Numair Salmalin stood silhouetted against a backdrop of brilliant sunset. Squinting into the light, Alanna called his name and waved him over to the bench where she sat with a mug of ale.
Numair sat beside her and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare. "Lovely sunset," he commented.
Alanna did not like to bother with small talk. "How were the fanfics today?" she asked.
"Absolutely dismal," the mage said with a sigh. Alanna tutted sympathetically, inviting him to elaborate. "You know it's going to be a bad day when the first story you read has words spelled wrong in the title and summary. Particularly if all the summary says is, 'kewl fic so revew!' Far too many summaries begin by saying 'I suck at summaries,' and they're usually right."
Alanna snorted. "It's pathetic what passes for a summary these days," she said, then added in a mocking voice, "Ever wondered what would happen if Raoul were actually a dog in disguise?????? OMG guys this is my first fic so like R/R OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Numair, still contemplating the poor quality of the fanfics, said nothing.
"Remember back when we complained about Mary Sue stories and excessive self-insertion?" Alanna said wistfully. "And after that, the 'my-friends-and-I-get-transported-to-Tortall? Those were the worst, back in the good old days!"
"Yes, until Sparrow finally did it well and entertainingly."
"The rest seemed twice as bad after that."
"But they all began to look good when spelling and punctuation officially went by the wayside."
The two friends paused to contemplate. A certain amount of mechanical incompetence was to be expected in fan fiction, particularly fan fiction about books marketed to preteen girls. But time was when a good portion of the stories had clearly been run through the spell-checker or passed under the sharp eyes of a beta reader. That time was no longer. It was now quite rare to see a piece of writing with any attention to spelling or punctuation. Grammatical correctness was obviously too much to hope for.
Numair picked up the thread of the conversation. "FanFiction.net seems to be inundated with top-ten lists and cheesy game shows."
"And then you have the fics that include only a passing mention of any of the real characters - "
"I like those!" Numair interjected.
"Fine," said Alanna, though to her it obviously wasn't. "Stories that are barely considered fan fiction are OK."
"What about stories that can barely be considered stories?" asked Numair. "You know, the ones where every other line is an author's note that says something like, 'ok guys just so you know numair has this cat that can do magic ok?'"
Alanna winced. "I've read that one, I think."
"I've read them all," said Numair. "Hours of my life reading careless, unoriginal fiction."
"There are a few worth the time," Alanna pointed out for the sake of fairness. "There's - "
"Don't say them!" Numair warned. "If we refrain from naming the good ones, every author can think that he or she is one of the chosen few, and perhaps our own dear author will only get half the flames."
"Why would she get flamed for telling the truth about the declining quality of Tamora Pierce fanfiction?" Alanna wondered, already knowing the answer.
"We'll never know," said Numair. "I haven't met a flamer yet with coherent grammar."