What's our policy on deleted fics, everyone? (nm)

This one's a *real* bad one...which you'll have to ask me for by Crazy Minh on 2020-01-07 11:34:29 UTC Badfic report Reply

...namely because the author has removed it from the net because he didn't like the reviews he was getting (which is only speculation, but since the author in question is pretty damm predictable, I'm probably right).

The fic in question is "Trapped" by EclipsePheniox, an author well-known to us from Library of the Dammed. During the course of my ongoing riff of his story, he deleted it from FF.net, and thus the story may only survive in the form of the downloaded .txt file I saved from the site before its deletion.

"Trapped in 40k" is a self-insert Warhammer 40k story, and is a rewrite of EP's previous smutfic/SI Stufic "Trapped" (which TMK is still available). It is by far one of the worst Warhammer 40k stories I have had the displeasure of reading, and features a complete Gary Stu. Here's some of the things that identified it as a badfic of the worst kind:

Gary-Stu SI character. Chris, or M3, is a (ERROR! AGE GROUP NOT FOUND) from the 3rd Millennium, who is transported to the 41st Millennium by the way of a random bolt of lightning. He immediately is enlisted into the Inquisition- who have metamorphosed into some kind of hybrid between the US military and the FBI-, and proceeds to embark on a nebulously defined mission that makes him nobility by chapter four (or something), has him gather a harem of 40k character types/tropes masquerading as OCs (who share the same personality, behave in ways no character should believably act, and essentially just exist for eye-candy/sex scenes), and basically be a run-of-the-mill OP Gary Stu.
Boring As Frak: Trust me, even riffing this is a chore. While there is enough there to mock or (in this case) charge for, the actual story progresses at a snail's pace. What passes for a plot is so nebulously laid out that the story seems more like a series of disconnected scenes than a tightly-woven story; any plot points that are introduced often change into different plot points on a whim, and there isn't even the shocking smut of the original to break the monotony...as far as I've riffed.
Bad grasp of 40k Canon and concepts: I know that 40k isn't really consistent with canon. But there is no excuse for the butchering that takes place in this story. The Inquisition is treated like the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Guard is treated like the PDF forces, and the PDF forces are treated as the Imperial Guard. There's a strange obsession with ballistic weapons (to the point where every single person in this story is using some kind of autogun, rather than lasguns, plasma weapons, or literally anything you would find outside of a run-of-the-mill Call Of Duty title); and there's really bad frak-ups like the Emperor's Holy Inquisition having existed for only 150 years. Like, what?
Bad grasp of basic SPaG. Enough said.

There's more, but I'll let you read it for yourselves...which brings me to my next bit.

So, as this is no longer available online, I'm going to have to provide a link to this Google Doc I've set up to share the text of the story. There's been no editing made to the .txt doc, and included are the tags and other stuff that ff.net features for story info. Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FjaFYZ7Yh7_tyLgJN1x6TmztWRb0IyKawpG5EdBlYNE/edit?usp=sharing

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I don't think it's deleted. by spike1970 on 2020-01-09 13:33:51 UTC Edited Reply

It must have been re-posted some time ago. Here's the link (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11395606/1/Trapped).

Nope, that’s the original by Crazy Minh on 2020-01-13 12:12:26 UTC Reply

The one I’m talking about is the rewrite of that one.

Aaah, yes. That one. by Thoth on 2020-01-07 21:08:45 UTC Reply

I was made aware of Trapped in 40k by erttheking of LotD. Not from the sporking (which was pretty good), but from the many, many jabs at it placed within ert's very excellent listfic (sort of), "Avoiding Stupid Deaths in the 41st Millennium." Which is a "things X is no longer allowed to do in Y" affair (yet another Mr. Welch and/or Skippy's List derivative) except it has a plot and established narrative voice. And a gradually developing story about fighting chaos and the importance of family. It's really good. 40k fans, totally go read it.

But yes. Even among the 40k self-insert Isekai fanfics (which are... uh... usually really bad, because aren't they always? Also, sidenote, who wants to be put into 40k? What kind of vicarious fantasy is that?) "Trapped in 40k" is... uniquely bad. It is among the worst 40k fics I've laid eyes upon, and that includes fics riddled with gratuitous and genuinely disturbing sexual content (no, not the setting-appropriate kind), incoherent trollfic, bad imperium fixfic, confusing attempts to replicate Warhammer High's success (which usually fail because most people aren't Someone Else), and Space Marine self-insert wish fulfillment.

It's bad. Entertainingly bad. So yeah, I'm totally recommending this.

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What's our policy on deleted fics, everyone? (nm) by Mirage Fontane on 2020-01-07 19:49:49 UTC Reply

Use your best judgement. by Neshomeh on 2020-01-08 05:53:22 UTC Reply

I'm of two minds about how to look at it. On the one hand, I think the ability to take down something you no longer like might be a nice thing to have, and I wouldn't want to cause anyone harm by dredging up something they were trying to move past. On the other hand, taking down a fic seems like an acknowledgement that it was bad, and a sporking might not tell the author anything they don't already know (if they even see it, which they shouldn't). Plus, Internet 101 lessons include "don't put anything out there you wouldn't want [your mom/your boss/your kids/the police/everyone forever] to see," so I don't tend to feel too bad if people put questionable things out there anyway.

But, it just depends. If the fic is bad because it's one of the millions of poorly executed fics out there, I'd probably let it go if deleted. If it's bad because it's offensive, though, I'd probably have no ethical qualms using a sporking of it as a platform to confront things that should be confronted. Probably—legitimate repentance does happen sometimes. Unrepentant dodging of justified censure happens a lot more, though.

For myself, I routinely make copies of things I'm missioning for note-taking and backup purposes. If something does get deleted when I'm in the middle of it, I'm not likely to abandon a story I've already put a lot of work into or force a sudden ending I didn't plan (though writing your agents getting caught in a deletion is an option not to be ignored!). If it's something I haven't started yet, though, I'd probably let it go.

I don't usually make a copy until I'm ready to start on it, anyway. I would definitely not suggest downloading every fic you think you might spork so there's no escape. That seems skeevy.

I would suggest preferring older badfics over new ones. This mitigates a lot of concerns, likelihood of deletion among them.

~Neshomeh

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About this... by Crazy Minh on 2020-01-08 23:07:34 UTC Reply

So, Trapped in 40k is a hard one to categorise here. The original Trapped was definitely offensive in pretty much every scene that trivialised sexual slavery, slavery in general, rape (IIRC there was a captured Eldar Farseer (who's capture is yet another charge) with a rape fetish, which not only contradicts the canon, but also is handled pretty poorly to say the least), and also some pretty horrid other stuff. I wouldn't call it "offensive" in the sense that it will offend anyone who reads it- certainly it is a bad piece of writing that will offend your sensibilities- but I would say that it is bad enough to take apart.

However, the rewrite is actually a lot cleaner than the original, at least as far as I've gotten. I tend to give fics a brief skim before riffing, and then go chapter by chapter, rather than reading the entire thing first. As such, I have a general impression of what shenanigans occur later in the fic, but as far as I've read in depth, it's significantly less...let's say "raunchy"...than the original. There's only one sex scene so far, and while it's a doozy of a badly handled situation, it's not as bad as some of the scenes in the original.

That's not to say that Trapped in 40k isn't deserving of a mission. It is by far one of THE worst 40k fics- as said quite eloquently by Thoth- and is just as horrifically bad as its predecessor. While I'd recommend reading the story before deciding on whether to PPC it or not, I'd say that it doesn't matter whether the author deleted it or not. EP has a history of handling criticism very poorly, and his reasons for deleting the story are probably less about shame or "moving past it" than trying to escape criticism on any level. I don't know EP personally, but I know what his behaviour usually is in regard to any sort of criticism. Even if he's trying to move past the fic, he's still writing the same old HoH in the same old ways. Erttheking can probably tell you about how EP rejected Ert's offers to beta read for him because it would require work at his end of the equation. He doesn't want to listen to criticism of any kind, and that in my mind marks him as the worst kind of author.

As a aside, it's entirely possible that EP deleted the fic to try and stop me from riffing the story. I do know EP was aware of the riff, as a user called Sogi Hann (I think? I know that it was something like that) commented on the fic, and explicitly mentioned the existence of the riff. EP is also aware of the existence of the Library, as many others can attest. I don't know if this is fact though, and it's only conjecture on my part.

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Correction, you will not have to ask me for it by Crazy Minh on 2020-01-07 11:36:04 UTC Reply

... since I didn't think of the Google Doc approach when initially titling my post