Badfic Slaughterhouse #17 · 9:31pm Dec 13th, 2014
A wise man (who talks really fast about video games) once said, “experience has taught me that while declaring a game shitty because of the first few hours is perfectly valid and completely professional, you should never assume that a good game will stay good.”
Replace “game” with “story” and “hours” with “chapters”—or in extreme cases, “paragraphs”—and this applies perfectly well to story reviews.
I agree with this principle 100%. I’ve been burned by fics that started off well but turned to crap. Therefore, from now on, I’m not going to release any more reviews based on partial readings of fics that I don’t consider to be garbage. Incomplete fics are still fair game, but I am committing myself to reading all of the released material before posting about them. That may slow things down a little, but really, with the awful pace I’ve had recently, who’ll notice?
Accidents, by JPfluttershy1979
Tags: Sex, Romance, Tragedy, Sad, Slice of Life
Rating: Teen
Length: 9,326 words (Status: Complete – 2/3 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Applejack feels guilty because she accidentally kicked Fluttershy and killed the foals she was carrying.
Review: I freely admit that I read this because I wanted to hate something, and this looked like a good target for my ire. It should therefore come as no surprise that I—you guessed it!—hated the crap out of this thing.
The scenario for the story is asinine because it relies on two different characters picking up an idiot ball at the same moment. Fluttershy would have to misplace her brain to decide it would be a good idea to sneak up behind Applejack while she’s kicking trees, and the idea of Applejack not checking which direction she’s kicking and missing the tree completely is ridiculous.
Of course, it’s not like the story builds any investment in those characters in the first place. We’re told that they’re married, they wanted kids, and Big Mac is their sperm donor, but we don’t get to see anything to connect us to these characters in the first few thousand words. All we see is Applejack being mopey. Eventually, AJ and Fluttershy do get a scene together, but it’s so paint-by-numbers that it doesn’t help much.
The author obviously has strong feelings on the topic; the note at the bottom of the first chapter makes it clear that it’s drawn from personal experiences. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate into good storytelling. Massive chunks of the opening chapter—is more really necessary?—are spent on infodumping exposition about things that have already happened, which makes for a dull read.
The mechanics are weak, but not offensively so. The blandness of the prose is a more severe issue.
Verdict: A final chapter came out since I read the first two, but I won’t be going back to see it. There are much better options for anyone looking for any subject covered in this story, so I suggest looking for them instead.
Tags: Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 7,588 words (Status: Complete – 2/2 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Rainbow Dash discovers that Scootaloo is secretly into ballet.
Review: There really aren’t enough stories about Scootaloo being a dancer. For some reason, the fandom at large seems to overlook that part of her character in favor of inventing a talent for flying or playing up her scooter tricks, so I’m always happy when a story like this comes along. I’m doubly happy when it’s successful.
The story itself is delivered in first-person from Rainbow Dash’s POV, and therein can be found the story’s most severe flaw. The character voice is all wrong; it doesn’t sound like Dash at all. Her actions are perfectly in character, and the dialogue tends to be fine, but the narration is miles away from Authenti City and traveling in the wrong direction.
Another issue is that there’s no significant conflict. Every time there’s a problem, it’s immediately resolved, and it just goes back to playing the ABCs of the scenario. There are also a lot of unanswered logistical questions.
On the plus side, the story is written cleanly, and it communicates its points quickly and effectively without being bland and telly. The CMC are well-realized. Despite the simplistic structure of the story, it moves at a pace that disguises the problems. I would have preferred to see an ongoing conflict, but I’m happy enough to take it as it is.
There are some minor comma errors, but nothing that would hinder readability.
Verdict: If you’re like me and appreciate stories that revolve around Scootaloo without taking a big, steaming dump on her, you’re likely to enjoy this in spite of its faults. I really wish it had a stronger central conflict, though.
SOS-Dan Equestria: the Flowers of Spring Sunshine, by Kris Overstreet
Tags: Comedy, Crossover, Adventure
Rating: Everyone
Length: words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: A pony version of Haruhi Suzumiya leads her friends in a quest to find the Equestrian equivalent of the Easter Bunny.
Review: Ponified Haruhi? Yes, please. First person? Sure, that’s fine. Written as a letter? Starting to lose me…
Seriously, why do some authors do this? No one is going to write a nine thousand word long letter, and they’re not going to write a report—to Princess Celestia, no less—in the format of a story, especially a story laden with snarky prose. It puts the story off on the wrong foot, right from the start.
The problem is exacerbated by the complete lack of detail regarding who the hell the narrator is! It takes several pages just to piece together that it’s a pegasus colt nicknamed “Shiny.” However, it should also be noted that the narration closely matches the style of the original novels—in particular, the way the line between Shiny's inner monologue and dialogue is blurred. This will be a plus to Haruhi fans, but it might detract from the experience of others.
The characters are all presented well, and while they generally match the personalities of the Haruhi characters, they also fit well into Equestria. A few changes have been made, such as making the Yuki counterpart, Snowflake—no, not that one—a human who’s been turned into a unicorn instead of an alien from outer space. However, it ultimately feels like a Haruhi story, and strangely (and impressively) enough, it feels just as much like a pony story.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel entirely like a pony story. It’s an unabashed crossover, and it relies heavily on knowledge from the other source material to understand many of the story’s elements. While many of those things are explained in the author’s note at the bottom, they’re not covered in the story proper, and I firmly believe that a story should be comprehensible on the first pass.
Mechanically, it has a few small flaws, such as an inability to decide if the Mikuru character’s name is Rosehip or Rosehips, but it’s perfectly readable. The biggest obstacles have already been mentioned.
Verdict: This is a fun read for Haruhi fans, so I highly recommend checking it out if you are one, but I doubt that others will understand it well enough to get past its stylistic oddities and in-jokes.
Timekeeper, by Zaphod
Tags: Romance, Slice of Life
Rating: Teen
Length: 12,350 words (Status: Incomplete – 2/2 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Twilight helps Cadance with an experiment intended to help ponies find their soulmates.
Review: First of all, this is an undeclared crossover with the movie, TiMER. While the concept of a device that counts down to the moment you meet your soulmate is carried over, however, it appears to be an original plot, so the lack of a crossover tag can be somewhat forgiven. The author still should have noted that the idea wasn’t his, though, and I think he’s a dick for refusing to mention it.
This story’s greatest strength is in characterization. Everyone’s dialogue is in character, and the style of the third person narration shifts with the POV to reflect the change. Also in the plus column, the writing is generally solid, there are very few mechanical errors to speak of, and there are a few jokes that work well. However, I have some issues with the story’s content.
First, the pacing is absurdly slow. At least half of the existing content could be cut out, and the story would be better for it. I mean, really, do we need a scene about Twilight and Cadance going to the kitchen to eat some sandwiches? Do we need Twilight to have a personal crisis of such insignificance that it can be resolved straight away by a short conversation with some OC who’ll probably never be seen again? Do we need to see Rainbow Dash gathering the rest of the main six when nothing happens in that time to advance the plot or characterization? Not only does the author think this stuff is needed, but he’ll argue with people who disagree.
For context, the average novel is about a hundred thousand words long. This story has taken more than a tenth of that length just to establish the concept, and the real focus of the story—the TwiDash shipping—has yet to even begin.
There’s a severe case of saidism abuse in chapter 2, which will bug the piss out of people who are sensitive to that. Rarity’s reason for declining to be part of the experiment is suspect. I’m also not a fan of an OC having the nickname “Dr. Pepper” and being the subject of unsubtle soda jokes.
Of course, that’s not even getting into the worst OC of all. This guy:
Cadance straightened herself, glancing regally at the guard. “Thank you, Private Cuttjoff. Please send her in at once. Then, head down to Research and Development and inform them that we shall be arriving within the hour. Also, if it’s not too much trouble, could you stop by the barracks and–”
“Alert the prince of your meeting with Princess Twilight?” He saluted once more as the princess nodded the affirmative. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Danger, Will Robinson! A named guard interrupting the princess for no good reason? And getting away with it, no less! This is either the sort of throwaway nonsense that should be omitted or (even worse) a sign of a Gary Stu who’ll be reappearing later. Either way, for the sake of Princess Cadance’s reputation, the dignity of the Crystal Empire, and the sanity of readers, his head must roll!
Lastly, I have to question the use of the timer/timekeeper idea. As the movie showed—yes, I’ve seen it—there are a lot of narrative possibilities to be explored in this concept, but this story is bypassing all of that and using the device as nothing more than a complicated MacGuffin that will kick off what appears to be a standard shipfic.
Verdict: If I put on a device intended to show me how long it will be until I revisit this story, it would just say “Nope.” Timekeeper is full of useless filler that bogs down the plot, and the author’s attitude is worrying. It’s hard to recommend this for shipping fans because of its slow start and lack of any shipping after 12k words, and I can’t recommend it for anyone interested in the TiMER concept because it looks as meaningless to the story’s ultimate point as most of the other content.
The Rise of Darth Vulcan, by RealityCheck
Tags: Dark, Comedy, Adventure, Human
Rating: Teen
Length: 130, 964 words (Status: Incomplete – 32/32 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: In standard LoHAV fashion, an ordinary dude goes to Equestria dressed as a villain and makes enemies of the ponies.
Review: My jimmies haven’t been properly rustled in a while, so let’s have a look at a fic by an author renowned for his rustling skills.
At first glance, this story looks like it’s made specifically to piss me off. I mean, look at it! It’s a LoHAV fic, which is bad enough, but it’s long and written by one of the most preachy, abrasive authors in the fandom. I admit I read a few chapters of it months ago, when the trend was just starting, but at the time, there was no stigma around these stories. Malideus, which I thought had an interesting idea but terrible execution, had just been released, and this fic was pretty much an answer to the failings of that story. How could I stay away?
Then, the fad got rolling, and I lost interest.
But now the time has come to revisit this thing with a fresh reading, and all of my initial good will toward it has long since expired. All that’s left is just another LoHAV fic, written by a guy much of the community—personally, I’m indifferent—would like to castrate with a plastic spork.
The story’s concept is pretty familiar by now, although it wasn’t quite as tired at the time of this story’s initial publication. A human teenager unwittingly puts on the Alicorn Amulet (which Twilight had thrown into a dimensional void after the events of Magic Duel) as part of a Halloween costume and gets sucked through a portal into Equestria, where the ponies assume he’s a new villain and try to take him down. He fights back, and before you know it, he’s public enemy #1.
The story is written in first person, and the unreliable narrator can be wildly entertaining at times. The prose is snarky as hell, and it made me laugh out loud pretty frequently. It occasionally shifts into third person to show events happening elsewhere. These scenes frequently serve to show the aftermath of Ted’s/Darth Vulcan’s actions, demonstrate the unreliability of his narration, and give the ponies a little more time in the spotlight. Whether they fit in with the story or not may vary by reader.
The story starts off with strong pacing—I might even say stellar—but it starts to bog down a bit in later chapters. I wouldn’t say it’s a severe issue, but some scenes really do feel unnecessary. It builds at a steady pace, constantly escalating the conflict until it reaches an explosive climax.
Unfortunately, it keeps going after that.
It’s not that the content after that is bad—There’s some good stuff—but after an epic showdown, you expect some resolutions, and there are none. Circumstances change, but for the most part, the scenario stays the same. There’s really no reason for it not to have ended there.
One thing that may put off many readers is the amount of social commentary in the story. RealityCheck is known for not being shy about sharing his often controversial political and religious beliefs, and although only the political ones are on display in this story, they take center stage in a few scenes. Thankfully, they’re integrated well into the story, and there’s room for debate about whether characters are doing the right thing or not, but you can generally tell when RC had an axe to grind. He also slips in a few indictments of the way canon Equestria works.
On the mechanical front, it’s passable but nothing more. There are very few spelling errors and just a small handful of grammar errors, but there are truckloads of missing commas, a bunch of comma splices, and some other punctuation issues. Some awkward paragraph formatting makes it difficult to tell who’s speaking at a few points. The story contains profanity, but most of it is (partially) censored for some reason I don’t fathom. If he doesn’t want people to see the swearing, why not just remove it?
Verdict: If you enjoy this fad, you’ve probably already read this story; on the off chance you haven’t, go ahead and have a look. Otherwise, if you like snarky narration, world building, or HiE in general, and you aren’t sent into a frothing rage by a right-wing (edit: at a second glance, I think it's more libertarian) perspective on social issues, you’ll probably find something to like. It really should have ended in Chapter 20, though.
Veni, Vidi, Verti, by thesecret1
Tags: Adventure
Rating: Teen
Length: 12,500 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: A changeling is sent to infiltrate Ponyville. Her target for replacement: Rainbow Dash.
Review: As an entrant into EQD’s Outside Insight competition, this story is firmly centered around the changeling protagonist, Crypsis, as she works on replacing Rainbow Dash to secure a foothold in Ponyville for her hive. It presents a deep examination of changeling infiltration tactics, and it builds on the species’ lore in some interesting ways.
The protagonist, Crypsis, is on her first mission, so although she knows (theoretically) what she’s doing, she’s constantly plagued by worries and a desire to prove herself. Her lack of experience and self-doubt provide a convenient window into changeling methodology, and although it can get a little bogged down in less relevant details, such as an entire paragraph about how Crypsis feels about the shape of Twilight’s castle, it’s generally interesting.
The biggest problem is that it meanders too much before getting into the meat of the story. During the first few thousand words, in which Crypsis stalks, makes contact with, and learns about Rainbow Dash, there is a number of unnecessary scenes. It muddies the focus a bit and detracts from what is otherwise an interesting experience. That aside, there are a lot of good ideas on display, and the main character’s story goes in some unexpected directions.
It may just carry an “Adventure” tag, but Veni, Vidi, Verti goes to some grim places, enough to warrant a “Dark” tag.
Mechanically, it’s pretty sound. No major errors, though it could use a little more proofreading and an editorial scythe. I guess that’s what happens when you rush a story out to make a contest deadline.
Verdict: This is something changeling fans should definitely check out, although the limited involvement of the series’ main cast and dark direction may limit its appeal to some others.
My Little Haiku, by q97randomguy
Tags: Comedy, Random
Rating: Everyone
Length: 1,041 words (Status: Incomplete – 3/3 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Haikus about ponies. Why am I including this? I don’t really know.
Review: I guess I would sum up my thoughts this way:
rigidly structured
most of them are lacking in
juxtaposition
Oh, what am I saying? Most of you guys won’t care about that artsy-fartsy crap. They’re mostly written in the standard 5,7,5 format everyone is familiar with—there are just a couple of deviations—and some of them are rather amusing.
There’s really nothing else to say.
Verdict: If you enjoy novelties and value humor over artistry in a haiku, you’ll like this. I’ve studied this crap, so the form of some of them rubbed me the wrong way, but I still found plenty to chuckle at. Either way, it’s barely over a thousand words, and each haiku stands alone.
Stealing the Deed, by Justice4243
Tags: Comedy, Random
Rating: Teen
Length: 9,324 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Trixie steals the deed to the library, thinking that will make it her property.
Review: I’ll give this story credit for a funny concept, but to be perfectly honest, I found the description more entertaining than the story itself.
Mechanically, it’s a mixed bag. Most of the grammar is fine, but there are some obvious misspellings/typos, and the punctuation is at the low end of what I consider acceptable. Missing commas are rampant, and there are a few comma splices. Ellipses and interrobangs are badly overused, to the tune of 182 and 29, respectively. That may not seem like that many interrobangs, in comparison, but I don’t like them at all. At least ellipses serve a valid function.
Twilight’s eye began to twitch with at a dangerous pace as she pulled a corner of her mouth up into an angry sneer as her horn began to glow a brilliant shade of purple
That sentence, including the lack of punctuation at the end, is exactly as it appears in the story. Anytime a published fic has a sentence that looks this bad, it needs more editing.
It also has a nasty case of saidism abuse. Here are all the words that are used as dialogue tags before “said” ever appears: uttered, suggested, uttered, cried, asked, cried. Finally, after all that, there’s a “said”—followed by: corrected, asked, uttered, uttered… Seriously, who uses “uttered”? It’s a terrible choice for a dialogue verb!
As for the content, it is—as I said—a fun-sounding premise, but the execution lets it down badly. For one thing, it’s too long. Jokes are repeated too many times, and there’s a subplot that goes nowhere. It would be vastly improved if about 3000 (maybe 4000) words were cut.
There are a couple of really good scenes—or they would be good if parts of them were removed. For example, in the last two scenes Twilight gives Trixie the deed to the library, but it’s clearly revealed to the audience that this is after Tirek’s rampage, so there’s no surprise (and therefore, no humor) when Trixie sees the library’s ruin. It then continues to run the joke into the ground with hundreds of extra words about Twilight showing off her castle, followed by Trixie and Spike going to binge on ice cream.
The characterization scores low because this version of Trixie is a complete moron. Sure, you can make an argument that Trixie’s a bit of a dimwit, but she at least has a little common sense. Not here, though. Twilight is mostly in character, but since she’s playing straight mare for Trixie’s stupidity, she doesn’t get to be entertaining. Spike is presented as a pervert who’s nearly as stupid as Trixie.
Verdict: I really thought I’d like this, but it let me down. I can’t recommend it for Trixie fans because the Trixie in this story is a retarded caricature with an idiot ball in place of a head. I can’t recommend it for comedy fans, either; it’s too plodding and repetitive. Apparently, people actually like this thing—at the time of this writing, it has a 680:22 rating—but I just can’t see why.
In related news, I noticed that my review of Earning Wings of a Different Nature—AKA The Adventures of Mark “Daring Do” Sheffield, bless His holy name—has been proven wrong. It actually updated. I’m kinda tempted to see if there’s any more God joke fodder in it.
Want me to take a shot at a particular story? Make a request in the comments.
Rules:
—It can be yours or someone else’s, and I don’t care whether it’s good or a train wreck.
—You can request a story of any length, but I make no guarantees that I’ll read anything. 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.
Poor Trixie... I like her, so that'd be painful to read. Another interesting read. Thank you.
If you want a shot at something that quite a few people have had rustled jimmies over, might I suggest My Little Girl?
And now you know why I don't deal with incompletes! :B One off my RIL, one on.
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I have a theory that the "Trixie is an idiot" idea came about due to alexmagnet, who's a big Trixie fan but also likes to put her in ridiculous situations and as a complete nincompoop. Personally, I see Trixie just as intelligent as any of the other characters in the show, but who's prone to make boneheaded decisions like anypony else. Better stop there before I go on an unnecessary rant.
Nice reviews! I always get a kick out of reading them.
Sorry that you didn't like stealing the deed; maybe I should have mentioned how silly it was more than I did. If I may be so bold, the other random story featuring Trixie the author wrote, named Fate has her in much better character. I'd understand if you don't want to read anything I review ever again after that last one, of course...
If you want a dark story that doesn't rely on pure OOCness and gore, give The Longest Night a look.
Also, if you like poetry and RariJack: A Spot of Tea
Yahtzee?
2755539
Bingo!