Fanfiction Reading Update #158 · 6:34am Oct 5th, 2014
Surprisingly, I'm not dead although Regent kind of is. Haven't read many fanfics as of late due to a combination of the next semester of college, an adjusted sleeping schedule, and family related activities.
I burn through The Itch's most recent chapters as Twilight has stepped up her fantasy torture porn to involving the Mane Five. It's still a fantasy, but only time will tell whether reality begins to make inroads. Probability of [Grimdark] ending: 30%.
I read through The Lunar Rebellion's remaining chapters as the first major battle of the war occurs and future NMM related plots are established. Also, I'm still bemused by the pegasi—they seem to be even more Klingon than the actual Klingons are. Take a drink every time one of them mentions “honor.”
Her Mother's Daughter sadly gets unfavorited due to the author abandoning the story. Quite a shame as it had an interesting AU setting and some developing Twiluna.
Solitary Locust updates with Twilight's rapidly deteriorating situation causing unreliable narrator to kick into full effect. Much to my delight. Probability of [Grimdark] ending: 50%.
Shattered continues to lose my interest as it starts revving up the Law and Order deus ex machina shenanigans. It's a sad state of things when the best fanfic justice system fic on Fimfiction has a case where the star witness has memory lapses, the evidence is shaky at best, the prosecutor doesn't have a license to practice law, and the whole case relies on a deus ex machina to get a guilty verdict because of how bad the prosecution is. At least the soap opera abortion debate didn't rear its head.
Bad Future Crusaders updates with the CMC continuing their breakdown and the author threatening character death. We'll see how accurate those threats are. Probability of [Grimdark] ending: 55%.
Night's Favoured Child shocks the world with an update and continues its trademarked Glacial Pacing®. We'll be lucky if the solar rebels show up by the time Gen 6 begins. We'll be even luckier to get the resolution to the cliffhanger by the time S5 ends.
Where have you been Possible Favorites?
Mare Do Well: Downfall is downvoted for being another shitty MMDW fix fic that sets aside plot and characterization in favor of the author ramming his opinion into the story.
She Said No is upvoted solely due to the fact the second chapter trolls the first chapter's anti-Celestia circlejerk and caused a literal, serious “downvoted and unfollowed” comment.
While a good AU fic, Splinterwood gets cut for being too blunt of a Nazi expy story. I prefer my inspiration-based stories to be a little more subtle.
I've been reading fanfics for a long time—since 2006 at least. I've read many stories that left me with that nasty grimdark aftertaste. From Rainbow Factory, to Biblical Monsters, over to the old days of Lion King fics with their cub killing and rape. But Faithful takes the cake for the most disturbing fanfic I have ever read. It also marks the first time I have ever downvoted a fic and then favorited it for the purpose of continuing to read it. My revulsion is only surpassed by my curiosity.
The return of Oneshots.
Memories of Shadows provides for a nice, fairly standard ends justify the means mindrape story. Reminded me of the “Cadance screws over Apple Bloom” story from a while back.
Reality is Stranger Than Fiction is downvoted for being the horrifying combination of foalcon and a mouthpiece fic. I think I hate fics with an agenda more than I do foalcon.
And that's all I read for the daymonth.
# of story updates remaining: 345.
# of “Read Later” stories remaining: 990.
I admit I was more than a little worried you had given up on FimFiction altogether. Its good to see you still kicking, even if its only doing story reviews(don't take that the wrong way, I like these, but I love your stories)
Interesting reaction. "I Hate your story! But I Favorited it so I can find out how it ends."
It's amazing.
The second chapter's comments, about all 500 of them: "Waah! Free will! Free will! Free will! Also, MY HEADCANON SAYS YOU'RE WRONG!!"
Beautiful.
Whoo, more TSG! You dropped my RIL by one, thank you. :D
I had to downvote that Nyx foalcon fic a little extra hard once I saw the author being all cute in the comments about it not being an attack fic:
2508503 ...wait. Hold on a second. You're saying that fic, obviously disgusting in and of itself just from looking at the premise, is a thinly-veiled attack on RealityCheck?
Yeesh. Some people redefine the word "petty".
2508768 2508503 RealityCheck's blogs and his own thinly-veiled in-story rants promoting bigotry was the catalyst for a nervous breakdown by one of the author's closer friends after years of harassment from homophobes, many of whom came to the site simply to follow RC.
But the real catalyst was when RC started deleting comments from other friends of said author and then lying about their content to say they were "trolling".
I've known the guy for about a year now, and he's not a bad man. He just looks a lot worse by association.
2510945 Don't try to justify asshole behavior by excusing it as a reaction to someone else's asshole behavior. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, especially actions as premeditated as a multi-thousand word foalcon harassment fic with accompanying cover art.
2510957 My point was that his asshole behaviour, being in reaction to someone else's asshole behaviour, does not describe him as a person. See the bottom of my comment.
Regardless, I'm not especially inclined to feel any kind of disdain for assholish things done to a terrible human being. I'm sorry if that shocks you.
2510959 Why would I be shocked? I don't know you outside of vaguely recognizing your username, so I don't really have any expectations about your behavior or opinions. And why would your relationship with the author of the fic mean anything to me? As I said I don't know you, so for all I know you could be a terrible judge of character.
If you didn't want your friend to be judged as a person for writing a harassment fic, then maybe your friend shouldn't have written a harassment fic.
2511022 You have, in point of fact, frequently commented on my stories, providing support for them and often voicing enjoyment regarding them. We've had a couple of very nice chats before this. I could be wrong, but I believe you are also following me (EDIT: Turns out I was wrong, but your following page is filled with friends of mine, which is very cool). I thought you a nice enough person. I would love to continue to believe this, hard as you are making it.
2511037 If you're looking at my user page, then you might also note that I have thousands of stories favorited and follow hundreds of users. Sure, there are plenty of people that I more directly know, but most individual users fall under the radar through sheer volume, even users whose stories I have read and chatted with.
I'm sorry if you think I'm not a nice person as a result of our interaction here, but I don't really think that is my fault. I'm not the one who is advocating an asymmetrical response to different instances of harassment. Justice should be blind and for all, or what is the point?
Did the person who had a nervous breakdown over harassment deserve it? Of course not. Does RC deserve harassment also, in some sort of eye-for-an-eye exchange? Of course not.
2511149 So where was RC's justice? What kind of example does Fimfic send by not punishing rampant, continual instances of hate speech? How do we end RC's hatred if he faces no negative consequences for them? And why does Marshal deserve to be the link in the chain that takes the flak for it, by your reasoning?
2511165 Fair point. In this case since there is no institutional justice being applied, the best I can do myself is form opinions based on the behavior that I see. I already know that RC is a giant, irredeemable ass, so the question that remains is how other people react and act in turn.
Which brings us back around to my original point: if Marshal didn't want random people to think he is an ass as well, then it is entirely up to his public behavior to prove or disprove it.
2510945
Doesn't make the story any better and, in fact, only reinforces the idea that it's an attack fic, which, last time I checked, were banned.
2511215 He cleared it with the mods first. They ruled it as plausible deniability. Frankly, the only reason RC's ass is not yet banned is because so many people would kick up a shitstorm about "freedom of speech" (which is not how freedom of speech works, but lots of people seem to think it is).
2511236 All I know is The Great Alicorn Hunt isn't bad, and having that purged would be annoying enough. As to the rest... well, I haven't read all of those homophobic/bigoted bits, so I couldn't possibly comment.