MJJY2J set up a wonderful site for fic reviews, to give a forum for writers to get feedback, and also to give readers an idea of what might and might not be good to read. That site, Fic Fever, is no longer operating, but I've included the reviews I did for it here, as well as a little about my "qualifications" as a fic reviewer!
About me:
I am a fanfic addict! I've been an avid fanfic reader for about five years now, in all sorts of fandoms - I don't discriminate!
I was introduced to the WWE a few years ago and glommed on to it straight away! Nothing better than half-naked men, all sweaty and glistening, doing manly, muscly things . . . oops, time for a cold shower!
As in most fandoms, wrestling fanfic frustrates me intensely! I am a literate person, and I like to think I know about story and character development. But being able to find the gold among the dross of all the fanfic out there is tough - just cos a site is pretty doesn't mean the fic is any good, and some of the simplest sites have the very best fics. And some sites aren't on search engines, so you have to have someone "show you the way".
In case you are wondering what gives me the qualifications to review fanfics, I am indeed a fanfic writer. Apart from my fic here, my work in the Stargate SG1 fandom can be found in the Gutter Gate Command, a quirky little website that's got to be worth a giggle. Check out the Gutter Map Room for the fanfic library and my stories at http://www.geocities.com/colonelnepi/ggc.htm
How do I get reviewed?
I'm happy to review sites or stories on request, so if you'd like me to take a peek, contact me! But be warned, I will be brutally honest!
Please send any comments, questions or submissions to [email protected] . Please put "Review request" in the subject line.
Nephthys'
ratings: Goozles 
(an obscure reference I know!)
Reviews
You know, my momma always told me, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. But that would make for a pretty short review, so I've been thinking hard about something positive I can say about this fic. It's nicely typed. There are no obvious spelling or grammatical errors, it's a nice page layout which is easy to read, even if the centre justified thing is a bit weird . It's also on one page, so I could save it offline and read it at my leisure. Which is a good thing, because it took me four or five goes to get through this piece of dreck!
Now I'm prepared to admit that I might be the wrong audience for this fic, seeing how I am more Taker's age than Alex's (OC), but still - can we say "Mary-Sue rides again!!"?? Pretty perky Alex - the girl you love to hate! She's gorgeous (of course), she's got a killer bod, she's got all the cool toys (laptop and wireless cable modem), she's way smart, she cooks like a dream. Oh yeah, and she's only 17 but never gets carded cos she looks 23.
Of course, Alex being such a Mary-Sue, she's daughter of someone famous (Paul Bearer), but her best friend is married to Kane and then her other best friend marries Test at the end, she's friends with the McMahon ladies and of course Edge is in love with her.
As far as the story line, well, it's pretty predictable. I knew as soon as I read the first few paras that Taker was going to end up with someone much younger (the title was a dead giveaway on that). Wonderful Alex gets to do all kinds of cool stuff - like drink illegally, gamble and win all the time, have a "prom" with the guys from the WWE, and then get engaged to Mark Callaway the day she turns 18, after they fell in love in a day! Then they get married and have a baby, all in the folds of the WWE.
This is a bog standard teeny fic. And if that wasn't enough to put you off, I absolutely loathe the character of Mark Calloway in this fic.
I like the Deadman plenty, but the idea that Mark Callaway is a total loser who dates women he can't see only want him cos he's Taker? What is he - brain damaged? Well, judging by the fact that he goes after the 17 year old daughter of a friend and colleague, yep I guess he is.
He gets a hard on just looking at her - okay, that's par for the course, cos she is Mary-Sue after all, irresistable to all, but he's prepared to "wait" until she's older. Hang on, he's willing to wait until she's legal to boff her (well, apart from the oral sex of course), but he'll let her drink and gamble underage? This guy gets dumber by the minute!
Let's not forget that they fall in love in an afternoon, after Alex has been moaning about what an old creep he is. What on earth to they have to talk about to fall in love? Lust, I'll grant you, is instantaneous. Lust I'll buy - he gets the hots for her bad cos she's stacked (the author helpfully tells us the Alex is a 38D). But love - real, deep emotion, based on shared interests and life goals, being soul mates? Nope - not going to happen! I'd buy it if it started as lust and then morphed to love after time, but he's there tellin' her he's in love with her - what a meatball this guy is!
At least he realises she's too young for him. But what's he going to do about it - oh yeah, he'll wait until she's 18? I think they call that "grooming" in paedophile circles. Only he can't wait - lust again, not love. First he goes down on an underage virgin, and then convinces said virgin to give him as expert a blow job as any hooker. That's lust, and statutory rape, and borderline pedophilia - not love. He's thinking with his little head, not his big head, or his heart.
Be realistic, what man that age is going to fall in love with a schoolgirl (even if she is a super Mary-Sue), wait til she's 18 to get engaged, marry her and then spend the first four years of their married life as a househusband and stay at home dad while she goes off to college? Oh yeah, and then she gets this primo web design job from Vinnie Mac, so looks like he's got lots more years being super Dad. Somehow I pictured Mark Calloway having more ambition, business sense - and let's face it, testicular fortitude - than that.
To be honest, this reads a lot like a little teen fantasy with no real understanding of the realities of a mature, adult, sexual relationship. It really centres around the whole "falling in love" thing, which doesn't happen in an afternoon after one brief conversation with someone who, for the only time in the story, actually acts like an honest to god teenage brat.
The fact that "Colleen" and "Joanne" are additional OC figures makes me think that these are the author's friends, so it's cool to include them in the fantasy too. Only if I were "Colleen", I would be a bit ticked off. She makes an appearance early in the story IM-ing with Alex, but then doesn't make an appearance til the end, where she's miraculously married Test. In the words of the Hurricane, "What's up wid dat?"
The sex wasn't even that good - I can overlook a lot (including total absence of plot!) for really good smut, but the gooshy, teeny, unrealistic love stuff killed it for me. And if I heard Alex call Mark "big guy" and him call her "baby girl" one more time, I would have barfed like a chicken!
I actually wondered if this was written tongue-in-cheek as a Mary-Sue parody, but it appears not. So, in order to try to be constructive, here are some tips for the author:
1. Do your research and be consistent. If Mark Calloway's hips are so bad that he's looking forward to hip replacement surgery soon, then he's not going to be running up stairs to jerk off any time soon! Be realistic, when was the last time you saw Taker run in the ring, where he's paid to be a sports entertainer? If he's not doing it there, where he's paid to, then he ain't doin' it at home!
2. I'm not sure what the age of consent is in the USA, but in most places it's 16. So Alex is not "jailbait" at 17 and a bit. But if she is, then oral sex is just as much a crime as penetration.
3. It's a crime for juveniles to be in a casino. And while casinos may turn a blind eye to them wandering through or dropping a coin in a slot, they damn sure aren't going to let them gamble or sit at a table with someone who is. And they will card you.
4. Ditto for the drinking. I understand the drinking age in the USA in some states is 21, so that's even more of a no-no.
5. About those winning streaks - I know that your OC is Mary-Sue who can do no wrong, but if casinos gave away money that easy, the mob wouldn't have anything to do with them cos they wouldn't make any money!
6. The death of Grandma - the use of a plot device to get two people together is one thing, but I think it's pretty low when things like death, violence or sexual assault are used in this way, unless the characters actually deal with the situation meaningfully. Alex and Mark don't deal with the tragedy - it's just a way to get them from one location to another for more snuggling, kissing and handholding. Mary-Sue - sorry, Alex - is all upset when she finds out about Grandma, but then it's all cool cos she can use grannie's death as an excuse for a walk and time alone with Mark, blah, blah, blah.
My rating - zero Goozles. If I were younger and more idealistic, and less discerning, maybe it would be better. But I'm not, so it's Crapapalooza! (which was the Fic Fever term for "don't even bother" fic!)
Sweet Poison - by Ladie Butterfly
Review of Sweet Poison – or "Please mommy, don't make me read any more or I'll be sick – honest I will!"
This fic is incomplete (still) and the only reason I got as far as I did was because I was fascinated that something could be so . . . words fail me. I'd like to present my review as a series of rules that, in my opinion, Ladie Butterfly has broken – in the hopes that it may be instructional as well as informative.
Rule number 1 - Don't make your OC (original character) too perfect.
No one really likes to read about women who are so much better than they could ever hope to be. There's no fun in reading about the woman who gets to shag your favourite wrestler six ways from Sunday if she is so damn perfect that there's no hope for you to achieve the same desire!
Real women find love and lust all the time, ya know? Hot, sweaty, steamy sex and passion, and everlasting love is not limited to supermodels and the rich and talented. Chubby women with mid-level jobs can get lucky too!
Example: Ladie Butterfly's OC, Diva is, not in any particular order:
Oh please!!! Cut me some slack! NOBODY is that perfect - except Martha Stewart, and they threw her ass in prison!
Rule number 2 - don't give your perfect OC a token less-than-perfect aspect
This is a trashy Mills and Boon type "technique" that doesn't cut it any better on the web. You know, the OC has utterly perfect looks except for a slightly crooked front tooth.
While Afghan rug makers deliberately weave a mistake into a rug, because only Allah is perfect, and the Amish and Mennonites do the same with quilts, giving an OC a token flaw is . . . well, tokenistic!
Example: Diva is just so gosh darned beautiful, except that she has this big scar on her face. Only it doesn't detract from her beauty at all.
Which leads me to the next rule . . .
Rule number 3 - don't steal ideas from other fanfic writers. EVER
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but when it's done by writers, it's called plagiarism and it's just not done.
You may quote another writer, making sure you attribute the quote adequately. You may incorporate another writer's OC, but only after you have sought and received permission to do so. And as a courtesy, given the fic to that writer to approve before publishing.
Ladie Butterfly, just because it's fanfic and it's published on the web does not make it any less of a sin to steal someone else's ideas. People who write fanfic have put a lot of creative effort into what they write (even when it's crap!), and for someone to come along and, in effect, say "Oh, I like that! *yoiks* I'll take it" is utterly inappropriate.
Stealing someone else's ideas because you cannot be bothered to make up your own, or because you are looking for shortcuts, is wrong. At university and in the publishing world, they slam you hard for it. If you do it with wrestling fanfic on the web, trust me, someone like me will call you on it!
Rule number 4 - do your research
Yeah, it's only wrestling fanfic, but you'd like your readers not to come "thunk" up against something completely wrong as they wander through your story.
The Internet is pretty damn fabulous for research - search engines like Google mean that you are generally only a few clicks away from finding out if something is correct. Take the time, okay? Sloppy (or non-existent) research says to me that you just couldn't be bothered. So if you couldn't be bothered to get your facts even halfway right, why should I bother even reading any further? And isn't the whole point of publishing your fic on the web to get people to read it? If it's not, then why bother publishing it? Save it to your hard drive and stop inflicting it on others!!
Example: In Sweet Poison, OC Diva ends up with a cervical tear following rough sex with Y2J. The symptoms of this are a bellyache that won't go away. WRONG! Cervical tears are usually only associated with abortion and childbirth. Cervical bruising may be a side effect of rough sex with a "large" man, but actual tearing? Please, a penis may be described as "hard as steel" but it's flesh after all. In a grown woman, it's unlikely to cause an injury like this. In a child . . . well, let's not even go there, ok?
The treatment for this cervical tear is a few stitches. Ladie, let me just say this. If OC Diva had a cervical tear that required a few stitches to repair it, regardless of the impossibility of getting it this way, then by the time you got her to a doctor to have her stitched up, she would be long dead, because she would have bled to death. A cervical tear requiring stitches to repair will bleed - a lot.
As for the bellyache, well, injury to the cervix, even contraction and dilation of the cervix, can be very painful. Could she have gotten through the "personal appearance" at Smackdown with a torn cervix, bleeding to death as she was? Not a chance!
Then Kevin Nash opines that while he never tore Diva's cervix while having sex with her, he did "knock an ovary" a couple of times. Basic anatomy lesson - to feel or find the ovary requires a pelvic examination coupled with an external exam. You can't do it just with a penis. And besides, how the hell would most men know just what they were feeling at that moment?!?!?
A further example, moving away from the gory medical stuff. OC Diva has won the Pulitzer Prize for a gothic romance. Um, generally speaking, the Pulitzer is awarded for novels of a somewhat more literary nature. Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" comes to mind. It is unlikely in the extreme to be awarded for a novel about a werewolf. No way, no how. Find another award this preposterously fabulous woman could have been awarded - but hands off the Pulitzer.
(Just have to add another example from Ladie Butterfly, because it's bothered me ever since I read it. In another of her stories, Breathe, Triple H's OC little sister Candy (at least I think that was her name) has an ectopic pregnancy and her body "pushes out" the miscarriage. One or the other, Ladie. If she has a miscarriage, yes, there will be cramping and expelling of the by-products of conception. If she has an ectopic pregnancy, associated with vaginal bleeding, then without intervention, she is dead. An ectopic pregnancy is one that forms in the fallopian tube. Once you get to the "pain and bleeding" stage, the fallopian tube has ruptured and internal bleeding results. Surgery is necessary to stop the bleeding. If the ectopic is found before that (usually through pregnancy and hormone testing, accompanied by ultrasound examination), then surgery may not be necessary, as drug treatments can "dissolve" the fertilised egg. But this usually requires close medical supervision until it is certain that the egg has dissolved and is no longer in danger of rupturing the fallopian tube.)
Rule number 5 - do not make light of, or trivialise in any way, any form of domestic or sexual abuse - EVER
Oh, this one really gets me. Domestic abuse, abuse of women or children or any form of sexual abuse is absolutely NOT something to be trivialised in fanfiction, of any sort.
This is not a plot device - it is an appalling crime against humanity and society in general. It should not be dumbed down or sugar coated.
What I'm talking about here is chucking it in the story to make people feel sorry for the OC or some such bullshit. If it's germane to the story, then so be it - but deal with it sensitively and show that there are serious consequences for both the abuser and the victim.
Example: How about the fact that one of OC Diva's pseudo-children was sexually abused by one of her boyfriends? This is just a toss in, throw away, so we can all say "Oh what an awful thing, poor Diva" and then go on to the next sex scene. No frickin' way! This is what I mean by trivialising something - if you want to use it, then use it - make it a challenge for your OCs, and their relationships.
Rule number 6 - be consistent in your characterisation
Remember how you have defined your OC, and stick to it!! I guess this might be a trap in a stream-of-consciousness fic (I mean, a long fic, written in multiple chapters, in progress over time). You know, you started it months ago, and you're continually chucking new stuff in cos you have a new fantasy you want to write about. So of course you might forget what you said about your OC in the first few chapters, and have her doing the complete opposite.
Or maybe you do remember what you said she was like, but have decided that it doesn't hold for this particular thing.
Or perhaps you feel straightjacketed by the way she started out, so you just decide to change her. I mean, who's gonna notice, right? The people who read it will notice!
Newsflash! People generally do behave consistently, okay? Those who don't are either liars or con artists, or should be medicated for things like bipolar disorder.
Example: Diva is a woman of contradictions. Way too many of them.
She lives on cereal - breakfast, lunch, dinner. Oh wait, she cooks beautiful food instead. Nope, it's back to cereal again.
She is the clumsiest woman alive. No wait, she is a brilliant in-line skater who once played ice hockey. She is athletic enough to do wrestling moves like a kick-up. Ooops, she fell down again just walking.
She's a little tiny waif. No wait, she has thighs strong enough to make Chris Jericho wince when she clamps them around him.
She is a raunchy slut who gets off on making guys pop in their pants in a public bar. Ooops, she gets all embarrassed when Y2J says something risque. She gets all bent out of shape when the tables are turned on her. Nope, back to raunchy slut.
She's bisexual, and won't give up women. Oh wait, yes she will!
She's a great mother to her pseudo-kids. Hang on, she's off for days at a time as a camp follower for the WWE. Nope, she can't go someplace because her kids come first.
She's bold as brass, full of confidence. Nope, she's a shy little thing who vomits when she gets all upset. Whoops, bold as brass again!
She's an out and out sex goddess who plays with men's emotions. No, wait, she's Kevin Nash's sex toy. No, wait, her heart was broken by Shawn Michaels. Nope, she's a sex goddess using Christian as a plaything. Now she's all gushy and gooey over being Chris Jericho's girlfriend.
I could go on, but I'm starting to get a headache from the way this woman twirls and whirls!
Rule number 7 - a good beta reader is a godsend
I know, I know, we all think we are the greatest writer in the world, and we have all these terrific ideas and great OCs and all the rest. But even the best of us need an editor!
A good betareader - that is, one who reads a second time - iss your best friend, if you are serious about producing quality fanfiction. They will pick up the spelling mistakes that the spell checker misses (you do know to use a spell checker, right?), they'll hopefully correct your grammar, and they should point out large and gaping holes in your plots and characterisations.
Great betareaders will give you suggestions on tightening up your story lines, and on improving the wallop your story hopefully packs. They will point out to you if you've unwittingly "borrowed" from someone else's work, or if you are copying a similar story line.
You need a good, literate, honest betareader to make sure you don't drop clangers like the following! I won't bore you with a long list of errors (oh wait, I already have!!) But this one is my favourite - it's a classic!
OC Diva "whelps" every time something surprises her. For one, a good betareader will tell you when you overuse something. For another, they would tell you that "to whelp" is to give birth to pups or other live young! The term you are looking for is "yelps", ok? OC Diva gives a whole new meaning to the term "puppies"!!!!
Ladie Butterfly, if you do have a betareader - get a better one!
I will openly admit that I only read the first 30 some chapters of this work in progress. I just couldn't go on after that. Reading the first chapters was sort of like slowing down to look at a car wreck – it's a grisly kind of fascination, you know kind of gross and obscene but . . . interesting in a sick way. But after a while, I just couldn't look any more.
So, my review on this incompletely read work in progress:
Zero Goozles – even though the typing was nice. Another piece of Crapapalooza!