Subject: No, don't get me wrong.
Author:
Posted on: 2012-01-08 20:16:00 UTC
It is bad, most definitely. However, it is locked up in the religious aspect of this series.
The PPC is just here for fun. Going after this, with its badness being rooted in the religious aspect of it, contradicts that fact because religion is serious, and will make people uncomfortable in some way or another.
I rather like some things by this author, so imagine my surprise when I came upon this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7677229/1/Bread (link very NSFW)
Comments: Squick (necrophilia), extreme purple prose to the point of unintelligible sentances/paragraphs, a few OOC moments, a weird simile or two.
I'm not quite sure if it counts as a true badfic, but the purpleness makes me retch (not to mention the subject matter).
Erm... well, is this a badfic? Again, I'm not certain, I just got this weird feeling from it... The author is usually pretty good at what they do, which is why I'm nervous about posting this fic.
Why I am reading this stuff when I should be working on my first mission, I have no clue.
Aren't we just supposed to pretend we don't notice that it's religious and just decide based on how much of the usual bad stuff there is?
By bad stuff I mean character replacement, Mary Sues/Gary Stus, lack of SPaG, lack of accuracy in regards to canon reality, urple-ness, etc.
Admittedly this does kind of make me want to say some rather vicious things, especially since the ahem writer decided to put that quote at the end, but none of it is undebatable, so if I was sparking it I'd attempt to stay "professional".
Of course, most agents are not "professional", if part of "professional" means "behaving in an emotionally detached manner".
Various Sues have received a blasphemy charge. It's been leveled at people who mangled various religious texts so badly that even the atheists cringed; or who created character replacements of deities (omnipotent deities cannot be out of character; they are immune) by turning the deity into a joke; or who displayed bigotry against various religions in various ways.
Religion is a difficult issue; and, in general, the PPC doesn't deal with it much because of how many different opinions people have and how you have to respect their viewpoints.
That said, though, we do deal with a lot of serious stuff that goes into fanfic; for example, agents have entered fics that contained homophobia, sexism, anti-disability prejudice, trivialization of rape, torture, and other forms of abuse and assault, and prejudice against races or cultures. Those things have been addressed with the same sort of high-quality writing I see when the issues are only grammar errors, anatomically impossible slash, or tru wuv with the resident cute guy.
Where would I draw the line? Well, there's a difference between an author writing from a viewpoint you don't agree with, and an author who's using that viewpoint to hurt others, or as a part of bad writing in general.
It's very much like the "your kink is not my kink" maxim for slash and erotica in general. Sure, you might get squicked by one act or another; but that's preference, and preference hasn't got anything to do with bad writing. On the other hand, if the author is doing a rape-equals-love story or turning a decent canon guy into a misogynist or just messing up the sex so badly that you're sure the act in question would be impossible even with three arms and two sets of reproductive organs... then that's spork-worthy.
Here's my suggestion for fics containing religion: If it's just an author with a viewpoint that you don't agree with, don't touch the fic. But if they are writing in a way that is obviously meant to be offensive, or shows obvious bigotry against a religious group, or makes so many mistakes that it's evident that they didn't do the research--then spork it, and show no mercy.
You know how people recommend that if you don't like slash, then you probably shouldn't be sporking it, because you have to know what good slash is to recognize bad slash? This is kind of like that, too. If there are religious issues in a fic, you should know about the religion in question; and, if you can find someone who holds that belief system, co-write with them or ask them to beta so you know you have your facts straight. While a comparative religions class can give you enough to recognize when a writer has neglected to do even basic research, all the little ins and outs and minority beliefs are generally only well-known within that religion.
I don't think we should stay away from religion just on principle, any more than we stay away from rape or child abuse or any other really heavy subject--but I do think it needs research and a good knowledge of what is bad writing or poor research, and what is merely a different belief system.
I also suggest thinking about sensitive claims in a purely in-story way. The ideas aren't the problem, whether we like them or not: it's now they're expressed that is the point of interest.
It doesn't matter if we agree with any one viewpoint: the question really is, would the canon characters put up with it? Religion when found in a character is a trait like any other. Is it a trait used as an excuse? Or is it treated realistically, no matter what it is? Do other characters react realistically to hearing about the OC's Whateverism? Or do they blindly nod their heads and not ask questions it even if they'd never have heard of it before? That's OOC just like any other case.
So really, I don't see the problem with addressing a religious head-smacker in a badfic. The point is that the religion isn't the bad thing, the USE of it is. Using religion as an excuse is just as bad as using eating disorders (I'm so thin and hot because I'm anorexic!), sexuality (I'm gay, so my relationships are always perfect!), social oppression (I'm a minority, so I'm allowed to be cruel to others!), abuse (I was beaten as a child, which makes me tragic and pure!) as excuses.
I don't want to see the PPC conclude that we're not responsible enough to treat topics with maturity. The whole point of us being here is that we treat topics with maturity and good sense...
I'm not disagreeing that we should be able to handle controversial subjects with maturity. One would hope that we can.
The point, however, is this: the Bible is a delicate subject, especially for the deeply religious, and partly because of the many differing viewpoints, mishandling a mission is easy to do in any number of ways. This can lead to seriously offending or outright hurting Boarders, something which is specifically mentioned (notably as regards the religious aspect) in the PPC Constitution. It isn't just about addressing a "religious head-smacker in a badfic," nor how religion is used. It's about avoiding situations which have truly deep religious thoughts and consequences--like fanfic on the Bible--because of how it can affect other members of the PPC.
For reference, item two is the relevant passage.
The question of reaction to proselytizing is quite relevant to some fics, but the key there is to charge for OOC reactions to it or for having it appear in whatever the canon is (particularly if it is uncanonical; Convert!Sue in Arda comes to mind). Attacking the religiosity of it, however, is not kosher.
Also: what did you mean by "using religion as an excuse"? That isn't actually the point of the whole "We don't touch certain kinds of fic" ruling, and I actually found the implications of using it in that list quite offensive, at least without any further elaboration.
Religon can be used as an unrealistic excuse-for-respect or excuse-for-power in the same way many other things can.
In my first mission, I encountered a Mary Sue that used the excuse that she was a good Christian to tell us that she was a good, morally-superior person... all while she made every other female character act like a terribly OOC, sexually-starved rabid animal (including inventing fake antagonists whose only crimes were 'wearing a bikini and thinking Link was cute', was nasty to Link's friends, and gave a religious speech TO THE LOCAL GODDESSES THEMSELVES, after which the local deities were SO impressed they gave her one of the local items of power. While religion is important to a person and may really BE their explanation for their morality... talking about it out of the blue to people who wouldn't know about it won't make people give you godlike powers...
Her religion isn't bad. Not in any way. But using it as a special coupon to turn in for praise and adoration in the fanfic is bad. It's as bad as using any trait to do it (I'm an orphan, love me! I'm an emo and that's somehow tragic, love me!), it's bad writing, and the PPC shouldn't ignore it simply because it's easier to avoid the issue than dare to even mention religion at all. Which you say in your comment, and I agree with.
Of course, if a fanfic is just going to be a recipe for disaster, there's no point sporking it. I'd have a feeling of dread if I ever tried, which is not great for sporking purposes.
The PPC's job is to evaluate the writing, not the material and certainly not the author writing it, and even bigger no-no not the people reading it. I think that although some topics are controversial, we don't have to avoid them. We just have to focus on the PPC's job in that case, and just... inject our thoughts on the writing and the story like we're supposed to, and not the religion or even any other topic.
We don't have an issue with religion being mentioned at all in a fic/mission. The issue is when the entire point of a story is religious in nature. How would you spork a story like that without dealing with the religious aspect? You can't divorce the author's beliefs from the story.
Does anyone here really believe that they can ever be informed enough, unbiased enough, mature enough, and professional enough to spork a story that is an expression of someone's faith without dismissing that faith as invalid in some way? I don't think I could pull it off.
It's not that religion is a heavy subject and that's why we should stay away with it. It's just that things like child abuse and rape are decidedly and unquestioningly wrong. There's no other possibility here.
With religion there is no right answer. The person who wrote these religion fics believed that s/he was in the right. And they were doing what they felt was correct with their beliefs and their religion. By sending agents after them we're making a judgment call on something that can't be judged. No one is the final authority on religion.
Which is why we should stay out of it no matter HOW wrong we feel it to be.
Another reason is that religion, or lack there of, is so ingrained in many people's sense of self that they take any criticism (real or imagined) of the religion or its followers as a personal attack.
Even the most rational and cool-headed of us get offended when our beliefs are dismissed as invalid.
Rather than saying "this is WRONG", we say "this is badly written".
The Department of Bad Slash does this all the time: they train themselves to ignore their own preferences in favor of whether or not the fic is good or bad writing; and they keep in mind that when something is not their kink, they need to judge it on the basis of writing and characterization, etc.
I favor a similar approach for religious and philosophical differences--if you find an idea you disagree with, but it is presented competently, then it's not sporkable. Anybody who's ever been in a debate or philosophy class knows this: The quality of the presentation is not particularly related to the truth of the viewpoint. And it's the quality of writing we're focused on here, not the opinion itself.
... that would make sense. However, we're talking about religion with fic in it, which is another animal.
If the entire point of the fic is to present the author's religious ideals, then how do you critique the presentation of those ideals without offending people who hold them? That's the issue here: it doesn't matter how unbiased and objective you think you're being if other people can only see that you're critiquing a story about Jesus. It's exactly the same as trying to objectively explain to a Christian that walking on water isn't physically possible—it will cut no ice with people who believe Jesus did it, and it will piss them off that you're trying to talk them out of their beliefs.
This is why we leave religion-based fics alone. Go nuts on fics that happen to have religion in them, but leave the Bible fanfic and other such expressions of faith alone.
~Neshomeh
If the fic is a vehicle for religious, philosophical, or political ideas, then that has nothing to do with whether or not it's bad writing. There's no point in critiquing that--the PPC isn't here to debate religion.
BTW: if someone told me that walking on water isn't physically possible (well, without ice or a trick of some sort), I'd agree and then say Jesus did it anyway. That's why they call it a miracle. :)
I agree with Bible fanfic being off-limits, like real-person fic is; not because there's not bad writing to spork there, but because there are too many people who'd insist that that meant we hated their religion. And I suppose that if the entire point of the fic were to display a religious, political or philosophical viewpoint--if the fic were not really a fic but more of an essay using the story as a vehicle for the delivery of an opinion--it would probably be risking offending somebody if we sporked it.
But staying away from religion, period, seems to be going too far. Just because something's got religion in it doesn't mean you get a free ticket to write horribly, mangle your grammar and ignore your research.
I'd say my biggest issue with it is the Bible quotation at the end. To me, that actually gets very pretentious if you do stuff like that, so yeah.
Actually, on the topic of badfic, and on the topic of Biblical quotations... I recently stumbled across a series of badfic that could qualify as Legendary Badfic, if not Bleepfic.
The fact that this series has a TVTropes page should tell you everything you need to know.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the bible-thumping murder-fest only known as "The Prayer Warriors":
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/ThePrayerWarriors
It's a series of five badfics in different continua (Two in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, one in Harry Potter, one in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and one that's both Percy Jackson and World War One. Yes, this series goes there.). Basically, this group of extremely overpowered Sues goes in, kills characters who don't believe in God, equates everyone who doesn't worship God with a devil worshipper, and writes his author's notes so that Jesus Christ himself is applauding the author.
I could barely get four chapters into the first Percy Jackson fic before I found myself wishing I had never read this fic.
How about the one where the author has her OC kill all the Christians and Muslims in her immediate vicinity with a blast of magic? That one was pretty bad.
And you think that was goodfic?! I mean, the one originally posted?!
The badness of series B does not make fanfic A less bad. Just saying.
So John Lennon is the leader of the Communist Party in 1918. Stalin wants to destroy the city of Moth Cow. Biblical minis. A delicious quote from a character: "All you armies are belonging to us," salad Claire.
These are, without a doubt, some of the finest trollfics I've seen in a while.
The Prayer Ponies one, at least, is a trollfic. There is no possible way it's not.
As for the others, I just sort of hope they're trollfics as well.
I only read the MLP: FiM one as that's the canon I'm most familiar with and... yeah.
The main character is even called 'Charity-Sue' (which leads me to believe that this may be a trollfic, but you never can tell. Poe's law and all).
We don't do missions or otherwise anything that heavily involves religion.
Judging by the TvTropes page, this thing needs to die. Painfully.
Especially since we can say that this thing existing is probably an offense to every single religion in the world as Christians are portrayed as assholes, and all others as pure evil.
So it's not a matter of not hurting the religious beliefs of somebody, it's more of a "did not do the research HARD" thing. And the hypocrisy. Oh, the hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, I don't know most of the canons, so I can't spork the living daylights out of it personally. I can lend an hand in the Harry Potter one, but not much more.
But if it touches Card Captor Sakura or Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, I'm going after it even if the whole Board says it should be left alone and disobeying costs me the Permission. (Not that something like that is gonna happen, though.)
Don't go right off your emotional state right now. Think it over.
Tell me, how you, personally, would deal with Clap Clap Jesus in the author's note.
Or how you'd deal with the fact that God, for all intents and purposes in this series of stories, is being used as an auto-smite puppet. Or how you'd respond to the view that abortion is evil. Or that gays and lesbians and anyone who isn't perfectly, happily heterosexual are evil. And so on. These last few items do apply to the official stances of many larger Christian branches.
Let's not forget, you can't let your own opinion of things get in the way here.
How do you spork something like this without offending someone? Keep in mind that this 'someone' is likely already here on the board. Maybe it's me, or it's Neshomeh, or it's Maslab, or so on.
Religion and the treatment of it is a complicated thing, especially in a group that is so varied as the PPC.
"Tell me, how you, personally, would deal with Clap Clap Jesus in the author's note."
Character replacement?
About the abortion, homosexuality etc. shown as evil things I assure you that as a Catholic grown up and living in Italy I can say that's my own religion point of view. Somehow, as I'm not of the same opinion personally. In fact, while I do believe in God, I think I'm not actually fully Catholic anymore. It's... complicated.
However, as far as an hipothetical sporking goes, I would actually go after the PPC tipical charges. You know, killing off canon characters, being a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu, technical errors, the things we go after in all badfics.
Sure, with this kind of fic it's hard as hell not falling into charging for something that's actually justified by any religion, and that's why I am not going to spork it. Even the most experienced sporkers among us would have trouble with this kind of fic, and I have only three missions' worth myself. So, relax, there's no danger of myself doing emotional-induced rage-sporking. And I have to relax a bit myself, as my previous post shows just fine how I was upset at the moment. But I'll leave it be.
Well, unless the mind behind this "masterwork" decides to declare war against Card Captor Sakura too. Then, you'll have to suspend my Permission and feed me Bleeprin until I forget even who I am!
Declaring that Clap Clap Jesus is a character replacement is a serious charge. While I might be using that title to refer to this rendition of Jesus, I myself might be offended depending on how someone came to this conclusion during a mission and how they decided to refer to this particular instance themselves.
As to your second portion, as Catholics we believe that Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary, was the Son of God, God down from the heavens to live among men, that he gathered apostles and taught those who would follow him, was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, and arrested (on trumped up charges brought about by the Pharisees who disagree with his views and actions), tried by Pontius Pilate, and crucified on the cross. We believe he rose after three days, that the tomb he was buried in was found empty, and that he presented himself to his apostles when they were hiding in fear of retribution for being known as his followers. We believe in transubstantiation, following what he said during the Last Supper. And so on.
These are the 'facts' of the Catholic Church, the foundation it is built upon. When we work towards our first Holy Communion, and towards our confirmation within the church, we go over all of that. We also go over the sacraments. Being against abortion and homosexuality and so on is not on that list of 'facts', nor are they gone over in the prayers and teachings we learn in that time, if you've noticed. The official stance of the Church does not mean it must be our stance as well. There are many different interpretations of various things within the Church, all at different levels. The Church is, after all, the living body of people, not the institution the people are within. All things change with time, and the various sects and views we have move into prominence or out of it.
...Anyways.
Moving on, you've grasped the crux of the issue, here. The real issues with the fic are primarily religious ones. The ones that are not tied into that are fairly minor in comparison, even though with other stories, they are the large problems.
Your passion for CCS does not make me hopeful that you'd actually not do anything. :P
I just had an idea: what if the agents who might be sent into this one decide to quarantine the entire thing? Their mission could be something along the lines of: "set up a Creativity Shield while escaping detection and avoiding plunging into insanity".
That there really is no good way to approach badfic when the base of where that badness is coming from is religious based, PPCwise.
There is a reason Biblefic is considered off limits, and why I am saying that this particular series should be considered off limits as well.
With that line of thought, I pose the same questions in my previous post to you, personally.
As you said, the problem lies with religious convictions and how a mission might make things worse. In my humble opinion, I think that this fic is extremely offensive to all who read it. It is simply too absurd to let live. My suggestion with the Creativity Shield was, in my mind, more like a compromise. Instead of going in to spork it (and potentially offend people), agents seal off the story and leave it alone. Of course, this indicates that we judge the story as something "bad", so we return to the problem of political correctness.
Guess my suggestion wasn't pertinent. Scratch that thought and leave this series be.
Besides, sneaking past an omnipotent being with nothing more than an SEP field is a Very Bad Idea in retrospect.
The true problem with this "fic" it's that we cannot even say that it's bad without offending someone. Despite the fact that most people actually would agree with us.
Remeber when a priest burned the Harry Potter books some years ago? It feels kinda like the same thing. There was quite a stir between "Harry Potter is EVIL" and "It's just a book, chill out" people, if memory doesn't fail me.
And, now that you make me think about it, if they have God on their side it's kinda hard to kill the fic. Unless we prove this fic's God to be a fake one and Sun Crush the living daylights out of him.
If the Sun Crushers have enough firepower, that's it. And I don't count on it.
It is bad, most definitely. However, it is locked up in the religious aspect of this series.
The PPC is just here for fun. Going after this, with its badness being rooted in the religious aspect of it, contradicts that fact because religion is serious, and will make people uncomfortable in some way or another.
As per Crossbearer, of Watership Down (which I believe has been sporked and/or Fill-The-Plothole'd), we do indeed touch things that might be religious. The Sorta Rule guideline is for touching things written in a religious text's own canon-- Biblefic, for example.
Which, from what I can tell, this fic is to the point of being utterly absurd.
Reading the TvTropes page really makes me doubt that the vast majority of people here would be able to do anything with that one well without insulting religion in some way.
I nearly destroyed my mouse after seeing this badfic...
Sorry but this fic is offensive to the point that even rabid Catholics themselves will find it offensive as well. I really hate it when people use the name of one religion and make this... thing.
I hope that the fic's just a trollfic. If not...
Why just Catholics? We Protestants and syncretistic abominations have feelings too! And, at first glance, I must say this looks more like the work of a crazed Evangelical Fundie than a crazed Catholic-- or possibly a Dawkins-esque atheist, trolling. Badfic, like death and taxes, crosses all boundaries.
More seriously, using 'rabid' to describe someone who is fervent in their religious beliefs is really Not On. Especially since I can think of quite a few Catholic PPCers who do care about their religion. And would be quite offended at this 'fic series, yes.
Just bear in mind, before you click 'post,' that we've got a lot of people here-- pretty much one of every fringe and non-fringe demographic you care to name. And they're all cool, all nifty folk, and none of them really will appreciate being sniped at.
Sorry about that. I should have said 'Christians' instead...
Hell, maybe 'a lot of people' is more appropriate since the fic's offensive in all aspects.
My first sentence was on a satirical note, as a tongue-in-cheek response to the common (at least, in this part of the US) assumption that All Christians Are Catholics. There are similar assumptions (All Christians Are Baptists, All Christians Are Latter Day Saints) in other parts of the world.
But my main point was that saying "Even the most rabid of [religion] would be offended!" is, of itself, offensive. It implies, first off, that there is a significant portion of that religion that is 'rabid,' which is, given the nature of humanity and communicable diseases like rabies, statistically possible, but given modern medicine, and the general awareness of how to avoid infection, not nearly as probable as you might think, especially given the common misconception that all or most nocturnal animals, such as bats... where was I going with this?
Ah, right!
Saying that people who are serious about their religion are 'rabid' is offensive. You're comparing religious fervor with a communicable and fatal disease. This is problematic because we do try to not to be judgmental and prejudiced around here.
Hope I've been more clear, this time 'round.
... that All Christians Are Hindus, just for kicks.
(Is there really an All Christians Are LDS version? I always assumed it would be swallowed up by our Everyone's Out To Get Us thing...)
hS
You know, there are probably places where that would work...
(Yup! I've a few friends from out West who can testify to that, though it is sort of a Small Town-based thing, too.)
(You guys have an Everyone's Out To Get Us thing? Man, I seriously thought that was an Evangelical trademark! Ah, cross-cultural touchstones.)