I like fan fiction. I like comedic dramatic readings. And I know a guy who does both.
Well, not personally, of course. And I'm not sure he does fan fiction, either. A better way to put that would be that I know of someone who does humorous dramatic readings of fan fiction.
That someone would be Bennett the Sage and his Masterpiece Fan Fiction Theater show on That Guy With The Glasses. Mr. “The Sage” finds what he calls, according to the show's tag line, “the very best in the very worst of fan fiction” and gives it the best dramatic reading he can. Hats off to the guy, because I'm really not sure how he makes it through them.
And it's not just that the stories themselves are bad. It's also that most, if not all, of them contain poorly executed and largely unnecessary sex scenes, if they're not downright crap attempts at fan eroticism. I must admit, those are usually the best parts of the stories, which isn't saying much, all things considered.
It's fun to see just how creepy these things can get when written by people who seem to know less about sex and sexuality than even I do, after all. Admittedly, there's plenty I don't know about the subject, but finding out about these things is easier than it's ever been. As fantastic as all this is supposed to be, I think it might be nice to have one in which the two improbable lovers are just not capable of having three-hour orgies in which they send gallons of spooge and other bodily fluids spraying around the room and not only live to tell about it but also recover quickly enough to come back for more the next night.
Of course, there is one thing I often find myself wondering upon viewing a new episode of MFT. That one thing is when, if ever, will those of us who have, either by intent or by happenstance, managed to write a bad piece of fan fiction without resorting to use of sex will get our nod.
Yes, I include myself in that, because, as impossible as it may seem, I've written my fair share of bad fan fiction. Granted, maybe nothing as bad as the one Bennett read in the Anne Frank Meets Goku episode, but still pretty bad in their own special ways, and I'm inclined to think their lack of sex scenes may have something to do with that.
Examples can be found in what I consider to be my last to “serious” fan fic attempts. Sure, I probably could have had Renamon give Reed make-up sex in Enterprise: Digimodify, but the idea plain and simply didn't occur to me until just recently, some eight years after I'd written the story and posted it to my FanFictionNet archive. There was also a perfect opportunity for my fan character to doink Star Trek: Voyager's Captain Janeway in the Sonic the Hedgehog crossover Strange Help, but as close as it may have come, the idea, once again, just never occurred to me until several years after the fact.
Really and truly, though, those stories mentioned above aren't even what I would consider the worst I've ever published, but I'll let intrigued and savvy readers find which those might be on their own. Just be warned, they're weird at best.
If I may, I'd like to engage in a little psychoanalysis of myself at this point. I think one reason I find myself wanting so badly to see my work appear on a Web show all about awful fan fiction is because at least that way, I'd be getting attention for something that I have, by and large, not gotten noticed for. Attention's attention, after all, and in spite of having no good reason for the feeling, I've always felt pretty much ignored for the things that have been the most important to me
Another reason I'd like to see my work, or that of another who's written material like mine, is because I'd like, just once, for The Sage to read a bad story that doesn't rely on at least implications of gratuitous and outright bizarre nookie to get it through. Stories like that do exist, right?
Finally, it would be a way for me to gauge just how good or bad I am, or was, really, at that style of writing. In all the years I spent on fan fiction, the highest volume of comments I got were troll comments, and I didn't even really get too many of those, so I'm not entirely sure what people think of that.
But anyway, for as much as I like Masterpiece FanFic Theater, I'd love to see an awful story that doesn't rely on sex get its due there. Even authors like me need some sort of validation, after all.
Thanks for your time and attention, dear readers.
Links For Reference:
Masterpiece Fanfic Theater is performed by Bennett The Sage for That Guy With The Glasses.
My archive on FanFiction.net. I really need to do more of these...
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