2014 Fanfiction Challenge Entries

[RacingeR]

The Cursed Hand

Well, I have decided to start with this one. As I tend to do, I will first comment based on the categories outlined by Arashi, and then will do an overall commentary along with the final score.

Hook

I really liked the first scene of the fic. It was pretty well done and realized, and I felt pretty immersed in it. The rest of the scenes were pretty alright and were easy to immerse into… once you got around the feeling of confusion and the broken flow caused by the very abrupt scene breaks, which almost always forced me to pause for a bit, and disrupted the overall flow of the piece really badly. It is probably the biggest problem with it as a whole. There were some typos but nothing that really took me away from the scenes, which by themselves flowed well.

The concept was very original and interesting, and is probably the main sell of it all. You really worked it pretty well, and it was very interesting to read. However, it admittedly felt a lot more like an one-shot fic than the first chapter of something. Still, I could easily see said one-shot getting a continuation, but it seemed very self-contained to me.

If there is another big criticism that can be given on this aspect, is that you should have showed more. The transitions themselves are really brusque, and the feeling is augmented by the fact that you don’t get much of a feel of how the boy got to where he is in each scene. While I get the fairly artsy thing that was being tried here, it still was something that added to the aforementioned feeling of confusion caused by the scene breaks.

I particularly liked the final scene with the boy and the old man, and I could almost see it happening in my mind. It was pretty well described, and I think that this scene, more than anything else in the fic, would make me want to read more.

Summarizing, I think the hook is the stronger point of this fic, although a lot of points were detracted due to the aforementioned mistakes.

Score: 40

Set-up

And so, we go straight into the weakest part of the piece as a whole, by far.

Of the outlined ideas, only the first two appears in the chapter, and despite the religious zealotry being shown, I have to deduct points for the fact that only one angle is shown when the outline clearly speaks about showing many angles and contrasting each other. And that is… just not here.

The second idea outlined suffers from the same. Hassan’s origin, drive, etc. are all there, but apart from his talk at the very beginning, Astolfo’s side of it is pretty absent overall. I can see how this is going to develop, or at least I suspect how the author would develop it, but the fact of the matter is that it just has one side shown and not much else.

The third is almost completely absent. Since the chapter ends with the boy’s entrance into the organization, this theme is just not shown within the chapter. Mind you, I said almost because some of the very subtle hints were there, what with the boy’s body being eroded by the elements and what the figure of the old man at the mountain represents, but it is just that, subtle hints, and that is simply not enough.

I have to give some points for setting up Hassan pretty well, but there is sadly nothing very positive I can say here. Here is when you can notice how rushed this was as a whole.

Score: 5

Accuracy

Well, some historical inaccuracies aside, I thought this was pretty decent. As I said, you set Hassan up pretty well, and I liked the portrayal of the old man on the mountain.

The only big detraction here is that I had to read what Siriel and Leo had to say to notice the knight was Astolfo. While I haven’t read F/A and thus I cannot comment on the portrayal of his personality (which at least seemed very defined here), I honestly think you should have made him more recognizable.

However, I liked a lot how you started constructing Hassan’s future sheet, slowly but surely. While the boy in this chapter and the Assassin that appears in HF sound fairly different, it is easy for me to link in my head how the boy would grow up to become him, so a lot of bonus points are given for this.

Score: 23

Overall

I think the big main problem is that you had many months to work on this, and yet it is very easy to tell you only used a few days to actually write it. The chapter proper seems pretty well thought, and decently polished, although you could have used a few looks more at it.

Seriously, this could have been much better had you taken the time. The concept, the idea, the writing skill, everything is there, but it just needed more. This has potential, mind you, and I’d be somewhat interested to see how you develop it into a full-fledged fic, but it feels a lot like an one-shot, and a not very complete one at all.

It was still a very good and engaging read, and it was a very good hook, so the score it ended getting was pretty high. I think that as long as the author takes in account these flaws, he could make a very good fanfic out of this.

Overall score: 68

(I need to put some emphasis in the fact that for me, a 50+ score means decent, and a score near 70 means good, while an 80 means very good)

[SeiKeo]

Fate/After Night

Hook
This first chapter doesn’t set up a conflict.

Well, I could count the continuing Rin/Luvia catfight, and Aoko’s implication that she’s flying below radar, but other than that? Say I read this chapter on FF.net: what am I looking forward to in the second chapter, why do I subscribe to keep reading? The 7v7 Apocrypha concept isn’t even introduced – only the nebulous idea that Rin/Luvia/Waver are part of a grand alliance, which could just be a quirk. Am I missing a hint that references Apocrypha? If I am, then keep in mind that at this point many of your readers may not have bothered with Apocrypha and won’t recognize your hints as to where you’re moving.

In any case: what am I as a reader looking forward to? No overarching grand conflict, so, new Servants? None of them really have any immediately interesting traits here – matter of fact, it feels to me like a lot of Nero is being written into Oda. New Masters? None of the Masters yet introduced aren’t big Fate characters (sans Aoko), and said aren’t being developed in an immediately interesting way. Aoko in a Grail War? The closest thing to an immediate selling point.

Set Up
Tripped yourself up here: your outline points 1 and 2 are entire plot, and point 3’s first sentence feels like it’s going somewhere before veering right back into plot. The guidelines do say that the outline can include plot points, but those are supposed to be secondary. So, well… no credit.

Accuracy
No plus, no minus – the Grail turning into an Apocrypha Grail is a perfectly fine alteration for your purposes. Servants gradually being summoned as the Grail increases in charge has potential to be interesting, but all that seems to be done with it here is to delay the eventual 7v7. Why not start altering the later summons from their baseline using the same logic: too much energy in the Grail causes everything to go haywire, including the Servants.

Misc

I feel like I’m reading an LN in translation (a Bad Thing). This isn’t really something I can give quick help with – style is really hard to change and generally imitates reading. The biggest immediate step that would help, however, is to go on an adjective diet. Ex:

He was a beautiful being clothed in a simple yet graceful white robe, having materialized after prana gathered together, the lucent emerald particles forming this body of his… a body that held an ineffable fairness. His face was filled with youth and elegance, and his physique was refined, of a beauty untold - yet because it was of a beauty untold, not even the term ‘beautiful’ could possibly be used to describe it. In a sense, it was an appearance that was most disturbing, while being at the very same time, most mesmerising. It could be said that just like his voice, this being simply wasn’t fit for human descriptives, rather, they were above said descriptives, and any attempt to brandish an identity upon this person’s features would only result in inevitable contradictions.

This is a mess made by too many descriptors. Running commentary:

“He was a beautiful being clothed in a simple yet graceful white robe, having materialized after prana gathered together, the lucent emerald particles forming this body of his… a body that held an ineffable fairness. ‘ineffable fairness doesn’t add any detail beyond what we already get from later sentences ‘His face was filled with youth and elegance, and his physique was refined, of a beauty untold - yet because it was of a beauty untold, not even the term ‘beautiful’ could possibly be used to describe it. Entire sentence serves no purpose – if beautiful doesn’t describe him, then why did you just describe him as beautiful? Superlatives are often lame, but resorting to whatever, “immeasurably beautiful” would be far better than this entire thing. In a sense, useless phrase it was an appearance that was most disturbing, while being at the very same time, most mesmerising. It could be said that just like his voice, this being simply wasn’t fit for human descriptives, rather, they were above said descriptives, same deal as with beauty untold and any attempt to brandish an identity upon this person’s features would only result in inevitable contradictions.“

The entire passage serves to describe Lancer as something indescribable except only in generic superlatives – which is not much of a description. If you don’t have anything particularly worth noting, then shortly mention beauty, youth, etc and let your readers do the work. Something similar, said by a wiser man:

Lahey: In the introduction to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, E.B. White recounts William Strunk’s instruction to “omit needless words.” While your books are voluminous, your writing remains concise. How do you decide which words are unnecessary and which words are required for the telling?

King: It’s what you hear in your head, but it’s never right the first time. So you have to rewrite it and revise it. My rule of thumb is that a short story of 3,000 words should be rewritten down to 2,500. It’s not always true, but mostly it is. You need to take out the stuff that’s just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler!

Lahey: By extension, how can writing teachers help students recognize which words are required in their own writing?

King: Always ask the student writer, “What do you want to say?” Every sentence that answers that question is part of the essay or story. Every sentence that does not needs to go. I don’t think it’s the words per se, it’s the sentences. I used to give them a choice, sometimes: either write 400 words on “My Mother is Horrible” or “My Mother is Wonderful.” Make every sentence about your choice. That means leaving your dad and your snotty little brother out of it.

There are also some funny metaphors and constructions spotted about. Ones that stuck out to me: “Vocalizing a snide thought to herself,” “delved into a reminiscence,” “Speaking with a manner of speech,” “spill his beans out.”

If you want Oda to speak like she’s a character from an old play, then don’t tell us that’s how she’s speaking – just make her talk like she’s in a Shakespeare play.

Summary:

Could have paid closer attention to the contents guidelines, needs to do a better job of providing ‘ins’ for the reader to interest themselves in, should not sound like it’s been translated from Japanese. 59. (If this seems rather harsh, I think standing alone it’s in the low 70s, but you missed the outline/thematic component.)

- - - Updated - - -

Additionally, if I may:

Of the outlined ideas, only the first two appears in the chapter, and despite the religious zealotry being shown, I have to deduct points for the fact that only one angle is shown when the outline clearly speaks about showing many angles and contrasting each other. And that is… just not here.

The second idea outlined suffers from the same. Hassan’s origin, drive, etc. are all there, but apart from his talk at the very beginning, Astolfo’s side of it is pretty absent overall. I can see how this is going to develop, or at least I suspect how the author would develop it, but the fact of the matter is that it just has one side shown and not much else.

This is somewhat in tension as a result of the rules, yes. I don't think it's reasonable to ask the first chapter to indicate every angle the story intends to take on an issue: it's tantamount to asking the first chapter to be the whole story.

[RacingeR]

Mind you I do not expect the authors to cram everything outlined in the chapter, but I think at least they should show up more than they did in the piece. Or rather, the way the piece was building up, it only indicated the point of view of the boy, and had no indication whatsoever of building up to show other angles. Or to put it more simply, only the mentioned part was set-up, and the rest wasn't, hence my logic.

Still, I can see that the set-up section is gonna probably be the lowest scoring one amongst most of the contestants, so I might actually go back to my earlier judgements and relax my standards slightly. However I do think doing so would be missing the point of the contest. I'll see what I decide to do when it comes to that, however.

[SeiKeo]

Wings of Freedom

Hook
As it is, it isn’t a bad hook: quickly provide a riff off of a scene we all know and all that. But what you’re laying down in your outline is far more fun than what you actually wrote. All of what you put could have gone in 17,000~ words and would have, executed well, been quite Nasu. Skipping to the end feels like a waste.

Set-up
Well this is just a plot outline!

Accuracy/Misc
If it helps, I feel bad about not commenting on much? There simply just isn’t much to comment on. Prose is competent, if generic and too evocative of LNs, idea seems like it could be a good base for a story but the actual entry skips all the way to the end, short… 40/100, not for any real failing: but there could have been a lot more love put into this, and there wasn’t. I dunno, author.

Mission accomplished, though, because I got a good chuckle out of it - which is what I assume you were actually going for.

[Siriel]

Breakdown of the Holy Grail War

Hook

Not strictly relevant to the category, but since it does affect how interested one is in the next chapter; there are some problems with the writing. The biggest of which is the ruby spam. Ruby can be good, but in large quantity it just makes the flow awkward. Also please don't have two rounds of name-shouting in the same chapter.

As for the story itself, I will say that it did make me curious, but not quite in the right way for this contest: It's not a prologue or a first chapter; it's a story nearing the climax and we missed everything that happened prior. While there's nothing wrong about in media res, in this case I feel it's kind of cheating.

Crossing Prillya and a regular HGW brings with it some issues, but I don't mind much.

However Shinji is dead so this gets a 0. Why would I even care what happens now that I know this?

18

Set-up

1 - Is approached with Zel's monologue, I can see how it could be approached more throughout the story.
2 - Is not an outline idea. "This is not in my story.", is not something actually relevant to what is in the story.
3 - I don't quite understand where this idea comes from? Magecraft isn't supposed to be equal to modern science. (Also I'm not sure how "firing curses at a high rate, any one of which can demolish a car, by pointing in that direction" is disappointing, in Gandr's case.) I must say I've not really seen anything in the story that makes me more awed by magecraft than regular F/SN - and considering you skipped to a big fight scene rather than set up the plot normally, that matters.
4 - Again this isn't really a story outline? And what was with the narrator suddenly going first person?
5 - You want to fill in canon but then you go Prillya mode? Weird. Anyway I guess filling that event is the entire point of your story so it'll happen, even if you skipped the entire set-up part.

13.

Accuracy

Here we have the big trap of In Media Res: How am I supposed to know if Illya or Rin are in-character? I have no idea how they got there.

Zouken's okay, Zelretch's better than usual. To be honest I'm not sure why Jubstacheit is even there for the triple fight: Einzern magic sucks at fighting, and the guy who avoided personally entering the war for centuries obviously knows that.

Since when can Zouken cast illusions? Also his magecraft ain't that good anymore.

13

44/100

- - - Updated - - -

Wings of Freedom

It was funny.

Best moment: "Foul terrorist, this ends now!"

But you missed out on the chance of having Ouji shoot Gilgamesh to death so I have to remove some points.

0/100

(I thought about ironically reviewing it and giving full outline points and stuff, but I'd feel really bad if we ended up all doing that and it won somehow.)

[Siriel]

Fate/After Night

No real comment. You missed at least one question mark that I noticed, but overall there's no glaring problem with how it reads except that you overdid it during Lancer's description; one or two sentences on how eerily beautiful he is is enough, let the reader's imagination do the rest.

Edit: Also "the Einzbern Forest" and "the Einzbern Castle" is an awkward way to name the respective locations, especially in dialogue.

Hook

I'm a bit torn here. On one hand, the story fits my personal interest because I'm a sucker for Enkidu and Grail Wars. On the other, it is just a Grail War as far as I can tell; you haven't explained why they're teamed up, Waver makes a comment about the world being in danger but doesn't really justify it...really, if I hadn't read the summary I'd think it might just be a regular Grail War beginning with a triple alliance.

There's nothing that immediately grabs the reader and sucks them in.

20.

Set-Up

As noted by Leo previously, your outline doesn't really hit the points required by the contest. I can believe that you're going where you say you're going, but a summary of the plot is not the only thing that was asked.

7

Accuracy

No mechanics present in the story at all; no comment there. As far as the outline, the Grail overflowing is a bit odd as an explanation but it doesn't stretch credibility.

I haven't read Strange/Fake, is Enkidu's flowery speech from there?
Anyway, Rin seems okay. Waver feels a bit too hesitant for Lord El-Melloi II, but we don't exactly have a large sample to use as examples to I can let it pass.
Something feels weird about Astolfo, though I can't quite put my finger on what.
Having not read anything about Aoko aside from some bits of Melty Blood, I can't speak there.

24

Total: 51/100.

(Note: I actually would continue to read this, but as far as the contest go the outline is just not what was asked, so you lost a lot of points there; not establishing the present situation during the chapter hurt you in the Hook section too.)

[Siriel]

Fate/Proto-Crossing - Entwined Fates

There are a few mistakes, missing words, etc, that knocked me out of immersion. Consider either getting a beta or rereading your work more thoroughly; poor spell check can only do so much. (Hello pot it's me kettle.)

Mage or magus. Please pick one. Sometimes fics have some character use one while others use the other, but it's awkward to have one character use both.

CHOO-CHOO, all aboard the exposition train to have a character's life story summed up at the start. I think you should space it out a bit; maybe only talk about Rin when she actually meets Rin, that would already make it feel like less of a brick.
The same thing happens when Manaka shows up. There's exposition, and then there's explaining a character's entire life when they show up; the former is okay, the latter isn't very fun.
And again with Kotomine. Wow, keep some suspence man. We don't need to know what happened in the Fourth /right now/.

Hook

This has kind of the opposite problem from Fate/After Night; you're showing too much.

The story's only just begun and already you've exposited almost everything; the pasts of the protagonists and antagonists, what everyone is planning, etc.

The key to grabbing the reader is to show just enough that they wonder "Who is this person? What do they want? What happens next?" and by asking this to themselves over a period of time they begin to be immersed in the story itself. By showing your hand too early, especially in such a heavy-handed way, you risk discouraging the reader because all they have left is "How will those plans interact?" and that's often not enough.

This is especially a waste in a crossover; you have a whole new range of mystery with "How did the canons interact to give this result?". By giving the answer right away, you take away the lure of the unknown.

15

Set-Up

Your outline is good and seems to be either started in the chapter or at least a probable progressions from it. I'm not doing a point-by-point like I was doing earlier because your chapter is too long for that.

22

Accuracy

What is this prototype oh god. I have zero idea if any of that is in-character or mechanically accurate or what.

Dammit you changed Rin's background how can I judge her?
Illya feels weird. “Well, I’m supposed to fight for the Einzbern’s victory. But what I really want to do is meet my brother, and punish him for stealing father away from me!” just doesn't seem like a thing she would say, to me at least.

Generally the characters at least seem consistent within the story itself?

17

Total: 54/100.

This needs rewriting. Cut down on the exposition, give the reader time to become immersed in the story before you start revealing the antagonists' pasts and plans.

[Rafflesiac]

You labeled your second review for the day Fate/After Night also; you were reviewing Fate/Proto Crossing - Entwined Fates, correct?

[Siriel]

Whoops, copy-pasting mistake. Fixing it.

- - - Updated - - -

And fixed.

[Magus]

Oh, so you judged a few more stories.

I should get around to reading the rest of them when I have time - but that competes with reading the VN itself (I read the part about the Blood Fort today).

[black1blade]

Could I possibly do a short snippet of servant back story.

[Rafflesiac]

You're in the wrong thread for that.

Short snippets would go in a drabble thread or something in the fanfic forum. Furthermore, a snippet is closer to a oneshot, while the focus of the competition is the first chapter of a multichapter series.

[black1blade]

What if it started from the end of their life to the beginning On second though that would be more like a original historic story with a nasu styled twist. Probably not the right thread...

[Rafflesiac]

Try the Fanfic Idea Thread.

[RacingeR]

Wings of Freedom

Hook

So uh I really don’t have any idea of what this is referencing or whatever, so I’m going to judge it as I would with any normal fic. That said, I can’t find really all that much to comment.

I mean, prose was decent, scene was decently written but that’s… all. I don’t get a feel out of anything there. I don’t know who this dude is and what is he doing and why does he do the stuff he does, why is he here and what the fuck does it have to do with anything. Yes, if I look at the outline I know, no, if I look at the story as presented I don’t know.

Score: 5, because eh I guess the prose was decent enough, but had I been skimming fanfics in the fanfic section, I’d take one look at this and then would just keep searching.

Set-up

As far as I am concerned this piece doesn’t seem to set anything up? To be honest it is basically just an outline and nothing else. Can’t really get much out of the single scene there.

Score: 0

Accuracy

Man I can’t really say much in this category, there is nothing to comment for.

Score: 0

Overall

I didn’t even get a chuckle out of it because I don’t even know the reference, even if the foul terrorist line was somewhat amusing. If this was intended as a joke entry (and I am extremely sure it is) then I’d say that you shouldn’t have wasted your time, and that I think sending joke entries should be discouraged.

Overall score: 5


More to come in a bit.

[Siriel]

Kleio

*Clicks on Kleio link*

*Giant wall of text full of exposition about random stuff*

Well, gee, I wonder who wrote this entry.

I'll skip to the end and say that Kleio is the best-written entry in the contest. Hopefully no one will take offense at that statement. And considering its length, the fact that I only noticed one mistake (a case of crewman instead of crewmen), is remarkable.

Hook

The DAAs, or really even DAs in general, are fairly rare in fanfics; especially instances where they're treated as different from humans instead of just being "blood drinking humans", so right away you had me there.

Amusingly I found myself a lot more taken in by the treasure hunt than by the castle scenes, and I really want to know if the corsair makes it out rich or they all get murdered by vampires/magical traps. I even found myself really wondering how the battle between de Contreras and Kaya Reis went.

The mysterious author's skill in writing really shows there, where he manages to imply just enough to pike interest but not enough that it overshadows current event.

One of the story stories alone would be interesting, both together demand completion.

I was really afraid it would reach that completion here and I would have to take away points again for writing a one-shot, but then you ended on a double cliffhanger and damn you.

32

Set-up

* An exploration of the relation between art, artist, and reality through the lense of a unique DAA's mindset and skills.

Well this is there.

* Being immortals, boredom is the only truly fatal poison to a Dead Apostle Ancestor. All those who remain alive have found some way of keeping entertained. Rita Rozay-en has her art, for better or worse. For better or worse, Sumire falls in love.

I didn't see any love. Not yet at least.

Still, the sense of boredom is present and accounted for.

* A mortal and an immortal fall in love; the well-worn plot of many a tragedy. Usually, this problem is solved by either granting the mortal eternal life or having the immortal give up theirs - but is that truly such a happy ending? On the trail of one of Sumire's former lovers, Rita Rozay-en - a girl seemingly incapable of loving anyone - discovers just how badly such things can go wrong.

This hasn't appeared in the story yet. I suppose the search will have been motivated by Sumiré's story?

I'll grant at least partial points because I can see how it would get to this.

* Rita Rozay-en and Sumire; two unusual DAAs, said to be 'close enough friends to kill each other'. What does this imply in the context of two immortals - love or hatred, or something even more indescribable? How did this strange relationship develop?

This begins in this chapter, and I expect would develop over the rest of the story.

* Look, I know I talk a big game up there, but basically I just wanted to write something with pirates, history, and lesbian vampires.

I see no lesbian vampires here sir.

28 - Most of the love aspects haven't appeared in this point in the story, and while I can predict on how it would start in the future, I can only give points for what I see.

Accuracy

All the characters we see have only barely appeared in canon, so there's nothing I can really base my judgment on here. I mean, we have like a paragraph to work from, maybe?

However all the characters feel distinct enough, and can be told apart easily. To present the information contained in a profile is easy, to create an individual is not.
The fact that the narration switches style between the two parts of the story to go from giving glimpses of a character's mind to an adventure story is also, I feel, something that deserves some points here.

30

And a bonus point for being my favourite.

91/100


(Would technically be more along the lines of 96 based on how good it is, but failure to show the love aspect you talk about in your set-up costs you point.)

[Siriel]

And months-long suspense dissipated to the inevitable conclusion.

I wanted to hate Kleio just to spite everyone praising it but then it had vampires and pirates and philosophy and I couldn't.

[Nihilm]

And months-long suspense dissipated to the inevitable conclusion.

Just what I was thinking

- - - Updated - - -

you could hate it for making an update to mial seem even more unlikely
that's what i'm doing

as I have still yet to reach the end latest of MIaL, I wouldn't mind getting more Kleio.

[Megas]

Welp, this is my first try at a review, so I hope I did ok-ish:

Breakdown of the Holy Grail War

Hook: So, this is kind of a weird one, because while it could be a hook, it feels way more like a one-shot with just a little bit of garnish taken out to me. Sure there's mentions of stuff in the beginning that happened a while back in the prisma part, but really, that's nothing that sounded to terribly exciting about what's going forward from this. On the tail end, the 'suddenly evil Justeaze' didn't really do it for me. I may want to go back a little (which is kinda the opposite of the point here), just to see the immediately proceeding events to get my bearings but I have very little desire to see the conclusion past where the cliffhanger is or go into depth into what happened beforehand.

I know what in media res is, but I really didn't like it's use for something like this. It didn't really serve to create any huge mysteries of "how did it end up like this?"


I'm giving this part 10 points, since it really feels like this was a one shot as the rest of the story doesn't feel terribly necessary for anything except the very end.




Set-up: For 1, I can sort of say you put this forward with Zelretch, and I can see it in a couple lines near the end with Rin. I can see it maybe being a big thing in the story, but I felt like I was looking a lot more at the "duty of a magus" from what I saw, and kind of see how that could be a huge theme. At the same time, unless this is going to be more about Zel than I thought, I doubt we'll see much of the social aspect you spoke of.

For 2, This seems more like a prompt than a point for your story. Shirou not being here didn't really do anything for the story, neither did it really affect it beyond a couple of comments about a redhead and Rin saying he'd be sad. I'm not sure how I can see this cleanly working at this point.

For 3, Ummm, huh? We see a lot of stuff done with magecraft in Fate that's flat out ridiculous, what with Rin's killing Heracles once with blasts that could take down buildings, the command spells and their abilities to basically use a massive quantity of prana to create miracles, and Shirou with his super ability to pull sword replicas from his mind. Unless you're comparing it directly to stuff like Age of Gods magecraft, I'd say what we've seen so far in modern magecraft is well on par of most modern tech, sans stuff like nukes.

4 is odd, because I'm not sure how much I can say I'd see you doing it or that you did it. There's technically potential with the last out of place Rin narrator, but the rest of the prologue doesn't seem to suggest a heavy use of that. I mean, I don't think this is actually as rare as you're implying, as Shirou does this (sort of) across FSN. On one hand, I could see you executing this well with spaced out interludes every now and then, but I don't really see it becoming a main thrust.

For 5, I'm not sure I can give you this one, because if you're really doing this mix-up with Prisma, then your technically not revealing what happened there. I mean, it's your story and for all I know your somehow having Zelretch do cross-dimensional shenanigans to combine worlds and dismantle the grail somehow, but it seems kind of off. It took me three reads to figure out exactly what was going on with the transition after Zelrecth. Not gonna lie, I would have loved to see some Waver in here.


I'm going to give a 20 for this section, since I can partially see something here, but it's just not fully materializing for me. Ideas 1 and 4 are fairly probable, idea 5 feels like something you were going for but created a skeleton rather than a body, and ideas 2 and 3 are either irrelevant or flat out wrong.



Accuracy: If we're just talking about how well it syncs up with canon, my complaints are mostly power level related. In that Zouken has no business lasting as long as he did in this situation, and I'm pretty sure that he doesn't really have much more in the way of tactics at his old ages aside from 'all the bugs'.

While I can't say anything for sure about Acht, I don't think he's as impressive as shown here. It was strange, because I had to make a double take on him (before I read further and saw his name actually mentioned) to make sure he wasn't a random Kayneth or Shirou.

Ilya seemed pretty in line with what I expect from her Prisma self during the Zelretch conversation, and Rin's thoughts were something I could believe. There wasn't a whole lot of dialogue in the fighting, but the only glaring thing I could find in the characterization was Acht, as it seems very unlike him to do anything personally, give him a homunculi goon squad next time and have him keep hanging in Germany.


I'll give a 27 here , mostly because the fight felt really central to the second half of the story, and 2/3's of the combatants were pulling out stuff they really shouldn't be able to. However, people were mostly in character and their motivations were believable.



Overall: I'm giving this a 57/100

There was a decent effort under here, and if this was just a oneshot or a snippet I'd totally dig this a bit more, and you actually did ok-ish with keeping some of the ideas in check (well, at least the ideas that were right)

[Megas]

Second review here!

Fate/After Night

Hook: So, I have to admit, the Nasu junkie in me really likes the premise, at least on one side of it. As I really like some of the servant choices you've given and have an opportunity for Nobunaga to strut her stuff, I'm at least interested in the servant interactions. However, outside of that, I'm afraid I didn't get too invested in the human characters in the story. That and how the story just sort of ends, not really on a hook or anything, nothing terribly exciting is hinted within the piece itself, which is kind of a shame. A threat actively doing something here could have added some urgency.

I'll give you 23 points, but that's partially my own hype for Nobunaga being there and the potential I can see.

Set-up:
Point 1 I can see happening, but it's not really a theme or direction or anything, it's more of a summary of what you're going to do and what the background is. It's not terribly bad or anything, but it doesn't really tell me your goals for the story as much as what's going to happen.

Point 2.... is almost the same as point 1, but I'll cut you some slack because of the stuff towards the end of the descriptions looks like it could be kind of interesting/thematic.

Point 3 Is more of point one, but you have a little of something potentially here in the first sentence, and then you go back into telling me what's going to happen (War Progression isn't really a theme here)

I'll give you 8 points (5 for point 2, 3 for point 3) as there were semblances of something here, but it really wasn't what the rules of the competition outline as wanting

Accuracy:

And here's kinda a semi pitfall: While I can totally buy the accumulating grail stuff

I'm not sure how much I can give you a pass on the "Western Servants Only" or the "Only Hassan Assassins" because there's plenty that has yet to be explained in the fic so far.

Characterization seems fine, though there's not a whole lot there thus far.

Rin and Lluvia seemed alright, though neither of them have a particularly large amount of lines or interactions.

Not sure how I feel about grown up Waver who's supposed to be a bit more Hard-ass seeming kinda passive here, but given his only appearance is in a game of wits with Nobunaga, I can believe it

Astolfo seemed OK

Can't really comment on Enkidu as I still have yet to go through the Gil route in CCC or Strange/Fake

Nobunaga seems pretty in-line with what we've heard so far, if slightly less aggressive.

Amakusa seems a little more solemn here than I remember from Apocrypha, but given he's just been summoned no that long ago, I might able to overlook it.

Aoko, I've only really known her from Melty Blood and Tohno's flashbacks, which is probably not indicative of what she'd act like under these circumstances.

Gonna give you 26 here, since I can't particularly tell if any of the mechanics violations would have an explainable reason later on in the story.

All-in-all, I give it a 57/100


Don't get me wrong here. If this was going to actually be a thing, I would definitely not mind reading more of it, and I actually like where you're going with the plot and it feels like I'm reading something I could sink my teeth into. But on the other hand, it doesn't really have a hook, there's not much suspense built up, and the outline was more of a summary. So you could say it's potentially the start of an interesting fic but not necessarily interesting unto itself.

If I wasn't already a big Nasuland junkie, I'd probably feel somewhat less interested in this though.

Note: I ended up revising a couple sentences when I noticed after writing 2/3's of this that like half my points had already showed up in Siriel's review, some of them with similar wording too.

Now, back to doing my presentation for work, my next 1-2 reviews should be out later this week without that taking up my free time.