Welcome to Fics from Hell, a ficbitching site following in the esteemed tradition of such sites as Slap to the Head and The Bitchcave. My specialty/obsession is Hellsing; and as much as I love it, I see it reduced to a shadow of itself in fics everywhere. Thus, I've taken it upon myself to educate both writers and readers of Hellsing fanfiction about the abounding badness. The readers will no doubt find it amusing; I hope the authors find it educational.

The main site will be updated monthly, weekly, or daily, depending on how much fanfiction I'm exposed to in a given amount of time, and how much it peeves me.

This grew out a regular feature on my blog; so there are many entries in the archives ("past fic reviews") which you should also check out if you're interested.

Some questions you might ask:

" 'The hell are you?"

Avast, me hearties, I am known as Red Anne Bonney, famed throughout the seven seas, here with me mate, Devil Duckie, the fierce, red, and damned! Here at Fics from Hell, if yer a bad fic writer, we'll keelhaul ye!

Or something like that.

On occasion we'll even hear from Dirty Matthias, though mostly he's comic relief.

"Aren't you afraid for your life? Or, at least, of being inundated by flames?"

Not really. I don't like most of the Hellsing fan community; I see no reason why they should like me. Besides, I am nothing if not fair. Kind, not always, but fair, always.

"What makes you so qualified to run this site?"

I've seen the entire TV series. I've read the existing 6 volumes of the manga. I don't spell "Yan" as "Jane," I know that Alucard is Dracula, and I know that Schrodinger is a catboy, not a werewolf. Short of giving head to Kouta Hirano, I don't think I could get much closer to the series.

Other qualifications? I can spell, I have reasonably correct grammar, I've written several fics in the Hellsing fandom (you're welcome to review them yourself), and I'm really, really, good at bullshitting.

"Why do you pick the fics you do? Some of these fics aren't so bad!"

It's not Red Anne Bonney's job to pick the Worst of the Worst. My job is merely to provide you with amusement mixed in with a wee bit of education. The easiest way for me to do this is by picking fics that I'm invested in in some way. This usually means that a fic has to "bite" me before I'll review it.

So. What kind of fics "bite"? Examples include a fic that's bad in an unusual way (there are so many Hellsing crossovers/Hellsing holiday fics/Alucard births a Mary Sue fics I can hardly keep up with them these days), a fic that has a lot of potential but some very noticeable flaws, or a fic that catches one of my personal pet peeves.

My picking a fic should not be taken as a sign that I despise the author and wish to wipe them off the face of the planet. I have reviewed fics of people I knew well; I have become close friends with people whose fics I've reviewed; and I've reviewed fics on personal request of the especially masochistic. All that my picking a fic means is that I think there's something entertaining and educational to be said about it.

"Why are you so mean? Some of these writers are teenagers!"

This is where I used to have a long-winded explanation of my many reasons for running this site. But hell, let's be tautological: I run this site because I run this site. The reasons are many, and more complex than I care to explain.

That said, I will indulge your interest and my vanity with a few words: I wouldn't run this site if I didn't believe that art was a social endeavor. As I said to a commenter several months back, if I believed that people were writing fic to "ease their mental torment," it would be a different story entirely. But as I believe that art is not created as a sort of emotional spooge-fest, but is meant to be shared, and judged, publically, I have no qualms about what I do. It may be fatuous to call fanfiction "art," but we only think that because it tends to be of low quality. What it shares with "true art" is that, once created, it does not belong to the author, but belongs, ultimately, to the reader and the critic.

Hell, Oscar Wilde said it much better than I ever could:

Without the critical faculty, there is no artistic creation at all, worthy of the name. You spoke a little while ago of that fine spirit of choice and delicate instinct of selection by which the artist realises life for us, and gives to it a momentary perfection. Well, that spirit of choice, that subtle tact of omission, is really the critical faculty in one of its most characteristic moods, and no one who does not possess this critical faculty can create anything at all in art...

No poet sings because he must sing. At least, no great poet does...

An age that has no criticism is either an age in which art is immobile, hieratic, and confined to the reproduction of formal types, or an age that possesses no art at all.

That was your Moment of Wank. Move along.

"I wanna write a guest review!"

Guest reviews are welcome, though seem to be surprisingly rare. Send them here, if you're smarter than a spambot. Plain text format or HTML is preferred. If I have to remove 10 million SmartQuotes from your Word document, I'm not likely to feel too friendly towards your review.

"Why? Why why why why why why?"

First of all, I want you to know, every day I subject myself to The Pit of Voles, a.k.a. fanfiction.net. I've done this for almost a year now. (Before then, I got my bad fiction in smaller doses, on individual sites). I never get sick of it; though every time I go there I get the feeling Jerry Springer must get before a show: a mix of fear, anticipation, and a vague sense of guilt for imbibing such trash. From all this, I concoct complex theories of ficwriting; and seek to better explain this social phenomenon which so often resembles a train wreck.

But I, like Jerry Springer, have a mission: I will show you what not to do in fanfiction, so that you might a) feel superior to every fic writer out there, and b) maybe, maybe, maybe learn a little something.

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

"Your name is really Lise, isn't it?"

Who can tell? Some would say that life is but an illusion, that words are but a "language game," and our job is but to "shew the fly out of the fly-bottle."

Er, yeah.

"How can I contact you?"

It's as simple as this.