User:Dorkpool/Dork Report

I have a bit of a confession: I didn’t drink any alcohol during the “Sonic.exe” Riff. I don’t really have any, so there was none to drink. Besides, it would’ve caused the spelling and grammar of the Riff to be worse than that of the actual story.

The reason I bring this up is because of what I’m going to be reviewing: “Sonic.exe: Round 2” (also known as “Sonic.exe 2: Electric Boogaloo” on the Trollpasta Wiki. I’m not even joking). I’ve tried to Riff this story not once, but twice. However, I was unable to finish because the story was just so stupid and long. Seriously.

So, I’ve decided the best way to rip this apart is not through Riffing, but through a review. So, let’s join the Cult of X, and Riff this bi- I mean, review this piece of garbage. Sorry, old habits.

Let’s start with a summary of this story:

We get a blurb from some guy called Bob Richardson (we find out his name later) giving us some exposition. Basically, he’s saying that it’s been over a year since the “Sonic.exe Murders” have started, and the police are useless. Only two people seemed to be making headway on the case, siblings named Derek Green and Chelsea Green. Mr. Richardson knows this because he was their boss. Emphasis on the “was”, since Bob says, “They’re both dead.” Sheesh, dude, tag your spoilers.

Anyway, Derek left a diary that has quite a few notes from his investigation, which we get to read. Yippee.

The journal starts on September 15, 2011. Derek says that it’s his birthday, and that the journal was a present from his sister. He says it’ll come in handy when the two work on an investigation, and he also details a bit about himself. Now, the way he phrases it makes it seem like he’s talking to the journal, which many people criticize. However, I have been known to do this when I’ve written in a journal, or written things that only I would see. So I won’t complain about that. What I will complain about is how Derek uses the word “rly”. He can’t be bothered to spell “really”. I would sort of understand this if this were an electronic journal, and he was typing this, but this is supposed to be written with pencil (or pen) and paper. That’s just lazy. Also, Derek doesn’t write like he’s a detective. He writes like he’s some twelve year old on the Internet. (Apologies to literate twelve year olds everywhere.) Whoever wrote this story clearly didn’t know how to give a character distinctive dialogue that fits them.

Back to the story, Derek and Chelsea are assigned to a murder investigation. The victim looks like, and I’m quoting here, “something ripped his mouth open and tried to yank something out from inside.” Remember this.

On the body itself is carved a “1”. You know, I’m oddly reminded of “Pasta Noir”, since that story revolved around a detective, and had murder victims with things carved into their bodies. The difference: “Pasta Noir” was well written, interesting, and good. “Sonic.exe Round 2” (or “Electric Boogaloo”) is none of those.

Anyway, Chelsea find a computer that is badly burned and wrecked. The siblings have developed a theory about this: either the killer destroyed the computer, or the victim did. Wow, what great detective work. They came up with a theory that most people would come up with.

The computer is sent to the lab, and it seems like everything on the victim’s computer was destroyed when it was deleted, except for one thing: some data from a computer game called “Sonic.exe.” And this is why we don’t play games that are based on Creepypasta stories. The killer has continued killing and destroying computers, and has kept count of his victims by numbering them. By the way, he’s murdered 6 people so far, and the police have nothing. I call shenanigans.

Chelsea and Derek brainstorm after dinner (I’m surprised they can do that. Doesn’t that require having a brain?), and think that it’s rather strange that the only data left on the computers is from some Sonic game. It’s here that we get what I think is supposed to be character development. Derek reminisces about he and Chelsea used to play “Sonic Heroes” (fun fact: I did some research, and found out that that game came out in the US in 2004. According to the journal, it’s 2011. So that’s a seven year difference. Now, the way Derek phrases this part, he makes it seem like they played it when they were kids. Which means they were kids seven years ago. This story is starting to make a bit more sense), and how Chelsea liked playing as Rogue and he liked playing as Vector. I’m so glad we had that scene. I don’t know how the story could’ve have gone on without it. Anyway, moving on…

There’s another murder, and the sibling duo make their concerns about the game known to the police chief. He just says to focus on the murders. Yeah, this isn’t bad police work, it’s corruption. I’ll explain later.

Remember earlier when I said to remember the part about how the victims looked like they had something ripped out of them? Well, this part is why. You see, according to the doctors, aside from the wounds to the chest and mouth, the victims showed no sign a struggle or murder (yes, murder. The writer actually wrote that. I hate this story). It gets even better: apparently the victims aren’t dead, but are in a vegetative state. He describes it as, “their brains and hearts are still working, but they’re all in an empty, dead-like state, as if something robbed them of their minds or sense of self.”

Where do I begin?

First, the writer contradicted himself with the whole “no signs of a struggle or murder” because of that earlier part. Unless he meant, “Outside of the massive internal damage and death, there was no sign of a struggle or murder”, in which case, that’s stupid. As for the vegetative state things, first, I’m pretty sure that in order to determine that there was “no sign of a struggle or murder”, there was an autopsy. That means that if the victims were alive, they aren’t anymore. And if anyone remembers the Terri Schiavo case, you should know that people would throw a fit if they found out that someone in a vegetative state was killed. Now, as for what Derek said about the symptoms of a vegetative state (well, I should probably clarify that he said “persistent vegetative state”), allow me to give what the site brainandspinalcord.org defines as symptoms of a persistent vegetative state: “A persistent vegetative state occurs when, after a coma, a patient loses cognition and can only perform certain, involuntary actions on his or her own. While some describe those in a persistent vegetative state as brain dead, in fact, the lower brain stem in PVS patients is still healthy and fully functioning.

As a result, patients in persistent vegetative states can:

blink and otherwise move their eyes

breathe on their own

cry or laugh, though not as an emotional response to external events

enjoy normal circulation

experience regular sleep-wake cycles

move their limbs, though purely as reflex (PVS patients can't hold their limbs nor move them on command.)

open their eyes

smile

track objects with their eyes”

Yeah, not quite what Derek said, eh? Anyway, back to the story. Chelsea seems to be quieter than usual, and not acting like her usual self. Derek just attributes this to her being invested in the case…until Chelsea says she’s not feeling well, and didn’t go to work. Also, there’s some cult that’s popped up that’s devoted to worshipping a being called “X”. Huh. I guess people really like the X-Men.

Derek notes that Chelsea is locking herself up in her room, and isn’t responding to him. He’s also looked into Chelsea’s work, and finds out that “the killer must be going after anyone who plays the Sonic.exe game. And once they’ve played the game, the killer tracks them down, kills them and keeps count by carving the numbers onto their chest.” Wait, I thought you said that the victims were vegetables now? There’s a difference betwixt being in a vegetative state and being dead.

Anyway, Derek realizes that Chelsea bought a new game, and she dies. Or becomes a vegetable. I don’t know.

Now, this scene might’ve been sad, except that I don’t care about the character. We don’t know anything about her other than that she’s an investigator, Derek’s brother, and likes Rogue. That’s it. I can’t feel bad that she’s dead if she doesn’t leave much of an impact. Also, we were told in the beginning that she was going to die. So this isn’t a surprise. Back to the story of stupid, it doesn’t seem like anything in Chelsea’s room was taken or destroyed. Except for the computer. But the game disk is still there. Yay? Derek wants to keep it, but the Chief wants him to hand it over.

Derek goes to the funeral for his sister, where he is approached by a woman named Shannon Goldman, who is a part of the Cult of X. She spouts of some religious crap about the X fellow, which makes me wonder just why she’s at the funeral. Does she know Chelsea? Is she the friend/girlfriend/wife/sibling of someone who knows her, and she wanted to be there for that person? Of course, none of this occurs to Derek, brain trust that he is, who just dismisses her as crazy, not wondering why she’s there or how she knows him.

Later, Derek finds out that the killer has taken around 22 victims, and he decides maybe Chelsea was onto something. Yeah, he’s just asking to die. Derek investigates Chelsea’s room, and finds an icon for the Sonic.exe game on her computer. He doesn’t play it, and gets a nightmare telling him to fix that.

Now there have been 24 murders, and Derek hits on something that the audience already figured out: what if X is the killer? I have a better question: what if water is wet and paper is thin? Anyway, Derek starts putting the pieces together, and realizes that X and his little cult might be behind the murders. And then the chief of police hops on by, and tells Derek to get off the case, because the investigation might be too much for him to handle. Derek isn’t happy about this, which has the effect of making Derek more determined to find out who’s behind the murders.

Now there have been 28 murders, and Derek looks over Chelsea’s notes. She says a Sonic plushie was spying on her, which is odd to Derek since she doesn’t own one. OR DOES SHE? (DUN DUN DUNNN!)

Derek gets a Skype call from a guy named Cole, who says that he can help Derek on the case. Derek immediately trusts Cole because he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Derek heads to the police station, and gets the files related to the case. Derek tells Cole what he knows, and Cole explains why Sonic.exe was in the victims’ computers. It involves the Cult of X. After a murder, they take the disk, and give it to someone else, who is killed by X, and the cycle starts again. I find that pretty stupid, and wonder why they can’t just make a whole bunch of disks. But I digress.

Anyway, Cole tells Derek that X is some kind of holy figure to the cult (no, really?), and Derek decides to play the game. No, stop, please, don’t, you have so much to live for, think of the children.

This is basically a retread of the first “Sonic.exe” story, so let me sum it up: Derek plays as Shadow, there’s a lot of blood. the game addresses Derek by name, and Derek is scared. Cole tells Derek that X is Sonic.exe (once again, no, really?), and that X has been around long before the game existed. X is apparently some monster from some other dimension, and can use the disk to travel betwixt dimensions into ours for a short time. When he’s here, he sends out a Sonic plushie to act as a spy, and when the time is right, takes people’s souls, and traps them in his dimension as his slave. Once again, why can’t he have multiple disks? If he’s such a powerful being, why can’t he be in multiple places at once? And even if he can’t, why not do it at different times? Ugh.

Anyway, Derek believes all of this. Cole later says he has to go, since the Cult is getting suspicious, and that he’ll Skype Derek later.

There have been 29 murders, and Derek realizes that the reason the chief kicked him off the investigation is because the chief is part of the Cult. Why? Who knows? But it’s the only explanation that makes sense. I mean, the chief realizing that Derek has a personal investment and might not be impartial or anything isn’t a logical reason. Nope, he must be part of the Cult.

There is a somewhat good scene: they mention that some guy named Tom hung himself after playing the game, which was sent to him from his friend Kyle. Kind of a cute continuity nod. Also, the main character of the first story is dead, which makes me happy.

Derek plays the game again, and nothing of significance happens. Derek ends up deciding not to play the game due to Cole telling him that the character you play as in the game is one of X’s slaves, and X makes them to show humans what’s in store for them, and blah blah blah.

Also, apparently X has guardians that rule alongside him that are extensions of him made from powerful emotions, and are named after said emotion. And probably after some anime characters, if the names are any indication:

Kito – Prayer Aishu – Sorrow Gekido – Rage Kirai – Hatred Kofuku – Happiness Kyofu – Fear Yukubo – Desire

They exist to help him rule his dimension, and screw with ours by capturing and corrupting people. Also, X is planning to merge our two universes or dimensions according to Cole. It’s here that Derek asks how Cole knows this. Apparently Cole was a member of the Cult, but decided to stop the Cult, until X captured him and made him his slave. There’s some window betwixt worlds, which is how Cole contacted Derek. Derek realizes the chief still has the disk, and decides to get it back.

X gets Cole, boo hoo, I really don’t care. I just want this story to end. Derek decides to find and destroy the disk, and ends his journal with some message to whoever finds it that X is evil, and the Cult is conspiring to take over the world (In the words of M. Bison, “OF COURSE!”), that whole thing.

But this still isn’t over. Now we go back to Bob, the guy from the beginning, who says he hasn’t heard from Derek for two weeks, and got an email from a guy named Cole. There’s some recording that’s pretty stupid. It involves Shannon Goldman, that woman from the funeral, talking with Derek. He calls her a crazy cultist freak, she says, “Isn’t that what you would call the Christians and the Satanists, Mr. Green?” Yeah, really. Everyone in this damn story is a moron. Anyway, Shannon says X is trying to make the world happy, and that he’s not evil, and that he’s going to end the stupidity humans are causing (yeah, seriously, she says that. You know, it’s not humanity that’s stupid, it’s you, Shannon. And Derek. And Chelsea. And every other character in this story), and yadda yadda ya. Ugh, this is almost over. Stuff happens, and X enters our world, and takes Derek. No one is sad.

Bob says he feels helpless, that he’s a useless cop (well, he can’t be worse than Derek), and that Sonic.exe is going to win some game. Um, ahhh?

This story SUCKS! It’s stupid, poorly written, and…AAAAHHHH!

Ok, let me be a bit more sane. The characters are one-dimensional and don’t have much really defining them outside of what they need to do for the story and that they’re morons. I feel no connection to any of them, and find myself rooting for X or Sonic.exe or whatever, since he at least kills these morons!

The spelling and grammar are awful, and the journal reads like it was written by some whiny teenager. What detective spells “really” as “rly”?

The plot is stupid. Admittedly, there were some interesting ideas, like the Cult, X going betwixt dimensions via some game disk, and that’s about it. In the hands of good writer, they could’ve made for a good story. Here though, they just add to the stupidity.

Also, the writer can’t decide whether X’s victims are vegetables or dead. PICK ONE, DAMN IT. The story tries to be scary, but fails miserably. At best, it’s laughable. At worst, it makes you consider suicide.

This story is worse than its predecessor. At least the first one was short. This one takes forever to end, and it’s such a drag to read. Honestly, it hurt me to read, though I think that’s more to do with me hitting myself in the head with blunt objects and less to do with the story itself.

If I were to give it a rating, it’d probably be 0.0000000000000000000001/10. The reason it’s not zero is because of the two good ideas buried in this pile of crap.