Power Rangers: Public Enemies

A word from the author:

It's been a dream of mine to have a work of mine receive its own TV Tropes page for well over eight years now. The closest I've come to is this fic getting a fanfic rec from TV Tropes. Am I happy about it? Long story short: no.

Don't think I haven't read the critiques: this story is grim, dark, needlessly violent, and overall the writing is simply bad. I agree with the criticism. I do NOT like reading this fanfic at all, and sometimes I feel like I'm better off just ignoring it. But I can't, because this fic is a work of mine, and to pretend that a work of mine doesn't exist is like a parent pretending that a child of his or hers is nonexistent. I can't do that. For this reason, I insist on owing up to my mistakes.

I began writing this fanfic as I did most of mine: for fun. I had been inspired by the animated movie "Batman and Superman: Public Enemies" as well as Watchmen. I began working on this fic at around May 5th, 2010. The last chapter was released nearly a year later, on May 23rd, 2011. In that year, a hell of a lot changed.

What was originally going to be a fun, Civil War-esque storyline got turned into a grimdark bastardization of the franchise I still love. I blame Real Life for what happened to my story: my mental state got grimmer and angrier, and that seeped itself into my writing. What happened was that I was not doing well in grad school; my grades were slipping, I was constantly turning in work late, and I was often skipping classes. I couldn't handle the pressure, so I started retreating into a fantasy world.

Fanfics had always been my outlet, for both my creative juices as well as my stress. Grad school was hard for me, but ironically it was also the time I was at my most productive, writing wise. However, I guess with this fic, a LOT of the negativity I was feeling in my life seeped through into my fiction.

At around May 10th, something happened that I still remember vividly. I had witnessed police brutality, up front and in person. There's lost of things in life you forget, but you never ever forget the injustice in seeing 10 grown men beating up a college student with batons, over a trifle. I'll never forget the kid's bleeding face as he was picked up and thrown into a cop car, then carried off to be jailed for the night. I was real shook up that day.

The anger and powerlessness I felt that day really helped inform my writing for this fic. Every word I typed, that kid's face flashed in my eyes. I wanted justice. No, I think what I really wanted was revenge, blood. I wanted to beat those police officers for doing this to someone who most certainly didn't deserve it.

I guess that anger somehow translated into anger towards the Power Rangers. I don't know, I guess I was too angry to think clearly. I was an unemployed 24 year old man with self loathing issues, still living with his parents, writing stories for a kid's show. I was the epitome of "pathetic" back then.

Does that excuse me from writing something that made someone cry? I don't know. I might never know. But it does at least explain WHY I wrote it the way I did.

If I could rewrite this fanfic, there are so many things I'd do differently. First, I'd tone down the violence, eliminate 9/10 of the rape scenes in this fic, and I'd definitely rewrite the "Power Rangers are all in Hell now!" plot point. I'd make some character's motivations clearer, explore them more, maybe even add new chapters. Particularly, I would explain Billy's motivations more, and why what he did made sense at the time. Perhaps I SHOULD consider re-writing this fic, when I have the time.

This is a fanfic that was written with anger and sorrow in my heart, most of it aimed at me, which I misdirected into my writing. I would very much like to amend for that in the future by making a work that actually shows how much I LOVE Power Rangers. This fic made it look like I hated the show, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I would like to one day EARN a TV Tropes page for a work that can actually be enjoyed and respected. THIS fan fic, as it is right now, isn't that work.