Wednesday 1 April 2015

Rage Issues Special: ?????????

I have stumbled upon something truly awful here, haven’t I? I went to http://awholenewworldofarronredbeard.weebly.com (I was searching for song lyrics, got lost somewhere) a site which hosts a collection of ‘fanfic’ series. Unlike traditional fanfics, this uses characters from DC, Marvel and some other properties but holds no delusion that it’s cannon to any particular show or in-comics, in fact, it’s part of its own universe.


So what makes this story so bad. Let’s dig into the opening 3-parter and find out.


We open into the “Sarrahian Weapons Gallery” and I’m confused, we find out later that Sarrah is the name of a planet, it only has one weapon’s gallery? Whereabouts on Sarrah is it? And why in the name of all that’s holy do you name your Planet “Sarrah” anyway? Our protagonist, Arron (why that spelling, isn’t Aaron more traditional) jumps through a window having robbed the place. He narrates to himself that “this wasn’t supposed to happen” what, was robbing the weapons gallery not supposed to result in the guards attacking? That would be weird.

Anyway, a guard radios the police, as Arron takes a bike he had stashed and drives away but the Police chase after him, in fact they teleport right in front of him. The leader of the group, Galivagar, tells Arron to stop, but instead Arron heads off road where the Police’s vehicles will struggle to follow (and yet now they can’t teleport in front of him for some reason) two police use hoverboards (wait, I thought he just said their vehicles can’t go off road, the hover-boards are clearly a form of transport) to pursue, Arron quickly dispatches them with a trip wire, the hoverboard evidenally cannot hover a couple of extra inches.

Arron drives out the forest to find Galivagar waiting for him, so wait, they did have teleport? Why didn’t they just use that? Arron activates jets in his bike, launching him over the police, they now pursue on vehicles, Arron heads to the docks where he drives his bike into the water, knowing that standard police protocol was to attach a tracer to bike. He manages to teleport out of the water, whilst the Police search for him. Wait, what? Why the f*ck didn’t he do that earlier. Did he want to get caught? Also, what kind of place is this if everyone has access to that? People could get away with just about anything.

He takes his haul down into the warehouse where he receives communication from Ragnarok, the Norse equivalent of the end of the universe but here he’s a gun smuggler/crime lord, it’s almost like the guy knew nothing of Norse Mythology when he came up with that name. Arron asks when he’ll complete his side of the bargain but Ragnorok says it’s an opportunity he intends to milk

Arron flashes back to when this all started. He was a member of the Sarrahian Police Force (there’s only one of them apparently) It also has a stupid name, the S3PF, go figure.  Anyway, he’s present when Commissioner Geopold (who he’d earlier said had been responsible for some of his advanced driving practice) introduces Galivagar onto the force. Galivagar attempts to remove the mask that Arron wears but Arron stops him. Geopold explains the mask is a medical requirement because of an old wound. He praises Arron for being responsible for the bust of gang lord Ragnarok that’s about to take place and calls him “one of the bed officers on the force” could be an alien language thing, but I think he means best. Tsk tsk.

We cut to the Red Forest Casino, where Ragnarok is, henchmen begin to fire on the police but they’re wearing Kevlar and are bullet proof. Ragnarok escapes but Arron uses infra-red to track him down and he knocks him out. The next morning (or at least I’d think it’s the next morning, they don’t give us a time stamp) Geopold informs Arron that one of his old friends, Anut, has gone missing. He also informs him that Ragnarok has been cleared of all charges. Arron suspects foul play but it couldn’t be a member of Ragnarok’s crew because no-one working for Ragnarok could talk to the judge or jury. (How would they know if they’re in disguise? There are ways around this)

Arron returns home and finds Ragnarok had broken in. Ragnarok tells him that Anut was kidnapped by him and if Arron wants to see him alive, he’ll follow Ragnarok’s orders. And so the first story ends with Ragnarok giving the order for Arron to break into police headquarters.

Each story comes with a co-feature, I’m not gonna be covering them, because there’s enough with the main story.

Part 2 continues where we left off. Arron asks why, and Ragnarok states that the weapons that were recovered during the raids were impounded there. Reminding Arron, that he has Anut captive, Arron accepts the mission (calling him a son of a *****, rather than the usually designated sonuvab*tch) so Arron breaks in using ‘silent plungers’ (yeah, I know, sounds stupid to me too) and overhears a conversation between Galivagar and Geopold, Geopold is sceptic about Arron’s doings and suspects there might be more to it than they know.

He enters the room where the impound is and it seems like it’s a room for Gotham City in the Arkham games, with convenient gargoyles everywhere, multiple layers, etc. Arron takes out all of the guards and enters the vault, he takes some things but is confronted by Geopold and Galivagar. He teleports away, but Galivagar managed to get a tracer on him. Back at the warehouse Ragnarok orders that the weapons be brought straight to him (wait, you know where he is? Do what you did at the Police Station there, take out the guards, then him quickly before they can  kill your friend) and Galivagar calls upon the entire police force to pursue. And that’s it. That’s all of part 2. Don’t you just love inconsistent pacing? Makes you want to take the nearest living creature and throttle it. But I digress, part 3

On the ‘Sarrahian streets’ (who cares where, it’s on Sarrah) Arron watches as the police recover his bike) Arron sets up a trap to steal it back but the officers came prepared to ambush him. Arron uses a burst of super-speed known as a reflex (which he hasn’t used before now, because reasons) to take out the big gun, held by Galivagar, then creates a smoke-screen to disorientate the others whilst he escapes on his bike.

Of course rather than using their teleport powers, they decide to chase him on hoverboards. Arron knocks two of them off with balls (was that supposed to be bolas? Would make more sense but then he’s being chased by people on hoverboards, sense had long since gone out the window) the Police begin shooting, in the middle of the road, where they could easily hit someone else, so Arron takes a back alley, setting traps for more hoverboarding policemen. A shot narrowly misses him from Galivagar, Arron comes back and warns him that firing that weapon in a built up area could kill people (no sh*t) Arron gets away.

Galivagar reports to Geopold of the events, and Geopold is bemused. He goes to the compound to check what had been stolen (which he should’ve done immediately after Arron got away from the compound)

Arron arrives at Ragnarok’s headquarters and hands him a briefcase, it contains a teleporter to teleport the weapons to him, so Arron didn’t have to carry them (wait, in an earlier scene the police passed straight through, they could’ve recovered the weapons!) Using Anut, Ragnarok forces Arron to teleport the weapons over and because the police are stupid, they do. Anut is released, but they both point guns at Arron. Anut had taken to gambling again and needed the money to settle his debts. They try to fire but nothing happens. Arron had set them up.

Back at police HQ, Geopold discovers that rather that nothing had in fact been stolen from the vault, in fact the Plasma Rifle Arron had stolen from the weapons museum had turned up. Geopold realises Arron’s plan and contacts Galivagar. The plan was always to covertly replace the real weapons with a box of fates, Arron left the security footage of the vault on just long enough so that Ragnarok would see the switch, he then deactivated the camera and switched them back. The Police blast through, and we get a repeat of the scene from the first episode, pretty much note for note. The only difference is Anut is disarmed by Arron and left (I assume he’s arrested, but he wasn’t knocked out, he had an opportunity there) and that Ragnarok is left with broken wrists

At police HQ, Arron tells Ragnarok he knows that it was he who bribed the jury for Ragnarok’s original release (and if you’re wondering, no, we never find out how he knows that, so he’s just an a**hole) and Arron gets his reward for reckless endangerment, injuring several police officers, some severely, and breaking and entering. He’s part of the secret service. Yay…!

This gives me rage issues!
















Want to know a secret




Yes, I was the writer behind this opening and actually every story written on that site. Apologies for the deception, but it’s worth being honest and showing that I can criticise my own works, not just the works of others. Not to mention. April Fool

Just to get a couple of the plot-holes sorted

1) Arron had a teleport pad said up at the warehouse, he’d be teleported to that exact location, once he’s in range. Teleportation does leave a trace (hence why criminals are able to use it) so better for them to assume he’d been killed in the water

2) The Police’s teleport system is a bit more advanced, not requiring a pad, it’s still requires some computing, so it’s not quick enough to keep up with a moving vehicle like the hoverboards were

3) No, I didn’t really relate the name Ragnorok to the Norse term at the time

4) I won’t defend any spelling errors, but I will point out that I’m much more thorough in checking my current stories.

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