The Bad Fic Round-up
Jan. 9th, 2008 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficBecause sometimes, looking for some good Babs/Dick fic is like walking into a minefield.
Yeeeeeehaw!
Best Girl, First Girl, Only Girl.
I wouldn’t say this is a bad story, just somewhat amateurish (of course, who am I to talk, right?). The villain is an evilbitchskank who molests Dick after cheating on her husband in the garage of Wayne manor (her husband who she stole from his wife and two kids, so you just know she’s bad). Thus Barbara gets the opportunity to play a little h/c with Dick (although Bruce gets in on the act by similarly sharing his non-romantic feelings, albeit through a sitcomish (macho?) contrivance), and Bruce gets to step in and be the “big bad Bat-daddy.” Dick has little agency beyond his shame and flirtation with Barbara. I’m a fan of conflict, but this one isn’t that juicy, basically being Bruce and the good old boy network (who are all basically decent, well-meaning people, making you wonder why Bruce holds them in such low esteem) versus the evilbitchskank who bleaches her hair and had a boob-job.
The most interesting thing here is the subtext wherein when Dick is getting fondled by an evilbitchskank, he’s a poor little woobie who can’t defend himself, but when he’s romancing Barbara (in the story she’s 24 and he’s 16), he’s perfectly capable of making such decisions for himself. Not that I necessarily disagree, and Babs certainly isn’t robbing the cradle in any case, but it’s interesting and not something I think the author thought about. Which disappoints me, because I think that would’ve been a really fascinating direction for the story to take, outlining the difference between Barbara and evilbitchskank beyond “Barbara’s not a predator” and really delving into the issues of consent that the story raises. For the record, Dick and Barbara ‘only’ swear undying love in the story, there’s no hanky-panky. Take that as you will.
No, what really… not ruins, but cheapens the story for me is the purple prose. I realize it’s just as hard to portray excessive drama without it becoming melodrama as it is to write pornographically without writing gynecologically. For me, it’s usually a case of less is more. You can’t gush if you only flow. But, well… take a look.
Barbara thinking about Dick: And Barbara herself felt a sharp stab of jealousy over whoever would pluck this precious rose from the bed of thorns in which he grew.
Dick thinking about Barbara: Besides, a careful and steady ascent could take both Babs and himself to wonderfully dizzying heights, with little stops and breathers along the way as safeguards. The payoff would be a flight beyond imagining!
Exclamation points out of dialogue -- for the record, rarely a good thing.
Speaks for itself: Dicky Grayson *was* her best guy. And she loved him for it. Loved him for all that he had been, was now, and was destined to be. Five and a half years was a significant age difference if you were talking about two ordinary people, but neither Dick nor Babs was ordinary. They were vigilantes who circumvented ordinary rules for the greater good of Gotham City. And now it seemed that their hearts had become vigilantes, too.
'Throw your line or become pavement-pizza, Batgirl,' Babs warned herself.
She pulled his face close to her own, their lips scant millimeters apart. Breathless, and with eyes closed, she whispered her reply. "We'll catch all kinds of Hell for it Dicky, but right now, I don't care about that. I love you, Dick, you are my best boy, my best guy, and you have been for a long, long time. It hasn't been easy waiting for you to grow up. There's still a big age gap that some people aren't going to be able to get past, at least not right now. If we're going to love each other, Dick, it'll be like dancing around bullets. One wrong move and one or both of us could take a killing shot. You have to understand that. We both have to keep our heads, on the job and off! I do love you so, and I everything I am says that can't be wrong. I don't want to be forced to give you up. You and I are the two wings of a single bird, Boy Wonder."
Dick heard every syllable, felt every breath that carried every word Babs said to him, and tucked them carefully away into his heart's scrapbook. His line fired and caught, pulling his heart out of its perilous freefall. Still holding her face in his hands, he very carefully, very tenderly pressed his lips to hers, and felt her press back, returning his kiss.
Oh, how he soared. How they soared, this single pair of wings. Friends, partners, their hearts' lovers, flying in tandem.
Now, I’m sure I’ve penned a stinker or two in my time, and it’s inevitable that I’ll do it again (yes, Virginia, sometimes bad stories happen to good authors). But I never wrote about the adventure of Heart Man and Ventricle Boy. At least no one said they were anyone’s soulmate.
But for real bile-enough-to-bathe-in, I've gotta go with Here's Looking At You, Red.
Why my hate? Well, let me quote you an excerpt.
"Get away from that phone," Dick warned, pulling out the gun.
Dent's eyes widened, "You don't dare interfere!"
"I was willing to shoot Captain Drake and I'm willing to shoot you."
Dent grabbed for the phone, pulling his weapon from its holster. A gunshot rang
out - and Dent sagged, gasping. He fell to the ground with a dull thud. Dick
pushed the gun back into his coat pocket.
The police squad came roaring up in two cars, jumping out, seeing Dent's body.
They looked to Drake.
He stepped forward. "Major Dent has been shot," he said. Tim cut his eyes to
Dick. For one instant their gazes locked.
Tim gave the order, "Round up the usual suspects!"
"Why, Siri," you might say, "that seems incredibly out-of-character for Dick Grayson. And Tim Drake. And Harvey Dent."
Not so. Because they're not in-character... they're in-somebody-else's-character. Yes, for God only knows what reason, it's Casablanca with Batman characters. Okay, that could be interesting. It could either be a straight-up AU, with the characters not "remembering" their lives as vigilantes and instead having come to Casablanca and proceeding from there with their natural personalities, or a scenario where it takes a little more work to put them into a Casablanca situation, but with the canon relationships still intact or as a starting point...
Or you can be unimaginably lazy and write a fic in which you just Search-and-Replace the characters' names with those from Casablanca. Guess which one our modern-day O. Henry went with?
"When will he be back?"
"Not tonight I think. He has gone home for the evening," Alfred had been
avoiding her eyes which stayed steadily on him, and now he kept his gaze on the
keys.
"Does he always leave so early?" she asked.
"No, he - he has a young lady over at the Blockbuster. I believe he has gone to
see her."
The Blockbuster is the hoo-boy-clever name of Roland Desmond's club, but you'll be forgiven for thinking Dick has to return some video tapes. It's his mentor's influence.
Barbara looked down and there was regret in her voice, "You used to be a much
better liar, Alfred."
He stopped playing and turned to her, saying quietly, "Leave him alone, Miss
Barbara. You are bad luck to him."
Now she couldn't meet his gaze. Finally she gave a small sigh and glanced up,
trying to smile, "Play it once, Alfred. For old time's sake."
"I am afraid I do not know what you mean," he said stiffly.
"Play it, Alfred," she urged softly. "play... 'As Time Goes By'."
In case you were wondering, Dick is Rick, Barbara is Ilsa, and Bruce is Victor. Which, hello? Dick's relationship with Bruce is one of the defining aspects of his character. You cannot take just any character and fit him into a round hole when he's a square peg. Not without the pants-shittingly terrifying mischaracterization we see here. And it's a shame, because the Teen Titans running a nightclub with Dick as the proprietor? Could be fun. If they were, you know, them and not Casablanca characters with vaguely fitting Bat-pseudonyms pasted on, yay!
I know that sloth is already one of the seven deadly sins, but can we set aside an eighth for intellectual sloth? Because this merits it. With just a little creativity, a Casablanca-inspired AU of the Batverse could be great fun. Bruce would do a much better job of fitting into the Rick role (with Dick as Captain Louis perhaps?), Lois as Ilsa maybe, and Clark as Victor. Screw around with stuff, shine the light on some dark corners, play around with the two exceptional canons you're drawing on. Not just a freelance novelization of a classic film with the names switched around.
And on an unrelated note, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for the Brand New Day creative team to try to do their job (sell comics) after the audience-insulting offal of OMD. But I imagine the damage control would go down a lot better if the comics pros would stop acting snarky and dismissive and instead answer the fans' concerns with thought and consideration instead of "shut up and buy what we tell you to!" Hint: No one's laughing. This is like pretending to be a slob to get a laugh from the health inspector. No, you're not making our concerns go away, you're just making light of them. Bad. Bad Marvel. No sale for you!
ETA: One more. This isn't so much a badfic as a case of "someone fell asleep on the job." Skipping Class by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shananagin. Just read.
Cissie smiled. "You're the best, Greta," she said.
Greta blushed a little, pleased. "Thanks. Oh, but Cissie?"
Cissie had turned to go back into her room, but she looked back at Greta. "Yes?" she asked.
"I know how you feel about her. I think she feels the same way."
Cissie stared at Greta. "Um, what?"
"You know," Greta said. "That you like her."
"I- I don't!" Cissie protested. "I like men! I'm straight!" She thought about it for a second. "Oh my god. I'm in love with Cassie. What do I do, Greta?"
As I said, the rest of the fic doesn't deserve a MSTing, but if it did, that would make a worthy stinger.
Yeeeeeehaw!
Best Girl, First Girl, Only Girl.
I wouldn’t say this is a bad story, just somewhat amateurish (of course, who am I to talk, right?). The villain is an evilbitchskank who molests Dick after cheating on her husband in the garage of Wayne manor (her husband who she stole from his wife and two kids, so you just know she’s bad). Thus Barbara gets the opportunity to play a little h/c with Dick (although Bruce gets in on the act by similarly sharing his non-romantic feelings, albeit through a sitcomish (macho?) contrivance), and Bruce gets to step in and be the “big bad Bat-daddy.” Dick has little agency beyond his shame and flirtation with Barbara. I’m a fan of conflict, but this one isn’t that juicy, basically being Bruce and the good old boy network (who are all basically decent, well-meaning people, making you wonder why Bruce holds them in such low esteem) versus the evilbitchskank who bleaches her hair and had a boob-job.
The most interesting thing here is the subtext wherein when Dick is getting fondled by an evilbitchskank, he’s a poor little woobie who can’t defend himself, but when he’s romancing Barbara (in the story she’s 24 and he’s 16), he’s perfectly capable of making such decisions for himself. Not that I necessarily disagree, and Babs certainly isn’t robbing the cradle in any case, but it’s interesting and not something I think the author thought about. Which disappoints me, because I think that would’ve been a really fascinating direction for the story to take, outlining the difference between Barbara and evilbitchskank beyond “Barbara’s not a predator” and really delving into the issues of consent that the story raises. For the record, Dick and Barbara ‘only’ swear undying love in the story, there’s no hanky-panky. Take that as you will.
No, what really… not ruins, but cheapens the story for me is the purple prose. I realize it’s just as hard to portray excessive drama without it becoming melodrama as it is to write pornographically without writing gynecologically. For me, it’s usually a case of less is more. You can’t gush if you only flow. But, well… take a look.
Barbara thinking about Dick: And Barbara herself felt a sharp stab of jealousy over whoever would pluck this precious rose from the bed of thorns in which he grew.
Dick thinking about Barbara: Besides, a careful and steady ascent could take both Babs and himself to wonderfully dizzying heights, with little stops and breathers along the way as safeguards. The payoff would be a flight beyond imagining!
Exclamation points out of dialogue -- for the record, rarely a good thing.
Speaks for itself: Dicky Grayson *was* her best guy. And she loved him for it. Loved him for all that he had been, was now, and was destined to be. Five and a half years was a significant age difference if you were talking about two ordinary people, but neither Dick nor Babs was ordinary. They were vigilantes who circumvented ordinary rules for the greater good of Gotham City. And now it seemed that their hearts had become vigilantes, too.
'Throw your line or become pavement-pizza, Batgirl,' Babs warned herself.
She pulled his face close to her own, their lips scant millimeters apart. Breathless, and with eyes closed, she whispered her reply. "We'll catch all kinds of Hell for it Dicky, but right now, I don't care about that. I love you, Dick, you are my best boy, my best guy, and you have been for a long, long time. It hasn't been easy waiting for you to grow up. There's still a big age gap that some people aren't going to be able to get past, at least not right now. If we're going to love each other, Dick, it'll be like dancing around bullets. One wrong move and one or both of us could take a killing shot. You have to understand that. We both have to keep our heads, on the job and off! I do love you so, and I everything I am says that can't be wrong. I don't want to be forced to give you up. You and I are the two wings of a single bird, Boy Wonder."
Dick heard every syllable, felt every breath that carried every word Babs said to him, and tucked them carefully away into his heart's scrapbook. His line fired and caught, pulling his heart out of its perilous freefall. Still holding her face in his hands, he very carefully, very tenderly pressed his lips to hers, and felt her press back, returning his kiss.
Oh, how he soared. How they soared, this single pair of wings. Friends, partners, their hearts' lovers, flying in tandem.
Now, I’m sure I’ve penned a stinker or two in my time, and it’s inevitable that I’ll do it again (yes, Virginia, sometimes bad stories happen to good authors). But I never wrote about the adventure of Heart Man and Ventricle Boy. At least no one said they were anyone’s soulmate.
But for real bile-enough-to-bathe-in, I've gotta go with Here's Looking At You, Red.
Why my hate? Well, let me quote you an excerpt.
"Get away from that phone," Dick warned, pulling out the gun.
Dent's eyes widened, "You don't dare interfere!"
"I was willing to shoot Captain Drake and I'm willing to shoot you."
Dent grabbed for the phone, pulling his weapon from its holster. A gunshot rang
out - and Dent sagged, gasping. He fell to the ground with a dull thud. Dick
pushed the gun back into his coat pocket.
The police squad came roaring up in two cars, jumping out, seeing Dent's body.
They looked to Drake.
He stepped forward. "Major Dent has been shot," he said. Tim cut his eyes to
Dick. For one instant their gazes locked.
Tim gave the order, "Round up the usual suspects!"
"Why, Siri," you might say, "that seems incredibly out-of-character for Dick Grayson. And Tim Drake. And Harvey Dent."
Not so. Because they're not in-character... they're in-somebody-else's-character. Yes, for God only knows what reason, it's Casablanca with Batman characters. Okay, that could be interesting. It could either be a straight-up AU, with the characters not "remembering" their lives as vigilantes and instead having come to Casablanca and proceeding from there with their natural personalities, or a scenario where it takes a little more work to put them into a Casablanca situation, but with the canon relationships still intact or as a starting point...
Or you can be unimaginably lazy and write a fic in which you just Search-and-Replace the characters' names with those from Casablanca. Guess which one our modern-day O. Henry went with?
"When will he be back?"
"Not tonight I think. He has gone home for the evening," Alfred had been
avoiding her eyes which stayed steadily on him, and now he kept his gaze on the
keys.
"Does he always leave so early?" she asked.
"No, he - he has a young lady over at the Blockbuster. I believe he has gone to
see her."
The Blockbuster is the hoo-boy-clever name of Roland Desmond's club, but you'll be forgiven for thinking Dick has to return some video tapes. It's his mentor's influence.
Barbara looked down and there was regret in her voice, "You used to be a much
better liar, Alfred."
He stopped playing and turned to her, saying quietly, "Leave him alone, Miss
Barbara. You are bad luck to him."
Now she couldn't meet his gaze. Finally she gave a small sigh and glanced up,
trying to smile, "Play it once, Alfred. For old time's sake."
"I am afraid I do not know what you mean," he said stiffly.
"Play it, Alfred," she urged softly. "play... 'As Time Goes By'."
In case you were wondering, Dick is Rick, Barbara is Ilsa, and Bruce is Victor. Which, hello? Dick's relationship with Bruce is one of the defining aspects of his character. You cannot take just any character and fit him into a round hole when he's a square peg. Not without the pants-shittingly terrifying mischaracterization we see here. And it's a shame, because the Teen Titans running a nightclub with Dick as the proprietor? Could be fun. If they were, you know, them and not Casablanca characters with vaguely fitting Bat-pseudonyms pasted on, yay!
I know that sloth is already one of the seven deadly sins, but can we set aside an eighth for intellectual sloth? Because this merits it. With just a little creativity, a Casablanca-inspired AU of the Batverse could be great fun. Bruce would do a much better job of fitting into the Rick role (with Dick as Captain Louis perhaps?), Lois as Ilsa maybe, and Clark as Victor. Screw around with stuff, shine the light on some dark corners, play around with the two exceptional canons you're drawing on. Not just a freelance novelization of a classic film with the names switched around.
And on an unrelated note, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for the Brand New Day creative team to try to do their job (sell comics) after the audience-insulting offal of OMD. But I imagine the damage control would go down a lot better if the comics pros would stop acting snarky and dismissive and instead answer the fans' concerns with thought and consideration instead of "shut up and buy what we tell you to!" Hint: No one's laughing. This is like pretending to be a slob to get a laugh from the health inspector. No, you're not making our concerns go away, you're just making light of them. Bad. Bad Marvel. No sale for you!
ETA: One more. This isn't so much a badfic as a case of "someone fell asleep on the job." Skipping Class by
shananagin. Just read.Cissie smiled. "You're the best, Greta," she said.
Greta blushed a little, pleased. "Thanks. Oh, but Cissie?"
Cissie had turned to go back into her room, but she looked back at Greta. "Yes?" she asked.
"I know how you feel about her. I think she feels the same way."
Cissie stared at Greta. "Um, what?"
"You know," Greta said. "That you like her."
"I- I don't!" Cissie protested. "I like men! I'm straight!" She thought about it for a second. "Oh my god. I'm in love with Cassie. What do I do, Greta?"
As I said, the rest of the fic doesn't deserve a MSTing, but if it did, that would make a worthy stinger.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-09 09:50 pm (UTC)Is it for real? The comments read like it was, but...it had to be a parody, right? A faux interview expressing the writer's disdain for OMD (and the disdain its writers have for the readers)?
Didn't it?
If not, if it was a real interview--my god. The mind boggles.