Badfic Slaughterhouse #6: Read hard or go home · 7:29pm Jul 27th, 2014
Well, it’s been a few days since I last posted one of these, but that’s what happens when I spend all my time writing and editing instead of reading. A few stories have finally piled up, though—some popular, some not so much.
EWE: Equestria Wrestling Entertainment, by Bateman66
Tags: Comedy, Crossover, Human
Rating: Everyone
Length: 4,631 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Ponies and humans in a wrestling league.
Review: First of all, this is completely inaccessible to anyone who is not a wrestling fan, particularly one who remembers the characters of the 80s and early 90s. I’m a sucker for wrestling stuff, and I know that era well, so the subject matter is right up my alley, but I wouldn’t expect anyone else to get it.
The pacing is questionable, but you can easily write that off as the author favoring character interactions over the wrestling part. In fact, that’s where the story is strongest. The only match that’s been published was pretty bland in its writing.
Mechanically, it’s mostly okay. Some punctuation issues, but they don’t detract severely. Saidism abuse is annoying to me, but most people aren’t as sensitive to it as I am.
Verdict: If you’re an old school wrestling fan, have a look. If not, ignore it.
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 4,073 words
Synopsis: After Apple Bloom gets into a fight at school, Applejack punishes her.
Review: This story hits on some very touchy subject matter: corporal punishment. It’s approached in an even-handed manner, but some people have found it offensive anyway. Personally, I don’t share that view. The story gives an admirably balanced portrayal, using Applejack’s memories of being on the other end of the situation to contextualize her emotions.
Unfortunately, it’s marred by LUS and some ugly repetitive bookisms. It also hits one of my pet peeves: Applejack having Element of Honesty lie detector superpowers.
Verdict: In spite of its faults, I recommend checking this one out. The subject matter may make some people uncomfortable, but that can sometimes be a good thing. At the very least, it might make you think.
Changeling Doll, by Pickleless
Tags: Romance, Comedy
Rating: Teen/Sex
Length: 5,556 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: A changeling infiltrates Twilight’s home by pretending to be a magical doll.
Review: While this sounds like a funny concept, the execution lets it down. The amount of telling is just horrendous. It opens on a boring, unnecessary infodump and hardly gets better after that.
The story is rife with comma splices and paragraph formatting issues. Transitions are clumsy. Twilight’s characterization is questionable. The first chapter bored me so badly that I didn’t bother with the second.
Verdict: In addition to the telling and formatting problems, the “Romance” tag doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the story’s direction. Not recommended unless you’re a die-hard changeling fan.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Shining Armor and the CMC, by lrft4_san
Tags: Comedy, Random, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 51,086 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: A magical accident turns Shining Armor in a blank flank filly. When the CMC find out there’s a new blank flank in town, they recruit her.
Review: At a glance, this looked like it would be cute. I didn’t really understand the reason for giving Shining Armor the R63 treatment, given that it’s rated “everyone” and, therefore, shouldn’t be exploring issues of sexuality, but I figured I could forgive that if the story was good.
Unfortunately, it opens with a bunch of unnecessary drivel about Shining Armor on a train and ham-fisted exposition about Cadence having morning sickness and Shining not suspecting what it could mean. The slow, tell-heavy start made a bad first impression.
Thankfully, things did get somewhat better from there. The author still tells emotions far too often, rather than showing them, but once it started getting to the point, it advanced at a decent pace. Unfortunately, it was full of logic holes, and the punctuation was questionable.
I finished the first three chapters before deciding I had seen enough for now, although I might decide to read more of it later.
Verdict: It’s kinda cute, but you really need to turn your brain off to appreciate this. It’s hard to tell whether I recommend it or not, to be honest, but I’ll say for now that it might be worth your time if you’re a CMC fan and can forgive a boatload of comma errors.
Tags: Dark, Adventure
Rating: Teen/Gore
Length: 31,946 words
Synopsis: After Equestria is all but wiped out by eldritch abominations from space, Twilight leads a small group of fillies and colts, possibly the last survivors of Equestria, across the sea to settle a new land.
Review: I was caught a little off guard when I realized that this story was going to be told entirely through letters and journal entries, but the letters were presented well and told the story effectively, so I started to get into it. After a few chapters, Twilight was having to make some really hard choices, and she was getting dangerously close to the moral event horizon, which was fascinating.
Then the author blew it.
Heavy spoilers here: After half the story is spent on Twilight doing horrible things to make sure the others would survive, including murdering a catatonic filly to resurrect Rainbow Dash so she could save the ship from a storm, the story suddenly shifted to everything working out. One thing after another started falling into place, and the climax of the story didn’t drive the plot forward at all. On top of that, the style of the letters/journals changed and became more like standard narration, which I just don’t buy. No one writes letters in the style of a novel.
Spoiler free version: The tone changes, and everything that was good about the story vanishes. Dei ex machina appear toward the end, and it feels like a completely different story. The letter/journal format is totally negated by a shift in the writing style. Also, a lot of completely unnecessary nonsense is exposited later.
Verdict: If you’re looking for an example of a letter-style story that shows how to effectively use the format, look at the early parts. However, a story that starts out dark and turns into a fairy tale by the end is hard to recommend for anyone who wants a good story.
Ponyville DxD, by Naughty_Ranko
Tags: Romance, Comedy, Crossover, Adventure
Rating: Teen/Sex
Length: 46,370 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Crossover with High School DxD. Princess Luna competes against a devil princess in a battle game, wherein they each use a team of warriors to fight for them.
Review: First of all, let me make this absolutely clear: this is not for anyone who is unfamiliar with High School DxD. I've seen some of that show—not of my own choosing—and I still got lost on a few points.
The story is handled reasonably well on the DxD side, I suppose, and the battles play out in interesting ways, but the characterization of the pony characters, especially Celestia, can be sketchy. Also, the DxD elements are never properly described for non-fans, and the use of Japanese words mixed into the English narration is annoying to me.
Mechanically, it’s lacking. There are a ton of missing commas, which affects readability, and it has a fair amount of LUS, telling, and adjective/adverb abuse.
Verdict: If you’re a High School DxD fan, you’ll find plenty to like. If not, stay away.
Tags: Comedy, Random, Slice of Life, Human
Rating: Teen
Length: 100,608 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Two jackass bronies are yanked into Equestria by a mysterious force and turned into colts.
Review: The two leads are characterized reasonably well in a short period of time, and I think it’s safe to say that they’re not the Mary Sue sort, although I don’t whether either of them could be a self-insert. The situation lends itself well to comedy, and in the two chapters I read, there were some funny moments. However, it’s a very long story, and I don’t know how it develops.
As HiE stories go, I guess it looks pretty solid in terms of premise, and it reminds me a lot of Minalkra’s Oh to be Old Again, although the writing in that one is better.
Where it all goes wrong, however, is on the mechanical front. It’s absolutely rife with punctuation and grammar errors, and it affects readability on several occasions.
Verdict: If you like stories about humans getting turned into ponies, especially Minalkra’s story, and can get past some spotty presentation, you might want to check it out.
The Trials of a Necromantic Equestria, by Taelea
Tags: Romance, Tragedy, Dark, Alternative Universe
Rating: Mature/Sex/Gore (hence no story link)
Length: 4,739 words (incomplete)
Synopsis: Twenty years after Equestria is hit by weapons of mass destruction and ponykind is all but obliterated, Twilight uses necromancy to raise the dead ponies and take revenge.
Review: Well, I normally steer clear of anything that involves caribou because the whole Fall of Equestria thing grosses me out, but I put aside my apprehensions and looked at this for a couple of reasons. The first is the lack of an anthro tag. The second is that it doesn’t appear (on the surface) to be obsessed with sex, as FoE fics generally are.
Sure enough, it is something different. Lots of the same elements are there, but they’re prioritized differently. Where FoE stuff usually focuses on sex, this one focuses on anger and brutality, and to be frank, that makes it better. Seeing Twilight characterized as a revenge-crazed necromancer is a bit of a stretch, but it’s not difficult to believe that spending twenty years in a cage, alone in a dead city, could do that.
Technically speaking, there are very few errors to speak of. The story moves quickly, and descriptions are vivid without being grotesque. There's room for improvement, but the writing is way above average for a work of fanfiction.
Verdict: The jury’s still out on this one, but I’m intrigued, and that’s a rare thing for a mature-rated story. If you like badass Twilight, badass CMC, or pony warfare, have a look.
Funny thing about the first story on the list: I started banging out a wrestling story on the same day it was published. Mine has no human characters, gets to the action immediately, and is a hundred times more ridiculous, but since the response to that one was terrible, I have to wonder if there’s even a point to finishing the one I started.
If you’re interested in seeing my ponified take on pro wrestling, let me know in the comments. If you think it would be a waste of time, I want to hear from you also.
‘Til next time, you kooky kids.
–Prak
Not sure what the first one is supposed to say, but you've got an extra / in the first url box there in the second one
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Sorry about that. Forgot to preview it and make sure all the formatting was right. Those things are fixed now.
Goddamn, Prak, you are a fucking machine.
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Why, yes, Bob. Yes, I am. However, no matter how much you plead, you will never experience those skills first-hand. They're reserved for the ladies.
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But... but I have holes. ;_;
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1.
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Thanks~