Yu-Gi-Oh GX - The Ace Chronicles

[rockethermes169]

Before you even read this, I want to thank you for looking at it. I put in a lot of effort in this.

 

[spoiler=The Setting and Characters]

The Setting: A Western-style town in the middle of nowhere.

Time: A few years after Jaden graduates.

Characters:

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

Jaden, 18: A former student of Duel Academy, he acts as the policeman of the town. He wears a uniform not unlike the Slifer Red uniform. He is friendly and sociable, and dedicates his life to guard the town. When he sees a new person wandering around, he welcomes them, and invites them over to his house.

The Villians: ????

????

????

????

The Villian's Objective: ????

 

 

[spoiler=Chapter 1 - Ace Arrives!]

Ace is shown on the outskirts of town. He sighs, wondering if the people in the town would accept him. Just then, Jaden was walking around and noticed Ace. He ran over, shouting, "Hey, you! What are you doing out here?" Ace turned his head and looked at the incoming Jaden. He turned around and looked at the setting sun. Jaden came up to Ace, and was about to say something, but noticed Ace staring off into the sunset. So he remained silent, until he couldn't remain silent anymore, and asked, "Are you new around here? I haven't seen your face around here." Ace turned around, nodded his head, and stood up. He started to walk away from the town. Jaden ran up to him again, and said, "It's not safe out there, you know? So, why don't you stay here for a little while?" Ace stopped for a second, then said, "Alright," then turned around and strolled into the town. Jaden frowned; something didn't seem right about this guy, and went back into town as well.

 

[spoiler=Chapter 2 - Ace VS. Jaden!]

Jaden was worried. About the new guy, I mean. He didn't want to be with other people, but yet wasn't quite satisfied being alone. He decided the new guy was in a bad mood, and he needed to make him feel better.

 

Jaden looked all over for him, until he found Ace on the roof of a building, staring at something in his hands. When Jaden got closer, he noticed Ace was holding a deck in his hands.

"Hey! You duel?", Jaden asked.

Ace seemed startled by his question, but nodded.

"Then do you want to duel? You seem in a bad mood." he asked, after all, dueling made him feel better.

Ace was motionless for a few seconds. Then he jumped off the roof, and put on a Duel Disk.

"I'll take that as a yes. So let's do this!" Jaden declared, and put on his own Duel Disk, an old Slifer Red Duel Disk.

 

--Ace's Turn--

"I'll go first. Draw."

(6 cards in his hand)

"I'll play Ace Shieldsman in Defense Mode."

Note: Ace Shieldsman - Level 4 - Warrior - (0/2400)

Once a Duel, if this card would be destroyed, it is not destroyed.

"With that, I'll set a card face down, and end my turn."

(4 cards in his hand)

--Jaden's Turn--

"Let me show you what I can do! Draw!"

(6 cards in his hand)

"I'll play Elemental Hero Sparkman in Attack Mode!"

Elemental Hero Sparkman - Level 4 - Warrior - (1600/1400)

"Also, when I Summon a Warrior-type monster, I can Special Summon Knight's Squire from my hand!"

Knight's Squire - Level 3 - Warrior - (1000/1000)

You can Special Summon this card from your hand whenever you Summon a Warrior-type monster. You may Tribute this card to increase a Warrior-type monster on your side of the field's ATK by 1000 until the End Phase.

"And, if I tribute Knight's Squire, then Sparkman's ATK goes up by 1000, enough to destroy your Shieldsman! Now, Sparkman, attack his Shieldsman!"

Ace Shieldsman is not destroyed because of its effect.

"What the? Why wasn't your monster destroyed?"

"It isn't destroyed, because one time, it can't be destroyed," Ace said.

"Alright then, I'll end my turn with a face-down. It's your turn." Jaden said.

(3 cards in hand)

Sparkman's ATK goes back to 1600.

--Ace's Turn--

"Draw."

(5 cards in hand)

"I activate my face-down, Ace Blaster."

Ace Blaster - Continuous Trap

When a "Ace" monster is successfully Summoned, deal your opponent 800 points of Direct Damage.

"With that, I activate from my hand, Attack Absorber Unit Alpha."

Attack Absorber Unit Alpha - Continuous Spell

If your opponent declares an attack, send this card to the Graveyard and negate the attack. Then, Special Summon a monster with ATK equal or less to the attacking monster's ATK.

"I end my turn with 2 face-downs."

(2 cards in hand)

--Jaden's Turn--

"You're not going to attack? Then I will! Draw!"

(4 cards in hand)

"I activate, from my hand, Fusion Trident!"

Fusion Trident - Quick-Play Spell

If you Fusion Summon a monster this turn, the Fusion Summoned monster(s) can attack your opponent directly. All Battle Damage done by the Fusion Summoned monster(s) this turn becomes halved.

"And now, I'll fuse Sparkman and the Clayman in my hand with Polymerization!"

(Special Summons Elemental Hero Thunder Giant)

Thunder Giant - Level 6 (Fusion) - Warrior - (2400/1500)

This monster cannot be Special Summoned except by Fusion Summon. Once per turn, by discarding 1 card from your hand, select and destroy 1 face-up monster on the field with original ATK less than the ATK of this card.

"Because of the effect of the Fusion Trident, my Thunder Giant can attack you directly! Now Thunder Giant, attack him directly! However, the damage you take is halved."

"Now, I activate the effect of Attack Absorber Unit Alpha!" Ace declared. "By discarding it, I negate your attack! And then, I special summon a monster with ATK equal or less to your Thunder Giant! I summon Ace Soldier from my hand in Attack Position!"

Ace Soldier - Level 4 - Warrior - (1900/1500)

When this card destroys a monster by battle, deal your opponent 500 damage.

"And now, the effect of my Ace Blaster activates. You now receive 800 points of damage!"

Jaden's LP=3200.

"Huff...nice move. I set a card and end my turn.

(1 card in hand)

 

 

 

Due to recent difficulties writing, I decided not to go any further. Can someone lock this?

[CrabHelmet]

Mind if I give my opinion?

[rockethermes169]

I wouldn't mind at all. Shoot.

[Hollow Ichigo!]

Its a tad short....a chapter should be longer than that

[Guest Merciful Idiot]

You sure you put effort into this? Chapters are supposed to be a bunch of paragraphs, not a paragraph. While Chapter 2 is a-okay, Chapter 1 is wayyyyy too short. I could spend thirty minutes doing better, and that's exactly what happened on my first try when I was ten, lots of descriptive paragraphs.

 

For more information, read a book, any book, from short stories to big novels, and see how they're done. No one chapter is that short, not even in a children's card game book.

[CrabHelmet]

Once upon a time, a man named Theodore Sturgeon observed that ninety percent of everything is trash. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of Fan Fiction, where the majority of works are garbage, riddled with endless clichés, plot holes, and character derailments and totally lacking in any redeeming qualities.

 

The remaining ten percent, however, is to die for, and occasionally there arises a tale that transcends the standard fare. These masterpieces rival or even surpass the original work itself in terms of quality. They feature original, clever, epic plots, with rounded and dynamic characters populating a well-developed world. The dialogue is realistic and enjoyable to read; when exposition is necessary, it is introduced at a sensible pace and keeps the reader immersed; the characters remain sensibly true to their canon characterizations and are not forced to act like idiots to develop the plot; and the overall experience is something that leaves the reader feeling simultaneously satisfied and hungry for more. And it goes without saying that these brilliant works are heavily proofread to ensure the eradication of any errors.

 

This is not one of those stories.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

I put in a lot of effort in this.

 

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

 

Chapter 1 - Ace Arrives!

 

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

 

Ace is shown on the outskirts of town.

 

No.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

No.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Just then, Jaden was walking around and noticed Ace.

 

No.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Chapter 2 - Ace VS. Jaden!

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

[rockethermes169]

Alright then. Thanks for the feedback.

[Guest Merciful Idiot]

Hurrah for fried Crabs for dinner while wearing a Helmet!

[WithTheWind]

"Ace turned his head and looked at the incoming Jaden."

 

I honestly rofl'd when I read that. You make it sound like Jaden's a missile coming to rip the flesh off of the poorly named Ace's face.