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

[DL]

What th-

 

What are yo-

 

YOU'RE ALIVE?

 

 

 

That being said, I have recently read through all 40something fics, and I must say.

 

I really really like Foe Fiction.

 

It's helped me stray away from things in writing that I normally would have done that would have lessened the story's enjoyment.

[CrabHelmet]

Hi, all, thought I'd try my hand at a review commentary thing.

 

[spoiler=I Hate Mondays - {Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Next Generation!}]Once upon a time, a military project was initiated to create a network of computers for the sharing of information. The project proved so successful that it spread beyond the military into the civilian world, until eventually it became fundamental to all aspects of society. There were those who feared that it would destroy the world by becoming infected with some sort of artificial intelligence, but the true outcome was far worse: it became infected by natural stupidity.

 

With terrible fanfiction now free to expand beyond obscure fanzines to be seen by the whole world and every ten-year-old with a keyboard capable of posting a story, terrible fanfics have spread wide and grown in number. These horrible monstrosities conceal the rare brilliant fanfics while destroying the brains of all who read them. Such awful stories must be opposed. They are our opponents. They are our enemies. They are our foes.

 

If you are a fan of quality fanfics but you are a foe of mediocre-to-bad fanfics, then you've come to the wrong place - because today is a day for Foe Fiction.

 

Hello, everyone. I've been away from this forum for quite some time - the last thing I remember before leaving was some girl named Draco Straybyrn being promoted to Super Moderator - but I thought I'd come back to check out how things were going.

 

Ye gods, things are bad.

 

I mean, I'm not sure what I expected, since fanfics have always been a shambles, but some of the things posted here are just pitiful.

 

So, since I have myself a recording studio and quite an overflow of snark, I thought I'd try my hand at tearing these things apart while helping the authors see what they're doing wrong and providing some measure of entertainment to bystanders. I'd say to go easy on me because this is my first time, but I'm willing to post this because I'm confident that it will be worth reading, and I know that no matter how badly this goes, I'll always look better than whatever nonsense I'm reviewing. So let's get started, shall we?

 

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Next Generation!

 

...can we go read something else? Even the presence of two exclamation marks can't save this from being the blandest title I've ever seen. It's a completely stock way of denoting a sequel series (see also: Star Trek, Degrassi, Meerkat Manor, Roots), and because GX is known to stand for Generation Next - presumably that sounds less stupid if you don't actually speak a word of English - what this title really says is "Yu-Gi-Oh! Generation Next: The Next Generation". Forget the people who get upset when people say "ATM machine" because it's redundant; this title is like saying "ATM automatic teller machine". Oh, and though this particular one is written by General Blaze, there have already been loads of fanfics with this exact same title.

 

So, we're not even past the title yet and we've already hit strong signs of blandness, unoriginality, and stupidity.

 

Episode 1

 

And the blandness just gets blander when the first chapter - I'm sorry, "episode", since the author wants to pretend he's writing a televised screenplay instead of a fanfic that nobody will read - doesn't even have a title.

 

Welcome to the Academy! (Part 1) Mizuo Yuki was having the most vivid dream.

 

...and by "doesn't even have a title", I apparently mean "has a title placed in the actual body of the story because the author hasn't figured out the complex intricacies of pressing enter to start a new line".

 

To be fair, though, I should give General Blaze credit for eventually figuring out how paragraph breaks work and actually using them occasionally. I've seen some stories that are just solid blocks of text with no formatting at all.

 

He was running through a field with his favorite duel monster, Elemental Hero Storm Neos, given to him by his father, the legendary Jaden Yuki. And today, he was going to try out for the same Academy his father went to, Duel Academy.

 

So, his entire dream was... running through a field? That's kind of a lame dream. I mean, I don't usually remember my dreams, but when I do, it's usually pretty crazy stuff like I'm running through a multi-level garden complex from some unseen monster while also trying to prepare for my complex analysis exam or something. And when I find something containing the words "complex analysis" to be far, far more "vivid" than whatever you're describing, you're doing something very wrong.

 

Oh, and great, our protagonist is a blood relative of a canon character and has an evolved - and much more situational, which is saying a lot - version of said canon character's trademark card as his own. And is about to begin the adventure in exactly the same way said canon character did. The originality is really through the roof here. The only good thing I can really say is that General Blaze did at least resist the temptation to name our hero after the author himself, because that would be just plain stupi-

 

But suddenly, his best friend, Blaze Truesdale, shook him awake, saying, "Yo! Mizuo, get up! Get up!"

 

...you know, somehow I'm not surprised that General Blaze is the sort of person who would say "Yo".

 

Mizuo bolted upright in his chair, yawned sleepily,

 

Now, since my boyfriend is studying creative writing and literature was never my worst subject, I've picked up a few pointers on how to write strong prose over the years, and the first of these pointers is this: don't write things that sound unspeakably retarded.

 

Oh, did he yawn sleepily? As opposed to what other type of yawn? Even a yawn of boredom only indicates boredom because it means "I'm so bored I could fall asleep", and in the context of "Mizuo was asleep one sentence ago", how many readers are going to ascribe other motivations for the yawn?

 

and brushed a strand of brown hair out of his face,

 

Here's another tip: describing your character and stating your character's hair color are not the same thing.

 

and said, "Huh?" Blaze threw his head back, and sighed.

 

 

 

"For God's sake, Mizuo!" Blaze shouted irritatedly.

 

Maybe I spoke too soon when I said that General Blaze figured out how paragraph breaks work. You're supposed to leave one blank line between paragraphs, not three. Do you not have eyes or something?

 

Anyhow, let's try to picture this scene for a moment. Blaze throws his head back dramatically, then sighs dramatically... and then he starts shouting (irritatedly)? If he's so angry and things are so urgent that he needs to shout (irritatedly!), then why didn't he just shout (in an irritated manner) in the first place instead of going through all these overdramatic gestures before shouting (with irritation)? As it turns out, the answer is very simple:

 

"You're up next for the Practical Exams!" Mizuo threw his head back,

 

General Blaze just doesn't know any choreography beyond having characters dramatically throw their heads back. I'm fairly certain that any onlookers would think these two were headbanging to some bad techno.

 

And believe it or not, this is the point where the prose quality really takes a nosedive. I really should be interrupting it every five words, but in order to give you a full sense of how bad this is, I'm going to post the rest of this paragraph uninterrupted.

 

and felt like he wanted to scream. "Who am I supposed to face?" He asked quietly. As Blaze said the words, Mizuo's mouth ran dry. "Skyler Rhodes." Blaze said quietly. "Sky?!" Mizuo queried. "I can't believe I have to face my cousin..." "I know... especially since you've never been able to beat him before." Blaze said, half-laughing, half-very concerned. "Blaze, you don't gotta say it that way!" Mizuo bellowed angrily.

 

(Note: the bolded "that" was italicized, not bolded, in the original story.)

 

Wow. Just wow. This is... amazing. You have to really put effort into writing this badly.

 

Every single line here is so overdramatic that I keep expecting to hear thunderclaps in the background or have a sudden cut away to the

whipping around. It's like every bad melodramatic soap opera ever was condensed into a single paragraph.

 

Nobody here is reacting even remotely naturally to anything. Mizuo's duel that will begin his adventure and that he's been looking forward to for ages is now approaching? He wants to scream, and then asks who his opponent is in a dramatic whisper - and the response, delivered in a similar dramatic whisper, makes his mouth go dry with sheer dramatic horror. Then, I'm assuming, there's a zoom in on their wide, horrified eyes while lightning flashes in the background and the orchestra swells.

 

Let's put it this way: if this chapter is an "episode", then Mizuo and Blaze are both played by William Shatner.

 

Unfortunately, since this chapter isn't an episode, we have to put up with General Blaze's inept attempts at describing things. Blaze was "half-very concerned"? How can you write that and think that that sounds even half-not awful? If you're using constructions like "half-whatever", you can't put modifiers like "very" in the middle, since it sounds incredibly awkward - it's not the "very" that's being halved here. In fact, if there's one modifier you definitely can't splice in there, it's "very", since if whatever concern he has is mild enough to merit a "half-", then it certainly isn't strong enough to merit a "very". It's like saying "he was kinda sorta mildly terrified out of his wits"; if you're not doing it as a joke, you're doing something very wrong.

 

And then there's the bellowing angrily, which is like shouting irritatedly except it makes both the character and the reader a bit less irritated and a bit more angry, and which was presumably inserted because neither of these characters has any volume level other than "whisper" and "shout", in the same way that John Freeman has no movement speeds other than "walk fast" and "backflip".

 

And then there's the word "queried", which to anyone fluent in English makes the whole sentence go clunk like a brick hitting a thing that makes a clunk sound when hit by a brick. Yes, using the word "said" every time someone speaks isn't necessarily the best writing, but no, replacing it with random synonyms that don't flow properly and don't even really make sense (that's clearly an exclamation of surprise, not a query) is not the solution. Better to have something written blandly than written painfully.

 

But enough nitpicking about the actual prose quality. Maybe English isn't General Blaze's first language, and yet he still decided to post this without obtaining a proofreader with some degree of fluency. Or maybe General Blaze suffered brain damage that impaired the language center of his brain, and the fact that he posted this without an undamaged proofreader can be attributed to damage to his not-being-an-idiot center as well. In any event, he may not be the best at constructing English sentences, but that doesn't mean he can't concoct epic stories, and in the end, you people come for the plot and hope that the writing style just doesn't get in the way too much. So what sort of brilliant plot do you have in store for us, General Blaze?

 

Well, so far, we have the kids of the canon characters going to school just like the canon characters, except apparently Duel Academy is run by such idiots that people now play against their cousins for the entrance examination despite the blatant conflict of interest. That's right, the one original element so far is that the plot makes less sense than the plot of the source material. This is the same source material that gave us such gems as "Help! My trading card is the Grim Reaper!" and "Let's spend an entire season trying to rip off Evangelion but sucking at it".

 

"Yuki, Mizuo!" Said

 

I can't quite explain it, but for some reason seeing the word "Said" here capitalized unnecessarily bothers me more than it should. Not really sure why.

 

a voice over loudspeaker, signaling that it was time for Mizuo's duel against Skyler. As he strolled onto the duel arena, Skyler Rhodes, a boy of about nineteen years old, with light brown hair, with indigo eyes, and wearing a purple jacket, and jeans.

 

Yes? What about Skyler Rhodes, a boy with a description consisting entirely of a list of colors? Try using verbs next time.

 

"Well, well, Mizuo..." The boy said smoothly. "It's been a while, hasn't it? You've certainly grown..."

 

Skyler: "It's been years since we've seen each other and thus at least as long since we've dueled, and yet you still quake in fear over not having been able to beat me in the past, indicating that you've shown no improvement whatsoever after all this time. Remind me, how come you're the protagonist?"

 

"Enough small talk, Skyler," Mizuo growled. "Let's get this over with..." They activated their duel disks, and their life point counter went up to 8000. Simultaneously, they yelled at each other, "Duel!" And proceeded with their duel.

 

 

 

"You can go first," Mizuo spat.

 

Mizuo: "I tremble in fear at your very name and yet I still yield the first turn to you!"

 

And yes, the ridiculously large blanks between paragraphs look exactly as daft in the original as they do here.

 

"Cousin..." Skyler brushed a long strand of brown hair out of his face and smiled. "Thank you..." He murmured, drawing a card from his deck.

 

Wasn't it Mizuo who previously "brushed a strand of brown hair out of his face"? Does everyone in this story have exactly the same mannerisms? I'm expecting Skyler to throw his head back next.

 

But that "Cousin..." *dramatic gesture* "Thank you..." seems awfully odd compared to Mizuo's attitude. Mizuo clearly despises Skyler now, but Skyler, on the other hand, seems oddly pleased to see Mizuo again. Throw in his murmured thanks, and this line takes on an almost sensual tone. I rather get the impression that Mizuo and Skyler were once secretly lovers, but parted on rather poor terms, leading to Mizuo's current attitude, even though Skyler still likes him.

 

"I'll start out by summoning Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid (1200 ATK/1800 DEF) in Attack Position." A man with white hair, a red shield, and a red-and-white jumpsuit appeared. "Next, I'll place two cards face-down, and end my turn." Skyler discarded the top two cards from his deck, because of Aurkus, and then, a bright light began to shine from his graveyard slot. "Ooh..." Skyler mused.

 

Skyler: "Ooh, yes... yes, this is amazing... I love... 'dueling' with you, Mizuo..."

 

"I guess I get to activate the effect of my Wulf, Lightsworn Beast (2100 ATK/300 DEF)! I get to summon it in Attack Position!" A very large beast with white fur carrying an axe appeared. "Well well..." Mizuo murmured softly. "Still using the same Lightsworn deck, eh?" Mizuo stared down the monsters standing before him. "Well... I've learned their weaknesses and are ready to exploit them..."

 

Mizuo: "Even though their weakness is really obvious, it took me forever to figure out that the massive card discarding effects can really backfire, and even though they rely on massive amounts of luck, I was never able to beat them before."

 

Skyler: "You can exploit my weaknesses any time, Mizuo..."

 

Mizuo: "Although, it is odd that I've spent all this time trying to figure out Skyler's weakness and prepared my deck specifically to handle his even though I had no idea that I'd be seeing him here again today... somehow, I just can't seem to get him out of my head..."

 

Skyler: "You can handle my deck any time, Mizuo... and I love it when I'm inside your head..."

 

Alright, alright, I'll stop.

 

"My tun!" Mizuo shouted, drawing a card from his deck. "I'll start out by activating Polymerization! I fuse Elemental Hero Avian (1000 ATK/1000 DEF) and Elemental Hero Burstinatrix (1200 ATK/800 DEF) to summon Elemental Hero Flame Wingman (2100 ATK/1200 DEF) in Attack Position!" A large,red colored humanoid with wings, and a red dragon on his right arm.

 

Well, it's good to see that this is an extremely innovative story that isn't just a mindless rehash of GX with the names changed to allow for more self-insertion, because that would obviously be stupid.

 

"Next, I activate my Spell Card, Graceful Charity! I get to draw three cards, but then I have to discard two cards!" He drew two cards from his deck,

 

It's obvious that General Blaze didn't want to read this boring duel, so why should I?

 

then tossed two from his hand. "Heh," He chuckled. "Guess what one of the cards I discarded was..." A transparent silhouette of a red humanoid, and Skyler gasped. "Oh, no!" Skyler shouted. "Not Necroshade!"

 

"That's one of the most powerful cards in all of-" never mind, I'd rather be making more slash jokes than quoting the Abridged Series.

 

Mizuo laughed. "And guess what card I just drew!"

 

I'm going to guess "Summon Incredibly Awkwardly Used Descriptive Words That Just Make The Story Sound Silly".

 

Skyler wore a shocked expression, and mouthed, "Bladedge..." Mizuo grinned mischievously, and nodded.

 

To be fair, that's also my guess for every card in both their decks.

 

"Now, I summon Elemental Hero Bladedge (2600 ATK/1800 DEF) in Attack Position! Next, I activate Kishido Spirit! Now, if one of my cards has the same ATK as one of your cards and they do battle, mine isn't destroyed!" Mizuo laughed.

 

Mizuo: "Yes, after years of study, I've discovered the ultimate weakness of Lightsworn monsters: Kishido Spirit. Never mind that that card is trash at the best of times and is almost strictly inferior to The A. Forces in a Warrior deck like mine, Kishido Spirit is the answer!"

 

"Now, Flame Wingman! Attack! Destroy Wulf!" The red humanoid surged toward the beast, and the humanoid burned the beast. Then, it turned on Skyler. "Well, Skyler..." Mizuo mused maliciously. "You haven't forgot about Wingman's effect, have you?" Skyler shook his head.

 

Skyler: "Come on, I've seen GX. I've seen its effect about a thousand times now."

 

Then, the red humanoid let loose a torrent of flames at Skyler. (Mizuo: 8000 LP/Skyler: 6900 LP)

 

8000 - 2100 = ???

 

For the record, this is the fourth time in about a paragraph that Flame Wingman has been referred to as a (red) humanoid. I know you don't want to just call him by name each time you refer to him, but when you use the same awkward construction every time, it just sounds even worse. Oh, and for added confusion, General Blaze also referred to Necroshade as a red humanoid - the exact same awkward construction used to describe someone completely different.

 

This seriously feels like it was written by someone who has never read before.

 

"Well, Mizuo..." Skyler said, smiling. "You've certainly come a long way since we last dueled."

 

Skyler: "You always find new ways to surprise me, Mizuo. Always."

 

To be continued...

 

Not in my book, it isn't. And not in the books of anyone else who bothered to read this nonsense, either.

 

See, if you want anyone to care about your story, you need to give them a reason to care. Your characters are all bland, self-inserts, and completely devoid of interesting characteristics to people who aren't obsessive slash shippers; what little plot you have makes no sense and is copied right from GX itself; and this has clearly been proofread neither by yourself nor by anyone fluent in the English language, given the obvious errors in it and how painful it is to read. Seriously, until you get yourself a ghostwriter or several years of experience with English, I honestly have to recommend that you just plain not post any more stories, because your prose is just so fundamentally broken that even with decent plot and characters your work would still be impossible to read without the aid of painkillers.

 

But hey, let's see what else was going through your head when you were writing this:

 

anyway, it's kind of short because I had to get off in a hurry.

 

And you needed to post it this very day... why? Did you have a crowd of screaming fans who would have rioted if this wasn't online by 22 March? Take your time and wait until you've actually had time to create a story with some degree of actual quality before posting. If your story sucks, then nobody will want to read it, and you'll just end up looking like an idiot.

 

Your own crippling impatience is no excuse for your cripplingly awful writing.

 

And what do you have to say about the lack of plot?

 

hey, this is just the first episode. It's still the entrance exams.

 

So let me ask you this: why are you showing the entrance exams if there is no plot of note in them? If a student is in Duel Academy, we can be fairly certain that they passed their exams; if the exams contain nothing of interest (and trust me, they don't), then showing them is a waste of everyone's time. And if your first two chapters are a complete waste of time, you're not going to get readers.

 

Of course, I know the real reason you wanted to have entrance exams: GX started with entrance exams and you are so bankrupt for original ideas that you are just plain incapable of not copying exactly what GX did.

 

well, this is pretty much my first attempt at a fanfic.

 

That doesn't change the fact that it sucks and cannot be anything more than a waste of time for any reader. And you've posted it on the internet for all the world to "enjoy".

 

When the calculation error on Flame Wingman's damage was pointed out, you responded thus:

 

oh, crap. you're right about the math, and as said, this is pretty much my first fanfic.

 

You can't just toss that excuse around for everything. "You have no plot!" "Hey, it's my first try." "Your character is an unabashed self-insert!" "Hey, it's my first try." "You failed an elementary school subtraction problem." "Hey, I've never written a fanfic before, how can I be expected to know basic math?" Oh, and of course, you then refused to go back to your story and make a tiny edit to fix that calculation error, because apparently replacing one single digit in your story was too hard for you, and you just care that little about your story's quality.

 

Now, I'm off to watch Season 7 of Firefly, which is surprisingly actually of higher quality than S6 despite River being killed off, but I'd like to leave you with one last piece of advice in the form of the old adage: "If at first you don't succeed, perhaps trying again might be prudent... but if you fail completely and are obviously completely incompetent at every skill vaguely related to your objective, go away and stop wasting our time."

 

 

Sorry if the quality's not very good; it's my first attempt, which clearly excuses everything.

[Dr. Cakey]

Yes...yes...YEEEEEEEES!!!! It's BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!

 

And now we must all blindly speculate about what happened after the time paradox.

[DL]

o

m

f

g

 

I died at "I'm expecting Skyler to throw his head back next."

 

 

Amazing as always.

[Quiksilver]

Only have one thing to say...f*** yeah.

[Dr. Cakey]

Mizuo and Skyler kind of remind me of Aichi and Kai in Cardfight!! Vanguard. I pictured Skyler as looking like Kai...

 

Of course, Mizuo and Sky are also cousins, which makes this even creepier...

[Quiksilver]

"You can exploit my weaknesses any time, Mizuo..." "You can handle my deck anytime..."

 

Oh, these quotes are going to haunt my dreams.

[DARKPLANT RISING]

GOD HAS RETURNED

[Pichu]

Awwwwe! Crabby is back! How have ya been?

 

I hope this time we can be friends.

[Catterjune]

Now, I'm off to watch Season 7 of Firefly, which is surprisingly actually of higher quality than S6 despite River being killed off,

 

MOTHER [Father]!

 

I'm still on Season 3.

 

Thanks a lot. ._.

[DARKPLANT RISING]

I hope this time we can be friends.

 

>Crab Helmet

>Friends

[Womi]

Skyler: "Ooh, yes... yes, this is amazing... I love... 'dueling' with you, Mizuo..."

[CrabHelmet]

Here's a sneak preview of my second review:

 

[spoiler=Tuesday Morning I Feel Better - {Yugioh 5d's - The Three Serpents}]Since my first review seems to have been met with some moderate positive reaction, I thought it worthwhile to add a second review, despite the negative effects it would obviously have on my mental health and the fact that doing so would cut into the time I would otherwise be spending finishing the sixth season of Battlestar Galactica. (Incidentally, how does Admiral Adama being a Cylon make any frakking sense? He could have destroyed the fleet any time he wanted, and didn't Doctor Cottle already inspect him back in the first season?) But since President Biden's new digital copyright regulations have interrupted my torrents, I suppose I may as well return to bad anime fanfiction (as opposed to bad sci-fi canon).

 

And since this - Yugioh 5d's - The Three Serpents, by Clause - is a single block of text with no paragraph breaks, I have no doubt that it will be awful.

 

Jakeup

 

But forget formatting issues; I think the very first word of this story is alone sufficient to testify to its quality. This is the name of our protagonist? It looks more like a typo, or a result of my attempt to play Scrabble.

 

was walking to the duel academy when he heard someone roar by. "DAD, CAN YOU GET ME A RIDE TO SCHOOL?" He yelled.His dad zoomed over and said "Sure, why not?

 

YUGIOH 5D'S - THE THREE SERPENTS! BEHOLD THE EPIC ADVENTURE OF A KID GETTING A RIDE TO SCHOOL FROM HIS DAD!

 

Anyhow, it's a good thing that, after his father roared by, Jakeup (Seriously? Jakeup?) was able to recognize the rider and call out a long sentence to him quickly enough that his father would be able to hear him over the "roar" despite having already "roared by" before Jakeup even started speaking. Kind of odd that Jakeup and his father seem to have that sort of psychic connection, yet Jakeup started walking to school with his father instead of just riding with him all the way from home. It's almost as if absolutely no thought was put into this scene.

 

And then Jakeup hoped on the black duel runner.It was Yusei's duel runner, only black with green mixed in with it.

 

It's a good thing that you reminded us it was black, since I had completely forgotten that you had said it was black in the previous sentence. Also, I love how the description is "IT'S LIKE THE 5D'S HERO'S RIDE ONLY THE COLORS ARE MORE EXTREEEEEME!"

 

And no, I didn't screw up the formatting here; the idiot who wrote this (maybe Clause called his protagonist Jakeup because both of their names look like typos?) doesn't put spaces after periods.

 

Yet he fancies himself a writer.

 

Be afraid.

 

Once they got there, Jakeup said "Thanks."And then he ran in.He ran into the class room.

 

BUY A JAKEUP ACTION FIGURE TODAY! REAL ENTERING-CLASSROOM ACTION! AUTHENTIC STUPID NAME!

 

The teacher came over and said "Class, here is our new student, Jakeup." Then, Jakeup said "call me Jake."

 

My name is Jake. Just Jake. I can't tell you my last name. Or where I live. It's too dangerous. Because if the Yeerks find us, then oh gods a horrifying thought just occurred to me - what if Jakeup is supposed to be named Jacob, and Clause is just too stupid to spell Jacob?

 

Then, The teacher, Mrs.Roman said"Jake, please sit next to Leo." So Jake sat next to Leo.

 

You know, it's a good thing that Clause decided to document every detail of Jakeup's everyday life in the most incredibly redundant style imaginable. The only possible valid reason for ever writing those two sentences together is for the next sentence to be "You lose, Jake, I didn't say Simon Says."

 

After class, Leo caught up with Jake right before he walked out of the school."Lets duel" he said.

 

Honestly, this reads more like a parody of fanfics than anything else. It's a common criticism of Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction that people tend to say "Let's duel" where most people would introduce themselves and shake hands, but rarely is that quite so literally true.

 

"Just then Luna walked up yo Leo. "He just got here, give him a rest",

 

Does this look like proper English to you, you moron? Does this look even remotely sensible?

 

Also, lolhejustgottoaschoolwhosesolefocusisduelingaskingforadueliscompletelyunreasonable

 

but then Jake said "Nah, i dont care. I think dueling on the first day would be fun away.Lets meet at my house." And then he ran to his dad's duel runner, jumped on, and then they drove away.

 

...abandoning his father, who we have clearly established to be the one who normally uses the bike for transportation.

 

"Follow me."He said.Then he was gone, Leo and Luna racing after him.

 

Even though Jakeup's bike was already established as being capable of handling multiple riders.

 

And even though the level of unnecessary detail this story goes into regarding minutiae makes it clear that, if Leo and Luna had bikes of their own, those bikes would have been explicitly mentioned. So Jakeup's riding ahead while these two scramble to follow on foot, even though he could easily have carried them.

 

Jakeup's name isn't the only reason he does not deserve to be our protagonist.

 

Finally they arrived, panting, at a buisness

 

SPELLCHECKERS

 

USE THEM

 

called 'Axel Co.' "My dad's Axel, and he owns a card making buisness, and he made my entire deck. Sweet, huh, to have a customized deck."Jake said.

 

...

 

Where do I begin?

 

Jakeup's father is conveniently the owner of a card game company, which - based on Jakeup's wording (Axel isn't a surname, since otherwise Jakeup would be an Axel too) - is named after his first name. That's like having a real company named Steve Co. And despite being the owner of a company, he also apparently works at Duel Academy, since he left his bike there... but his company is based in his home. CONSISTENCY!

 

Our protagonist, Jakeup, did not design his deck. His father designed it for him. Jakeup has no deckbuilding skills whatsoever; someone else makes his dueling decks for him. And yet, in a story built on card game skill, Jakeup is our hero.

 

And the comment about having a customized deck seems to imply that nobody else has a unique deck, as if everyone else in the world just used pre-packaged structure decks and completely ignored the card trading and deckbuilding aspect of the card game. Of course, in reality, Jakeup is the only duelist who received his deck pre-built from the card game company instead of building it himself, which means that Jakeup actually has the least customized deck in the world.

 

And yet he, and by extension the author, is so stupid that he realizes none of this.

 

He showed to the back of the buisness building, where the back door stood.He opened the door,

 

Of course, maybe the reason he realizes none of this is that he's too busy confirming that the door at the back of the building is, in fact, the back door to bother thinking about how pathetic it is that he's training to become a professional player of card games and yet is so incompetent that he can't even build a deck without having his daddy do it for him.

 

then led them into his house, a black R.U.V.

 

I... don't actually know what that means, and Wikipedia's only entry on RUV is about an Icelandic public broadcasting organization, but that's fine, because it means I'm done with this tra-

 

im now starting second chapter. heres a sneak peak.

 

Ye gods, why?

 

No, that "why" isn't just a cry of despair. It's a serious question: Why? Why are you posting an unfinished fragment of a chapter that you haven't had a chance to polish? Why are you deluding yourself into believing that you have fans who are so eager to read your verbal diarrhea that they'll be chomping at the bit to see this "sneak peak"? Why has your computer not decided to melt its keyboard off in order to stop you from applying your stupid little fingers to it?

 

But let's see what your "sneak peak" is offering us:

 

Jake led them to a door at the back, where he then led them to a Old-Fashioned Duel arena.Jake placed his Deck inside the slot, then his machine leaned out, which was shaped like a bullet.Leo did the same, and then his Pumpkin-shaped duel machine leaned out."MY MOVE FIRST!!!" Jake yelled. He drew a card."COME OUT, MAFIA SHARP SHOT!!"He yelled, as a man with a brown leather jacket, a white t-shirt with a red little tie, and a Brown hat, like the ones on mafia members, also with a black rifle in one hand..Attack: 1900. "I end with one facedown." he said.

 

Oh, it's more bad description, obsession with unimportant details, lack of characterization, abysmal grammar, and a total absence of redeeming qualities. That's not a sneak peak of chapter two; that's a rehash of chapter one.

 

Let me make my final verdict as unambiguous as possible: Clause, you suck. You are a colossal moron, and you suck. Your grammar is barely readable, and you suck. You spend all your time reciting mundane actions instead of saying anything worth reading, and you suck. Your characters have no personality at all, and you suck. Your story has no plot at all, and you suck. Your story has no logical consistency, and you suck. Your prose is atrocious, and you suck. Your protagonist is completely unlikeable, and you suck. Your protagonist is named "Jakeup", and you suck. You suck, and you suck. You suck. Everything about you sucks. Everything about your writing sucks. This story has no redeeming qualities. You have no redeeming qualities.

 

Never infect this forum with your delusions of competency again. Because even by YCM standards, you suck.

 

 

Actually, it's my entire second review.

[Womi]

MANSHADOW approves.

 

Oh, and Clause. You suck.

[DL]

I shiver at the thought he could actually be an attempt at the name Jacob but horribly mispelled as Jakeup.

 

Great review as always.

 

XD

 

 

Also, found a typo early on - yet Jakeup started walking to school with his father instead of just riding with him all the way from home. It's almsot as if absolutely no thought was put into this scene.

[DARKPLANT RISING]

You're the opposite of suck.

[Mehmani]

[The Warden]

*Shudders* I've seen bad, I've attempted to brave My Immortal. But Three Serpants is terror worthy, it really is. Frankly, I think the title means that there will be a four-way gang bang between 'Jakeup', his dad, Leo & Luna.

 

Also, it is nice to see these professional style reviews, contrary to just stuffing a bunch of characters in a review to make funny comments. So, it is good to actually see substance in your work.

[CrabHelmet]

Also, found a typo early on - yet Jakeup started walking to school with his father instead of just riding with him all the way from home. It's almsot as if absolutely no thought was put into this scene.

...well then. Hypocrisy! Another feature of Foe Fiction!

[Womi]

...well then. Hypocrisy! Another feature of Foe Fiction!

 

I did it well back then, didn't I?

 

 

Oh, and something I noticed:

Why do all the words in your thread subtitle start with a capsed letter? .-.

[CrabHelmet]

GOGOGO THIRD REVIEW

 

[spoiler=Drowned Wednesday - {Mario & Luigi- Lost In Space}]Well, I was supposed to be out playing croquet right now, but by order of President Biden, nobody in town is to leave their shielded houses today while the Initiative runs its tests. I mean, it's pretty cool that Vice President Edwards is actually in my town, but this is really a pain. So, since I can't be hitting balls through wickets with mallets, I suppose I'll be hitting my head against bad fanfiction wishing that I could be using a mallet instead. Future Paradise claims that Mario & Luigi - Lost In Space will ultimately be a 7-10 book series, which I find more than a little doubtful, but for now, I'm sure the first chapter will be more than enough to take care of my remaining sanity. But first, the "Prelude", because apparently prologues aren't pretentious enough nowadays.

 

In the world of Mario & Luigi, many live.

 

Wow, YCM really doesn't waste time in getting right down to the bad stuff, does it? I mean, last time the very first word of the story was "Jakeup", and now today we have this lovely little piece of aneurysm-inducing prose.

 

A vast amount of creatures roam the worlds, minding to their own business. Everything is peaceful- until Bowser tries to take over everything, but is always stopped by Mario and company. Bowser then gives up until he devises another plan.

 

Yes, that is exactly the plot of the main series Mario games. Congratulations, you figured it out. And I'm sure there are a lot of people reading Mario fanfics who aren't aware that this is the case.

 

Except, wait, this is a Mario & Luigi fanfic, and if there's one part of the Mario series that this completely fails to describe, it's the RPG subseries', in which Bowser is normally at worst a comic relief nuisance and at best an actual ally. So what's all this nonsense about how everything is fine except for Bowser's attempts to take over the world (OF COURSE!)? Did we all just forget about Smithy? Grodus and the Shadow Queen? Count Bleck? Cackletta? The Shroobs? Fawful? Those last three are actually in the Mario & Luigi subseries itself, in which Bowser has never been the primary antagonist.

 

It's rare to find a description that is so obviously true as to be unnecessary and yet is also simultaneously completely false.

 

Now, Mario and company are back at home in the Mushroom Kingdom ruled by Princess Peach. Nothing is out-of-the-ordinary.

 

BEHOLD THE HEART-POUNDING ACTION OF EVERYTHING BEING RATHER AVERAGE!

 

Let me make one thing quite clear: having a good hook is important, and as far as hooks go, "Nothing interesting is happening" is about as bad as it gets.

 

Currently, it’s late winter, with temperatures at record lows- 32 degrees below normal. The snow is falling at a blinding rate. Several feet have built up. Many people are safe in Peach’s castle.

Mario is sitting in the Princess’s bedroom, watching her fall asleep. Little he knows what is to happen next...

 

Oh, good. I was hoping that little he knew what was to happen next, since it would be inconvenient if it weren't the case that little he would know. >_> Look, I don't know whether English is your second language or whether you are currently recovering from a lobotomy, and I don't really care. This is unacceptable. Get a proofreader or get some eyes.

 

And... that's the entire prologue "prelude". Was there anything here that needed to be said at all, or, if it did need to be said, could not have been said in the first chapter? Absolutely not. This section was a pointless waste of time.

 

Chapter 1- Let The Goombas Lead The Way

As he watches Peach fall asleep, the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario, glances outside. The dark night makes the snow hard to see. Mario reflects back on how many times he has saved the Princess. Countless times, Mario thinks.

 

(Bold means italics.)

 

Hasn't Mario saved Peach so much by now that it's not even worth thinking about? I mean, that's like me "reflecting back" (oh, hi, redundancy) on how many math homework sets I've done; by this point I can't possibly even bother.

 

After a couple more minutes of watching Peach,

 

Incidentally, I can't be the only one getting really creepy Edward Cullen vibes from this.

 

Mario decides to leave her to herself. He exits out of her room, closing the door behind himself. He starts down the hallway.

 

EPIC DOOR-CLOSING AND HALLWAY-STARTING-DOWN ADVENTURE! PART OF A SEVEN-TO-TEN-BOOK SERIES!

 

Late at night, hardly anyone is out. He spots Toadsworth going to the bathroom, a Toad walking with a snack, and another Toad asleep on the floor. Mario looks up at the pictures on the wall- nothing but Mushroom Kingdom. Once he reaches the stairs, he turns and makes his way down.

 

Before I go on, I suppose I should clarify something: writing is complicated, and every rule has an exception. Which means that whenever I post a rule, somebody will say "Maybe, BUT-" and come up with an exception to it, as if that invalidates my comment.

 

For example, when I once mentioned that you really need to proofread to ensure that your English is readable, somebody responded that that was obviously a completely idiotic suggestion, since e.e. cummings is known for eccentric grammar and punctuation. However, this overlooks the fact that e.e. cummings does it for legitimate artistic reasons, whereas seven-year-olds on YCM do it because they're morons. Both write with improper English, but the effect is very different.

 

Similarly, when I talked about how "Nothing interesting is happening" is a terrible hook back in the prologue Pretentious Prologue, I'm sure there was somebody who immediately responded, "But wait a minute! Didn't FLCL begin with the same hook? FLCL was awesome!" Yes, that is true, but if you look beyond the surface fact that they used similar words, you'll see that FLCL has the main character claim that nothing interesting is happening, which reflects his character and is comedic because the rest of the show plays like an awesome acid trip. On the other hand, Future Paradise begins with the disembodied omniscient narrator stating that everything is boring, and this claim is immediately proven true with scenes from Mario's boring domestic life. FLCL is ironic and funny; this fanfic is just badly-written.

 

So here, when I say that including dry statements about what Mario mechanically does as he walks around the house is boring and pointless, maybe someone out there will start pointing to James Joyce, overlooking the fact that Joyce uses an elaborate stream-of-consciousness writing style to show characters' thoughts during and reactions to mundane events for legitimate artistic reasons, while Future Paradise merely mechanically recites those mundane events because he can't come up with anything interesting to write and needs to pad out the "NOTHING HAPPENS" section a bit more.

 

To this, I have only one response: don't.

 

You are not e.e. cummings. You are not James Joyce. You're not even on the writing staff of FLCL. You're a kid writing video game or anime fanfiction on a forum based around a children's card game, and if you try to break basic writing rules just because some great artist in the past did so, you will almost certainly fail because you won't understand what made it acceptable - nay, brilliant - for the artist to break that rule in the first place. Rules exist because they are useful to almost everyone, and I doubt that you are one of those unique snowflakes who can make a successful exception.

 

Mario & Luigi - Lost In Space is not Ulysses. We do not need to see Mario wandering around a peaceful castle with no thoughts on his mind. That is pointless and boring and unnecessary.

 

Once downstairs, Mario is only a few feet from his destination- Toad’s Cafe. Toad’s Cafe is a cafeteria filled with counters that have everything from breakfast to dessert. The cafeteria is one of the biggest rooms in the castle- with over one hundred 50x20 tables, and over three thousand chairs.

 

I could point out that the population of the entire Mushroom Kingdom has never appeared to be over three thousand in any of the RPG's, but we'll let that slide because I want to talk about the formatting: There are no blank lines between paragraphs. That makes this a real eyesore to look at. Sure, there are paragraph breaks, but without blank lines, all that does is turn a wall of text into a wall of text with uneven right-justification. It's not like this is even a difficult flaw to notice; anyone with eyes can see it.

 

Mario enters, finding only about eight others scattered in the room. He walks over to a pizza counter and looks inside. He finds something small, round-ish, and green head first wiggling in the back.

 

He continues to act in the present, despite there being no particular reason for this choice of tense.

 

See? There's a good example of the rule-exception thing. Good authors have good reasons for writing in the present tense instead of in the more standard past tense. Future Paradise does it because I guess it gets you hipster points or something.

 

He begins to make his order. "I would like to order,” he begins.

 

Ooh, this game is fun. Can I play too? Watch: You are a bad writer. Your writing is bad. You write bad things. You write in a bad manner. The quality of your writing is bad. Bad describes your skill as a writer. A bad writer is you.

 

But then he freezes.

The green thing turns around and sees Mario. It’s a goomba. Never before has Mario seen a goomba any other color but brown.

 

In the original Paper Mario alone, Mario saw Goombas in red, green, and two shades of blue. But hey, continuity's for chumps.

 

But before Mario can move, the goomba attacks. Just before it knocks over Mario, something goes right by his head and strikes the goomba- a hammer. Mario turns to find his brother, Luigi, standing there.

 

Yes, because how on earth could Mario have possibly survived the devastating attack of such a powerful foe as a Goomba without a hammer-wielding cavalry conveniently appearing out of nowhere to save him?

 

“There’s more of them around,” starts Luigi, “and I know where they’re coming from. Remember the pipes in the basement? I found a portal there leaking them out. I came to get you to help me stop them.”

 

Luigi: "I came to look for you in the cafe instead of in Peach's room because I know you come down here every night to cry and drink until you're not sober enough to remember that Daisy will never love you."

 

“Well, it’s probably just Bowser again,” states Mario. “We can easily finish this.”

 

Look, when I say that I'd rather see "said" used in every sentence than see random synonyms plucked from a thesaurus and used no matter how awkward they sound, I'm not joking. Using nothing but "said" may be bland, but it's a dull blandness that isn't necessarily too obvious (especially if the characters are saying interesting things, which admittedly they aren't in this story), whereas awkward word choice like this leaps right off the page and hits the reader in the face with a croquet mallet.

 

With that, the bros. took off running. Mario stops, then Luigi with a questioning look on his face.

 

I mean, it's obvious that you're putting so much effort into trying to sound eloquent here, and it's equally obvious that it's having the opposite effect...

 

“Why are we stopping?” he asks.

 

...an opposite effect that is fueled in part (though by no means exclusively) by endless redundancy. No, you can't just let Luigi have his "questioning look" and let his expression speak for itself; no, you need to say that he looks like he has a question and then have him explicitly ask the obvious question.

 

“We have to make sure the Princess if safe!” Mario exclaims.

Mario bolts upstairs to Peach’s room- open.

Oh no, Mario thinks. He runs in to find her gone. “Peach!”

“Bro, she might have been taken by the goombas, come on!” exclaims Luigi, half-way down the stairs.

 

We were literally told exactly the same thing - the Hyper Goombas green Goombas took Peach - four separate times here, slightly more (unnecessarily) explicitly each time. Or were we supposed to think that the door was open but she was still inside and just wanted some fresh air? Or that Mario was horrified that the curtains were the wrong color? Or that she was gone because she decided to go for a walk?

 

There's a rule often repeated that goes, "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you told 'em". Since there seems to be some confusion on the matter, let me make one thing perfectly clear: That rule is to tell preachers how to write their sermons. It is not to tell creative writers of fiction in general how to write. There is an important distinction at work here: preachers are more creative than Future Paradise.

 

Mario and Luigi sprint down to the basement door. They stand there, then Mario busts open the door. The sight is a nightmare.

The room is half-full of green goombas. There must be at least three hundred of them. What comes through the portal next is horrific.

 

The scene is horrific! The portal-thing is a nightmare! Oh no!

 

This sort of thing is much more effective if you just describe the scene and let the readers decide for themselves how horrifically nightmarish it is. As it stands, the scene feels weak with nothing but you flatly stating how horrible you intended it to be to support it.

 

A thing that looks like Bowser- just four times bigger-

 

Because Bowser has a consistent default size, am I right? Seriously, I don't know how to picture an extra-large Bowser; four times bigger than an RPG Bowser is still much smaller than the Super Mario Sunshine incarnation of Bowser. Telling me this thing's size relative to something as nebulous as Bowser's size is meaningless. It tells me that you want me to think he's big, but it can't possibly create a vivid image in my mind, and that means that your description isn't doing it's job.

 

comes out. It’s also green and has a symbol on it’s stomach. It’s a circle that has a big “L” with the text “W O R L D” underneath.

 

Oh, no, it's a poster for the third Death Note movie! Run! Save yourselves from its terribleness!

 

It lets out a mighty scream and points at Mario. It then speaks.

 

Green!Bowser: ARRRGGHHH!!!!!

 

*silent reaction*

 

Green!Bowser: *stops screaming and starts pointing and speaking normally*

 

Yeah, somehow this scene doesn't quite work for me.

 

“Get Mario!”

The goombas obey. They begin until Luigi leaks his emotions.

“No, don’t hurt him, please, he’s all I’ve got!”

The goombas instantaneously freexe in place.

 

This story is apparently a remake, which implies that some form of revision ought to have taken place, and yet nonsense like "freexe" is still present.

 

“Oh,” Mario lets out, “they listen to you.”

Before Luigi can start, one of the many goombas come forward and interrupts.

“Of course we do, he’s our leader.”

 

Citizen: Help, I'm being attacked by evil demons! Someone, help!

 

Superhero: Never fear, citizen! The demons are actually your servants who just have an unusual way of saying hello.

 

Citizen: THANK YOU, ANTICLIMAX MAN!

 

“Leader of what?” questions Mario.

With a long look on his face,

 

Try picturing a Goomba with a long look on his face.

 

Please bear in mind that Goombas are nothing but walking faces.

 

the goomba explains, “Of Luigiworld, the planet in the galaxy next to Marioland. You should know, you’re the leader of Marioland.”

 

Which is why all the Goombas that Mario normally encounters get out of his way as soon as he tells them to, right?

 

At this surprise, Mario lifts his eyebrows. He looks over to his brother, who is in shock. Mario thinks to himself, Galaxy? Luigiworld? Marioland? Green goombas? None of this makes sense.

 

I have to say, Mario's on the money here. I agree complet-

 

We’ll have to see for ourselves.

 

Nevermind, Mario's an idiot.

 

“Well then, let’s go,” says Mario.

The green look-alike Bowser agrees. He begins, “since we only listen to Luigi, it’s his decision.”

All eyes go to Luigi. He nods.

“Then go through that portal,” says the look-alike.

The bros. walk to the portal, then go in. The goombas and look-alike follow.

But just then, the portal closes.

 

END OF CHAPTER

 

Summary of the story so far: "Nothing happened. Then Luigi saved Mario from a Goomba and was given a vast legion under his command as a reward for absolutely nothing. Oh, and Peach is kidnapped again, but honestly, that's hardly worth mentioning at this point; even the characters seem to have forgotten about that by the chapter's end."

 

Now, this was a horribly-written story with a horrible plot, but Future Paradise swears that Chapter 2 will be loads better and all the plot holes will be cleared up in Chapter 2 and he's much better at writing Chapter 2's and Chapter 2 will rise again on the third day, so even though I and any other sensible person would normally drop this story after Chapter 1 the very first sentence of the prologue "prelude", I suppose just this once I'll go ahead and try Chapter 2 so that I can prove that Future Paradise wasn't holding back the good stuff for Chapter 2 and in fact just sucks in general provide a perfectly fair evaluation of this story prove that Future Paradise wasn't holding back the good stuff for Chapter 2 and in fact just sucks in general.

 

Chapter 2- A Flying Mushroom Can Take You Far

Once the brothers were through the portal, they found that they were on a platform- in the middle of space.

 

Oh, hey, now we're suddenly in the past tense. Proving that Future Paradise put absolutely no thought into the fundamental writing style of the story and had no care at all for consistency.

 

They looked around at the surroundings. They found huge planets, a gorgeous sun, and an infinite number of stars. The sight was beautiful.

 

A good writer writes a beautiful scene; a bad writer claims that a scene is beautiful.

 

The same is true if you replace "beautiful" with "nightmarish" or pretty much any other adjective, and this is a trap that Future Paradise falls into constantly. No, my heartstrings will not be tugged just because you say something is awesome; if your story is worth anything, you'll just describe it and in doing so convince me that it's awesome.

 

“Well,” said the look-alike Bowser, “the ship should arrive soon.”

“Ship?” Mario questioned.

“Yes, the Mushroom Flyer.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, the ship pulled up in front of the platform. It was twice the size of Peach’s castle,

 

...and yet Green!Bowser didn't notice it despite its massive size, given that he couldn't make a more precise statement regarding its arrival time.

 

had a flat area on top where you could stand, and was the design of a mushroom. The brothers stood in amusement.

 

I've really no idea whether Future Paradise actually means amusement or whether this is just a typo for "amazement". That just goes to show how bad the Tell-Don't-Show in the writing is here; the description alone gives me no clue as to how I'm expected to react to something, leaving nothing but Future Paradise's blanket statements of "IT'S BEAUTIFUL OKAY I SAID IT'S BEAUTIFUL SO DON'T QUESTION IT" for guidance.

 

A door opens at the nose of the ship, which was the nose of the mushroom.

 

I facepalmed at the most tautological part of the story, which was the most tautological part of the chapter.

 

Green Bowser started inwards first, then the brothers. The green goombas took up the rear.

“Well, here we are,” stated green Bowser.

 

Let me ask you: short of documenting weeks of training in a centrifuge, can you think of a more dull way to describe going through a magic portal and boarding an unusually-designed spaceship?

 

As the door shut behind everyone, Mario and Luigi looked around. They found that they were in a lobby- with five other doorways. Within the lobby were pictures of planets from around the galaxy- anywhere from Marioland, to Sly-Sneak Station, and even Toad Super Galaxy.

 

I think I'm starting to see how this is going to last for seven-to-ten books: loads and loads of filler.

 

There was a rainbow of goombas found in one of the pictures. Mario walked toward it and read the label.

 

“Great Goomba Galaxy”

 

Mario looked up again. He saw goombas in the colors red, green pink, yellow, tan, and brown.

 

..."Great Goomba Galaxy"?

 

Oh, and thanks for saying you saw lots of Goomba colors. Presumably, I had forgotten when you said you saw a rainbow of Goombas THREE SENTENCES AGO. Forget actual filler; this idiotic repetition provides far more padding than any number of filler arcs possibly could.

 

He also spotted white with green stripes, and white with red dots. Finally, he found white and rainbow goombas. Mario had never seen something like this before.

 

YES, I KNOW HE NEVER SAW DIFFERENT GOOMBA COLORS BEFORE, YOU JUST SAID LAST CHAPTER HE HAD ONLY SEEN BROWN GOOMBAS

 

Presumably Future Paradise is trying to get a piece of the anterograde amnesia demographic with these constant reminders. Or maybe he's just pandering to the people-who-are-just-as-stupid-as-Future-Paradise crowd.

 

One of the green goombas walked up beside Mario. The goomba’s face got serious and he started examining the picture as if it were an ancient artifact.

“It’s sad it had to happen,” he said.

Startled, Mario answered, “remind me, what happened again?”

The goomba looked down, then back up. The words he began to say came out slowly.

“All the goombas in the universe call it ‘Goomsday,’ not ‘Doomsday,” he answered.

 

You want to know what a great way to kill any attempt at making a scene dramatic or serious is? The word "Goomsday".

 

“That still doesn’t tell me what happened,” Mario replied.

 

I like Mario in this story. He clearly hates this story just as much as I do and is intent on cutting through all the stupidity that Future Paradise spews out so that he can finish this nonsense and get back to his actual job of cleaning the castle's bathrooms. Because cleaning the toilets outside of a cafe built to hold three thousand is still much better than enduring this story.

 

“I can remember it like it was just yesterday,” the green goomba began, “it all started while all the goombas in the universe were on the world know as the Great Goomba Galaxy. The place was perfect for goombas- skies that let you see stars, short fruit pkants

 

Ah, yes, the great philosopher Immanuel "Short-Fruit" pKant.

 

for easy reach, and even small houses for families; of course they were all one story high. One day, the messenger goombas- also known as paragoombas-

 

Paragoombas have been clearly established throughout the Mario canon to be winged Goombas. Now, this means one of two things must be true:

 

1) Future Paradise doesn't know a bloody thing about the fandom he's writing for. (Though in fairness, the Paragoombas aren't the most famous of races; in the words of Immanuel pKant, "Hell, I don't even know what a Paragoomba is either." It's still an unforgivable research failure in any event.)

 

2) The "Great Goomba Galaxy" was a racist dystopia in which the entire race of Paragoombas was forced into the subservient position of being messengers for the crime of being born with wings.

 

brought back some news. They heard of a creature named Bowser that was trying to take over the universe.

 

OF COURSE!

 

We had nowhere to go, other than hope for a hero. That’s when Mario and Luigi came along. We were told that you saved a place called Mushroom Kingdom, ruled by Princess Peach, and home of Toads, from Boswer countless times.

 

Yeah, Mario, you show that evil Boswer who's boss!

 

...in the words of Immanuel pKant, "His name isn't spelled 'Boswer', you moron."

 

We were also told about others such as Wario, DK, and Yoshi, and what they did. We were hoping for you to come and save us. Everybody was in a frantic panic, talking about each character- mainly Bowser, you, and Luigi. One day, the world was corrupting from panic, and that’s when it happened.”

 

I feel like I'm reading in circles that spin around and around and make me read the same thing over and over in circles around and around.

 

Also, this doesn't even begin to make sense. They heard Bowser wanted to take over the universe (OF COURSE!), so they learned about Mario and Luigi, who came to save them from Bowser, which made them afraid of Bowser, which created the panic that caused the problem in the first place and oh dear I've gone all cross-eyed.

 

Mario has his eyes fixed on the little fellow, nodding as if to say “go on.”

The green goomba continued, “suddenly, everybody looked up at something in the sky. It was a purple comet.

 

Well, let's hope it's a timed mission, because the untimed ones? Incredibly boring. Give me Luigi's Purple Coins or that one in the Boneyard over that horrible Sea Slide level any day.

 

This really has nothing to do with the story; I'm just so bored that I'm trying to grab on to any other available topic. And can you blame me, when the source material is a hideous wall of text like this:

 

It came closer to us then stopped. Everybody was still thinking about the character they were discussing. Then, the unexpected happened. The comet blew up, knocking everybody to the ground, including myself. I, and everybody else, fainted. I guess it was about three minutes later when I woke up. The sky was yet again clear. I thought it was just a cosmic explosion or some sort, until I looked around.”

He paused for a moment, then continued, “everybody was in different colors- like the ones in this picture. That’s when I saw myself green, because I was thinking about Luigi. I got up and ran inside my house. I cot a camera, and climbed on top of my house. Once on top, I took a picture of everyone- which is the picture in front of us. Then, something strange happened. Each of us, one by one, were disappearing. I had no clue where everyone was going. Then, I disappeared, with my camera still in hand. I appeared on a world filled with green, and other green goombas. That’s when I was told by green look-alike Bowser that I had arrived in Luigiworld. I was to serve Luigi, and Luigi only. I was told to hate others. I was also told to learn about Luigi based off the world, and to fit to his needs whenever he came to Luigiworld. And so I worked there for what is now two years. The green Boswer told us that he wasn’t formed in any way like us- he was a cosmic spirit. When the planet was born, so was he. That’s why he has authority over us. He told us one day that he found a portal to the world you’re from. He wanted to claim it for Luigi- but he thought it was unsafe, so we took the Mushroom Flyer- where I placed my picture. Others brought there’s, from where the Mushroom Flyer was used around the galaxy. All you had to do was call for it. Then we arrived at your world through a different portal, the one at the platform. Now, we’re here.”

Mario quickly questioned, “then why are there rainbow and white goombas?”

“Those were the goombas that were asleep. The rainbow is our original color.

 

tl;dr: A big explosion happened that painted everyone the color of their favorite Mario character and sucked them into a slave world where they must obey that character. And yet it was still a step up in society for the Paragoombas.

 

tl;dr of tl;dr: The green Goombas obey Luigi because the plot device made them.

 

By the way, if you don't believe me about Goomba society being a dystopia, look at the name of their world. "Great Goomba Galaxy"? Why don't you just call it "Goomba's Republic of Goomba" while you're at it? And as for the racism, well:

 

The white means that they’re mentally ill, also known as albino. They transform into giant monsters that will destroy you if threatened.”

The two stood in silence.

 

...a stunned silence at the idea that the Goomba would say something so unspeakably racist, I'm assuming.

 

Everyone seemed to had been listening.

“We’re almost at Luigiworld,” the look-alike said.

Mario looked up out of the windows- the eyes of the Mushroom Flyer. He saw a huge, lush, green world ahead.

 

Oh, nope, it's just an awkward way to end the wall-of-text exposition.

 

Now, having reached the end of the chapter infodump that Future Paradise claimed would redeem all the flaws of the first chapter and cure meningitis, I can say with certainty that all aspects of this story are awful and should be ignored. The prose sounds more like an IKEA catalog than anything poetic, the story begins with solid boring and progresses from there to a boring anticlimax and a boring wall of exposition, the plot is lazy, the characters have no personalities, and absolutely everyone keeps repeating themselves and rephrasing what they just said and saying the same things over and over again.

 

Future Paradise may not be as incurable in his awfulness as Clause, but he still has a long way to go before he'll be able to post anything that won't burn my eyes out of their sockets.

 

[Womi]

Yay, Parakoopa-Guy revival.

 

What was his name? It's funny how I remember the #9400D3 but not his username.

[Dr. Cakey]

The alternate time-line you appear to be living in intrigues me...and disturbs me a bit, too.

[CrabHelmet]

The e.e. cummings thing isn't just me being paranoid, by the way; that was actually raised as an objection to the "A Public Service Announcement for Aspiring Writers" sticky by some moron who thinks telling people to spellcheck is bad.

 

Yay, Parakoopa-Guy revival.

 

What was his name? It's funny how I remember the #9400D3 but not his username.

That'd be double_c4, though he's changed his name now.

[Sunshine Jesse]

Crab, do you still do requests?

If so:

http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/243724-yu-gi-oh-chaos-of-the-virtual-world-pg-16/

 

rip apart Chapter 6 or the revisited prologue plz.