Katekyo Varia Umarekawari

So Katekyo Hitman Reborn was a silly show about a baby hitman teaching the world's meekest high-schooler how to be the boss of an Italian mob. Shonen ensues. One of the enemy groups that Tsuna and pals (and Hibari) must fight is the Varia, a merciless group of killers that don't want Tsuna to rule the Vongola Family. They're all ruthless and villainous, so it's always a good thing to see a varia-centred fic promote OOC-ness in its summary.

Um Do I Know You is a fic by Aya Takeshi, in which her OC is a former, amnesiac Varia member. To quote the summary...

This is Yukino. The only girl in Varia and is doing a pretty good job at it. But after a certain mission she loses all of her memories. How will she survive in this Mafia world with assassins around every corner? More importantly how will Varia deal with this? Warning of OOCness!

So we can expect Yukino, if nothing else, to be good at her job of being a girl. Let's take a look.

I was currently cooking breakfast for Varia when Lussuira walked through the door. "Ohayo Yuki-chan." "Ohayo Lussuria. Get a good night's sleep?"

I'd like to remind you that the Varia are Italian.

He started to help me with breakfast. Soon we were done cooking and heading towards the dining hall. When I opened the door I saw Varia arguing. "VOOOOI PUT THAT OVER THERE!" "Ushishishi I think it'll look better over here."

Varia, stop shouting at Voi. That's just rude.

"What's going on here?" They stopped yelling, looking at me. Squalo and Bel quickly grabbed hold of a large sheet of paper while Mammon used his psychic powers to hang it up. On the sign I read out loud "Happy 8th Anniversary Yukino!"

So the crazy sword guy and the crazy knife guy are perfectly in character, as you can clearly see here.

The day I first joined Varia. See my parents were both Mafioso. My mother served for Vongola while my father was in Varia. After my mother pasted on, my father trained me. From time to time my Father let me meet up with Varia. So when my father died Xanxus took me in to be a top Varia officer.

A comprehensive story that at least firmly establishes her father is an idiot. I don't care what kind of promotion Xanxus gives it, there's no way "Take your kid to work day" works for a ruthless assassination group. :v

"A-arigato minna-san!"

-Eye twitch-

I looked at everyone around the room. First was Superbi Squalo, second in command of Varia, to me he was like my big brother though it took a bit of time for him to accept me. Next was Xanxus, boss of Varia, he was like the father I lost but still has a murderous atmosphere around him

I should probably note that this is a lot more affection than they show each other.

Bel, also known as Prince the Ripper, was my best friend and was someone I could always trust.

Yeah, the guy with the "Ushishi" laugh, knife fetish, and has attempted to kill his twin brother, on top of being, y'know, an assassin, is trustworthy.

Fran was my little brother and kohai

Man, my eye just will not stop twitching.

Finally was Mammon my...second best friend? Honestly I got a little crush on his mysterious behaviour and he may not look like it but he really is holding all his emotions in.

Pictured: Mammon.

"Anno I just don't know what to say. I guess I can't even believe that it's been 8 years already. 8 years, huh?"

Watashi wa tashika ni hitobito ga sōdenakereba, eigo no bunshō no naka ni nihongo no tango o chūnyū suru toki ni sore o aishiteimasu.

"Waa it's all my favourite foods!" I noticed at the end of the table Xanxus was already the food. I couldn't help but laugh at him.

If Xanxus is already the food, all is lost.

"So what's this big job Lussuria talked about?" Levi asked. "I can't believe you forgot what today is, Leviathan. Today is not only my anniversary but V.B.A Day."

I had no idea that emulator was so popular.

V.B.A day stands for Vongola Bosses Alliances. It's a day where Vongola and 6 families in alliance with them go on a job to strengthen their bond.

Not a thing as far as I can tell... but hey, this idea isn't necessarily bad, I suppose. It's just, there's the entire rest of the Vongola family that would be more likely to go on such a mission. Not the secret assassination group that are so notoriously volatile, that even the Vongola Boss is unlikely to be able to control them.

Usually only the bosses will go but with Xanxus's personality he refuses to go. That's the same with the rest of Varia so I ended up being our representative. "I see. So which families are coming this time?" "Um Varia of course, CEDEF, Cavallone, Simon, Millefiore and Tomaso."

But the Varia's part of the Vongola... and CEDEF's an organisation that might as well be the Vongola. Also, why couldn't you have just left out the Tomaso Family? I would've overlooked it, I swear!

"I see. You better not shame Varia's reputation." "I should be saying that to you every time you go on a mission." "What was that?!" He stood up, slamming his hands on the table. "It's exactly as I said. You got a problem?"

Boy, I sure am glad that the author took the time to make sure the reader never lost track of who's speaking to who, here.

As always he took things to seriously and started to pick a fight with me. He somehow managed to get everyone else in involved. What started out as a food fight turned into a serious fight with boxes and flames.

Well, that was one of the best fight scenes ever written. Time to move on?

During the fight I took a quick glance at my watch. It read 11:45am. I quickly snapped my fingers using my snow flames to freeze their flames.

Oh, yeah, the author also established that Yukino here uses Snow Flames. If you don't recognise that as either the Sky or Earth Flame, that's because it was only used in one DS game. And is basically Tsuna's Zero-Point Breakthrough without the ten-billion year prep time. Well then.

 I clapped my hands together, bowing slightly. "Gomen Squalo-san but I have to get ready now."

Don't you just hate it when your own language lacks a suitable word to use, forcing you to borrow something from another language?

"I'm going now. I'll be back in 5 days top." I said holding up 5 fingers. I walked out the door and took a plane to head to Japan. After a few hours I arrived in Japan and went to Tsuna's house. Once everyone arrived Reborn started to explain the mission he found us.

Well that was the world's fastest transition to another country ever.

Our mission was pretty simple for me and Byakuran but for people like Tsuna and Naito it was a different story. For Tsuna and Naito this was their first time with going on a mission.

Naito I can understand, but Tsuna? The main character that's had to defeat the Varia, defeat Byakuran's world-dominating family in the future, defeat Simon's overpowered family after that, and then had to fight those weird jailor guys that were stronger than everyone else up to that point? What the hell kind of mission is this, anyway?

Our job was in Beijing, China. It was to take down a family that was getting too much strength. We had to take this family down before they get too strong. After discussing a plan we were on our way to Beijing.

So putting aside the fact that Tsuna could roflstomp this family on his own by the end of the manga... why is this different from anything else he's done? You aren't going to straight-up murder everyone, are you?

Soon we were all spilt up around their base.

Damn right it was soon. Literally the next line, I'd say.

"Yuki no Tenshi can you read me?" I heard Dino call to me on the ear piece.

gaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

"Dino please just call me Yukino." Yuki no Tenshi was my Mafia name meaning Angel of Snow. Bel came up with it because my name means snow and he likes to call me an angel.

Well I'm so glad this was necessary.

"Fine fine. Are you in position?" "Yeah. I could see the Boss's safe from here. Did you get the code?" "Yeah Naito was able to get the guards distracted while Byakuran got it." "I don't need the story just tell me the code." "You seem to be serious about this. Fine the code is 34791."

Giant lines of dialogue are always fun to read.

"Thanks tell Basil-kun and Tsunayoshi-kun to ready their attack once I get the papers." "They're already good to go." "I'm going in now." I stood up and used my Mist flames to create a distraction. "Good luck." I chuckled a bit. "Don't need it."

And with her no-doubt elaborate and perfect ruse in place, this chapter comes to a close. There's also a glossary at the bottom that explains what all of the unnecessary Japanese words mean. My personal favourite is "Anno - Um".

So, if you've learned one thing to day, I'm sure it's this: Fanfics that rely on characters being OOC tend not to make much sense. Also, try not to give your characters stuff that's just "Main Character's special attack, but better!".

Final Fantasy VII: The Crisisening

Admit it, you have at least one story you love so much that you couldn't help but place yourself within that world. Befriending the main characters, beating the shit out of the villains, winning the affection of that one character you have a crush on... sigh, if only...

Oh, uh, anyway, yeah. Today's story is Final Fantasy VII the Rising crisis, by Strife VII. What if some guy named Tony was sucked into his game? How would this affect events? Why would your game suddenly suck you into its contents after many years of being perfectly normal? Why doesn't the manual cover this? Let's find out...

Tony got out of bed,did his normal morning routine,and put ffvii disc one into his PlayStation and loaded the game to the events of the forgotten city. Aeris was praying for 'holy' to stop meteor,cloud hopped over the pedestals to get to the altar.

I can see we're starting off at the heavy scene.

Tony looked down and sighed,for he knew what was to come. He got up and opened the disc drive,the disc began to glow mako green.

I was not aware "mako green" was an official shade. Also, no wonder its glowing, you just randomly opened the disc drive for no readily-apparent reason.

he materialized into the game and he noticed he was wearing new attire. He was wearing baggy dark blue pants,and a black T-shirt,his long black hair was also slicked back,and his glasses were thin framed and dark black.

"Unlike his official art, however, Tony's in-game model was a blocky monstrosity with jagged shoulders, and no definable features could be seen on his single-digit polygon outfit."

This guy's about as creative as me when it comes to fantasy clothing.

Cloud noticed Tony was close to aeris and tossed him the butterfly edge sword.

You've seen a complete stranger pop right the fuck out of nowhere, have no idea if he's an ally, or Sephiroth's BFF, and you just toss him a massive goddamn sword that, for all you know, is about twenty times over his maximum handling capacity?

Tony pushed Aeris out of the way,and cloud fought with sephiroth.

It's like he ripped the fight scene straight from Advent Children. And what's Cloud even fighting with now?

Sephiroth saw things were not going to end well and left. "Very well...the girl will live,but when I have the chance I will finish what I started."

Preeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure you can still roflstomp them at this point, man.

 Tony scheathed his sword,I'm Tony,and I'm not exactly fro-...from this area." Tony knew if he mentioned anything about them being a game it might fracture their consciousnesses.

Sheathed in what? That's Cloud sword, remember? Also, I'd laugh at the stupidity of everyone instantly believing him if he told them their world was a game... but Cloud is also pretty fucked in the head, so... good call, Tony?

Tony met eyes with tifa,she smiled and walked up to him. "Hey,I'm tifa...nice to meet you." Tony was sitting there beside himself.

He was? How? Tony, did you split yourself in half? ...Is one of the Tonys his imagination?

"uh-um I'm Tony...n-nice to meet you" tifa giggled and went on with the rest of the group

This was a good talk, Tifa.

"Tony is it?" Aeris asked shyly."yeah that's me"Tony answered. "Well thank you so much for saving my life back there,if you hadn't done that I may not have been here right now." 

What? Come on, Aerith, don't talk like that! As if anything would ever happen to you!

Tony looked down and became lost in thought, suddenly his ears started ringing and he put his hands on his head then fell to his knees."you imbicile! If you wouldn't have come from your world to ours I would have killed the ancient and gained access to the life stream!...well my goal seems larger now...kill cloud...you...and then the ancient. Hmph in a way I thank you for your insolence... Heh, heh, heh, ha aha ha ha ha!"

So basically, Sephiroth is a moustache-twirling villain now. And his hate-boner for Tony equals the one Sephy has for Cloud, too. Oh, and I guess Tony's a Sephiroth clone. And people say the Compilation was bad...

"Tony...get ahold of yourself man!" Tony snapped out of it and stood up."its sephiroth! He's gonna do something horrible!"Cloud still couldn't believe what had just happened to Tony.

Give yourself longer than half a second for the surprise to wear off, then.

 Tifa ran up behind Tony and helped him over to the tiny bronco."Are you okay? That was kind of a big mess that you had back there." Tony regained consciousness and sat up

When did you lose consciousness?! This is still on the same line as that previous sentence! In the middle of this massive block of text! Why is Tifa now nursing you?

 Tony closed his eyes."sephiroth spoke to me...he plans on killing Cloud, me, and Aeris."

"The rest of you are cool, though. He wanted me to tell Barrett that he's a cool guy, specifically."

Cloud walked in the door,"hey Tony I see your awake...Man that was weird, anyway we're in Gongaga now and we're heading for the great glacier in the morning...so now we're all just gonna get some sleep and go on from there." Cloud closed the door and climbed into bed"Well goodnight..."

...Good to know, Cloud. See you.

(Will you look after Tony?) Cloud began dreaming."wh- who's there?!" (...) "Answer me!" (Tony will save you when you are in your deepest peril) "what's that supposed to mean?" (You know all you can know...look after Tony.) "Okay...I'll look after him."

Tony x Cloud has got nothing on Tony x Tifa and Tony x Aerith.

 "You were dreaming cloud" Tony laughed,"you kept saying my name...man back at the alter...that was weird."

Nah, what's weird is the next two words immediately following that statement.

Cloud smiled

Fucked up, man.

"yeah it was...say, do you have any materia?" Tony Pat his pockets,"no...I guess not, could you lend me some?" Cloud pulled out a new born ice and cure materia and tossed them to Tony.

Cloud the baby-thrower confirmed.

 Cloud laughed

You're absolutely sure that was laughter?

Tifa came out of the restroom and began to get ready,cloud noticed that Tony's eyes were following her. "Hey Tony keep your eyes on your weapon or materia." Cloud smirked.

Mopey Cloud jokes aside, I seriously don't recall Cloud being this openly friendly with anyone in the first disc. I guess saving Aerith instantly cured his grouchiness. And mental instability.

Tony sat up and went for the door,"well I'm gonna go and get whatever info I can on sephiroth...I'll be right back."

Shouldn't you know everything you need to? I assume you've played this game more than once before.

Aeris was walking down the hallway when Tony stopped her to talk. "Hey Tony!" Aeris smiled. Tony smiled back and asked,"so how did you sleep?" Aeris looked down and sighed,"not well I was so worked up over what had happened."

I know how you feel. I'd be annoyed if one of gaming's most iconic and treasured moments was brutally shattered so callously.

-One extremely uneventful walk to Glacier Village later-

Tony slowly walked forward and pulled out his sword,then swung in at the ground."wh-what are you making me do!?" He screamed. Cloud sprinted to his side and took the sword from him."Tony snap out of it man! Drown sephiroth out! Drown him out!"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HIS STUPID AND POINTLESS DEMANDS! SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF HITTING THE GROUND LIKE THIS?!"

(I have come for you my leige) "what!?" Tony screamed. (The warping of your reality to ours...there is no age here and no time...here aging is impossible... You can choose to stay here or leave to home...I warn you however, there is no return once the choice is made...) "

Yeah that's real interesting, but can you give Tony a second, Mysterious Voice? He's trying to deal with another voice in his head right now.

 "Ga ha ha ha aha ha ha ha aha ha ha!" Sephiroth laughed.

I  am paying George Newbern all the money in the world to voice this laugh.

"I know of your arrival tony, and I know of what you plan on doing...I will not let you of all people ruin my life's work! Now return to your feeble consciousness... " Tony awoke and jumped up."I want to stay!" He screamed. Cloud slowly tilted his head and said,"Tony snap the $#%&*# out of it!"

"Oh, what the actual @£&%!" Barret and Cid yelled in anger.

Also, Jesus Christ, Sephiroth, let it go. You can gut Aerith later.

(Is that your final decision?) Tony put his hands on his head,"krrgk!" (Remember once a decision is made...no return is possible)

Tony struggled to decide if he should use a lifeline for this question.

Tifa ran to Tony and put his hand on her chest,"this may wake him up!"

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Tony blinked "ungh...my head...it- its sephiroth...he's tampering with my mind...an- oh my God I'm touching your boob!"

One stupid crisis at a time, man.

Tifa looked at the ground,"well this is...awkward..."

Can't possibly imagine why!

Cloud slapped his hands on his sides,"tifa did that to wake you up,but lets focus on the main problem. Sephiroth is tampering with Tony's mind, but not just his...mine too." Tifa crossed her arms and looked down,"sephiroth."

That sounded like the world's most unimpressive plot twist.

So. I'm not the biggest FFVII fan out there, but I think there were... one or two slight mistakes in the characterisation of a couple of people.  Nothing too major, just, y'know, might wanna hammer those problems out with a mallet or something.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to finish that fanfic of mine where Zack's biggest fanboy, Sean (who Hojo fused with Materia to create the Hell -aga series of spells, of course), joins the group to kill Sephiroth, as revenge for murdering his hero and ruining his life in some dramatic way. 'til next time.

Listen To My Original Story

Well this sure took a while to get a new post. Sorry to leave all six billion of y'all readers hanging.

So today's subject is The Keymaster Guardian, by bahamutOm234. A Final Fantasy X fanfic that sounds like a crossover with Kingdom Hearts (which would basically be... Kingdom Hearts). How does this humble little story sell itself to the audience?

I suck at summaries so this is basically a retelling of the game with my OC in place of Tidus. There will be spoilers so tough shit. No flaming as it will be ignored, but constructive criticism is accepted. T for cussing

FanficSins counted, like, six right there. Also, FanficSins should be a thing. ...Am I the FanficSins? Eh, questions for later, we got a story to listen to!

On the outskirts of an ancient city now in ruins three weapons are seen embedded in the ground: a key-shaped sword, a staff with intricate designs on the head, and a ball; nearby a group of seven are resting by a campfire in silence as the air seems stifled with a feeling of sadness, suddenly one of the group rises and rests his gloved hand on the shoulder of the brunette as if to provide comfort to her, the two share a glance before the hand was removed and the group member climbs the nearby hill to look out over the ruins.

I was going to say that this is an exact copy of FFX's beautiful intro, but then I realised it didn't have any key-shaped swords in it. Silly me.

Narration: Listen to my story, this…maybe our last chance.

And with that, we have what might as well be the script for the game. Just with more keys? Well, on to the next chapter, where I'm sure things will actually start to diverge.

A teenager is seen walking down the boat ramp to a light crowd of fans, one fan tells him that she had been a fan since the beginning he thanked that fan, he is then asked by one of the kids if they can have his autograph after he signs their blitzballs the kids ask in unison, "Teach us how to blitz!" Korogra knew they meant how to play Blitzball as opposed to a fighting tournament called "Blitz"

...Right, so.

1) Korogra?
2) Exact retread of the first two minutes of gameplay
3) Korogra?!
4) Why would you even get that mixed up? Blitzball is a giant thing in FFX. What the hell is a Blitz fighting tournament to this guy, anyway?
5) Fucking Korogra?!

Well, if you've played the game, you'll know about the whole "nah man you can't teach any kids tonight", and "I'll do a thing if I score, 'kay ladies?" bit, so let's move on...

Korogra then headed towards the stadium of Zanarkand for the game, on his way to the arena he crosses a road past a projection of his father, Jecht, an announcer then speaks saying, "I was in a coffee shop, running away from home when I heard the news.

...to the next copy-pasted bit of dialogue. So far, the only difference to the game is that, instead of Tidus, we have... Korogra.

Anyway… ten years later, the Jecht Memorial Cup tournament is today! The two teams that have won to the finals are…of course, the Claws from Jikkanu, and the Zanarkand Duggles from C-south.

...Really? Claws of Jikkanu? Why? Were the Zanarkand Abes too silly-sounding?

I know there's a lot of people out there today to see the star of the Claws in just one year, he's become the team's number one player! He's Jecht's blood, and the new hope of not only Blitzball, but Blitz as well! What kind of super play will show us today? Will we see his father's legendary shot? I don't think I'm the only one excited here, folks!" however he tunes the announcer out after a time.

...Wait, there really are separate sports with near-identical names? ...Why?! It could not have been hard to think of a slightly more creative name!
Also, good job, Korogra, tuning the guy out only after every single line spoken from the game was repeated.

As he approached the player entrance he was mobbed by fans as he was the ace player of the Jikkanu Claws making his way through he rested for a time before the game began, then the door slid open to reveal the field being constructed as the machines (machina) kept the water suspended in a perfect sphere,

Hey guys, guess what? Carbon copy of the game with no changes. Well, okay, he didn't quite right out Tidus Korogra pausing every couple of steps on the way to the stadium. Hurray for originality?

Well, since I'm nice, I'm just gonna leave here, instead of copy the badly-copied written version of this great scene:

when some odd bug shaped beasts appear from a beast that had landed on a building Auron hands Korogra a key-shaped blade with a mouse head shaped insignia as the chain and says, "A gift from Jecht." Korogra says in surprise, "My old man?" Auron says, "Let's see if you know how to use it."

So what you're saying is... Jecht had a spare Keyblade lying around and decided it would be a cool thing to give to his son. Okay, sure, a nice upgrade from a basic longsword. It;s just that, well... this isn't Kingdom Hearts. It's Final Fantasy. And what the flying hell would you need a Keyblade in this game for, anyway?

More importantly, why am I not just reading a fanfic about JEcht in Kingdom Hearts?

After destroying several of the "Sinscales" as they were called Auron shouted, "These ones don't matter, we cut through!" eventually Auron and Korogra made their way to the building that the "Sinspawn" crashed into during the battle Auron said, "Some can't wait to die!"

It's funny how much less badass Auron sounds in written format, and his dialogue isn't even vaguely altered.

however after a time Auron used his overdrive, Dragon Fang, to destroy several Sinscales but they kept advancing Auron then spotted an over turned generator and said to Korogra, "Over there, knock it down!"

...Um... okay, I guess game mechanics are narrative tools now? How did he even build up his OD meter before the boss fight, anyway? What a waste of potions. And time. And internet pages.

When the generator fell it exploded decimating the road Korogra was hanging on to the ledge struggling to climb up he then asked Auron to help him but Auron was seemingly speaking with Sin asking it, "You are sure?" he then lifts Korogra by the collar holding him up toward Sin and says, "This is your story… it begins now." Then Korogra is blinded by a flash of light

Oh, guess we're skipping the boss fight. Works for me, less butchering of the game, I suppose.

Korogra then is floating in what seems to be a void when he sees his father Jecht standing in front of the flaming emblem of the Zanarkand Abes when he approaches in Jecht's place Korogra saw his younger self.

Narration: I began to wonder… was I dead and what happened to those girls and the kids I talked to before Sin attacked? I began to feel light headed and then… sleepy.

Not sure why Tidus 2: Revenge of Tidus would focus specifically on those strangers, but hey, we need something to add originality to the scene, right?

Well, that was a chore. It's pretty much 99.9% of the game's content, with extremely minor (albeit baffling as hell) changes. What the hell even is Korogra, anyway? A "better" Tidus? I haven't seen any mention of dislike for him, and given that Korogra is exactly like Tidus anyway, I don't think it's supposed to be some stupid "I hate this person, let's replace him with some amazing OC of mine!" thing. Also, what does Korogra even look like?

AND WHY THE FUCK DOES HE HAVE A KEYBLADE?!

Ahem. So, to summarise, this fic is basically a novelisation of the game. Except it does nothing to compensate for the change in medium. Do you like Final Fantasy X? Then you'll hate this fic for being about as well-written as the X-3 sequel novel.