Wednesday, March 9, 2011

MaryC Reacts To A Bad Castle FanFic

I'm gonna admit it right here.  I'm a fan of ABCs "Castle". Not only does it have the awesome handsomeness of Nathan Fillion, but it's also light, frothy, silly, murderous fun.

That being said, you know what I'm not a fan of?  Bad writing.  Even a bigger non-fan of?  Bad "Castle" FanFic writing.  It hurts me.  Physically.  So I need to hurt it back.

(Click here to see the last FanFic that ticked me off.  You may remember it for giving birth to the immortal phrase, "casually screaming.")

So. Please indulge me as I "React to a Bad Castle FanFic":

Indented parts are the fanfic. Bold are my snarky comments
A Special Gift
Author: AriesOx17
Summary: Kate recevies a surprise that could change her life.
You know you're in for a bad one when the bizarre spelling mistakes show up in the summary.
Detective Kate Beckett has had a long day.

After closing a recent case (which was supposed to be quick solve but was dragged out when the murder decided to throw them off track)
Oh, those wacky sentient crimes!  You can never tell what they're gonna do, next! Confess or throw you off track so they don't get caught!  They're scamps!
and filling out paperwork, Captain Montgomery sent her, Ryan and Esposito home for the weekend at 5pm (while having Karpowski on call) to get some much needed rest.

Right as she got off the elevator of her new apartment (which Castle had helped her find when the old had been blown up by a serial killer) with Italian takeout she noticed something from the corner of her eye.
An eyelash.
As she got closer she saw what it was, baby carriage and a diaper bag set in front of her door.

Oh no this cannot be happening.

Kate was one those who was "one and done" and before having kids.
Excuse me? "one those"? Hey! Articles are your friends! Try one, today!
As she was slowing down as she got closer to her door, she was nervous and she had every right to be; what if it was a trap?
Diabolical! Someone is trying to pawn off diaper changing duty on her! The fiends!
However, all her thoughts went into disarray when she heard a whimper coming from the baby carriage. She thought would it hurt to investigate?
I was about to pick on the missing comma and quotation marks, but since her thoughts went into disarray, I'm guessing that's what happened to those, too.
All her defenses crumbled when she flipped one the cover
You know who else are your friends? Beta readers! Flip "one the cover" and find a reader, today!
and saw an adorable baby girl who looked no older than a couple of days swaddled in pink;
They're so cute at that age.  It's when they're a couple of years swaddled in pink that they become a handful.
by now the baby was beginning to cry.
Because someone was reading this fanfic out loud to her.
"Oh you more little one you must be cold, let's get you inside and warmed up and we'll figure it out from there."
Good idea, less big one!
Once she made sure the coast was clear and that it was safe enough not to be a trap then she took the carriage and diaper bag in.
Safe enough to not be a trap, but she's definitely still in danger of having to change a poopy diaper.
Good thing was that she always seemed to have a fleece blanket on the couch.
Yeah, funny how that works out. Weird thing is, she doesn't even OWN a fleece blanket!
She put the carriage and bag down and before long was cradling the baby and the crying stopped.
The baby, however, continued to cry because it was freezing to death! Where's that fleece blanket, woman?!
When Kate saw a smile on the baby's face her heart melt even more.
It WAS a trap! Quick! Put the baby down! It has the demonic power to cook you from the inside out!
Whoa there Katie, you don't want to get too attached you're going to need to find the parents and contact Child Social Services.
Wait. Who's talking? God? A narrator? Oh! Is this one of those filmstrips they used to show in school on rainy days?
Another realization hit; she was going to need baby supplies and she knew just the two to help out.
Smart & Final.

18 comments:

D. Sidhe said...

I've seen worse. Fuck me, I've written worse.

I admit that it made me kind of want to hurt it back, and I don't even watch Castle, but I would say it compares favorably to about four fifths of the Big Bang Theory fic out there.

If you want something really, really special, I can show you the World's Worst Fanfic Ever. I'm not kidding. This thing made me hate words. It gave me an allergic reaction so bad I spent most of a day not being able to read even the back of a cereal box because everything I read reduced me to a gag reflex just by dint of having letters in common.

I thought I'd gotten it out of my system, but three nights later I woke up, sleepwalking. I'd been trying to rebuild the Tower of Babel out of our porn collection in an attempt to goad God into striking our species incoherent again.

Fourteen billion years of atoms, four and a half billion years of this planet, the spark of life itself, three thousand five hundred million years of evolution, three million years of a species that has now ventured to the depths of the oceans and into space, that has crafted literature that burns in the minds of even people who can only read it in translation, that has created machines that can answer in the form of a question, and it all comes down to this, a person who uses the word "interlay" in a sentence. (Hint: That's not the word you think it is. This word's own mother tongue would not recognize it, looking like this.)

I can give you the link. But be warned: You cannot unread it. And you will wish you could. Oh, how you will wish you could.

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

I'm pretty much unaware of all internet traditions. Is there Hamlet fan fic?

[Capcha: raebush, what I remember catching a glimpse of in Quest for Fire.

D. Sidhe said...

Yes. Yes there is Hamlet fanfic. Dude, there is fucking Pac-Man fanfic. With warnings for noncon and torture.

My favorite stuff is the authors who have decided they, for example, really adore Leverage, but only if they can make all the characters into werewolves first. Now, pirate alternate universe fic is a long and hallowed internet tradition, you do have to occasionally wonder why the hell you wouldn't start out with a show with supernatural overtones rather than, say, write the stars of TJ Hooker all as vampires while never actually bothering to explain how the hell that happened.

We will probably not have actually achieved the Nerd Event Horizon until there is Eureka slash in Klingon.

That said, I've been inspired to go write a series of Flipper AUs where everything is exactly the same except Flipper is a giant spider. I'm almost positive it hasn't been done yet.

Kathy said...

As narrated by Troy MacClure... you remember him from the hit show: "Babies Go Beserk!"

Chris Vosburg said...

AriesOx17 titles her fanfic: A Special Gift

I'm reminded that the first Police Squad episode was titled (Quinn Martin nod):

A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise)

Kathy said...

My daughter, when 10-11 wrote fan fic for a cartoon show called "Code: Lyoko". She showed me the site where she'd posted it and I read the first chapter... pretty good. Better than the show, which I'd been forced to watch many times. Main character is sitting at an outdoor table at a Paris Cafe when his cell phone, in fact, Everyone's cell phone! starts making a noise like "a thousand Banshee's with red-hot pokers up their asses!", which causes everyone's (everyone in France has a cell-phone) eyes, ears, nose and mouth to gush and spurt blood everywhere. The hero somehow covers his ears, flees to the back of the restaurant (passing a woman with blood "pouring from her eyes... he knew he couldn't help her, blood-from-eyes was always fatal!) [Ok,ok! she was 10 when she wrote it]. He hides in the restaurant freezer where the sound can't reach... and sits huddled, wondering if the noise will stop before he freezes to death. End Part I. Alas! before I could finish it the Code Lyoko site took the story down because someone else had a story of the same name. Pity. Daughter had written the story on her Dad's laptop and he deleted it.

If you're wondering what a Banshee is, my daughter told me it is one of the bands in Mexican restaurants that play for you until tip them. Close enough, I'd say.

Brian Schlosser said...

D. Sidhe, are you referring the Tale of Her Goffness, Enoby Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way?

Kathy said...

I don't watch much TV, but I think a lot of shows with "hard boiled" caree women often feature plots where they're forced to deal with a baby. "Baby Boom" plots. Even one guy show...long time ago "Rip Tide". I was young, I adored that show. The pet Computer Nerd who always solved the mysteries by hacking any computer he wanted to, ran out and bought "All the latest State-of-the-Art Baby books!"

Sorry for my babble... 10mg of Norco makes me chatty. And I can never resist boasting about the daughter.

Kathy said...

"hard boiled" career women..

Anonymous said...

I remember telling a friend that I read X-files fan fiction. It was an interesting moment when she told me she wrote slash fiction and that I had actually read some of it. Seriously the cigarette smoking guy's name was Mike Hunt

D. Sidhe said...

Brian: No. This is a Primeval fic. It's... staggering. Chick/giant carnivorous dinosaur. Noncon. Tagged, I am not kidding, "romance". I read it because, you know, what the hell, I enjoy whitewater crazy.

Anonymous: Oooh! Oooh! Me! I write Mulder/Frohike. (And other crazy ass shit.) Well, at least I do when my migraines aren't bad. If you get bored enough, I'm at dsidhe.com. Let the mockery commence!

heydave said...

I choose to take comfort in the belief that the "author" of that fanfic is young, or at least terribly immature, or both, and that English is not their first language.

At the very least, I hope they brought enough dope for everyone.

Anonymous said...

Like the estimable Mr Riley, I, being of a certain age, knew such things existed but had never actually read any.But, if it's good enough for D, I guess I'll have to venture into wholly new territory.

Suezboo

HMDK said...

Everything about this is deserving of scorn.
The original writer, MaryC, the commenters... EVERYTHING. What's next?
Positive reviews of Hitler tentacle-rape videos?
Seriously, I'm goin' Godwin outta sheer disbelief.

D. Sidhe said...

Really? You're going all Hitler reference over fanfic? Do you also compare F-bombs to actual A-Bombs?

Honestly, going Godwin over fanfic seems pretty limiting. I have to wonder what you do when confronted with something that you dislike that actually *matters*.

maryclev said...

HMDK:

Ohhh. I'm sorry. Were you one of the people searching for Castle Beckett BDSM? You must be terribly disappointed. Tell you what. Calm yourself down, pull up your pants, and click this link: http://community.livejournal.com/castlekink/

Plenty of stuff to get your Castle Kink on!

You're Welcome.

HMDK said...

Hah, nah. It's just too sad to actually be creepy.

Unknown said...

Have I ever mention how much I love you Mary?

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