evil actions.

 

He had special elites keeping an eye on all the game stores. Whenever a weak player was spotted, he or she was sent to an isolated village nearby. Almost nobody could get in nor out of those villages, until they could prove themselves to be worthy Duelists.

 

Is LUDWIG TöNISTEINER! supposed to be one of those insane evolution-based villains who wants to weed the weak card gamers out of the gene pool under the assumption that Duel Monsters skill is an inheritable trait?

 

Now that you're actually giving us information, I actually wish you weren't giving it to us anymore. At least when you weren't telling us anything I couldn't see as easily how little sense the stuff you weren't telling us made.

 

Not everyone who was obligated to go and live in those little private villages came along voluntarily.

 

You don't say. I thought everyone would be overjoyed at the opportunity to be trapped in a random village.

 

The Snatchers, as the special elite was called, often used violence to cut rotten pieces of the apple.

 

I could complain about the agreement error here that betrays a lack of PROOFREADING, but the real problem is more glaring: "cut rotten pieces of the apple"? This story started at "You're saying something but it's not much", progressed to "You're saying something but it doesn't make sense", and has finally arrived at "You're saying something, but I can't even read it". Is this some sort of common expression that I've magically never heard all my life? I'm trying to just treat it as a metaphor, but unless it's a ridiculously overcomplicated way of saying something as simple as "They used violence and knives", I still can't figure out what this is supposed to mean.

 

Two people who had objected against the Snatchers had disappeared never to be seen again,

 

I'm going to interrupt here because I just can't get over that apple comment and want to see if this sheds any light on it. Does it mean they kill people who resist too much? But that's more like throwing away rotten apples than cutting rotten pieces from a single apple. Does the apple represent the whole world, and the rotten pieces the people who resist? But if that's the case, isn't the whole point of this village system to cut bad duelists off the world-apple?

 

and their daughter, Ann, was thereby forced to survive in Dunaco all by herself.

 

Or maybe each family unit is an apple and the rotten pieces are the people who resist the most?

 

I could write an entire paper on what on earth that phrase was supposed to mean.

 

She hadn’t heard anything from her parents ever since she had arrived there..

 

And here I was thinking that the people who "disappeared never to be seen again" were coming to visit her every Tuesday. Thank you, LarryCotter, for providing that extremely necessary clarification.

 

She herself thought her story had ended there; that she would be trapped in this village untill

 

MISSON

 

her death. But she didn’t know her future was about to change...

 

Unless this story involves time-travel or something similar and its time-travel rules permit timeline alterations, the future isn't actually chang- screw this, I'm done.

 

This story started with some stupidity in which you refused to tell us anything about the events you were allegedly describing (sort of like the classic problem of telling instead of showing except refusing to even tell too) in order to mask the fact that they made no sense, evolved into having a character randomly turn evil and commit nonsensical evil actions in order to shoehorn in your Harry Potter quote, and finally finished by failing basic conventions of logic, proofreading, and not being redundant. It can only be saved by taking some pruning shears and cutting the rotten pieces of the apple.

 

Nothing about the plot made any bloody sense whatsoever, and when you don't have anything except plot - and you fought as hard as you could to avoid having even that - the plot had bloody well better be awesome. But it sucked.

 

 

 

Maybe I have lower Fridge Logic tolerance levels than most people. Or maybe the plot is just really awful.

[RyanAtlus]

No, you're right. The plot IS awful. I can't believe many people thought it was decent back when I started the fic.

[Phantom Roxas]

I support the idea of a plot featuring the characters over Foe Fiction. It allows you to show your interpretation of how the stories could progress.

 

But here's something to add variety: http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-204250.html

[Guest]

Well, it certainly added variety.

 

[spoiler=12 Angry Men - {The Forbidden Seal}]We turn now to The Forbidden Seal, a Rosario+Vampire story by bakupenguin.

 

I know nothing about Rosario+Vampire, as will become apparent very quickly. Oh, well. Also, this isn't entirely blind, since my computer crashed halfway through the first time I tried riffing this. That means that even my computer doesn't want me to read this. That can't be a good sign. But never mind that; let's start the first chapter.

 

"Headmaster! Headmaster you must here this! It's...It's Tsukune!" Said Shizuka as she rushed into the Headmaster's office.

 

Headmaster: "It's spelled hear, not here, you idiot."

Shizuka: "How did you know how I spelled my spoken words?"

Headmaster: "My abilities are numerous and incomprehensible. Plus, I'm just stalling so he can sneak up behind you."

Shizuka: "Wh-"

LASERHANDSMAN: "HANDLASER!"

 

"He's transformed and no one can stop him!" "Again?" Said the Headmaster, "Alright, I'll go stop him."

 

Shizuka: "How is that possible? I just said that no one could stop him."

Headmaster: "My abilities are numerous and incomprehensible."

 

The headmaster walks calmly out of the room at toward the cafeteria

 

PROOFREADING

 

Apparently, the headmaster can un-capitalize his own name at will takes actions in the present tense when the rest of the story is written in the past tense. These abilities of his are numerous and incomprehensible.

 

where the awakened Tsukune was holding a werewolf by the neck. Beside him was Mizore laying on the ground unconscious bleeding badly.

 

This happens all the time at my school.

 

Suddenly, the headmaster jumped forward and placed a crucifix symbol on Tsukune's head, forcing him to return to his natural form.

 

That ability of his was disappointingly comprehensible. I would call false advertising, except I'm pretty sure I made up the numerous and incomprehensible thing myself.

 

The werewolf ran off, while Tsukune fell down unconscious.

 

Will Tsukune survive!?

 

SPOILER ALERT: Yes.

 

We just witnessed a three-way battle between a werewolf, a vampire-monster-thing, and a priest whose abilities are numerous and incomprehensible. Random students were unconscious and heavily bleeding in the background. The entire encounter was described and concluded in a measly four sentences. Combining this absurdly rapid pace that trivializes major conflicts with a complete lack of context makes the story feel like a series of random events.

 

In the nurse's office, the badly bruised Tsukune was just waking up.

 

I hate to nitpick, but really, the phrase "was just waking up" is not the right phrasing at all. We've just time-skipped ahead to Tsukune's recovery and know of nothing else happening at this time, so using the progressive here is somewhere between awkward and wrong. I know it's not very sporting to complain about stylistic errors in a story where the author can't distinguish "here" from "hear", but that's what happens when you try to write fanfiction before actually passing first grade, and it's often enough to transform a story from so-bad-it's-good to so-bad-it's-horrible.

 

(Incidentally, that's a lie - I love to nitpick. I didn't write a dozen Foe Fiction entries do every single thing I've ever done on YCM because I dislike complaining about other peoples' stupidity.)

 

"Uhhhh, where am I?" Said Tsukune while rubbing his head. "Owww..."

 

Stop following quotations with a capitalized "Said", you illiterate moron. It's wrong, and this is already the third time you've done it.

 

"Your in the nurse's office, Tsukune" Said the nurse,

 

And this is the fourth time you've done it. Stop this whole Cap-Said thing.

 

"And by the looks of it, your going to be here quite awhile."

 

And this is the second time you've misspelled "you're".

 

"What happened to Mizore?" "He asked, looking around.

 

Nurse: "The real question is: What happened to the convention of starting a new paragraph whenever a different person speaks?"

 

It doesn't show up terribly well in my commentary, but everything before the time skip was one paragraph, and everything after the time skip is one paragraph. And we still have a long way to go.

 

"She's right over there," Said the nurse pointing to a stall.

 

CAP-SAID COUNT: 5

 

"She's badly hurt, but recovering quickly."

 

She was lying unconscious and bleeding heavily. You're not supposed to recover quickly from that.

 

"That's a relief." Said Tsukune.

 

FUSE BOX COUNT: 6

 

"Yes, but your transforming more frequently now, Tsukune..." Said the headmaster

 

For those playing along at home, the score now stands at 7 to 3; "Said" has a large lead on "your" right now.

 

"But I have a solution, a new rosario, but , it will only last for 3 days.

 

I don't even know what a "rosario" is, but I'm pretty sure the three-day limit was just made up by the author for no reason other than Because The Plot Demands It.

 

After that, nothing can stop you from becoming your true form." "True form? But I'm a... never mind.

 

No, keep talking. I'd love to actually have some context here.

 

But what is my true form?" Replied the shaken Tsukune.

 

I'd have guessed it was that berserk creature you transformed into that attacked people and was impossible to control, but then again, i haven't a clue what the canon says about "true forms" or whatever. I'm surprised Tsukune doesn't share my assumption, though.

 

And I'm not going to complain about the "Replied" because I'm just thankful that a word other than "Said" was finally used.

 

"You will have to find out for yourself."

 

The last time Tsukune transformed, he couldn't be controlled and bystanders were almost killed. This sort of "it's a personal journey you need to take yourself" answer is not appropriate in these circumstances.

 

Said the Headmaster, "But for now, I'll leave you to recover and get some rest." with that, the Headmaster left the room.

 

Yes, an eighth "Said", but more interestingly, "Headmaster" is now capitalized again. How... incomprehensible.

 

Incidentally, if the most interesting thing I can find is about a character's name's capitalization, your story is boring.

 

"Tsukune! You have some visitors!" Said the nurse.

 

Nine fuse boxes "Said" instances so far.

 

"Uhhh...ok. Bring them in i guess." He said.

 

This is the only characterization I've seen of Tsukune so far, and it makes me hate him. When you're in the infirmary and people come to visit you,, "OH I GUESS IF SOME PEOPLE ARE HERE TO SEE ME YOU MAY AS WELL SEND THEM IN I SUPPOSE IF YOU LIKE, I DON'T REALLY CARE, I DON'T LIKE THEM ANYHOW" is not the correct response.

 

"TSSSSUUUKUUUUNNEEEE!!!!" Yelled Kurumu as Yukari, Moka and she entered the room. "ARE YOU ALRIGHT??!!"

 

With an entrance like this, I'm going to picture Kurumu as female!Kamina. I'm half-expecting her to try to heal Tsukune by punching him in the face. Even if it doesn't heal him, he deserves it after his apathetic response to their visit.

 

She yelled as giving him the usual Kurumu-Hug. "CAANNNTTT......Breathe!" Gasped Tsukune as he was struggling for breath.

 

Me: "Tsukune gasped that he couldn't breathe. I don't understand what's going on! Somebody, quick, come help!"

Captain R, Superhero: "He did that because he was struggling for breath!"

Me: "Oh, now I understand! Thank you for clearing that up, Captain Redundant!"

 

Luckily, Yukari gave Kurumu the frying pan treatment as it smacked her on the head.

 

Me: "Why is there a frying pan in the infirmary? I don't understand what's going on! Somebody, quick, come help!"

Captain R, Superhero: "I left it there so I could keep cooking after being injured by supervillains!"

Me; "Oh, now I understand! Thank you for clearing that up, Captain Roaster!"

 

"Cut it out you guys! Tsukune and Mizore are trying to recover! said Moka. Hey Tsukune, is Mizore alright?" "-You bet I am!" Shouted the hyper Mizore as she jumped off her bed.

 

Me: "Why is she so recovered already? I don't understand what's going on! Somebody, quick come help!"

Captain R, Superhero: "I'm influencing this story with my powers!"

Me: "Oh, now I understand! Thank you for clearing that up, Captain Retarded!"

 

"Thank you so much Tsukune for saving me." She said in a much quieter voice. "It was nothing." said Tsukune. "We're so sorry we weren't there when it happened." Moka said is a saddened voice, "this guy wanted us to show us where the lockers were at precisely the same time as the incident. I wonder if it was all planned...?" "But who would want to hurt my Tsukune?!" Said Kurumu.

 

what

 

what

 

WHAT

 

Wait, no! No! That's not what happened at all! I'm not imagining things here, am I? I'm not misremembering, am I?

 

Here's what actually happened: Tsukune transformed. I'm not familiar with Rosario+Vampire canon, but I know how the characters reacted: this was treated as a very bad thing, Tsukune was described as unstoppable, and the HhHeadmaster treated it as enough of an emergency that he went out to stop Tsukune personally. When he arrived, he used one of his numerous and incomprehensible abilities to reverse Tsukune's transformation and knock him unconscious. The werewolf, who Tsukune previously was holding by the neck, then proceeded to run away. After that, measures were taken to stop Tsukune from transforming again.

 

Here, however, we're told that that's not what happened at all. In this section, we find out that Tsukune was actually perfectly in control and was using the power his transformation granted him to defend Mizore against the evil werewolf. This flies in the face of everything we saw and is completely incompatible with every single character's actions so far, but we're expected to believe this.

 

Imagine a movie about a Bond-style secret agent or some other Bourne-style action hero. We go through the movie until, at the very end, we reach the surprising plot twist that the hero was actually a bran muffin all along.

 

This is worse than that.

 

See, a Bran Muffin Twist would be absolutely awful, but at least it's doing that on purpose and is going for full-blown mindscrew. That's not what's going on here. This isn't just a terrible plot twist, it's a plot twist that contradicts everything we've seen so far, with no unreliable narrator in sight to resolve the crisis. And it's not like this is a novel where the author forgot that a character's birthday was mentioned in passing in scene fifty-three which contradicted the character's astrological sign revealed in scene ninety-eight; this is only the end of the second paragraph of the first chapter of this story, and it still contradicts everything that came before it. How on earth do you screw up this badly? Do you not know that there's more to making a good plot twist than just having an unexpected revelation - that the revelation in question has to make some bloody sense when it is considered alongside everything that came before it?

 

Have you not considered that bakupenguin might simply have been discarding the old continuity in favour of a new one?

 

Yes, Captain Retcon, I have, and no, that doesn't make any bloody sense either. First of all, this is the second paragraph of the first chapter of a story; you shouldn't need to make massive retcons already, and if you do, you can just go back and edit what you typed before instead of reversing everything near the end of the chapter and pretending it all works out.

 

Second of all, you can't just drop something this major as a retcon so quickly and act like nothing happened. This completely annihilated everything in the entire story that preceded it. That's not a minor little detail that can be hand-waved away; we're talking One More Day levels of retconning here.

 

Third of all, even if it were retconning earlier events in the stupidest and most unnecessary way possible, that still wouldn't change the fact that the new version of events isn't even internally consistent. At one point, we're told that Tsukune was using his power to protect Mizore from the werewolf. At another point, however, we're told that the werewolf came after Tsukune directly. So which is it? I don't know. This nonsense revelation contradicts not only everything that came before the revelation but also several things that happened during the revelation itself. It's like it wanted to be absolutely certain of contradicting absolutely everything in the entire story and left no stone unturned in doing so.

 

I don't know whether this is a plot twist or a retcon, or whether it's just such a gaping plot hole and continuity error that there's nothing left that isn't a hole. I also don't know what all that stuff about lockers and incidents and synchronized timing and whatever else is going on here was about. And you know what? I don't care. Screw this story.

 

We still have one tiny third paragraph to go, but it won't change my final verdict: screw this story.

 

At an abandoned warehouse,

 

Unless you're having the LGT use it to host the Pandemic Game, you're not allowed to use abandoned warehouses. It's stupid and cliché and overused and shows that you're lazy and unimaginative, which means you probably shouldn't be writing in the first place.

 

Screw this story.

 

"When are we gonna finish them off, boss?" Said the werewolf to a shadowy figure

 

Want to know what else is stupid and cliché? Villains addressing superior villains as "boss". Want to know what's even more stupid and cliché? Two words: "shadowy figure". Want to know what's not cliché but is the stupidest of all? Ten separate instances of this idiotic "Said" thing in this chapter alone. This is awful. Screw this story.

 

"Later," Said the mysterious strager.

 

PROOFREADING

 

Also, we can't just make ten louder; our "Said" count goes up to eleven. Screw this story.

 

"Let's see his true form first."

 

No, let's not. Screw his true form. Also, screw this story, and screw bakupenguin for writing it and bumping it endlessly, and screw YCM for hosting it, and screw Phantom Roxas for linking me to it, and screw Jord200, punkinbut, and Compass3 for liking it, and screw Rosario+Vampire for inspiring it, and screw me for reviewing it. Screw everything related to this monstrosity.

 

 

 

I didn't technically get explicit permission for this, but I took bakupenguin's endless posts consisting of "BUMP" and "COMMENTS PLEASE" as an invitation to do whatever I wanted with it. Close enough. Besides, after all the pain that this horrible thing put me through, if anyone should be apologizing for me riffing it, it should be bakupenguin, not me. (Perhaps I should apologize for subjecting my remaining three readers to it as well, but I hate my readers, so I don't care.)

[Jolta]

Woah, these are pretty fun... Mind commenting on mine? You'll probably think of something with 13...

 

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-203490-post-4192270.html#pid4192270

[Dr. Cakey]

I'm very glad you didn't like the Rosario+Vampire fic. I watched it on recommendation from my friend, and ended having far less respect for him. Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics, which are bad for being clones of the original, this is bad while having almost none of the original. To illustrate:

 

Yu-Gi-Oh:

Mentor character: *exposition*

Villain: *plot twist*

Main character: *card game*

 

Rosario+Vampire:

Tsukune: I activate the miraculous power of the bishoji background of bubbles and flowers.

Moka: I am completely bland and uninteresting. Behold my panties!

*30 seconds of fighting, ten of which is a transformation sequence that shames the words 'transformation sequence', all in an attempt to justify the existence of the preceding 19 minutes 30 seconds.*

*Also there is an awesome bat who I would like have and he is very awesome, and his appearances one-three times per show possibly being the reason I continued to watch*

[Guest]

Sure, I'll give Ann 10 a shot.

 

[spoiler=A Series of Unfortunate Events... - {Ann 10 : New Protector of Earth}]Our thirteenth subject will be Ann 10 : New Protector of Earth, a Ben 10 story by ► Jolta ◄.

 

I've never seen Ben 10, and don't know anything about it except that it's about some shapeshifter guy or something.

 

Let's go!

 

"Today is a new day..." 10-year old Angelina "Ann" Tennyson said to herself as she got out of the bed.

 

No. Nobody ever does that.

 

She looked at her long, messy pink hair with her purple, beautiful eyes. She went to the kitchen and made her own breakfast. After eating her breakfast, she went into her study room and took out a book.

 

Female. Beautiful. Perky and optimistic. Unusual hair colours. Self-sufficient. And well-read to boot. Every warning flag a fanfic-savvy person could have for a Mary Sue Classic is being tripped. All she needs to do now is officially become The Chosen One, convert a villain to the side of love and puppies, and perform a magical heroic sacrifice.

 

It was, alright, a biography,

 

The disembodied omniscient narrator seems reluctant to give up this information for some reason.

 

a biography of Ben Tennyson.

 

"My ancestor was such a notable person, its a shame he had to die," Ann said to herself as she read it.

 

I love the realistic dialogue in this story. I don't know when this is set or what happens to Ben in the canon, but considering she refers to him as "ancestor" rather than "father" or "grandfather", this is probably way in the future. That makes this line read like me picking up a biography of Isaac Newton and saying "It's a shame he had to die", except worse because you dropped an apostrophe. Of course he had to die! Everybody has to die eventually, and if he had children to become your ancestor it obviously wasn't too premature. And if he lived so long ago, then why would you act like it's such a tragedy that he died? I don't think it's so impossibly awful that my, for example, great-great-grandfather is dead.

 

But your great-great-grandfather isn't a world-saving hero! Be fair to this story, Crab. Not everything's perfect!

 

That doesn't change the fact that nobody would ever say that, Captain R- um, what's the R stand for this time anyhow?

 

Rgiving!

 

...what?

 

It stands fo' rgiving.

 

That's the stupidest thing I've heard in my life.

 

See, that's why I'm feeling forgiv-

 

I GET IT. This conversation is so stupid that I want to actually go back to the lousy story now.

 

"Woah, I wish I could be like him one day..."

 

SUBTLE FORESHADOWING

 

She then put the book back where it belongs and went to the bathroom to take a shower. She came out, wearing a yellow, sleeveless top and a red, short skirt. Her hair was straight and that always meant she was ready to go out for a stroll.

 

Description is nice, but do we need to be treated to a description of her showering and putting on a sleeveless top and a short skirt? Is this supposed to be fanservice or something? And if so, where are all the cute bishonen guys?

 

The blue sky, the green grass, that was what she basically saw.

 

I can't tell whether this establishes her as a friend-to-nature, giving her another check on the Mary Sue checklist, or as a colossal moron who has only just noticed the colours of the sky and grass, giving her another check on my You Are A Worthless Protagonist Why Am I Reading This checklist. In reality, it's probably just supposed to set up this line -

 

There was barely anyone there.

 

- by saying there was nothing there, but that won't stop me from complaining about that line.

 

Indeed, that line sucked!

 

What are you now, Captain Ragreeswithcrab?

 

I am Captain Ridicule! Ridicule-er of things that need to be ridiculed!

 

I'll tell you who needs to be ridiculed here. Just shut up. Next line, please!

 

Out of the blue, a tiny meteorite flew from the sky in her direction. She screamed rather loud, but no one heard it, so she dashed away.

 

The metoeorite landed, not much impact.

 

It's a meteorite falling from space. How is there not much impact?

 

Ann approached the crash site and saw a watch.

 

Do they still have watches in the future?

 

This is a serious question. I've heard it said that the biggest problem with trying to write fiction about the year 2500 is that the conflicts of that year will be as incomprehensible to us today as the Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit would have been to Joan of Arc. As I understand it, Ben 10 is set in the modern day, and the "ancestor" comment puts us several generations into the future, so do they still have watches? Watches are already becoming less common as mobile phones with built-in clocks render them rather redundant. Several generations into the future, Ann may not recognize a watch, or may do so only in the way we recognize a sundial.

 

As we ponder this question, we realize an even deeper problem: we're now probably over a hundred years in the future. I'm just guessing for that number, since we haven't even been told when this takes place. Despite this, we haven't been told anything at all about the future, except that apparently short skirts are still fashionable. This seems like rather a glaring oversight for a story that takes place in the future and is science fiction anyhow.

 

This is the prologue, isn't it? Doesn't that mean it's supposed to set the stage for everything else? Nothing exciting its happening, so this obviously isn't the action-hook style of prologue, so it must be the type that prepares us for the main story. But it's not telling us anything about the future, when the story takes place, so it's rather failing at that.

 

But never mind that. Annie Sue has a Chosen One to become.

 

"This is it... The Omnitrix is mine!" she thought. She put her left arm near the watch and it strapped itself on her wrist. Ann looked around, no one around, she slammed down the watch.

 

She "slammed down the watch"? Maybe they have forgotten how to use watches in the future.

 

Transformation began. Ann Tennyson started becoming Skeleton-like. Next, her arms were covered by green crystals whereas the rest of her body grew purple crystals. Her eyes merged into one...

 

[spoiler="Crystal... SKULL!" at the blink of an eye, she became an Alien.]

 

No, seriously. That MSPaint drawing is actually part of the story.

 

I've mostly been joking about the whole Mary Sue thing. Despite having a lot of the classic Mary Sue traits, receiving magical powers that make her the sole defender of the world or whatever the hero's supposed to do in this story, Ann hasn't really done anything too Suetiful yet, though she is in danger of becoming one, especially since her role is central to the story, and that sort of role's ability to swallow up everything and make everything about the heroine is an easy cause of Suedom.

 

Meanwhile, somewhere on Galvan Prime, a Galvan named Azmuth felt a signal from the watch via advanced technology

 

I just love the phrase "via advanced technology". It's like the author said, "Hmm, I need to have this alien guy do stuff somehow, but I suck at coming up with good technobabble all the time, so I can't do that, and I don't want to use the Lost method of just chalking everything up to one almighty piece of phlebotinum like electromagnetism, so I can't do that, and I don't want to go into parody with the Doctor Who method of having silliness like timey-wimey detectors that go dink when there's stuff, so I can't do that either. I know! I'll just chalk everything up to 'advanced technology' that I'm not even going to pretend to define."

 

No, I don't expect hard science realism in my Ben 10 fanfics, but the phrase "via advanced technology" just cracks me up - and I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you. It says that you're not even trying, and just sounds pathetic.

 

"Good, unlike last time, the Omnitrix has reached its receipant."

 

And so the very last line of the prologue is a character telling himself something he already knows out loud solely for the audience's benefit - take two sips - and the very last word of the prologue is misspelled. Wonderful.

 

Overall, I didn't find anything positive to recommend this story - do I ever? Hopeless Paradise doesn't count - and there are a lot of problems that detract from it, from laughable dialogue to non-existent world-building and a prevailing sense of clumsy, awkward writing. It could be salvaged, but improvement will be required, and-

 

I get it now! You meant that I was ridiculous, right?

 

-and I'm so sick of both of you that I'm going to leave Captain Realization or whoever he is now to finish this review.

 

Ooh, fun! The story, um - Ann is taking over Ben's role, right? And she's, like, his great-great-granddaughter or something. That's cool. I guess the Azmuth guy is some sort of alien who's watching them or something. I didn't really get it?

 

 

 

It's hard coming up with words that start with R. Seriously. >_>

[GenzoTheHarpist]

This one is pretty awful...

 

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-205422.html

[Guest]

We now have a new record for Worst Foe Fic Ever.

 

[spoiler=...and Chapter 14 - {Digimon restoration}]Our fourteenth target will be Digimon restoration by masterduelist7. No, that's not a typo on my part; "restoration" isn't capitalized in the original either. And I assure you that it only goes downhill from there.

 

For your reading pleasure, Captain R has been barred from my writing studio, so his red text will not plague this review. You can put down the .gifs of a crab jumping over a shark. And, yes, blind review, et cetera et cetera.

 

Let's go!

 

it was write

 

The word you're looking for is "right", though already I can see that nothing here is right.

 

after the digidestined had defeated apocolymon and gone back to their world. peace had prevailed in the humman

 

Reading this makes me feel like I'm reading Half-Life Full Life Consequences and its details of the trials of "humens".

 

and digital world it seemed to them so were they needed anymore? that's what they thought, at least.

 

THEY THOUGHT WRITE RIGHT WRONG

 

izzy was looking at his computer just typing away when suddenly he had received a new email. he was shocked. It was from jennai who had given them much guideness in in the adventures they'd had. he could see or at least imagine the old man's face as he read the letter.

 

For your comparing pleasure, the first line of Half-Life Full Life Consequences is as follows:

 

"John Freeman who was Gordon Freemans brother was one day in an office typing on a computer. He got an email from his brother that said that aliens and monsters were attacking his place and aksed him for help so he went."

 

Now, I'm not saying that this story is actually deliberately copying a Trollfic that was written to be awful on purpose. All I'm saying is that the two begin very similarly, except that the deliberately-awful Trollfic has better spelling and grammar.

 

the letter was just a picture of jennai, but it started talking to izzy, "how are you doing now that it's been a year away from your partners?"

 

"everthings doing great" Izzy said back and jennai heard him, "why have you called us?"

 

Email does not work that way. Maybe it's acting oddly here to show how awesome Jennai's technology is, but even then it's still stupid, because it seems that everything Jennai can do VIA ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY is, um, make a homebrew Skype.

 

"I'm afraid things aren't going as great as you think!" jennai replied "when apocalymon destroyed your crests you were able to summon enough power from withing yourself to use their power anyway."

 

"yes and we saved the world that way, " izzy said he was confused why this was a problem.

 

So much of this is terrible that I'm not even sure what to complain about. Should I object to the characters telling each other things they already know for the purpose of providing exposition to the audience, which my drinking game ranks at two sips? Should I object to the narration explicitly telling us that Izzy was confused when this should be extremely obvious from his words? Should I object to the spelling and grammar being so shoddy as to embarrass a kindergarten student? I'm suffering from a massive squirrel-in-headlights effect here; there's so much to complain about that I don't know where to start.

 

"well" jennai said "it turns our those crests were necesarry for the fabric of the digital world.

 

OOPS

 

the weather in our world has changed all over and natural disasters are being created.

 

Not to be confused with the decidedly unnatural disaster that is this story.

 

i predict the digital world may be torn apart if these are not corrected."

 

izzy was very worried about this and said "jennai how can we help to fix these problems, I have friends there!"

 

Apparently, if Izzy didn't have friends there, he would have simply let an entire world full of sentient beings die because he didn't know them. That is all you need to know about Izzy.

 

Jennai just looked sad

 

Jennai was sad because the entire world was going to collapse and die.

 

Crab Helmet was sad because this story's author apparently has the emotional depth of a brick.

 

and said, "do you remember we told you about the digidestined before you who sealed away and evil as great as apocalymon?

 

This sentence is one of those beautiful points where this story crosses the line from "This sentence is painful to read" to "This sentence is too horribly corrupted to even be readable; I can't even tell what you're trying to say here". I'm guessing that "and" is supposed to be "an", but I'm also guessing that this story was supposed to be good.

 

We

 

Wait a minute, what's this capital letter doing in this story? Was this sentence ghostwritten?

 

in the digital world never knew where they went so we assumed they had weant back to the world of humans. but i think they never left at all. we have been hearing about dark and unhappy beings roaming our world, who are humans who have resided here so long they started to become digimon themselves! I think they may be one and the same"

 

Is there a Spellingmon or something who can teach these people?

 

"that's astounding" izzy yelled back,

 

Izzy's not actually listening to Jennai. He's just suddenly realized that he's in a terrible fanfic and is astounded by how bad it is.

 

he had no idea that a human could become a digimon,

 

The author is careful to inform us that Izzy responded to this unprecedented revelation with "that's astounding" because he was astounded and did not expect that unprecedented revelation. Besides my meta-theory that he's realized how bad his story is, I'm having trouble telling what other alternate explanations this line is supposed to rule out.

 

Yes, I know it's silly to not expect idiotic redundancy in a story that looks like it was originally written in crayon on the back of a children's menu, but it's far more useful to point out mistakes like this, since this is the sort of thing that all of YCM's writers do, rather than harping forever on the overall terribleness of the whole story, which a first grader can see without my help.

 

"but what does this have to do with those disasters?"

 

Well, it was mentioned in one of those disasters posted on YC- oh, you mean the weather problems.

 

Jennai continued "the disasters were caused by the lack of your crests with positive virtues.

 

Or by the lack of masterduelist7'z positive virtues with regard to writing.

 

This story is just so awful that the only way I can really do its awfulness justice is to interrupt after every line to emphasize how terrible it is. There's really no other way to properly indicate just how bad this story is. Bear in mind that, amidst all of the problems that I've pointed out or have been too horrified to point out in my running commentary, bear in mind that the entire story so far is pure, undiluted exposition. Absolutely nothing else is happening.

 

these digidestined used to have crests off their own just like yours, but their virtues must have been corrupted if they turned evil. if you can recover those crests and restore them with your own virtues, the balance will be restored. however those beings if they are so corrupted may not want the world to be saved. you may have to fight them."

 

In short: "Use the power of heart to restore goodness! :D :D :D Oh and also use violence. :D :D :D"

 

"how could we fight them, they are humans just like us" Izzy asked. He didn't want to have to kill, even digimon who reincarnated right away he felt bad about, humans were another thing entirely.

 

In Chapter 3, Izzy is converted to Buddhism and his misgivings evaporate.

 

"I know and hopefully it will not come to that, now please I have sent these messages to the other digidestined,

 

Why is "I" being capitalized now? Did masterduelist7 suddenly stop while typing and say, "No, you know what? I can do better than this, I can type better than this," and decide to capitalize the letter "I" twice before getting bored and saying "Screw it, I'll just continue mashing the keyboard with my face and throw it up on YCM, it's good enough anyhow"?

 

but you must start calling them together, i have worked with important beings here to arrange for you to be brought here once again." Jennai finished, and the message ended..

 

But will the fanfic end?

 

"I won't disappoint your, we will meet and stop this" Izzy said to himself as he picked up his phone to start diling.

 

Phones? No more email=based homebrew Skype clones?

 

back in the digital world jennai was looking out his window. it was raining and it had been raining for days where he was from the environmental disturbances, he knew the fludding would start soon.

 

Those aren't raindrops. Those are my tears. And the flooding has already begun.

 

I know I'm not being terribly constructive in this riffing, spending an unprecedented amount of time asserting that the story is the worst thing in the world rather than deconstructing its flaws, but you know what? I honestly don't care. If you can't just glance at this story and see just how much is wrong with it and how awful it is, then nothing I can say will change that. My commentary can't cure stupidity that strong, though it has been known to eliminate swine flu.

 

Here's a good heuristic when it comes to writing stories: ask yourself whether it would be accepted as a writing assignment by your first grade teacher. If the answer is "yes, it would", then it might still suck, but it will at least pass some minimal level of readability. But if your story is so awful that it doesn't even recognize the existence of capital letters, and the answer to that question is "no, it wouldn't", then don't post it! Delete it, or don't write it in the first place! If you have a hard copy, burn it! If your first grade teacher wouldn't be willing to accept it, then I don't want to see it. And if you aren't old enough to have had a first grade teacher and answer that question, you should probably consider waiting until English actually becomes a subject in your school to try your hand at posting stories on the internet, because this trash is the inevitable result.

 

But he knew that things would be set right by the digidestined soon, until he felt a pat on his shoulder and turned.

 

Somehow, that pat on his shoulder made him lose the knowledge that things would be set right soon. If you haven't recently been lobotomized, that probably doesn't make much sense to you, but that's what this sentence says. This is what happens when you try writing sentences but aren't actually literate - you get nonsensical garbage.

 

A tall person was grabbing him, his face couldn't be seen because he wore a large straw hat,

 

Why do people insist on writing their third-person omniscient narration as if it's a transcription of a video camera filming the scene? That Western-themed Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic was the other egregious example, but it crops up a fair bit with people writing that things can't be seen because of shadows or whatever. Instead of saying they can't be seen, don't describe them! Written words are not supposed to be a direct substitute for visual media; they have different conventions, and this is one of them. You don't need to add random hats to hide information from the readers that a camera on the scene could see; you can just not say anything.

 

and a blue and white cloak, the flesh of his hand was a pale blue like a body left out in the rain and cold for too long. he held a ringed monk staff in his right hand which wasn't touching jennai,

 

You want to know something terrible? This description here is better than the description found in half the Foe Fics I've reviewed. That's right, YCM, masterduelist7's terrible story is actually better than you in one respect. YCM, you should be ashamed.

 

Speaking of which, here's an interesting experiment for you all to try that should prove I'm not being unduly harsh. Set aside these two lines of half-decent description for a moment. Now, tell me: what is worse than this? What sort of fanfic is actually even worse than this one? How could this possibly be any worse than it already is? What is worse than this?

 

Without resorting to absurdities like "Cat dances on keyboard and makes post of random character strings", I can't answer that question. This is about as bad as Foe Fiction gets, ladies and gentlemen; nothing is worse than this.

 

and said "so, planning on gathering some humans to stop us... no human or digimon will survive the events that will some soon jennai, sorry to say."

 

"that will some soon"? I'm guessing "some" is supposed to be "start", but how on earth do you mix up those two words? They only have one letter in common. They're not even the same length. Is this some sort of joke?

 

the old man jennai couldn't fight, he leaped from his chair and tried to run away, but before he could the man lunged and staabbed him with the spike on the tip of his staff, gennai gasped and then there was darkness only for him.

 

And so, with the spelling of jennai/gennai's name thrown into question, I can finally stop reading this abomination.

 

Look, masterduelist7, I don't mean to be rude, but everything about this story is unspeakably awful and you are a colossal moron who should be ashamed of yourself for posting this monstrosity. (Actually, I do mean to be rude.)

 

I may have been less constructive this time than in my previous thirteen criticisms of bad stories, but it doesn't matter. You're not looking for constructive criticism. You don't care about your story quality, or about your readers, or about your story in general, or about anything at all. You made your decision way back when you decided that the shift key was for losers and that the rules of spelling and grammar were more like guidelines jokes. I don't need to make constructive criticism here because you're not going to take it anyhow. If you cared enough to take criticism, you would have cared enough to start your sentences and proper nouns with capital letters and to run your story through a Microsoft Word Spellchecker, at the very least. And until you decide to take the five minutes to fix those fundamental problems, you'll never get anywhere.

 

Don't get me wrong; your story does suck too. It's a wall of exposition that amounts to a simple "Here's the new corrupt bad guys who need to be defeated and healed with friendship and the world is on the line K?", and Izzy's reaction being conditional on some of his friends being among the countless victims makes your version of him an awful protagonist. But until you're willing to type like an animal without a tail, things like cliché plot, sociopath "heroes", and walls of exposition don't even register on your list of story-shatteringly terrible problems.

 

Thanks for the invitation to review your second chapter, but I have better things to do, like driving iron spikes through my kidneys. Feel free to come back once you've passed kindergarten and have learned how words and sentences work.

 

And before you try the classic saving throw, don't even bother trying to claim that this story was a satire or some similar LOL JK GUYZ nonsense. It doesn't work. If you don't want to be awful, then fix your awfulness; don't try the cheap (and completely unsuccessful) way out of pretending that your terrible story was actually a joke or anything equally stupid.

 

 

 

That was... painful.

[GenzoTheHarpist]

The part I liked the most about that one was how it "turned out" that the crests were necessary. That probably would have been a good thing to know ahead of time.

[Guest Ixigo]

Though I believe I can already guess your views on the subject, Crab, I would be pretty curious as to your opinion concerning fanfiction (or even original stories) which "request" fan-made characters. Most especially ones that have not even started yet.

 

It has disturbed me how many of those I've seen in here. I think one of those could possibly topple even Chapter 14's 'masterpiece'.

[Brinolovania]

On 12: Yay, the return of LASERHANDSMAN!!!

 

On 13: I used to like the original Ben 10 (which was about a guy who got an alien watch that lets him turn into aliens to fight evil0, and this is a TOTAL RIPOFF. The meteor? Happened. And I'll bet that Ann person is hanging out with her uncle and her annoying cousin for the summer, in an RV.

 

On 14:[spoiler=]

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! Why must you expose us to this, Crab?!

And on the fact that you described one part of the fic as "better than other Foe Fics?[spoiler=]

RAEG!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

Also, a total of 13 capital letters.

[GenzoTheHarpist]

This looks really bad, but compared to digimon restoration it seems like a fine work from classical literature. Maybe it will be a relief if you decide to tackle this one.

 

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-205586.html

---

Or how about this "beauty"...

 

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-204751.html