Fan Fiction Made a Mockery of

I love reading fan fiction.  I love the various ideas that people have created that put various characters in awkward situations.  I must admit that I do enjoy reading fan fiction but there are those stories which make about as much sense as bringing a knife to a gunfight.  Now, I’m not out to mock all fan fiction writers, especially since I too write the occasional fan fic, I am only out to mock those fans who seriously need to re-think their story.

Let’s admit it, we all love a good romance fic from time to time.  Notice I said a GOOD romance fic.  I love romance fics but I can’t help but make fun of certain authors for their pairings.  Why are you writers pairing characters like Relena Peacecraft with characters like Chang Wufei in Gundam Wing fan fiction?  To explain who these characters are, Relena is a prime minister who is a advocate for peace while Wufei is a soldier who is pro-war and thinks women are weak.  These characters have NEVER crossed paths EVER in the series.  So why are people writing that they’re suddenly sleeping together?  It just doesn’t make sense.

Couples that would never work out are just as fun to laugh at.  Why do you stupid fan fiction writers insist on making pairings that could never and would never work?  My favorite is April O’Neil and Shredder from TMNT.  This pairing does not work!  Why?  Let’s consider this for a moment: Woman who has a total hatred for Shredder and wishes death upon the man/creature while we have Shredder, the man/creature who doesn’t really care if April lives or dies as long as he can kill the turtles.  Writers, this is like saying that you and the one person who you truly wish death upon will end up in bed together just for the heck of it.  Does that logic make sense?  NO!

Yaoi/Yuri/Slash fan fics are my ultimate favorites to mock.  Especially when writers take two straight men or women like Tomahome and Hotohori (both characters are from Fushigi Yugi, AKA: Mysterious Play) and then pair them together.  Now, to explain these characters, Tomahome eventually marries the main female character while Hotohori eventually does MARRY a WOMAN and both events happen in both the manga and the anime.  Now, these two are quite obviously straight.  For some reason, most people don’t foresee these two suddenly waking up one morning and deciding “ya know, I am gay and I’m going to leave my wife to sleep with a man.”  Not happening.  So do why some writers insist that this is a logical couple?

Another thing that I don’t understand with “slash” is where this term comes from.  Who invented this term to begin with?  If one wants to look up fan fiction on Slash, the musician, or even Slash, the mutant turtle in Ninja Turtles that Shredder created, one would have to scroll through the endless pages of “slash” just to find what it is that they are looking for.  It’s maddening!

Mary Sues are another type of romance fan fic that one can almost make fun of.  Now, I know the world of fan fiction is flooded with blatant Mary Sues, however, one must ask themselves to define a Mary Sue.  When I took the liberty of taking a poll of 100 writers, I found that I got about 15 similar answers.  They all had the idea that the character was perfect and that the character is always created by the author.  However, the problem is that I got everything from every character created by the author is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu down to only if they’re absolutely perfect.  So my question is what is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu and why can’t you people agree on a definition?  The minute people do, please come back and talk to me and I’ll make sure to not write them.

Getting back to the issue with Mary Sues/Gary Stus, they’re usually so perfect that the reader want to vomit.  Yes, I know that the author dreams of making a beautiful character who everyone loves and admires but that’s not the case in the real world.  Now, I understand that this is a fictional realm that the characters are being put into but come on people.  Even there, every character has flaws.  I dare everyone to name one perfect character in any movie/TV show/book/video game/etc that has no flaws because those characters don’t exist.  Every character in every show has a flaw in some way, shape, or form.

Another fun type of fan fiction to mock are those that have the characters out of character.  This is something I don’t understand.  If you enjoy a series, then you probably love the series because you like the characters and the story line.  If this is the case, why are you people continuing to have a character who hates guns pick up a machine gun and kill their friends and family with no rhyme or reason?  Perhaps I’m wrong but hate fan fiction where I see that people have decided that Leonardo uses a sniper rifle to kill Splinter and the other three turtles because he got angry and snapped in some Ninja Turtles fan fic.  I can understand if the comic books, movies, and/or TV series was leading up to Leonardo doing something like this but it’s common knowledge amongst Ninja Turtle fans that Leonardo hates guns!  These stories make no sense.  If you do something like this, then you writers better be prepared to justify in the story as to why he did this, explain each and every event that led up to him using that sniper rifle, and explain where the character got the sniper rifle to begin with.

If an author does take a character out of character, these authors should give fair warning in the beginning before I write a review saying “Your portrayal of the characters were REALLY WAY out in left field somewhere.  <Insert character> hates guns and would never pick one up.  If you do not believe me on this, please consult the book/episode X of the manga/movie/book/etc for this fact.  I’m not sure if you meant to take the characters out of characters but please put up a warning next time you do take them out.”  I can’t stand wasting my time on fan fiction where these authors know that they took the character out of character.  I hate reading out of character fan fics.  So put up a warning.  It’s one sentence more.  It’s not going to kill them.

Just when you think that fan fiction writers can’t write stuff any worse, you find it.  The writers who write in internet chat speak when there’s no chat in the fan fic.  I hate reading stories where I see the story written as “btw, you r my bff 4-eva.  brb.  i g2g.  ttyl.”  To me, this is gibberish in fan fiction.  When I sit down and take the time to read someone’s fan fiction, there are certain things that I demand and my demands are not unreasonable.  One of them is that all of the words are spelled out, not abbreviated like they are in chats.  This bugs people.  I don’t sit there and continue to read the fic.  I stop after the first line and write in the review or send them an email “I’m sure your story is good but I couldn’t get past the first sentence because you wrote everything in chat speak and I don’t understand it.  You might want to put everything in English for the chat speech impaired.”  I am literate in chat speech but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is.   Sadly, this never gets changed and these people wonder why no one wants to read their fic or if they post it on a site like fanfiction.net, it gets taken down within an hour.  Gee, I wonder why!  

The other good ones to mock are the crossovers.  As much as I would like to say some of them are interesting, some of them are just plain stupid and there is no possible way that the two fandoms would meet.  Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles is a good example of what happens when two fandoms that should never meet do meet.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Saban (the producers of the Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutantion) actually brought the two shows together for a 2 part episode.  This turned into a total disaster.  The episode was poorly scripted and done and many fans from both shows will tell you the same.  Now, I understand many people saying that it wasn’t done correctly, however, what are the chances that TMNT will meet the Power Rangers?  Probably .1%.  If a show takes place on another planet or on a space ship, what are the chances that Harry Potter is going to meet the people from Star Wars or Star Trek?  Answer: .1% and that’s being generous.  Unless you’re writing something that’s supposed to become a comedy and isn’t supposed to make sense, then these crossovers don’t work.  If you’re going to do a crossover, make it logical, like if two shows take place in New York City, then yes, it makes sense that maybe the two have crossed paths once or twice.  

As we can all see, as much as one can say that there is a lot of good fan fiction out there, one can also declare that there is a lot of cruddy fan fiction as well.  Don’t’ think of them as just god awful, look at them as an opportunity to sit down, laugh, and mock.  Remember, things are only what you make them and if you look at a writer’s story as an opportunity to get a good laugh at a person’s stupidity, then you will find that your reading enjoyment is increased.