BabelFish, Stallions, and the Red Right Cock: Blows 1-3

Red Anne Bonney lives!

... wait, no, that's not quite right. I was never dead to begin with, only living as a fandom pensionnaire, playing too much World of Warcraft while lounging by the shallow end of the Hellsing fic pool.

Or something.

Today, I was lucky enough to read "Justice is Blind," by MzMoon, who I understand is a young writer somewhat new to the fandom--and by "somewhat new to the fandom," I mean having arrived some time since my fandom retirement two years ago. Stick with me here, there's a moral. She's quite a talented writer for the age of fifteen; she's also not the topic of this review. Whew. In fact, her only connection with this review is that by reading her fic, I decided to peruse the Hellsing section again.

One of the things I pondered in my fandom retirement was whether or not I spent too much time having fun at the expense of teenagers. I concluded that I probably had. But then I look at young writers like MzMoon and I feel like saying, "Dude, she can write a story with a cohesive plot that appeals to people over the age of eighteen--why can't this chick?"

This chick, I am sad to say, is Writing Muse, author of "You Took Care of Me, I Take Care of You." She bills her story unfortunately as "yoai" and equally unfortunately omits the fact that it's a Devil May Cry crossover. (And if y'all are expecting scintillating commentary on the color of Dante's eyes, look elsewhere). But-

Wait, before I go any further, let me make a disclaimer. OMG Hellsing doesn't belong to me dun steal my origional charries!... um, no, not that either. Let me just say that--this story being written by a 16-year-old forgives some flaws. It does not forgive all of them, however, such as the fact that the author seems to be completely unaware of how dialogue is arranged in actual fiction. This story has decent grammar, passable spelling, and for the most part, follows the laws of physics and logic. Go you. And yeah, I'm sure you're just having fun, Writing Muse, if you read this, but so are we. This is what we adults call laissez-faire politics. Or maybe it isn't, I'm not so good with French.

Anyway. So yes. Onto the review! The problem with this fic isn't horrible Mary Sues. It isn't the fact that it's a crossover. It isn't improbable characterization... okay, well, maybe it is. Mostly, though, it's just... bad writing. Laughably bad writing. How bad is it? So bad they wrote a fic summary with it!

Alucard finds himself a new fledgling,Dante,a hot tempered hunter that is also half demon himself. Yet somehow Alucard finds the patience and ways of tameing the young stallion, enflaming their relationship to a whole other plane of master and servantYoai

Point the first: commas have spaces after them!

Point the second: It's "yaoi." It's based on the initials of "yama nashi...." Aw, hell. I don't remember. And lest this just be a mere typo, we find the same spelling in the description of the story on her profile: yoai, exciting, funny, and I'm hoping not another 20 chapter saga!

... It's 18 chapters already. Not doing so well, there, are we?

Also, note the horse metaphors (see: "stallion"). Those happen A LOT in here. You'll see.

Onto chapter one, "A Kiss of Mercy," also known as "OMG punctuation why have you forsaken me?"

Dante tried as hard as he could to hide himself within the pews of the gothic church. He was bleeding profusely from both his side and back. Quickly, he began to reload his gun with the last round.

"I'm getting close."

Whoa, you said this was yaoi and you meant it! It's getting hot and heavy already-

Oh, you mean this WASN'T supposed to be a sexual metaphor. Damn.

"Come out little Hunter."

"... and I'll show you where I've hidden all my commas."

I'm a fucking demon for Christ sake!"

This is a beautiful sentence without commas in appropriate places. And if you believe recent interpretations of Hellsing, pretty damn true of Alucard. Too bad this came out of Dante's mouth.

He smiled his abnormally large mouth, displaying his row upon rows of teeth, each craved down to a point

I crave teeth. Mmmm.

Teeth behaving in odd ways is another quirk of this fic. Again, you'll see.

Instantly the church was filled with the screaming barrels of the two guns.

This is a perfect example of the lack of care the author takes with her writing. Now, she says she does this all for fun and that we "shouldn't expect perfection." Whatever. She also says she's passionate about her writing. Take some of that goddamn passion and write sentences that make sense. I know what you're trying to say--that the sound of the guns being fired echoed like a scream in the church. But that's not what you said, and now I have a mental image of giant blow-up guns inflating and filling the church. OH WELL.

leaving the white haired half-demon dry with no bullets

Again with the inadvertant sexual metaphors! Or maybe it's just me. Everything is sex to me. It's a great way to live!

Also--you remembered the hyphen between "half" and "demon," please to be extending the same courtesy to "white" and "haired."

"Maybe after this, you"ll understand that the Sadistic Sessell will always triumph as victorious." He reared his head back in laughter, sticking his long bloody tongue out in the air.

This is apparently what happens when Adam Sessler and Gene Simmons mate.

Suddenly, he heard a gasp. Dante lifted his eyes off the floor and found a bloody hand emerge from the demon's chest, carrying his pulsing heart. The demon looked down to find his heart pushed from his chest and soon became indifferent of the half demon young man. He dropped the dying hunter to the ground while gurgling blood in his throat.

The carrier of the heart leaned closer to the demon's ear to whisper a comment.

"Maybe after this, you'll learn that shit heads like you are nothing but talk." He grinned wide, displaying vampire teeth before dropping the heart only inches away from Dante's face.

Before the demon could protest he was flung to the wall with enough force to crash his body through the thick plastered paint. The stranger knew well enough the demon was dead once he went through the wall which gave him no purpose of chasing after his form. Dante groaned in pain, catching the stranger's attention. The man knelt down to look closer at the white haired man.

Does anyone else have ANY CLUE what's going on here? Who is doing WHAT to WHOM? This is what happens when you have have three male, unholy creatures standing around in a room and you refuse to refer to them by names or consistent descriptions--mass hysteria!

"It really doesn't matter. I can hear your heart beat slowing down right now. The question is: do you want to die and leave this world or do you want to die and roam forever just as young as you are now?"

And Dante replies, with his last dying gasp, "English, do you speak it, motherfucker?"

And yet:

Dante understood what the vampire was proposing.

I bet Dante won't be saying that when he finds himself trapped in a contract with misleading language!

In the past Dante would spit at the damned creature and curse at such an offer. Yet, something about his persona drew Dante like a moth to a flame. He wanted to learn everything of what laid behind those crimson eyes. He desired to be needed by this gracefully creature. As the most unexpected thing Dante has done, he wanted more then anything to be with the vampire even if it meant turning his back on everything he stood for.

Replace "eyes" with "cock" and this fic makes a lot more sense. You'll see.

Also, note the "dissolution of character for the sake of plot luuuuuuuuuuv." We love that here at Fics from Hell. Really, we do. SO MUCH WE WROTE A REVIEW AFTER TWO YEARS OF PEACEFUL RETIREMENT.

Gently, the black haired beauty lifted Dante's head off the ground with one arm while he sliced the other hand with his sharp teeth.

If you neigh every time this fic makes an inadvertant horse reference.... well, your roommates will think you're crazy. That's all I've got.

... in case you doubted it, this is Alucard we're talking about here. All I have to say about this description of him is: I'd ride that pony. Neigh!

"Usually, one would close one's eyes in cases like this." Dante looked back at the vampire and with much force closed his eyes of life for one last time.

"I've been waiting SO LONG to recycle that line," says Alucard.

In chapter two, Dante awakes to discover that he's become Alucard's slave boytoy servant. They exchange witty repartee. Or something:

When Dante woke up the next night he opened his eyes to complete darkness.

Maybe because it was... night?

At first he believed that all the lights were off in his apartment...

Or maybe it was just NIGHT?

... until he stretched out his hand where it was stopped by a wall. He panicked and tried to extend his arms to the side before doing the same with his legs. Both times he could only spread them out so far before bumping into a wall. It was then that he knew he was in a coffin.

Because that totally would have been my first thought. But then I'm not a white-haired half-demon who just got tamed by Black Beauty.

He began to breathe hard and fast while banging on the cover of the coffin

Are you counting the inadvertant sexual metaphors yet? That's number three.

"Help!" He cried. "Get me out of here!" At his command the coffin opened to a world of candle light. Dante sat up quickly, gasping for air until he heard someone laughing.

"Help, help! I'm in this enormously large nutshell coffin!"

World of Candlelight was NCSoft's much less successful answer to World of Warcraft, I suspect.

"Don't you remember?" The vampire spun around without wearing his long red jacket or sunglasses.

Alucard is doing his magical girl transformation, I guess.

"What!" Then Dante understood. He remembered looking into the red eyes, falling in love at the sight of them; then opening his mouth at the gaping wound, swooning over the taste of his blood before drifting off to sleep.

I now want an LJ icon of Dante saying "WAT."

Remember, eyes == cock. It all makes sense. Actually, seeing as this is Alucard, there's no reason why those two things are mutually exclusive.

With a simple finger he turned Dante's chin out of his hands where their eyes meant once more.

Now they have symbolic cocks? And apparently Dante's chin is so big it needs to be turned by itself? Wat wat?

"I noticed that you weren't a mortal as you were drinking my blood. From your own lips tell me your name and what you are?" Strangely Dante wanted to smack the vampire for taking away his humanity then explain about himself. "Laying the anger on me won't fix of what you've chosen to become. But you may carry that out later after you answer my question." The vampire was right and Dante agreed with his choice.

Alucard is apparently Captain Observant.

Also... people don't talk like that. Hell, even fictional vampires are ashamed to talk like that. Pick up a damn book and read some dialogue. Read this aloud. Compare the two. I think you'll see the difference.

Next comes some vague bitching and moaning about calling Alucard "Black Beauty" "Master." This doesn't intrigue me, so much as the fact that the author seems completely oblivious to how to construct a line of dialogue:

"Like hell am I going to call you Master." Alucard turned towards him with sharpness to his eyes.

"You will call me Master since that is what I am to you now until I say otherwise." Dante stood up in defiance.

"Fuck that. IÕm my own master, and IÕm no oneÕs sniveling servant.Ó Alucard smiled and chuckled before calmly walking up to the white haired demon.

Do you see the problem here? You're getting the description of what a character is doing on a line of dialogue belonging to the other character. This wouldn't be a problem, except that people typically read a line of dialogue and its accompanying description by reading what's in the quotes and then seeing what name pops into their line of vision at the end. Pick up a book (again) and see how dialogue is constructed! A character's actions, with few exceptions, go on the the same line as their accompanying dialogue.

... am I the only one this bothers?

Dante and Alucard face off in our first truly yaoi-ish bit of the fic:

"If I'm not mistaken, you chose to live this life other then a mortal death." Alucard leaned closer towards Dante, with both their chests colliding with one another, meshing together where Dante could feel the vampire's ribs against his. Dante gasped at the contact as he was pinned to the stone wall. He felt the vampire"s breath on his ear while inhaling the smell of his black hair.

This is kinda smexy imagery. Go author. Unfortunately it's ruined by what follows:

"And," Alucard whispered. "Next time, if you doubt your choice again by defying me, I'll rip your heart out just as I did with that demon but this time eating it in your face."

Thess, who you all know as my sometimes-partner in crime, suggested that this sentence be run through Babelfish to try to make sense of it. I then further suggested translating it to Spanish and then having her translate it back to English in the hope that this might be better understood that way.

Oh, Dante! Alucard gasped.

Usually when I start a sentence like this, I finish it with, "You're soooo good."

I can tell you're going to be fun!

Why do I imagine Alucard limp-wristed and mincing as he says this?

No chapter of a Hellsing badfic is complete without the author's plea to the readers, right? Writing Muse does not disappoint:

REVIEW! I try to keep Dante as the smart ass rookie and Alucard as the crazy wise guy.

They fight crime!

Okay, one more chapter, and then you kiddies REALLY have to go to bed. Mama Red Anne Bonney will be back to bring you more of this massive fic some other night, I promise. Chapter three is promisingly called "No Tongue on the First Date," to which my husband, always the wise guy, replied, "Just sex."

Chapter three features Alucard and Dante going out on the town. It starts with this section, which reads like what would happen if you took Louis' (of The Vampire Chronicles) navel-gazing about vampires, translated it from English to Swahili using Babelfish, and then translated it back to English via a pair of blind nuns:

Dante stood behind Alucard on the sidewalk as mortals passed the couple by occasionally eyeing them with awe. Once Dante noticed the awkwardness of being stared at Alucard again answered his question. The living question what they cannot understand, especially death and many stand in awe of its beauty. You"ll get a lot of second glances from strangers. It comes with the job.

Or maybe it's just because you're two hawt guys standing around on a corner like prostitutes. Dunno.

They walked past the respectable Starbucks shops...

Dude, what magic Starbucks shops are these?

flower stores

... narrowly avoiding a Weiss Kreuz crossover...

... until they neared the part of the street holding a night club.

Scratch that. Two hot guys GOING TO A NIGHT CLUB. Dude, unless this is a goth club, they're not looking at you because they're pondering their own OMG mortality.

There not far from the entrance way was a group of young girls, barely reaching the age 19

... says the 16-year-old author.

Alucard looked back at them with a longing stare. Dante noticed the strangeness in his face and he soon knew its purpose when one of the girls he looked at strayed away from the group.

Apparently, in order to use his mojo, Alucard has to go Super Saiyan.

He saw Alucard take a sharp turn into an alleyway, leading the dazed whore into his web.

Ladies, take this double standard to heart: You so much as LOOK as two hot guys and they call you a whore. And then rip your throat out.

"You decided to become what you are, now accept it! What did you expect when you agreed to my offer! Gummie worms!"

I... have no words.

But not innocent blood. Slowly Dante shoved himself off the building wall. I strived to save that type of blood.

Save it in your belly, emo boy.

Dante didn"t notice that the hunger automatically narrowed his teeth down to two tasteful fangs.

In his hunger, ALL OF HIS TEETH DISAPPEARED.

For those of you playing along at home, this is weird tooth reference #2.

Geesh. Again with the "I know what you were trying to say, but TAKE THE TIME TO SAY IT RIGHT GODDAMN IT" sentences.

Alucard watched Dante, grinning inside. He twisted his wrist just so that the girl's eyes would face away from what was to come.

How considerate. Alucard truly is a lady's man.

And dude, where the hell is Integra in all of this? How does she feel about her servant macking and snacking on barely legal teenagers? And making mini-vampires, for that matter? We know just how THRILLED she was about Seras.

A warm metallic liquid poured from the punctured holes,

"Auuuugh, they spiked this bitch with mercury!"

OMG it's BLOOD. Say it!

Dante swooned at the taste of her life flowing into him and before he knew it the fledgling felt a slight push away from the girl.

Again with the swooning! Dante is such a nancy boy.

This fic would make a great drinking game. Drink whenever Dante swoons! Drink whenever Alucard gets compared to horse! Drink whenever the author makes hilariously unintentional sexual innuendos! You'd end up so piss drunk your friends would have to drive you home, and would continue to embarass you for years to come with tales of how you neighed like a horse.

"You're a natural not a drop spilt. Except"" Alucard bent his mouth towards Dante"s lips and slowly licked a droplet of blood off his bottom lip. Dante gasped at the contact while Alucard remained calm as he tasted the girl"s blood off Dante"s mouth.

This is kinda hot. It would be hotter if it had COMMAS and it wasn't stealing lines from Interview with the Vampire.

"If I can do it then you can do it. Unless you better prefer the sun, then by all means sleep in a bed. Just don't expect me cleaning up your ashes with a tear, that's Walter's job."

Poor Walter. Is cleaning up dead vampires with tears some punishment devised to equal scrubbing floors with a toothbrush?

"Sir Hellsing has strictly ruled out to you, no more converting!"

Again my husband chimes in with, "But we need a direct current, and there's only AC at the jack!"

... I'm going to feel reeeally bad if this author turns out to be a non-native English speaker.

In case you had wondered where the hell Integra and Seras were in this crazy mixed up fic, they make their appearance.... now:

Out of the shadows Dante saw a graceful woman wearing the mask of a stern dictator behind rimmed glasses. Dante felt a strong presence about her, making him cower more behind Alucard's back.

OMG Dante you are such a pussy.

Husband says, "No, Dante, don't you realize Alucard is supposed to be the seme?"

"It's my job to know everything that's going on in my house." She replied coldly, eyeing Dante with a malicious expression.

Target acquired. Confirmed: Engage ice lasers!

... in case you wondered, this is one case where I don't think eyes == cock. Maybe. Though the idea of Integra pegging Dante is pretty hot. This fic isn't that cool, though, is it?

"Master, how could you!" She began. "How could you make another one when you had me?" She lightly pushed Alucard"s arm bring the master vampire to a snarling disposition.

Whiny!Seras. The slightly unattractive cousin of Ditzy!Seras and Needy!Seras.

"Yes." The white haired women answered. "You are only number two in Alucard's book."

This would be Integra and her Siamese twin, yes?

Also, "number two in Alucard's book?" ::snort::

"Dispose of him now Alucard." She demanded.

"... before Monday's trash collection. Go, the dumpster is out back! Remember, he goes in the 'pussy emo vampire boy' collection bin. Seras can show you the way."

"No." Alucard"s eyes narrowed with hate for the woman.

OMG fangurls. I know this is hard for you to understand, so I'll use small words:

Alucard. Does Not. Hate. Integra. Generally, you do not say things like, "You set my loins aquiver" (or whatever that quote is) to someone you hate, unless you're writing bad Harry/Draco fic. Informed fandom consensus seems to be that he's actually quite devoted to and/or enamored of her, despite their power struggles. Not that you would know. You probably spend all your time arguing on forums about the color of Alucard's eyes or something.

Revel also in two-year-old!Seras:

"Look at me." Alucard ordered which Seres obeyed. Crap, she's like his puppet. Dante thought. "I expect nothing more then welcome and helpfulness coming from you. I can't always stay around to watch over him. I need you to look after him while I'm gone."

"I don't need anyone to watch over me!" Dante imposed. Seres finally looked at the appereance of Dante and seemed disgust at his sight. She threw him a nasty look after sticking her tongue out at him.

"Now, Seres!" Alucard warned.

Sit! Stay!

"There's no reason to be jealous. You know you're still my Police Girl." He pattered her on the head and walked past. Dante stood still until Alucard called for him.

The less said about that character assassination, the better. Hell, I don't even like Seras all that much and it makes me weep.

Next we find out that Dante is also afraid of coffins:

"How about I sleep in it with you for the night. Just for you to get use to it until by yourself." Dante looked at Alucard with shock. He didn't say anything in return but seemed to comply as he watched Alucard crawl in first.

Point the first: OMG how pansy is Dante? Could he be any pansier, or would the fic suddenly erupt in shoujo flowers?

Point the second: This is like a blanket fic for vampires, isn't it?

"Are you coming?" Alucard sat up, with his long limbs resting in the box. Dante nodded and cautiously stepped in. He spread his legs apart to better position himself with Alucard before reaching over the side to close the lid.

Unintentially humorous sexual innuendo off the starboard bow!

"Nothing, nothing." Dante answered. It took three hours of hushed moans from Dante after feeling every stray touch from Alucard before falling asleep with him in the coffin.

Oh, because that totally is something Alucard would IGNORE.

Has this review been too long? OH WELL. I figure I owe you two years worth of love. Stay tuned next time, for the exciting... 15 chapter conclusion.

--RAB

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