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Back to fanfiction, Fire Emblem style!
Mar. 14th, 2017 12:16 amWell, let's get away from BL Visual Novels for the moment and go back to what this journal originally was for, reviewing fanfics! Today, I'm going to cover a fandom that I surprisingly didn't expect myself to fall into.
I have a soft fondness for Fire Emblem series. My first game was on the GBA and I never finished it due to me not wanting ANY unit to die. I originally bought my 3DS for other games, and one of them was for Awakening. Luckily, the game allowed you to choose if you wanted to go the 'normal FE' style route or make it where a unit dies, they're just out for that particular map. I may cover some Awakening fanfics in the future, but for right now, we're going to talk about Fates instead.
Believe it or not, most of the fanfic I come across for Fates (That doesn't have obviously troll summaries at least) is pretty high quality stuff. At least in the slash department. When it comes to het, I get a lot more misses than hits, and considering that the amount of slash is nearly triple as the amount of het, it's kind of disappointing.
For the most part, I'm a Royal fan, and I'm very fond of Takumi most of all. Followed by Leo and Xander. And finding fics featuring them with Corrin... is rare. Like I think I can count less than 10 fanfics featuring EITHER one of these pairings that was worth the read. While finding fics for Takumi and Leo, on the other hand, are a dime a freaking dozen, and I found WAY more quality works. Luckily, I like this ship as well, so I win either way. >.>
But here's a thing I noticed a LOT with this fandom: fucking modern AUs. Why the fuck do you want to put characters in obvious fantasy settings in our own universe!? It just really floors me how people want to throw every sort of fandom into our world!
Sometimes, shock and surprise, it does work. Though, with my taste, I prefer AUs, as in one change setting up a butterfly effect (Or in the game's case, an AU happening in the Conquest or Birthright timeline changing things). This... is not one of them. The writing isn't too terrible, but the fic is just so meh in of itself...
Series: Fire Emblem: Fates
Title: Totally Not Friends
Author: Novaluna
Genre: Fluff/humor/slow build (aka relationship building)
Rating: T
Warning: Recycled support dialogue, meh attempt at humor, though it tries, sisters acting like shipping brats?
Couple (if applicable): Leo/Takumi, background Corrin/Silas and Kamui/Oboro
Plot: 5/10 - This scores pretty low only because it's just so meh. Basically, Corrin and Kamui (aka, female and male avatar) take their siblings to a beach house to spend one month of their summer vacation. Takumi and Leo have to share the same bedroom and... you can pretty much guess what happens there.
It's boring, it's predictable, it's... very meh. I really have nothing else to say, because it barely runs as a Fire Emblem fanfic, and I can barely recognize the characters from their canon counterparts.
Writing: 5/10 - The quality of the writing seems to dip in places, but not to the point of some other works I covered on here. The first few chapters are eye roll worthy because it's just another 'Let's copy and paste Takumi and Leo's C and B support right from the game!' Seriously, I don't mind if people want to add their support conversations into their stories, but add some flare or originality to it instead of a pure copy pasta that stands out from your writing!
While the writing does pick up in the next chapter, the quality dips later on, then improves and then dips again. I almost wonder if the same person is doing it or maybe the author was distracted while writing this.
Probably the worst example of instantly taking me out of a heart warming scene is the start of this paragraph in chapter 11, when Leo is comforting Takumi out of a nightmare and Leo ends up kissing him and the following is written right after:
"It wasn't exceedingly amorous -nobody stuck their tongue in anyone's mouth, or -gods forbid- ripped someones clothes off- and it was very chaste kiss, but it was a kiss, and it was passionate nonetheless."
That would be fine and dandy if this scene was coming off as humor, but it's not. Not to mention the sentence itself is very bland and really out of place, moreso the sentence in between the hyphens. It comes off as author's notes and is the wrong way to use them too. I mean, you don't need to go the purple prose route, but have some more description besides 'it was chaste and passionate'. Or basically, show, don't tell.
And what's funny, is it still tries to be heart warming to some degree. It's like the story sometimes can't decide if it wants to be heart warming or 'TEEHEE!' type of humor.
Characterization: 4/10 - Like I said above, you can barely recognize the characters. In fact, you can basically slap other names over the proper names and barely tell it was a Fire Emblem fanfic. But is that because they're written OOC? Or is it because of the boring cliche plotline? Probably a mixture of both. I feel like the featured characters, Leo and Takumi, suffer less from the OOCness than the others, who are basically along for the ride to 'get their brothers together'.
Just... oi...
Corrin and Kamui have been basically reduced to 'shipper' brats, which just basically makes me facepalm. I mean, do people forget that your avatar DOES have a personality in the game to some degree!? Everyone suffers from OOCness, and that seems to be a trend with modern AUs in general. Though to be fair, there are a few that do work, it doesn't in this story.
Negatives: Cliche, quality dips in the writing, other characters reduced to shipper brats, copy pasta support conversation
Summary: Corrin and Kamui take their respective siblings to the beach for the summer. Stuff happens. Mostly revolving around their younger brothers hooking up.
Overall: 4.6/10 - Do yourself a favor and read this work instead by the same author, the quality and writing is WAY better than this story. It's not really a Takumi/Leo shipper fic, but it is evidence that this writer can produce good quality stuff.
I also need to stop writing these reviews at like 12-1 in the morning, so many typos I found in my own review (That, and I think my keyboard is dying on me, because hitting the backspace button isn't working half the time anymore). Next, maybe I'll grab one of the AU fics that I found that did work for the fandom.
I have a soft fondness for Fire Emblem series. My first game was on the GBA and I never finished it due to me not wanting ANY unit to die. I originally bought my 3DS for other games, and one of them was for Awakening. Luckily, the game allowed you to choose if you wanted to go the 'normal FE' style route or make it where a unit dies, they're just out for that particular map. I may cover some Awakening fanfics in the future, but for right now, we're going to talk about Fates instead.
Believe it or not, most of the fanfic I come across for Fates (That doesn't have obviously troll summaries at least) is pretty high quality stuff. At least in the slash department. When it comes to het, I get a lot more misses than hits, and considering that the amount of slash is nearly triple as the amount of het, it's kind of disappointing.
For the most part, I'm a Royal fan, and I'm very fond of Takumi most of all. Followed by Leo and Xander. And finding fics featuring them with Corrin... is rare. Like I think I can count less than 10 fanfics featuring EITHER one of these pairings that was worth the read. While finding fics for Takumi and Leo, on the other hand, are a dime a freaking dozen, and I found WAY more quality works. Luckily, I like this ship as well, so I win either way. >.>
But here's a thing I noticed a LOT with this fandom: fucking modern AUs. Why the fuck do you want to put characters in obvious fantasy settings in our own universe!? It just really floors me how people want to throw every sort of fandom into our world!
Sometimes, shock and surprise, it does work. Though, with my taste, I prefer AUs, as in one change setting up a butterfly effect (Or in the game's case, an AU happening in the Conquest or Birthright timeline changing things). This... is not one of them. The writing isn't too terrible, but the fic is just so meh in of itself...
Series: Fire Emblem: Fates
Title: Totally Not Friends
Author: Novaluna
Genre: Fluff/humor/slow build (aka relationship building)
Rating: T
Warning: Recycled support dialogue, meh attempt at humor, though it tries, sisters acting like shipping brats?
Couple (if applicable): Leo/Takumi, background Corrin/Silas and Kamui/Oboro
Plot: 5/10 - This scores pretty low only because it's just so meh. Basically, Corrin and Kamui (aka, female and male avatar) take their siblings to a beach house to spend one month of their summer vacation. Takumi and Leo have to share the same bedroom and... you can pretty much guess what happens there.
It's boring, it's predictable, it's... very meh. I really have nothing else to say, because it barely runs as a Fire Emblem fanfic, and I can barely recognize the characters from their canon counterparts.
Writing: 5/10 - The quality of the writing seems to dip in places, but not to the point of some other works I covered on here. The first few chapters are eye roll worthy because it's just another 'Let's copy and paste Takumi and Leo's C and B support right from the game!' Seriously, I don't mind if people want to add their support conversations into their stories, but add some flare or originality to it instead of a pure copy pasta that stands out from your writing!
While the writing does pick up in the next chapter, the quality dips later on, then improves and then dips again. I almost wonder if the same person is doing it or maybe the author was distracted while writing this.
Probably the worst example of instantly taking me out of a heart warming scene is the start of this paragraph in chapter 11, when Leo is comforting Takumi out of a nightmare and Leo ends up kissing him and the following is written right after:
"It wasn't exceedingly amorous -nobody stuck their tongue in anyone's mouth, or -gods forbid- ripped someones clothes off- and it was very chaste kiss, but it was a kiss, and it was passionate nonetheless."
That would be fine and dandy if this scene was coming off as humor, but it's not. Not to mention the sentence itself is very bland and really out of place, moreso the sentence in between the hyphens. It comes off as author's notes and is the wrong way to use them too. I mean, you don't need to go the purple prose route, but have some more description besides 'it was chaste and passionate'. Or basically, show, don't tell.
And what's funny, is it still tries to be heart warming to some degree. It's like the story sometimes can't decide if it wants to be heart warming or 'TEEHEE!' type of humor.
Characterization: 4/10 - Like I said above, you can barely recognize the characters. In fact, you can basically slap other names over the proper names and barely tell it was a Fire Emblem fanfic. But is that because they're written OOC? Or is it because of the boring cliche plotline? Probably a mixture of both. I feel like the featured characters, Leo and Takumi, suffer less from the OOCness than the others, who are basically along for the ride to 'get their brothers together'.
Just... oi...
Corrin and Kamui have been basically reduced to 'shipper' brats, which just basically makes me facepalm. I mean, do people forget that your avatar DOES have a personality in the game to some degree!? Everyone suffers from OOCness, and that seems to be a trend with modern AUs in general. Though to be fair, there are a few that do work, it doesn't in this story.
Negatives: Cliche, quality dips in the writing, other characters reduced to shipper brats, copy pasta support conversation
Summary: Corrin and Kamui take their respective siblings to the beach for the summer. Stuff happens. Mostly revolving around their younger brothers hooking up.
Overall: 4.6/10 - Do yourself a favor and read this work instead by the same author, the quality and writing is WAY better than this story. It's not really a Takumi/Leo shipper fic, but it is evidence that this writer can produce good quality stuff.
I also need to stop writing these reviews at like 12-1 in the morning, so many typos I found in my own review (That, and I think my keyboard is dying on me, because hitting the backspace button isn't working half the time anymore). Next, maybe I'll grab one of the AU fics that I found that did work for the fandom.
