Metroid High School

From Blankclubencyclopedia

Metroid High School is a successful fan fiction written by Dr. D. After one short chapter, it collected 12 reviews in less than 3 months. Another chapter is currently scheduled for late March/early April 2006. It is a parody of many poorly fan fictions with IM speak and ill-conceived plots. Metroid High School, as the name suggests, features the familiar characters in High School, but with a twist—the "baig dance" is coming up and Ridley summons the courage to inquisit Samus as a date. The full story can be found here. An exerpt is shown below.

Exerpt

Chapter One: The Big Dance

It was three days before the baig dance. Ridley walked up to Samus. He was really nervous. He had never gone on a date before and Smaus was really, really, pretty. So he finally got enough courage and went up to her locker.

“Uhhh Samus?”

Samus looked up. “What do u want?”

“Uhhhh… Do you… uhh. Dd.. d… do you want to… go.. to the dance with me?”

Samus said “Okay”

Critical Acclaim

All of the reviews that Metroid High School received (as of 3/25/06) were, shockingly, positive. Five of them (including General Subwoofer) got the joke, while three took the fic as serious and asked the author to write more. Two people decided to give constructive criticism, while the last two can by classified as undecided.

A positive review (of the story) by XDarkmasterX is shown below:

Pretty good, although you could put a little more... form into the story and i'm against flaming so don't feel offended it's a really good story so far. I hope Saum and Rid stay together!

A positive review (of the parody) by Insomniac by Choice is shown below:

Scout's honor, it isn't me. I was never a scout, but that's beside the point. I admit, I am working on my own parody at the moment, but it appears someone beat me to the punch (Mild Guy?). Anyway, this is a pretty obvious parody, so it's wrong to try to review it as anything else. And as a parody, it's actually very good. Ridley and Samus in love is one of the most severe and common sins in Metroid fandom (Mother Brain x Samus would probably be THE most severe, I think). Placing them in these kind of situations is, too. And the people who decide to do these things usually write about this well. So the point of this story comes across quite clearly. Or at least it should. Sadly, I've seen worse fics than this, and there’s a Metroid story somewhat similar to this in concept ([s:1791262:college], not high school). So these two things probably threw most people off and made them miss all of “teh funneh”. But it's still too heavy-handed for my taste. That opening line (not to mention the name) lets anyone reading it immediately know what this is. (Or it should.) And occasionally you let your better writing shine through. It’s tough, I know, but consistency is the key to a good parody of this kind. I’m of the opinion that there’s a better way to make fun of Samus/Ridley love out there, but few, if any, are more humorous than this method, and especially this story. Or maybe I’m just bitter that someone beat me to it. Either way: Winnar/10.

A critical review by Lemurian-Girl is shown below:

For the love of... argh! Don't use chatspeak in fanfiction, spell out "you" and "really". And learn some grammar. Commas and periods are your friends. Spell check would be nice too. You missed some capitializations of some proper nouns. "Samus inquisited?" should be "Samus inquired." You put question marks and quoatation marks in alot of wrong places, and many of the words were misused. Keep a dictionary nearby. It's ok that it's AU, but please keep everyone in character. Samus would not be so willing to go out with Ridley, her enemy so quickly. Samus/Ridleys stories have to work around that. And he would not really be in love after one dance. Ridley would probably be in Kraid's gang instead of being picked on by them. And you need description! This is pure dialouge; that's not very interesting. I understand this is your first fic, and I hope that in the future you will use this advice to help your writing. A little revising can go a long way, and I recommend studying grammar a little harder. Don't use words if you don't know what they really mean. This is not a flame but rather constructive critism, so don't be offended by it. Use it to your advantage. ~Lemurian-Girl~

Theories

Metroid High Schools great popularity can be attributed to the genius of the parody. Dr. D (AKA 111SAMUSRIDLEY4EVA2006) uses several ways to make his story seem like "the real thing." He uses atrocious spelling and grammar, along with frequent typos, such as "baig," "Smaus," "llater," and "reely." There were also many missing punctuation marks (or incorrect ones). Dr. D brilliantly used many different words in lieu of "said" shown below:

• Samus said
• thought Ridley
• voice sneered
• exclaimed Ridley
• Samus inquisited?
• Samus responded
• Kraid declared
• answered Samus
• Ridly proposed?
• She declared
• samus alleged
• Ridley declared
• inquired Samus?
• Samus Descirbed
• ridley exclaimed
• thought ridley

A bizzare example of a fanfiction with the same plot but without the parody can be found here. (Warning: Viewer discretion advised.)