Badfic Slaughterhouse #19 · 10:20pm Jan 28th, 2015
Welcome back to the Badfic Slaughterhouse, wherein I share my suffering with you fine folks. While there are some good stories in the mix, the badfic grinder will be getting a hell of a workout today.
I know I’ve been inactive lately, and I’m sorry for that. I’ve just been having trouble motivating myself to get things done. Hell, this post has been nearly complete for the past week. It took me that long just to get around to finishing a single review. I’m making an effort to do better, though, starting with this.
In other news, those of you who frequent the Royal Canterlot Library’s site might have noticed my name on an upcoming post. Those of you who don’t will see it soon enough, regardless, when it appears in a site post. It’s weird, though, that they took notice of a story I hardly even think about. I always figured it would be Roll for Initiative that caught their eye, not… Well, you’ll find out next week if you don’t already know.
Now, on to the main event!
Tags: Sad, Alternate Universe
Rating: Everyone
Length: 3,205 words (Status: Complete – 4/4 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Four unrelated attempts at sadfics mashed together because they weren’t long enough to be separate stories.
Review: This story wins the dubious honor of being the first fic I’ve read in 2015 to be tossed into the grinder.
Yeah, it’s terrible. But what’s so wrong with it? Well, that’s gonna take a little time because I have to talk about each “chapter” individually.
The first “story”—and it causes me physical pain to use that word here—is supposedly about Rainbow Dash being homeless and unable to fly. However, it’s less than 400 words long, has no characterization that even resembles Dash, never mentions her by name, gives no reason for her state, and lacks a discernible plot. It’s just a few hundred words of uninteresting moaning.
The second one goes in an entirely different direction. It’s a poor attempt at poetry with no meter, questionable rhymes, and a premise so clichéd that it overlaps with at least half of the badfics ever written. The only saving grace is that it clocks in at a mere 68 words. That’s also an unforgivable offense because I could make crude jokes if it had just one more word.
The third chapter is the only one that even resembles a story. In it, Celestia is dying because she stumbled into a Hitman crossover. Okay, not really, but it’s pretty close. She got stabbed through the heart with a poisoned spear, which was wielded by a random pony who promptly escaped in the confusion. I don’t know whether that was Agent 47, Ezio, Kratos, or one of the million Mary Sue HiE protagonists who feel wronged by her, but it has to have been something along those lines.
On the other hand, she explodes like a supernova when she croaks, and that’s friggin’ hilarious.
The final chapter goes back to the same issues with the first. Luna’s all alone in a big ol’ universe-sized hunk of nothingness, and all she does is mope about it. The only hint of a story is a mention of something called the “Project of Desire,” which apparently ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and destroyed all of existence, with the convenient exception of her. Oddly enough, Celestia is dead, so I’m guessing it’s a direct sequel to the previous chapter, which means that Celestia was done in by a poisoned spear while Luna survived the end of the cosmos.
I guess we know who Unbridled Dolly considers Best Princess.
Verdict: The only redeeming merit here is a little of the content in the Celestia chapter. If you get a laugh out of mind-bogglingly stupid badfics, give this a chance to entertain you. If not, keep it far from your Read Later list; its awfulness might infect its neighbors.
VIVA LAS PEGASUS!, by TeyesonthePegasus
Tags: Comedy, Random, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 9,351 words (Status: Complete – x/x chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: On a trip to Las Pegasus, Fluttershy’s friends try to convince her to try gambling, but they end up creating a monster.
Review: First of all, I’m going to call out something I see all the time: Las Pegasus. If you look at any official material, it’s called Los Pegasus, which is the equivalent of Los Angeles, not Las Vegas. But whatever… It’s not like it hurts anything.
This story has a premise that’s entirely plausible. It’s easy to see Fluttershy developing a gambling addiction. Unfortunately, that premise is undermined, practically from the start, by the revelation that Fluttershy doesn’t gamble because she has a relative who got addicted to it. Therefore, when she instantly gets hooked after playing one time, it’s hard to buy it.
Another thing worth noting is that the author doesn’t know how these games operate. His/her idea of how roulette payouts work is wildly wrong, and he/she doesn’t seem to appreciate how big a difference there is between a person who plays poker at family gatherings versus someone who plays seriously for real money.
I play poker reasonably well, and I’ve won some money from it, so let me tell you… If someone ever tells me their poker history consists of beating their family members, I will instantly identify them as a fish (an easy mark) and work on cleaning them out. Now, I could believe that Pinkie is an awesome poker player because of her Pinkie Sense, and that’s really the only way the concept can hold up to scrutiny. Too bad that’s not the way it went.
The story itself has solid pacing; the conflict is kept simple and focused. It gives due attention to each plot point without becoming repetitious. Unfortunately, it has some serious gaps in the logic behind its scenario. Why does Fluttershy win her choice of a refrigerator or a vacation trip for six? Those aren’t of equal value, and that’s an awfully convenient number. Plus, why does the group need freebies? Twilight’s a princess, so I’m pretty sure she can load them all onto a private train and check them all into a fancy hotel, if that’s what she wants. Besides that, we’ve seen them do plenty of traveling throughout the series. It would have made for a much more believable scenario if the group was planning a vacation together and Fluttershy was simply outvoted about the destination.
Also, I couldn’t help but scratch my head over Tirek being referred to as a minotaur instead of a centaur. Can you imagine a version of Tirek who shares a family tree with Iron Will, running around Equestria and spewing catch phrases as he drains all the ponies?
Actually, that might be hilarious.
Anyway, the story also has some issues with characterization. In addition to a concern I spoiler tagged above, the way that conflict escalates and resolves is ridiculous. When a gambling addiction forms and develops into a Psycho reference within a few hours, something has gone wrong. If the story were wackier, that might work. As it stands, though, despite the comedy and random tags, the story doesn’t fit either description.
In addition, the climax is overly telly and laden with LUS, and the conclusion is bothersome because it says that Fluttershy just got caught up in the moment and doesn’t really have a gambling problem. When you sell your friends’ stuff, including their tickets for the trip home—who would even buy those?—so you can keep gambling, You. Have. A. Problem.
In terms of mechanics, the story tends to be perfectly readable, although some comma hiccups do disrupt the flow from time to time. There are also a significant number of grammatical errors.
Far more annoying to me, however, was the saidism abuse. It is, put simply, the worst case of it I have seen. Many of the supposed dialogue verbs don’t even relate to speaking. Besides that, there’s an issue with dialogue attribution. It is to be expected that a speaker will be identified in the same paragraph as their line of dialogue, but this story frequently has the speaker’s name in the preceding paragraph and nothing but a pronoun attached to the actual dialogue. This gets really confusing and causes a lot of backtracking.
Verdict: If you’ve spent significant time around casinos or have ever been around someone with a gambling addiction (or have one, yourself) this story might just piss you off. I could only recommend this for fans of Crazyshy, and that recommendation is tepid, at best.
Sunset Shimmer’s Naked Mile and Sunset Shimmer’s Naked Marathon, by MythrilMoth
Tags: Sex, Comedy, Slice of Life, Human (same tags on both stories)
Rating: Mature (hence no links)
Length: 2,649 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
7,888 words (Status: Incomplete – 4/4 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: In the first story, Sunset Shimmer gets locked in the shower room, so she’s forced to climb out a window (sans clothes) and make her way across campus in the nude. In the second story, the girls of Canterlot High get tricked into participating in a contest—which was supposed to be a simple marathon run in bikinis—in which they’re forced to strip other girls of their tops while avoiding being stripped, themselves.
Review: So why am I reviewing two stories together? Because my thoughts on both of them are precisely the same.
I honestly don’t know why I read these stories. I’m not usually a fan of raunchy comedies, so the appearances of these should have driven me off. For some reason, though, they didn’t.
And strangely enough, they’re nowhere near as raunchy as I figured they’d be. In fact, with a few small revisions, they’d probably be out of “Mature” territory. Nudity in a story, unless explicitly described, isn’t really cause for that label, and rather than being played for titillation, nearly all of the nudity mentioned in these two stories is comedic.
I guess the author could just have been going for the clopfic audience, but that seems like a risky move when you don’t seem to be delivering any actual sex. Giving an audience a false impression would be likely to result in a flood of downvotes.
The writing is pretty solid, keeping up a fast pace and striking an effective balance between show and tell. Stylistically, I can’t find much to complain about. Maybe I could pull something out of my ass about objectification of women, but it wouldn’t really be honest.
In terms of humor, Your Mileage May Vary, but I was entertained, especially by the second story. The premise is completely absurd, and I’m sure I could poke holes in it all day, but it delivers effective laughs. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing for a comedy to do, and if it does that well enough, logistical issues can be forgiven.
Mechanically, both stories are solid, only suffering from inconsistent, minor errors that no one aside from a pedantic jackass like me would notice. If I had to point at something in particular, I’d say perhaps ellipses are overused a bit, but it isn’t really an issue.
Verdict: These stories may carry a “Mature” rating, but they’re about as mature as sticking your head into a women’s locker room and shouting “Boobies!” First and foremost, they’re goofy comedies, and if that’s your cup of tea, you could do a lot worse.
Tags: Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 1,900 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Many years in the future, Twilight has a conversation with Scootaloo.
Review: The premise of this story is built around the notion that all alicorns are immortal, so if you’re strongly opposed to that piece of headcanon, you should disregard this story and move on to something else.
On the minus side, the dialogue can get a bit long-winded at times, and it has a fairly major issue with lack of attribution. If you’re not paying close attention to who’s speaking from moment to moment, you may find yourself backtracking to figure it out. Also, the third character in the story, Sapphire Surprise, is pretty much dead weight in the narrative.
It’s also rather lacking in substance. The entire story can be summed up this quickly (and yes, I’m spoiling the whole thing, so don’t look if you don’t want to see it): Scootaloo’s becoming introspective in her old age, and she asks Twilight how she can handle living on while all her friends are dead. Twilight tells her she’s happy that she can preserve the memories of who they really were after history has forgotten everything but their legends.
The lack of notable conflict effectively makes it a 1900 word long headcanon dump. It’s not very long, so you can read it in a few minutes if that’s your idea of a good time. You’ve probably seen the same thing before, though.
In terms of mechanics, the story is riddled with comma errors, but they didn’t really impact readability.
Verdict: Again, if you have a problem with immortal alicorn Twilight, give this one a pass. If you’re a big fan of that concept, you should check it out. However, there’s not enough substance to give it a stronger recommendation.
Tags: Romance, Slice of Life
Rating: Everyone
Length: 3,892 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: After spending decades as a princess, Twilight makes an important decision about her future.
Review: I’ve had a tempestuous relationship with Pascoite’s stories in the past. I think some of them are beautiful, but I find others to be meandering and pointless. Being relatively short, I figured this one was pretty safe.
As it turns out, my usual complaints about Pasco’s writing are in full effect. While the story does have an arc, and each scene builds toward its logical conclusion, it often gets sidetracked on the way there. The entire first scene, for example, could be removed and have its key points sprinkled throughout the next one, which would give a more consistent sense of focus. As it stands, the second scene stays away from the central concept, Twilight’s decision, until the very end.
I also question the decision of keeping the nature of Twilight’s dilemma hidden so long. The nature of the conflict is obvious throughout most of the final scene, and it’s something that’s been done in numerous other stories, so the reveal has no impact.
There’s nothing wrong with this story on a mechanical level. The prose tends to be simple, direct, and altogether effective. Some may find it lacking in artistry, but I find that the style places its emphasis squarely on the dialogue and character interactions.
Verdict: Though the narrative is a bit unfocused, it’s short enough to not be much of an issue. If you enjoy stories about the future of the Mane 6 or tales of alicorn longevity, this one should be of particular interest to you. If the previous story on this list sounded bad to you, though, this one probably won’t be to your liking, either.
Prince of the Sun, by TornadoBlitz
Tags: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Human
Rating: Teen
Length: 20,510 words (Status: Incomplete – 7/7 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Some human gets reborn in Equestria as Celestia’s son.
Review: Full disclosure: I chose to read this because I wanted to laugh at something, and this looks like a badfic from hell. Of course, I give everything a chance to be good, but with a description that bloated and error-ridden, it seemed unlikely.
As usual, I was right.
From the outset, this story made a bad impression on me. The main character, an unnamed and completely bland self-insert human, who I’m going to assume is named Gary Stu, tells us that he’s just an ordinary guy with great leadership skills. To show his great leadership, we’re given a scene in which he uses the fundamentals of customer service to placate a crowd of riotous customers at a market. Why were they all so angry? Well, because the market ran out of sale-priced ham, of course. Who wouldn’t get confrontational over something like that? [/sarcasm]
The problem is made worse, of course, by all of his co-workers being the sort of hopeless idiots that would put a real store out of business within a week. It’s a terrible scenario, and I was laughing hysterically by the time it ended.
It just gets worse from there.
Don’t believe me? Have a look at this:
As I was crossing an intersection, a truck approaching me from the other way lost control. The roads were too slippery from the rain for the driver to stop. All I could do was watch helplessly as he blared his horn with the truck heading straight at me. A sound like a buffalo stampede crashing into an iron door filled the air and I was killed.
I swear, this paragraph nearly killed me. I laughed at it for the better part of ten minutes, and I only stopped because my abused lungs were about to burst through my chest like twin xenomorphs and gouge my eyes out.
From there, the stupidity dies down a bit.
… Nope. Couldn’t keep a straight face. The stupidity actually elevates as Gary is visited in the afterlife by an alicorn, informed that he’s the chosen one because of his talent for leadership, and sent to Equestria, where Celestia promptly gives birth to him. He’s still fully self-aware and retains all his memories.
From there, we’re treated to several chapters of the protagonist, now known as Mythic Light, being paraded around and shown off by his new mother, who apparently feels that he’s ready to make frequent public appearances less than 24 hours after being born.
Of course, there’s not much of a story that can be built around the actions of an infant, so it mostly consists of him being dragged from place to place and listening to the conversations around him. You’d expect such a story to be completely boring, but this one avoids that pitfall by keeping the stupidity level as high as possible. Little Mythic already has enemies, you see. Prince Blueblood and some of the others nobles don’t like him because his father was a commoner and, perhaps, because it puts Blueblood even farther from Equestria’s throne. It’s not like he has any chance of outliving Celestia in the first place, but hey, this story hasn’t let common sense stand in its way yet. Why start now? Hell, let’s double down on it by having this infant actually beat up Blueblood!
That actually happens in the story, by the way.
Lots of effort is taken to make Mythic “Gary Stu” Light seem adorable, but even among the short bus crowd, you can only get so many d’awws out of a character doing the same supposedly cute thing over and over. It’s actually insulting to the intelligence of the audience, but judging by the story’s rating, that insult is justified.
Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are generally fine, but the writing is tell-heavy and awkwardly paced. Dialogue tagging is hit and miss, being fine in some chapters and a train wreck in others. Character voices are questionable, at best.
Verdict: I’ve barely even begun to say why this story is terrible. The sheer barrage of stupidity to which this story subjects its readers is more suited for Rage Reviews than my blogs. I really can’t do it justice without quoting half of the damn thing. If you enjoy laughing at badfics, by all means, go nuts on this one. Otherwise, I don’t recommend it at all.
Tags: Dark
Rating: Teen
Length: 15,000 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: An unusual look at the life of Queen Chrysalis that turns many of the fandom’s perceptions upside-down.
Review: Well, this story has sure made the rounds—EqD, RCL, and it’s slated to appear in TRG’s next site post. Plus, it’s a changeling story, and those tend to be popular. It’s almost shocking that it hasn’t even topped 2,000 views in the five months since it was published. I figure there are two factors responsible for it.
The first factor is its length. Fifteen thousand words is a lot for a single chapter, and I can easily see it intimidating most readers. To overcome that obstacle, it needs to make a strong impression. Unfortunately, the description doesn’t do that. In its attempt to be artistic, it ends up not telling enough about the story to hook readers into checking it out.
That’s a shame because it really is an excellent story.
The central premise underlying the story is a reversal of the common idea that Chrysalis is immortal and her subjects are disposable drones. Here, queens are the ones who are short-lived, and the common changelings are ageless. In a civilization where the old don’t die to make way for the young, these queens prevent stagnation by introducing new ideas, driving change and progress. It’s a fascinating concept, and if it were represented more clearly in the description, the story probably would have gotten much more attention.
The story covers Chrysalis’ entire life, from beginning to end, and it paints a compelling picture of a flawed ruler, sometimes sympathetic and sometimes monstrous. While we know the path she’ll eventually take, the strength of her characterization, and that of the changelings she leads, is enough to make us want to see her do the right thing. When she makes mistakes, they’re tragic. When she suffers, we relate.
Her relationships with her closest subjects are given ample time to develop, and her bond with her consort (her advisor and constant companion) is particularly fleshed out. The time taken to strengthen their bond in the eyes of readers results in some of the story’s standout moments.
If I were going to complain about anything, I would say that the early parts of the story are too heavily focused on exposition. It takes thousands of words for any meaningful conflict to appear, and while the material is interesting for its world building, the pacing would be better if it felt less like a guided tour and more like meaningful events were happening.
The writing is solid, in general. The prose is direct and effectively communicates its points, but it’s overly choppy in some places. Dialogue is well-written and flows naturally. Mechanically, the story isn’t quite perfect—some misplaced commas and the odd comma splice, mostly—but there are no issues that adversely affect readability.
Verdict: This is an excellent story with an intriguing concept, an excellent world, strong characterization, and good execution of its premise, even if the pacing leaves a little to be desired. I’d recommend this to anyone, but if you’re a changeling and/or world building fan, this should go to the top of your reading list.
Okay, that’s enough seriousness and unintentional stupidity. Let’s check out some intentional stupidity!
Flash Sentry had Balls of Steel, by Lambent Dream
Tags: Random
Rating: Teen
Length: 1,343 words (Status: Complete – 1/1 chapter(s) read)
Synopsis: Poison joke gives Flash Sentry literal balls of steel.
Review: Damn you, Lambent.
That is all.
Verdict: Please pass the brain bleach.
Okay, okay… fine. I’ll do a real review, but I’m not putting in much effort to review a crackfic.
Where to start… I guess I could talk about the mechanics. They’re generally solid enough, and… dammit, it’s a crackfic. Who cares about the mechanics?
In terms of characterization… Well, there isn’t any, aside from Flash Sentry being a moron.
But does he deserve what he gets? Well, I guess…
Nope. Screw it. I’m done.
Verdict: If you like crackfics and hate Flash Sentry, you should read this.
Now pass the damn brain bleach.
Want me to take a shot at 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 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.
Now, perhaps I’ll prematurely celebrate my newfound return to productivity.
See, I feel it worked for the story because that's what was happening to Chrysalis; she was getting a guided tour. So it didn't bother me at all, and I didn't feel like it was even a problem.
Oh, and also:
Have I got the story for you~
One question: do you like your brain bleach shaken or stirred?
2754282
I want it hacked and whipped, not like one of those shaken or stirred sissy drinks.
2754256
Oh dear... That does not bode well.
THANK YOU
2754625
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130403195243/mlp/images/c/cb/Map_of_Equestria_April_2013.jpg
Now, I agree with it being LOS Pegasus, but saying that it has never been written the other way in official merch is not entirely accurate.
-Lumino
2754625 But the pony version of Los Angeles is not nearly as fun as the pony version of Las Vegas. Were is the gambling? Where are the lights? Where is Elkvis?
2754855
>Elkvis
Okay, you win.
2754875 Thank yew! Thank yew very much! I'll be here all week.
2754256 I really want to believe that is a crackfic. I mean, it starts with "Sup brahs?". But 400k words? That must be for real.
2755704
It's for real. There's a sequel which also has a sequel.
Just saw this.
Yeah, people seem to love this story. Wait, did you say TRG? I can't even remember when I submitted it. Did I even submit it?
It's strange, though. With all the praise Queen of Queens gets, I find myself looking for negative criticism. Even though, like any other author, I hate negative criticism. As much as I love being told that my story is great, I feel happier that you managed to point out actual flaws. Stuff to keep in mind for the future. Thank you.
While I'm here, may I abuse your generosity and request a review on this fic? It's a proper multi-chapter one this time, and a lot more on the camp/schlock side. I'd be happy to read a review if you decide to do it.
2757592
Well, I can't verify who submitted it—there's really no way to do that without a ton of extra effort—but it did cross TRG's desk. You should have gotten a notification when we approved the story, but I'm guessing Figments forgot to send it.
As for that request, I've added it to the list, but that doesn't look like a type of material I tend to enjoy, so no promises that I'll get to it in the near future.
2757688
Oh, it was probably me who submitted it. The question was mostly rhetorical -- I know I'm pretty shameless with self-promotion. It just must've been so long ago that I've forgotten. I'm guessing TRG is understaffed...
As for the fic, hey, no pressure. Thank you for considering.
"All I could do was watch helplessly as he blared his horn with the truck heading straight at me. A sound like a buffalo stampede crashing into an iron door filled the air and I was killed."
That's the first piece of writing that you've quoted directly that actually made me spit some of my drink up while reading it. For some reason I have Keanu Reeves doing the voice-over in my head, which makes it even *better*.
You should check this one out.
I laughed more than I thought I would with your last review.
Really late comment I know, but thanks for taking a look at History Forgets. I just wanted to say that I didn't really mean it to be a headcanon dump. The main purpose of the story was to simply have a positive story about immortality rather than showing a character whining about someone they lost a century or two ago. There's way too many stories and pictures of Celestia, Luna, Discord, and Twilight never getting over their loses and sulking forever more.
Though I definitely should have fleshed it out a bit more, and added a touch of atmosphere to it.
2856681
You know, I actually meant to say something about how it at least has a positive message. Either I left a space for that paragraph and forgot to write it, or it got deleted somehow.