Throw yourself in next time and rid us all of your stupidity: legolas by laura

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Hello, welcome to Fanfic Masochism.

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Quick poll, how many of you have seen The Room?

I think most of us would agree that Tommy Wiseau’s “magnum opus” is probably one of the greatest bad movies ever made (right up there with some of Ed Wood’s B-Movies). Everything about it is wrong; the dialogue, the plot, the sex, the actual camera shots (made worse by the fact that Wiseau shot the film with two different cameras, both of which require different lighting), even the music. Everything about this movie is just… wrong.

Now, with that being said, The Room is so bad that we the viewers can’t help but laugh at it. Wiseau sucks as a director, but I’m sure he’s probably one of the most successful failures in recent history. If you don’t take it seriously, it’s one of the funniest things to have ever been made.

This week, I believe I have found the fanfiction equivalent of The Room, a fic so bad that it’s impossible to be taken seriously, and is so incoherent that it’s ridiculous. This week’s review is… legolas by laura.

Fans of Tolkien might want to leave. Otherwise, spoilers.

Our… story… opens with the titular elf riding through the forest. Why? Who cares, he finds a baby “whaped in colth”.

Paraphrased, but that’s not saying much.

Legolas wonders why someone would leave a baby lying in the woods and decides to take her home with him… Um… I’m not sure if elves would do that. I mean, they are the good guys, but just adopting babies they find in the woods? Someone correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten a chance to read up on my Tolkien.

Oh, and the formatting for this thing sucks. Check this out:

Legolas was riding along the woods and one day he found a baby whaped in colth so he got off his horse and went to the baby and then Legolas said"who left you here little one"and then the baby just cryed and then Legolas pick her up and hold her and then the baby stoped crying and then Legolas said"your name is going be Laura"and then Legolas and the baby went onto the horse and went back to the castle where he lived.

That right there? That’s the entire first sentence. 83 “words”. And they’re all wasted in a run-on sentence.

This won’t end well.

Legolas rides home and tells his parents about how he found the baby… Laura. His parents are baffled as to why someone would leave a baby in the woods, and decide to adopt her. We then cut to ten years later-

Okay, I have a problem with this. Now, I’ll admit I use time skips in my own stories, but I try to avoid them unless I have set up the character relations beforehand. This story, however, just immediately cuts to ten years later without establishing what the relationship between Legolas and Laura is. Do they see themselves like brother and sister? Father and daughter? Wife Husbandry (let’s hope not)?

 Anyway, it’s ten years later and Laura is upset. Why?

"Legolas I want to know how to ride a horse".

Okay, fair enough, but remember this is Middle-Earth, where travel by horse or foot is the norm, and Laura was adopted by Elvish nobility; they would probably want her to be able to ride as soon as possible.

Besides, my older sister’s been riding horses since she was five (at least, my memory of that time is sketchy).

As they get ready for the lesson, Gandalf and Strider/Aragorn are riding towards their house. Strider/Aragorn makes a comment on how he didn’t know that Legolas had a sister, and Gandalf says he didn’t know either.

Okay, I know communication in a Pre-Industrial society probably sucks, but consider who the characters are: Aragorn, who’s been friends with the Elves for most of his life, and Gandalf, a wizard/angel who has been a close ally with the Elven lords for centuries. These two would most likely know of the goings on in the Elven Lands, especially if someone like Legolas (who is a prince in the books, if I remember correctly) happened across and adopted a human baby. Also, since they do frequent the Elven Lands, it took them ten years to notice this?! What, did Legolas keep Laura locked in the basement every time Aragorn or Gandalf happened to be passing through?

Mean While at Mondor the dark lord was planing to kidnap the princess but not Legolas.Then the boss of the Orcs came and said"I'll get her for you sir"and then the Dark lord said"yes you can".

I KNEW IT! BARAK OBAMA REALLY IS SAURON IN DISGUISE!

Political jokes aside, this is just wrong. The “dark lord” (why he’s never just called Sauron is beyond me. Maybe this is his wannabe son) plans to kidnap Laura but completely ignore Legolas (remember that this is a Pre-Industrial Society and Legolas is a prince… you know, the heir apparent should his father die?). What is so important about Laura that the bad guys would pass up the opportunity to deal a blow to the Elven nobility and take her?

Oh, and boss of the Orcs. Unless someone corrects me and Tolkien orcs do use that title, I can’t help but imagine them as 40K Orks, who use the title of “Boss” to denote the ork in charge of that particular mob/warband/WAAAGH!!!

Whatever. Legolas and Laura are riding along when they see Gandalf and Strider/Aragorn. They greet each other and Legolas introduces them to Laura.

Also, this story uses “And then” a lot. Like…

Legolas said"that is Gandalf and Strdier"and then Strider said"Legolas"and then Legolas said"Strider long time seen" and then Strider said"hows you"and then Legolas said"I am fine"and then Gandalf said"whos this then"and then Legolas said"meet Laura I found her in the woods when she was just a baby".

SIX. SIX USES OF “AND THEN”. THAT’S JUST LAZY WRITING! Then again, this story is filled with lazy writing. If I wanted to be lazy, I’d just end the review right now.

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What?

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Okay okay, I’ll finish the review.

Legolas offers to let Gandalf and Strider/Aragorn stay the night (would it hurt for you to just call him Aragorn for once). They have tea and go to bed, although Legolas makes sure to post a few gards (not guards, gards. I hate this fic) outside of Laura’s room.

Sticking around after last week, aren’t you?

Yeah, I’m pulling the Mary Sue button out because I have not seen any reason why both the good guys and bad guys would give Laura special treatment. We haven’t seen her do anything except whine about not being able to ride a horse. Kalani, Jupiter, heck even Skye Dumbass did more than Laura, and yet everyone is gravitating towards her.

By the way, whether or not this is a troll fic is still up in the air. I think it’s too bad to be one.

After all this, da boyz decide to be kunnin’ and sneaky and break into Laura’s room to kidnap her. They do so and dart off to Mordor, while the gards go and tell Legolas the bad news.

Da boyz make it back to Mordor in what is probably a few hours, and- wait, hold on a moment!

Stupid Blogger; not allowing me to draw on this thing

Here’s a map of Middle Earth. Sadly, it doesn’t have a scale, but note that Middle Earth is really frickin’ big. It took Bilbo and the dwarves close to five months to walk from the Shire to the Lonely Mountain (if you look closely, you can make out the Lonely Mountain just north of the Wilderlands. The Shire is that tiny black dot to the west, halfway across the continent), and it took the Fellowship a really long time to walk from Rivendel to Mordor.

Now, draw a line from the forest south of the Lonely Mountain (Mirkwood, where Legolas was born) down to Mordor, which would represent a possible path that the orcs could have taken to bring Laura to the Dark lord. If you draw a similar line from the Lonely Mountain to the Shire, you will note that they're about the same length. Therefore, a direct path like that would take somewhere around three to five months, NOT SEVERAL HOURS AS DEPICTED IN THIS FIC! THESE ARE TOLKIEN ORCS, NOT 40K ORKS (despite the fact that I keep referring to them in 40K terms)! TOLKIEN ORCS DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO TELLYPORTAS OR BATTLEWAGONS OR JET AIRCRAFT, SO THERE IS NO WAY THAT THEY COULD MAKE THAT KIND OF JOURNEY IN THAT AMMOUNT OF TIME!

… Anyway, the orcs take her to Mordor and present her to the Dark lord. Laura tries to escape, but doesn’t get very far.

Then the Dark lord said"put her into the cell and bet her and also do what ever you want with her but do not kill her".

“Bet her”?

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“Roight, I place da humie we’z got on Redwheelz ta win da big race!”

“Zog yer stinkin’ humie! I’z got a lotta teef on Blitzabrainz, and I ain’t gonna let you muck dis up.”

“Why ya stupid-” (brawl ensues)

Also, we still have no idea why the Dark Lord wants Laura in the first place. AUTHOR, EXPLAIN THIS TO US!!!

Meanwhile in Milkwood (must be the stupid version of Mirkwood) Legolas is gathering an army to go after Laura. Do we actually see this? Nope, it’s just one sentence shoved into an already cluttered paragraph, and we cut back to Laura in prison. Some orcs stop by, bind her with chains, and…

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(Gently massages forehead for a moment)

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… And then they rape her.

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There are few words that can be used to describe my contempt for authors who use rape like this. Rape is a terrible thing, and it has the power to completely destroy a person’s innocence and sense of security, among other things. I don’t mess around with rape in my own works, because I don’t think I’ll be able to do it justice. There are authors out there that can pull it off well, and they have my praise for that.

But I’ve noticed that rape has become something of a gimmick, a lazy method by bad or inexperienced writers to drum up sympathy for their special little snowflake. These people will throw around something horrible and life changing like it’s as inconspicuous as their hair color, and they expect us to immediately gain sympathy for their character.

I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work. I am not invested in a character if all you say was “they were raped” and continue on from there. This person had sex against their will, a major violation of privacy and trust in my book, and you expect me to just accept it as a fact of life? The same goes for parents being killed or domestic abuse; these are major issues that can severely damage a person’s psyche, and exploring the issues that can arise from such a backstory has the potential for great storytelling and character development. If you present me with that little “factoid” I want to see emotional damage. I want to see how this experience has changed the character, and how the other characters help them rebuild. You can’t just spoon feed me with little bits of information and expect it to make things all better.

One fic that does get it right is Guide Me Home. Qwi-Xux shows us how the pain Ursa is going through after being physically and emotionally abused by Ozai is still affecting her almost seven years after the fact, and it’s only through her love for Hakoda and her children (yes, even Azula) that she’s able to move on and do something better with her life. The story never just wimps out and says “she was abused, but she’s all better now”; it takes almost the entire story for Ursa to recover, and there are many trials and tribulations that she has to overcome before earning her happy ending.

Legolas by laura, though, does none of that. It takes the easy way, the lazy way, the assumption that rape is terrible but not deliberating. The assumption that characters don’t have to suffer to get where the author wants to go. As a reader, I am insulted to think that this… “hack” is too light a word… would exploit one of the worst actions a human can take against another, and then do nothing to develop it further, just to force sympathy from me. I’d go on, but at the risk of repeating myself I’ll end this rant and move on with the review. I will finish with this:

I just don’t care about this character. If I were placed within the universe and given a chainsaw, I wouldn’t even deem it worth my time or the gas to cut Laura into little pieces.

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Let’s end this.

Legolas’ forces arrive and demand that the Dark Lord let Laura go.

Legolas plans to use the rest of the army as a diversion (dick) while he climbs up the side of the tower and frees Laura. He climbs up and they have their little “reunion”.

Legolas said"they bet you up and raped you also the Dark lord gave you the posion"and then Laura said"how did you know that".Then Legolas said"when I was your age they did the samething to me".

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(Begins slowly tying a noose)

They escape, and a fright happens. Not a fight, a fright. The good guys tear through the Dark Lord’s armies and are joined by the hobbits (who destroyed the One Ring OFFSCREEN!) and they defeat the bad guys.

Yay, this shit is almost over.

They take Laura home but note that she’s getting worse. They decide that taking her to Rivendell might be advantageous.

Strider went aside of Legolas horse and looked and said"she is getting wose"and then Legolas said"I know".

THEN DO SOMETHING!

They get to Rivendell and Laura gets better. She and Legolas kiss and she asks if he wants to be her boyfriend-

I don’t have to go on. She and Legolas hook up, Strider comes in to see how they’re doing, end fic. Literally. Right in the middle of the last sentence.

Then the door opened and it was Strider and then Laura said"Hello Strider"and then Strider said"I see you are awake"and then Laura

Last sentence. End of fic.

I hate this thing. I take back what I said earlier; this makes The Room look like Citizen Kane. The plot is almost non-existent, the characters are so wooden half the trees in Canada were cut down to build them, the villain has no plan, and Laura makes SKYE look active and invested in saving the world. She does nothing but exist for the other characters to worry about, and if you cut her out nothing would be lost.

Actually, if you cut her out Lord of the Rings would happen as it always did. So go do that, and we can forget that this piece of crap ever existed.