261: Comfort from the Rat – One Shot

Title: Comfort from the Rat
Author: WRATH77
Media: Movie
Topic: The Great Mouse Detective
Genre: Hurt / Comfort
URL: Comfort from the Rat
Critiqued by AddictedReader

Hello, dear readers.  Today I will take us somewhere completely new:  fanfiction for “The Great Mouse Detective,” the Disney movie based on the Basil of Baker Street books about a mouse who is a lot like Sherlock Holmes (and lives in the same building).  I remember liking the movie when I was younger, though I’d completely forgotten about it until I found this fic.

The summary didn’t say much other than that this fic is based on a dream, so on that promising note, let’s dive right in.

Carrie walked into her home, closing her front door and locking it. She then kicked off her sneakers, leaning against the door and sighing.

I’m not a fan of that sentence structure.  I’m even less a fan of it twice in a row.  Shows a lack of range as a writer.

It was a horrible day today.

I’m sure mine is about to get worse.

Just two days ago, her friend Harry, who she knew committed suicide. She got the news in a phone call, how Harry was found dead in his parents apartment, wearing a tuxedo and a gun in his hand. He apparently shot himself in the head. His mother was the one who found him; running out screaming.

Every single one of those sentences has something very wrong with it.  That first one is not a complete sentence.  None of those clauses in any combination form a stand-alone thought.  That is terrible abuse of commas – not to mention the redundancy of “her friend […], who[m] she knew.”  One knows one’s friends by definition.  The second sentence is missing a conjunction of some sort and an apostrophe. The third sentence uses “apparently” in a way that I detest.  Either just drop it, since an omniscient narrator should know, or say “he appeared to have shot himself” if the narrator is limited and trying to convey that the character isn’t sure.  And then there’s that semicolon.  I’ll leave it to Taco to explain what’s wrong with it while I go refill the ink in my red pen.  [Taco:  It is my professional opinion that the semicolon is suffering from an acute psychotic break brought on by the stress of incorrect usage.]

Today was his memorial and she saw many of her old classmates there. Everyone was hugging each other and crying; it felt like a class reunion for all the wrong reasons.

Well, that semicolon is correct.  The sentences are still boring, but I’ll take that over wrong.

Isabelle felt a lump in her throat, but she forced it down. She had been feeling numb for the past few days, taking Harry’s death hard. She felt grief, but she also felt anger in her. She knew he was having a hard time since his bitch of a fiance broke off their engagement and just continued to berate him in facebook.

Hold on, who’s Isabelle?!?  We barely know who Carrie is, you can’t just introduce a new character like that without a scene break or anything!

Actually, having poked around this author’s profile and other fics a little bit, I know that Isabelle is an original character of hers for “Great Mouse Detective” fics.  So having read those (which I don’t really recommend), I know a bit about her.  I still haven’t found Carrie.

“Are you alright?”

No, not really, this fic is making my head spin, and my baby is getting ready to bust out “Alien”-style.

Oh, you weren’t asking me, disembodied voice?

Sorry, back to the fic.

She looked at the voice, seeing Professor Ratigan looking at her with concern.

Again with that SAME sentence structure!  C’mon, author, change it up a little!

Professor Ratigan is the antagonist of the movie and books (parallel to Professor Moriarty from Holmes, for those familiar with that).  He’s a pretty stereotypical bad guy who tries to use a robot to impersonate the Queen of the Mice so that he can rule all England (or the mice thereof, at least).  The author has another fic “explaining” (for lack of a better term) his presence in Isabelle’s modern-day apartment.

To this day, she had no idea how the rat professor came into her life not how he came to this century or was human-sized. He just showed up at her place one day and she had to help him out. Over the past couple of months, they became close.

That was a pretty complete (though poorly written) summary of the whole of that other fic.

“How was it?” he asked with her shrugging.

What does that mean?

“What I expect.” she said, then trudging to her and with a sigh, fell to her bed on her stomach. She heard Ratigan walking up to her and taking her hand. She looked to the side and saw Ratigan sitting on the floor next to her bed, one of his large hands covering her small one.

There is so much wrong there that I don’t really know where to begin.  I guess this is why the author wasn’t varying the sentence structure much – this attempt to be more complicated failed miserably.

“Are you really alright?” he asked, making Carrie sigh and looked at him sadly.

I think this is one of those situations where “if you have to ask, you know the answer” applies.  I get that it’s a way to show concern, but there are better ways.  That’s probably why she’s looking at him sadly – his lack of sensitivity is making her sad.

Then again, he’s a mouse, so I suppose we should give him some credit just for trying.

“Honestly, I’m not. I thought that Harry was always going to be there. I mean, I knew him for so long. I thought he was going to be there forever…buts he gone now.”

Really?  You’re not ok??  I’m so surprised!

Also, let’s just move that ‘s’ over a word, and see if we have an apostrophe in the spare punctuation box …

There, all better!  ::twitch::

Carrie felt her tears form in her eyes and she blinked, making them fall.

Generally one blinks to prevent tears from falling, not to make them fall.  They usually do that on their own.

“I mean…if he was so hurt, why didn’t he tell one of us?. He had me and our other friends, he could have done that! He didn’t had to…”

This sounds like genuine grief, so I can’t really snark it.  I’ll just quietly take that extra period for the spare punctuation box and refrain from pointing out the “had”/”have” mistake.

She trailed off as more tears fell down her face. Ratigan gently took her in his arms as he let her cry into his cravat.

Yes, she’s being cuddled by a human-sized mouse.  Try not to think about it too hard.

“Why?” she sobbed, “Why did he had to do that? That stupid bastard, why he had to do that?”

Grief is ruining her grammar.

Ratigan looked at her sadly and stroked her curly brown hair.

First he made her sad, now she made him sad – this is clearly not a healthy relationship.

“It was probably too painful, darling, too painful for him to bear.” he said, “It was selfish of him to do, thought. To leave all of you behind.”

So did he say the above, or think it?  Author’s not so clear here. [Taco: Did Ratigan just imply that it would have been less selfish if Harry had taken everyone with him?]

Carrie didn’t respond as she continued to cry, grateful that someone is holding her, even if it is a large anthro-rat in a suit.

And now she’s turned back into Carrie.  What the heck?  There are TWO characters in this short little fic, and the author can’t even keep them straight.  Bad sign, author, bad sign.

AN: This fic was based on a dream I had and it was really angsty.

And without any kind of break or warning, we’re out of the fic and into an author’s note.  Lovely.

Last summer, a friend of min committed suicide, the details are in the fic, I only changed his name. When I got the news, I was just devastated and pissed off, because we both had a lot of friends and he could have talked to one of us. I also felt so numb. I’m still reeling from it now, its not something you get over quickly. I just went to is memorial; I didn’t go to the wake or funeral; it was mostly because I didn’t think I could handle it.

I really want to be able to let this author’s grammar off the hook on account of grief, but I just can’t do it.  First of all, even if it’s still painful, it’s obviously not so fresh, so there’s time to edit.  Secondly, if it were a spontaneous outpouring, don’t post it on the internet for all to see without proofreading!  Seriously.  I’ve done therapy-writing of dreams or after a fight with a loved one.  I’ve then hidden it away for a while at least, and not shown anyone until I’ve been able to look it over calmly.  Seriously, it’s a big internet out there, it doesn’t need more unedited angst.  Or more semicolons.

So a couple of weeks ago, I had this dream and Ratigan was comforting in the dream. I woke up crying because I truly do miss my friend, especially because of the way he died. Ratigan was just there, I don’t know how he came about.

See, that’s the difference between dreams and fiction.  Dreams usually don’t have a backstory and don’t make sense.  And that’s ok, because they’re dreams.  Fiction, on the other hand, is meant to be read, and therefore has to make sense.  Crazy idea, I know.  Think about it and get back to me.

Anyway, comments are loved and I don’t own Ratigan!

You know, we’ve been doing this for a year now, and I still don’t understand that disclaimer.

Until next week, dear readers, take care and complete your sentences.

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