Yu-Gi-Oh! End of Days [CH5: The Star Nexus Tournament Begins!]

[Ren✧]

Oooo, goody another chapter! I don't have much time to read it right now, so it will have to wait till tomorrow, but I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgot about you. 

[Ren✧]

Finally got around to reading your latest installment, and was upset to find that I hadn't squeezed it in earlier. I loved this chapter. I think you established the tension very well, as well as a sense of longing in your readers with the way you chose to end it. I like this Sasha girl, and almost hope that she wins...although I can't imagine that Leon would lose. The characterization in Caroline was nice. The scene made me feel bad for her, and invoking emotions in your readers is the greatest accomplishment to a writer, at least in my opinion. We also get a hint at Adrienne's past, perhaps she wasn't always the icy girl we see today. 

 

I could complain that there wasn't much action, but I know you already aware of this. And you are aware of the story's slow pace, but in all honesty, I don't mind it at all. You are definitely skilled in establishing the scene as well as characterization, which is what the last few chapters have been about. Hopefully, in the next installment, you see how you have improved on your fast paced action scenes. Definitely looking forward to chapter 6. 

[a bad post]

I just want to start by saying how much Sasha reminds me of Tania from GX. Second my favorite chapter so far. I loved the way you managed to build tension, while still keeping the story relatively calm and peaceful. I also like how we got a little more insight into the character's backstories. Also I actually teared up a bit when Caroline read the message, though this may have been for going to long without blinking, either way I definitely felt for her. One quick thing though, did you change Caroline's name? I remember it being just Lace in the other chapters. I kind of suspect the mysterious figures are connect/ the same people as the people from the prologue. 

[Saiba Aisu]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I have addressed your comments below!

[spoiler=~Renegade~]I am glad you liked the chapter! Haha for some reason Sasha seems like a favorite, huh…? Well she's definitely got a cool and kick ass personality, so I will do my best to showcase that in the upcoming duel. Yeah, the scene with Caroline was definitely meant to pluck your heartstrings a bit… Whatever her past, she's definitely not overreacting like we thought in the first chapter. And yep, Adrienne also has a backstory to be explored!!

I'll do my best to provide in terms of fast-paced action next chapter! There won't be any more of this scene-switching, really, since the focus is on the tournament already. There will be a lot of duels coming, and lots of sudden developments.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Liselotte]Really? I always pictured Tania as a sultry vampy kind of chick, while Sasha is definitely more of a strong female figure (i.e., not really seductive). Haha I'm sorry you teared up!! But, after all, that was the point. And you're a sharp one - initially, her name was Caroline Lace. But I really liked the sound of her surname, "Lovelace" ラブラス (Raburasu, [i]Loveless[/i]) as a double entendre, since it also plays on her love of sewing (with lace). It might be a bit cheesy but I think it's a pretty name for a pretty girl. And your guess is not far off the money.. but you'll have to stay tuned![/spoiler]

[Vector Nightmare]

...alright. The reason I've been procrastinating this review, and also why I'm spoilering it, is because... I have some things to say that are not what you'd call overflowing praise. Do read it, but... just try not to when you're angry or upset. Just leave it for a time when you have a clear head.

[spoiler=Review]
There are two major problems with the story, that have unfortunately actually escalated in this chapter. While the story is actually cohesive and the characterization is strong, there is a very strong issue with the amount of characters we are barraged with. From the very first chapter, we got eight names dropped on us who we know are going to be major players, and right now we just had another quick barrage of another eight participants. I've already mentioned having eight characters thrown at us from the very first chapter was bad (but recoverable). But now we just had the rest of the tournament's participants dropped and it's barely the fifth chapter. This sheer amount of characters is just too much too early. I was pretty focused on the story from the beginning, it's not like I was flippantly reading through, but even I had difficulty with quickly producing a list of the core characters until the third or fourth chapter, which is not something you want. Your central characters need to be introduced in slower sets of 3 or so, until each set is memorable and distinctive enough.

And just to show I'm not talking out of nowhere, I'll list a few toyetic series I've watched or know the plot of:
> Yu-Gi-Oh/GX/5Ds/Zexal (all of it)
> Cardfight Vanguard (all of it)
> Duel Masters (couple of seasons)
> Battle Spirits (only watched a couple of seasons, but know what happens throughout)
And some of the relatively minor ones.

In none of the aforementioned examples do we get such a huge character lineup so quickly. Let's take GX for example. We first meet Judai who is given the focus as the main protagonist, and Sho as the obligatory sidekick. We get Manjoume and Asuka as major players early on. And we get some vague exposition on Ryo. Now these characters are focused on an episodic basis. The first episode has Judai duel against an, at the moment, tertiary character (as far as dueling screentime is concerned). The following episodes have Judai facing consecutive opponents, slowly building up both Judai and them as characters. Here... we only have Daisuke taking enough screentime, and aside from him a complete lack of duels, which is not exactly good for a fanfic of a toyetic series (that actually USES dueling as a major device). We just jump in through the characters in a variety of scenes that, while helpful, completely avoid getting into the actual action.

This brings me to the second major issue, which is the pacing. Having a tournament, while a huge toyetic trope, isn't bad (although it can be avoided). Toyetic series introduce tournaments as a way to show that the game CAN be played in a "friendly-competitive" manner on a large scale, which is a big selling point for TCGs, even though most of the time the tournament gets interrupted somehow or used by evil powers for nefarious purposes. But none, and I mean none, of the aforementioned series begin with a tournament as the focal plot point and immediately throw us into it (season 1 YGO did but I'll talk about that later).

I was relatively ok, even though skeptical, with there being a tournament at the very first chapter, because I thought it was some form of build-up for the future. Namely, a thing to keep in mind while we watched the characters we knew would be participating live out their lives while preparing for it. Not a thing that would begin in five chapters with a grand total of one duel between the eight named participants until it starts. That was just... not well executed at all.

I spoke about YGO DM, which essentially started with Pegasus' tournament. That was well done, because the story had two things that you don't have here. The first is an underlying plot, a mission, to give the story a drive throughout all the duels. To give you a reason to care about Yugi and Jonouchi succeeding. And the second was, simply put, the setting. The tournament itself was an adventure. They explored the whole island, meeting different people gradually, with different events happening around them. They didn't just get locked in a stadium and made to fight each other from the beginning. This was very important - even though it was a tournament, the Star Chip gathering element as well as the exploration and variety of settings and opponents made it great.

As for every other thing I've come across, there is a very reasonable interval until any form of organized competition starts. Bringing the relatively recent Cardfight Vanguard to mind, we had 8 episodes until the first tournament began, through which the main character got 6 fights, and every other major participant of the tournament got 1-2, while in the meantime we were introduced to a fair number of secondary characters. Furthermore, it was a pretty low-scale, casual tournament that we knew from the beginning was not going to dominate the plot and would just be a transitional device.

I will sum up what I think the major problems are here:

1) You completely avoided an introductory arc where we got to know a bit about the characters and their individual traits, especially actual ability in the game they're competing in. Thus, we have practically no reason to care about any of the characters and their performance except Caroline. If Leon got OTK'd in the next episode and kicked out with everyone jeering, I would just shrug, because his only motivation seems to be FOR URIA RED YO which is very much not enough. Even Daisuke isn't actually much better off, like I mentioned the only one who has received actually solid characterization is Caroline.

2) You threw the characters at us too fast, and in trying to make us feel for an empathize for many of them at once, you spread yourself out too thin and made it hard to actually care about even one of them. Trying to work so many characters in such a short timespan is just not viable.

3) You made dueling the major selling point of the fanfic. That was hammered into us from chapter 1. And then you completely avoided dueling as part of characterization, until the tournament began. Which was kinda late. If there is a tournament, I should be given a real reason to root for someone and, just as importantly, know that someone, especially what they're capable of in the game they're playing.

4) The plot so far is pretty linear and streamlined. The prologue remains the only plot hook which is a problem. Even GX, which was the most "tame" of all the YGO series, had some decent early hook - Winged Kuriboh, for instance. Battle Spirits had the whole Isekai deal from the very first episode. Vanguard, which I advocate as a very good toyetic series, took a bit more time and was annoyingly slow for the first five episodes, but then followed up with a pretty big hook. I'm not saying you should have a twist so early. What I'm saying is, in light of how everything else is paced and executed, not having a hook becomes an additional problem.

So... yeah. The thing is, you've talked to me about the story and I know you have good ideas about it. Your writing and characterization is also quite good, quality-wise. And I'm pretty confident in your ability to write a cohesive story. But you tend to avoid what you possibly think of as 'unnecessary' duels, namely, duels not directly involved with or promoting the plot, which is fine later on but not so in the first arc. And you seem to have huge issues with pacing. You admit there's not enough action but you try to counteract that by beginning the tournament immediately which was a really bad move, since what you actually needed was action outside the scope of the tournament in order to build up the characters.

I had to be honest with this, even though I know, as a writer, that it's hard to take negative criticism under the best of circumstances. I know you're enjoying writing this story. And despite all the faults, I'm enjoying reading it, and that is what's important. But it has some integral problems that, I would say shouldn't be there.
[/spoiler]

[Saiba Aisu]

That's great feedback Ixigo! I'm in the middle of a webinar for my scholarship at the moment, but just from what I read, you are completely right. I shouldn't have introduced the tournament so early, at all. And I'm having fun writing this because it reminds me of the RP at GXDS that I used to participate in, where the issue was more quality of writing than actual pacing.

 

I'm going to have to rewrite this whole story. It's a bit saddening that I fail so miserably at pacing, but at least the quality of my writing is good, I guess.

 

I've read it with a calm head. I just hope I have time to rewrite everything (as in, scrap all of the early story plans entirely) before I go to Japan in September.