Badfic Slaughterhouse #7: Extra Facepalm Edition · 2:09pm Aug 4th, 2014
Once upon a time, there lived a grumpy guy who read way too many badfics.
This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s my life story.
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 1,015 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Scootaloo discovers that Fluttershy is her mother.
Review: The grammar is terrible. Punctuation is all over the map. Dialogue is stilted and awkward. The plot is stupid. Characters are OOC.
Verdict: Absolutely no redeeming merit here. In fact, I seriously think this story's very existence is a form of Scootabuse.
Addendum: This story has received some editing since I read it, apparently. I can’t be bothered to read it again to find out for sure.
The Search for the Truth of One Pony’sPast, by Brownies13
Tags: Tragedy, Sad, Slice of Life
Rating: Teen
Length: 6,345 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Scootaloo tries to find her long-lost mother.
Review: I noticed this on the front page when I scanning for good new stories. It had a 15:0 ratio, so I looked a little closer. Unfortunately, the short description looked like a complete disaster. I nearly ignored it, but that mystifying upvote tally drew me back in to see if maybe—just maybe—the actual story wasn’t terrible.
It’s terrible.
The grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all atrocious. Characterization is flat. The telling is thick enough to use as a murder weapon. Adjectives and adverbs infest nearly everything. The plot is the same thing that’s been told ten thousand times in five different ways.
Verdict: How in the world could this trash have achieved fifteen upvotes without a downvote? It speaks badly of the FIMFiction user base. Avoid this like the plague unless you want to laugh at how terrible it is.
But I Have To Pee!, by GeneralLiberator
Tags: Comedy, Random
Rating: Everyone
Length: 2,395 words
Synopsis: Scootaloo needs to pee and she can’t get to a toilet.
Review: Oh look, three Scootaloo fics in a row. This is easily the best of the trio, thankfully. After the other two, another wretched Scootaloo fic might have killed me. That’s not to say it’s great, however. I’m not even saying it’s good.
Grammatically, it’s a mixed bag. There’s some competence on display, but also a lot of errors at a fundamental level, particularly regarding dialogue. It also has loads of telling and some mixing of tenses.
The story is tagged as a comedy, but the author doesn’t really know how to write a good one, it seems. A lot of things happen for no reason, and events that might make for good comedy don’t come back into play, so they don’t escalate. The only humor to be found is in the absurdity of the situation, and that wasn’t enough for me.
Verdict: It’s largely inoffensive, but it’s not very good. If you find randomness for the sake of randomness funny, have a look. Otherwise, ignore it.
Play Me a Lullaby, Mommy!, by AClosetBrony
Tags: Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 2,667 words
Synopsis: While tucking her daughter into bed, Octavia plays an old record and reminisces about how the song on it was created.
Review: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fic that depicted Octavia as a mother before this one. Of course, being a blank slate in the show, she can be pretty much anything a writer wants. That’s as far as the ambitiousness in this piece goes, however, as it also pairs her up with Vinyl and fails to provide any character traits for Octavia beyond a love of music.
Mechanically, it’s okay. It’s not great, but it’s not offensive, either, and I’ve already given the author some feedback that will probably improve it on the grammatical front. It’s perfectly readable, so you don’t need to worry about your eyes bleeding.
The problems are in the story, not its presentation. For one thing, there’s no central conflict, which makes it nothing more than a snapshot of a typical evening with a little exposition about past events thrown in. I found it boring. Plus, as I mentioned before, the characterization is flat.
Verdict: In spite of its faults, there’s merit for anyone who likes feelsy slice of life stories. If that’s your idea of a good time, have a look.
Promises, by RaylanKrios
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life
Rating: Teen
Length: 33,498 words
Synopsis: After learning that Scootaloo has been abused at home, Rainbow Dash takes her in and seeks justice against her abuser.
Review: And here we go again with another Scootaloo story. Best pony or not, she’s being done no favors by the fandom’s authors. That trend continues in this story.
While the writing isn’t offensively bad—like those first two—it is flawed. Comma mistakes are frequent, but they’re not bad enough to ruin the story on their own. What does manage that feat is the pacing. The most severe example of it that I can think of is in the first chapter, wherein a single paragraph is used to tell about Rainbow having an important conversation with Twilight, followed by Twilight blasting down a door and intimidating some guards. Those would have been interesting scenes if they were shown; instead, they were summarized in a few sentences. Right before that, a much less important scene involving Fluttershy rubbed extra salt into the wound by playing itself out properly.
It also has a severe problem with LUS and overuse of adjectives/adverbs. Weighty conversations are lessened by a lack of activity in them. For example, when Rainbow tells Fluttershy that Scootaloo has been abused, Fluttershy isn’t given any reaction at all. The dialogue just keeps going.
Verdict: There are some reasonably good ideas here, even if they aren’t very original. If it was written with a more even pace and had more showing instead of telling, I might be able to recommend it for certain people. Unfortunately, it falls too far short. There are much better ways to spend your time.
Goddesses Among Us, by Mad Analyst
Tags: Romance, Comedy, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 2,235 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Discord transforms Celestia and Luna into young mares to help them reconnect with their subjects.
Review: There’s not much material yet, so I can’t judge this one very well. With only one chapter in place, it hasn’t even gotten through the transformation, much less started the main plot. That means there’s not a lot to review in terms of plot, pacing, and characterization. The only exception is the characterization of Discord, which I found lacking. He’s a difficult character to write well, however, so don’t take this as a particularly severe criticism.
Mechanically, it’s mostly okay, although there are some glaring grammar errors. It really needs a pass from a good proofreader to smooth out those wrinkles. It also has a severe case of saidism abuse.
Verdict: It’s impossible to tell how this will shape up. While it could become something interesting, it could also turn out lame. Check it out if you’re a fan of Celestia and Luna, and especially if you want to see them living like ordinary ponies, which is what the story promises.
Tags: Crossover, Adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating: Teen
Length: 27,672 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: In an AU where Celestia went bad, Luna trains Twilight as an elite war mage in preparation for her sister’s return.
Review: First of all, while this is marked as a crossover, it doesn’t specify what it’s a crossover with. Fortunately, it’s totally comprehensible, even without that information, because it only includes pony characters in a pony AU.
On the mechanical front, there are a lot of dialogue punctuation errors. Most have minimal impact on readability, though some of them are glaring. It bounces between past and present tenses, which irritated me a lot. There’s also a moderate infestation of LUS.
The setting is a reasonably interesting one, as it inserts the main six into a world of politics and intrigue from the start by portraying them as orphans in the care of the Crown. Characterization can differ a bit from canon, but it’s all consistent and fitting within the AU.
The biggest problem is the pacing. The story starts with an exposition dump chapter that fails to give the reader a proper indication of how old the characters are. While it gets moving after that, it soon slows down and begins detailing the day-to-day lives of the characters as they go about training in their new careers. I suppose it’s possible that it could be taking an Ender’s Game approach, but if it skips ahead to a time when their training is done, this will all have been a meaningless slog. As it stands, it feels like it’s just killing time until it gets to what should be the good parts.
Verdict: While the world this story presents is intriguing, its faults hold it back from being anything truly special. Recommended for fans of AU stories (especially Lunaverse stuff) and badass Twilight.
The Brief Reign of Princess Twily, by Forthwith
Tags: Comedy, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 3,483 words
Synopsis: A young Twilight tries to help an overworked Celestia get a day off, but winds up ruling Equestria when things take a turn she didn’t expect.
Review: Frankly, I don’t see much reason to include a review of this. The story has dominated the feature box for the last few days, and it’s currently sitting at the top of the ratings list. Everyone and their neighbor’s dog has read it by now. Still, someone asked, so I might as well give my thoughts.
It’s a cute story with a solid foundation that’s paced quickly enough to avoid wearing out its welcome. I don’t think it’s necessarily funny enough to warrant the comedy tag, but it’s completely inoffensive, and it’s competently written.
Verdict: You’ve probably already seen it, but if you haven’t, it’s short, cute, a little silly, and feels reasonably similar to the show. If you’re a pretentious teen who thinks anything that lacks blood, swearing, and sex is beneath you, stay away. Otherwise, go ahead and check it out if you haven’t done so already.
A Cursed Chickadee Charm, by Chip Cookie
Tags: Comedy, Random, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe
Rating: Teen
Length: 1,183 words
Synopsis: Ms. Peachbottom gets really fat overnight. That’s pretty much it.
Review: I couldn’t resist this one when I saw it sitting at the top of the new stories list with such a terrible rating, and all I can say after reading it is, “Wut?”
No, seriously… What the hell did I just read? I know I read a ton of badfics, but this is an entirely new level of WTF. Apparently, this was written for the sole purpose of being mean to a character some people (who I’ve never seen) believe to be Scootaloo’s mother.
There’s not really a point in trying to review this, but I’ll do it anyway, just so no one feels cheated. You entitled bastards. It isn’t funny at all, and there’s no need for the AU tag, so it’s misrepresenting itself right off the bat. The mechanics are a bit weak, but generally comprehensible. As for the content, it tries to it takes a special kind of fic to I don’t even
Screw it.
Verdict: This is one of the most random, idiotic, pointless, moronic, perplexing, stupid, and downright weird things I’ve seen on this site. I can’t even begin to comprehend why someone would think it was a good idea. Just read it for yourselves. Yes, I'm serious. It’s short, so you won’t be wasting much time, and if nothing else, it’ll make you more appreciative of all the mediocre stories on the site.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and—Oh God, that last guy posted a fic about Celestia gaining weight at the same time as the other one.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be wading into the deep end of the cesspool to drown myself.
"This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s my life story."
*snort* I'm stealing this for a tag line someday!
Damn, what's with hating Scootaloo all of the sudden... other than the obvious.
Oh dear..
Looks like someone is going to have to step up and re-review it. But who?
Sounds like 50% of the feature box.
Assigns to the read later box Oh, this sounds like a challenge to me.
Great reviews, all around.