From July's earlier post:
And for you who are crying about her spelling and grammar? Go reread TOS. Then try and tell me that Jay and Acacia were perfect writers. With a straight face.
Well, I can’t do that, but a comparison of the two stories will make the other posters’ meaning abundantly clear.
The first 407 words from TOS.
"It's happened again." Jay leaned back from her console, indicating a flashing red light. "Someone's mucking with the plot continuum."
Acacia sighed. "Exactly what is so wrong with the canon that everyone wants to break it?" she demanded rhetorically. "Which world?"
"Lord of the Rings." Jay winced. "The massacre of Tolkien continues. We have...a Mary Sue."
Acacia sighed. "Usually the case. What species is she this time, and what's she done to break it?"
"Human. Magically transported from earth, [Earth] along with her band. Of COURSE she's joining the Fellowship...and you'll love this. She's stringing Boromir along while enjoying herself with Legolas." Jay looked sideways at her partner, hoping that this news wouldn't be too disturbing.
Acacia glared. "Let me see this," she insisted, pushing Jay out of her seat without waiting for an answer. She started pressing buttons seemingly at random, glared at the screen as if hoping to burn the words off it by sheer force of stare, then stood up. "Well, let's go [insert comma] then!"
Jay tapped something on the console, causing an odd hum. A rather unimpressive flicker appeared in the air, taking on the appearance of an oblong doorway. "Come on, Acy," she said, using her friend's dreaded nickname. "Let's hunt some Sue."
Acacia muttered something that sounded like "Don't CALL me that," but stepped through the doorway very quickly. Jay followed suit.
As Jay stepped through the portal, she felt her chosen guise fall into place around her...she made a rather impressive Uruk-hai, if she did say so herself. She took the formidable black bow from her shoulder, testing the string, and counted the arrows in her quiver. Then she took her Character Analysis Device and set it. "I'm all ready, Acacia--you?"
Acacia looked around. It was always a bit disorienting, being in a world made of someone else's words, particularly when the canon was so stretched by the presence of [insert comma] not only a Mary Sue [insert comma] but--as a glance at her own Canon Analysis Device showed--canonical characters acting out of character. She took an arrow from her own quiver and first smelled, then gingerly tasted the point. The smell and bitter taste confirmed that it was in fact poisoned, and she put it back in the quiver, satisfied. "All ready."
The pair had arrived just outside of Rivendell--its gentle glow lit the early morning. Acacia led the way, Jay following, as they crossed into the beautiful city.
The first 402 words from SSU.
A/N: This is the third installment of my series "the [capitalization error] death [capitalization error] of Mary Sue." This installment was written together by myself and Apollo Night. [“Apollo Night and I wrote this installment together.”] This is our first joined project [joint project] and we hope you like it. I own Alex and Raven, [omit comma, insert semicolon] Apollo owns Alice and Dexter [insert period]
Alice was excited, [omit comma, insert period, adjust capitalization] in fact [insert comma] she was down right [downright] livid. After she was made to take 3 [numbers smaller than 10 should be written out] weeks off work due to a work [insert hyphen] related incident [insert comma] Mac was allowing her to get back into the field of Sue hunting. Though she was no longer partners with the human train that was Sandy, she was still psyched to be doing something besides sitting in the therapist offices [therapist’s office] having him ask [insert comma]"now [insert comma, adjust capitalization] how does that make you feel?" four thousand times.
She was waiting patiently in a room to meet her new partners. Dexter the tiger was currently sleeping soundly at her feet. [insert paragraph break] Alice worked for an organization called the Sue Slayers United. They trained people to hunt and kill Mary Sues from different fandom's. [omit apostrophe] The SSU was technically in its own "world" [insert comma] not in any specific canon, which meant there was no limit to what you would see around her. People who have [had] been working here [there] long enough no longer gave a second glance at the walking trees or screams that can [came] from the lower parts of the building any more. [anymore].
Just then [insert comma] Alice saw two women walk in, [omit period, insert comma, adjust capitalization] not missing a beat [insert comma] she jumped to her feet. Though it did little to improve her height, Alice stood at a whole 5'2" ( counting [delete space after parenthesis] the top of her spiky black hair) [insert period, adjust capitalization] she was so thin that she looked much like a nine year old [nine-year-old] boy. She looked very pixy [insert hyphen] like in general and didn't look like she would make much of a hunter to people who didn't know her that well. Though her skin was white, her eyes where [were] shaped like she had some Asian blood in her family somewhere.
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Are lots of these errors minor? Yes. But there are still lots of errors, and more than a few major ones. In addition, and what I found more perturbing, is the fact that SSU made a major canon mistake further on. PotC takes place in the 1800s? Really?
Hell, go and tell me any of our stuff is perfect with wonderful spelling and grammar when it's put up without a beta going over it. You can manage that, right? Oh, wait, no.
Not having a beta is no excuse for this many errors. First, I've been without a beta since 2004. My writing does not look like this. Second, as mentioned before, there is more than one writer here, so they can check each other's work--and if both of them combined can't catch this many mistakes, yet they still mock other people's stories, well...
...I think that may be the point people are trying to make with the nitpicking. Maybe it came off the wrong way, but I don't think it's about putting people down. It's about making sure the Sue mockers are holding themselves to a higher standard than the badfic they mock. Otherwise, what's the point? And yes, I think it is an automatic point against them...as long as they are going after Suefic for being poorly written.
I have to agree, however, that the SSU did not steal anything from us. I also think the series has a lot of potential. I simply don't think that we're being more unfair than usual on the subject of language.
*deposits her two cents*