Horrible Fanfiction #139: Being in Love with a Fictional Man (part 2), a The Lorax fanfic

If you follow me on Tumblr, you may have noticed that I’ve been reblogging a lot of The Lorax/Once-ler related stuff lately. (And by “stuff” I mean fanart, GIFs, screenshots, etc.) So I guess you could say that that makes me part of the fandom, even though I consider myself just a person who watches the fandom from afar and occasionally cheers and throws small amounts of confetti.

Let me say a few words on the fandom from what I’ve observed: A lot of it is centered around askblogs, most of which involve AU versions of the Once-ler. This means there’s a lot of recursive fanart/fanfiction, and makes it a little hard for a newcomer like me to figure out what’s going on. However, the fandom from what I’ve seen is just a bunch of nice people who draw good art having fun obsessing over a fictional character. It doesn’t seem to be a fandom with a ton of drama or mean-spiritedness. It seems quite pleasant, actually.

Of course, no fandom is perfect and every fandom has its bad side, but I just want to clarify that by MSTing this fic, I’m not trying to put down the fandom in general. I hope that doesn’t need clarification, but when I write about a new topic new people start reading my site, and they don’t always get where I’m coming from. (See: the comments on that post I did about the Richard W. Wetherill text ad.) So, to any potential new readers who are Once-ler fans, here’s the deal:

• I am one of you
• I mean no harm
• I am picking on this story because it is badly written and not because of the author’s taste in fictional characters

I’m not sure any of that needed saying, but I haven’t taken on a new fandom in HFF for a while and I want to make sure everyone knows I’m going after the badfic, not the fandom.

Anyways, if you’re just tuning in, this is a story about author cartoonnetworknerdchick’s self-insert Diana traveling via portal to the world of The Lorax, pre-deforestation. You can probably guess the rest from the title.

Chapter 1

Ok so I wrote the last chapter in like 2 something in the morning. 

Which in theory means this chapter should be better, but in practice means it might actually be worse.

(Note to self not to do that anymore)

You’ll keep doing it. I know because I write all my MSTs real late at night despite that being pretty much the stupidest idea ever as it means I don’t get to sleep and also sometimes the stuff I write just plain doesn’t make sense.

To clear that plot line. To Oncie’s sweetheart if you read the plot line then maybe you’ll understand and give me another review. 

“Oncie’s Sweetheart” is the actual username of one of this fic’s reviewers. Yeah.

Man, I hope I don’t undo all the “I’m one of you” stuff I said at the beginning of this post, but… I’m all for wanting to bang fictional characters but I think wanting to be their sweethearts is a little creepy. Also this username is so saccharine it kind of makes me want to puke.

Anyways, judging by her review, Oncie’s Sweetheart (if I have to type that name again I will impale myself on my own knitting needles) was completely unable to understand what happened in the first chapter. I don’t blame her.

So pretty much long chapter short. She dropped out of college, was riding horse in woods trying to find place to stay for free, and then fell into portal. Landed on Oncie and passed out, because she’s from our reality and she’s shocked. They ask her some questions. Then she sets up her tent to sleep so she can figure it all out in the morning. End of plot for chapter 1. 

Yeah, makes perfect sense, right?

Please read this then review. 

You idiot. They can’t know to read it unless they’ve already read it, because you put the part where you told them to read it after the thing you wanted them to read.

I appreciate that you somewhat understood.-cartoonnetworknerdchick

For heaven’s sake, we aren’t going to forget your username if you don’t mention it at the end of each author’s note. It says your username right at the top of the page. Gosh.

Diana’s pov

I’m awakened to the sound of annoying bears and bird laughing and making noise. Not that I didn’t like them but it’s like 3 in the MORNING. I groan and look at my wrist watch. Alright correction its 10am, hey but still! I don’t KNOW anybody who even thinks about getting up at 10 am, it’s crazy. 

I love sleeping in late as much as the next person, but I only get to do it on weekends (and only sometimes then). Getting up at 10 am is not crazy.

I roll over and my back pops in dis-comfort. 

What’s with the unnecessary hyphen-ation?

This sleeping bag officially sucks. 

If your back’s hurting, the problem isn’t with the sleeping bag. It’s with the sleeping pad, if you even have one, or with the ground.

I fix the tank top I’m wearing and pull the shorts down. I didn’t really expect OTHERS so I brought the shortest sleep shorts I own, plus they didn’t take much space in my bag. 

This is a thinly veiled ploy for her to be strutting around in short-shorts. Also, why would she bring the shortest pair she owned to go live in the woods? Wouldn’t she want a warm pair? I mean, I don’t know where she lives, but even in the summer it can get pretty cold at night when you’re in a tent.

I slap my hand to my forehead. That’s all I bought pj’s and that dress. 

So she’ll have to borrow Once-ler’s clothes, right? Great. Tell her she’s not allowed to wear the green suit.

Well the bears shouldn’t care too much. 

BROWN BAR-BA-LOOTS. Not bears. And if they had any sense they’d eat you alive, then spit you back out because you probably cause indigestion.

I fix my hair into somewhat decent in the reflection of a spoon and, unzip the door flap to the tent. I step out into the sunshine. When I’m suddenly slapped in the face by a…pancake? 

Whatever else one might say about the Once-ler, he is a very enthusiastic cook.

Ewww I peel it off my face wiping at the syrup. Throwing it into the river, a group of orange fish grabs it and eats it. One of the reaches out its fin to give me a high-five. I cautiously give it a high-five. Maybe I’m hallucinating, or I’m crazy, or drunk. But I out rule them all because I would’ve noticed being crazy before, right? 

No, because you would be crazy. I don’t think you understand how crazy works.

Plus I haven’t drunk in the past I’ll blame this on the universe. 

I’ll blame this on Satan.

The bears and birds all gather around me while a few continue to play Frisbee with the pancakes. 

Why are they playing Frisbee with the pancakes instead of, you know, eating the pancakes?

The smallest one out-stretches it’s arms for a hug. I pick it up and stride to Oncie’s tent. When I set it down a large fat one out stretches it’s arms also and I say. “What about we settle for just a hug huh?” I smile and the bear hugs me. I have no idea why they’re so attached but better then bears trying to eat me.

BROWN. MOTHERFUCKING. BAR-BA-LOOTS. WOULD IT HURT YOU TO OPEN A BOOK AND SET EYES UPON THE CANON YOU’RE SO INTENT ON RUINING

I enter after the bears open the door and rush inside. I look around his room. Just like the movie, I try to hide the feeling of being a creeper. 

Too late. You are a complete and utter creeper.

No one said you couldn’t a movie you own about 7 times…a week. 

I hope the missing verb is “watch”. Even then it’s disturbing.

I hear his gasp and the clatter of a pan on the floor. I turn around to see the Once-ler frozen in place in mid flip the creatures scrabble to the pancake on the floor but shy away when they find out it’s undercooked. 

Oh, like they’d care.

I realize why he’s staring. 

Because you walked into his home completely unannounced?

His eyes widen as his jaw drops. “Close your mouth flies will get in.” I laugh and blush because these shorts aren’t “I’m going to see a friend shorts.” 

They’re “I’m going to hit on a fictional character” shorts, I guess.

I tug them down a bit more. “What you act like you have never had a half dressed lady in your kitchen.” The Lorax says calmly, not looking up from the paper he was holding. “I’ve had beautiful half naked girls in my kitchen before.” He says unconvincing voice says. 

That part must be in the deleted scenes.

I laugh and say. “Then why is your mouth still on the ground?” Oncie’s blushes and picks up the pan off the ground. 

“I said your mouth was on the ground, idiot, not the pan. God.”

The Lorax pulled out a stool for me and I sat down at the 2 person table. Oncie closes his mouth and turns back to cooking, I laugh cause I still see the red on his neck. 

If you call him Oncie again I will flip shit.

(Yeah, I know, he gets called Oncie in the movie. But you know who calls him that? His mother. And she’s a manipulative bitch. I’m not saying the author isn’t allowed to call him that, but I don’t really think the Once-ler would appreciate being called “Oncie” by a potential romantic partner, considering that it’s his mother’s pet name for him. Yes, Diana hasn’t called him Oncie to his face yet, but I’d bet anything that she will. Also, constant use of the nickname adds a whole ‘nother layer of cutesy to an already overly-cutesy depiction of the Once-ler — come on, I like the guy too, but he’s got serious character flaws and this fic has yet to demonstrate any of them.)

“What are you reading?” I asked the Lorax. “The daily tree times.” 

What do they print that on?

“Oh can I read?” 

You tell me! But given your general intelligence, I doubt it!

the Lorax scoots over to let me see also. “So what are you planning to do?” the Lorax asks me. “No idea, but if the portal comes back I’ll go through it, if it doesn’t I don’t know what I will do.” I answer truthfully.

“I’ll probably end up banging Once-ler here, since that is literally my only reason for existing in this universe, but other than that? No clue.”

The Once-ler sets a plate of pancakes in front of me and a fork. I pour syrup on the pancakes, they have a weird smell. I bring one on the fork to my mouth, and have a hard time chewing. Oh … oh my gosh he can’t cook, at ALL. I spit the batter in my mouth into the table cloth. 

Okay, stop. First you said you had a hard time chewing the pancake, then you said it was batter? If you had a hard time chewing the undercooked batter-pancake, then either Once-ler is really a bad cook or you need dental work done. Or the author needs to learn how to fucking write.

I know that was a bad idea but it fell to the bear and he ate it so it was all good. Little did I know the Once-ler was looking straight at me. “Are you trying to kill me?” I snapped with more force then I meant to.

What the hell, Mary Sue? He cooked you breakfast and you didn’t like it, so you accuse him of trying to kill you? You’re a bitch. You are a complete and utter bitch.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t have to eat you know.” He said sticking out his tongue. 

“Sticking out his tongue”? I don’t care how kawaii desu you think Once-ler is, he’s still not five years old.

The Lorax looked up sensing the tension that had quickly settled in. “Hey now you kids settle down there’s no reason to fight here.” He said trying to establish some type of peace. “Well I expected some hospitality from the man who said I was beautiful.” I spat. 

HE COOKED YOU BREAKFAST. That is fucking hospitality. Just because the breakfast was bad doesn’t undermine the gesture. Also, his calling you beautiful doesn’t mean he has to do a damn thing for you.

I’m really puzzled as to why the author thought this was a good thing to have happen in the story. It makes her OC look like a bitch and doesn’t advance the plot in the slightest. And by “plot” I mean “Once-ler falls in love with the Sue, therefore he never goes on to sell his Thneed and start a business, therefore none of the events of the original story happen anyway, therefore there is no goddamn plot”.

He blushed and was silent for a moment. “That’s what I thought.” I said smugly. “I’m just as beautiful as you so you can shut your trap.” He yelled at me. 

Okay, a second ago I was angry but now I’m just laughing my face off at the idea of Once-ler yelling “I’m just as beautiful as you” as a comeback after a girl told him he was a bad cook. That is actually hilarious.

It was a bad insult but it enraged me. 

I’m really not sure what there is to be enraged over. “Shut your trap” maybe, but when the rest of the insult is so completely lame I think the whole thing loses its sting a little. Obviously she thinks the Once-ler is beautiful, so she can’t really argue with that part. (Though maybe, because she’s a Sue, he’s not allowed to be “just as beautiful” as her? I don’t know.)

I jumped from the table the same as him and we were nose to nose. 

How tall is she that this is possible?

We both scrunched our noses in anger. I turned sharply and stuck my nose in the air and cross my arms. 

They are both incredibly childish. Really, she’s supposedly in her twenties and he’s… I don’t know, probably the same age, and this is how they act when they get in a fight?

“Psh. In your dreams.” I yell back at him and storm out the little house, walk with pride and go to my own tent and go back to sleep. 

“In your dreams” what? In your dreams I’ll shut my trap? In your dreams you’re just as pretty as me? This is not only an extremely lame comeback, it’s a completely nonspecific one.

And why go back to sleep at 10 o’clock?

The animals looked at me with confusion but the words I heard the Lorax say as I left stuck with me. “Gosh boy you pushed her away in about 5 minutes, that’s not what you do when you like someone.”

EXCEPT HE DID NOTHING EXCEPT MAKE HER PANCAKES. She instigated the entire argument and then stormed out of her own accord. How in hell did the Once-ler push her away?

Hopefully that was better to understand lots of love. 

It was incomprehensible in a different way from the first chapter. I’d say that’s progress, but then I’d be lying.

thank u for reviewing theta-mcbride, and fanficadicttion i will read your story and i know im not original but i hope me as my character is :) and theta-Mcbride thx for the lol and fallowing and favoriting *virtual huggs*.-cartoonnetworknerdchick

You as your character is not original, just an enormous Jerk Sue.

Also:

fallow 1 |ˈfalō| adjective

1 (of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production:

2 (of a sow) not pregnant.

noun

a piece of fallow or uncultivated land.

verb

leave (land) fallow.

fallowness noun

Thank you, theta-McBride, for your work on cartoonnetworknerdchick’s farm. Or for not getting her sows pregnant. Whichever.

Continue reading here.