Badfic Slaughterhouse #23 · 8:53pm Jul 6th, 2015
The doors of the Badfic Slaughterhouse have opened once more, and the sounds of children's laughter and anguished screams flow through them in equal measure. Within, fics of all sorts are judged, and the worst are hurled into a grinder for your twisted amusement.
Once again, it's been a while since my last blog. This time, however, I think I really am returning to making more regular posts. I've been reading a lot lately—so much that I actually have a backlog of stuff pending review.
But that's the future. The present offers real reviews of real fics that are real good, real mediocre, and REAL bad.
Click below to find reviews of stories that involve: magically-assisted flight, robots from space, a psychotic schoolgirl, a living doll, the dangers of teleportation, and terribleness so impenetrable that I couldn't finish a single page.
Deadpool in Equestria, by MrAquino
Rating: Teen
Tags: Sex, Gore, Comedy, Random, Crossover
Length: 144,180 words (Status: Incomplete – <1/81 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: It’s right there in the title.
Review: I have to admit, I opened this up looking to hate it. Its rating is respectable, but the description is a car crash, and the author made a bad impression on me by listing every single time it’s been in the feature box.
But I’m not so petty that I would actually give a story a bad review because its description made a bad impression. After all, lots of stories have descriptions that don’t look very good yet have surprisingly interesting content. So how does this one fare?
… Three paragraphs.
That was all I could read. Three paragraphs. After that, my supply of “Nope!” was completely exhausted, and I had to close it. Don’t take my word for it, though. See for yourselves.
In a beautiful day in Equestria, somewhere, right in between the town on Ponyville and the dreaded Everfree Forest, a mint colored unicorn sat in a field with some stuff. Some of this said stuff were mostly snacks and a small water bottle, but the real object being used by the unicorn was a book labeled 'summoning 101'. she skimmed through the pages until she landed on one pacific page: Humans.
"Alright then," the unicorn said to herself "today's the day: I'm gonna get myself a human!!!" she skimmed through the pages, quickly reading the words on how to summon her very own human, but trying to contain all her excitement. She closed her eyes and concentrated on making her spell. Her horn glowed a green aura, and it shot into the sky!!! A moderately sized, swirling, green vortex opened in the sky, staying there for one or two minutes.
"OH S**T!!!" A voice yelled inside the vortex. A red blur came out in super speed, and the vortex disappeared as soon as it came out. The unicorn sprinted to where the red blur landed, seeing it crashed through ground a bit, at least three feet, with it's silhouette most likely being in the ground forever. The outline was definitely human, and she was breathing fast. A red hand came out of the ground, grabbed onto the 'ledge', and the figure climbed it's way out. Almost dramatically, the figure stood: it was a human!!! It was a male that wore read all over it's body (including the face area), had pure white eyes, some black around it's eyes & hand areas, and had a belt with what looks like it's own face as the center.
If you made it through that and think you can take any more, you have a higher badfic tolerance than me. If you gouged your eyes out… well, you won’t be able to read an apology, so I won’t bother giving one.
Verdict: Kill it. Kill it with fire. Or maybe just give it a really nasty rage review.
Rating: Teen
Tags: Slice of Life
Length: 3,947 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Twilight discovers something shocking about one of her favorite spells.
Review: This is a concept that’s been around for a long time, dating back at least as far as the original Star Trek series, but I’ve never actually seen a story about it. For those who’ve already read it or don’t mind spoilers, here’s the gist of it:
Teleportation doesn’t move someone from one place to another. It kills the person (or in this case, pony) being teleported and creates an exact duplicate of them, who has no idea that they’re a completely new life form.
In less than four thousand words, the concept is explored as fully as it needs to be to arrive at a satisfying conclusion, although it actually runs a bit long due to some unnecessary material in the first half. The implications of Twilight’s discovery hit hard, and though she really only has one course of action to take, it does leave a great big question mark hanging over her, asking whether something could ever force her to use that spell again, even with what she now knows.
If you examine the story a little deeper and compare it to the series canon, however, the premise starts to crumble. After all, teleportation spells have been used by several other ponies, including Sunset Shimmer and Pumpkin Cake. (It’s worth noting that when I considered the idea of a baby using that spell, it turned out to be the very definition of fridge horror.)
I suppose whether that inconsistency will bother you depends on whether you can sever this story from canon and accept that the story is playing by its own rules, rather than the rules of the TV show.
Twilight sighed. "You can take a break, Spike. Your note-taking has been invaluable, but I can handle this next part on my own."
"Are you sure you don't need my help?" Spike very much hoped she didn't.
Twilight couldn't help her affectionate smile when he offered anyway. "Positive."
"Alright!" Spike tossed all the notes he'd taken onto a lab table and quickly scurried out of the room and up the stairs.
Twilight shook her head with a chuckle. Spike made for a wonderful assistant, and an even better friend, but he was still a kid at heart. It was easy to forget that with how much he took care of Twilight on a regular basis.
Refocusing on her work, Twilight lit her horn and swiftly laid out all the useful information she'd gathered in the form of countless print-outs and data sheets. She had to pull three tables together just to accommodate it all, but in the end she was able to quickly reference any data she might need to understand the spell at a fundamental level. Once she could identify each component spell on its own, she would be able to create matrices for them, and eventually set them up to work in unison to cast the larger, more complex teleportation spell.
Her excitement to spend the next few hours poring over paperwork was palpable. Twilight was an odd mare.
This writing is solid but not exceptional. It gets the job done, communicating every idea that the reader needs and delivering a decent emotional impact, but it lacks elegance and subtlety. The balance of show vs tell is largely effective, although it dips into some excessive telling on rare occasions. While the sentence structure is varied, a lot of the narration doesn’t use its wording very economically, and there are a lot of “noun verb” sentences where something more significant is warranted. Overall, it’s quite competent, even if it falls short of excellence.
Mechanically, there are no issues worth noting. Errors tend to be minor and unintrusive.
Verdict: This is pretty good, and I recommend checking it out unless you’re a hardcore stickler for adherence to canon.
Rating: Everyone
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life
Length: 3,323 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Many years in the future, as Scootaloo is dying, Twilight pays her a visit.
Review: There are about a thousand different stories about immortal alicorn Twilight visiting/mourning/remembering dead/dying friends, so on the surface, this one does nothing new. However, there is one new concept in play here that might draw some attention.
“The first hundred years is something of a transitionary phase for alicorn biology,” Princess Celestia had explained to her. “Your body will eventually adjust to all the changes taking place, but while the greatly-improved magical ability takes root, you will experience a phenomena very similar to ageing in normal ponies.”
Still, the greying mane, bags under the eyes, sagging neck flesh, and near-constant aches in pains in her back and hips were something of a jolt to the system. Surprisingly, it had been a source of comfort to her; Twilight had known as soon as she'd ascended that she'd outlast her friends, but growing old with them had lessened the pain somewhat. She hadn't wanted to stay looking eternally young while everypony she was close to withered to dust around her.
She has aches in her pains? That sounds like it sucks.
Unfortunately, despite the new idea, nothing is actually done with it. It’s just a bit of headcanon dumped into the fic that doesn’t actually affect the events in the slightest. So that leaves? You guessed it! Another run-of-the-mill “immortal alicorn Twilight visits a dying friend” fic.
The dying friend, as mentioned above, is Scootaloo. Her role in the story is to exchange a few words with Twilight and then go for a magically-assisted flight while the majority of her backstory is delivered via narrative exposition.
Meanwhile, the story raises other questions it has no intention of answering. Discord appears but doesn’t actually do anything. A point is made of Spike no longer being with her, but there’s no indication of what that means.
This isn’t so much a story as a snapshot of a moment in time—a headcanon dump about the future of some of the characters we know. Taking it for what it is, I guess it does its job well enough, but it isn’t what I look for. I didn’t find it particularly sad, and nothing really piqued my interest except for the unexplored potential in the idea of Twilight aging despite being immortal.
Aside from a few scattered errors, the story’s mechanics are perfectly fine; nothing significantly hinders readability. However, the story does have an issue with Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, and the writing is super tell-heavy.
Verdict: If you like stories about immortal Twilight seeing her friends off, I imagine you could do worse than this. However, if you’re looking for something new, don’t care for the premise, or want something with more meat, you should check elsewhere.
A Single Wish, by Compendium of Steve
Rating: Everyone
Tags: Romance
Length: 5,907 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Smarty Pants (yes, the doll) falls in love with Big McIntosh.
Review: Have I ever mentioned that spelling Big McIntosh’s name “Big Macintosh” annoys me? He’s named for the McIntosh apple, so that’s the proper spelling. It’s spelled that way on all his official merchandise, with a couple of exceptions that can be blamed on simple ignorance. Seeing “Big Macintosh” in stories, even though—or perhaps especially because—it’s more prevalent than the correct spelling, makes me want to tear out my intestines with a plastic spork and use them to bungee jump over a vat of acid. Alas, since I have no sporks, I shall not go for that nice, relaxing swim today. Therefore, I’m going to settle for spelling the name properly throughout this review.
A warm breeze blew calmly across Sweet Apple Acres as two friends, engaged in conversation, shared a hearty apple-laden midday meal beneath the shade of an apple tree close to the main household.
“Thanks again for inviting me to lunch, Applejack,” said the lavender-coated unicorn.
“It’s my pleasure, Twilight. On a fine day like this, what’s better then takin’ a load off and enjoyin’ the breeze? Jes wish I coulda got the others to come.”
“I’m sure they just got caught up in tending to urgent matters, or something like that.”
“I reckon so. Still, I appreciate you comin’ over at least.”
“Like you said, my pleasure.” Twilight took a moment to observe the surrounding fields of apple trees. “I must say, this year’s apple crop looks wonderful.”
“Don’t it? This could be the hardiest yield yet, and if Big Macintosh doesn’t git himself injured, then this year’s Applebuck Season will go by smoothly.” The farm mare paused a moment to think, then said, “Say, Twilight, you remember a month ago when ya went a little stir crazy over not having anything to write to the princess?”
This reads like it was constructed from a list of everything that’s known to piss me off: Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, saidism abuse (it isn’t shown there, but this story is loaded with abuses, including my personal nemesis: redundant bookisms) phonetic spelling of accents, an infestation of adverbs, and a truckload of missing commas.
As for the content of the story, it alternates between scenes involving the regular characters and narration by Smarty Pants. The regular scenes first serve to establish the… um… relationship(?) between Mac and his doll, but they soon switch over to showing a growing relationship between Mac and Fluttershy. Meanwhile, Smarty Pants watches and narrates about her feelings.
The story culminates in a scene where a mysterious entity allows Smarty Pants to become a real mare for one night so she can express her feelings to Big McIntosh. “What is that entity?” you might ask. Don’t expect an answer.
I don’t actually have a problem with that, per se. It’s kind of like a fairy tale or fable, even including a fitting moral, so the existence of a fairy godfather isn’t difficult to justify. However, the story isn’t told in an appropriate style for it, so it just feels jumbled. If most of the scenes with Big McIntosh were cut and the story was firmly centered around Smarty Pants and her experiences, it would feel a lot more consistent.
Verdict: If you can tolerate the questionable writing—although the parts narrated by Smarty Pants are much better in that regard—you might find a charming story here and a nice message about our cherished keepsakes. I just wish it had been better edited, more focused, and stuck to a style that suited it.
Applebloom: Transform and Roll Out!, by Dusty the Royal Janitor
Rating: Everyone
Tags: Comedy, Crossover, Adventure, Alternate Universe
Length: 76,716 words (Status: Incomplete – 9/9 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Apple Bloom discovers that she’s a transformer. Decepticons show up.
Review: Have I ever mentioned that I also dislike spelling Apple Bloom’s name as one word? This story does that, and while I understand that some early material (not all) did spell it that way, it makes me want to tear my hair out, twist it into a rope, and hang myself. Since I shave my head, though, a nice, relaxing swing from the rafters isn’t in the cards for me. Therefore, I’m going to settle for spelling the name properly throughout this review.
The first thing I want to address is that this crossover isn’t particularly kind to either non-fans or casual fans of Transformers. It’s based primarily on Hasbro’s new continuity for the franchise, which may be more cohesive, but it can alienate people like me who watched the older shows but don’t know the new material. Non-fans will find that the Transformers elements are delivered in a way that pretty much assumes the reader knows them, but the author was considerate enough to include links to wiki entries for a lot of the TF references. And in case you couldn’t tell, that italicized word was entirely sarcastic. The objective of a crossover should be to make it accessible to fans of at least one of the properties without requiring detailed knowledge of the other or consultation of external sources. This story, sadly, does not succeed in that regard, only managing to be properly accessible to people who are familiar with both MLP and a specific TF continuity.
The story, as mentioned above, is that Apple Bloom discovers that she’s actually a shape-changing alien robot, and as she’s dealing with the turmoil it causes in her life, Decepticons (the evil faction of shape-changing alien robots, for those who don’t know) show up, looking for her with murderous intent. Of course, one little robot—a fraction of the size of the really powerful ones, no less—can’t be expected to put up much of a fight against a sizable enemy force, right? Well, as it turns out, AB has a bit of deus ex Mary Sue in her that might just even up the odds a little.
“Hmmmm...” Applebloom said, tapping her chin. “I reckon we ain’t gonna be able to knock this outta the way, girls.” She said, pressing a hoof to the cold, metal object. “It seems really solid and hea-WHOA!!”
A deafening hiss came from the thing as it suddenly split down the middle. Pressurized gases burst free from the newly made crack running straight and smooth as an arrow down the middle of the disc, creating a huge cloud of steam that knocked Scootaloo right off her hooves and into Sweetie Belle. Applebloom managed to hold her ground, but still ended up being pushed back a few inches, her hooves digging grooves into the ground.
The crack widened with a screech and a squeal, as the space between the two halves of the disc broadened ever so slowly. Ear-splitting grinding noises echoed through the clearing as the three little fillies watched in awe as the disc halves receded into the earth surrounding it. The rumbling vibrations knocked more loose dirt from around the disc, revealing sheets of metal over a hundred feet high embedded in the soil. What they had previously thought to be a metal disc buried in the dirt was now revealed to be a door! Not just a door, but a door that slowly opened for them automatically, with no handles, knobs, or magical auras to propel it. It receded into the metal walls surrounding it with a rusty groan and a mechanical shudder, and with a final creak of submission, the door slid all the way into the metallic walls.
The three little fillies gaped in awe at what they had uncovered. The metal structure, whatever it was, stretched at least a hundred and fifty feet above them. The metal was somewhat rusted and worn in some places, but for the most part was still a sturdy dark gray, like tempered steel or titanium. It had obviously held up for however many years it had spent buried, as there was not a single crack or crevasse running through it. Metal ridges ran horizontally along the metal walls, all of which were inlaid with some sort of blue glass and led to the door that had just opened in front of the stupefied crusaders. A low hum could be heard emanating from inside the dark metal cavern, never ceasing for a moment as the three little fillies stood there, gazing into the pitch blackness of the structure’s interior.
“That’s no cave...” Applebloom whispered under her breath.
The quality of the writing is a mixed bag. For the most part, prose is functional, albeit basic and generally inelegant. “Noun verb” sentence construction was a constant annoyance to me, and it’s prevalent in dialogue, where such sentences can easily be mistaken for improper dialogue tags. As a result, dialogue scenes can feel lifeless. And speaking of which, it has an issue with redundant saidisms, which I seem to say about most of the fics I read. They bug me, dammit! The story also has an absolutely brutal case of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, which only gets worse as the story progresses.
Another thing that annoys me is the systemic overuse of “y’all” in dialogue. While I’m grateful that this fic doesn’t go into the obnoxious written accents for the Apple family I hate so much, “y’all” appears so often and in such inappropriate places that it causes unnecessary complications in reading dialogue.
In spite of these faults, the story it tells tends to be an interesting one. Apple Bloom’s discovery of her heritage comes in an interesting scene. When Applejack finds out the truth, the reason for her ignorance feels rather forced, but the conflict it generates is interesting, so I was happy to overlook it. Still, there was a better way it could have been handled. The scenes on the Decepticon ship are less interesting, but they’re not completely impenetrable to non-TF fans, so they do manage to serve a useful purpose.
Unfortunately, while the pacing was pretty decent for a while, constantly building toward a major event in chapter 7, the aftermath of that event has dragged. So far, the two subsequent chapters, which now account for 25% of the story’s length, have accomplished startlingly little. Slogging through them has just about ruined my interest in the future of the story. The next chapter will have to hit the ground running and quickly advance the scenario to hold my attention.
In terms of mechanics, there are a lot of comma errors, but they mostly have minimal impact on readability. Dialogue punctuation errors happen frequently and are often accompanied by capitalization errors. Other errors are too infrequent to be worth mentioning.
Verdict: When the story started, I was enjoying it despite its faults. However, as it went on, notably in the last couple of chapters, I was forcing myself to get through it. I can recommend it for Transformers fans, but that recommendation comes with an asterisk, as detailed in the second paragraph. Also, it may be tagged as a comedy, but humor is not a focal point of the story.
The Mechromancer; To Build the Best, by Flutters Is Shy
Rating: Mature
Tags: Gore, Random, Crossover, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Human
Length: 2,632 words (Status: Incomplete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Gaige, the mechromancer from Borderlands 2, is in Equestria for some reason.
Review: I don’t remember how I found this story or why I decided I wanted to see it, but I’m guessing someone linked it somewhere and I only clicked it because of my fondness for the character. Yes, I adore Gaige. She’s my favorite character in Borderlands 2, and I love everything about her, from her unique playstyle to her quirky personality and hilarious dialogue. That means this story has something to prove to me.
Does this author get it right? Is Gaige faithfully recreated here?
"This land, and the ground underneath it, belongs to the nation of Equestria! You do not hold any ownership over these premises, and once more you are under arrest!"
"Under what charges?" I said flippantly.
"Disturbing the peace, thirty seven counts of public destruction, kidnapping a diplomat, unlicensed acts of development and surgery, urinating in a public water source, sexually assaulting Prince Blueblood and insulting him with the title of 'blueballs' ," a hearty snicker ran through the ranks, I wasn't very fond of that night, thinking about it just made me ache and feel disappointed, "Impersonating a member of the royal guard, filling the Princesses pool with dead fish, doodling in the books of the royal library, covering a member of the guard in tree sap-"
"Oh, you're not still mad about that are you Shiny? I just made you shinier!" I exclaimed happily.
Shining Armor was not amused, and let out a low growl, "And the princesses favorite," his voice dipped down to a whisper, "Cannibalistic waffle irons."
"Oh come on, that was just a design flaw! How was I supposed to know they'd start attacking other machines for power? I didn't make them like that!"
Seems fine to me. I was amused by it. Heck, I was interested in seeing more.
AND THEN I REACHED THE END OF THE CHAPTER AND FOUND OUT IT’S ONE OF THOSE MOTHERFUCKING “DISPLACED” FAD FICS!
Yeah, so my interest died faster than you can say “Anarchy!”
The quality of the writing, as you can see from the passage above, is amateurish at best. While errors abound, its humor was enough to get me on board for a while. But if that isn’t supposed to be the actual Gaige and is instead some self-insert, Mary Sue nonsense, I don’t care. And at this point, there haven’t been any updates in two months, so it’s probably dead anyway.
Verdict: If you like that Displaced crap and Borderlands 2, I guess you can get a few chuckles from it.
I guess I’ll start catching up on requests. They’ll comprise at least half of the next set.
Want to call my wrath down on a particular story? Make a request in the comments.
Rules:
—You can request a story of any length.
—It can be yours or someone else’s, and I don’t care whether it’s good or a train wreck, but I make no guarantees that I’ll read or review it. These are requests, not orders.
—One request per person per review post, and only on the most recent one.
—If I don’t like your story, don’t be butthurt over it. It's just one (really picky) guy's opinion, and I'll *probably* recommend it for someone, even if I hate it.
Well, this was a first. Apparently, someone was so butthurt about this set of reviews that they downvoted all my stories at once.
This is a perfect example of how you are not supposed to respond to criticism, folks.
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Heh heh, funny. But don't you worry; the dislikes are hardly noticeable since you already had so many likes (for being the amazing author you always are).
Thanks for the review! I'm always looking to improve, so I really appreciate any critique I can get.
It's just too bad I have to delete all my stories now. That's how this works, right?
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Well, I mostly don't care, but it is frustrating when a story in the top 100 gets knocked out by a revenge downvote from a person who never even read it. Also, a story getting its first DV that way sucks.
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Yeah, they've all gotta go. And don't forget to downvote all of mine before you ragequit Fimfic!
Seriously though, if you have any questions about the review, I'd be happy to give a more personalized critique. My blog reviews are aimed at readers, after all, instead of authors.
Not knowing the difference between "specific" and "pacific"? Christ, how old is this writer, ten?
Seems it's already in the Rage Reviews folders, so I didn't even have to add it...
McCoy warned you f
ers, but did you listen? No!
Amen, brother!
Oh, and one more thing.
i.imgur.com/Q3Qb86H.png
Welp. That's a heckuva coincidence. The day I'm ready to put up chapter ten and I get a review that suggests I should perhaps take a second look at it.
Anyway, on the one hand, I suppose I'll admit to being a little sad and frustrated (mostly with myself admittedly) that you haven't seemed to be liking the latest chapters of my story. And it always stings a little bit when people criticize your work. Especially when the criticism comes in the form of a blog titled "Badfic Slaughterhouse"
That said, you seem to have at least been enjoying it more than a lot of other fics. You got more than three paragraphs in at least
On the other hand, I'm glad for this, because I'll be completely honest... this is the first review I've ever really seen that's actually taken the time to review my story particularly critically. And let me tell you, getting a ton of comments that say "OMG this is the best story evar" fills me with all the warm fuzzies I'd ever want, but they don't help me improve.
I'll admit, I too have been frustrated with the last couple chapters. It's been a clunky gear shift between the first and the second act, and I wish I had more collaborators or people who could give me some advice to try and clean it all up. Because heaven knows, I've been lost as fuck as to how to smooth those sections out and make them flow better. And I'll also fully admit that it continues into the next chapter (though thankfully, the end of chapter ten gives me a chance to finally break out of that clunky mudhole and I have a much better plan for how the rest of the story will go after that).
As for the rest of your criticisms... they're pretty spot on. I'll admit to a lot of "noun-verb" dialogue lines and a fair amount of Lavender Unicorn syndrome. Heck, even when I break away from "noun-verb" land and actually give my characters some stage direction, I tend to fall into predictable patterns. I shudder to think what I'd find if I ever mustered up the courage to hit ctrl+f and search for just how many times a chapter a character "raised an eyebrow" or "shook her head" or how many times they "shrugged" or "sighed."
I also agree that the story isn't exactly super kind to people who aren't familiar with transformers. Admittedly, I figured that more people reading it would be familiar with Transformers Prime (and by extension the rest of the aligned continuity) than the older transformers, mostly because Transformers Prime was playing on the same channel as MLP:FiM, around the same time as MLP:FiM (at least in the earlier days). I'll also admit that it's my preferred series of the various Transformers continuities. Frankly, I never really found myself enamored with, say, G1 (though I did like Beast Wars) or the movies, and I always found Prime to be the most consistent and best written, ergo, that was the one I chose. That said, one could argue that I'm not even particularly kind to fans of TF Prime since I've taken some rather extreme liberties with the canon. I justify it by saying that there are so many alternate universes and timelines in the Transformers media that me making one more can't hurt... but maybe I'm just a big fat hack
Also? Writing the Apples is a fucking BITCH, dude. Like, seriously. You have no idea. (or maybe you do, I haven't exactly read any of your work yet). But honestly, I hate turning accents into written word as much as you do (I can't stand it, for example, when people make Applejack say "I" as "Ah"), but trying to get their dialect across in prose is hard as BALLS. When I took a creative writing course in college, the professor basically said that the best way to try and depict an accent in prose is to include as many turns of phrase common to that accent as you reasonably can. For example, if you're writing somebody with a British accent, you use phrases like "Bloody" instead of actually altering the words. The problem is, without going WAY OUT OF MY WAY to find and subsequently use southern terms and phrases, "Y'all" is just about the only one that comes up in common conversation with any decent regularity. And I'll admit, it perhaps comes up too often. You can even see me faltering with using it from time to time
(And I'll admit to being a great big hypocrite as well, since I totally do alter the words when I write Blitzwing's germanic accent. Because I'm a butt).
I suppose the long and the short of what I'm saying is "Thanks for the review, and please bear with me." As you can probably tell, I'm still relatively new to writing. I like to think I have something of a knack for it (at least more than some other people I've seen on this and other fanfiction sites) but I am definitely still learning. And that's primarily what I've been using fanfiction FOR, really. As hands on practice so I can maybe, one day, actually have a career in writing. That said, I know I fall into a lot of traps and predictable, perhaps unsatisfactory patterns. I'd certainly appreciate any advice you could give that could help me improve. I'm starved for it really. I even opened up streams on my stories to try and get help from people as I write (and motivate me to write in general), but that hasn't gone quite in the direction I'd hoped it would. And if you'd like to take a look at Chapter Ten and give me some real, concrete advice on how to make it better I'd be thrilled.
TL:DR - Yes, I suck. I'd be happy for any help to make me suck less :P
Looks like you killed Her Final Flight. :(
While on the topic of Apple names, I can say the same for people that spell AJ's name as two words: Apple Jack.
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That and all of that author's other stories, apparently.
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That's one heck of a post, so I hope I can adequately respond.
First of all, the blog title doesn't mean every story I review is bad. In fact, I've given some strong recommendations before. It's just a name I thought was memorable and well-suited to my personality.
I know exactly how useless blind praise is. That's why I make a point of being blunt about anything and everything I think can be improved. Of course, since I primarily write these reviews for readers, not authors, I have to frame my advice to writers in a form that readers can enjoy, which means slipping in jokes that can make my criticism look more scathing than it was intended to be.
I'm glad to hear you're planning to get the story moving again soon. I'll be sure to check out the new chapter.
As for structural stuff, I'll say again that your prose is always functional, never broken. What you're doing works, and that gives you a foundation you can expand and improve upon. Focus on those issues a little, and your writing will practically transform itself.
... No pun intended.
Regarding the Aligned continuity, I wasn't complaining that you used it. I was just warning potential readers of something that could affect their enjoyment. But I have to say, linking to external materials really is a problem, and I've previously called out some very popular and well-respected authors over it.
In regard to accents, they're tricky business, and you mostly get it right for the Apples. It's just that "y'all" is used too much and in some inappropriate places. I didn't find what you did with Blitzwing problematic, although I can't really identify why I was okay with it.
I know getting good, constructive criticism can be difficult, and I hope some part of this has been helpful. I certainly don't want to discourage you. In my opinion, a flawed writer who's trying to improve is doing better than a good writer who's content with their current skills.
Just like you, I'm here to learn and refine my skills. In my time here, I've learned more about fiction writing than I ever did in all my years of schooling, and I certainly don't think I'm done learning yet.
If you'd like more specific input, I'd be happy to help. Just tell me what you need, and I'll do whatever I can to provide it.
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Use this power for good. D:
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Now, don't go and fret over it too much. I've never taken the time to provide a proper critique of your work before, I think, and as I huge fan of yours, I shall do so now.
From what I can tell, Prak and I are very different in terms of how we consume fiction. I'm a fast reader, blazing through words like nopony's business. Minor flaws in grammar, such as those Prak went over above, I barely even notice, tending to pay attention to the plot more so than anything else. As such, your writing style has massive appeal to me, since the extensive segments of character monologue and dialogue serve as forced breaks in the action, allowing readers to better perceive their motivations. This, you do very well, along with spin yarns which involve gradually escalating stakes to complement that. I can get immersed into your work quite readily, even the one under scrutiny. I stopped caring about Transformers after Armada ended, but that didn't stop me from being able to get a feel for all the cybertronians, because you took the time writing scenes to establish their personalities. Sure, you can sometimes go a little too far with the lulls in the narrative, but that's better than not going far enough. Just look at my stuff; you can tell from the response that Friendship's End suffered greatly from the opposite problem of rushed pacing and poorly fleshed-out characters when compared to my other works (Prak, feel free to rip it apart at your leisure). In short, your fiction will never be able to cater to everyone, just keep refining what you're doing, and I'll keep reading.
So ...
I genuinely never even read anywhere that his name was McIntosh and not Macintosh. >_>
I though his nickname Big Mac was just a literal shortening of the full name, removing the 'intosh' from the end. <_<
I'm sorry!
Also, though it probably doesn't mean much coming from me, I hope you don't take [redacted]'s rage quit personally. You can't blame yourself for that kind of thing, and I certainly hope you aren't doing so. You're a great guy, Prak. I know it, and so do lots of other people too.
3214428
The person in question denies responsibility, and I have absolutely no reason at all to doubt his word. We've had a very polite conversation. I'd appreciate it if you'd remove his name from your post.
At this point, I have no idea who's responsible for the downvoting spree, but it really isn't worth dwelling on.
3214682
Done. =\ Sorry.
3215256
Nothing to apologize for. I appreciate you removing it.
Didst thou call?
3255820
I can't be sure, but summoning rage reviewers would be just about the most awesome superpower possible, so I hope so!
3255902
Verily shall I endeavor to tackle this monstrous sin against literature as soon as I conclude mine ongoing review of A New Hero; keep thine eyes peeled, good citizen.
3256165
Lewd.
3255902
Rage Reviewers always answer the rage call.
I've got a request check out 'The Meaning of Life' by aCB
3280759
Added it to the request list.