You Know You've Written a Bad Action Man Fan Fic...
Fidget has seen a few reoccurring themes in A/M fan fic. Some are good, some are bad. Here are a few of the bad she's picked out. Be assured, the list will grow.
1. You spelled Rikki, 'Ricky', 'Rikky', or any other variation besides his actual name.
On the same strand, you spelled the iguana's name 'Vinny'. Come on, people! This is an actual spelling, the actual spelling. It's short for Vincent. Just ask someone smarter than you if you're having trouble.
2. Alex AMP's up more than once per chapter. Look, he only does it once or maybe twice per episode, so you can tone it down a bit.
3. One word: hentai. People are really not interested in what you think Fidget and Alex/Rikki/Grinder/Tempest/whoever do on the weekends in the privacy of a hotel room/secluded beach/the car. Asazi and Diana are just as bad.
4. "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." This quote was on the board in my drama class, and I found it highly relevant to the quality of self-insertion fan fic. Mary-Sues are bad in any fan fiction genre, and A/M is no exception. Your fabulous new character(s) may do no wrong in your eyes, but the rest of us really don't feel like slogging through chapters upon chapters of your character running circles around the originals. If you like the show, like the show, not yourself in the show.
Your Mary-Sue has the same name as you, or else your online alias is the same as your character. People, this is truly pathetic.
Your Mary-Sue runs circles around the original characters, and yet everyone loves them.
Your Mary-Sue has some long-forgotten relationship with an original character and is reunited with nauseatingly strong emotions. (insert religiously incorrect exclamation of dislike or surprise here),
5. You killed off all the characters, one by one, then brought them all back again.
You cloned all the characters, either to bring them back, or just so you could kill them off multiple times. Yes, CV, this is you. Don't get me wrong, babe, I love your stories, but that was just confusing!
6. Everybody loves Fidget in your story. Or, all females loves Alex. At any rate, it's great to put a little bit of attraction in your stories. With A/M, it's even more fun than ReBoot, as A/M is one of the least romantically developed shows by Mainframe. However, when setting up your couples, keep in mind that a little fighting between two suitors is good conflict, but three or four lovers is a bit ridiculous. Even Asazi's not that attractive.
7. Asazi says 'Pretty boy', 'Lover-boy', or whatever else you want her to call Alex more than once in the same sentence!
8. Your story focuses so much on one or two characters (including your Mary-Sue) that other characters are forgotten and have only a few lines in a multi-chapter story. You have no idea how much that ticks me off!
9. (from Charon) You're story is anywhere NEAR the concept of "Action Man Babies". Please. It's been done. With the Muppets, it was fun, but it was JUST THE MUPPETS!
(Who in the name of Daemon would do such a thing?! You must show me this cursed fan fic so that I may MiST it before it destroys us all! -Fidget)
(My cousin Jharon's sister, I can't remember her name, was going to try and put that on fanfiction.net. I saw it, and spent half an hour talking her out of it. So, thank Goodness, she never got it out of her computer harddrive. I think Jharon deleted it, too. -Charon)
(Ah, your ability to recognize potential bad fanfic warms my heart! -Fidget)
Feel free to send in any comments about these things. If you have another idea, send it in!