Turnabout Storm Review · 4:58pm Apr 12th, 2015
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/6177/phoenix-wright-turnabout-storm
Turnabout Storm the fanfiction adaption. At first you may ask what the point of this is seeing how the series originated as a youtube webseries. Well it was NOT written by the original creator (NeoArtimus), but is a fan adaptation written by FIMfiction author RavenRegios and her team. This version is different in some aspects from the source material, so even if you jump into it having seen the original webseries it should be different enough with how it plays out to keep you invested...or can it? It's pretty long, as in almost 400k words long. Understandable since the source material is almost nine hours long. So I wouldn't go into it if you don't have much free time on your hands. I have to issue a spoiler warning as I will be covering some spoilers exclusive to the story. Since I have reviewed Turnabout Storm on DA already and this story is replicating it, I am mainly going to be going over what I unfortunately didn't like about this version. First and foremost I have to give the writers credit for committing to something so long in almost 70 chapters each almost 10k-20k words long. It takes a gigantic amount of effort to do that- and finish that, and I tip my hat off to you for accomplishing that.
So let's dive into what I took from this story.
Phoenix X Twilight
I'll first address this, as it is kind of the 400 ton fire-breathing gorilla in the room regarding this fanfic. Twilight Sparkle and Phoenix Wright become an item... as in fall in love...
Joking aside, the ship teasing is spread all throughout this fic and it's not just contained with Wright and Sparkle, no. It seems every pony in Equestria tries to hammer in they should be together and it's really just...awkward. It's one thing to get this bipedal creature from another world to represent your friend in court, but starting to fall in love with him? While every character is PUSHING the relationship!?
And everybody's just okay with this?
Not once does anybody really object to the inter-species romance. What's even more hilarious is Lenora the Griffin and Cruise Control reveal THEY have a closet intimate inter-species relationship in the ending chapters and everyone is dumbfounded at the prospect. The justification behind it is Twilight is into a romance novel featuring a lawyer who she sees similar traits in Phoenix (I've also seen the creators of this using Equestria Girls as justification as well). I'll leave it to you if you think that supports this odd couple, but I personally thought everyone else shouldn't have embraced it so much as they did. There were instances where a few characters batted and eye at it, but it just segues into playfully teasing Twilight about it every time. Getting onto the relationship itself; as a person who doesn't like shipping, it certainly doesn't kill the fic. The scenes range from tolerable and groan-inducing. It feels very stilted most of the time in my outing with the facfiction, though.
Elemental
This is another new addition to the story. Twilight has fire powers probably based off this:
And Trixie has ice powers based off...I don't really know, but it starts becoming crystal clear near the climax it was heavily inspired from Elsa from Disney's Frozen to the point where the characters start quoting verses from Let It Go and Elsa's name not so subtly being brought up (it does get a little grating how much they hammer in they are basing it off Frozen sometimes). While this whole elemental aspect sounds rather interesting, having a bunch of unicorns with assigned elemental powers like Avatar Last Airbender. The whole thing feels very out of place in this story. Like some other fanfic somehow integrated itself in Turnabout Storm, because it's not just some slight addition, there is VERY heavy emphasis on it throughout the story and it really just kind of downplays what's happening to Rainbow Dash when it does so. I think I'd love to see the idea expanded on by the author(s), but not inside Turnabout Storm's universe where I came for sugar-bowli'n equines and lawyers who sweat a lot.
The Story Structure
This is a very strange case. When the story started. It was a pretty much Turnabout Storm verbatim leaving a little more to be desired as you probably would be better off just watching the series with the sound turned off or a transcript. Around Twilight's POV section I really felt like the fanfic began to take off and found it's niche by adding some original perspective elements, yet still keeping itself faithful to the source material. This is also where the shipping and elemental stuff also got introduced as mentioned above. I could do without the shipping, but I could still tolerate it at this point and I still found the story genuinely fun to read even after watching the on going series at the time. I think the point where things started to waver was when it switches back to Twilight's POV during Gilda's trial. It almost feels like an entirely different story during the later parts of Sonata's testimonies. TOO MUCH starts being changed and heavy emphasis is put on these drastic changes instead of focusing on the original author's vision that made this story so captivating in the first place. If this story was written in the same manner as Twilight's initial POV section, I think this would have been a pretty gosh darn good adaption. Lots of the word count is put towards Twilight and Phoenix shipping sub-plot, even during the intense court bouts where even Trixie and Sonata constantly bring up Phoenix being Twilight's "coltfriend" and it really killed the intensity for me.
If I may take a quote from PD James:
"Tension should be held within the (mystery) novel and there should be no longuers of boring interrogation."
This is what the video series gets right and what the fanfiction does wrong. It's like it forgets it's supposed to be a mystery first and foremost. The video series always had some sort of hook to keep you invested with every scene, but this fanfic seemed more concerned meandering about Twilight's feelings for Phoenix instead.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS!
In Turnabout Storm, Phoenix, Twilight, Trixie, Rainbow Dash, Ace Swift, Fluttershy, Sonata, and to some degree, Cruise Control are the MAIN players in this story. The spotlight should be on that combination of characters ALL the time since they are what makes the story go forward. I think even the creator has stated at one point she only wanted to include Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy in terms of the mane six, and the rest were just going to appear in the ending as a cameo during the party similar to Maya, Edgeworth, and Pearl appear in the end (We'll get to that later) even though she said she'd love to include Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack, but she didn't have roles for them to fill and it would be kind of pointless for them just to become involved for the sake of becoming involved as it would bog down the story at hand. I had no idea what she meant by this originally, why wouldn't you want to include the whole Mane 6 helping Phoenix? Apparently Phoenix was originally going to team up with Apple Bloom in part 3 and meet Cruise, Lenora, and Trixie the same way Twilight did. But as soon as the creator realized Twilight was going to be doing absolutely nothing while Phoenix was doing this because of the narrative and it would be rather silly if she just came back and forgave him after he was done investigating, the idea to split the perspectives was born and she was able to include the rest of the Mane 6 WITHOUT just putting them there for the sake of putting them there. I now understand what she meant by it being pointless putting them there for the sake of putting them there after reading this story. Dozens of one off OC characters and minor characters from the actual show are introduced mostly during Gilda's court section and the ending post-trial and goes in rather extensive and unneeded information about their appearance and back story because they are completely forgotten later or have no real impact on the story, they don't leave any sort of splash the author's OCs Cruise Control and Sonata make (which I think are probably the best OCs made in this fandom as explained in my initial review). As mentioned, the story randomly cuts to Applejack and Spike helping Phoenix in a chapter. I understand you think they deserve screen time, but cutting away from the real drama is a real buzz kill just for the sake of giving them a bigger role than the parent series. The Turnabout Storm Fanfic ironically feels a bit empty because of this compared to the video series introducing more characters, and giving bigger roles to less important characters like Applejack and Spike, which is doubly ironic since it added way more subpplots, too. It seems too focused putting more stuff on the table rather than working with what's already there, a problem that can be reflected on the actual MLP series with the overzealous toy tie ins they do as of late. The new OC and minor character additions don't feel as natural as the cast of characters selected in the actual video. Cruise Control, Sonata, and Lenora- I can remember all three of those characters and their quarks, but the only OC I can remember is Delta near the end in the fanfic adaptation who was kind of an Edgeworth stand in, but I do remember there were way WAY more. A fundamental of writing and character building is you should make character want something, or make us curious what they are going to do next. To be honest, I didn't care what all the new characters were doing because they were never developed, it went in great lengths to describe them and some of their history in one chapter, but then they completely disappear off the face of the map in later chapters. Remember future writers, in the world of story telling, less is sometimes more.
Contrived
There were QUITE a bit of these contrived moments in the fanfic adaption. Now let me preface this; we are dealing with magic here for the most part and there are no rules of logic when working with it. BUT this is also a mystery story so what you should properly establish is how these different spells involved with the story work and the rules and restrictions on them in this universe so the reader can draw conclusions based off what we know what these characters are capable of, like the Layton vs Wright game did, since most of the cases had otherworldly magic involved. The Turnabout Storm fanfic seemed to just bust out convenient random magic powers out of nowhere to explain and progress things. It's assumed all unicorns have a "Night vision" spell...so what's the point of their normal spell where they make their horns glow? It also kind of jobs out Gilda's section as she was supposed to be the sole person who could see in the dark. Then we get to the the mind-reading section which was just down right confusing. Here's the set up; after Sonata confesses to killing Ace, she purposes Twilight read her mind, but it becomes established it would be very dangerous. They naturally do the spell without a hitch making it very clear she did what she did in self-defense and Ace was going to kill and rape her (yes...they actually pulled that out in this version), but the real kicker here is she is still suspect to be banished for murder because the mind reading thing couldn't be submitted as legitimate evidence...
Then why did you do it? It made this big song and dance about how dangerous it would be... and it couldn't be submitted?
Besides, There was absolutely no reason to do it when Sonata had already confessed at this point. The only thing it managed to do is add another OP unicorn spell to the mix. Remember how Phoenix makes fun of the thought of an identification spell? Well things like those seem to be regular practices in here. Everything from Twilight turning into a camcorder with a "memory playback spell" to the Jurassic Park night vision spell. Why didn't they just use this mind-reading thing on Rainbow Dash? It's dangerous? Well, if they are willing to do it on Sonata why not Rainbow to prove she's innocent? To give a better example, remember how Batman just so happened to have "shark repellent bat-spray" in the Adam West 1960 movie?
Looks and sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I could suspend my disbelief of Batman's world where a guy falls into a vat of chemicals and becomes a psychotic, grinning, laughing supervillian, but why on earth does Batman just happen to have something as situational and silly as shark repellent for his current situation being attacked by a rubber shark out of water? A lot of spells introduced in the Turnabout Storm Fanfic feel like My Little Pony magic equivalent of this Shark Repellent Bat Spray to me. They feel too situational and convenient even though these characters can use magic.
It seemed to add these contrived things in favor of the protagonists as well as contrivities to be conflicts which don't feel organic or properly developed. What I mean by contrivities that are conflicts is; in the original video, Sonata threatens to have Phoenix and Pinkie Pie arrested for trespassing in her hotel room if he brings up her and Ace's cheating schemes in court. Later, when she's admitted defeat she very clearly states she wants to drop all charges, getting Wright and and Pinkie out of any repercussions. Makes sense, right? In this adaption pretty much the same thing happens, but the judge doesn't let Wright off the hook after Sonata drops the charges and Phoenix has to stay in Equestria for a long time and do community service...um... but Sonata dropped the charges, it's not trespassing anymore if she doesn't want press charges, why is he still punished? This was clearly done just to make Phoenix stay longer. I hate to say it, but Twilight and Phoenix feel like Mary Sues in this sometimes. The plot either just feels forcefully manufactured to work against them or conveniently work for them instead of maintaining a natural flow or making them relatable and human. Some of these new elements added don't have grounded conflicts or problems they face. For instance, Trixie laments how she's angry with Twilight being a fire elemental and everyone embracing her and wondering why everyone scorns her for her ice power. That's a pretty good question, Trixie. Does the general population just like fire and not ice?
Cry Now!
There are also a heavy amount of "cry now" scenes as I like to call them. This is actually a little problem I see in a lot of fanfics ever since My Little Dashie. You know what I'm talking about, where the story randomly relishes and embellishes the scene where a character is sad and crying just to attempt to have "feels". It's a class case of putting emotion before objective, because it's usually an exposition dump and going into extensive detail about a character crying.
"When the character cries, the reader doesn't
have to.
That is, if all the emotion is spelled out in the scene, then there's
nothing for the reader to DO, no interaction, no addition. The reader
becomes a spectator, not a participant."
When it's all spelled out, the reader doesn't have anything to contribute, anything to do. The emotion is already all there, all spelled out, and the reader in an essential sense isn't needed to interpret, understand, experience. In the Turnabout Storm fanfiction, many of these types of scenes involve Trixie and try to make you feel sorry for her, like the scene involving Trixie's grandfather. I have a feeling I'm supposed to be emotionally attached to Trixie during this while she's bawling her eyes out, but it just didn't work since we don't really know her Grandfather and the connection they share. A character crying shouldn't make the audience emotionally invested, the factors of WHY they are crying is the key to making the reader feel emotionally invested, and Trixie crying about a character we don't really know about doesn't really invoke any sort of emotion. The scene involving Fluttershy and Rainbow post trial DID make me emotionally invested in the original video and the fanfic version because the emotions between the two felt real. The little things made it work. Rainbow saying sorry and thank you in a very half-hearted way and avoiding interaction at the very start because she knows in her heart of hearts she doesn't deserve it instead of her preparing a big monologue on how "I DON'T DESERVE YOUR FORGIVENESS, I UNDERSTAND IF YOU NEVER WANT TO TALK TO ME AGAIN!" that whole sentence was just told subtly in Turnabout Storm with Rainbow Dash saying: "I’m sorry, Fluttershy...thank you..." MUCH more effective. Now I'm actually not going to chew this fanfic out for ruining this scene... well it did kind of make it weird with one element of tossing in Applejack and Rarity harshly calling out Rainbow for what she did to Fluttershy when it was only Phoenix and Twilight kind of pushing her into the right direction on what she did wrong in the video, that and Applejack and Rarity weren't even there to see Rainbow's outburst (see TOO MANY CHARACTERS section). This fanfic though HELPS the emotion of Rainbow breaking down by randomly going to a childhood memory of Rainbow Dash meeting Fluttershy. It's working off this picture shown in the video with not much background to it, but it was probably put there to set the mood or to show a role reversal:
The fanfic went the extra mile with this picture and wrote a scene around that really did compliment the story and made good build up to Rainbow breaking down and apologizing more genuinely to Fluttershy. Reading this new flashback scene really helped reinforce these two are very good friends. At first glance, it seems like a completely pointless flashback and what they're talking about isn't all too important in the grand scheme, mostly playful banter on Rainbow's side and Fluttershy being...shy in a very in-character way, though. But when we fast forward to the future immediately after with Rainbow's breakdown, it has so much more meaning. It captured the genius writing not having Rainbow get emotional with all she goes through and her stating she "she doesn't work with tears" only to make her cry where it really matters and we know she really means it. We don't know which character is having this flashback, I'm glad they didn't tell you. It could be Rainbow remembering why she became Fluttershy's friend, it could be Fluttershy remembering Rainbow's words when she was trying to emulate her by being brave in the future, it could be both of them, who knows. But it's great because leaves some room for interpretation to think things like that for the audience as well as being very emotional . Great scene.
The Ending
This is where a lot of red flags started waving for me. I can understand and respect that this is an adaption. Some things maybe a little different. What they did here though I feel was a tad disrespectful to the source material, because as soon as Rainbow Dash tearfully apologizes to Fluttershy, this fanfic switches rails and almost literally changes EVERYTHING about the original ending of Turnabout Storm. Like I said, I understand the fact an adaption will have changes, but you have to draw a line with that liberty and you should be trying to faithfully carry over what the original author was going for in the medium you are adapting to and I felt this was anything but faithful. It feels like they crumpled up the original ending and said "That ending sucked, here's a much better one!" Apple Bloom doesn't write a story about the events (which was supposed to be a call back when her and Twilight were in the forest) and inserts of the authors do it. They took out all the subtlety during Trixie's post trial scenes I was praising the original series for in my first review and did the exact opposite. This ending is filled too the brim with questionable fanservice and of course...
So many exposition dumps spoon feeding the audience everything subtle about the video series- forcefully explaining everything- EVERYTHING! PLEASE! NO MORE S'PLAIN'N! It won't engage the audience anyway with this.
There are also a two very drawn out court sections for both Trixie and Sonata, but these feel very different from Rainbow's trial. There aren't intense moments of suspense or an overarching conspiracy. It's mostly Phoenix is trying to use legal loopholes like a real life lawyer to try and and reduce Sonata and Trixie's prison time...
I'm not going to lie, these court sections were really hard to read through. They just seemed rather dull and uneventful and make me feel like I was really called in for jury duty because someone stole a chocolate bar from a 7-11.
Another issue I had with this ending is Phoenix is showered with gifts and going away presents in the conclusion by almost every character. Most of these gifts are referencing future AA games which really botches the original emotional payoff with Trixie giving him the hat with the picture in it. It's just sort of jammed in with all the other stuff given to him including the money reward and it doesn't hit the same emotional connection the video series did.
[Phoenix warmly] "Maybe I did get something after all..."
(That line isn't in this version by the way)
Him not getting anything was done for a reason, it makes this simple act from Trixie of all characters all the more stronger. Phoenix being a butt-monkey with a heart of gold is a big part of his character. Gaining her friendship made it worth it for him as he says with perfect delivery to credit of his voice actor in the series closing line (well besides the "secret ending"), something he is probably going to cherish way more than the $50000 the story gave him and made a bigger deal about. Also the picture was the last thing we see after the credit roll, it was building up what was on this picture with a beautiful rendition of Turnabout Sisters (can someone give me a download link to that song), making it end on a such a good note, but like I said, The picture and hat is just mishmashed in there with a crap load of other things Phoenix is given in this version which makes it not invoke any emotion when we get to it.
So WHAT does the adaption end on, you ask? The shipping...it chooses to end on the shipping sub-plot of all things...
Or I guess it's really part of the main-plot in this version. Twilight secretly gives Phoenix a flower he finds back in his world and it bonds couples in Equestria or something. I don't understand why this was done. Not only was this flower NEVER referenced to in any chapter unlike the hat was requiring it's meaning to be exposition dumped in a letter from Twilight, but the idea of this inter-species relationship is already so alienating and such a hard pill to swallow. It feels very frustrating that this is the way the story sends the audience off. In contrast, though. There WAS one moment exclusive to this adaptions ending I really liked. It was Rainbow giving Phoenix her 2nd place medal she won at the unofficial Equestrian 500. It was the only gift during the goodbye scene that didn't feel like fluff/filler, because Rainbow, as mentioned, is a main player in the story. The whole exchange was not only VERY in-character, but it hits the exact same notes the original ending does with it's subtle unspoken words, and shown realistic emotions. It was very short, but made me actually feel something unlike the other gifts showered on Phoenix because it felt earned coming from Rainbow. So kudos to who ever wrote that part. I just noticed writing this review most of my praise to the fanfic is going towards Rainbow Dash. I think that was the only character written remarkable well in this version with the new additions, which is funny since I'm not even a big Rainbow Dash fan.
Now the BIGGEST issue I had with this ending was Phoenix's friends from his universe. This kind of ties in with my "Too many characters" section earlier. Remember how Edgeworth, Pearl, and Maya made a humorous cameo in the video series? Well in this version Maya, Edgeworth,and Pearl GO to Equestria with a side plot of Maya having a conflict with Twilight...in the last four chapters... The whole time this was happening I was wondering to myself; what is the point? The authors claim it's for a sequel they are making, but I contend with; if this was going to happen, why not have it happen in your sequel where you can develop it more? Because this just happening in the last four chapters feels like a last minute shoe-horned sucker punch. It felt like they were thinking 'wouldn't it be cool if Phoenix's friends went to Equestria?' and just ran with it without any regard for the original story. The ONLY real thing it adds in terms of story is that Maya channels Trixie's dead grandfather as well as channel Firefly for a prank on Rainbow (the latter being kind of pointless). Things just started turning into a really bad HiE fic when these three came into the picture at the last minute. I do have to admit there was also a pretty good part where they kind of established a multi-verse kind of thing going on, where it tells us Sonata literally IS Mia in another world where her younger sister died instead of her (which I kind of think the videos were going for anyway), but on the flip side I think this should have been established WAAAAY earlier (maybe even being part of Sonata's motives of turning bad) as it might of brought some justification in bringing Maya there instead of her going to Equestria in the last few chapters feeling so forced. Edgeworth also solves some corruption in the court system that's done off screen (which I find odd since at the beginning they state Equestria is pretty peaceful outside minor crimes. Why would there be corruption in the courtrooms?) as well as Rarity constantly hitting on him (groan).
Conclusion
With all do respect, I don't see NeoArtimus reading this and saying it was a faithful adaption of her series. Especially since she has openly come out and stated she dislikes shipping in Ace Attorney and My Little Pony fanfiction and this seems to have transformed her story in to a shipfic. Most of the additions added to the story feel more like unneeded filler, fluff, and fanservice that don't transition very well with the original story this was based on. It's a real shame though, because I feel the authors of this have a lot of potential in writing and are capable of something much better-- maybe even better than Turnabout Storm was, I read this from beginning to end and have to note how well the authors describe actions and reactions. They do a very good job in that department using some pretty vivid vocabulary that makes me get a clear picture of how they want me to see this scene, like in Twilight and Trixie's magic duel. I think it's main problem is though, they're working off someone else's vision and style of storytelling that doesn't click with them. It comes much off as too many cooks in the kitchen (good cooks) working on an exotic dish they aren't familiar with. Like I said, if they were to make a story about these elemental unicorns as a standalone thing, I'd probably REALLY enjoy it, but it just doesn't feel right in this particular story. I think if I ever were to ever consider something a true adaption to Turnabout Storm, go read:
Twilight Sparkle Ace Attorney The Royal Turnabout
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/122240/twilight-sparkle-ace-attorney-the-royal-turnabout,
and
Turnabout Smiles (still incomplete)
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/170261/twilight-sparkle-ace-attorney-turnabout-smiles
Both part of the same series by Animegx43. I consider this story a perfect spiritual successor to Turnabout Storm. It pretty much does the opposite of what I have brought issue with here. It keeps the drama between a select few characters between both cases, so it's tightly written and easy to follow and allows you to take in the emotions it's trying to project between every character. All said characters give off their charm, even the original characters which are the hardest to get readers to like to in this fandom, it's funny when it wants to be, it has the same feeling of suspense in every chapter and foreboding when Twilight is running out of options, It establishes the unrealistic magic mcguffins early so it's easier to cast your suspension of disbelief when they become part of the trial and doesn't use MLP equivalents of "bat repellent-spray", and it's written very much in the same dynamic style as Turnabout Storm was. I look forward to reviewing it when it's complete. I don't want to hate this Turnabout Storm adaption, I really don't, but I think this was in need of the original author being part team to okay some of this stuff, especially if they plan to make a sequel. I don't think I would be interested in reading a sequel to this Turnabout Storm unless the original creator somehow has a hand in it. This version didn't seem to have a grand plan in mind, it seemed like it was being made as it went along as I noticed things from the on going seasons of MLP popping upand stuff from AA5 being referenced heavily like 'The Dark Age of The Law' which made the story seem all the more unfocused.
Is this story bad? No. Is it good? No.
It probably has a niche of people will love it, and eat it up, but I find it lacks that universal charm and inviting appeal the videos had. I showed my cousin who knows nothing about Phoenix Wright or MLP the videos and he loved them. I don't think I would have the same approval if I had shown him this because the very alienating shipping element. I do really hope the authors go onto greener pastures after this, as I said, I feel they are capable of making their own kick ass original story rather than tacking stuff onto an already good crossover story like Turnabout Storm.
Until then, peace.
Just wanted to +1 this exceptionally well articulated critique. Kudos.
This perfectly sums up my feelings.
I finally took the time to read this today, and this is a pretty well written review.
I agree with a lot of this.
The novelization feels full to the brim with needless dialogue and twisting the story into something that it clearly wasn't supposed to be. The romance between Twilight and Phoenix feels forced, weird, and unnecessary and that's exactly what people thought about the romance between Twilight and Flash Sentry in EqG. So that would be the last thing I'd use to justify it since it made it a struggle to read some parts for me because they constantly meandering how much Twilight wants Phoenix to bang her with very flimsy justification. The videos were way better at telling focused story, and as you said, the fanfic lacks that universal and inviting feel I got while watching the videos, it's the very definition on how to pull off a crackfic right. The fanfic felt like it was just borderline wish fulfillment at some points. I was a little scared leaving my opinion about it on the fic itself, due to it being a bit harsh, but I don't mind leaving it here now that I see I'm not alone with my thoughts on it.
3155030 I haven't read it yet, but I really hope the writer was being ironic - a horse hitting on a human would be funny.
However, I will say that Phoenix and Twilight is still a better ship than FlashLight. At least Phoenix and Twilight actually talked to one another and had great and funny interactions.
This review is very well thought out. I agree with most of points brought up (especially the numerous OCs I couldn't care less about, the editor's shameless self-insert included). Although, I don't find TwiWright to be that strange. Inter-species relationships are only creepy in our society becuase humans are the only intelligent animals (talking strictly platonically here). I do agree however, that having the whole of Equestria pointing out their relationship was jarring. I really enjoyed the small bits of details Raven added to enrich this adaptation in the beginning. But while I enjoyed a good number of Firesight's additions, I feel he was given too much free reign.
It's a shame that the writers weren't entirely receptive of your criticism even though I felt it was a textbook example of constructive criticism. I heard they commented that those links to other stories you made at the end was shameless self-advertising. Are those your fanfics? If they are, then I have to agree with them a little bit. Something like that leaves a bad taste and hides what is otherwise great criticism. If not, then the writers need to read this again with a little less bias.