This has nothing to do with anything, it's just for fun and a few things I've been thinking of. This isn't a plot, or a story, just me having fun. Which is what this site is all about, need I remind you.
The stage is set, the dark curtains are pulled back, and a single spotlight shone on the two people on the stage, both sitting in armchairs by a fake fireplace set.
"Good evening," said The Golden Dragon Lord (aka Gold), to the cameras in front of him. "My sister Silver and I thank you for joining us this evening. We are here tonight to talk about a very serious crime, right Silver?"
Silver nodded. "Indeed. Everyone knows what this is, but very few manage to even try to stop it. Of course, we are talking about bad fan fiction on this site. Gold, what do you describe as a bad fan fiction?"
"Well, I would say that a bad story, or fic if you so desire, can have a multitude of different things. But a truly bad fan fiction has a combination of several." He sighed. "Let's start off with something we all know, a fic with no plot."
"Now that is truly horrible," said Silver, nodding somberly. "Why would anyone do that?"
"I wish I knew, but many fan fiction writers see no problem with simply writing down a simple one chapter fic that is essentially an endless ramble. This includes a fic that simply a paring the author likes and wants to write them being together, never mind the need for a plot or if it is even believable in the fandom it is in. Like…Draco/Hermione fics."
Silver shuddered. "I believe you mean those one chapter fics that simply has them together, despite the fact that they hate each other in cannon, and them being together with no build up and no purpose to them getting together?"
"Exactly. Many will of these will have two characters, even a beloved pairing like Percy/Annabeth or Remus/Tonks, with just them cuddling in bed or one lamenting the fact that one died while the other didn't. It truly is disturbing how so many authors do this. Yes, it is amusing to simply write down what a person's favorite couple will do while alone, but I think people are intelligent enough to actually want a well paced story that builds up to it in a believable way with sound character development."
"And one-shots?"
"Amusing at times, but shouldn't be taken seriously. There is no way a person can get much plot and character development in just a few thousand words and one chapter. And yet, there are still authors out there that expect these one-shots to be taken seriously."
"Truly tragic," said Silver, shaking her head. "What else makes a bad fan fiction? Maybe, characters that don't act the way they do in cannon?"
"There is that, yes," said Gold, nodding sagely. "This is why character development is important. If an author wants a character to act a certain way, one has to flush out their personalities and then alter various situations so the character grows as the story continues. Fan fiction gives authors characters already from the fandom they come from, so their personalities are already established. That just leaves an author to alter things in the plot that gives a person a reason they act the way they do.
"Take Harry Potter for instance. Due to his upbringing with the Dursleys, it would be easy to rewrite his entire personality where he's a bully that likes torturing others to make himself feel better, what with growing up in a cupboard under the stairs and everything. Other things like paring him up with Draco," he paused and shuddered in disgust, "is highly unlikely as J.K. Rowling points out that he is not inclined that way, and neither is Draco, as they marry Ginny Weasley and Astoria Greengrass respectively. To make them be together, the author would have to come up with some sort of reason why they suddenly turn from straight to homosexual, which is again, unlikely."
"The biggest contributor to this is probably those people that like Roxas and Axel from Kingdom Hearts to be together," said Silver, making a face.
"Ah yes, AkuRoku or something like that. Now that actually is impossible as when they were friends, mind you, friends, they are Nobodies. Meaning they have no hearts. They have no emotions like love. They are physically incapable of falling for each other, even when people think they belong together. Never mind that Roxas eventually falls for Namine, a girl, while Axel is still looking when he comes back as a human, but fan girls seem to like this paring when it, again, makes no sense."
"You said that character development is important to any good story. I take it that Twilight is out."
"Oh yes. It is certainly out. I know you only read the first book," Silver made another face, "while I actually read all four, but Edward and Bella have terrible developments throughout the story. Bella and Edward are almost exactly the same in the end as they are int he beginning. Well, no, that's not entirely true as Edward is worse.
"Edward goes from being a creepy stalker who watches Bella as she sleeps to get himself used to her scent so he doesn't kill her, to making large decisions for her despite her protests, and then making assumptions on what she wants even when she tells him different. He makes no attempt to turn her into a sparkly vampire, even when she's begging for it, but he actually sucks the venom out of her arm when James bites her in the first book, preventing her from turning when she does want it eventually. Edward breaks up with her and then removes his family from Forks Washington, despite what the other Cullens want, and then removes any trace he had been in her life at all. He wants her to 'have a happy human life' even when she's telling him she doesn't want that at all.
"At the end of the first book, when Bella is in the hospital from James's attack, Edward sees her and actually tells her that he'll stay only as long as it is in their best interests. Even then, Edward reveals that he does plan on dumping Bella when she ceases to be amusing for him, but she is so blinded by love for him that she wants to stay with him despite that. And of course, he hit all of her buttons on the way out in New Moon, using the incident on her birthday and that paper cut as an excuse to leave. He tells her that he's a vampire, he'll bounce back quickly and that she was simply a distraction to him, implying that he never did love her and her fascination with him was completely one sided.
"Bella had put everything she had into that relationship, and he ripped out her heart and stomped on it as she collapsed on the ground, making Sam the wolf bring her back to her house. After that, she's comatose for months and only starts to move around for her father, who doesn't really help himself, just persuades her to go out with friends. She had no friends to talk to without editing everything to pieces, and the only other person she can talk to is Jacob, who is biased against Vampires anyway.
"And yet, even after all of the torture he puts her through, she still hops on a plane with Alice to save him in Voltera Italy. The Cullens come back, true, but by that point, Edward is even worse. He insists in not turning Bella into a vampire, again, despite what she wants, and starts making her plan for college while preventing her from talking to any of the wolves. He actually made her want to disobey him just to get time away from him. Now that is an abusive relationship.
"Even at the end of the series, Edward takes away another choice of Bella's by not only trying to get her to abort her daughter, but also turns her into a vampire just to save her life, not because she wanted it. And out of all of this, Bella just takes everything, making her the worse main female character I have ever seen as she is so submissive. Brave when she needs to be, but when it comes to Edward, it takes her something drastic to even think he might be wrong about something. Despite being over one hundred years old, he is still a child, and it shows."
"Wow," said Silver, staring at him. "But you have to admit, Jacob did grow with the story, even if the others didn't. He goes from a goofy kid, to a wolf who hates vampires, to eventually imprinting on a new born girl. Though that is disturbing and wrong right there, he isn't the same at the end as he is in the start of the series."
"True. Now, let's continue, shall we? Another thing that makes a bad story is bad grammar. While a relatively harmless thing, the best of stories will fall flat if the author doesn't even split their paragraphs accordingly. A good plot and good characters are useless if one cannot follow the story because the screen shows a huge block of text from start to finish."
"Yes, I've had to deal that a few times," said Silver.
Gold nodded to her. "Proper punctuation, few spelling errors, and more is just proper English. Or any other language. Is it realistic for every typo to be fixed? Of course not. I've even seen errors in proper books like in a couple of the Percy Jackson books and Harry Potter. But the story still has to flow so that it makes sense and that is impossible when a person refuses to put up quotation marks to show when a person is talking."
"The point of all of this is that a good story needs at least a good plot, decent character development, being able to be read by the target audience, and a fan fiction story requires an author to at least try to stick with the character's personality," Silver summed up.
Gold nodded. "Now, I would like to introduce my guest that I've been wanting to meet for about a year now. She's my flagship character and the one I go to when I have an idea, please welcome Danielle!"
Canned applause came from the speakers of the stage as Danielle, dressed in her Hunt uniform from Hunters of Artemis and looking thirteen, came onto the stage and took a seat next to Gold and Silver.
"Wonderful to finally meet you," said Gold, shaking her hand. Danielle returned it and did the same to Silver.
"I have to admit, I didn't think I would get to meet you like this," Danielle smirked, relaxing into her chair.
"Danielle," said Silver, leaning forward. "My brother Gold has put you into several plot lines already. You've been everything from a Hunter of Artemis, to Britain's Bad Girl, a superhero with Superman and Supergirl, a rouge vigilante, a powerful magical trained by Merlin on the island of Avalon, and Gold has plans to make you a Keyblade wielder, a Pokemon trainer, and even a high elf from Middle Earth. Tell me, what is like to play so many different roles?"
Danielle laughed a little. "It's a little overwhelming, actually. Every story I have to have a slightly different personality and my relationship with my parents are different as well. In some I hate them and I want them to burn, in others I'm willing to forgive them and actually do so. But I've been forced to be an actress because of him," she pointed at Gold, "so I guess I'm okay with it."
"What is the biggest threat to you personally, you think?" Silver asked.
"To be honest, I think it was when I was playing Dyna-Girl in the DC crossover," said Danielle. "With Kryptonian powers and magic, it's a little hard to not become a Mary Sue and that is my greatest fear. I don't want to be perfect, I want to have flaws, but it really is too easy for me to become that. The same with any main character, really."
"Are you looking forward to any future projects my brother is coming up with?"
Danielle smiled again. "Well, a sequel to Hunters of Artemis will probably be in order. If Riordan is going to do what we think he might and make a Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles crossover, then the Hunters might get involved in that as well. Personally, I hope I wouldn't be forced to pick sides between them but I have to follow my goddess and Thalia to the end."
"What do you think of the rumors that you should wind up with Thalia?"
Danielle rolled her eyes. "Okay, first, everyone has made that claim at least at some point. I've been told many times when I was on the set for Hunters of Artemis that some crazy fan thinks that I should be with a girl because of the oath I made means I have to give up the company of men. Thalia and both agreed when we were on set that we're just friends. Really good friends. But still, just friends. And no, I am not going to fall for Apollo, Hades, Nico, Reyna or any of the other people that have been suggested for me. At least, not in that story," she gave a look at Gold, who smirked.
"What can I say, I am a guy."
Silver whacked him upside the head. "Sorry about that. But I really am against the whole girl/girl relationship thing. Right?" she glared at her brother.
"Uh, right," said Gold, a little meekly now. "Anyway, what do you think of the script I gave you for the opposite of Britain's Bad Girl?"
Danielle shook her head. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I only read the rough draft of the script and I'm a little concerned about the whole Mary Sue thing. 'Britain's Good Girl' might be a tough sell after everyone sees me as a punk chick in Bad Girl. I mean, in Good Girl, you have me as a literal Angel."
"Yes, you die because of the Dursleys and the big guy upstairs takes pity on you and become an Angel," said Gold, not seeing where she was going with this. "What's so wrong with that?"
"Nothing, just a little weird. I mean, my first job with you and I'm a Hunter of Artemis, who's part of Greek Mythology. Now in Good Girl, you have me talking to God and Jesus a few times before being trained on using angelic powers. Isn't that a little strange? The whole Christian faith doesn't take well to polytheistic religions, like the Greek and Roman gods were at one point."
"True, but again, it's just a rough draft at this point," Gold agreed. "And I would want to finish a story before I actually start it."
"So, Danielle, anything you would like to tell us before we let you go?" asked Silver.
"Not really, I've said everything I wanted to," she said, smiling again. She shook their hands one more time before turning to leave, she stopped though. "By the way, if you try to turn me into a sparkly vampire or a wolf shifter in a Twilight world, I will sue you," she said in a completely serious voice.
"Will do," Gold nodded. "I have no plans for anything Twilight or anything from Stephanie Meyer in the near future."
"Good."
"Well, that's our show," said Gold, standing to take a bow to the audience. "I have no idea how the people who run this site will take this chapter but I think it was fun to write and that is what's important. See you next time!"
Silver meanwhile was flipping through a script Gold had written, her face turned furious. "Gold, this script where you have Danielle as a high elf and help Harry defeat Voldemort has her falling for HERMIONE!"
"Oh…crud," he muttered, taking a step back. "Run away!" And thus, the author was forced to run for his life while his sister chased him into the nearby duck pond.
You know, that was extremely easy and fun to write. Everyone should try this at some point, I think. Until next time, my peeps!
