Slap to the Head Fanfiction! (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ficbitches) wrote,@ 2003-06-16 20:19:00 |
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keepin' you satisfied with a guest review!
Guest-Reviewed by VoidStar
SCORING:
PLOT: 1/5
CHARACTERIZATION: 1/5
WRITING: 1/5
INEXPLICABLE VILLIFYING OF A MINOR CHARACTER: 10/5
VoidStar here--semi-longtime reader, first-time Ficbitcher. But as a great lover of bad fanfiction, it was probably inevitable that I'd give it a shot. I hope you all enjoy this effort!
Submitted for your approval: a piece of Final Fantasy X yuri, featuring the pairing of Lulu and Rikku. Neither of these things really give an indication of how amazingly, offensively bad this story is.
Gleaning yuri innuendo from FFX is, in this reviewer's humble opinion, not the most difficult thing in the world to do. And the Lulu/Rikku pairing, while perhaps less likely than some, is not completely implausible. You could work with Rikku's yearning to be like Lulu, for instance--her attraction to Lulu's calmness and maturity.
But this is not about what could have been, but rather what is, and what this story is is horrid. (It is also, I should note, an ongoing work. This review is based on the first of the three chapters that have been posted so far.) Rather than
working with what the game already provides, the author has decided to strike out in a bizarre direction all her own. The first chapter opens with Rikku being somewhat in character, but don't be fooled!
“Ahhh!” Rikku screamed into the dead of night as a flash of lightning and the dull roar of thunder sounded in the distance. Gripping at her bed sheets the blonde Al-Bhed whimpered into the total darkness of her room as the noises crept into her bittersweet dreams.
For those of you who have yet to play FFX and are reading along anyway, Rikku has a long-standing fear of thunder and lightning, thanks to her brother hitting her with a lightning spell by mistake when she was younger. This incident is fairly cut-and-dried: Rikku was being attacked by a monster, her brother tried to help and screwed up, Rikku came out of the scrape somewhat traumatized. Her fear of lightning is brought up all of once in the entire game, and is more comic relief than anything else. Unfortunately for us, the author has decided to latch on to this particular facet of Rikku's past and transform it into Something More.
Speaking of transforming things into Something More, this author has the annoying stylistic habit of pumping her prose full of needlessly big words and analogies, possibly in an attempt to make the story seem "poetic", or perhaps to conceal her inability to grasp the finer points of punctuation, grammar, and syntax. If you've never heard the term "purple prose" before, this story is more or less an instruction manual in how to write the stuff. From the first chapter alone, we have this gem:
Sniffling lightly the blonde Al-Bhed reclaimed Lulu’s waist and tightly drew the older woman close to her small body for both comfort and warmth both of which she was lacking at the moment, and instinctively interlocked her long legs with at Lulu’s.
And that's only four paragraphs in. This example also brings us back to the rather rapid progression of the plot. Lulu has come to Rikku's room to try and help Rikku sleep better. Although I suppose I could see her checking in on Rikku or something, I can't really see her getting as immediately touchy-feely as she does--Lulu's really only that affectionate with Yuna, the heroine of FFX. But the author has her stroking Rikku's hair. She also has Rikku react by leaping into Lulu's lap, and when even this is not enough to quiet Rikku down, Lulu actually crawls into bed with her, which in turn leads to the sentence quoted above.
So now, two characters with pretty much zero in the way of physical contact over the course of the game are lying in bed together, legs "interlocked" as though it were nothing at all unusual. They lie this way for a while, and in the ensuing conversation it's established that Lulu slipping into Rikku's room at night and snuggling her when she has nightmares is
apparently something that happens fairly often.
And yet, this jarring warp into the Cuddly Zone is really only the beginning, for the true thrust of Scratching the Surface lies in its author's vision of what really happened when Rikku got clocked by that lightning spell. After a brief conversation that, like the opening paragraph, flirts with the idea of being in-character--Rikku notes that she wants to start learning magic, in order to emulate Lulu, and perhaps to eliminate some of her phobia--Lulu decides to start digging into Rikku's past. This is another bit where the author's style really shines. And by "shines" I mean "confuses and angers any halfway sane reader."
“Rikku I have to ask you a question, and it maybe a little prying but I must know for certain, just to ease my own mind if nothing else.” Declared Lulu in a serious tone that could have chilled even Shiva to the core, Rikku nodded and she shivered from both the storm and the older woman’s sudden change in demeanor.
Since we've already established that this author has stylistic problems in the worst possible way, I'll focus my ire towards this example on Lulu's mood swing. I mean, seriously, what the Hell? Why the shift from tender and comforting to coldhearted? Is
this really the best way to go about asking a potentially sensitive question about a person's past? Sure, Lulu can be a little aloof, but she's not incapable of tenderness or delicacy. Besides, isn't the story trying to lead us to believe that she and Rikku are all lovey-dovey close now, thus making the sudden frigid tone all the more incomprehensible?
But at any rate, it seems as though Lulu has perceived something deeper than a mere fear of the elements in Rikku's storm phobia. It's obvious to her that Rikku is "in pain" somehow. Aaaah, but how? What could she be hiding? Well...
“I…I don’t really remember much after it happened. Its all fuzzy, like a bad dream.” The blonde stated with a far away look in her eyes, Lulu could feel the younger girl trembling against her body as if she were frozen to the morrow of her bones.
Uh-oh, it seems we're repressing things. C'mon, Rikku, spill the beans!
"...I started to have a good time, until the fiend showed up. Brother saw it coming before I had a chance to swim away, and he…he raised his hand and lightning struck the water fiend but the electricity current traveled and zapped me too. It gets hazy after that, I just remember brother pulling me on the shore and….”
Okay, so far so good, this is pretty much in line with what's already been established...
“Lulu, brother wouldn’t have done what I remember him doing. He just wouldn’t, I know my brother and I know he isn’t like that.”
...What?
“I remember him pulling my shirt off my body leaving me in my bra, then…I remember him looking around nervously and telling me to relax because he was just checking my injuries. But, that wasn’t what he was doing."
DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
I will spare you the rest of the gory details (mainly because the remaining portion of the paragraph is too damned long), but I think you can all figure it out on your own: Rikku's brother took advantage of her incapacitated state and raped her.
Now, far be it from me to say that people shouldn't write stories about delicate, traumatic subjects like rape. Far be it from me to suggest that a story in which rape is actually portrayed as an act of violation as opposed to an aggressive romantic overture (a far more common problem in slash than you might think) is a bad thing. But this shit just don't fly, you dig? Rikku's brother doesn't get much characterization in FFX, but none of what he does get even remotely suggests that he'd be capable of brutally (and I mean brutally, the author has him beat her pretty badly) raping his younger sister and then intimidating her into keeping it a secret for years. I mean, if you're going to make a character into a rapist, choose one who might actually conceivably commit rape. The only member of the FFX cast I could see doing that would be Seymour, but it would be all but impossible to contrive a situation in which he and Rikku would be alone for long enough for him to do the vile deed, I suppose. I think it's more likely that the author simply didn't like Brother and decided that was all the justification she needed.
That ties in with the second major objection I have, which is the fact that the only purpose the rape serves in the storyline is to push Rikku and Lulu closer together. This is not about exploring the damaged mental landscape of a rape victim, this is not an inspiring tale of recovery from a truly horrific crime--this is all about pushing Lulu into comforting Rikku, and using that as a launchpad for a rocket bound straight for the Bad Yuri Planet.
Anyway, Lulu ends up spending the night in Rikku's room. The author scores a few fractions of a point for not making Rikku and Lulu indulge in Comfort Sex right then and there--rare restraint indeed, but unfortunately not enough to deflect the fiery train
wreck bearing down upon an orphanage that is this fanfic.
We cut to the next day, where we are treated to a brief interlude in which Wakka catches the two sleeping in each other's arms and bitches out Rikku and Lulu both, making the reasonable assumption that they'd been screwing around. Hell, that's what I
assumed they were going to be doing, what with all the hot hot leg-interlocking in the first scene. The author saddles Wakka with a prejudice against homosexuals to go with his prejudice against the Al-Bhed, which makes me roll my eyes a bit, but Wakka is a rather socially conservative sort. So I can let it go.
Once Wakka leaves, Rikku asks Lulu what he meant by a certain term--"screwing." Lulu explains, and Rikku is horrified; apparently, she equates all sex with rape. (GEE, I WONDER IF THIS IS SETTING UP A SCENE IN WHICH LULU TEACHES HER OTHERWISE) Mercifully, Lulu tells Rikku that she's wrong, but that she shouldn't rush herself to learn the difference. Pretty sensible advice. Of course, "sensibility" in this story can never last longer than half a paragraph. Rikku gives Lulu a kiss out of nowhere, announcing that she wanted Lulu to be the first person she kissed. Lulu replies that she wants Rikku all to herself. Um, gee, coming on a bit strong with someone who's never had a real relationship before and almost certainly has a great big raft of trust issues thanks to being assaulted by a family member, aren't we? Rikku vows to never leave Lulu's side (Lulu's greatest nightmare is being left alone, apparently), and the best damned set of sentences in the whole chapter gets thrown at us:
“Because you never know when someone will fall in love with that smile.” Rikku declared softly as she placed soft kisses under Lulu’s ear, and across her neck until she lightly brushed her lips over the older woman’s chin and finally pressed against the mage’s mouth with a sealing kiss of her promise. A light blush rose up in both guardians faces as they deepened the embrace making silent vows of never ending love, suddenly a gasp spun both Lulu and Rikku out of their blissful moment of complete union.
That's right, sharing traumas makes you soul mates. Honestly, is there any romantic cliche more loathsome and insipid than "love comes out of fucking nowhere?" (Not to be confused with "love at first sight.")
Thankfully, the first chapter is drawing to a close, and now that Lulu and Rikku have bonded over how evil Rikku's brother is, the author is safe to spend the rest of the fic plotting his demise and writing "cute" sex scenes. The rest of the chapter focuses on the latter. Yuna catches the two kissing, gets embarrassed, and runs off. For some reason, this leads to some intense Lulu-on-Rikku tickling, which leads quickly to sex. The chapter ends before any details are shared, but...yeah, let's recap: Rikku relates her tale of violation and suffering at her brother's hands to Lulu; the next day, we learn that Rikku does not understand the difference between rape and consensual sex; later that same day, Lulu is teaching her the ways of a worldly woman.
I read all three chapters and was going to try and review them all, but they're loooong chapters, and pointing out the idiocy of the first was taxing enough. Suffice to say, Scratching the Surface combines the great cliches of bad slash with a
hilariously bad writing style, painfully bad characterization, and an (un)healthy dose of trivializing the effects of rape to produce quite a potent package of bad fanfiction. If you're brave, all three chapters can be found at the link above. I leave you, then, with a selection from the author's notes at the end.
So what did you think, I am planning on writing a follow up to this story and oh yes, Rikku will know how to make love by that time.
Is that a threat or a promise? Either way, it only gets worse from here, folks. Enjoy!
