Bad Fanfic -- A Great Way To Induce Vomiting...
Decided that from now on, I'll be posting these journals on both DeviantArt and on my LiveJournal. Might as well get some use out of my account, right? Plus I have readers on FFN that don't have DA accounts, and they might prefer to read my journals over there instead.
Before I go into today's rant, I just want to say that if you haven't seen Up yet, do so when you get the chance. Saw it in the dollar theater this Tuesday and LOVED it. It's a cute and fun movie, and I haven't been able to look at our dogs in quite the same way since -- I keep half-expecting them to say something (even if it's to just randomly shout "Squirrel!").
Okay, I love writing fanfiction. It's an addictive hobby, and I'm having to force myself to cut back so I can get something original written for publication here. And I do enjoy reading good fanfic as well, though anymore I'm VERY picky about what I read. There are genuinely good authors out there, and I like to think I'm a fairly decent writer myself. I try my hardest when I write a piece, and when I do goof up somehow I try to own up to my mistakes. And sure, going back and re-reading my older works makes me cringe, but every writer and artist is constantly improving and developing their style, right?
Which is why it irks me that so many fanfic writers don't even seem to care. They don't bother to do their research, spell-check or proofread their work, or make an effort to create believable characters or a decent, logical plot. And often (not always, but very often) what they churn out is just bad porn, smut, and squick.
I visit the TV Tropes website frequently, and one page on the site I like to visit is the "So Bad It's Horrible" page (there's also a "So Bad It's Good" page, but I haven't visited it yet), which lists the worst of the worst in comics, movies, literature, anime, cartoons, video games, etc. And the page has a special section devoted to fan fiction... and believe me, just reading the summaries of some of these fanfics is enough to make you want to gouge your eyes out. It's hilarious in a weird way, because some of these fanfics just look SO bad you wonder if they were deliberately written to be as horrible as possible. (And call me vain or paranoid or both, but sometimes I go there just to make sure nobody's posted anything of mine on that page... though I like to think I'm a better writer than that...) So far no Transformers fanfic has made it to the "So Bad It's Horrible" page, but it may only be a matter of time...
Last night, however, I came across a story on the "So Bad It's Horrible" page that didn't make me gag, laugh, or shake my head in disbelief. It made me ANGRY.
See, there was a dark time in my young life when I was a Power Rangers fan. Dang, I feel silly confessing this, but I LOVED the Power Rangers as much as I love Transformers now (except I was in grade school and couldn't afford to buy all the toys). I watched the show religiously, made up my own stories about them, and played with the few action figures of them I did have until they broke. And I loved the giant Zord robots, which I suppose has carried over into my present obsession of Transformers. (Megazord even bears a passing resemblance to Optimus Prime if you squint...) I stopped paying attention to the show when they began changing the entire premise every couple of seasons, but the original Power Rangers show held my attention. I think my favorites were the Blue Ranger, Black Ranger, Green Ranger, Alpha 5 (he didn't have much personality beyond hyper and scared, but he was cute), and Lord Zedd, one of the major villians.
I bring this up because last night a new title had been added to the "So Bad It's Horrible" list on TV Tropes -- "Agony In Pink," a Power Rangers story. According to the summary, this fic is a sick and twisted and utterly pointless tale where Lord Zedd kidnaps the Pink Ranger, and he and his minions rape, torture, mutilate, and finally kill her. The story is so horrible it actually got the newsgroup it was posted on banned in Australia, and several websites still bring it up as a disgusting exercise in cruelty.
Yes, I skimmed this story -- I wanted to see if this was really as bad as the summary made it out to be. I could only very briefly skim it, and what I did read was VERY disturbing. The whole thing besides the intro (how can a Power Ranger who used to single-handedly defeat whole groups of Lord Zedd's minions get so easily captured anyhow?) and the very end is nothing but needless, pointless brutality. It doesn't help that everyone is horribly out of character, the writing is bad (keeps switching between past and present tense), and at the very end it seems like the other Power Rangers don't even care that she's dead -- they're all "Oh no, she's gone, now we have to find a replacement Pink Ranger." What the frag???
I don't want to gouge my eyes out... I want to track down the author and gouge THEIR eyes out. Or at the very least break their fingers. Who's so sick and depraved as to write this gagfest, and expect people to be entertained by it?
I guess this story hit a nerve with me because it involved a fandom I used to hold very dear -- and while I was never very fond of the Pink Ranger, neither did I ever wish her any harm. And sure, Lord Zedd was evil and a megalomaniac, though he was also rather over-the-top and goofy as well... but for him to resort to torture is WAY too extreme even for him. Plus he was one of my favorite characters despite being the villian, and when someone bastardizes ANY of my favorite characters like this... it enrages me.
For all I love fanfic, there are times when it frustrates the living crud out of me. And for all I know these beings are fictional characters from a kids' TV show, I still hate it when people butcher them like this -- quite literally in this case.
Bleh... I'm gonna go read The Magician's Elephant or something else that's cute and whimsical and well-written, just so I can get this nasty piece of dreck out of my head...