They were known as Flechettes, but were quickly replaced by bombs, as while a brutal weapon (just look at that poor german’s head) they were very ineffective simply because you always needed a direct hit to secure a kill, and that coupled with the inherent poor accuracy of early planes meant more often that not pilots were just throwing away precious steel.
I think the younger you are the more likely you are to be certain My Immortal was written as a joke, partially because it’s the progenitor of pretty much all modern Bad Fanfiction Tropes, so when you read it now you think “oh they were trying to use as many bad fanfic tropes as possible, it’s clearly a joke” even though those tropes exist to make fun of My Immortal. My Immortal could have been written as a parody of bad fanfiction but it made such an impact on that subculture that it’s entirely possible that it only seems like a satire because it’s the original thing being satired.
My Immortal could’ve been an intentionally bad fanfic but that’s not a given. The uncertainty comes from the fact that My Immortal was written in a pre-My Immortal world, and the only reason it seems like a parody now is because we already know about My Immortal.
The other reason is “nobody talks like this, nobody writes like this, it has to be someone making a joke” but the thing is, I was a moderator on a fanfic site when My Immortal dropped, and yes, they really really did talk like that. There is not a single line in My Immortal that would’ve been out of place in 2006.
I should say that Mary Sue parody fics had been done before - hell, the name comes from a fic from 1974 - but never, at least to my knowledge, with that level of dedication and immersion. This wasn’t just a oneshot, a little “teehee, look how silly this overpowered, ridiculously-named character is!” fic. This was 44 chapters long, each with a fairly impressive wordcount, an IRL sideplot (an argument between the author and her beta reader that caused a visible drop in spelling), and accounts on multiple websites, including Quizilla.
Like, there’s trolling and then there’s trolling, and if it was indeed a parody, it was done with a level of mastery that would be impossible to recreate now.
I DON'T FOLLOW BACK BEFORE CHECKING YOUR BLOG. In the same way, I don't follow expecting a follow back.
Camilo / Chile / Computer Engineering / Funny stuff, metal, dragons, illustrations in general, katanas, cats, videogames, maybe a bit of manganime. A complete chaos, only organised under the rule of being what I like.
Chilean. Be careful for text posts in extremely broken Spanish.
About music, by the way... I'm not a closed-minded metalhead, so I'll probably like any music recommendations you can have. Except reggaeton and hardcore derivatives.
Redux FTW.
Not that I'm lazy as to look for another one.
Plus it's kinda vintage now.