Nov 15, 2012 12:54
We're here once again to pick apart the literary works of one Sephy90, the deviant who goes to great lengths to prove to the world that he never paid attention in any English class he ever took. And today we look at one of his older pieces titled "Detectives of Two Worlds", not because of it's failure as prose, but because it relates to a work he wrote later on, and one you should be familiar with if you've followed my review journals featuring him and his work. I speak, of course, of "Two Detectives, One Love/Loving Bond", and when I say "relates to" I don't mean it's a prequel or anything that would make any sort of sense. Detectives of Two Worlds is about a man named Robert Sharp, who one day happens upon a letter in his mail box sent by a mysterious person who only introduces themselves as Y.K., who urges him to come to Tokyo to- wait. Haven't we heard this story before?
Yes, indeed, that you have! That feeling of déjà vu you're fighting with, it's totally justified, because "Detectives of Two Worlds" is the twin predecessor to "Two Detectives, One Love/Loving Bond". The basic skeleton of both stories is exactly the same, and the main difference between the two is that, obviously, the former was never finished, and instead of picking up where he left off, Sephy90 felt it appropriate to start the story from scratch and leave the unfinished remnants of what the tale of buying "stuff" and solving mysteries that aren't even mysteries could have been. And while the length and level of telling instead of showing is about the same, and the grammar mirrors that of a seventh grader (example: "I felt alone and sad wondering about what awaits myself because of solving the cases I know where I live and ever since my folks were away on a trip that they didn't tell me about". I'll give you a moment for your brain to struggle to process that), "Detectives of Two Worlds", a story written two years ago, is a stronger piece of work than what came after, and still remains to be, if only because it went unfinished and our friend Sephy90 didn't have the chance to dull up the scenery.
We are once again, introduced to Robert Sharp, Sephy90's self-insert who he vicariously lives through to feel good about himself, who is actually introduced with a little bit of (confusingly written) depth. Once you fight your way through the fact that our author doesn't know what a comma is, we come to find that the Robert of this story is a lonely man growing weary of wondering about the challenges his job may bring and -something about his parents not being around. At least, that's what my brain decided to glean -that is, honestly, one of the most confusing introductory sentences I have ever had to wrestle with. And right away he receives a letter, as he did in "Two Detectives, One Love/Loving Bond", but this time, the author meanders around the plot hole he created in the story he wrote after, which was how Yako even managed to send Robert the letter in the first place. Unlike "Two Detectives...", where Yako was somehow able to send Robert a letter despite not knowing his name because she loves him, Yako has actually heard of Robert, at least, and they seem to never have met. Strangely enough, though, Yako feels the need to point out that she isn't actually a famous detective, and that it was all fabricated by Neuro, completely giving up their cover for no reason. Robert also hopes Y.K. is how she described herself in the letter despite the fact Yako didn't tell him anything about herself aside from the fact she's a fake detective. Boy, I really hope this girl is a fake detective like she said in this letter, or else I'll be really let down! Girls with fake careers get me hard.
The chapter describing his travels is just about as dull and mindless as "Two Detectives..." but we are at least treated to something that somewhat mirrors the original subject matter: Neuro appears only to mess with and disturb our protagonist. While in flight, Robert catches sight of who we can only assume is the Neuro Sephy90 might have ruined had the story continued, chilling outside the plane. And unlike the retelling of this story, Robert at least is described to be perturbed by this, and is perplexed by the fact the man he saw outside vanishes instead of smashing his way in and taking him to Yako like some demonic match maker. But finding this very mysterious Y.K. is just as much a cakewalk as it was in "Two Detectives..." and Yako and Neuro are just waiting for him at the airport, and Neuro fucks off to take care of "important matters" so that our insta-couple can flirt alone. Though much to my surprise, Yako actually DOESN'T tell Robert she loves him! I was honestly shocked, and looked high and low in the tiny little vignette for mention of her feelings but, shock and awe, she doesn't instantly tell him she loves him and effectively destroy any sort of romantic tension. No, the two of them just shoot the shit for a couple of hours before they go to Robert's house that the author pretty much states he magically got that just so happens to be right beside Yako's house. HOW FUCKING CONVENIENT!
We are then introduced to Sakuya, who is introduced into the story by saving Yako and Robert from a bunch of thugs who came out of nowhere and decided to attack our main couple for no good reason. They don't even have run-of-the-mill goon dialogue, they just morph out of what I can only picture as a random dark alley and start tormenting Robert and Yako without even saying why. Come on, even thugs have reasons for wanting to beat a random guy and his girl up -even if it was over something really dumb, like Robert brushed shoulders with the guy, or they're a bunch of racists and don't like Americans. But nope, they just engage in battle because there needed to be conflicted, and the author couldn't be assed to give our small-time antagonists a reason for what they decided to do (sound familiar?). Anyway, Robert doesn't pull out that handy-dandy sword of his that he just happens to pull out of his ass when times are tough, and instead they're saved by Sakuya, who's actually described! The author actually takes a second from flat out pounding into us everything that happened and actually describes Sakuya -albeit minimally. She also gets absolutely no dialogue. Yeah, because when you see your brother after what we can assume to be a really long time, you don't say shit to him or his friend.
At least she didn't come in with her unholy hoard of creatures and possibly try to kill Robert as an obscure way to say "hello".
The thugs return in the final chapter, and things boil down to tensionless nothing -starting with the author making the decision to put the fact that thugs get defeated easily again by our hero's, not in the first sentence, but the very TITLE of the chapter. After throwing in a stupid in joke about the FF7 victory pose and music (Oh, Sephy90, you are by far a comedy genius) it turns out that the thugs were attacking Roberts OTHER sister who we never get to meet in "Two Detectives...", most likely for no reason, just like before. Her name is Kat, and she gets the most generic character description ever, giving Christian Weston Chandler a run for his money (She's shy, but she's nice when you get to know her). She, like Sakuya, gets no dialogue, and the four of them go to a restaurant, possibly beginning the endless, mundane cycle of Robert and Yako going out, buying "stuff" and having a "nice meal" afterward. "Who knows what surprises would await the four of us." The author muses, " We might just wait and see and hoping it could be something interesting."
Except nothing interesting happens. Nothing happens at all, because this is the final chapter of "Detectives of Two Worlds", and even so, what comes after is a story that boasts being even more generic and snore-inducing than this, so even though the story was never finished, we were all still had. Could "Detectives of Two Worlds" have been a more compelling piece than the story that followed a year later only to prove that Sephy90's writing skills devolved over time? I suppose we'll never know, considering what could have been has been demoted to nothing but a tale of two people dicking around and fighting characters from Poke'mon. Fucking GENIUS.