Subject: Spork, Spork, Spork!
Author:
Posted on: 2013-05-03 00:25:00 UTC
One paragraph in I spot contrived stupidity, world war two fail, annoying use of names, and questions as to whether the author speaks english as a first language due to the grammaticisms that I've noticed.
So, my friend and I found this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/905456/1/Time-Travel We have decided that it's a badfic of...well, perhaps not the highest order, but it's pretty bad. It features Angela Jackie (occasionally Angela-Jackie) Chandler, a nine-year-old girl from 1942 who ends up on the USS Enterprise-D and immediately charms Crusher, Picard, and, apparently, Ambassador Spock. Her grammar is atrocious; she creates the 'hollowdeck', and then pulls in Q and is somehow related to Picard. I'm thinking of taking it.
What do you think? How horrible is it? (Comments and outrage are welcome, since I'm not really up-to-date on TNG--although even I can tell that Picard is OOC).
~DF
I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.
This is a rather annoying Hetalia fic that ended up very Sueish at the end, which is why I'm bringing it here for your viewing...pleasure. It features 'Black America', or Addy, America's wife. She's able to shut up the other nations by yelling—apparently, she's a force to be reckoned with—even though her SPaG is so bad that it looked like America was the one who was yelling (complete with random gender change). It's short, but it's bad. Read at your own risk.
As to "Lady America" (listed as Avengers, but it's really )...I'm not actually sure, and I'd like a second opinion (also open to third, fourth, etc). I clicked on it expecting to be confronting a Sue of epic Sueness; instead, I met Marty Barnes, who was actually pretty likable, beyond the occasional historical/military issues, the SPaG, and some tense shifts left over from rewrites. Considering the author was 14 years old for most of the story (apparently she celebrated her birthday somewhere in the middle), it's...actually, that doesn't really have much bearing on anything, I just thought I'd mention it. While it is a Steve/OC romance, the romance part was progressing quite naturally and realistically, apart from the occasional (although surprisingly not painful) use of a cliched plot device. There is extremely little Peggy bashing (although she does come across as slightly OOC to me), and most characters are kept impressively IC. Even the language isn't jarringly modern; the worst anachronism I can think of is when Marty puts on capris.
So, it was progressing quite nicely, for the most part. I was all prepared for Bucky to fall off the train, and for Steve to have someone to mourn with; I was even wincing at the thought of reading it, because the author had managed to make me care about Marty, and about fic!Steve, and I was sure that it was going to be sad, and that I might even sniffle a bit. But then...
She saved him. Out of the blue, she managed to save him, when Captain America failed under the same circumstances. And without any explanation of she succeeded where Steve failed canonically. And from there it's just been going downhill.
On the other hand, I really do like pre-chapter 17 Marty (although I'm a bit curious as to whether her nickname is at all reasonable for the era). Honestly, I'd like to recruit her. But on the other hand, it's quite possible that I'm blinded by the fact that she reminds me a lot of Bucky, and that Bucky's one of my favorite characters, so...second opinion, please?
I wrote down an analysis/charge list thing. You can find it here, along with a link to the actual fic. It's quite short—just a page and a quarter (my analysis, not the fic). I think I've made it so you can comment on the doc, if you like, but here on the Board also works :) Basically...help?
And, as a 'bonus' of sorts, have a Twilight badfic! It's ridiculously short, and, in short, utterly ridiculous. It seems to be some sort of AU. I don't even know. This is it, if you're curious.
I have some other potential badfic (it came up when I searched "Lady America" on FFN) but I haven't gone through it all yet. I may make another post later...
~DawnFire
I wouldn't tackle the Hetalia one, because it's kinda... racially sensitive? Like, I would personally feel really uncomfortable having my Agents kill Addy because honestly as problematic as the fic is (making America so bloody lecherous, throwing people OOC, bad SPaG, suggesting that Alfred is incapable of representing an entire nation by himself while not having these alt-race representations of other countries as well), killing it would open another can of worms.
Like I know the idea has its merits, since Hetalia itself is pretty darn whitewashed which may affect fanwriters who want to write an America that isn't a white male like Alfred, but it was poorly executed. Concrit might be good for the author, but a PPCing seems a bit too much.
I don't know just how warped the canon is in this one, since I know next to nothing about Hetalia, but since the canon characters seem to drop everything to dote over a Mary Sue named after a weather pattern rather than a country, I'm guessing it's pretty nasty as far as distortion goes.
Assume Sue unless proven otherwise.
I haven't seen Rise of the Guardians but I'm fairly certain Jack wouldn't act like that. The Hetalia characters certainly wouldn't. Why would Austria think her piano playing is any good? I mean, he's had centuries of practice and being a music snob. Bluh.
How long do the country-people live? For that matter, how are they born?
And, related to a former answer, what exactly do the country-people do in the government of their nation? You said they work for the leaders of the country they represent, but you didn't elaborate, and I'm not sure what they're able to do.
As long as people are loyal to a Nation and believe they are part of it, the country will exist. And a Nation just... pops out of nowhere, really. We're assuming it's tied to the writing of a national constitution of a new nation.
And we're not really sure what they do, since they're just kinda... there. I'm thinking it's just kinda like an exclusive super-diplomat club or something, since the bosses occasionally monitor the interactions of the Nations and make decisions based on that.
I was looking on the Hetalia wiki just now, and apparently there are several micronations(Apparently they chose to include Principality of Hutt River, which made me smile, but not Talossa, which I didn't like. Talossa is hilarious. They staked a claim to the east side of Milwaukee, a beach in France, and an eighth of Antarctica.) that manifest as small children. Is this related to their national prestige or something of the sort? Will a country-person(or Nation, as you implied their species name is) grow to maturity once it is accepted as another country by the other Nations, and then age into an old man when their country is no longer influential or well-remembered?
As for the whole just-showing-up-when-the-country-begins aspect of their creation, I understood that, at least. Of curse, this means that the entire show is about American Gods-level tulpae, but that's actually kind of awesome. That would also explain why they don't age past a certain point, too.
Me, I just saw a Sue and made the report, but there you have it. I probably wouldn't take a Hetalia mission (famous last words, most likely, but still) because I don't know the canon well enough to catch most of the worst bits in a badfic.
It definitely does have merits (the idea, that is) but it was executed horribly. Absolutely horribly. Also, 'Black America'? That's a bit...well. Let's not get into that.
~DF
Considering the history of racism in America, the European-influenced culture in this place has been pretty exclusionary to people of colour, which would create the modern phenomenon of the "tossed salad". Instead of everyone being melted together, America is a place where you can be African-American, Chinese-American, Mexican-American, etc. Thus the subsets of culture in America could conceivably be personified as something akin to Black America, etc, since Black culture in America has been (until recently) looked down upon by the predominant culture.
That, and Alfred can't even begin to understand what it's like to be a minority because of his portrayal in canon.
So yes, poorly executed idea.
What exactly are all of the country-people?
Are they supposed to be anthropomorphic personifications of their country's overall identity like the Grim Reaper or Father Time, are they supposed to be real people behaving similarly to how a person from their country might behave, or what?
Also, can they act without prompt, or are their actions supposed to always represent historical events? What does this do to their friendships and interactions as people? Can they even do that, or can a country-person only interact with other country-people in the way that their respective countries they represent would?
What happens when a country ceases to exist, or is conquered? Does its representative vanish?
I had other questions, but I can't remember them. I know I had at least two more. Bluh. I'll ask later.
They're kinda like the old-time country personifications. Instead of Britannia/John Bull and Marianne you have Arthur and Francis. Instead of Uncle Sam you have Alfred. They're said to be working for the current leader of the country, so Alfred's boss is President Obama.
I don't think all of their actions are supposed to be historical events, or else all the fanservice shenanigans during the holidays would have to be mirrored with real life. But since they are personifications, the majority of their characteristics and friendships must at least refer to history/current events to be believable.
I believe they retain a degree of autonomy because while they claim to represent a nation and they have the basic stereotypes of said nation, they aren't fully bound to it as you'd expect. Ludwig (Germany) once said he thought Hitler was nuts, after all.
The countries can interact with people; there's an entire arc where Francis meets a random girl in France and has a conversation with her, thinking her to be Jeanne d'Arc reincarnated. It was really sweet, actually.
Um, there's Gilbert (Prussia); he's a character even in the modern strips/anime despite Prussia not being a country. However, nations like Ancient Rome and Holy Roman Empire have vanished, but Holy Roman Empire's implied to be a younger Ludwig, so there's that.
Everyone is stunningly out of character. Most characters have, you know, personalities.
By the way, how does one draw a 'long, cold breath?' Like, opposed to what? A long, warm breath?
If the air was cold, it could be a cold breath. And if the air was warm, it could be a warm breath.
On the other hand, that would work a lot better if one were to 'draw in a long breath of cold air', or something like that.
Also, yeah, personalities. Personalities are a good idea :)
~DF
This Sue claims to have a mother who is a nurse in the navy. I have heard of army nurses, but were there really navy nurses? My knowledge history has gotten somewhat rusty.
I believe so. According to wikipedia, the US Navy Nurse Corps was created in the early 20th century and was active through WWII
Look at that! You're here! So good to see you :)
It sure was fun dissecting this badfic with you yesterday...or earlier today, from your perspective.
(At least this is one history fail the author didn't make...she still managed to get everyone OOC, though. Except for that one line of Picard's.)
I do love that she spent half a chapter talking to a mini-tribble named Warf, though. That was hilarious. Especially considering that Klingons and tribbles really don't mix.
(How does that work, by the way? Do mini-tribbles of Klingon dislike other tribbles, or dislike Klingons, or what? It seems vaguely paradoxical--either they dislike the person they're minis of, or they go against the canonical rules for their species.)
(...maybe they just turn up as mini-Gorn?)
~DF
Hello!
It's certainly good to be here, fun too.
Next time we dissect a badfic I'm bringing a sharper scalpel. Hopefully it will be easier to get through that way. :)
Concerning the minis, I was doing some research and perhaps a mini Targ would be more appropriate?
~TE
I'm going for Bleepolate, myself. On the other hand, it's a lot more fun ranting to you than it is to a Word document, so there is that. I think it also helps that I don't know TNG as well as I do TOS.
Re. minis: Not sure what a Targ is, but the way minis work is that the first person to do a mission into that continuum, or the writer of the OFU for the continuum, if that comes first, decides the mini type (often with advice from the Board). Now, I'm not sure who came up with mini-tribbles (although they're quite adorable), but I know that Hermione of Vulcan, author of OFAS (the ST OFU), wrote Q turning them into mini-Gorn so as to be more helpful in corralling students. They are originally mini-tribbles, though.
~DF
Q being helpful? Isn't that a bit OOC? On the other hand, I'm sure he would think it was hilarious to watch a few gorns running around 1701-D. A Targ is a sort of Klingon monster dog, which I think would work.much better with Worf's personality.
~TE
The minis of a canon tend to be something that is easily recognized to those who are familar with the fandom. I've known Star Trek for years, and I've never heard of a targ before you mentioned them just now. Then again, I've barely seen Voyager, and from scanning Memory Alpha, it looks like most of their appearances are there or in DS9.
Most minis tend to act in a way similar to their properly-spelled counterparts, so to address you comment about personality, the Warf mini would be just as aggressive and just as likely to be attacked by aliens of the week(also in mini form, of course) as Worf would be.
Still, since you seem to like targs so much, I'll give you one for your welcome-to-the-Board gift! Don't worry, it's the domesticated variety, so it's far less likely to charge you for no reason!
Welcome to the Board! Hope you have fun!
I feel the need to weigh in. First of all, OFU stands for Offficial Fanfiction University, which is exactly what it sounds like - the canon characters teach badfic writers to write better. Through pain.
My rationale for Q was that he doesn't like fanbrats either, and tribbles don't really help with the "teaching through pain" part. So he's sort of allied with the other main characters, simply because they have a common enemy. They still...well, you be the judge: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8528580/1/The-Official-Fanfiction-Academy-of-Starfleet
Get to, hon.
One paragraph in I spot contrived stupidity, world war two fail, annoying use of names, and questions as to whether the author speaks english as a first language due to the grammaticisms that I've noticed.
I don't know Star Trek that well, so I wouldn't know anything about canon.
A. That's horrible pacing.
B. Was that one minute in Virginia, the next in Washington D.C?
C. What the heck just happened?
D. RUN ONS! RUN ONS GALORE!
What's bothering me the most is that the Sue keeps thinking the Star Trek characters are Nazis. There is so much wrong with that.
1. She doesn't know what the Nazi uniform looks like? Didn't they have newsreels and stuff?
2. The characters don't know what Nazis are. I mean seriously, these are intelligent Starfleet officers. Surely they studied Earth History in school. And would be appalled at being compared to Nazis.
Oh, and all of a sudden Picard's a WWII buff. He likes history, sure, but WWII was never mentioned as something he liked. He's more of an archeologist, ancient civilizations and whatnot.
And who's the random guy at the beginning?
And the SPaG. Dr. Crusher "shock her head". *giggles*