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This review was conducted by the Fanon Review Squad and reflects our best judgment of writing and fanon authorship quality. Please don't take offense if the review wasn't positive. We always give advice!
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MibuWolf signing on, feeling like a total idiot. I had a dream that I did this review, and for the past week or so assumed that it was finished. Needless to say, I was surprised to log on today to do my review of Red Chi to see that I had not, in fact, actually done this review >~< I'm kind of a mess right now...
Today, I'm reviewing Avatar: The Legend of Rokan by Firebender896. I'd like to start my review off by giving a few words about my thoughts on this fanon. There's isn't a category for effort, but my favorite part about Rokan was how much effort Firebender put into the chapters, with her drawings in literally every chapter. I was never able to get into the series while it was being published, but seeing Firebender's drawings always cheered me up and gave me hope for the level of effort that writers could put into their fanon for such a long time. I know it's not something I would ever be able to do, so you get my kudos, Firebender ^^
Writing Categories[]
- Mistakes/Grammar: 9.8 The grammar was really solid, save about two or three typos.
- General Writing: 9.5 For the most part, I found that the descriptions in this fanon were excellent. One of Firebender's strong points is really helping the writer to imagine what's happening, between her amazing artwork and vivid description. I took a few points off, however, as I found myself getting slightly vexed as the story continued by the lack of room for interpretation. One thing that I like about reading versus watching television is the room for interpretation in imagining what a place or character looks like, but in Legend of Rokan, there was pretty much no room for such interpretations. In action scenes, this was wonderful, but I found myself almost bored when all of the imagining was already done for me, if that makes sense. Super picky thing of mine, as I mentioned, and the balance is one I don't think many writers--myself included--can achieve 100% of the time. Overall, though, the writing was, in my opinion, the greatest strength of Legend of Rokan.
Writing Score: 9.7... A+
Content Categories[]
- Story: 8.1 The story of Legend of Rokan was not anything I found particularly special. For the most part, the story was what I though fanfiction was all about before becoming involved with the Fanon Portal: a story that takes place during a series with an OC main character and featuring characters that (presumably) the writer liked during the series as well as some other OCs. Firebender does add a few other interesting elements along the way, but for the most part the plot seemed pretty straight-forward and I never found myself particularly engaged throughout.
- Characters/Character Development: 9.4 With a small cast of characters, there is lots of room for character development. Firebender does a good job of filling the majority of this room, with tiny "white windows" in the character's foundations that were mostly covered with Firebender's awesome character development.
- Genre (Action/Adventure): 10.0 Literally no complaints. Spirits, I need to be pickier, don't I? The writing of action scenes is excellent, and I really get the adventuring feel from this fanon.
Content Score: 9.2... A-
Content Quality Categories[]
- Creativity: 7.2 As aforementioned, the idea as a whole never seemed that creative, and for the most part I did not find the events that happened and development to be much more creative; aside from the excellent character development, most of the characters were kind of Mary-Sue and overall did not seem super special. Towards the end, the events became less predictable, however this was not until the last few chapters and thus the beginning overrides the improvement towards the end.
- Believability: 9.7 Most of it was perfectly believable, with a couple of fight scenes that were kind of... murr... in terms of believability.
Content Quality Score: 8.5... B
Overall Score: 9.1... A-[]
My advice for Firebender896: My only critique is in the foundation of the story and its characters. You're a great writer and wonderful artist, and I think that with a little bit less plain of a storyline, you would have one of the best fanons I've ever read. My only advice here is to either do something that no one else has done or do something someone else has done in a completely new and intriguing way. Which isn't vague advice at all... (sorry) Your writing skills matured a lot over the course of the fanon (the creativity and story scores would have improved greatly had the whole story had the same vibes as the last few chapters, which I thoroughly enjoyed), and I'm sure that whatever you come up with next will only continue to grow and be good.
What sort of person would enjoy Legend of Rokan? It seems like everyone who is active on the fanon portal has read it, but if you're new or have not read it, you'd like LoR if you enjoy wonderfully written action/adventure stories.