Subject: So...
Author:
Posted on: 2011-09-15 19:24:00 UTC
The claim of "writing to improve my english" is ultimately fake.
Either a troll or a guy who uses an excuse for not putting any effort at all in a text. But I'd tend to the troll theory, since one who doesn't want to put effort doesn't write tons of fics.
I don't have Permission yet, but I have a few questions about how some things get sporked.
1. I've been looking around The Pit, and I've seen several stories that say in the Author's Notes or even the summary, "Yes, this is a Mary-Sue." Some seemed concerned about this; most don't. What do you do about those?
2. And then there are a few fics like this Doctor Who one - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7353177/1/Doctorwhogirls - that don't have any Mary-Sues (unless you count the Silurians with the stupid names), no Bad Slash, no Implausible Crossovers, nothing specific the PPC covers, really, but has excruciating SPaG, eye-searing format, OOCness all over the place, and is just pure unadulterated idiocy. How do you spork those kind of things?
3. And then there's Hans von Hozel http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1730364/HansvonHozel. He's... internet-famous enough to have his own TVtropes page, if that means anything. But he's special in the badfic community in that he has a fic for just about every fandom you can think of, whether he actually knows what he's talking about or not (one summary, I quote: "Someone make email and say 'I have request for Warhammer story', only I no know what Warhammer is! Oh no! Anyway here is story". The thing is, each one is about 200 words long - far too short to spork - but there are so many of them, all in the same style (and then there are his RPFs about ABBA and The Beatles)... I was wondering what, if anything, the PPC does in this situation.
I call Google Translate. He's not writing in English, he's writing in his own language and using Google Translate. I can't think of any other explanation. It's just the phrasing that GT gives you.
The claim of "writing to improve my english" is ultimately fake.
Either a troll or a guy who uses an excuse for not putting any effort at all in a text. But I'd tend to the troll theory, since one who doesn't want to put effort doesn't write tons of fics.
Because if this guy were really German, he would fail in his native language as well.
And seeing as he uses the word "danube" as a verb so much it essentially has become a catchphrase in his fics, I think he is aware of how horribly his stuff is written, and his incompetence seems more like a parody of badly written fanfiction than anything else, like Squirrelking.
1) If they seem concerned that their story contains a Mary Sue, then perhaps they are open to some con-crit. Leave a review of the story where you tell them what they are doing right, and what needs work.
2) The Department of Technical Errors is an overlooked group, but they exist for fics like the one you describe. Check out the Wiki page to learn more.
3) Does the author show any improvement in their English? If not, it is probably a troll. Do with that what you will.
First of all, he says that he's writing to improve his English. Didn't quite work, as the language in the profile is so butchered that can only get worse by disabling spellcheck. (And I didn't even understand if he had a dream in which everything in Berlin was written in English or he seriously thinks that someday that could really happen).
To improve English there's only one realiable way: keep studying it, and then exercize writing. Writing alone won't do you any good.
But, as already said, how could you seriously think of writing a fanfiction for a fandom you DON'T know? Heck, I write missions only for fandoms I know really well, and they require a somewhat lesser degree of canon "manipulation" that writing a good fanfic!
Another idea for sporking could be MSTs, as the lenght of the fic is not an important factor as in missions.
He was a fairly unique case, but I don't see why he couldn't set a precedent. The story is this:
I was directly notified about the story through my website, which has a form for submitting badfic to me—it's anonymous, so I don't know who reported it. I looked it over, said to myself "Okay, yeah, this is pretty terrible" and decided to go ahead and spork it, relying on Phobos to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Super Smash Bros.
Only later did I read the author's summary, on his main page.
Turns out Spidey3000-the-author actually knew about the PPC, and specifically said "Okay, yeah, this is pretty terrible; don't read it unless you're the PPC looking for work." I was pretty confident getting in touch with him, since he had already abandoned the story and seemed to fully condone it being PPC'd.
I'd be surprised if many authors are quite that supportive up-front, but approaching them with the question of whether they'd mind their story being used as the subject of a parody couldn't hurt—the worst that can happen is they'd say no (give or take calling you a nasty-wasty meen person), and you'd really have to leave it alone at that point.
~Neshomeh
I'm still waiting for Aster Corbett to spark "Super Luigi Bros.".
Generally, the ones I'm seeing don't seem to quite understand the concept of a Mary Sue, and have just been told that their characters are Sues and therefore put that in the notes so people stop flaming them. They tend to say things like "Yes, it's a Mary Sue. Get over it." and "Mary-Sue, don't like don't read" and "MAJOR MARY-SUE! ARLISOFIMLADRIS YOU READIN' THIS YOU WILL FIND A AROARIAN ARROW THROUGH YOUR SKULL IF YOU GIVE ME THE LEAST BIT OF GREIF OR TELL ANYONE ONE LOTRO!"
And it is quite a Sue. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7090215/1/AllIsFairInLoveandWar
-- Art by Pika, concept by Miss Cam.