So it has been quite a while since I've done one of these. In fact, the last time I did a video talking about weird, funny, wattpad stories was more than three years ago. I think it was May of 2019. And I've been meaning to get back to this for a long time, but I just kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. And finally, now here I am today, making fun of weird stuff that people decided to put out on the internet. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Before we get started, I just want to reiterate what I said last time, which is basically, I don't want this to come across as like bullying or making fun of young writers or teenagers who are just starting off, because, well, that's no fun. And I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me.  Because, wait, has it been over a minute of my life to say that? I don't know. But you can read some of the things I put there. Or you can watch the more than two hour long video I made about the book I wrote when I was 15 and see me making fun of it like that. Like, trust me, we were all at this stage at one point. I'm making fun of it not to berate you, but to celebrate this. So the first story up today is called The Heart Hacker, with two exclamation points. And this one is completed. And what's the description? This story is where ASR is famous as a heart hacker. He's very much popular in girls, whereas Kushi is dangerous. Five friends in ASR team. Five friends famous as hackers and whereas in Kushi's team, five friends famous as dangerous divas. How these two tackle with each other. This is what the journey is. And then like three ellipses in a row. I don't know about you, but I have no idea what that's saying. Maybe I'll understand it better when I start reading. Chapter one, or, sorry, hacker one. College, what to say about college? College life is that part of our life that we are going to relive in our memories till we breathe. Has you really been far even as decided to use even go want to look more like? We're two sentences in. It's a colorful life. And for girls, it's something we can't express the emotions. They are butterflies in the campus. College is the place where we live our life to the fullest and make lifetime best buddies. Can you please stop using the word life over and over again? Who can do anything for friends? Experience the college life and enjoy. You are pawns in the first year. You are ministers in the second year. You become the king of campus in the final year. First day of college, we build a lot of dreams. Some students come to college to achieve success in their life and give better life to their parents. Some students come to college because of parents pressure. And the third category students just come to pass time. But they are spoiled brat. But every rich family student, not a spoiled brat in this category. Our story hero, the Arnav Singh Rai Zada Khan.  Oh God, the first time I read this, it was like midnight. And I had no idea if I was just so tired that I was starting to lose my ability to read. Or if it really was just written this way. And it was. You know, I'm not gonna keep going beyond that. Because I read the first couple of chapters. I have no clue what's going on in this story at all. Like, there's some people with Indian names. I believe this is supposed to take place in India somewhere. And I don't think this author speaks English very well.  Or sound mean while making fun of it. So I want to give a little bit of credit for whatever it is that I think was good in all of these stories. And for this one, I'm impressed that, one, you're able to complete it, which is more than a lot of people can do. And two, I like your confidence, whoever wrote this. I like your ability to read over this and go, yeah, this is good. I can put this out into the world. This next one is called The Opposite of Falling Apart. Which I will admit, I do like that title. That is a good name for just a cutesy teen romance story. It is about a boy named Jonas who lost his car or lost his leg in a terrible car accident. That's a much bigger deal than losing your car, I think. And a girl who has terrible anxiety and I guess they fall in love or something. Let's find out. Okay, so you open it up and the first chapter just says to purchase The Opposite of Falling Apart. Because apparently this was actually published. So let's go to the second chapter. Oh, the second chapter just says, important, please read. And this one is also just a long message from the author asking you to actually buy the copy of his book, rather than just reading it for free. And then we have a dedication or forward for part three. Okay, it's dedicated to all this. And then we have a whole long Spotify list of songs the author listened to while they were making this. Okay, there's a copyright notice. Okay, part four. It starts with hashtag Free Your Body. This story is part of the Free Your Body campaign here on Wattpad. Okay, dude, we are four parts in. If you had all this stuff that was really that important, just put it in the first part so we can get to the actual story. Like, this is apparently a paid story, which is a thing now. I didn't realize Wattpad had made that a thing, but that's because I don't really go on there that often. And I guess there's only, like, 15 free parts. That's the preview, and after that you have to pay for it or something.  Jesus, man. Okay, so we get to chapter five, and that's where the actual story starts. Jonas. Jonas had done two things when he'd come home from the hospital for the first time after the accident. He'd taken a Sharpie and scribbled out the lower half of the left leg on his bones of the human skeleton poster that had hung on his closet door since fifth grade. The first time he decided he wanted to be a doctor. That's pretty extra, Jonas. Number two, he looked at the newly altered poster and cried for the first time after and only time since. He was looking at the same poster now. Okay, so, um, like many, many Wattpad stories, this one just starts off with the main character getting ready for school, which doesn't seem like the most exciting way to start off your story. Like, even if you're writing something that's more character-focused like a romance, wouldn't you want to start off in the middle of something more important rather than just, hey, here's me getting dressed, and here's me driving to school? Wouldn't you? So we have a long conversation between Jonas and his mom, where his mom tries to cheer him up and he pretends to be cheered up, but he's not actually cheered up, and apparently he lost all his friends after he lost his leg in the car accident, which is a strange thing to think about. Like, did all his friends just decide they didn't want to be friends anymore with the kid who has one leg? What? Huh? He withdrew from everyone. Jonas with two legs had never been incredibly social or popular, but he'd had friends, at least. Your friends are dicks, Jonas. In fact, this whole first chapter is just a very long description of Jonas putting his prosthetic leg on and then getting ready for school and then driving to school. And then Jonas gets to school, and that's how the first chapter ends. I just, I'm riveted. And I think we're just gonna stop there because I'm not really into it. The thing is this video is not for making fun of mediocre Wattpad stories because there are countless numbers of those. This is making fun of the really, really bad ones. Because, I mean, even the really bad ones are obviously a step in the right direction and they help you get better as a writer, so good on you for not just putting in the effort but putting it out there. But, no, no, I just, I don't have the energy. That one was just a weird way to start off, but hey, like, he completed it. He got it out there. And, I mean, like I said, if what you're looking for is a weird, or maybe not weird, but just a cutesy high school love story, I'm sure that one is fine. Ooh, we also have one called The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. What? This? Oh, okay, this is literally just the text of The Time Machine that someone copy-pasted and posted on Wattpad. I don't know why. I mean, this isn't illegal because, like, the copyright expired a while ago. H.G. Wells has been dead for a very long time. But they also posted several of his other books on here and a couple of other long, classic books, like, why exactly? I don't know why someone would go to the trouble of doing that. So, if you saw my original video years ago, you probably remember that I had a segment where I talked about how there was a weird number of stories on here involving Muslim teenage girls falling in love with non-Muslim white boys. And I thought it was really weird and funny, and hell, even before that, I made a video on probably the worst one of those called Muslima Next Door. It's an old one, but it is a very funny one. And I asked people, why is this a thing? And the way they described it, it's just like a harmless fantasy for girls to have. Like, okay, sure, fine, whatever. It is a little weird to me, but, you know, kids are allowed to have their fantasy. They're allowed to have their outlet. And it doesn't really feel like they're fetishizing white guys or anything.  Like, as far as that sort of thing goes, it's pretty, I guess, wholesome is the best word for it. And I mean, the fetishization does kind of go in the opposite direction as well, and it's considerably, well, it's a lot less wholesome when that happens. Yes, that's all real, by the way. I don't know why that's a thing. If anyone has any theories, let me know down below. But anyways, the point I was getting at here is that I thought, well, clearly teenage Muslim girls are not the only minority that would have weird stories about this sort of thing. So I started thinking about what other sort of tags could I type in here, and I typed Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, there aren't as many of those, but there's still a fair number. In fact, pretty much all of these seem to be about gay boys falling in love. I mean, okay, nothing wrong with that. It is a little strange when you remember the Jehovah's Witnesses' views on that sort of thing. But let's look at one called Your Voice is My Favorite Sound. Oh, oh, sorry. This one is called Two Boys Fall in Love. Sorry, I looked at the cover and I saw the big text there, and I assumed that was the title of the book. How silly of me. Plus, Your Voice is My Favorite Sound is a much better title. Chapter 1. Malachi, my mother knocks on the door, Malachi, get up, you have to get ready for field service, she says, only walking away when I start stirring in bed. I groan and stretch as I open my eyes for the day. It was Saturday. Again, another one where he's just waking up and getting ready for... Well, I guess it's not school this time, but he's getting up early, getting ready for an event. So the whole first chapter is just them at church, and it's described in exacting detail. I'm not getting into that. And then it ends with an author's note where the author says thanks for reading and how he wants to write a book about a queer Jehovah's Witness leaving the religion, and how he's really excited to get through all this, and then he only uploaded one other chapter, and he hasn't touched it in two more years. I think we're just going to skip over the other Jehovah's Witness romances. And let's go to the Mormon romances. This one is called Wrong Number, and this one's also completed. So, again, go down the author for that. It was written by 2129887HB. This one is about a teenage girl who accidentally somehow gets a hold of the number of a teenage boy and starts texting him, and then she spends all her time trying to convert him to Mormonism. I'm really not joking. That does seem to be the majority of what happens based on what I read, and, granted, I only read a couple of chapters, and it's, uh... Oh, 35, including the epilogue. Chapter 1. Nick. My phone dinged, and I looked at it, expecting a text from one of the girls I had flirted with at the party earlier. Okay, that's a good way to start, I guess. My head was ringing from all the alcohol I'd consumed, and I wasn't in the mood to read a bright screen. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket of my jeans and squinted at the name on the text, like, okay, first you're not in the mood to... look at a bright screen, and then you immediately look at a bright screen. Okay, I know show don't tell is a cliche, but have what you're telling match up with what you're showing. Because this is just weird, and then, I don't know, we have a couple more sentences of him looking at his phone, and then it cuts to Stacy's POV. Again, if you're gonna start off with a character, have something interesting happen with that character rather than have him just look at his phone, I'm drunk and hung over, and then put his phone away, and then cuts to the other character, and this is where Stacy actually is texting him. Like, she apparently thought she was texting her friend Jane. Jane, whatever, I don't care. All the Jens should be Jains, anyways. Wrong number. Oh, sorry, is this not Jane? Nope, you her boyfriend? No, sounds like it. You literally said, I hope you made it home safely. I'm worried. Please, that's a friend who is genuinely concerned. Dude, that's the friend zone. And this actually just goes back and forth for quite a while. It's dialogue that the author clearly thinks is cool, or is at least intended to sound cool, and it doesn't work. It just comes across as boring, and when it goes on for too long, it's... I don't wanna use the word obnoxious, but it's really obnoxious, and if you had just cut it down significantly, I think it would have been fine, but it just... It's annoying. And plus, we keep switching back and forth between Stacey and what's his fuck, I don't care what his name is, but it keeps switching back and forth between them. And the way that this is formatted is that all of the received texts from the character whose POV we're looking at now are on the left, and all of the sent texts are on the right. So it's like an actual phone conversation, which is pretty good in my opinion, like I think adding that visual element to it does help. But the thing is, because we keep switching back and forth between the characters, it's hard to tell who's texting who, or rather who's who, when you're reading through the text conversations, and it's kind of annoying, but let's get to the part where she tries to convert him. Who goes to church anymore these days? People who still believe in a God. Oh, she only said A God, she didn't specify which one. I'm gonna worship Kali, can I still be in the LDS church? What's the point? The world seems pretty wicked to me.  Maybe for you. How was it? Church? Fantastic. You should have been there. You might have actually felt a little bit of the Holy Ghost with that hard heart of yours. And, yeah, it goes on for a little while. He calls her a Mormon.  I'm not doing that. Like, apparently some of them don't even like when you abbreviate it as LDS church. Like, bro, it's a long name. I'm not saying the whole thing. And she basically tells him, hey, you should come to church. You should read some of the Book of Mormon. And then she goes off on a surprisingly long tangent where she explains the whole story of Joseph Smith finding, like, the golden plates and how he first wrote the Book of Mormon, which I'm not gonna go too deep into right now, but they had a whole South Park episode about that, which rightfully made fun of it. The Book of Mormon says a lot of strange stuff, like that Adam and Eve lived in Jackson County, Missouri. Yeah, I think we're gonna bail on this one because it's really just every chapter has a lot of talks about what is Mormonism like and does Nick want to become a Mormon? And they're just texting back and forth. Neither of them has their actual names yet. Neither of them actually knows what the name of the other one is yet. Yeah, I guess it's a little different. I'll give it that. Like, you know, it's hard to come up with a teen romance that doesn't fit into all of the exact same tropes that we've seen a million times on this God-forsaken website, but still, still, it's not great, but hey, I can tell there was effort put in. Oh, here's one that sounds fun. The cover is just a blank white page and it is called Pornhubbed, Ethan Dolan, in which a boy finds a girl from his school on Pornhub. Oh, no. So the first part of this book is just a list of characters. It has, I don't know what's going on here. All of this stuff, there's somewhere text problems going on there. Just says Pornhub has a couple of pictures of people I assume. These are actors that are supposed to look like the characters in the book. Okay, let's go to part two, Natalia. And that's just more pictures and more pictures. Okay, not showing that on YouTube. Then Ethan, okay, it's the same thing. Just pictures of yada, yada, yada, yada. Okay, can we please get to the actual story thing? Why is this such a common thing on Wattpad? Why must they make me scroll through a million things just to get to the beginning of the story? Why don't you just freaking start it, guys? Advice to all writers, just start when you get the chance to start. Okay, so we finally get to part one, which is told from Ethan's POV.  Dinner was finally over. I finally got to relax. I jump on my bed and kick off my shoes. My back relaxes into the soft mattress.  I took a long deep breath and long breath out. I was finally getting some time for myself. Oh, okay, nope, we're not reading that in detail. Dude looked through Pornhub for a bit and then he finds a girl who he went to school with and sees that she had a couple thousand views on a video where she was doing sexual things. We're not going into the details of that, but, you know, she was doing sexual things. So let's go to chapter two. So again, chapter two is Ethan getting ready for school and then going to school and then being distracted because he can't stop thinking about the girl, Natalia, and how he saw her naked on Pornhub.  I don't know why that was needed in there, but okay.    This one is called Love at First Sight, but Sight is spelled S-I-T-E, like a website. It also has like an actual cover, which says that there was effort put in here and it is complete. It's not a long story, but it was at least completed. Lauren Jorugy would have never imagined meeting someone online who could stimulate her like she's never been stimulated before, intellectually. But she did. She meets Camila Cabello as she reads comments while waiting for a video to buffer in the most unlikely site, Pornhub. In this age of social media and technology, can two people find genuine connection, share meaningful conversations, and bear their souls to someone they met online, especially one which started with a random porn video in the lesbian-latina category?  I didn't read this one. I just went through the description there. And I kind of refused to read it, partially because, like I said, this video is not about fan fiction. This video is about original fictions. And, you know, I have a whole separate series for bad fan fictions, which I also haven't done in a long time. But anyways, this one involves at least one real person, Camila Cabello. And that's creepy. Okay, like, it's already strange that people, like, write themselves falling in love with real celebrities and everything. And, like, that's weird when it's kept PG and wholesome. But if you're gonna make, like, actual porn of a real human being that did not consent to that, that's creepy. And we should stop doing that.  I realize that probably no one's going to... probably no one's gonna listen to me, but still, can we please just... let's not. Let's not make porn of Camila Cabello. She did not ask for that. There's a non-zero percent chance that she sees this, and I apologize. I'm sorry, I had to be the one to bring this to your attention. I'm a fan of science fiction, so let's see what kind of sci-fi offerings they have on Wattpad. We have this alien soul by Ashley Brooke, or Ashley Cash123. Whatever. I mean, again, this one's complete. Get on you for actually completing it. This is just an infant. An alien spaceship crashed in her small lake town of Mountain Lake, Georgia. The aliens were isolated, a large settlement that was heavily guarded to protect the citizens of Mountain Lake. Now with Amber's senior year starting, the decision has been made to start integrating the aliens into the community. Amber knows she should fear the Zion alien, Alec, who has started in her class, but instead she feels an instant connection. Soon, everything she thought she knew about herself and her world changes. Will Alec be the rock she can cling on to? This is just the plot of StarCross. Like, y'all remember that there was a CW show from like 2013 or 2014? It had literally this plot. Some aliens crash-landed in the American South as well. Like, because this one's apparently in Georgia and StarCross was in Louisiana. And then some alien kids start going to their school so that they can be integrated because racism and civil rights allegory. And then the main human girl starts falling in love with the main alien boy. Like, that's literally the same plot. Chapter 1. Prologue. I thought I knew pain from the stabbing, radiating pain to the kind that produced a dull throb that refused to go away. I had faced it all and lived through it, excelled even, forced to grow stronger from it. I thought I knew suffering, but I was wrong. This took it to a whole other level. A pain that was eating me from the inside, setting every cell on fire. What's going on? Okay, we're just... Yeah, whatever. There's like a weird dream that the main character's having. Her name's Amber. And she's in pain in her dream. And then she actually wakes up and you'll never guess what she's doing. She's getting ready to go to an event. This one's not school. It's actually her last day of summer vacation. So she's getting ready to go to the beach with her friends. Here's an idea for everyone out there. If you feel like starting your story off with the main character getting ready for school or church or anything else, just have it start with them already there at the event. This could start with Amber already at the beach, or it could start with them already at school. And then whatever important thing is supposed to happen there can just happen. Do you understand what I mean? Maybe I'm harping on this too much, but after reading through dozens of these things, trying to find good material for this video, these specific tropes, these weirdly specific tropes just started standing out more and more and more. And it felt like tacks being shoved into my eyeballs. But the important part is that while Amber is getting dressed, she's listening to a radio broadcast which gives a bunch of exposition for us to hear. Anyone old enough remembers that night just over 18 years ago when the Zionian spaceship crashed down in the small town of Mountain Lake confirming once and for all the existence of life outside of our planet and shaking our very foundation. She said in an overly dramatic tone not that she was old enough to remember she would have had to have still been in diapers. Couldn't they have picked a more seasoned reporter for this gig? No one could remind us more than those who lived it. The camera panned out. I thought she was listening to a radio broadcast. A minute ago she was listening to a radio broadcast. Now apparently she's watching television and there's a camera and she can see things. Okay. And then they talk to a man with an exaggerated southern accent where he says, I was sure the sky was falling. It was the end for us. There I was getting ready to cut into a juicy steak. My Mary had just finished grilling up for me and you know it's that because whenever a word ends with ing it's just the I-N and apostrophe like he's not pronouncing the G which it's not that there aren't real people that talk like that. It's that if this is a small town in Georgia I feel like most of the characters should be talking like that. I don't know. That's just me. I feel like if you're going to do that thing either have most of the characters speak with that dialect where you actually show it or excuse me most characters speak with that accent slash dialect where you actually show it or just put in description most people talk to like this and that'll be it. And then it's just you know some more exposition of how the aliens crashed 18 years ago and how they're going to go to her school tomorrow and they spend a very long time going over this like there's an interview with the mayor that lasts like half the chapter and the interviewer is just going over it with him and like okay I get that if this was a real interview they'd be going into a lot of detail about it but again this is a book this is fiction we don't really need to go beyond the surface in most cases. You can just say like yeah the aliens are being integrated into our schools they can become more closely aligned with human society or whatever and then we get like some of the main characters thoughts on it and that's good and then we also find out that Amber is apparently undergoing chemotherapy for some sort of autoimmune disease and that's not what chemotherapy is for chemotherapy is for cancer like chemo actually in a way it kind of is an autoimmune disease it makes your immune system weaker which is why people who are undergoing cancer treatment are at such high risk for things like COVID and I understand that she's just putting in like okay the main character has some sort of unspecified illness and I just want it to fit whatever the plot demands so I'm not gonna make it a real one and I'm not gonna give it a name or anything it's just gonna be vague and made up which is totally fine I think that's all right but Jesus, Jesus Christ at least you gotta match it up a little bit and then she goes to the lake and oh well it actually takes until chapter 2 before she goes to the lake but you know like I said chapter 1 is always reserved for characters getting ready and from there it's pretty much what you would expect like she runs into alien kids at school and she starts thinking about how oh I don't know if I like aliens but she's not super racist or anything like I said this one's not bad by any real stretch like I think the opening part if we're grating on a curve here the opening part is perfectly fine it just does make me chuckle a little bit that this is the exact same plot line as star crossed and that was a terrible show but at the same time Ashley Brook did finish this alien soul so again good on her I know I keep saying that but I do want to hammer it in like if you have the fortitude and the determination to actually finish something then good on you I'm glad you could do that there's a couple stories I came across that I refuse to read but their titles and covers are just amazing so we've got stuff like my pet mate which was in the werewolf category or pregnant by my abusive husband I know that's not funny but come on man we've also got mermaids and the vampires who love them oh that sounds fun let's check that out everyone knows mermaids and vampires can't date but when a mermaid ends up at a boarding school with a smoking hot vampire for a roommate will love take a bite so this one follows a mermaid girl named Waverly Fishwater Jesus Christ I kinda love that name I'm not gonna lie like I feel if you're going to just be kinda silly and dumb with this sort of thing just go all the way with it like just name your mermaid Waverly Fishwater name your vampire Bloodbite man just be fun have fun with it man chapter 1 my life is ruined thanks mom and dad honestly I can't believe my parents are making me change schools in my senior year I love South Pacifica High where I'm the captain of the water polo team a champion diver and head of the debate team okay actually reading back over this I'm very confused because we find out not long after this that she's a mermaid and therefore she lives underwater and her school presumably is also underwater how could you be a diver if you're already underwater how does that work because normally diving is where you're like high above the water and you do like flips and shit and then you crash into it in a specific way how does that work underwater and again water polo how does that work underwater okay sure I can accept that to a lesser degree but underwater water polo where the people can breathe underwater would be significantly different than regular water polo I was lying on my hammock in my underwater bedroom cave weaving seagrass into a basket for charity and daydreaming about thin reef crafts perfect torso and bad boy grit I love the names in this I love the names so fucking much this is amazing when my mom swam past the heart shaped fissure on the wall of my bedroom the last thing I wanted to do was endure another interrogation about why I wasn't doing the algebra homework so I rolled out of my hammock to hide underneath there's a lot of run on sentences here basically her parents tell her that hey we're going to this other school with a bunch of other non-human monsters and I think in this world just non-human monsters are publicly known and they just live in society so like mermaids and vampires and shit just live amongst humans I don't know maybe I'd know more if I read through the whole thing but I'm not doing that partially because again this is paid and partially because this isn't meant to go over the entirety of most of these stories it's meant to just give you a little taste of them and then there's a whole bunch more exposition but this is particularly obnoxious because it's parenthetical exposition like it'll just be waverly mom said in telespeak and like just that one little line and then an entire paragraph explaining what telespeak is and how that works and I don't think we needed that you could just say mom said in telespeak and if you really needed to you could put in like one line saying oh hey we can't talk when we're underwater so we use telepathy you can just do that I feel like a lot of people especially a lot of early writers are simultaneously very afraid of exposition and feel like oh okay if we put too much in there without anything really happening we're gonna bore our audience so we gotta be careful about how we do it but at the same time they just are not really they don't have much confidence in their audience's ability to pick things up from context I suppose would be the neatest way to put that a general rule is just that if you really really need to put some exposition in especially if it's really early in the story and you're just trying to draw your audience in it's better to put that in like the narration in a character's inner thoughts as opposed to someone speaking it out loud especially if it's exposition they should actually know and I should probably get back to this werewolf or sorry not werewolf this vampire mermaid love story like there's enough werewolf stories on Wattpad to just read until the heat death of the universe it has its own category like you know we have categories like fantasy contemporary lit, lgbtq plus romance, poetry, thriller science fiction and werewolf is one of them like there's a lot of these things but anyways they mean a character named Shelly Sharkweather which I didn't need to tell you but I wanted to because it's just I love the names in this so much like and again this seems like a perfectly fine story like if you're looking for something of this nature then you probably already know if you're gonna like it or not but it is it is pretty funny like let's be honest with ourselves for a moment if you're like the writer or a fan of that type of thing let's be honest with ourselves it's pretty silly and of course who can forget about that particularly weird subgenre of Wattpad teen romance where teenagers don't just fall in love but they're also involved in underground fighting rings because there are a lot of those like just a weird number of them we're gonna look at one called bullet proof today but I just really want you to know how many of these things there are because there's so many when Franny learns why former popular boy Tyler fell from grace she gets thrown head first into his dangerous world but also closer to his timid heart oh cool we have to skip past the first chapter again and then oh okay there's chapter two which is also just talking about how the book is actually getting published and I mean I'm happy I'm happy for you Tully Purvis but can we please just put that all and like the front bit can we please? okay so now we get to the prologue which is told from Tyler's POV everything is much slower in the circle it feels like time itself just stops and gives me the chance to finally see for the first time it's in these moments when I notice the things that can change the outcome of this fight from losing with a bloody nose to winning with a swollen eye and I prefer to go with the latter yeah Tyler I think most people prefer to win when they're in some sort of competition I first see my opponent he's large bigger than me and has the stance of a bull he's ready to charge but isn't adaptable enough to be able to veer off once his direction is decided and it goes on like that for a little while the prologue is actually just this whole fight between Tyler and this other guy and apparently his nickname is bullet because it says he moves like a bullet and I will say normally I would recommend not starting off with a fight scene or at least not starting off with a long fight scene because we don't know these characters we don't really care about them and when it's not in a visual medium it doesn't work super well like if it's in a movie or something then we can just see oh okay they're hitting swords and oh that guy rolled over and that guy got stabbed so it's crazy but if it's in a book then it's just kind of he hit him he hit him really hard he moved out of the way he kicked him in the shin and he was in pain normally I would say to avoid that however this prologue actually does it in an interesting way which makes it work in that the actual action itself doesn't take up that much of the focus it's mostly just inside Tyler's head and it shows him thinking about it he's going to react and how he's going to fight so we get an idea of what sort of person he is and well we actually start to grow and know him as a character a little bit and I did like that that's a clever way of getting around that problem so then we go to chapter one which is told from the other characters POV it's Franny I don't know why so many of these stories that are romance feel the need to constantly swap back and forth between the two leads I don't think we need that you can just have it follow one but I mean whatever and this one does not feature Franny getting ready for school but in fact features her already at school so the important events can just sort of happen and we don't have to build up to it with a bunch of exposition good on you Tali Purvis I have no idea how to say that but good on you so Franny is upset because their teacher is giving them a pop quiz and she's like oh I don't want to take a pop quiz and she's also talking to her friend Tali and this is where we learn that Franny is kind of a bitch I squint a little at her choice of nail polish noticing how the pink clashes completely with her bright ginger hair and pale green eyes I thought we made a unanimous decision about pink not really being your color I say in the nicest way possible Tali glances at me from the corner of her eye and she slouches in her seat knees up and pressed against the front of the desk I ran out of the red and you know that I barely have any nail polish so I had to go otherwise I'd start biting my nails again you should write a book about it I snicker 50 shades of pink the brand new erotica by Tali Archer what shade will they use today like geez girl this is your friend apparently that you're talking to like this okay and then we go through like Franny and some other characters and the teacher talking and the problem is that every character kind of talks like the writer's idea of a cool person like we got Francesca I hope you took my advice and started to study your notes every night it will do you a world of good of course I have I say with a smile every night I've been right on it well then this quiz will be sure be a test of your studying abilities and just you know things like that it's like every line of dialogue is intended to be like a snappy comeback or something and I mean having that once in a while is fine or even having one character who talks like that is fine but when everyone does it one it becomes a little difficult to tell them apart but two it just all becomes this mush like this mushed up soup I guess of dialogue where everyone kind of talks the same and we don't get any personality from it and then finally Tyler comes in for into the class and we get a weird description of him it maybe it's just me but this one seems weird his hair is dark almost pure black spiked on top then tapered in his back his skin is pale but not white enough to make the pinkness of his lips appear too bold okay and then we get some more like cool person dialogue where we learn that Tyler is like an edgy cool loner which is weird to me like when I hear the name Tyler I don't think edgy cool loner I either think of my brother who's a computer programmer or I think of like those kids we went to school with who wore a hoodie when it was 80 degrees outside you know like when I think when I hear the name Tyler that's what I think of but okay like this is basically just the introduction to Tyler I mean learn that Franny doesn't know him super well but she knows of him and kind of feels sorry for him and is like oh yeah that guy is kind of weird and brooding and edgy because you know Tyler's are edgies and I mean I guess I'll just end there I don't know if the actual romance is any good but like I said that prologue is pretty well put together if you're gonna start on a big fight like that do it where you're like in the character's heads or something similar to that as a brief palette cleanser I want to talk about a story on here that I genuinely liked it's called Storm by Cesar Vitaly Vitaly I think that's how you say that and this one is about a storm which just started in Los Angeles and it's been raining nonstop for about six months by the time the story begins it flooded out and killed most of the people there and destroyed all the infrastructure so there's very few survivors left and the few survivors left think that there are like weird phantoms walking around in the rain killing people and okay that immediately caught my attention I will admit and then we just have two separate storylines there's like a storyline with a character named Mary Lou and another girl named Amy and then the other storyline is a kid named Dean and a couple of his friends at a pizza shop and their storylines are both interesting in their own way like Mary Lou and Amy are hiding out at school and then all their food gets stolen and Mary Lou's pet snake dies and I felt weirdly sad when that happened it was only a couple of chapters and the snake was barely in there but I still felt weirdly sad when that happened and they decide okay we need to go off and get out of Los Angeles because we have no food there's barely any survivors left here like we're gonna die if we sit here for too long and then Dean and company are also getting ready to pack up and leave and my only real issue with this is that every chapter goes back and forth and they're not very long chapters so we get like a little bit with the girls and a little bit with the boys and a little bit with the girls I would say just combine like two or three of the chapters for each one if you're gonna go back and forth like that but the biggest problem I have with Storm is not that it has an unusual apocalypse because I like unusual apocalypses the idea has been done so much that coming up with a new idea is like credit something I want to give credit for on its own my biggest problem is that this has not been updated since June 28th 2017 yeah we got we got 11 chapters and then Cesar Batali just stopped writing 5 years ago and his profile hasn't been updated at all since then which I'm disappointed by like if Cesar sees this please continue because I actually like this story I want to see it completed of course if we're talking about teen romance we can't help but talk about bad boy romances and I mean of course that goes for teen romances and adult romances because shit like 50 shades of grey and 365 days that's bad boy romances we've got one called taken by the dark to taken by the dark what oh okay it's a mafia love story that's cool yeah there's a shortage of those Jesus Christ I don't remember the name of the woman who wrote 365 days but she should be put up for war crimes because of the amount of dark mafia romances we've been seeing ever since that book got big we've also got the nerd who cried bad boy and the woman on the cover is just straight up Selena Gomez okay what's the description Alyssa Hart a 17 year old nerd who was brutally bullied by everyone in Lockwood High Marcus Sawyer is the hot 18 year old bad boy former gang leader who was very popular in Lockwood High and around he has been arrested a few times and dated almost every girl he laid eyes on Alyssa decides to put a stop to it by lying and saying that she and the bad boy Marcus are dating when Marcus finds out they make a deal and both decide to stick to the lie which benefits them both getting popular by the minute Alyssa's high school life is what she had always wanted popular and wanted but Alyssa learns that dating a protective attractive former gang leader comes trouble and she must face the consequences okay some grammar issues obviously but again this one was actually completed so that's nice and all and this one starts with a whole long spiel about no more bullying because who wants to read when they start chapter one and then chapter two it's a cast and it has like all the characters but also like actors that they imagine the characters is looking like so there's obviously Selena Gomez as Alyssa and then some generic white pretty boy as Marcus another generic white pretty boy as Sam and another generic white pretty boy as Kendall and so on and so forth let's move to chapter three okay chapter three is where it actually begins every learner in Lockwood High shouted and cheered as they took videos and or pictures Amanda the girl I gave a sarcastic comeback to punch me again and again I wanted to cry but if I did I would be doing everyone a favor well what sarcastic comeback was it I mean okay I'm just happy it doesn't start with her getting ready for school she lifted me up and dropped me back to the floor and I landed on my butt I winced in pain and tried to block my face from getting beat up get up bitch she hollered at me shouldn't I be calling you that I answered and chuckled the audience ooh and odd and Amanda gritted her teeth boys she said and three boys came from the crowd and each one held my limbs so Amanda just like has minions that that she can summon at will that's a nice power to have so everyone in the crowd is super mean to Alyssa they're pelting her with food and laughing and taking pictures as she gets beat up and eventually class starts and they all have to leave and then she cries and then even as she's walking around the hallways teachers kids and janitors passed her by like she was invisible um okay that's a weird one to me like even if the bullying was gonna be this extreme somebody would care like especially teachers and stuff like I know that they talk about how the teachers are mean to her as well in this but that's just that's just stupid in addition to just not being very realistic and yada fucking yada the main problem with that sort of thing is that when you make something too melodramatic then you don't really have anywhere to go for the actual big serious story moments like I hate that I have to bring this up again like having to bring it up at all is too much but if you remember in stones to Abigail which is Onision's first book uh the story the world that the story takes place in is so goddamn over the top and so melodramatic all the time that when big events happen like the school shooting they don't even mean that much they just kind of happen and then they're over very casually and if your story starts off with the main character being bullied this bad then you don't really have anywhere to go from there and then Alyssa gets beat up again in the bathroom by a brunette girl named Jenny and then she gets beaten up some more and then she gets yelled at some more by the teachers and the other kids and everyone's so mean to her and then she runs into Marcus and Marcus is nice to her so she decides she likes Marcus like this is every incel's wet dream let me tell you just being polite to a girl and suddenly she's in love with you and then of course there's the devil's mate which is about a girl who loses her family in an accident and then falls in love with the devil which I suppose if you're going to be in love with a bad boy there's no boy batter than the devil I don't care if you're going to be in love with a bad boy the devil's a good one to choose my name is Aly and I'm 17 I go over to my friend Amy's house all the time and almost every time I go we play the Ouija board this time I want to do it at my house let me explain my mother, father died in a car accident two and a half weeks ago after their accident I became a bit of a shut in someone came to my house and told me I had inherited the house my parents small fortune and their life insurance including my brothers ok but you're under the age of 18 wouldn't there be some sort of custodian of all that for the next couple of months? the funeral is when it actually hit me that I was alone I cried all night until I had an epiphany remembering Amy's Ouija board so naturally I texted Amy hey I know we haven't talked in a while I'm over with the Ouija board she replies instantly are you fucking kidding me with like 18 exclamation points and question marks that's the first text you send me in weeks ok um Amy her entire family died in a horrific accident if this is supposedly your best friend couldn't you cut her a little bit of slack in that department so the rest of the chapter is just them playing with the Ouija board and then something happens it looks like Amy is getting possessed and then her eyes turn red with blood and apparently she's possessed by the devil and then this happens hello Ali a deep male voice says through Amy the entity touches my fingers with Amy's they are ice cold it's so nice to meet you my love he says huskily and smiles with Amy's face who are you his smile falls a little a demon but I won't hurt you ok but why is he already in love with her they've never met this is their first meeting as far as I'm aware so why is he in love with her exactly so then after this they go through a very you know romantic first meeting where he takes over her friend's body without consent and says some weird stuff and tells her ok I'll let your friend's body go if you just go to hell with me after you die and she agrees to it and her friend Amy doesn't remember anything and then two years pass and nothing happens and we're just gonna stop after that like I don't think there's anywhere to go from there see that one commits the cardinal sin of having like kind of an interesting setup but just being really boring in execution you know it again it doesn't start with the main character getting ready for school at least but it it does just have them going to school a lot and the whole Ouija board thing could have just been one chapter rather than two but whatever serialized fiction sometimes has weird pacing like that from what I read at least Ali was properly freaked out that the devil or some demon or something was actually showing romantic interest in her which is you know you should be freaked out if that happens just saying ok we're running a little low on time here so our final story of the day is going to be my neighbor my boss and an incubus wait I'm sorry is that supposed to rhyme like my neighbor my boss and an incubus incubus my neighbor my boss and an incubus yeah like that doesn't work it feels like it should rhyme but it doesn't so I don't think I can read you the description without getting demonetized basically she moved into an apartment next to her new boss and her boss is an incubus so he has a lot of sex all the time and we get to chapter one and I literally cannot read you any of this chapter like it starts off with the main character just being annoyed that her boss is having very loud sex in the room next door god I hope they hurry up and finish as I groaned into the pillow from the frustration yeah that's about all I can read to you ok can we ladies can we please stop making the word daddy so sexual can we just stop referring to your sexual partners as daddy it's weird or at least if you're going to do it in an unusual way start calling them pop you know give it to me pop like that sort of thing just have fun with it yeah I wish I could read you more of this but like there's nothing I can there's nothing I can go in there for I'll give it credit that it goes all the way with its subject matter though and like I said that's gonna be the end of this segment for today at least I don't know how long it'll be before I do another weird wattpad story video maybe I'll just hey if I find like one specific really weird one that I can go into more detail on maybe I'll have fun with that the main thing I noticed while I was looking through for a lot of these is that they will come up with these again crazy ideas but then they'll portray them in a mundane way and I think part of that is that they don't really know any other way to do it like so many of these start with main characters waking up and getting ready for school or some other events because well that's just how so many other wattpad stories begin that when people read a bunch of them they forget that oh yeah I can do this in a different way so my main advice to anyone who's trying to make it as a writer whether you're on wattpad or just in general would be to branch out you know read stuff not just in a variety of genres on this website but like read more regular books read manga stuff like that you know anyways wattpad it's always a fun place to find teenagers with no shame putting their dreams out into the world I'll see you next time bye thank you soon thank you thank you goodbye