Title: I'm Here to Help
Author: Mark Doherty
Rating: M
Genre: Drama/Angst
Status: Complete
Summary: It has now come to this. I have lived too long, failed too often, and lost all that matters. Grant me this one last gamble. Grant me an end to our eternal conflict. Grant me the death of she who enslaved our world with its Purification. Grant me Serenity.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3337074/1/Im_Here_to_Help

I don't know anything about Sailor Moon beyond the bare basics. So I have no idea if this is an alternate universe or what, but it talks about a character, Emerald, and how he fights against Crystal Tokyo by going back in time.

And does it pretty well, so I definitely recommend reading at least a few chapters.

 

So, in the interest of giving a fair and balanced (lol) review I forced myself to go through the whole thing. Or tried. I got about four chapters in. My response is fairly simple:

I like rolleyes how the (Gary Stu)viewpoint character's beef with things is that his enemy figured out a way to magically 'purify' the world of things like hate and rage. And it's not like people are being held down 'Clockwork Orange'-style either. He's literally fighting for the right to murder and steal.

Why are we supposed to care about this guy again?

But, more importantly: Who doesn't love reading about a Villain Sue?

Oh right. Nobody with taste likes reading about them.

1/5, but only because 'this 'fic is bad and you should feel bad' isn't an option.

 

It's your opinion but I think you're wrongly slating a great original character. I like the tone of this fic; he's not fighting for the right to rape/murder, he's fighting for humanity's right to learn from mistakes and to strive for a utopia of their own creation - not one forced upon them by alien invaders. I enjoyed the alternative perpective of the Sailor Moon universe and the mixture of narrative style from the excerpts from the future.

I give it 4/5 because I'm not one to simply go to the extremes simply because I dislike/like a character and his perspective on events.

 

The whole reason you read a story is for the characters. The characters drive the plot, the characters make you care what happens. Otherwise you're reading an instruction manual.

So yes, I think it's perfectly valid to say that a fanfic is terrible if its main character is a shitty Gary Stu. What makes him a 'great character'? The fact that he's at least a million times more awesome than everyone he meets and not afraid to share it with the reader?

 

I'm sorry, but where in the continuous stream of failures and shoe-string Indy Ploys does he come out more awesome than everyone else? I don't know. Maybe it's when he is scrounging in trash bins and looting corpses for clothes.

Probably the sarcasm. The aware-of-itself-as-biased sarcasm.

As for your characrerization of the protagonist? The main character is not some paragon of villainy, out to conquer Utopia in the name off rapists and murderers as he casually hands any and all takers their asses. He is a spent, burned out loner who has consistently lost a running war against a benevolent but conformist enforced utopia for 1,000 years, who only clings on by dint of his dulled hatred for what his enemy has done to humanity and a genuinely compelling refusal to compromise his convictions, and whose only win in all of that time was half given to him.

As for a character from the end of a series going back to the beginning? OF course they would be stronger. But note that unlike a "villain Gary Stu," this does not automatically hand him the field.

He nearly looses to Tuxedo Mask.

Badly.

Badly as in impaled badly.

Clearly superior to the sort of people who can destroy planets.

_
A better bit of classic Fan Fiction that could have used a serious redraft for coherency, fleshing out, and polish to make it better. 4/5

 

Well, I thought maybe that meant things got better after the point I left off. So I decided to see what you were talking about. Emerald gets stabbed, glances down, and gives a pithy comment. Supposedly he's really hurt but not so hurt that he can't completely ignore the injury and then sackbeat the canon character after he 'stops holding back'. Then he does some other stuff, teleports back to Earth, gets in another fight (instantly vaporizing an enemy), teleports again and gets in a fight with two more canon characters. Here's his thoughts on one of them:

But remember he isn't a Gary Stu!

Did I walk into a troll thread? Is the OP going to pop back in and announce 'gotcha!' like that time Giovanni recommended Witch Daughter?

 

He spends half the time talking about how he continuously got his arse handed to him by the future versions of the Sailor Senshi, when he goes back in time he finds them young, weak and inexperienced compared to him. He's also spent a couple centuries in survival situations and fighting stronger opponents than himself and managing to escape. It makes more sense and is a better read than a villainous character coming back and being weaksauce in comparison to your average youma.

I can tell you've got a hard-on for hating the fic and opinions are opinions so I won't waste time attempting to convince you otherwise. I only hope that others are capable of seeing past the ranting (from both sides, I suppose) and forming their own opinion. It's a classic piece of fanfic; it's a good read.

 

That was one of my favorite parts, something that made Emerald a person I could genuinely relate to: he can kill the senshi at this point, but even though they will become his worst enemies, he is unwilling to kill them while they have done nothing wrong.

 

This fic is pretty old. 07. Read it back then. It wasnt too bad but it was passable. 3/5

 

It's actually a lot older than that, author says it was posted back in the late 90's. They just reposted it on ff.net.