Section: Advance Wars
Genre: War, Drama, Angst, Thriller
Rating: Teen to Older teen for violence, occasional swearing and personal trauma
Type: Chapterfic, 140,000 words
Status: Completed
Completed: December 29, 2010
Starring Characters: OC Christoph, Sami, Max, Eagle, Rachel, OCs Sepp, Roma, Sigfried
This was actually the very first fanfic I ever favorite and what really moved Fanfiction from a guilty pleasure by total geeks to an art form just as powerful as real life writing in my eyes. And it still holds up today.
This Advance Wars story is as close to a real novel as it gets. Sigcius only wrote one serious story his entire time on the forums but it’s one of the most impressive feats this site will ever have. I think I should break it down for y’all.
The gunman's brown eyes squinted in the dusty wind. The lifeless eyes of the soldier's mask bore no emotion, but his pain was evident. He no longer sobbed or squealed, but his breathing was heavy and erratic. He clutched at his wounded leg.
"Please… please…"
Dark brown, almost black hair obscured the gunman's eyes for a moment, but he brushed it out of the way. "Why?"
"Just… please, don't… don't kill me. I don't – I don't -"
"Not that," the gunman cut him off. "Why this?" He looked up for a moment, as if he were watching something on the far horizon. "Why did you do this?"
"I didn't… I mean… please, don't…"
He looked back down at the soldier and scooped up a handful of sand-colored dirt. Dry, no moisture at all. Then, slowly, he tipped his hand and poured it over the soldier's face. "Why would you do this? To my home? Bleed it so completely of life?"
"I was just following-"
"Don't give me that shit!" The black-clad soldier sobbed again. "Don't tell me you were just following orders!"
"Please," the soldier repeated. "I've got a family, see? I'm just a – a - a grunt!" He reached up to his mask and, with shaking hands, began to remove it.
Crack!
1. The game “Advance Wars” is a turn by turn strategy game that has waaaaaaaaaaaay too casual a feel for its subject matter, at least in the Cosmo Land timeline it’s set in. I mean, I love it to death but every single character is pretty much some sort of stereotype, whether light or heavy. Sigcius takes that and makes it believable, cohesive, gritty and intelligent as it should be, darkening the goof-off factor the games have until it becomes a war drama novel that you could literally see published.
The basic storyline is that the four nations that were formerly allies against Black Hole now start to turn on each other after triggering events start happening. It’s an interesting take but it’s made real and not cartoonish. It’s a story you can take seriously, and the AW section lacks in those.
2. It has original characters, not OCs. And what I mean is that the OCs aren’t typical OCs- to quote Foxpilot “a character that falls in luv with [the main] and haz his hiddz lolololololololol”. He has original characters- flawed, annoying, sometimes unlikable but in the end you still support him or watch him at least. Christoph is angry, sometimes arrogant and very misguided but that’s part of the beauty of the story.
3. It is all so intricate and so detailed that, again, it’s a novel. It’s a book, a real story. It says a lot about Sigcius that he’d write a full length book for a section that hardly anyone frequents. If he writes a real book, he will undoubtedly be a success because he practically wrote one here.
Simply put, it is an accomplishment in the evolution of fanfiction writing, and a remarkable piece in general. If you want to know how to write remarkable fiction, set some time aside to read this fic, whether you played this game or not.
Wow... only 3 fics left. Ain't that just crazy? And I'm very proud of these three fics. I'm still caught up about the order just a smidge, but I'm pretty sure numbers 3, 2 and 1 are decided.
Thanks for reading!
MoD
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