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[quote name='Nexus Prophet-Evanm7' timestamp='1299705169' post='5063024']
Complete Foe Fiction copy.

Don't even deny it; you use the same memes.
[/quote]
Complete Foe Fiction copy, you say?

Foe Fiction does not have two commentators

Foe Fiction does not have a name as clever as ours.

[s]Foe Fiction isn't as amazing as us[/s]

But seriously, I do admit I learned a lot from Foe Fiction, and have used some things I learned here (like sarcasm)

But this isn't meant to be a copy or rip-off, moreso a tribute.


In fact, the best societies grow by taking the good ideas and leaving out the bad, right?
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Dr. Cakey Newbie

Dr. Cakey

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[quote name='Nexus Prophet-Evanm7' timestamp='1299705169' post='5063024']
Complete Foe Fiction copy.

Don't even deny it; you use the same memes.
[/quote]
Yes. This is the first Foe Fiction copy ever. No copies of it have ever appeared before this point.

*starts counting*

owait
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A20thCenturyBoy Newbie

A20thCenturyBoy

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[quote name='Nexus Prophet-Evanm7' timestamp='1299705169' post='5063024']
Complete Foe Fiction copy.

Don't even deny it; you use the same memes.
[/quote]
After reading over your post, we decided to go back to the drawing board with our next riff, making it our most original, and most creative, to date. Just for you. Enjoy.

[spoiler=83]We turn now to [url=http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/thread-91647.html]Knight's Title Book 2~ The Dark Side of His Heart[/url] by [url=http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/user-163038.html]~MT~[/url].

It seems like this story is the second in a series, if the "Book Two" in the title is any indication, and it is itself already 22 chapters long. I am thus coming in right in the middle, and I'm not even familiar with Kingdom Hearts canon. As you can tell, I have all the necessary background information and am well-qualified to review this story. Let's begin the first chapter.

[i]There is a place where time stops, where no one exists. Where everywhere you look is oblivion.[/i]

This looks familiar. A previous Foe Fic called Kingdom Hearts: A Forgotten Tale began with this opening line:

[i]A long time ago, in a world that never was.[/i]

This sort of thing seems to be a common opening. It also sounds incredibly stupid. I'm sure it's intended to be epic and awesome or something like that, but in practice it just comes across as being idiotic and pretentious. At least, that's how it comes across to me; I'm sure some of you out there reading these stories will be screaming about how cool it is.

If my secondhand understanding of the Kingdom Hearts mythos is correct, these refer to the same place, a canon location called the World That Never Was. That explains the similarity, but in a way it also makes things worse: if this is a real, canon setting that everyone who has played the games (and thus everyone actually reading the fanfic, myself notwithstanding) is already familiar with, then dressing this up as something mysterious and epic is bizarre.

Imagine a Super Mario 64 fanfic whose opening line is something like "Legend speaks of a mysterious castle. In that castle, say the legends, are mysterious portals to other realms, cunningly disguised by a figure as paintings. What lies beyond those portals? It is a mysterious mystery." It's not mysterious and epic if we're already familiar with it.

Anyhow, back to the story.

[i]In this place is a city.[/i]

Since no one exists in this place and the city is in this place, I can only conclude that this city is empty. That makes it a rather pathetic city.

[i]A city that you would probably not find on the map.[/i]

I don't know about you, but my map shows the exact location of both the Timeless Void of Oblivion and of the city contained within it. (It's several miles north of Toronto.)

[i]This city is illuminated with neon colored lights dancing in the streets and on the buildings. In this city is a skyscraper. A skyscraper so high, it has been legend to touch the very heavens.[/i]

"Legend"? I'm guessing the author started with "rumour" used frequently, then changed his mind and did a Ctrl+H to turn all instances of "rumour" into "legend", and then decided to finish up by Not Proofreading.

Incidentally, how relevant is height in a limitless empty void? And if the heavens touch the skyscraper and the skyscraper's in the city in the void and no one is in the void, does that mean that no one goes to heaven?

[i]The skyscraper is said to contain all the lost memories of the world. Good and bad. No wonder this place is located in a void.[/i]

I don't quote follow the logic here. "It contains all lost memories, therefore it obviously must be in a void"? Maybe this is one of those weird things that I'd need to play the Kingdom Hearts games to understand.

[i]Below the skyscraper is a little town square. No one knows what it is called,[/i]

In that case, no one calls it what it is called because doing so would require them to know what it is called, so obviously it isn't called anything at all. But even ignoring the paradox there, who cares what the name of this little town square is? There's a reason Lost's mysteries tended to be more along the lines of "Why is there a polar bear on this island?" and less "What was the name of Jack's hospital?" - mysteries aren't intriguing if the answer is of no interest to anyone. Sure, maybe it's relevant in the Kingdom Heartsverse, but any story that hinges on a town square's name is probably terrible.

[i]but it has been known to be very silent in the area. So quiet, that it would drive any calm person into madness. Where is this city? No one knows. . . . . . . .[/i]

Let's recap: This city is in a place containing no one that is listed on no maps that no one drew and has a town square whose name is known to no one but is so silent from the lack of people that anyone there (if anyone was there) would be driven mad (but wouldn't they themselves be able to make sound and avert the madness?), and no one knows where this city is because no one is there or has ever been there or will ever be there.

This sounds like the second-most boring city ever, just behind Charlotte.

[i]In the town square, something was actually happening.[/i]

I'd like to complain about the nonsensical use of the progressive aspect here. As previously highlighted in my The Forbidden Seal review (my goal for this Foe Fic is to include callbacks to all fourteen that preceded it), it sounds bad to say that something "was happening" rather than that something "happened" when it happens suddenly and we have no other concurrent event occurring with which to compare the time of its occurrence. It's either awkward or wrong or both; in any case, it's terrible.

However, in this case it's worse than that because we've previously been told that all of this takes place in a place where time stops. Have fun figuring out how chronological events work in a world where time doesn't exist.

[i]A black portal was opening out of thin air in the town square around the skyscraper. Nothing really exciting happened really.[/i]

Really? The really empty city's really quiet and boring really town square had really something really happen in it really with a black really portal appearing out of really thin air around the really tall skyscraper really full of really lost memories, and despite really this nothing really exciting happened really? Really?

[i]But then out of the portal walked a person shrouded in a black shrouded hood. Silver chains hung from its black garb.[/i]

It's a black-cloaked mysterious shadowy figure! Foe Fic flashback montage time!

[i]A dark figure in a black cloak announced
"we must complete the goal that they could not finish".
Two more dark figures slowly walked out of dark shadows

I literally whipped around, doing a full one-eighty spin, and saw a tall figure standing about twenty feet away from me. He was intimidating, that much I could tell, but he was surrounded by a veil of shadows,

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

A tall person was grabbing him, his face couldn't be seen because he wore a large straw hat, and a blue and white cloak, the flesh of his hand was a pale blue like a body left out in the rain and cold for too long.[/i]

Please, YCM, stop with all the mysterious shadowy cloaked figures. And I didn't even count figures who were obscured for reasons other than being cloaked and shadowy, like that Western duelist whose shadow was [b]MANSHADOW[/b].

[i]“Where are you?” It was a man’s voice. It sounded patient, but irritated at the same time. He seemed to be waiting for someone.[/i]

"Then he let out a scream of pain. It sounded like he was in pain."

[i]Then two more black portals opened in the air and two more people in the same black hood and robes walked out into the neon lighted plaza. They too wore hoods, so it was impossible to see their faces.[/i]

Please, YCM. Your fanfic isn't being televised. In a third-person omniscient story, you can refuse to reveal information without having it obscured from the camera by contrivances like LOL MOAR CREEPY CLOKES since there is no camera in written text.

[i]“I’m here!” said a young girl’s voice. She sounded very excited.[/i]

~MT~ reached this point in the fanfic and thought, "How can I convey that this girl is excited? What is the most elegant way to do that?" He spent hours pondering before deciding, "I know! I'll just have the narration say she was excited." So he did that. Then he looked over the fanfic and said, "This is perfect. In every way. I should definitely post this."

[i]“Why did you want us here?” The first man said, his voice was sharp.[/i]

At least the capitalized word after the quote isn't "Said" this time.

While it's not as bad as that of the awful Digimon restoration, the grammar in this story is rather inconsistent, even in relatively basic ways. This sentence is a good example: if you're writing a fanfic that you think is worth sharing with the world, then you should know that, as the great philosopher Morbo once said, commas do not work that way. Goodnight.

[i]“Yeah, you interrupted my fun!” pouted the girl.

“Torturing another captive, huh Larxene?” The girl named Larxene laughed.

“Of course!”

“You and your vicious tauntings.” The first man said to Larxene.[/i]

Tauntings.

I am sorry, but when I think "torturing captives", I don't think "tauntings". I suppose they can be vaguely related, like when I'm being tortured by a terrible fanfic while I'm taunting it, but it seems somewhere between an absurdly pathetic whitewashing and an absurdly pathetic failure of knowledge of the world to equate torture to taunting in any story.

[i]“They don’t call me the Savage Nymph for nothing Axel.” The man named Axel then jeered at her.[/i]

All of the writing here feels horribly awkward. Once a person's name has been used, there's no need to refer to them as "The man called Bob" or whatever; just call them by their name and be done with it. This is especially true in cases like this where these are canon characters with highly familiar names; in particular, most readers have Axel's name memorized.

Then there's other problems. Why is the "Axel jeers her" message put with the quote where Larxene responds to Axel rather than in the lone where Axel actually jeers her? Why go out of your way to explicitly state that he's jeering her in the first place when you can just show him jeering her and thus avoid violating the cardinal rule of Show, Don't Tell?

And why do these sentences with no technical problems constantly feel so awkward? Something about that last sentence reads very badly; maybe removing the word "then" would make it flow better, in the same way that removing the whole sentence would make the story flow better and removing the whole story would make the internet flow better.

[i]“Not as much as you. I don’t find pleasure in ripping off people’s limbs as much as you hunger for blood.”[/i]

We've gone from "tauntings" to ripping off limbs and hungering for blood.

Maybe "tauntings" was inserted by a hideous misuse of the thesaurus?

[i]“Silence!” shouted the third man.

“Yes Marluxia.” Said the other two.[/i]

"Said" count: twelve. Not this again.

[i]“Now I brought you two here for a reason,” said Marluxia with a grin,[/i]

Excuse me, Mr. ~MT~, but I believe you mean, "The man called Marluxia".

[i]“I’ve come up with a plan to strengthen our organization. You two are absolutely perfect for the job. What with you Axel, with your fiery strength,” Axel laughed at that.

“You got that right!”

“And you Larx, with your cruelty to your enemies.” Larxene giggled at that.

“You bet!”

“And me with my . . . . . . . special talents.” Marluxia laughed.[/i]

And so the characters continue to tell each other things that they already know purely for the benefit of the audience who just entered the story - except here it's even worse because the target audience already knows this stuff anyhow.

Also, these people have somehow just located and entered the mysterious lost city in the void that nobody knows about and landed in the town square of unknown name next to the skyscraper of all the lost memories, and all they've done is chat amongst themselves about the "tauntings" that are surely routine for them. This would seem absurd even without the opening paragraph going out of its way to try to make this place sound as mysterious and epic as possible.

[i]“But sorry, why would we want to join you on this stupid escapade?” Scoffed Larxene.

“Because,” Began Marluxia, his voice booming, “don’t you want the glory of ruling the world?! Of being human?!”[/i]

This demonstrates how stupid the concept of the insanity-causing silence was.

[color=purple]But isn't it sweet how he just wants to be human?[/color]

what

Captain R, did you get a paint job?

[color=purple]Nonsense, Person Who Is Inferior To Me! I am Ann Tennyson, unspecified descendant of Ben Tennyson, chosen defender of earth, hero of the world, and lover of the green grass and the blue sky![/color]

Yes, I'm sure that's wonderful. Now get out of here.

[color=purple]Your words have no effect on me, for I am pure as pureness itself and cannot be corrupted by your hatred! I know that, with a little love, both you and Marluxia can be converted to the side of goodness, and as the most perfect person in the word, I am the best qualified to do that. Deep down, you're all good people that I can heal with my goodness![/color]

Why is my own supporting cast always even more annoying than the fanfic itself?

[i]Axel and Larxene thought about that for a minute. The two then bowed their heads in approval.[/i]

With my limited knowledge of Kingdom Hearts, I thought that that was the whole point of Organization XIII. Why would Axel and Larxene suddenly forget that, then bow in complacency when Marluxia reminded them of it?

[color=purple]See how good and loyal they are? I'm sure I can easily woo them to the side of justice![/color]

Anten - do you mind if I call you Anten? - they're part of an evil organization trying to take over the world.

[color=purple]That's only because they haven't seen me yet and witnessed my perfection. Everyone I meet falls in love with me at first sight because I'm so amazing.[/color]

You've been here for two minutes and I already can't wait for you to make a heroic sacrifice due to being too good for this sinful earth.

[i]Marluxia then pulled out a faded piece of parchment and showed it to Larxene and Axel. The two read the paper over to themselves.

“That’s it? You take us too little Marluxia.” Axel boasted.[/i]

"You take us too little Marluxia"? Anten, I don't suppose you could woo ~MT~ to the side of good writing, could you?

[color=purple]I can do anything![/color]

Also, he's being offered humanity and world domination. What more could Axel want?

[color=purple]...my love?[/color]

[i]“But I guess we will join your mission.” Added Larxene.

“Good. Besides Axel, you can show them your full power.”

“I would like that.” Said Axel[/i]

"Said" count: 13.

[i]as he raised the palms of his hands. Two rings of fire circled around his hands. The twirling fire then turned into two spinning disks.

“And Larxene, you can do whatever you wish to the others. I know how much you like to play with your food before killing it.” Said Marluxia.

“Sweet!” gushed Larxene as she held her hands to her chest. A dozen kunais appeared between her fingers.

“And I,” Marluxia held his left hand out in the air. In a flash, a huge, faded pink scythe appeared in his hand, “I will KILL anyone in my way with no remorse what so ever!” Spat Marluxia.[/i]

This city is empty, isn't it? There's no one here to kill. And if they're leaving this place to go somewhere where there are people to kill, then why would they come here in the first place?

[color=purple]You're too hateful. I shall convert you to the side of love and rainbows too![/color]

Look, Anten, don't make me have my other friend escort you out of my studio.

[color=purple]Who, Captain R? My amazing beauty has already turned him into Captain Rapture toward me. He can't hurt me![/color]

No, not him. My other friend.

[color=purple]You have other friends?[/color]

Yes - for example, the one who shoots lasers from his hands.

[color=purple]...I'll be back later.[/color]

[i]The three all had deadly weapons in their disposal then.[/i]

You've just shown each of them pulling out a deadly weapon and saying something that was probably supposed to be really cool. Why would you then tell us that they each have a deadly weapon? Stop making these pointless statements.

[i]“Well then, are we ready to go?” asked Marluxia.

“Ready!” shouted Axel and Larxene in unison.

“Then we go!” yelled Marluxia, “TO KNIGHT’S TOWER!” And they were gone.[/i]

Finally, in this last section, the words after quotes stopped being capitalized. But it was too late to save this story from its terribleness.

[color=purple]You really should have done more. Half the story was banter between the Organization members that never went anywhere when you could have used the time to focus on their love for me and subsequent redemption.[/color]

...or on actually getting to the point. Even the plot-relevant portions weren't actually revealed to the audience, so all we know is that - gasp! - Organization XIII is Up To Something. That's not worth an entire chapter.

[color=purple]What, you're not throwing me out again? I knew you would fall in love with me![/color]

Actually, I let you stay because you were actually saying something useful to the review for once.

[color=red]Better grammar is good! Your words are awkward![/color]

But if you're just going to echo what I already said, Captain Repeater, then you can just leave.

[color=red]But you can't-[/color]

Hands. Lasers.

[color=red]...fine.[/color]

Overall, not a lot happened, and when stuff did happen, it was done badly. Meanwhile, the story is so basic that there is nothing present as of now that could possibly elevate this story above mediocrity, even were it not for its other major flaws. Maybe the next twenty-one chapters fix things up, but as it stands this is not a good fanfic.

[color=purple]But there is potential for improvement and redemption! You can be redeemed, just like everything else![/color]
[size="1"]All credit goes to Crab Helmet and Foe Fiction, as well as the original author of the story. 83[/size]
[/spoiler]
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