Subject: Good point. Maybe it's not a field-agent type idea, then ,,,
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Posted on: 2010-03-24 19:58:00 UTC
Having the Department of Babelfish work like the Department of Redundancy Department too might work. Just as a gag ... Whatever, I thought it would be funny, but if it doesn't work that's okay.
... or two. You'll see what I mean.
1) The first one I wish to suggest is the "Department of Unintentional Comedy". I think it would just be like the Department of Redundancy Department; it doesn't require field agents, the assassins and exorcists just phone in when they find a charge. The charges would be any cases of what TVTropes refers to as "Narm"; poorly-phrased lines or misspellings or whatever which ruin the dramatic mood and cause inappropriate laughter. Inspired by my finding what was supposed to be a dramatic rapefic in which the drama was utterly ruined by the RANDOM EMPHASIS! and UNNECESSARY EXCLAMATION POINTS! which left me unable to stop laughing at it.
2) The one which would require field agents is the "Department of Babelfish". Far be it from me to make fun of non-native-English speakers who attempt to write in a language other than their own - if I was to try writing in French/Russian/Japanese/etc, I would sound far worse, though I'd have the sense to get a competent native-speaker beta reader. But some fics are badfics regardless of what language they're in, and specially-trained agents might be required to make something resembling sense of badly-translated badfics. For an example, I point you at an author whose fic would still be a Mary Sue even if it was in coherent English: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1563512/RattytheScourge
Could be tricky to decide on which fics fall under this heading, though. We'd have to sort of play it by ear.
The type of fics that prompt this suggestion are annoying, because they are such an insult to the many folks who write ESL and do really well. I know quite a few, and many of them have better grammar skills than I do as a native speaker. Then there are the people that completely come across as ESL that are just really pathetic native speakers. All of it seems to go back to the excuse list "I'm only 15 and I fail my English classes!" (I saw this on the other day on the pit.)
It might make an interesting bit of trouble for the agents to try to decide if they should send a fic to the Babelfish folks, or just charge as a totally incompetent native speaker. Maybe if it really seemed like the author had some chance of being brought to the goodfic side of things, it could be written sort of like the author correspondence stuff used to be. Not that there would have to be any actual correspondence, just that the agents could claim there was. If any of that babbling made sense.
1) I think--not very experienced, so I don't know for certain--that unintentional comedy is probably a common trait of many or even most badfics that would still be another department's purview. I'm not certain this needs to be its own department, although I'm not especially opposed to the idea.
2) I like this, but I don't think it needs to be its own department either. My proposal would be to have the Department of WTF offer Interpreter courses to any interested agents, and when an especially incoherent badfic is assigned to a department it is passed on to the department's qualified Interpreters, or to another department if there are none available.
The first one could be good for laughs, but I think it's one of those things that needn't officially exist until people actually use it as a joke in the course of actual mission-writing. There's LOTS of stuff it would be fun to have/do, but we don't want a Hogfather situation, with theoretical constructs popping into existence just because someone once suggested it somewhere. ... Well, okay, it kind of does actually work like that at times. But I'd personally rather have it be something suggested in-universe than ex-universe. Probably because I want to see people writing missions. {= )
I don't really understand where you're going with the second one at all. The badfic is badfic no matter the language, and a poor translation is pretty easily spotted by anyone; so, badly-translated fics can be handled by anyone, and badfic in other languages can only be handled by people who speak it anyway. Not to mention that in-universe, the agents are all equipped with Universal Translators. So, what would such a department actually DO that isn't being done already?
~Neshomeh
The agents are wearing Universal Translators, but the UT only translates the characters speaking a canonical language that the agent doesn't know. It doesn't translate what the badfic writer meant from what they actually said, otherwise, say, "legolas by laura" would have been perfectly coherent to the agents. If the fic's written incoherently, it comes out looking incoherent despite the translator.
But that's why we have the Fangirl Fanfiction Translator™, courtesy of Al's Waiter. Not that it always works well... but that's part of the fun. {= )
~Neshomeh
Having the Department of Babelfish work like the Department of Redundancy Department too might work. Just as a gag ... Whatever, I thought it would be funny, but if it doesn't work that's okay.
I don't mean to come off like I'm shooting you down. I'm all for random stuff for the lulz. I just didn't understand where you were going with it, and I'm probably oversensitive about anything new these days. {= P
Plus, like I said, I'd much rather see the jokes and stuff come up in the course of a mission as opposed to conjuring them up here, sticking them on the wiki, and then never doing anything with them again. Less talk, more action sort of thing. See also March Madness Challenge (of which there is still a week left--plenty of time, looking at what some people have managed so far). {= )
Does that make sense?
~Neshomeh
I was also thinking; I kind of want to do something with the fic which inspired my idea of the Department of Unintentional Comedy, but it's Bad Slash in a fandom that my exorcist characters would A) not know and B) probably actively hate. My assassins would like it, but there's no Sue in it, so ... Maybe I'll save it for MSTing.
Or just use that as an excuse to combine your pairs of agents. It's the Bad Slash agents mission with the Assassins long as fandom experts? I'm sure random agents have been paired up before in some stories.
... but I don't think this particular fic is long enough for that. It's only a one-shot and having four people in there would get kind of unwieldy. Could always MST it, but I can't think of anything I could possibly say that would make it any funnier than it already is ...
I like both ideas.
For 2) we need to play it by ear like you said. There needs to be a distinction between someone who is actually trying, and someone who is simply completely out of their depth. I'd bet there's quite bit of people who try to learn English by way of their fandom, or maybe even *because* of their fandom. Learning a language can be a tender process and while publishing your work online exposes you automatically to all kinds of crazies like us, it's not cricket to make fun of them for trying to learn.
Could consider a department for foreign language fics if there isn't one yet. Though the traffic there might be low.
Many a time I've been reading a dramatic part of a fic, to find that bad spelling has caused outright hilarity! I'm reminded of a Star Wars fic I read a few years ago, I forget its name. However, in a particularly tense part of the otherwise good plot, the lead character 'realised that the orgasms in the water were actually fish!' (Should have been organisms, obviously...) I lold and the tension was ruined!