FoME RR Exam

Hello, all. I realize it may seem odd for someone with my username to write a Rage Review, but "most everything" and "everything" are two very different sets. My usual philosophy is "don't get mad, just walk away," but when the person is literally asking for it, who am I to say no?

Thus, I'm reviewing a story out of the request folder, [url=https://www.fimfiction.net/story/267346/folded-twilight-its-time-to-duel]Folded Twilight: It's Time to Duel![/url] by toxiconym, currently with a 6:7 thumb ratio. According to the tags, this is a random AU slice of life crossover. Let's check the description:

[center][img]https://cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/81o7-1432355120-267346-full[/img][/center][quote]Twilight Sparkle is a young student at the Mulberry High School for Gifted Ponies. She gets good grades, she turns her work in on time, and she's generally never absent. However, one can easily get bored when the work is easy, and Twilight's social status doesn't generally help her with her search for the cure to boredom.
However, when one of the only friends she has comes up with something, Twilight's sure to rise on the path of popularity... by playing a children's card game.
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If you're going to dislike it, dislike it because it's a bad story and give me criticism, not because it's about yu gi oh.---------------------------------------------------------------------
Yu-Gi-Oh and MLP crossover. You don't need to know much about Yu-Gi-Oh, but watching a few abridged episodes will probably help if you get lost. Yu-Gi-Oh itself isn't mentioned much, it's more about the card game than the anime.
Cover art very crudely photoshopped when I was half asleep.[/quote]Yes, because card games are surely the path to popularity, as I can attest!

Suffice to say, I'm not confident. I've read more than a few fanfics involving the characters actually playing card games, whether Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: the Gathering, or a pastiche of both. The results tend to be... unimpressive. We'll see how this one matches up.

[center][url=http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73941][img]http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/mm/2014/mm_wk11_291_cardart_frazzlededitor.jpg[/img][/url]
Prepare to be frazzled, folks.[/center]

[b][u]Chapter 1 - First Problem[/u][/b]

We open with an author's note, alerting the reader that this chapter is unedited. However, "the next one will be better since I feel like making a new story instead of revising this old chapter." For the record, this is toxiconym's only story on the site. I suppose I'll have to see whether Chapter 2 has anything to do with this when I get there.

The note also apologizes for the number of OCs, toxiconym explaining that "I just couldn't think of ponies who are canon and would be interested in this little game besides Luna and Twilight." Because the Princess of the Night is obviously a sucker for trading card games. Personally, I would've used background ponies. Since they have little to no established characterization, their hobbies can be whatever the author says they are.

Oh, and the duels are apparently based on real games the author played with a friend. Should be interesting to see how that plays out. Moving on.

We open during a chem lab, and Twilight is already finished and playing a card game with a friend, Paper Face, to pass the time. The teacher is apparently fine with this.
[quote]Paper face was a gray unicorn colt with a white mane. His eyes shone a bright orange, and his cutie mark proudly displayed a light bulb.[/quote]Paper Face's talent is apparently bioluminescence, going by his eyes.
[quote]He never wore clothes, except for the standard lab equipment, but that was standard throughout Equestria.[/quote]Or possibly intrusive and at times redundant description.

[quote]Twilight was a gifted student. She always finished early, got perfect scores, and had a decent conduct grade.[/quote]It would've been better, but she kept playing card games in class.

[quote]She'd never gotten along with other ponies, who seem to be more interested in viral videos and memes than they were in their school work.[/quote][center][img]https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/3/1/840259__safe_solo_twilight+sparkle_meme_screencap_image+macro_floppy+ears_frown_wide+eyes_box.png[/img][/center]
The first line of the story says that air conditioning was just invented. Now, Equestria's technological progress is generally whatever the writer needs it to be, but YouTube before central air seems rather off.

Schizo Tech aside, it turns out that Paper Face invented the game he and Twilight are playing. In fact, he invented it [i]earlier that period[/i] to pass the time, doodling Twilight's face on an index card, along with attack and defense values and some special abilities that are admittedly well-flavored: lecturing and studying. The values and card text being bolded and in all caps is rather obtrusive, though. Paper Face then proceeds to do himself, and...

[quote]"Whoa, what is this? Looks nerdy. Cool. Hey Paper, do me! Do me!," he took the card with Paper's face on it and examined it.[/quote]Gripping dialogue, this. The speaker is one Inequality, who presumably has the power to make Starlight Glimmer's head explode. He isn't described; his whole purpose seems to be to walk by and be impressed by the growing pile of doodled index cards.

Also, those dialogue punctuation issues are exactly as bad as they look. Just about every sentence that should end in the dialogue doesn't, and vice versa, to say nothing of the said-bookisms. Still, can't say we weren't warned.

In any case, Twilight joins in the card creation because she knows exactly how to play and design this game her friend just made up, and we presumably get back to where we started. I suppose the reasons for why Twilight was described as "participating in a game of cards" and not playing one at the beginning has become clear.

The following is the last sentence and paragraph of the chapter:[quote]"[i]This is the beginning of something viral, I can just feel it,[/i]" Paper pondered as he continues etching and sketching on his cards, and then looking up as his ears swiveled to the noise of the school bell sounded, packed his things, and left the science classroom to continue working on the cards in his next class.[/quote]Four points come to mind:

• That's not what "viral" means, unless Paper Face plans on aggressively marketing his card game.
• That's not what "etching" means, unless these index cards are [i]very[/i] thick or have knobs. (Actually, how [i]would[/i] a pony Etch-a-Sketch work?)
• Gah, tense shift!
• Teachers at this high school for gifted ponies really don't seem to care much about class participation.

[b][u]Chapter 2 - First Duel[/u][/b]

Turns out Twilight's cards went exactly as well as could be expected, given that she had no idea what the rules and appropriate power level of the game were. Inequality the mysterious cult-breaker was apparently far more helpful, since he was working with the only pony who knew what he was doing.

[quote]Flimsy as the index cards were, they were surprisingly durable, only showing signs of damage on the sag of corners and slight bending marks.[/quote]Then I guess they aren't that flimsy, are they?

We find out when and where we are in the second paragraph, back in the science room and just before the end of school, irrespectively. And by "just before" I mean "thirty minutes before." I don't know about you all, but half an hour before the final bell never felt like just before it to me... though judging by how everyone is lounging about, this is either a study hall or a very interesting definition of "minute."

In any case, Paper Face completes the last card and demonstrates this is an alternate universe by getting a young Twilight to put down her book. He tries to coax her into playing the game, but she protests that she doesn't know how, not having learned telepathy since the last chapter. Paper says he'll teach her, and that it'll be good for her.

[quote]"You learn fast. Besides, you need this. Reading books is fine, but relaxing the brain is just as, if not even more essential. Let me help relax you with this game. It's a card game, it'll give your mind a light exercise," he pleaded.[/quote]So... is this supposed to relax or exercise her mind? Because she could get mental exercise with the book. Really, this isn't so much pleading as it is scrambling for every possible argument that might lead to Twilight saying yes. Which, of course, she does.
(Also, I have to wonder why these two are friends. Yes, it's an AU, but this Twilight seems just as asocial as the standard model. Why is she putting up with this guy again?)

Credit where it's due, the dialogue punctuation has improved in this chapter, though the desperation to avoid the word "said" is still there.

The game begins, and because Paper has only made fifty cards, they have to share a single deck... so he [i]wasn't[/i] finished. Especially since he's the one dictating minimum deck size. Even if he ran out of ideas, he could've made multiples of cards. Or did he run out of index cards? Heck if I know; that isn't said.

Anyway, the game itself is... well, exactly what I expect from a written play-by-play description of a card game. It's dull. Really freaking dull. The only time I wrote one in progress, I had another conversation going on at the same time to keep the readers' interest. Trading card games and text are both visually oriented, but the former makes use of more dimensions than the latter. You can determine the state of a card game at a glance if you know the rules because you can take in the whole play area at once. Text has to be read one word at a time, which means...

[quote]She had three monster cards, one trap card, and one spell card. Since Paper invented the game, he decided to let Twilight go first. His hand hovered near his horn, his eye brows furrowed. Turning back to her own cards, she examined them further, trying to formulate on opening move. She held the Twilight Sparkle monster card, the Teacher monster card, and the Inequality monster card. She owned a magic card that switched the life points of a card she chose, which was titled Switch, and a trap card that gave the card paired with it 350 ATK points if the card was attacked, and card that attacked her would have 0 ATK points during the attack. It was called Misfortune. They both started out with 2,500 life points.[/quote][center][img]https://derpicdn.net/img/2012/8/26/83257/medium.jpg[/img][/center]

Oh, it does, Dash. It does for the rest of the chapter. The wall of text feeling is only exacerbated by toxiconym using indents rather than double spacing to separate paragraphs.

The viewpoint ping-pongs about, staying with each pony during his or her turn, explaining the rules of the game, analyzing the strategic merits of plays, and generally killing any sense of suspense or entertainment. Card games are gripping to play and fun to watch, as demonstrated by a few classmates betting on the outcome—which the teacher is apparently ignoring—but they are a chore to read about.

The editing breaks down during the duel, as can be seen above. There's also some referring to cards by different names, incorrect its/it's distinction, homophone confusion, and inconsistent capitalization.

The chapter ends with Paper Face halving Twilight's life points and... that's it. Really. The story's marked complete in the middle of the duel. The author's note says a sequel is on the way, but... really? You couldn't at least finish the game? [i]Wow[/i]. I suppose that's what the author's note in the first chapter meant, but that [i]really[/i] isn't the way to go about doing things. It leaves the OCs as ciphers, the alternate universe almost totally unexplored, and the only plot thread dangling like a severed space elevator cable.

So yeah, dull prose, underdeveloped setting, descriptive contradictions, and a narrative that cuts out halfway through. This one got about a 35% from me, but that sudden cutoff is enough to make me willing to round it up. Thus...

[img]https://i.imgur.com/D9jdfGg.png[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/R7RfhDg.png[/img]
If a Yu-Gi-Oh! crossover involves no cards from the game or show, is it still a crossover?

[img]https://i.imgur.com/zkZGVzL.png[/img]
Still, it [i]was[/i] in the request folder, so it gets a tip of the hat.