Mystery Science Theater En Masse
Behind The Scenes: Season Five
--
M41/501 - Marielle
Oh, the infamous "Not A Mary Sue" stories. Obviously, when an author says that, chances are that the character is a Sue.
Marielle was no exception with her perfect body and extremely horrid personality. She can go right to Hell for all I care, whining about getting a watch and called her grandmother senile for it. Ungrateful spoiled brat.
Also... I have no clue why the author decided to Babelfish this thing into Spanish and Japanese. I mean, the English version was decently written, yes, but... come on. Spanish and Japanese speakers don't need to read this Sue fic.
M42/303 - Women Decoded
*heavy sigh*
Oh, where do I begin on this one?
Seriously, the last time I swore at my screen when I tried to riff on something... was way back when I worked on "The White Hedgehog". Sure, there were times in between that Mary Sue ass kissing fic and this article that I facepalmed at, like in "Sonic High School" where the whiny Sonic told Amy to drop dead...
But this piece of garbage? No, this crap was just plain misandry that was thrown up on a word processor!
I can tell that the writer was trying to be funny and create a bit of black comedy in the examples, but it came off as extremely shallow and mean-spirited. (And double negative points for failed black comedy, because Cassy, the resident morbid riffer, called it out!)
Because nothing's funnier than trying to murder your significant other, thinking about castrating him, giving him mixed messages in almost every possible way, and steal his credit card to spend thousands of dollars worth on stuff that you may or may not use.
Oh, it gets even worse. It's not even original. It is indeed plagiarized.
*facepalms*
Worst. Riffed. Article. Ever.
(And on a lighter note, I don't know what's so great about Ryan Gosling. I don't know why my gender keeps gushing over him. Eh. Whatever makes them sleep at night, I guess.)
M43/403 - Love With Good Taste
Okay. I'm not going to lie; this fic took so long to riff because I was constantly getting bored with it. It's nowhere near "Epic Failure" status, it's just... dull.
Aside from boredom, I had problems with the large paragraphs
(they reminded me of "Sabrina's Adventure"), and I had issues with Topaz herself.
No, I'm not calling Topaz a Mary Sue (that term's better used for previous riff
targets like Sabrina and Bitchy McBitch Kathryn), but she was
just bland and... well, didn't really have a personality. She tried to sound
like a fun and ditzy person, but that didn't work at all. She just served to be
Cilan's hump buddy. Yes, she does have Sue traits (like being an A class
Connoisseur in the very beginning, every guy thinks that she's cute, she has nothing but cute Pokémon,
and she's usually showered with praise when it comes to some of the simplest
things), but it's
not enough for me to call her a Mary Sue. Her brain cells are scattered to heck,
but it's still not enough for Sue territory. She's just boring and cliché to me,
that's all.
I still can't blame others who feel that Topaz is a Sue, though. (Though I believe that there's another character in her arsenal that's even worse than she is... *coughhainecough*)
At least the author managed to spell "Connoisseur" correctly and consistently, so there's a plus.
M44/404 - Fairy of nature, Mistress of the Forest
Okay... normally, I'd go berserk over something like a gigantic Mary Sue, but there are two things that are preventing me from doing that. First off, the author actually wants to improve and is asking for constructive reviews to do so. And second... well, this is the "Twilight" series. Of course Bella would be the biggest Mary Sue that ever Sue'd, so I'm not surprised there.
Logically, I believe that it'd make a lot more sense for the riffers to be a lot more lighthearted and still hate Bella and the series instead of the fic and the author. Besides, it's not the fic author's fault that Bella's hated, anyway.
And to add more points, the author did stay within the original material... yes, even though Bella's a giant Fairy Mary Sue. I'm pretty much guessing that the author went for an Alternate Universe type fic of sorts.
(And yes, I made the black hearted Kyo have feelings in this one. It's shocking.)
M45/405 - Common Sense is Dead
Oh, jeez. I don't know what the heck these writers were smoking when they wrote their respective articles. Granted, I'd like to have children when I'm good and ready, but it won't make me any better or worse than couples who choose to not have them.
As for the first article... this isn't the first time that he's stirred up some controversy. He did admit that he had a favorite son and all.
And for the second article? Yeah, I had to give it an "Epic Failure". Normally, I'd give anything that title if it angered the living crap out of the riffers, but... this thing made no sense at all! Go ahead and read it without the riffers in it and see how much sense that it makes by itself. Seriously, we started with "'Twilight' haters suck!" to "All men are Neanderthals!" to... "All men are rapists!"
Even worse? It's clear that she hasn't read the books at all.
Man, we're screwed.
M46/304 - Do Shut Up
I really don't have much to say about these articles. All I need to say is that Miss Brick needs to tone down that ego, because what I worked on there was absolutely atrocious.
I did debate on whether I'd label it an "Epic Failure", though. I've only decided to do that for the second article, due to the backlash and ridicule in the comments on the original article's page, making this a bit of a unique case.
M47/406 - Sealing the Elements
Seriously, what can I say that hasn't been said before? I thought I'd get another thorn, but I got another whole cactus. And I really need to stop underestimating these horrible Mary Sue fics, because I'm starting to look like an idiot when it comes to that.
And I wish that the author would've quit randomly shifting between first and third person POV. That was extremely annoying.
Anyway, nothing gets under my skin more than character bashing fics (unless it's a parody). We were supposed to hate Jean because she decided to look into Cassie's mind, but the Bitch Sue did the same stupid thing when it came to Pietro! This vain waste of space is a hypocrite!
Also, while I worked on this riffing, I noticed that as the fic went on, I made Axl incredibly bitter to the point where he raged for the very first time. To be honest, I wrote him as a guy who can show shades of bitterness before he just lets everything go and continues with a clear head (go look at his riffing performances in "Why Most Twilight Fans Kinda Suck" and "The Final Struggle" for good examples), but... with this fic? Yeah, he needed to vent and lose his mind with this one.
Yes, as a bit of a shout out, I've decided to have Jessie and James fail in killing the Sue of the day this time, especially since the actual Team Rocket Trio in the anime... is now back to blasting off again. (Yes, the editor and I are not amused at that. We love their humor... we still do, but we're tired of seeing them blast off for over ten years. And in the DA! arc, they're just showing up only to get blasted off. It's tedious.)
M48/202 - The New Girl (SerketChaos Version)
Before I begin with my two cents, I'll give kudos to the author
for admitting that it was a bad fic. Not many people can do that. I'm
looking at you, Stephenie Meyer and E.L. James. Your work is crap.
Anyway. To be honest, there really wasn't much that I could say. It just follows the old fanfiction cliché of this random character with the giant wangst past being so wonderful at nearly anything, gets the guy, and makes some girl incredibly jealous. That's it.
Do I hate this fic? No, because it's just the typical cookie cutter fic. There are fics that are a lot worse than this one... and if you've been reading the riffings up to this point, you'd probably say the same thing, too.
M49/502 - Street Fighter: No Time 4 Love
I don't have a real opinion. It's just the Street Fighter version of "My Immortal". That's it.
M50/407 - Rainbow Eclipse
Ugh. Destiny/Sailor Eclipse is one of the two worst Sues for this season.
Good criminy on toast. This fic was just... awful. Then it ended up in the realm of making less sense as it went along.
I might as well believe that this fic was just a slate for the author to put all of these endless talents on her Sue. Unfortunately, when that happened, the fic turned into a jumbled mess. (Well, it was already one to begin with thanks to a certain continuity error involving Sailor Moon's transformation, but still.)
M51/305 - Because of You
And... Yoko's the other "winner" for this season's "Worst Sue".
Well. Looks like we've found a bitchier version of Kathryn. Yes, Kathryn will always be one of the most hated Mary Sues for her Black Hole Jerkass Smugness, and she will never live that down, but... ugh, Yoko's probably even worse for adding unnecessary violence into the mix.
Nobody in their right mind would or should punch a guy out for saving his/her life.
The minute Yoko did that to Jin was the same minute that I absolutely hated her. I absolutely cannot stand characters like her because they're just so... irredeemable.
Makes me wish that the Tekken 6 version of Jin was present in this fic instead. I'd be 100% sure that she wouldn't get away with doing that crap.
M52/503 - Strippers and Lobotomies
Oh, dear. The first article had so much hipocrisy in it that it turned out to be mind boggling for me.
Seriously, if you're going to compare two places, make sure that they are the same damn place. Comparing an upscale strip club to a run down one is like comparing oranges and wooden dressers. You just don't do that crap.
About the second article... if you want people to like you... how about acting like yourself? I know that it's meant to be an experiment of sorts, but that fell way too flat.
M53/306 - My Real Love
Oh, good lord. I don't know why the author says that she doesn't hate Sally when her character's bio actually has her listed as one of her "enemies". Makes no sense to me.
About the fic itself? It's yet another character bashing fic where everyone's out of character. Nothing else to see here, move along.
M54/408 - New Allies or New Enemies?
Oh, boy. This fic was just... terrible. It had all of the classic Mary Sue elements and then some.
What made this even worse was the fic's nature. If you're writing a story, never, ever assume that your audience are a bunch of complete morons.
Seriously, this fic was actually one of the worst when it came to storytelling due to the constant hand holding, author's notes in the middle of the chapters, and the patronizing nature of it. I know that the last one was completely accidental, but it still came off that way.
--