Illegal Operations: Project K Chronicles, Resident Evil [FINAL THOUGHTS]

I sometimes worry that I'm taking things too seriously. I really do. I mean this isn't like in the past with the Dark Ages or Medieval Times in general when things were not at their happiest but it doesn't escape the fact that every once in awhile people enjoy an escapist fantasy. Trust me, I can understand the appeal for things as such where the story's morals are a simple "good versus evil" or "true love conquers all", I do. Even well-thought out wish fulfillment fics I enjoy reading.

Some people may stumble across this and say I just need to lighten up and that the story is just for fun.

But here's the big thing; this story was not fun. The plot was not fun. None of the characters fun.

This fic is filled with horrible themes that are mistreated by the writer in question and two-dimensional characters in general.

Plot

As I had stated back in Russian Territories the problem here is that there is far too much jammed into one storyline, many of which do not have the necessary time or length spent on them or even have their endings set up and presented. We start with the fairly simple "Good versus Evil" set up that being Karla's clone being the ultimate evil and the end boss to defeat. She is the main focus and is the cause for much of what is happening - except she's not.

After a few short scenes she's forgotten about almost entirely for much of the fifty-three chapters that this series spans over. Here the few times we are privy to K and her actions and plans she acts much like a spoiled child and not anything to be feared of. This makes any tension or fear felt on the part of the heroes seem silly.

Likewise we have the side plots of Karla's wanted felon status being introduced and never resolved, Demitri secretly being the thought of deceased Joseph Frost, and even an aside with Wesker and Hana/Alexis that is never resolved in a realistic or compelling manner. Everything falls short or comes across as rushed and added in as last-minute planning. Likewise the protagonists are all over the globe and its hard to even say what's being focused on and is most important when the characters say that A is most important to resolve and then instead spend chapters on end focusing solely on problem B.

Due to these issues we have a choppy and jumbled plotline, much of which has twists and points that are never adequately explored. Much of what she writes about it is painfully obvious that Gabby15cancer did not do the research on making for a poorly written and poorly constructed story that is hard to take in because of its lack of realism.

Characterization

As I had in Russian Territories I will only make mention of Gabby15cancer's fan characters so as save us time.

Karla Smith I said in Russian Territories that Karla had not changed since Project K. If that had been true than the fact of the matter is that she only gets worse through the course of Project K Chronicles. While she still is a spoiled brat who expects her way she degrades in characterization. What once she was able to at least fight back in Project K she doesn't even do that half of the time. Instead she chooses to focus on whining and moaning about her situation and doing nothing to alleviate said scenario that has her so miserable.

Karla even becomes more manipulative even using a federal agent's feelings for her to be the most comfortable while under custody despite the fact that this is highly illegal for the agent to be doing as such.

Time and again she's portrayed as this delicate damsel who is so very selfless and brave in the face of whatever life throws at her but time and again she's constantly abusing the men around her (mostly that of David Conway) and bossing them around when they aren't doing what she wants. When she is very nearly raped she merely shrugs the situation off and jokes about it. As she did in Russian Territories she again has no qualms with imposing her wants and desires onto others so that the writer can make her seem much more caring or understanding than the OOC canon characters she is then upstaging.

On another note she is consistently putting herself in precarious and dangerous situations without taking any safety measures or precautions before walking into them. It makes her not seem brave or badass, as the author clearly intended, but stupid and ignorant. Because of this it makes it very hard to root for her as a character.

While she had been a static character through Project K and Russian Territories she becomes an absolutely loathsome creature in this and it's hard to feel any sympathy for her at all whenever she's in any danger or misery.

Milla Dubrovlsky As she had been in the successor to this series Milla remains as flat as she was when she first was introduced. Unlike in the second series, however, she is pushed thoroughly into the background and only used as fodder to drag Karla into the limelight again for K's plots. The character does not grow but again degrades as Karla had.

While she had the mentality more of an adult in the previous series she now acts more like a child when we see her with the disturbing change to adult mentality every now and again when it suits the writer's needs.

David Conway Thrown completely out of nowhere into the series David is nothing more than a perverted, loud-mouthed moron who does nothing but serve as the victim to Karla's constant verbal and physical abuse whenever he may piss her off. Likewise the man is rife with sexual harassment, his favored target being Karla all so that Gabby15cancer may point out more of her self-insert's physical attributes in a lusty nature.

Like the others David does not grow from his initial introduction but instead retains the same personality all the way through. He has no other modes other than Pissed, Sexual Harasser, and Annoyance. While the author might have thought it cute and funny that David and Karla constantly argue and insult each other it merely makes out both characters to be raging bastards.

Mark Conway Since Mark's introducing into Project K Chronicles he has no defining personality traits to speak of. He is merely there, in the background and often forgotten about until he speaks again. If I had to liken him to anything it would be to that of cardboard as he seems to have no individuality at all that sets him apart from the other characters that arise in this fic.

K For one who is set to be the ultimate villain in the series she falls seriously short of the mark. Annoyance is the best to describe her with and worthless as the worst.

While we are supposed to fear her and be worried about what havoc she may wreck on the world and on Karla's life she plays more the part of 'unseen menace'. Unlike Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series or Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, however, K does not hold enough emotional gravity on her own to be an 'unseen menace'. In Harry Potter we continually hear about the horrible deeds that Lord Voldemort have committed and his twisted ideals while in Final Fantasy VII we hear about how Sephiroth went made and burned down an entire town of innocents over finding out his true parentage/origin. These were enough to hold the fans over and to dread or eagerly await the heroes' final confrontation with them.

Instead she comes across as very petty and childish and not in the way that the writer intended. Instead she seems like someone who is merely trying her best to play the part of villain without knowing what it actually means to do so or what it entails.

Hana/Alexis A character who shows up only a handful of times and holds no real personality other than her change from token bubbly and hyper girl to a more laid-back type of woman. The change is instantaneous upon her reveal of her past and it's rather jarring especially when afterwards we view so little of her to get to know her as a character. It's almost as if even Gabby15cancer oftentimes forgot that the character even existed in her story.

Style

Things have not changed much since Russian Territories in this neck of the woods. Mood-setting, environment building and characterization are all thin and oftentimes very piss poor and glossed over almost entirely. Spelling has not improved much and grammar is still horridly massacred. While run-ons are not as present as they were since the start of this reviewing adventure through the Leon Kennedy series they are still present among many fragments.

Again all detailing is minimalist at best and feelings of characters glossed over entirely in order for Gabby15cancer to merely tell us how everyone is feeling despite being set from a focal character's point of view. Time and again her plot twists are not built up to but instead brought in from out of nowhere and any that were being built upon her ruined by her improper use of red herrings.

Coming Together

You know what? I think Mervin over on das_sporking says it best when she was talking about Eclipse.

Mervin wrote:

…dear God. Man. It’s like when your estranged brother calls you for the third time, and you can tell he’s drunk, but he really needs you to come bail him out of jail because the cops are a bunch of bitches and locked him up for weaving a little (and he’ll need to borrow your car for a while, because he wrecked his), and you don’t want to, but you feel obligated because he’s your brother. So you bail him out, and he slurs that he needs to crash at your place for a bit, and you stupidly let him into your house again, because you didn’t learn from the previous two times, and soon he’s puking on your carpet, stocking your fridge with cheap beer, making your couch smell like bad socks, ordering a bunch of movies with your cable and charging it to you, filling your computer with viruses from all the porn he’s downloading, bringing diseased hookers into your house, and groping your wife. Which you knew he would do, because you’ve let him do this twice before, but you were stupid and let him in again.