Kaff Returns For a New Review · 8:17am Sep 17th, 2021
Hello everyone my name is Kaffeina, previously known as MidnightChaos or The Witching Hour. I'll apologize in advance for the lackluster dialogue and possible spelling mistakes in advance seeing as I am writing this on mobile in quick memo.
Today's story is The Backrooms by Arandomlonelydude. The story has a fairly decent like to dislike ratio. Before writing this review I of course read the story and the main thing I have to say is that the story is neither good nor bad. It's just terribly, terribly, mediocre. I have no strong feelings either way about it. Which is what makes a review like this difficult.
The first thing I'll say is that the long description gives a reasonably good idea of what happens when paired with the cover art however it really fails to draw too much interest seeing as it is very blaise and direct.
Overall the part of the story I found most interesting is that the first chapter is titled in Morse code which is again the most interesting aspect of the story.
Grammar
When it comes to the grammar overall of the story I'd say it's not particularly lacking. There are probably a few places where it can use some touch-ups, but that's not something I specialize in. I'm just here to give you an overall view of the story and how well it was put together.
So grammar will be the shortest aspect of this review and I'd say it's probably a solid 2 out of 3.
Style
When it comes to the style of the story there are a few points I can tell are the narrative choice of the author. However there's nothing that really stands out, nothing to pull the reader’s interest. It's done well, it's just not done in a fashion that keeps interest which also doesn't help considering the story itself is particularly short. I can tell the author put some thought into it but there's nothing which stands out, nothing that really pulls my eye to it. You can tell they made a lot of decent, metaphorical or whatever it is, choices but again nothing stands out.
Even when it comes to the arrival of the, let's call it the antagonist, it was supposed to draw fear. It's supposed to make the reader empathize with the character. That was done in a decent way. The style is definitely there but there's nothing that really stands out. There's no grotesque description, nothing that gives us an idea of what the creature looks like, the atmosphere about it, the sensation that the character feels nothing that really exaggerates to the point of causing fear. In fact the description of the creature is no more than three words. I'll ask you, how is that supposed to make someone feel fear? Especially considering the terminology they used the mental image I pictured when reading was nothing particularly dramatic.
And when it comes to the antagonist attacking the main character I didn't feel anything in that regard. In fact I almost laughed at how the author had the antagonist attack the protagonist. It didn't have any sense of tension or drama to it.
Now I'm making a lot of complaints here so of course I'm going to give some solutions for the author should they decide to read this review. If not the author and you're reading this please feel free to take this advice for yourself, give it to your friends, do whatever with it even if you just think about it on occasion it's fine.
Regarding my gripes about tension and drama now with the way the author portrayed a lot of the events happening in the story a lot of the word choices weren't really dramatic enough or exaggerated enough to really give a sense of tension. Now I'm going to presume most of you probably aren't going to read the story, if you are I apologize in advance for any spoilers.
The author describes the antagonist as this dark dog like creature, which isn't particularly wrong in a sense however seen as he's trying to get the story this horror element, this real sense of terror that the characters going through this does not match that tone. As opposed to a dark dog like creature I would suggest using something along the lines of a dog like abomination with rotting flesh etc, etc. Dramatize it is what I'm saying. As for the tone overall and another fashion I would suggest giving it this darker underlying since as opposed to using these particularly basic descriptors.
There are a few instances where the author does give it the sense of tension and discomfort that the character would be feeling however it's only a few instances and does not really give the whole story that tone.
I'm nit picking a bit here however seeing as I read the story and it's entirety before writing this review I can say that I never particularly felt a strong instance of discomfort or really empathized with the character in any way shape or form I can't blame the author for that too much seeing as it's been quite some time since I bothered to read an actual fanfiction in this fandom. However I have been reading consistently on other websites for the past several years so I would like to believe that I know what I'm talking about to some extent.
I'd go more in depth but again like I said at the beginning of this review I'm writing this on Quick Memo on mobile. And not just that but the story didn't really give me any strong feelings or any real reason to review it more adeptly. I honestly can't bring myself to go super in depth with it other than the issues I saw right off the bat.
So for style I would probably give it a particularly low score of 1/5 I'd go lower but the author does really use some form of style on occasion. Throughout the story you can tell there's a real attempt to put it in there however it's not enough.
Narrative
Now as for the narrative of the story I did include a bit of that in the style section however I'll go a little more in detail here in. In regards to the narrative the story there is definitely a progression of events; there's dialogue, there's a bit of a plot to it. However beyond the few conflicts primarily between the protagonist and this odd dark like creature roaming these rooms the only other real conflict is with the other character Celestia who is simply worried about her friend.
The pacing of the story is really I can't say it's fast because if I'm being blatantly honest here I'm not bragging I do read rather quickly so a lot of things that would seem normally pays for others come across as quick to me. So I won't pick the pacing too much. I will say it is very broken up in regards to how the author jumped between celestia's perspective and the protagonist's perspective.
Exposition I can't say too much about it's kind of blatant it's kind of obvious it's there you know what it is but again it's I'd almost argue it's too blatant especially in a story like this where it's kind of not supposed to be I guess.
Now resolution and setting these are the real parts of the narrative that I can go into so for the setting it's almost directly the same as the exposition in that it's directly stated. The characters roaming these back rooms which are moist carpet you know what it is most of you that are reading this review or even per use the internet in any way shape or form and have for a couple years know the concept of the back rooms.
Resolution. This is almost the part I have a real issue with seeing as the resolution starts in the first chapter and finishes off in the second. The reason I have an issue with this is the resolution comes almost a little too fast other than the directly stated fact that the characters have been in these back rooms for a couple hours there's no real drama to it you're not really you're not asking for the ending by this point. Again spoiler warning the main character gets trapped in a wardrobe because it falls over the dark dog like creatures are attacking the wardrobe, they break through, lo and behold she gets mauled. And in the second chapter, a guard tell Celestia they found her assistant which here's where my real nitpick with the story comes in who in the actual fuck is the main character is she a background character in the show is she an OC who is she the author does not at any point in time give you any real characterization of her whatsoever which I will probably repeat in the next section. But anyways Celestia goes to the wardrobe or the corpse it's not really clear which one it is either way the corpse is there and finds her mold assistant dead and there's no real sense of emotion in this case there's nothing that makes you really heartbroken about it especially when you consider the fact you would have no reason to be attached to the main character you have no real reason to feel anything she does or anything Celestia does in this case.
So for the narrative I'm sorry I have to give it a particularly low score just because it there's nothing to it almost it feels very direct like you're telling something someone told you years ago and barely remembered it so out of 5 I'm going to give you a 2 because you made an attempt but there's not enough.
Characterization
Characterization oh boy do I have a lot for this. The main character Raven inkwell, whatever her last name is, is at no point in time characterized to any point beyond two-dimensional, you don't know too much about her. There's no real reason for you to empathize with this character. It's like you're watching a cutout of a horse walk through this diorama in just a yellow box that's what it feels like to me. Who is Raven? I don't know. I read the story in its entirety, I went back over it as I'm doing this review, I went over it before I did the review, I'll probably even go back over it after I finish just to see if I missed anything but I highly doubt I did. There's nothing to the main character, it's like you're watching an amoeba. For all intents and purposes she might as well not exist I'd almost prefer the author have taken a main character from the show and done it because then I'd have some idea of who they're supposed to be but I don't know who Raven is. I haven't watched the show beyond a certain point but I've never heard anything about this character.
Now I could gripe about Celestia, but of course we all know this website, we ll no majority of the characters there's no real reason they should absolutely have to redefine Celestia but still something to kind of indicate she's more than a two-dimensional cut out.
And of course based on our rubric, not going to go too in-depth about that, there are a couple other points I could have addressed here and of course other places but it's particularly difficult with a story that's short and this basic. I mean it's almost impossible to go any more in depth than I already have just because of the lackluster content. Purpose? The character is trying to get out of the back room, and another point I'll address for the author and anyone needing some advice; the ending was too short. You could have really gone in depth about how Celestia felt about this, how she felt about losing an assistant and a friend, how it impacted her daily life, how it impacted the people around her because of how she felt but you didn't and I won't gripe too much about that I get it but you really could have gone further into it than what you did.
Morals and beliefs? I'm sorry, There’s absolutely nothing in this case within the story.
So for characterization I'm sorry I have to give it a 0 flat out just because there's nothing to it like there is absolutely nothing to it.
Impact
Now ask for the impact the story had I can't say anything about it it's not negative it's not positive I have to give it a zero as well simply because there's no real impact in the story there's nothing dramatic there's nothing that makes me think nothing that makes me feel heartbroken, hurt, excited, happy, anything.
Final Score:
Grammar: 2/3
Style: 1/5
Narrative: 2/5
Characterization: 0/5
Impact: 0/7
Total: 5/25
A whopping final score of 5 out of 25. Now don't let this particularly low score fool you, the story isn't bad, there's nothing really to it and that it's particularly negative.
To those of you expecting more of my usual style, I'm sorry a story like this is kind of hard to do that on plus it didn't need to be as in-depth. And furthermore, with the group I'm posting in I had to dial back a bit.
