Subject: Re: Sort of a rant that can't go on Fanficrants
Author:
Posted on: 2009-12-19 15:49:00 UTC
Well, I dunno about charging Sues, cos we don't do that in the DBS. But we exorcise for things that haven't previously been mentioned in the mission. We also pick up charges from bits of the fic we don't actually have our agents bother watching. This is generally explained by Agent Pads being impatient and reading ahead in the Words.
I'm working on a mission and it suddenly occurred to me that I have read the badfic:
once to determine it was mission worthy;
a second time to write the mission;
a third time to make note of the charges I missed by skipping some of the scenes in the mission (to avoid it getting too long and boring).
(a fourth time when I decided that I should write the charges mentioned in mission not on the same list as the other charges, so I can distinguish between them when charging the Sue).
In all, I have read the badfic at least three or four times. Which, considering the number of "if you'd read this a second time you would have spotted this" kind of errors makes me think is far more often than the badfic author. If she had read her story as often as I had, I would probably not have been reading it (at least not more than once).
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Nough about that. I have a question too. What are the positions of boarders on charging Sues at the end of the mission with things that were mentioned in the badfic, but have not previously been mentioned in the mission?
For instance, I usually only charge the Sue with the things that I have mentioned in the mission were bad. I generally don't throw new things at them. (one time I did, and my beta pointed out that that charge had not been mentioned yet). But in this current mission there are quite a lot of things that have not been mentioned in the mission, but are chargeable things. Such as:
- referencing a season five event, while the fic should be set season three at the latest to avoid contradicting itself;
- A character -- that should know better -- claiming that arsenic killed almost instantaneously (as far as I have been able to find out: symptoms of arsenic poisoning are a lot like cholera symptoms, and that did not kill instantaneously. Unless, by that you mean slow and painfully);
- trying to shoe horn everyone into a relationship (in canon these people all broke up, so it would be the reverse of breaking up a canon pairing);
- excessive attention to detail of what female OCs are wearing.
These are but a few of the additional charges. Should I charge the Sue with these, or leave them out because I have not previously mentioned them in the mission?
In my experience, charge lists can be incredibly boring, and I think there are two solutions: either seriously cut back on them, or cut back on commenting on the charges during the mission so that the charge list is something new. I think either way is valid as long as there are enough major charges in the charge list to justify the kill. It's not so important to get every little thing in there.
~Neshomeh
Well, I dunno about charging Sues, cos we don't do that in the DBS. But we exorcise for things that haven't previously been mentioned in the mission. We also pick up charges from bits of the fic we don't actually have our agents bother watching. This is generally explained by Agent Pads being impatient and reading ahead in the Words.