Freemage . wrote:

Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 18:44:29 -0400
From: fcasper <fcasper@yesic.com>
To: fanfic@fanfic.com
Subject: [FFML] SM Group MSTing  (VERY DARK)  (SM)

This is a group MSTing by Seth *Lefty* Triggs, Steve "Scooter" Kramer
and myself.  C&C is welcome.  :)

Sincerely,

Megane 6.7

P.S. Warning: Contains scenes of extreme violence and mature content.
If such things disturb you, stop reading now.

Hmmm.... As a fan of Megane's work, I'm actually not sure that this
piece was as deserving of the MSTreatment as most of the other works
he's (?) done.  Yes, the opening was about as harsh as it gets, but...
it was meant to be.  One of the most objective standards of any work of
(for want of a better term) art is, "Does the viewer react in the way
the creator intended?"  Judging by the revulsion and disgust evident in
your MSTing, I'd say the author was right on the money.

 

An excellent point.  Seth originally found this story and MSTed it
himself, including the host segments.  Then he sent it to us to C&C and
Scooter and I added some riffs of our own.  He loved our remix and
posted it again as a group MSTing.  Seth thought the story was
absolutely disgusting and he made his feelings clear in the host
segments, which he didn't want to change when we suggested they be
expanded.  I posted it to the FFML to get C&C as well.     

Consider this:  SM is a series where portents, prophecies and
dreams play a _huge_ role in the development of the story.  A horrific
nightmare sequence is an acceptable, if somewhat cliched, way to
foreshadow a grave danger--especially in a prologue (a point I think >you undervalued in your treatment of this piece).

At one point near the end of the MSTing, I wrote a riff that had Usagi
say that if this was just the prologue, then they were in a lot of
trouble.  I don't want to seem like I'm shifting the blame to someone
else but I think Seth was the one that really hated the story and most
of the riffs that indicate that were his.     

Some authors, filmmakers, painters, etc. have a fascination with
the grotesque and the dark.  Was this piece really that much more
disturbing than, say, the works of H. R. Geiger (the artist whose works
inspired the creatures of Alien and Species)?  The author played by the
rules, giving plenty of advanced notice of what the reader was in store
for.  Did he go over the top?  You could certainly make that argument,
and probably do a good job of it.  But that doesn't mean that the work
itself was _bad_, in the sense that an Oscarfic or a Thinkerfic is bad.
True errors were actually on the low side of typical for fanfiction >that hasn't seen true editing--mostly in the area of punctuation >quotation.

 

Granted, this one was written better than Oscar or Thinker would have
done it.  I probably would have mentioned that in the closing moments of
the fic if it had been my MSTing alone.  I just re-read the MSTing and
there was two riffs that refered to the fanfic as a sick lemon and one
that had Tom refer to it as an anti-fic that I wrote.  Those were
uncalled for and for that I apologize. 

One other point I think needs to made:  Megane called this a
rape/torture sequence.  I believe this was an unfair characterization.
There was only one reference to a victim's genitalia, and in that one
case, it was more like a parasitic infestation than rape.  Unpleasant?
Yes.  Disgusting?  Most certainly.  Vile beyond comprehension?
Arguably.  But rape?  I don't think so.

 

The riffs refering to rape and the host segments were written by Seth,
not me.  I added a lot of jokes and tried to concentrate on the
dialogue.  (ie.  Ami touching herself to confirm she's naked, Usagi
taking body pericing to a whole new level, Ami being so grateful for
Usagi coming over, she sleeps with her, etc.)  Plus the *cough, ami
Cough! cough, ami Cough!*, was just plain goofy and I suggested it be
made the stinger when the original stinger was the trident being stabbed
in the senshi.  Scooter and I never brought up any mention of rape.  

Megane, I truly do enjoy your work--I just think you missed the
ball on this one.

 

I understand and I just want to make it clear that I only assisted with
this MSTing and I did not write the host segments that accused the fic
of being a rape fic.  I wanted to help Seth out and I posted it here for
C&C.  I'll forward your C&C to Seth.

--Freemage, who for some reason keeps trying to spell the reviewer's
name as "Magane"....

 

Hey, that's better than *glasses*  ;P

Sincerely,

Maga....Megane 6.7