(In any canon where those aren't key plot points, of course. In which case, add "daughter/son of" in front.)

I'm not a Trekkie, so I wouldn't know the specifics.*
I do skim a lot of badfic, though, and 'high school' where it ought not to be yields a bit... [insert highly awesome character here]xOC gets you somewhere...Use the citron level 'lemon'for the worst results.


*(I.e. Legolas/OC always yields a magnificently twisted one or two, and Aragorn/Legolas... is not something I do often. If ever.)

I often search for pairs of keywords that seem like they would accompany sappy situations and Sues. One that's proving fruitful at the moment is 'love' with 'war', but I've also tried 'love' and 'duty'. Phrases like "Follow his/her heart" and "At first sight" have also thrown up some results.
I'm in the LotR fandom, so different combinations might work better for Star Treck, but this sort of thing.

Each fandom has it's own "favourite victims" so to speak. If you know the fandom you can look pointedly.
Eg. in Harry Potter it is usually a good shot to look for Severus Snape and/or Draco Malfoy as main characters. Also most of the Marauder time fics will be "worth it". In Stargate: Atlantis it would be mostly Shepp-fics.
It also helps to know what type of transgressions you are usually dealing with in your fandom.
Eg. Badslash in Sherlock Holmes or Mary Sue inserts/possessions in Potter (eventhough there is a fair deal of badslash and others there too).

One of my fandoms is quite small and old, so I don't risk any spoilers for episodes I haven't seen yet by just regularly checking the list.

Other fandoms, canon is still in progress, or I was late coming to the party. There key word searches can be useful.
Words I've used: woman, daughter, girl, new. (And for gender equality, male versions of these should be used as well.)

It's always someone new added to the cast, never someone that was already working there two desks down.

Generally, if I'm actually trying to find badfic, I'll run a word-search for "sister" in a fandom where there are no canonical sisters, and it'll inevitably turn up some sister-of-a-canon-character Mary Sues.

It depends on what kinds of badfic you're searching for, of course. The above applies for Mary Sues. If you were after bad slash, searching for an absurd pairing would probably turn up a number of worthy results, as would searching for common pairings and keywords for scenarios that would never fit them - "wimpy" or "weeping" come to mind. More generally, you could search for evidence of lazy-chatspeak typing, which usually indicates laziness, if not outright rubbish - things like "PLZ R&R" or "!!!1!!1!!!" or "koolies" or things like that.

Hope that helps.


(Will you do us a favour, though? When you post badifc links, please give a summary and some details of why it's so bad in your post, rather than just the links. Also, it's good to be in the habit of capitaling names like "Star Trek" - we don't want to sink to the level of badfic writers, after all.)