"The War with the Fanbrats" -- Excerpt

[matrixrefugee]

As promised a while back, the long-awaited chapter from the novel inspired by the war with the crazy fanbrats this summer. There aren't any set "chapters" in this book, as it stands, but there are defined sections -- IM transcriptions, message board threads, online journal entries. This is one of the later sections.

Background: The novel opens with "Morgan Rennes" posting an MST-like review of the first chapter of a bad "Onieroscape" fanfiction on “dreadfulfanfiction.com's” message board ("Onieroscape" is a fake series of movies/live-action RPG that I can briefly describe as a combination of the Lord of the Rings, Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" Comics and touches of the "Matrix" series). In this badly written fanfiction, the author's blatantly obvious Mary Sue, “Christofel“, succeeds in falling in love with the fandom's chief villain, a wizard/warrior-king known as the Pendrachen (think of a cross between Saruman in LOTR and the Merovingian in the "Matrix" series.) and convinces him to turn good (sound familiar??). Some of the message board regulars, including “Jill Dringenberg”, a professional writer/editor at a sci-fi magazine; “Martha Stewwit”, a professional chef; the feisty “Sticky Tape”; “Chavali”, a playful college student; the nit-picky “Tweazers”; the at-times pedantic “Trufaldin”; a dodgy fellow known as “the Corinthian”, and others weigh in with their snarky comments and to point out the canon logic violations. A mysterious troublemaker leads the author “Mya Salinger” to the message board and the incriminating thread… and then all fanbrat hell breaks loose.

NOTE: All spelling errors, bad grammar, punctuation vagaries and tYpographicaL wEirdnesS are either deliberate or accidents that I left in place to add to the…colorful nature of the piece. And there is some strong language. Sic semper trolls/badfic writing kiddies who think they’re SEW KEWL and TEH REBEL!!111111 by using strong language.

 

dreadfulfanfiction.com's Message Board: Fresh Kills:

Possible Trollfic Based on a Badfic [Onieroscape]

Jill Dringenberg

: I’ve heard of and seen fanfics based on other fanfics, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a trollfic based on a badfic.

the pendrachens bitch diez

by myra salinger

Read the fuckin tittle, bitchez

Rating: G Genre: Humor

http:// www.fanfictionpalace.com/storyid=1080506030

It’s also reportable since the summary violates the Code of Conduct and the story has the wrong rating. Plus, as you’ll find out, once you’ve read it, the author is clearly trying to impersonate a certain fanbrat who will remain nameless.

Once upon a tim christophel the human bitch who wuz messin with the pendrachen found a big-ass spear she picked it up and carried it then she tripped and fell and it went through her ugly cunt face thee end

There. That’s the whole fic in its glorious, uncut entirety. Spelling errors and absent punctuation left in situ.

Trufaldin:

I know brevity is said to be the sole of wit, to borrow a page from Bill the Bard, and I’m not a fan of Mya Salinger or her Sues, but I didn’t find this funny at all.

Morgan Rennes

: Ugh. Ouch. That’s nasty. I’ve heard of trolls going around FFP, pretending to be someone else, and leaving nasty flames on people’s comments page, but this is something else. No one should ever have this happen to them, not even people who write blatantly obvious Suefics.

Martha Stewwit:

Tweazers? The Corinthian? Do you know anything about this? Whoever did it, is only going to cause more trouble for us all.

Morgan Rennes

: Story reported for CoC violations; just trying to run a little damage control.

Martha Stewwit

:

Story reported for CoC violations

I did the very same thing, Morgan.

Jill Dringenberg

: I reported it the moment I finished reading it. That didn’t stop a few people from posting their comments already:

I H8TE MYA

U ROCK!!1111 I sooooo wanted to see that Christofel bitch burn

Pendrachens_Gurl

Which one of you nasty people who’s been beating up on Mya wrote this awful thing and put it up here? You should be ashamed of picking on a talented writer like her. If this is the best you can write, then it just show how bad you write

WOWOYAG

OMG!!!!!1111 U GOTTA WRIT MOR LIK THIZ!!!11111 THIZ IZ GR8T STUFFPORZ!1111111

Chavali

: Gad, those are scary comments. I was half expecting something like this would happen: I saw someone trollfic a Suefic over on a Love Magic Raven Girl fan board recently. I guess it’s some new fanbrat trend.

Morgan Rennes

: If it was supposed to be a parody fic, it’s not a very good one. Mind you, I’ve toyed with ideas for Sue parodyfics, but I hope they were a lot more articulate and funny than this thing. And yes, I had a few ideas for parodies based on a certain Suefic we all cringed at; I just wouldn‘t post them online.

Sticky Tape

: Ooh, I’d love to see those fic ideas, Morgan. If only to clean me brain from trollfic.

Morgan Rennes

: I might jot a few down and post them on a friends-locked entry on my BlogBlock, but I’m a little leery of doing that.

Sticky Tape

: Private message them to me. Please? Please? ::Makes big Rottie puppy eyes::

Esmerelda Burke

: STORY NOT FOUND

Whew…That has to be the first time I ever *wanted* to see those words.

Morgan Rennes

: STORY NOT FOUND

That was quick. Let’s hope it was quick enough to keep her from seeing it.

Tweazers

: Yeah, I wasn’t too keen on being suspected of trollficcing. I don’t do that in public.

 

Martha Stewwit

: ::Holds up little white flags of truce:: Sorry! It was a case of wrongly suspecting the usual suspects.

Tweazers

: ::Truce accepted:: Just don’t let it happen again.

Guest post from:

myra salinger: HOW DAR U! u had mi ficcy removed from teh sight n i worked
SEW hard on it UR SUCKEN OF WoNG!111111111

Tweazers

: Nice. Now we have a troll pretending to be a fanbrat. We’re not fooled for a moment, Troll. *Mya* Salinger might not be a member here, but we’re very familiar with her posting style. She might be crazy, but at least her crazy has some sense to it. You just sound like a crank.

Guest post from:

mya salinger: W SUCK GOATZ TWEEZERZ!!!11111111

Tweazers

: Hey, if you’re going to flame me, do two things for me: be more creative, and spell my name right.

Trufaldin:

Please don’t feed the troll, Tweazers; you know the only way to rid the board of it is to starve it.

Guest post from:

Mya Salinger: This isn’t funny at all. I demand to know which one of you put up that horrible story. I am going to have all of you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I’m contacting the ACLU for the way you’ve infringed on my freedom of speech and the FBI and the FCC for your computer-transmitted crimes against me. You are ruining my life, my health and my credibility. If I lose my job and end up on the street, it will all be your fault.

And stop making these posts pretending to be me. It isn’t funny at all. I write a whole lot better than that; I’m about to get my English Lit and Creative Writing degrees, after all.

Martha Stewwit

: ::Applauds:: Congrats on the degrees, Mya!

If you read a little further along the thread, we caught the troll in the act of trolling us. And we got that horrible story removed from fanfictionpalace.

Tweazers

: Yeah, we were trying to do you a favor, Mya. Next time someone posts a trollfic about one of your fics, we might not do you the same good deed.

Esmerelda Burke

: I am going to have all of you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I’m contacting the ACLU for the way you’ve infringed on my freedom of speech and the FBI and the FCC for your computer-transmitted crimes against me.

I spoke to my brother-in-law’s brother (okay, what’s a shorter way to say that?) who’s in the FBI’s computer crimes department about this. He told me they really aren’t in the habit of breaking up toddler sandbox squabbles online: that’d be a waste of their resources, and they wouldn’t have time to catch the real criminals, like the idiots who design spy ware and viruses. Unless someone is making clear and direct threats against your life and/or those of you’re loved ones, and especially if they’ve tried to make personal contact with you (i.e. making threatening phone calls, would they step in to take care of it. They aren’t likely to prosecute people for making snarky comments about a fan fiction.

Morgan Rennes

: Otherwise, movie-makers would put some online movie-review sites out of business; I can think of one in particular, moviesnark.com, which would probably get sued into the ground for the stuff they’ve posted. And the guys who did that TV series with the guy and the three robots sitting around watching old B&W scifi flicks and snarking them frame by frame would be in major hot water…

Esmerelda Burke

: NO! Not MST3K! ::Hugs her DVDs protectively::

Guest post from:

Mya Salinger: It’s not fair to the writers and directors and actors and all the other talented people who put such hard work into the movies and books and TV shows they create, to see narrow-minded critics tear into their creations and make such scathing comments about what they made out of love. It ruins these poor people’s business, and it certainly doesn’t make the critics look very mature, either.

Tweazers

: what they made out of love

Honey, most people in Hollywood and TV and a lot of writers are in it for one thing: making money. Not to say that they aren’t creative or they don’t have any good ideas, but a lot of it just boils down to making a living or making a profit.

Morgan Rennes

: Mya, I want you to read what I have to say, with at least an open heart.

Part of being mature is being able to let other people express their opinions, especially if that person’s opinion is the opposite of what you’d like them to say. We can all agree to disagree; I’ve disagreed with some critics on things they said about movies and books I liked, and I’ve posted about it on my journal -- I just hope I wrote a reasonable post! Not everyone is going to like something, and as long as the person who expresses their dislike does so with a certain amount of politeness and decorum. It’s the difference between, “This didn’t really read well for me and this is why I think this way about X” and “UR FICCY IZ TEH SUXX0RZ!!11111” Maybe some of the remarks I’ve posted were a little snarky, but I tried to be in good taste.

Tweazers

: Morgan, you’re too diplomatic

Morgan Rennes

: Maybe I am, but I think Mya has a lot of potential as a writer. She just needs to mature a little and learn the difference between constructive criticism and personal put-downs. I’ve been there, and that’s the last thing I’d ever want to put anyone through. I had a high-school writing teacher who was an utter jerk, used to rip people’s stories to shreds in front of the class and utterly humiliate some of the students. A lot of kids dropped out of the class because of him, but I somehow hung on and came away all the better for what I’d put up with. I think I did it just to show myself I could do better than the teacher thought I could.

Tweazers

: Making an ass out of an old goat? Good work, Morgan: that’s probably the best way to get your revenge.

Morgan Rennes

: ::Grinning:: Thanks. I think it helped make me a better writer, too.

Martha Stewwit

: That’s certainly a better way to go than taking the easy path, i.e., the hothouse flower method.

Trufaldin:

Not to bring up the false troll-call, but has anyone noticed someone glaringly missing from this discussion? The Corinthian usually has a few words to say about Onieroscape fics, but he’s yet to grace us with his presence.

Chavali

: Yeah, now that you mention it, he hasn’t shown up on this thread yet, and he’s been all over “The Good News and the Bad News” and “WorldWideWeirdness”. It’s not like him at all…

Tweazers

: Betcha he had something to do with the trollfic…

Guest post from:

Mya Salinger: But you have to have positive people to give you encouragement, otherwise your resolve may weaken and you won’t be able to finish the project you started. You have to cultivate your talent like the rare flower that it is. Anyone who tells you otherwise just doesn’t know how to really write.

Morgan Rennes

: Oh, I agree, you need people to help you get through periods where you just don’t feel sure about a story, and to help you shut off the internal critic, but you also need people to read the piece and be honest with you, people who aren’t afraid to tell you what’s working in your story and what isn’t working with it.

I’m minded of this poem by Robert Frost, “Goodbye and Keep Cold; on the surface, it’s a simple little monologue from a farmer looking at his orchard just before the winter and wondering if he should wrap the trees against the cold, but it’s really about trying to avoid the hard knocks in life and how doing that can be detrimental to you, since it can soften your resilience to future adversity.

Guest post from:

Mya Salinger: I’ve had plenty of hard knocks in life. I lost all four of my grandparents, the most wonderful, talented and supportive people I ever knew and loved and cherished. I had to relocate cross-country a few years ago when my dad’s company was downsized, and thus I had to leave behind all my dear friends and soul mates. My mom died of breast cancer two years ago, and thus I lost my best friend in all the world, the only person who ever really understood me or recognized my talents. I’ve been passed up on some job offers recently, and I’m still trying to get over breaking up with my boyfriend of six years.

The Corinthian:

Oh boohoo, cry me a river, baby cakes. Sounds to me like you just went through stuff we all go through. I was expecting that you’d survived a terrorist attack, or you’d just been diagnosed with some dreaded labunga disease with no cure. Sorry about your mom, but sounds to me like she might have been the one who enabled you and made you into the entitlement-happy little brat that you are today.

Besides, I’d think that a girl with all the looks and talent you’re always going on about would have it easy finding another guy to keep you company, or maybe two or three. Or can’t you find one, so that’s why you’ve been picking on Morgan here, telling him he needs to find a girl? Do you really have a crush on him and you’re just not owning up to it? Is this a case of the love impulse manifesting itself in terms of conflict, to quote an old screwball comedy?

Guest post from:

Mya Salinger: No, I don’t have a crush on Morgan. I’m not interested in other females, and even if Morgan was male, I wouldn’t waste my time with a lower-class twit who’s done nothing but undermine my credibility online. I hope you’re happy, Ms. Flamer, because I haven’t had any hits on my website in almost two days, and I’m hoping someone shows an interest in the graphics design portfolio and the sampler of MP3s I put on there just the other day.

Morgan Rennes

: Corinthian, cool it. Your posts are getting incendiary. Don’t make me notify the Site Master.

Mya, I am not trying to pick a fight with you or attack you. I merely expressed my opinions about your story in a semi-public forum. I have nothing against you, personally or otherwise. I was merely pointing out the parts in your story that just didn’t work for me, since I’ve seen the films so many times. I think you’re a good writer and you have the potential to be a great writer, but I think you just need to learn how to emotionally step back from your writing when you post it, something that’s tough to do, but it’s something you have to develop, in order to succeed as a writer.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glossary: “Love Magic Raven Girl” -- an imaginary anime/manga series.

Wong -- the Site Maintainer on the fictitious fanfictionpalace.com, or FFP as it’s sometimes called.

Comments

Re: Lol...

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Ugh! That sounds dreadful to say the least. I was worried when I didn't see you on AIM for the past few days, but it just might be some kind of karmic retribution for the nights I haven't gone on AIM since I've been running the MxO (Cal would love my character on there, since she's quick with the firearms and doesn't put much stock in anything less than that. That's her in the userpic for this comment.)

Re: Lol...

[(Anonymous)]

Cal:

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<her [...] 'firearms'...>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Cal: <her face breaking into an expression best described as, 'Gunsies? Did somebody say gunsies?' at the mention of the word 'firearms'...>
Nicky: <a blanched yet resigned expression...TWO Cal-like individuals? God help the poor boy...>

I might- MIGHT rent a laptop until my real one gets fixed, which'll probably be in a week or so...depends on the price et al. I'll let you know if I do, probably by my sounds of weak triumph...

~Ruby