Hello, Stitch here, and I noticed something awesome.
Soo, I happen to be in a pretty big Duck Dodgers spin right about noowww. It's one the most intelligent shows I've seen in a long time. o-o
So one day I was watching a particular episode; The New Cadet, S2 E8. And I didn't realise it before (in fact it took me about a month), but this episode is VERY clever. Wanna know why?
It's a Take That against badly written fanfics.
Let's go through it step by step:
Starting with the first 28 seconds, Dodgers has a monolouge on how perfect everything is. That is, before noticing something "odd" about the Cadet.
"That's strange...I've never had these thoughts or feelings for the Cadet before...is it wrong?"
Having read a few yaoi fics in my time, I can tell you that this is basically how most of them go. Character A notices Character B looks different or acts different today, and eventually (mostly after advice from best friend/sister/Hagrid) realises that this is the beginning of them falling "IN LUVZ!1!" This is more common in the Invader Zim fandom, where it generally ties into an angsty speech about Irkens Can't Fall In Love, but that doesn't mean it's never used in other fandoms as well.
Like Looney Tunes, for example.
Anyway, after Dodgers composes himself, he looks up and- well what would usually happen here is that Cadet asks if he's ok and Dodgers says he's fine while imagining gay sexytimes or something like that.* Instead he sees a blonde, blue eyed, rather pretty woman. She reveals that the Cadet has been "transferred" and she is his replacement.
Hm. New sidekick. New pretty sidekick. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, just about every Suefic in existence.
See what I'm getting at?
*I told you I read a lot.
The next scenes are falling-in-love montages of Dodgers and Cadet Mary (short for Mary Sue of course) spending a whoole lot of time together. Oh look! Cadet Mary can draw, bake, (and somehow does it sexily) not to mention somehow drips precisely the right amount of chemical into the glass FROM A WIDE NECKED BOTTLE. Oh, and then there's the bathroom scene.
Really.
Now, I know this isn't much. But we're still only about 5 minutes into the episdoe. The next scene is Dodgers telling Cadet Mary how he defended himself against the...Klunkens? Or something?
"And dya know what i did next?"
"Actually, yes. I do." And look, she gets it right.
Having exhausted his take of the Klunkens, Dodgers suggests they do some Protecterate stuff. Which is when Cadet Mary reveals that she's had a distress call from a "primitive planet" saying that THE MARTIANS ARE ATTACKING OH NO. Dodgers asks her to set a course, and oh look. She already has. They'll be arriving in five minutes.
Okay. This is screwy. She was in the same room as Dodgers, and that room was nowhere near a transmission screen. How come she heard it but Dodgers didn't? And I assume that distress calls are sent to Protecterate HQ and I.Q High fowards them or something. I'm sure I've seen that happen before, in Big Bug Mamas I think it was. If so, why would he send it both of them, let alone JUST Mary? The ending just makes this screwier; I mean, it's not like she's-
Spoilers.
Secondly, when would she have TIME to set a course? She was listening to Dodgers showing off for like an HOUR. Can Mary teleport? This doesn't make any sense.
Apparently, Dodgers is impressed by this. "Hey, you're good."
"Yes, captain." -seductive look- "Very, VERY good."
...In bed. -shot-
Anyway, this "primitive planet" (seriously who is she to say that) turns out to be a planet of trees. How beautiful. Until, that is, some random machine (that looks like the result of drunken babymaking between Megas XLR and Optimus Prime) comes along and starts ripping the forest to pieces. A look inside reveals that the person behind this is (unsurprisingly) Commander X2. or should I say Marvin. According to Marvin, they're going to get this planet deforested in record time. Oh goody.
...And you need to deforest this planet...why? It's not explained why he's doing it, what he needs it for, and it's very out of charecter. It's just simply happening because MARTAINS IS EVILS. Which (you know what I'm going to say here) also happens in Suefics; When Character A is a hero, the Arch Nemesis Evil Guy always ends up doing something purely for TEH EVULZ, not to mention plot convenience. And, as we find out later, this is very evil. But we'll get to that later.
Nothing much happens between now and landing on the Lovechild Machine. When they do eventually land, Marvin claims that it'll take "more than one deluded duck and his lard-filled lackey to stop me!" Dodgers denies his, his new Cadet is pretty co- Cadet? Where'd she go? D:
Answer is, in the sky.
What then follows is a rather impressive Karate Kid esque scene in which she beats the crap out of the Martian Centurions for reasons I'll come too in a minute. For now, I'd like to point out how rather over-the-top her fighting style is.
"Okay, I get the message, let's not blow this thang out of proportion!"
I couldn't agree more Marvin. n.n
And now we know why Mary's so pissed; she's a hippie. And Marvin is apparently a Tree Murderer. And if you're a Tree Murderer you'd better get the eff off Mary's lawn otherwise she'll pull your freaking head off. (Or, as she puts it, "RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!!!!)
Okay. So pretty blonde multi talented new cadet is bad enough, but she cares about the enviroment too? God when does the Sueness end?
So, anyway, Mary's little power trip ends with Marvin under the table begging her forgiveness and generally looking sad. Aww. ;^; Never mind, I'm sure he'll get his fair share of cuddles at the end-
AHEM.
So, anyway (again), everything's sorted. Mary and Dodger are flying home. The Tree Murderer has been defeated and is probably in therapy. EVERYTHING IS HAPPIEZ. Now this is usually where the fic would end, with maybe a description of a loving kiss and the lyrics to The Only Exception printed at the end. But something is a bit amiss; IQ doesn't know about the new cadet. Mary got pissed again and threw a brick at the transmission screen, and now she's being creepy and Dodgers is running for his damned life. Does this usually happen in Suefics? No. But it leaves a gateway for things that do. For now I'd like to come back to something I mentioned earlier.
Why would IQ send the message to Mary if he doesn't know who she is?
I mean, he'd notice the different Cadet. The man's not stupid, on the contrary he's a genuis and very shippable with Star Johnson whi9h is kinda why his name is I.Q High. Get it? IQ...oh I give up.
So eventually after a lot of running for his life and Mary appearing everwhere before him (though I don't consider this a Sue trait as opposed to a humour thing; although I must say the maid costume she wears at one point is disturbingly kinky) Dodgers ends up backing into some random room and look what he sees; a shrine. With about a million photos of himself.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that actually stalking doesn't happen in Suefics. Actually let me rephrase that; stalking DOES happen but the protagonist doesn't generally see it as stallking, they just see it as AFFECTIONZ AND LUVS. So I assume this is exaggeration in an attempt to take the mick; it works quite well. Anyway, after looking at the pics (one is of him in the shower I mean wtf) Dodgers has just enough time to escape before Mary bursts through the door to see where he's gone. After looking around for a bit she declares that she "thought you'd be different from the other men I've stalked" and "now you'll end up like the others".
GIVE ME A C! GIVE ME AN R! GIVE ME TWO Es! GIVE ME A P! GIVE ME A Y! AND WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?
It spells goddamn "creepy". Which is exactly what Mary is. Anyway, Dodgers is creeping round the ship and Mary is following him and Cadet Porky is tied up and- Wait what? So THAT'S where he went!
Dodgers apparently notices this too; although he wouldn't have done if not for "the stench of stale pigsweat".
Ew.
Anyway, so Mary is catching up with Dodgers who unties Porky and now both of them are running for their lives. Eventually they get into the kitchen, with an ominously boiling pot full of stew and oh my GOD she's cooked...
...a rabbit.
So that's why we haven't seen much of Bugs recently okay that was uncalled for I'm sorry. Anyway, they're eating Bugsy the rabbit stew, Mary finds them, more running, escape pod, blah blah, the rabbit stew was not Bugs and was in fact Dodgers's pet rabbit Mr Hoppity...uh. Yeah. Poor Mr Hoppity.
Anyway, somehow Mary got onto the pod with them (don't ask me how that works ok i have no idea) and after an arguemnt and shiz Dodgers presses the eject button and whjoosh there goes Mary. Mary responds y grabbing the door handle and somehow Dodgers seat decided to move now as opposed to earlier and him and Cadet travel out of sight.
LAWS OF PHYSICS, WE DON'T NEED YOU. OUR RELATIONSHIP IS OVER. GO DATE LAWS OF RELATIVITY, HE'S A BETTER MAN WHO IS WORTHY OF YOUR LOVE.
So now Mary is being all "bitch I don't need you, you were a phaaase man, a goddamn phaaase". Which is all well and good (and convenient), but guess who's she's moved on to?
Ding Ding. Ten points. Marvin. And no, Marvin is not a scoring system*. He's who she's moved on to. Now, I can understand completely. I mean I have a little thing for Marvin myself. He's effing adorbs. I'm not quite that obsessed, but you know what I mean.
But still, HOW VERY CONVINIENT. Not only does this get Marvin out of the way, A. bad guys are also something Sues tend to gravitate towards (old fanfiction saying; If it ain't a Harry, it's a Draco) and B this gets rid of Marvin and sets up a little headcanon for afterwards when the viewer can be a sadist prick and happily imagine Marvin being chased and raped and other things while pleading with her to leave him alone. Is Tyrahnee gonna do anything? Let's just wait and hope.
So that's the plot over with, ninety pages later. Let me tell you something else.
This is season 2. Looney Tunes had been going on a lot longer than this. Check out the fanfiction section for LT. It's filled to the brim with Bugs/Daffy, Mary sues, DD slash, that sort of shiz. It's not that implausible to think that the creators were getting emails with horrendous fanfiction (that's happened before, I remember hearing one time apparently people used to email Danny Cooksey smut with Jack Spicer in it) and thought "Okay, these girls are loco, let's do an episode about it"? I mean, even if it is implausible, this is my headcanon. o3o
Thoughts?
*Though Marvin should be a scoring system. o3o Maybe it measures cute, like there's 20 cute points to every Marvin. I don't know.
